March 6: Cinnamon Palmiers

Palmiers are either the easiest cookie to make, or the most difficult, depending on whether you make or buy your puff pastry.

Making puff pastry (or any laminated dough for that matter) from scratch takes approximately 3 hours if you're rushing (which you shouldn't), and is so labour-intensive that--as our chef told us in class--if you make one per week for a year you'll shred the tendons in your wrists from all that rolling. It does, however, yield better-than-you've-ever-tasted results.

Because of how difficult it is to make scratch puff, most people and bakeries buy it pre-made. Tenderflake makes an all-right puff pastry, however it's not made from 100% butter and can leave a waxy mouth feel. This yucky coating in your mouth you notice after you've eaten a turnover from the grocery store is caused by the fact that shortening melts at a higher temperature than that of your body, so "melt in your mouth" does not apply. Science!

I make most everything from scratch. To me, boxed mixes are an abomination; refrigerated dough is the lazy man's fast-track to mediocre cookies, and don't even get me started on those muffin shakers (ew). However, my mother did not raise a fool; I like my tendons just the way they are, thankyouverymuch, and purchase my puff unless I'm commissioned for something special. That having been said, commercial puff is actually fine to use to make palmiers because you slice the dough so thinly and it bakes to such a crispness that you don't get much waxy mouth feel, if any at all.

Palmier is French for palm tree, and these cookies are so named because they look similar to a palm tree's leaves. In the US they are more commonly referred to as "elephant ears." They're so easy to make (if you buy your puff) that you don't really even need a recipe; just roll out your puff, spread with butter, sprinkle with cinnamon (optional) and sugar, roll, slice and bake.

Les palmiers manifique sur la natte Silpat du knock-off (par Fox Run pour dix dollars achetés de Kitchen Stuff Plus).

C'est bon, non?

These crispy, buttery, crunchy treats do not last long (in all senses...they only keep for a day or two, but will be gobbled up long before that), so they are best prepared a few hours before needed. It should be noted that palmiers are traditionally made without spices, just sugar, however if you're using a commercial puff you lose the butter flavour of home-made, so it's good to add spice to give the cookie a better flavour.

You may find the recipe for Cinnamon Palmiers on my Recipes page.

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.

March 5: Hamentashen

I've never eaten a Hamentash, let alone bake one. However I love trying new things, and when I heard about a cookie with a whole cupful of honey in its dough I was all abuzz.

Hamentashen are Jewish cookies that are served primarily during Purim. The name hamantash is believed to refer to Haman, the villain of Purim, and the shape of the cookie represents his tricorne hat. Typically it is filled with a prune or poppy seed mixture, although modern versions see everything from cherries to peanut butter tucked into its honey dough folds.

I opted for poppy seed because several people I know say that's the best and most common, and the result was a buttery sweet cookie with a subtle honey flavour and crunchy texture. During my test bake, though, I found the folds of the "hat" came apart, and the first two test cookies came out looking more like caviar served on crackers. I was pinching the cookies closed in the correct fashion, and not knowing what else to do I whipped up an egg wash to "glue" the tricornes shut.

Success?

Yes!

The filling is made of poppy seeds, raisins, honey and grated lemon zest.

Texture!

Both the manfella and I agreed that these cookies were different, but good. The recipe for Hamentashen can be found on my Recipes page. L'Chaim!

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.

March 4: Nanaimo Bars

I am a long-time fan of Nanaimo Bars, but a first time baker (and I use the term loosely, as these are no-bake bars). I've only made them once before, ages ago, and used a box mix (ew). I have since come to see the error of my ways.

The Nanaimo bar originated in Ladysmith, British Columbia (south of Nanaimo) in the early 1950s. A local housewife named Mabel Jenkins submitted the recipe to the annual Ladysmith and Cowichan Womens Institute Cookbook fundraiser. It became popular, especially in company towns, and was sold in many of the coffee shops on Nanaimo's Commercial Street. Tourists in the region came to refer to these as "Nanaimo Bars".

Not knowing which recipe to use, I defaulted to my go-to website, Joy of Baking. The recipe went rather smoothly, save for the fact that I don't own a 9x9 pan. However, upon looking in my cupboard for a 9x9 pan, I discovered that I own six (count 'em, 6) 8x8 pans, including my latest and greatest addition which I won for free: the Le Crueset square baker in kiwi!! But I digress...

Mise en plus. Most of my baked goods are stuffed into Mason Jars and labelled with a Sharpie. I also got to use the vanilla I picked up in Mexico (the best I've ever used) and the cocoa I bought in the Dominican.

I could have squished the recipe into an 8x8 pan, but this would have resulted in thicker-than-usual bars (desirable for some, not for others), but instead I doubled the recipe knowing the recipe wouldn't pan out (har har) properly, resulting in THREE batches of Nanaimo bars: one for work and two for freezing/selling (Nanaimo Bars freeze very well, as evidenced by the fact that you can purchase them frozen at M&M Meats). YUM!

