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Salted Chocolate Rye Cookies

12.25.2013 by J. Doe // 2 Comments

The Child and I completely opted out of Christmas, at least the endless socializing part of it. For years, we co-hosted Christmas and Thanksgiving with one friend, who has a son about The Child’s age; for years we have abandoned our Christmas treats and toys midday and headed off to play board games with people we see twice a year – three times, if they showed up at our cookie party – and only during the holidays.

 

It seemed like a good thing, until The Child pointed out that she has exactly nothing in common with my friend’s son, who usually spends the time playing video games with his father, a man whose past I know too much about to make eye contact, most of the time. Other years, I would have felt too guilty to not attend Christmas at her house, but this year she did me a kindness: She declined Thanksgiving.

 

And so, with no guilt, I decide to honor The Child’s request, and cancel our Christmas visit. She wants to eat cookies and go to the movies and maybe, if she gets lucky, play on the Xbox she hopes she’s getting. Instead of all the things we usually do this time of year, we do nothing except watch Christmas movies of varying degrees of quality, and bake cookies. Lots of cookies.

 

I am not usually a maker of anything that involves melting chocolate, but when I ran across this unusual recipe from the Tartine No. 3 cookbook in several places (Tasting Table, Saveur magazine), I thought it must be a sign to try something completely new. Rye flour in a cookie definitely qualifies as new to me, but once you get past that, there isn’t really anything unusual in terms of technique. As an added benefit, the recipe didn’t require me to do any rolling out or complex assembly, things I’m not good at but probably should try to learn, one of these days.

 

These cookies, not unlike the lebkuchen, are not the prettiest cookies I’ve ever made, but they make up for it by being intense and sophisticated. The bittersweet chocolate and rye flour together create a complex flavor, offset by just the right amount of sweetness. The cookies have the soft texture of a brownie, but none of the heaviness, and a slightly chewy texture.

 

The dough was a little unnerving, because it’s all made with a whisk and when you’re done mixing, it looks more like a thick pancake batter than a dough, leaving me wondering if I’d done something wrong somewhere. After the required 30 minutes of refrigeration, though, the cookies were easy to scoop and drop. Don’t skip this part. Also, don’t skip the parchment paper, because the cookies are fairly delicate, but they came right off the paper with ease.

 

Given the cookies’ intense flavor and lack of plate appeal, I expected The Child to turn her nose up at them, but she didn’t, and pronounced them delicious. The recipe doesn’t make a lot of cookies, but they are so rich and satisfying that they go a long way.

 

Merry Christmas, one and all, and thank you for reading along this year.

 

 Salted Chocolate Rye Cookies

Salted Chocolate Rye Cookies
 
Print
Author: Saveur Magazine, adapted from Tartine #3 Cookbook
Ingredients
  • ¾ cup whole-grain dark rye flour
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • ½ tsp. kosher salt
  • 2⅔ cups bittersweet chocolate (finely chopped or chips)
  • 4 tbsp. unsalted butter
  • 4 eggs, at room temperature
  • 1½ cups light brown sugar
  • 1 tbsp. vanilla extract
  • Maldon salt or fleur de sel, for sprinkling
Instructions
  1. Whisk flour, baking powder and salt in a bowl; set aside. Place chocolate and butter in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Cook, stirring occasionally, until melted, 5 minutes. Remove bowl from pan; set aside.
  2. Place eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment; whip until fluffy. With the motor running, slowly add sugar until eggs have nearly tripled in volume, about 6 minutes. Add reserved chocolate mixture and the vanilla; mix until combined. With the motor running, slowly add dry ingredients until a soft, loose dough forms. Cover dough with plastic wrap; chill 30 minutes.
  3. Heat oven to 350°. Using 2 tablespoons for each, drop cookies onto parchment paper-lined baking sheets, spaced about 2” apart. Sprinkle cookies with Maldon salt or fleur de sel; bake until cookies are puffed, about 10 minutes.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // chocolate, cookies, rye

Lebkuchen (German Spice Cookies)

12.19.2013 by J. Doe // Leave a Comment

When it’s time for Mr. Faraway to make the long trip back home, the following day, I send him with one other small gift – an extra handout from a class I took the previous week on German holiday treats. He knows how to pronounce lebkuchen, my favorite from the class, and knows details about them, too, like the fact that they keep for weeks and actually improve with age. Because it was a class, I don’t have any extra to offer him, but he samples my homemade citrus peel that is waiting to be made into cookies, and appreciatively takes the recipes with him, along with a few more he copies out of one of my cooking magazines.

