Thumbprints for Us Big Guys

These cookies remind me very much of the Linzer Sables we made a few months ago. This could be because I made mine with ground almonds instead of ground hazelnuts - but I am certainly not complaining about the similarity.

I was shocked by the recipe - could there truly be so few ingredients? No eggs - no liquid, other than the piddling little extracts? Careful rereading showed this to be true. So, I beat and blended and was happily surprised. I suppose I could have done a better job of blending in the nut/flour combo - some of my cookies were rather dry when I was forming them - but all of them (at least the ones I have tried so far) have been excellent to taste. One of the cookies was so dry it just fell apart while cooking. It was, because of this, far more brown the other cookies. As I expected, I liked this very much. Hey - I eat singed toast it should not be a surprise.

I made my cookies a tad on the larger size at first and then realized how low my yield would be so on the last two sheets I made the cookies considerably smaller. I ended up with about 52 cookies, so I did all right in that regard.

I have never made thumbprint cookies before and was wary of pushing a hole through the dough. This concern caused me to make my initial holes too shallow and while baking the cookies rose to make the indentation very faint. While they were cooling on the sheets I went back through them and pushed the dough down to make a deeper indentation. That worked quite well and on the last batch I did much better.

When I was younger my mother would make a cookie called the split second which is very similar to this cookie. There is some difference in the amounts of butter, flour and sugar used, but the recipes are very similar. The main difference between the split second and thumbprint is that you take your split second dough and separate it. You then form each section of dough into a log. Then you press an indentation into the log and fill that indentation with jam. I don't remember my mother ever heating the jam - and these cookies were filled before baking. They are sliced on the diagonal when they come out of the oven. They look like little jewels when they are done. She always said the name came from the speed with which the cookies came together. I found this photo of those cookies on the Taste of Home website.

Jam-filled treats are not my favorite but I filled these with some fantastic blackberry preserves and some three-fruit marmalade so they are rather tasty. I tried melting some chips into one batch (as Dorie did for the small guy thumbprints) but they did not really melt. I think I will make a ganache tomorrow and refill those cookies. I would also like to try some made with a different extract (other than the almond) and fill the cookies with a correspondingly flavored jam. And, of course, I deeply regret not filling any of these with lemon curd. I did think about it, but decided to stick with the fillings I previously discussed. Lemon curd would have been so much more successful than the chips.

This week's recipe was selected by Mike and can be found at his Ugly Food website. Despite his protestations I am not buying that he is, in fact, an ugly dude. All of the recipes are neatly organized and contained in BFMHTY, a book all should own.

Dorie's Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies

I omitted the nuts from my cookies as my sister prefers her cookies blank. I then ended up with cookies that spread an inordinate amount across the pan. I am not sure if I made some other type of error or if the nuts hold the dough together longer.

The dough might have benefited from a visit to the freezer or the refrigerator, but I baked them right after mixing the dough. Next time I will try giving them the cold shoulder for a little while before I bake them up. I believe I may also take Dorie's suggestion and put some ready to bake balls in the freezer for some upcoming chocolate chip emergency. An actual cookie would satisfy that need so much better than a handful of chips!

Their appearance is simply an aesthetic issue, however, the cookies themselves are very good. I baked the first batch for 12 minutes, the next for eleven and each subsequent batch for 10 minutes. I already know I prefer my goods darker than does Dorrie and the color of my cookies reflects that.

I used a combination of chocolate disks and various left-over chips for the chocolate and was happy with how that turned out as well. The cookie portion is crisp and buttery and the chips are plentiful. Combine this with a nice hot cup of coffee or tea or an ice-cold glass of milk and you have a great snack.

This week's recipe was selected by Kaitlin and is posted on her website. Or, of course, you can find it in Baking From My Home to Yours.

Mini Milk Chocolate Bundt Cakes

I made these last night in my Pampered Chef mini-bundt pan - six wells. It produced some incredibly thin bundt cakes. So thin, that I am tempted to make ganache and sandwich it between two of the cakes!

So, today I made the cake again, but this time I used only four of the wells. Apparently this cake compresses quite a bit as it cools because once again, the cakes are thinner than I expected. They looked like they filled the mold when I took it out of the oven, but after five minutes of cooling they had pulled away from the sides and were about 1/4 - 1/2 inch lower than earlier. They are cute, I will give them that.

