This shortbread-like cookie recipe comes from Gourmet.  Here is the link.  I didn’t change a thing about this recipe.  The resulting cookies were so deliciously buttery, crunchy, sweet and just the perfect touch salty.  I’m sad that they are almost gone.

The only tricky thing is browning the butter without burning it.  Just keep the heat moderate, stir consistently and take the pot off the heat when you start to get more and more browned bits.  Once the bits begin to brown the process speeds up, so watch it closely.  Just don’t let it burn or you’ll have to start over.  After you’ve browned the butter, let it cool in the fridge until it is solid, mine took about an hour and a half.  It doesn’t have to be hard like the stick of butter you took from the fridge, just not liquidy.  Does that make sense?

I liked the crunchy sugar on the edges of the cookies, but if you don’t have raw sugar on hand you can leave it out.  If you are going to use the sugar, cut about 1/3 of the log of raw dough, roll it in the sugar, pressing firmly.  Then slice into pieces for baking.  I found it was easier to roll parts of the log instead of the whole thing.  While a batch is baking, keep the rest of the dough refrigerated so it remains easy to slice.

Brown Butter Ice Box Cookies

From Gourmet.com

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/3 cup flour
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 cup raw sugar

Directions

1. Cook butter in a small heavy saucepan over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until it has a nutty fragrance and flecks on bottom of pan turn golden, 3 to 4 minutes. Transfer butter to a bowl and chill until just firm, about an hour and a half.
2. Beat together butter and brown sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy. Beat in vanilla, then mix in flour and salt at low speed until just combined. Transfer dough to a sheet of wax paper or parchment and form into a 12-inch log, 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Chill, wrapped in wax paper, until firm, at least 1 hour.
3. Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Roll dough in raw sugar.  Slice dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, arranging 1 1/2 inches apart on a baking sheet lined with parchment. Bake until surface is dry and edges are slightly darker, 10 to 12 minutes. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Yesterday was a rainy day here.  I wanted to bake, but didn’t want to venture out.  Before my son was born I would have braved almost anything outside my front door if there was something I needed from the store.  Not the case anymore!  So I raided the pantry.  I had a half of a package of Oreos, but no chocolate chips.  I did have cocoa, butter, flour, sugar and eggs.  So I decided to make a chocolate cookie dough and use that to encase the Oreo.  I ended up with these little…ok, fine, rather large beauties.

These were good.  Gooey, chocolatey, decadent and perfect served with a cold glass of milk or a nice little scoop of vanilla ice cream.    If I had to choose between these and the chocolate chip version, I’d choose the chocolate chip.  I think the texture of the chocolate chip dough against the Oreo was better.  Adding chocolate chips to the chocolate dough might be a good way to get closer to the other version while still giving the chocolate lover in you a nice treat.

My first batch spread quite a bit, making the Oreo inside pretty obvious.  So, prepare the cookies, then chill them on the cookie sheets in the fridge for 15 minutes or so.

Oreo Stuffed Chocolate Cookies

Ingredients

• 2 sticks (1 cup) butter, softened
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 2/3 cup cocoa
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 15-18 Oreo cookies

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350°F.
2. Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, 3-4 minutes.
3. Add in eggs, one at a time, then mix in vanilla.
4. In a separate bowl whisk flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
5. Mix dry ingredients into butter mixture on low speed until all flour is incorporated.  Use a spatula to get dough from the bottom of your bowl, then mix again until dough is uniform.  Chill dough for 45 minutes to 1 hour.
6. Scoop 2 rounded tablespoons of dough, slightly flatten one scoop and place Oreo on top.  Cover Oreo with the other scoop of dough and press dough around edges, making sure the Oreo is enclosed and the cookie is even in thickness.
7. Repeat, and bake cookies (about 6 to a sheet) for 11-13 minutes.  They will look done, but still be soft.  Let them cool on the sheets for 2-3 minutes, then move to cooking racks.