I took the class the week before his visit, with a friend, who persuaded me to sign up for it months ago, and our daughters, both 13. I completely forgot about the class until she reminded me, and it was a refreshing break with the routine of years past, where I hosted an annual holiday cookie exchange. All the work of the party meant that every year, I made the same cookies, because I didn’t have time to experiment or run the risk of a new recipe that didn’t work out.

This year, we made four kinds of cookies and treats, all with German origins, like myself, my friend, and Mr. Faraway: Lebkuchen, Almond Crescents, Burnt-Sugar Almonds, and Spitzbuben (raspberry jam sandwich cookies). The four of us took turns rolling out long ropes of almond dough, which was fun, although we found the resulting cookie fairly dry – probably good with a hot cup of tea or spiced cider, not so good on its own. The Child and her friend favored the Spitzbuben, mostly for the raspberry jam, but also because they liked saying the name. It was hands down the most photogenic cookie of the evening, so the two girls started instagramming spitzbuben, then when the cookies were all eaten, checking out each other’s Instagram profiles.

My favorite, though, were the lebkuchen, cakey-soft and highly spiced, studded with lively bits of chopped orange peel. The cookie is perfect on its own, though not especially pretty to look at. The class was fun and taught by Erin Coopey, a local chef and author of The Kitchen Pantry Cookbook. As we waited for the cookies to bake, she told stories about German holiday markets and Christmas traditions.

Holiday traditions are wonderful, especially when they’re new.

Lebkuchen

 

Lebkuchen (German Spice Cookies)
 
Print
Prep time
30 mins
Cook time
15 mins
Total time
45 mins
 
Author: Erin Coopey
Ingredients
For Cookies
  • ¾ cup hazelnuts
  • ¾ cup sliced almonds
  • 2¾ cups AP flour
  • 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 1 tbsp cinnamon
  • 1 tsp ground ginger
  • ½ tsp ground cloves
  • ¾ tsp salt
  • ½ tsp baking powder
  • ½ tsp baking soda
  • 1 cup packed dark brown sugar
  • ¾ cup mild honey
  • ½ stick unsalted butter, softened
  • 2 large eggs
  • ½ cup finely chopped candied orange peel
For Icing
  • 2 cups powdered sugar
  • 3 tbsp water
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 2 large baking sheets.
  2. Place nuts, flour, cocoa, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, salt, baking powder and baking soda in a food processor, and process until the nuts are ground into a flour.
  3. Beat together brown sugar, honey, and butter in a large bowl with an electric mixer at medium-high speed until creamy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Mix in nut flour at low speed until just blended, then stir in orange peel.
  4. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls with dampened hands, then put on baking sheets and flatten slightly. Dough will spread during baking.
  5. Bake about 15 minutes, until surface of cookies no longer appears wet. Transfer to racks to cool.
  6. Make icing: Sift powdered sugar into a bowl, then stir in water until smooth. Evenly brush cooled cookie tops with icing. Let set one hour.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // almonds, cookies, hazelnuts, holidays

Classic Peanut Butter Cookies

07.27.2013 by J. Doe // 3 Comments

The Child wants to have a yard sale. I have no idea why this should be, as I’ve done nothing – ever – to encourage her or instill the idea that a yard sale would be fun. I have sold stuff at exactly one yard sale since she was born, and she was not yet three and so doesn’t remember spending an entire day trying to stave off boredom by sorting change.

I took her to a yard sale once, and bought her a Lite-Brite set for a dollar; we got home and discovered it didn’t have enough pegs left to be of any use. I ended up buying a pound of pegs on eBay for an amount of money that wasn’t unreasonable, but did make the Lite-Brite somewhat less of a screaming deal. I suspect that there are people who go from yard sale to yard sale collecting pegs from Lite-Brite sets and selling them online to people like me, who arrive at the very same yard sales an hour later and don’t think to check the box before buying the peg-free Lite-Brite unit.

I’m fine with the Lite-Brite subeconomy – seriously, kudos to whoever thought that one up – I just don’t want to be a part of it. Nor do I want to sit outside on a rare sunny Seattle day waiting for people to come by and haggle with me over prices that are laughably low to begin with.