They were also very easy to put together. My only dilemma was the milk chocolate. Personally I never eat milk chocolate and at first I thought I would not have any in the house. Then I remembered that I had purchased a large bar from Trader Joe's a few weeks ago. I pulled it out and fortunately had just enough for both batches.

I topped the cake with some leftover peanut butter frosting that I had on hand. It was leftover from some peanut butter chocolate chip cupcakes I made last week. The chocolate flavor was extremely mild, so the peanut butter flavor was far more pronounced. I also dusted one with confectioner's sugar for its photo op.

I liked the "swirl" addition - I used the nuts and cocoa. However, since my cakes were so thin, it was more like a crust than a swirl. I will definitely bake these in a smaller pan the next time - or I will double the batter for the not so mini-bundts I have.

The cake was nice and moist, though the outside was a bit dry. I attribute that to the thinness of the cakes, it was not unpleasant.

You can find the recipe at Kristen's blog, I'm right about everything or in the Book!

Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars

Apparently January is not going to be my favorite month for recipes. Last week our recipe was Mrs. Vogel’s Scherben, I skipped this because it was described as tasting like the fried dough from county fairs. The repulsive, so must be avoided, funnel cake. I also did not want to deal with a large quantity of grease.


In lieu of the Scherben I elected to make a recipe from the past - Dorrie's marshmallows. I have made marshmallows a couple of times in the past so I thought I knew what to expect. But, I was disappointed, these marshmallows were not nearly as fluffy as the ones I made previously. To go with them, I made some of Ina Garten's hot chocolate. Turns out once I put the marshmallows into the hot chocolate, I couldn't stomach the sweetness!


I made the cappucino flavored marshmallow - this was my first attempt at a flavored marshmallow. They are a nice color and they have a nice background flavor. However, I was not impressed with the yield, with their strange ability to absorb the dusting sugar and generally with their overall taste. I'll stick to my other recipes and give this one a miss.

Then this week - Chocolate Oatmeal Almost-Candy Bars - oatmeal cookies (not my fav), in bar form (not my fav) and my containing peanuts (not my fav in fact they are my least favorite nut for cooking). Before even beginning my expectations were very low.


I found the cookie base to be a poor carrier of flavor. I did not get the sensation of rich buttery oatmeal cookies - it just seemed to lack cohesion. I liked the hint of cinnamon but that was all. The chocolate layer was okay - it reminded me of today's Chunky candy bar - I prefer the original with the Brazil nuts. So, I did not care much for it. Once the individual sections were combined into one cookie, I hoped the sum of the parts would be larger than the individual components. For me, this did not happen.


I cut the bars into fairly small servings, but my bars were quite tall so even a small cookie was a lot of cookie to eat.


I did find their construction to be surprisingly easy considering all of the elements involved. I will be looking elsewhere to satisfy any oatmeal cookie cravings that I develop. Lilian at Confectiona's Realm selected and posted this recipe. Visit the other TWD blogs to see how our other bakers fared with this recipe and buy the book, if you want to own all of these recipes for yourself.

And next week's recipe is called Cocoa-Nana Bread - now you know that thing is going to have at least one stinking banana in it! Bleech! I can't wait for February's recipes - I know I'll like them better!

Happy Birthday to TWD

This week marks the second anniversary of Tuesdays with Dorie. I haven't been with the group for the entire time, but what a great journey this has been. To celebrate our anniversary we voted on which recipe we wanted to make next and there were two winners: Tarte Tatin and Cocoa Buttermilk Cake.

I elected to try them both. I made the Tarte Tatin a week or so ago. I used a mixture of apples: pink lady, granny smith and macoun(?). I had neither a cast iron frying pan nor a tarte tatin pan with me - I was pet sitting for a friend - but my sister had a new Calphalon 10-inch skillet that looked like it would be a perfect replacement. Indeed, it worked fantastically. I did let my sugar go a tad too long and my photos appear to show some carbonized apples vs. caramelized apples, but in actuality, the color appears darker than the flavor. This happened because it was taking far longer to caramelize the butter and sugar than I anticipated. I got a bit bored and took my eye off the stove at just the wrong time. Oh, well, live and learn.

I topped the tarte with puff pastry. Oh, did it look fabulous when it was ready to come out of the oven - all poufed up and a gorgeous brown color. I waited the requisite lava cool-down period and then tried a slice. Oh, my God - this is fabulous. I ate it plain, but I can see where the addition of some whipped cream or good vanilla ice cream would take this from fabulous to decadent.