Making pastry cream is one of those “miracle in the kitchen” moments when you smile and marvel at what can become of eggs, milk, sugar and heat!  One minute on the stove you’re whisking, being careful not to stir too quickly to avoid spilling the thin mixture, then it’s suddenly a thickened pot of deliciousness!  Pastry cream is easy, as long as you can devote a little bit of undivided attention to it.  If you don’t whisk, whisk, whisk while its cooking you’ll end up with lumps, which are not what you want in a pastry cream.  You also have to let it cool for at least 2 hours in the fridge.  If you have time and patience, you can make pastry cream.

Recipes for the tart crust and pastry cream came from Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook.  I had no problems with the pastry cream.  The crust was another story entirely.  After preparing the dough, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and put it in the fridge.  At this point I already had my doubts.  It was so crumbly and dry.  After chilling overnight (which the recipe says is fine) it was so dry that it was impossible to roll out.  And I mean impossible.  It crumbled.  All over the place.  I ended up just pressing it into the tart pan.  I blind baked it, worrying the entire time that I’d have to do it over again.  But it came out of the oven looking fine.  I figured that since it was going to be filled with pastry cream and topped with fruit, a less than stellar crust was OK.  It turned out to be a bit difficult to slice, and it did crumble easily, but it tasted great.  But I am in search of the perfect tart dough now.

You can use any fruit you like.  I used blueberries, raspberries and kiwi.  I also bought strawberries, but didn’t end up having room for them.  So I made baby food with them…something that was not a big hit.  But that’s a story for another blog.

I glazed the top of the finished tart with apricot jam that I’d heated and thinned with a little water to give it a nice sheen.  It doesn’t interfere with the taste at all.

Tart Dough and Pastry Cream From Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook

Tart Dough

NOTE: The instructions below would work in an ideal baking world.  I had to press my crumbling dough into the tart pan, much like a graham cracker crust.  If you cannot roll this dough, the pressing method works fine, but does not yield a tender crust.  I might be inclined to tell you to simply use your favorite pie dough recipe in place of this one.  Sorry, Martha.

Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons butter, room temp
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 large egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons heavy cream

Directions

1. In the bowl of an electric mixer with a paddle attachment, combine butter and powdered sugar on low speed until combined, about 2 minutes.
2. Add egg yolks and mix until incorporated.  Add 3/4 cup flour and mix on low speed until just incorporated.  Add remaining 3/4 cup flour, salt and cream, and mix until flour is no longer visible, about 1 minute.
3. Turn dough onto plastic wrap and shape into a flattened disk.  Wrap and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.
4. When ready to make your tart shell, preheat oven to 375°F, remove dough from the fridge, roll out to 1/4 inch thick and at least 2 inches wider in diameter than your tart pan (so 13 inches for an 11 inch pan, 11 inches for a 9 inch pan).
5. Drape dough over pan, press into the pan, remove excess by rolling a rolling pin over the top edge to trim dough.
6. Blind Bake: Prick dough lightly with a fork in several places.  Lay a piece of parchment over the dough, fill with pie weights or dried beans.  Bake for 20 minutes, remove parchment and weights, bake for another 5-10 until slightly browned.  Let cool.

Pastry Cream

Ingredients

• 2 cups whole milk
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise, seeds scraped
• pinch of salt
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 2 tablespoons butter, cut into cubes

Directions

1. In a medium saucepan, combine milk, 1/4 cup sugar, vanilla bean and seeds, and salt.  Cook over medium heat until mixture just comes to a simmer.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk eggs yolks, cornstarch, and remaining 1/4 cup sugar.  Whisking constantly, slowly pour about 1/2 cup hot milk mixture into the egg mixture.  Continue adding milk mixture, a little at a time, to the egg mixture, whisking constantly, until it has all been incorporated.
3. Pour mixture back into the saucepan and cook over medium-high heat, whisking constantly, until mixture thickens, about 2 minutes.  Remove and discard vanilla bean.
4. Transfer to the bowl of an electric mixer with paddle attachment.  Add the butter and beat on medium speed until the butter melts and the mixture cools slightly, about 5 minutes.
5. Pour pastry cream into a bowl and press plastic wrap directly onto the surface (so it doesn’t form a skin).  Refrigerate until chilled, at least 2 hours or up to 2 days.
6. Just before using, whisk until smooth.