But, The Child reminded me, this was all her job. It was going to be her yard sale. Her sale, her stuff, her money. And so I relented, and when school let out, the first Saturday that the weather seemed like it might cooperate and one of The Child’s friends was around to help out, I stuck a yard sale sign out on the street as two girls finished putting price tags on the remnants of their toys and early readers.

Little kid stuff, they said, as I surveyed the dolls and stuffed animals and Disney VHS tapes.

People stopped by and it quickly became clear that my help was not needed – first, because they’d done enough preparation and had all the change and math skills they needed; but second because people didn’t really seem to be buying very much.

A neighbor boy stopped by and bought a stuffed animal. Another neighbor came by and asked if the girls would try to sell a couple of pictures for him; they agreed, and when the pictures failed to sell, they each chose their favorite one and he made a gift of them.

Mostly though, they sat around and played Minecraft and waited for customers. They didn’t complain, but I learned later, the customers did: The prices were too high. Much too high.

One lady yelled at me because I asked to much money for that red hat, The Child told me later.

What did you do? I asked.

I sold it to her for her price, she told me.

I can’t decide if I am disappointed or pleased with her lack of haggling ability, and simply note that this personality trait is clearly nurture, not nature – being half Jewish and half Dutch, The Child should surely have quite the talent for bargaining. I wonder if this is one of those recessive traits, and whether someone has done a study on this.

I notice the large box of stuffed animals has disappeared, and she tells me proudly that some ladies from the Humane Society came by looking for stuffed animal donations, and were thrilled to take the entire box.

Did you get a donation receipt? I ask.

No, says The Child.

How do you know they were from the Humane Society? I ask.

Because they said they were, she tells me.

I decide I don’t really care where the stuffed animals went as long as it isn’t back in my garage.

The Child ended up with about $30 for all her efforts, which was clearly not as much as she’d been hoping for, but she seemed satisfied: She did it by herself, and had money to show for it.

My only contribution to the day, other than hanging the yard sale signs, was to make some cookies for the girls to sell, to possibly make some extra cash. At least, that was my excuse: the truth of the matter is that I saw this recipe for Peanut Butter Cookies in Joanne Chang’s Flour cookbook, and all I could think was, I haven’t had a peanut butter cookie in years. I asked The Child what she thought about the idea and she said, I’ve never had a peanut butter cookie.

How is that possible? I asked nobody in particular.

Everyone is allergic to peanuts, she said.

It was a valid point: I’d stopped keeping peanut butter in the house, since I couldn’t use it in her lunches – it was banned from her elementary school. She’s not allergic to peanuts, but because everyone else is, she’d never tasted a peanut butter cookie.

The cookies from Flour are everything a peanut butter cookie should be: giant and soft, but not overly so, with a bit of crunch for texture. They’d be perfect dipped in milk, if you happen to like to dip cookies in milk. I loved Chang’s technique of using a 1/4-cup scoop to measure out the cookies, which were perfectly large.

The cookies didn’t really sell well, like everything else that day, but we liked them, and in spite of the lack of customers, they were gone in no time.

 

Peanut Butter Cookies

Classic Peanut Butter Cookies
 
Print
Author: Joanne Chang, Flour Bakery
Serves: 24
Ingredients
  • 1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 cup packed light brown sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1¾ cups crunchy peanut butter
  • 2⅔ cups all-purpose flour
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1 tsp salt
Instructions
  1. In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugars on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Scrape down the sides frequently while mixing.Beat in the eggs and vanilla until thoroughly combined. Add peanut butter and beat on low about two minutes, or until thoroughly combined.
  2. In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter-sugar mixture, mixing at low speed just until the dry ingredients are incorporated.
  3. Scrape the dough into an airtight container and refrigerate at least 3-4 hours, preferably overnight.
  4. When ready to bake, heat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Drop the dough by ¼ cup balls onto a baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Flatten each ball with your palm, then use a fork to create the traditional criss-cross pattern.
  5. Bake 18-20 minutes, or until the cookies are golden brown on the edges, but still slightly soft in the center. Let cool on the baking sheet for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Notes
I took these out a bit later than Chang suggested and my cookies were more crispy than chewy. I loved them that way.
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Categories // The Joy of Cooking Tags // cookies, peanut butter

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