I had no trouble at all flipping the tarte. I did wear hefty oven mitts, but I had nary a stray splash of caramel with which to contend. I did leave a couple of apples behind in the pan, but a quick flip of the spatula and they were back on the crust where they belonged.

This desert looks so elegant but it was so easy to put together, that I am sure I will try it again. I will probably lower the amount of butter and sugar used in the caramelizing process, but it was definitely delicious as Dorie wrote the recipe.

Then today, I made the Cocoa Buttermilk Cake. Well, truth be told, my sister and I had made this cake about a month ago for my brother's 60th birthday party. We made a large sheet cake, half of the batter was from Sky High - the Park Avenue Cake - made completely as white chocolate. The other half was the cocoa buttermilk cake. We must have done something wrong when we made it then, though. The batter was extremely dense and very dark.

The batter was much more fluid this time around and far less dark in color. I also made the cake as cupcakes this time. I got a dozen regular sized cupcakes and nine jumbo cupcakes out of the batter.

I had problems flipping the large cake out of the pan, but I attribute that to (a) failing to line the pan with parchment paper and (b) waiting too long to flip the cake. When I did flip the cake some portion of the chocolate cake stuck to the bottom of the pan. I made some adjustments and salvaged the cake for his party but I know now that regardless of how much heat remains in the pan, you should always flip your cakes at ten minutes and a parchment paper liner never goes out of style.

I found this cake to be a bit dense at Dennis's birthdayparty , but it was much lighter today. The cupcakes baked a bit unevenly though and I ended up leaving them in for about four minutes too long. I had checked them and should have removed them from the oven when a bit of batter was still clinging to the tester. Their residual heat would, no doubt, have finished baking them.

They are still quite tasty, however. I made a whipped cream icing for the cupcakes. One portion was vanilla flavored and the other was coffee flavored. I love the extra tang of the espresso in the whipped cream. Now to find room in the fridge to store the little devils! Well, if that proves too hard, I'll just put them on the back porch - this may be Richmond - but it feels like the frozen tundra these days!

Two great recipes to celebrate a great idea. Thanks for starting this group, Lorie.

Cafe Volcano Cookies

Like so many of the other bakers, I am just astounded at the ease of making these cookies. I thought I made them just as cited in the recipe, but it turns out I accidentally doubled the espresso powder. Even at that, I thought the taste of coffee was on the backburner. That was no doubt because the taste of sugar was on all of the other burners!

I used walnuts and sliced blanched almonds for my nut mixture. When I make these in the future I use a different nut combination. Walnuts have such an overpowering flavor - a good one when they are roasted - but no way could I taste the almonds in these. I do love a roasted nut though. In addition, I would highly recommend using either whole almonds or almond slivers to make these and when you - don't bother chopping them. I never should have chopped the sliced almonds - they just about melted into the background. That fits with a meringue cookie though as they pretty much just melt when you eat them, anyway.

Super easy and they pack a wallop of flavor. Great choice, MacDuff.

Sablés

Another easy recipe - just the way I like it. Well, easy to put together, anyway. I did find it just a tad difficult to keep my logs round while cutting the cookies. I just can't seem to master that knack!

My brother, Dennis, celebrated his 60th birthday this past Sunday (his actual birthday was yesterday). He and his wife (Marilyn) hosted a brunch at Deerfield Gold & Tennis Club - formerly DuPont's Louviers Country Club. It was really a lovely event.

Dennis likes a patriotic theme so we decorated the room with those festive trappings. If I do say so myself, it looked quite nice. My sister and I baked the cake and made bags of cookies for everyone take home as a favor.

The sablés were the first cookies we made. Apparently I cut them too thick as I did not get the yield Dorrie suggested. Nevertheless, I found them quite tasty. I rolled them in red & green sugar or red, white, and green nonpareils. I liked the look of the nonpareils best.

Unfortunately I made a packing mistake with these cookies as well. I packed them in a container with some carrot/spice bars. I divided the cookies with parchment paper. Sadly the bars still exuded too much moisture and it caused one entire layer of the cookies to become soggy. So, we had enough for the treat bags but no extras for our own personal munching. We did try one the night we baked them and I can attest to their great taste.

I love shortbread in general so will definitely be adding this cookie to my list of keepers. I do need to fine tune my sugar rolling and my cutting, but other than that, total keeper/success. These delightful morsels were selected by Barbara and the recipe is posted at her site, Bungalow Barbara. Of course, you could also always find it in the book! Enjoy.