Fruit Tart

Ingredients

• 1 baked tart shell
• 1 batch pastry cream
• Assorted fruits, rinsed and dried (a heaping cup each blueberries, raspberries and 3 kiwi fruits sliced with skin removed)
• 1/4 cup apricot jam, warmed with 1-2 tablespoons water

Directions

1. Brush jam over crust, just to coat, to keep it from becoming soggy.  Let dry for 20 minutes.
2. Spread pastry cream in shell and smooth the top, fill almost to the top edge of the shell.
3. Arrange fruit on top of pastry cream and then brush top of the fruit with more jam.  Chill until ready to serve.

This was one of those times in the kitchen where you begin to wonder, “Is this just not in the stars for me?”  First the butter exploded in the microwave, with great flair, I should add.  Loud popping clumps of butter going everywhere.  Then I was separating eggs and almost added the whites instead of the yolks to the bowl.  Then I spilled cake flour all over myself and the floor, something I really hate cleaning up for some reason.  Really?  It was just one thing after another.  A lesson in patience and being slow to anger?  Maybe so.

Madeleines are beautiful little treasures, but impossible to make without a madeleine pan.  I only have one small madeleine pan and I didn’t feel like waiting for it to cool, washing it out and re-greasing it before making another batch, so I used my remaining batter to make little lemon rosemary muffins.  Simply grease 24 mini muffin cups, fill them 3/4 full and bake for about 12 minutes, rotating halfway through, until the tops are just beginning to brown.  Dust with powdered sugar and enjoy!  They don’t have the same cute little ruffled shell shape, but they are just as good.

Fresh and light lemon flavor with just a subtle rosemary flavor, these little cake-like cookies are wonderful.  I think they’d be perfect for a tea party, baby or bridal shower.

Lemon Rosemary Madeleines

Adapted from Martha Stewart

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and cooled
• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
• 3 whole eggs + 2 egg yolks
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/4 teaspoon almond extract
• 2 teaspoons lemon zest
• 2 tablespoons lemon juice
• powdered sugar

Panna cotta is Italian for cooked cream.  It has always seemed a little daunting to me, but this is truly one of the easiest desserts I have ever made.  The ability to make this days in advance is appealing to me…as someone who tends to stress before having guests.  Make these early and that’s one less thing to worry about the day of your party.

You can probably tell by the ingredient list that this is not a dessert you would enjoy every night of the week.  It is so very rich, so wonderfully creamy and perfectly smooth.  If you don’t have vanilla beans, then you can use a teaspoon of vanilla extract or ,better yet, vanilla bean paste which would give you the nice specks in this otherwise pure white dessert.  Enjoy!

Vanilla Bean Panna Cotta with Fresh Berries

From Everyday Italian by Giada De Laurentiis

Ingredients

• 1 cup whole milk
• 1 tablespoon unflavored gelatin
• 3 cups whipping cream
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 vanilla beans, split
• pinch of salt
• Assorted fresh berries

Directions

1. Place the milk in a heavy, small saucepan.  Sprinkle gelatin over the top and let sit for 5 minutes.
2. Stir over medium heat until gelatin dissolves, but milk does not boil, about 5 minutes.
3. Add the cream, honey, sugar, vanilla beans and salt.  Stir over heat until sugar dissolves.  Remove vanilla beans and scrape out seeds into the mixture.  Stir to distribute.
4. Remove from the heat and divide the cream mixture into 6-8 cups (wine glasses are pretty, but dessert cups or ramekins are fine).
5. Cover and refrigerate until set, at least 6 hours and up to 2 days.
6. Garnish with berries and a sprig of mint.

There is no baking required and therefore no need to turn on your oven, which is nice for me.  It’s been over 100°F most days this summer.