The harsh light of day. Easier to face with Nanaimos for breakfast!

The recipe turned out well; sweet without being cloying, and though I feel the base crust could have been less crumbly. My suggestion would be to add a bit more melted butter in order to bind it together. Also, I didn't feel like chopping walnuts last night, and since I already had chopped hazelnuts ready to go, I swapped them out, to the recipe's benefit I'd say. It's like a Ferrero Rocher...in Nanaimo form!

Zoom...

More zoom...

MAXIMUM DELICIOUSNESS ACHIEVED.

Final grade: A-. Points lost for crumbly crust (just add more melted butter and you'll be fine!) but overall, a great bar cookie. See the Nanaimo Bar recipe, including my comments and suggestions on my Recipes Page.

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.

March 3: Meringue Cookies

I knew that life would get in the way of my little project at times, and tried as much as possible to schedule around it (concerts, weekends away, Tuesday night appointments). However, when you forget that you have theatre tickets for 8pm and your baking time is limited to 7pm - 11pm, it sort of puts a fly in the ointment. doesn't it!

I figured I'd make Meringue Cookies when I got home because it's just egg whites and sugar, and I could bake them off before the show. No problem, right? Except the TTC decided to be slower than molasses on the way from Eglinton to College (that 10 minute subway ride took almost 40 minutes!!), which gave me about an hour and a half to whip, pipe and bake. Oh, and eat dinner too.

Yeah.

The meringues were supposed to bake for at least an hour and a half at 200F, and not wanting to have to stay up late when I got home I decided to try the method I remembered my mom using when she made these when I was a kid. I let the oven heat up to about 450F, turned it off and left my meringues to bake while I went to see My Mother's Lesbian Jewish Wiccan Wedding (and was not disappointed).

At first glance they were perfect:

Unfortunately, I think my meringues were a little too big, because when I got home they were crispy on the outside, and the middle had flopped leaving a hollow shell and a chewy bottom:

Oops.

Of course, to taste them - they're delicious! I can even get on board with the chewiness...however you can't leave a moist middle like that, because it will make the rest of your meringues soggy within a matter of hours. Since sugar is hygroscopic, it will draw moisture from anything near it containing moisture (that's why those clay discs you soak in water keep your brown sugar moist). The dry outer shell will attract the moisture from the middle of the meringue, causing the shell to become moist and chewy--in a bad way--too.

So, back in the oven they've gone, in the hopes that any remaining moisture will be banished. Even if they become dry as a bone though, my cute little meringues will be delicious, but ultimately hollow.

Kind of like this guy:

Another mulligan! Learn from my mistake and give these Meringue Cookies the proper long, dry bake they deserve. Speaking of long bakes, 62 sleeps until Puerto Plata!

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" (don't worry, I'd make you new ones!) please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.

March 2: Scottish Shortbread

It's only Day 2 and already my first FAIL. Well, I wouldn't call it a complete and utter flop, but this recipe certainly didn't go as smoothly as I'd have liked. That's why it's Ms. Adventures, folks!

When a dough is "short", it means that the high fat content inhibits the strengthening and elongating of gluten strands (read: it shortens them). If you think of gluten as the bones of a baked good, high fat weakens these bones (or rather, prevents them from forming in the first place) resulting in a crumbly product. That tidbit was brought to you by Bakehouse Rock!*

Shortbread, then, is a high-fat cookie with a crumbly texture. Traditionally a shortbread is made with one part sugar, two parts butter, and three parts (oatmeal) flour. This should have set off alarm bells when I laid eyes on the Scottish Shortbread recipe in The Ultimate Cookie Book, which calls for equal parts "superfine" sugar and butter.

Now, "superfine" sugar is a rather ambiguous description. Does it mean the finest grade of granulated sugar? Does it mean confectioners/icing sugar? Well, given that I've seen other Shortbread recipes that called for icing sugar, and I would certainly describe it as "superfine" I decided to go with that. This move turned out to be the Albuquerque to my Bugs Bunny.

The resulting dough was a crumbly mess that just wouldn't bind together--despite my adding an extra 1/4 cup butter--let alone lend itself for rolling and cutting. Not wanting to give up, I pressed the mess into my 10" round tart pan, docked it (lightly pricked the dough with a fork ) and hoped for the best. Worst case scenario, I've got a tart crust!

After baking I sliced the cookies into triangles before the dough cooled and set, and allowed it to cool completely within the pan. Results:

• Aroma: This certainly smelled like shortbread! The sweet buttery aroma caused a reaction that filled my whole mouth with saliva.
• Taste: I give it a 3 out of 4. A nice buttery and sweet taste without being cloying, but I could also taste the flour. This is a no-no.
• Texture: It's crumbly all right, but it's also a little tough. This is where the main failure of the dough lies, in my opinion. This could be the result of several things:

1. I over-kneaded the dough. The recipe said to gradually add flour and knead until the dough no longer sticks to your kneading surface (in this case, my marble slab). Perhaps I should have stopped adding flour when this happened, even though that meant not using the full 2 1/2 cups.
   