I changed a few things about the assembly of this pie to make it a little simpler.  If you read the recipe from the cookbook you notice that the assembly requires some marbling of the caramel, peanut butter and cream cheese mixture.  I just put a layer of caramel on top of the crust and then mixed the peanut butter in with the cream cheese.  This seemed to be a fine way to assemble the pie, maybe just not as pretty as the marbling would have been.

I highly recommend putting the peanut butter cups in the fridge or freezer prior to chopping.  This makes life, cutting boards, knives and hands, much cleaner.

As you might have noticed, there is not much sugar in the filling.  I was a little worried about this, but it was perfect.  Who am I to doubt Magnolia Bakery?  Combined with the cookie crust, caramel and peanut butter cups it is just wonderful and not overly sweet.

One of my new guilty pleasures are those Reese’s Minis, and I happen to have a stash of them in the fridge (where I must keep any chocolate with it being so hot this time of year.)  I halved the minis and chopped some unsalted peanuts for the topping.  If I were feeling really crazy I might use salted peanuts as a nice salty contrast.  Something else that might be interesting would be using some of the white chocolate Reese’s…I think it could work.  Enjoy!

Peanut Butter Icebox Pie

From The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

Ingredients

Crust

• 1 stick butter
• 2 cups vanilla wafer crumbs

Filling

• 12 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1 cup (1 pint) heavy cream, whipped to soft peaks
• 6-8 regular peanut butter cups, chopped
• 3/4 cup smooth peanut butter
• 1/2 cup caramel sauce

Garnish

• Handful of chopped peanut butter cups
• Handful of chopped peanuts

Directions

Crust

1. Combine butter and cookie crumbs in a bowl until crumbs are evenly coated.
2. Press into a 9-inch pie plate.
3. Chill in the freezer for 20 minutes.

Filling

1. Beat cream cheese until fluffy, 2 minutes.  Add sugar gradually, then beat in peanut butter and vanilla.
2. Whip the cream in a separate bowl, then fold gently into the cream cheese mixture.
3. Fold in the peanut butter cups.

Assembly

1. Remove the crust from the freezer.
2. Spread the caramel on the bottom of the crust, then spread the filling over the caramel and smooth the top.
3. Cover with plastic wrap and chill for 8 hours, or overnight.
4. To serve, garnish with peanut butter cups and peanuts.

These bars require no mixing.  Just a little crushing of graham crackers, melting of butter and then layering of ingredients.  A mere 25 minutes in the oven and they’re done.  This is a great last minute dessert.  If you don’t have pecans, then you can use walnuts.  You could probably even use peanuts, honey roasted might just be amazing.  Yum.  If you don’t have chocolate chips you could use white chocolate chips, butterscotch chips or a combination.  You can also use margarine if you don’t have butter.  But who doesn’t have pounds of butter in their fridge at all times?  Crazy people.  That’s who.  Enjoy!

Hello Dolly Bars

Ingredients

• 1 stick butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups crushed graham crackers
• 1 cup chopped pecans
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 1 1/3 cup shredded coconut
• 1 14 oz can sweetened condensed milk

Directions

1. Pour melted butter in bottom of a 9×13 pan.
2. Sprinkle graham cracker crumbs over butter followed by pecans, chocolate chips and coconut.
3. Drizzle condensed milk evenly over everything.
4. Bake for 25 minutes @ 350°F.

These cookies are called English Toffee Cookies in the cookbook, but I took the liberty of changing their name to be more descriptive.  They are a little like toffee with their salty sweetness, but not sticky or chewy like toffee.  These cookies are crispy and light.  They are sweet, but not too sweet.  The cinnamon is wonderful.  I think a little nutmeg would be nice as well.  They are quite tasty on top of vanilla or coffee ice cream, next to a cup of coffee or tea, or all alone.

So very easy.  Mix up the dough, roll it out in one big slab on a cookie sheet (use parchment or a silpat to avoid sticking) brush with egg white, sprinkle with pecans, bake, cut and enjoy!

Crispy Cinnamon Pecan Cookies

Courtesy of The Collection from the Junior League of Austin

Ingredients

• 1 cup shortening
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 egg, separated
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 cup ground pecans

Directions

1. Cream shortening and sugar.
2. Add beaten egg yolk and vanilla.
3. Sift dry ingredients together and blend into creamed mixture.
4. Roll dough out onto a cookie sheet to 1/4 to 1/8 inch thickness.
5. Coat with egg white then sprinkle with pecans.
6. Bake at 300°F for 25-30 minutes.
7. Let cool, then cut into squares or break into pieces.

Maybe I did something wrong with the mousse.  It didn’t have the great maple flavor I was hoping for.  I’m not creative enough to make a fun container, I just did simple pastry dough baked in a mini muffin pan.  My pastry cups weren’t what I was hoping for either!  All in all, I wasn’t exactly pleased with the results of this challenge.

It was fun to make the mousse.  I’d never tried anything like that before, so there is a bright side to this baking story!

Maple Mousse

Ingredients:
• 1 cup (240 ml/ 8 fluid oz.) pure maple syrup (not maple-flavoured syrup)
• 4 large egg yolks
• 1 package (7g/1 tbsp.) unflavoured gelatine
• 1 1/2 cups (360 ml. g/12 fluid oz) whipping cream (35% fat content)

Directions:
1. Bring maple syrup to a boil then remove from heat.
2. In a large bowl, whisk egg yolks and pour a little bit of the maple syrup in while whisking (this is to temper your egg yolks so they don’t curdle).
3. Add warmed egg yolks to hot maple syrup until well mixed.
4. Measure 1/4 cup of whipping cream in a bowl and sprinkle it with the gelatine. Let it rest for 5 minutes. Place the bowl in a microwave for 45 seconds (microwave for 10 seconds at a time and check it in between) or place the bowl in a pan of barely simmering water, stir to ensure the gelatine has completely dissolved.
5. Whisk the gelatine/whipping cream mixture into the maple syrup mixture and set aside.
6. Whisk occasionally for approximately an hour or until the mixture has the consistency of an unbeaten raw egg white.
7. Whip the remaining cream. Stir 1/4 of the whipped cream into the maple syrup mixture. Fold in the remaining cream and refrigerate for at least an hour.
8. Remove from the fridge and divide equally among your edible containers.

The ingredient search on allrecipes.com is nice when you’re trying to find something to make when you’re limited in your resources, or just want to use something specific.  One of the problems I’ve encountered is that when I type in what I want to use I find a recipe that requires something I don’t have.  That wasn’t the case this time!  I found this pie crust recipe using that feature and figured I’d give it a try.

I’ve always made pie crusts using cold fats like butter or shortening, which are cut into the flour, adding cold water to bind the dough, and then refrigerating  the dough before rolling it out, always being careful not to over mix so that a tender flaky crust is achieved.  I don’t think I’ve ever seen a recipe like this one for pie crust.  There’s no careful mixing, no chilling time, and canola oil is used instead of butter.  You even mix it all up in the pie plate, so only one dish gets dirty!  I had to give it a try.

This does not yield a traditional flaky crust.  It’s more like a cross between a sugar cookie and a graham cracker crust in texture.  The flavor is similar to a plain pie crust, a tad salty, which went well with the sweet and tart lemon filling.  This lemon meringue recipe (also from allrecipes.com) was pretty good.  My mom has a lemon meringue pie recipe that is more delicious, and a little easier.  I need to get that recipe from her.  This one is quite good though.  I should know, since Ben doesn’t like lemon meringue, I had to eat the entire thing myself…over the course of a week.

If I find myself pressed for time, I would use this crust again.  If I find myself pressed for time and happen to have a Pillsbury refrigerated crust…I would use that instead.

Here are the links to the recipes.  I made no changes.

Cheater Pie Crust

Lemon Meringue Pie