2. The quantity of starch in the icing sugar. In a plot that I can only speculate was conspiratorially designed to bolster the Canadian corn farming industry, Canadian icing sugar contains up to 5% corn starch. Now I can understand in a humid country this might be necessary to absorb moisture from the sugar to prevent clumps, but Canada enjoys a mere two months of almost humid climes, instead opting to submit to its two other seasons (winter, and "construction"). Essentially, by using icing sugar instead of granulated sugar, I was introducing more starch to the dough, to its detriment. To account for this, I should have reduced the amount of flour, but of course, not knowing exactly how much corn starch was in the flour, I wouldn't know how much to reduce the flour by.
3. The ratios were off. Equal parts butter and sugar? Next time I'll try the traditional 1-2-3 ratio.

Final grade: C. I think I will mulligan Shortbread on the weekend. If you want to try succeeding at this recipe where I failed, you may find the Scottish Shortbread recipe on my Recipes page.

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" (don't worry, I'd make you some new ones) please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.

*I can't decide which is worse, these Shortbreads, or my Photoshop skills.

March 1: Chocolate Chip Cookies

Who doesn't like a good chocolate chip cookie? It already has a rich, buttery batter, so when you add something as indulgent as chocolate to the mix, your tastebuds were had at "Hello."

As purposefully matched as the flavours seem to be, like most culinary wonders, the chocolate chip cookie was invented by accident in 1933 by Ruth Wakefield. Owner of the Toll House Inn (I think you see where this is going), Ruth was making chocolate cookies one day, and upon discovering that she'd run out of baker's chocolate, she used pieces of Nestlé semisweet chocolate assuming that they would melt into the batter to the same result. Later, Ruth sold her recipe to Nestlé and accepted a lifetime supply of chocolate chips as payment, and her recipe is found on every bag of Nestlé chocolate chips.

This reminds me of one of my favourite "Friends" moments, where Pheobe et al discover that her French great-grandmother's sacred cookie recipe was simply the Nestlé Toll House recipe:




While Ruth's recipe has become the go-to Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe, I have never found much success with it. I'm not sure if I'm doing something wrong or if I just have a particular idea of how a chocolate chip cookie should be, but I always find the resulting cookies to be less flavourful than I want. Also, I find this recipe doesn't result in a chewy cookie, which I prefer.

However, I have found a recipe that calls for less white sugar, flour, egg white and butter (less butter sounds like it would be a travisty but it really isn't), and more brown sugar, salt and baking soda. The result is nothing short of Chocolate Chip Cookie perfection.

These cookies are the perfect balance of chewiness and crispiness, and because I used Ghirardelli's bittersweet chocolate chips rather than semisweet, they taste more chocolatey than sugary, which means they are indeed MY perfect chocolate chip cookie.

Final Grade: A+. Sweet success! You can find this Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies recipe on my Recipes page. It should be noted that, for the cookies in the photos, I dropped the dough in 1/8 cup measures rather than the called for 1/4 cup. This economized the dough by producing over 2 dozen standard-sized (albeit thinner) cookies rather than 18 large ones. Whichever way you choose, they will turn out great!

To order these "Cookies for a Cause" please click this link to donate at my Daily Bread Food Bank fundraising page.

It's March!

On this day in history...

• 1565 – The city of Rio de Janeiro is founded.
• 1872 – Yellowstone National Park is established as the world's first national park.
• 1912 – Albert Berry makes the first parachute jump from a moving airplane.
• 1936 – The Hoover Dam is completed.
• 1947 – Alan Thicke, Canadian actor and songwriter is born.
• 1988 – Wayne Gretzky becomes the NHL's all-time assist leader breaking Gordie Howe's 26-year record.

Oh, and of course...

• 2010 – March of the Cookies begins.
  

See? March 1 a day for making history! Although lots of interesting things occurred on March 1, I reckon Alan Thicke would appreciate that--according to my timeline--nothing newsworthy happened in the 41 years proceeding his birth. Upon pondering Alan Thicke, three thoughts occured to me:

1. Playgirl, February 1987. Me-ow.
   
2. I miss jPod.
3. I wonder what Alan Thicke's favourite cookie is.

Ha! I KNEW it. Chocolate chip.

So, in honour of this crappy Photoshop job I just whipped together Alan Thicke, March's first cookie will be Chocolate Chip! Butter and eggs are on the counter at home coming to room temperature as we speak. When I get home from work, I'm going to whip up a batch of America's favourite cookie. Also, juxtaposing "America's" with the Canadian spelling of "favourite" = WIN.