Rookie Cookery

Snickerdoodle Recipe

Snickerdoodles are my son Ethan's favorite cookie. Deceptively simple sugar cookies with a dusting of cinnamon sugar, these are best eaten warm from the oven.

I have tried three different recipes for Snickerdoodles, and while I have not yet found the ultimate recipe, my favorite so far is this one from James Beard's American Cookery. Beard tells us that this popular and classic cookie was originally called Schnecken Noodles, or in some regions Snipdoodles. The name morphed into Snickerdoodles in the lower Midwest states.

I call them irresistible.

INGREDIENTS

1 cup soft butter
1 and 1/2 cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
1/4 cup milk
3 cups sifted alll purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cream of tartar
TOPPING:
3 tablespoons sugar
3 tablespoons cinnamon

DIRECTIONS

In stand mixer, beat  the butter until a little fluffy, then cream in the sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs and beat them until incorporated. Then mix in the milk.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour with the other dry ingredients.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the wet ingredients, mixing until smooth but not over-mixing. The dough will be very soft.

Place a large sheet of waxed paper on your work surface, and create a long roll of dough. Using the paper, shape the dough into a roll, wrap and refrigerate for an hour or more. You will probably need two rolls for all the dough.

When it is time to bake, pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees F.

In a small shallow dish, mix together the topping, which is the cinnamon-sugar combination.

Remove the dough from the fridge and cut it into small knobs of dough, then roll into a little ball with your hands. Roll the ball around the cinnamon-sugar until the surface is coated. Place on cookie sheets about two inches apart. The cookies will spread out as they cook.

Bake for ten to twelve minutes, or until the edges of the cookies begin to brown a little. Don't over bake.  After a few minutes, gently transfer the cookies to a rack to cool.

Warning: The aroma of cinnamon cookies baking is a siren call to the kitchen that is powerful and seductive.  Prepare for company.

Caper Berries

Look what I found at Whole Foods this week: Caper Berries. They were in among the olives, with their stems attached and looking nonchalant, but I could tell they were not really olives. They were pretending. One taste and their unique, almost grainy texture and vinegar-eucalyptus flavor let me know this would make an interesting addition to the appetizer tray.

Caper berries are simply the larger, more mature version of the tiny pickled caperberries that many of us have seen and used before. Caperberries grow wild all throughout the Meditteranean area, are picked and brined in vinegar. They add a zesty tang to salads and fresh sauces over fish, or wherever a little piquancy is welcome. Caperberries combine nicely with olive oil, lemon juice, anchovies and garlic.

A common way to use the smaller capers is in chicken piccata.  The same sauce could easily finish your favorite seafood. The larger caper berry, pictured above, is more often eaten as an appetizer, like an olive. 

What's your favorite way to use caperberries? Let me know in the comments.

Cream Puff Recipe

This is how easy it is to make cream puffs: Last Sunday morning I was up early, charged with energy to get things done.  The rest of the household was still in bed,  and the oven was still hot from roasting a pan of vegetables.  I wondered: What else can I bake that doesn't take time a lot of time for mixing, or for yeast to rise the dough?

Cabbage paste,  I thought.  Only I thought this as the French say: Pâte à choux. 

Pâte à choux is a moist, soft, egg rich dough that forms the basic structure of dozens of pastrys such as profiteroles, chocolate clairs, and, when fried, a donut-like beingnet. Because the dough is so moist, steam makes it puff up while baking, creating a light and airy structure that can be exploited with the use of fillings such as puddings or whipped cream as in these cream puffs.  With a little less sugar and a little more salt in the mix, a savory version can be filled with roasted or sauteed vegetables and meats for an elegant dinner or simple lunch.  In short: Pâte à choux is my favorite kind of recipe: easy to make with ingredients commonly on hand, and extremely versatile.

INGREDIENTS:

one cup of water
6  tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon sugar
1/8 tsp salt
one and 1/8 cup flour (all purpose)
4 large eggs

FOR THE CREAM FILLING AND CHOCOLATE TOPPING:
one cup heavy whipping cream
a few tablespoons sugar
vanilla (a dash)
1/3 cup (approx) chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Pre-heat your oven to 425 degrees F., and place the oven rack in the lower (but not lowest) postiion in the oven.  Cover two large cookie sheets with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Combine the wet ingredients (water, butter, sugar) plus salt in a saucepan over medium heat and bring it to a boil, stirring to blend the ingredients. Remove it from the heat.

Add the flour all at once, and mix as it quickly comes together into a very soft dough.  It will pull away from the sides of the pan and form a ball.

Transfer the dough to a mixer and allow it to cool for a few minutes. Meanwhile, crack the eggs into a small cup.

Mix the dough on low speed, and add the eggs one at a time and continue mixing until they are well incorporated. You should have a very smooth soft dough.

Using a pastry bag, or a large plastic bag with a corner cut off and a pastry tip inserted, pipe the dough onto the baking sheets in golf-ball size portions, two inches apart.

Bake for ten minutes at 425 degrees, then reduce the temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another ten minutes.

Remove the golden brown puffs from the oven and set aside to cool.  Using a sharp paring knife, immediately pierce a small hole into the side of each puff, allowing steam to escape.

FILLING:

When the pastries are completely cool, fill as desired with chocolate or lemon pudding, or whipped cream for cream puffs as below:

For the filling,  whip a cup of heavy cream sweetened with a tablespoon or two of sugar and a small dash of vanilla.
Using another pastry bag, gently insert the piping tip into the hole you created to allow the steam to escape while cooling. Fill each pastry with cream.

CHOCOLATE TOPPING

Melt one third cup of bittersweet chocolate chips until melted. Stir until very smooth. Before it cools, lightly drizzle the chocolate across the tops of the cream puffs. Allow it to set, and serve immediately. Refridgerate any leftovers.

Add this to your bag of tricks and it will make you feel like a rock star in the kitchen.

Fried Eggplant and Frankenstein sauce dinner

Notes on an improvised dinner: See those dark bits under the fork? Those were egg-battered, floured and fried slices of eggplant, previously marinated in some kind of Frankenstein sauce my husband devised: soy sauce, mustard, wasabi and whatnot. Some of the rust-colored sauce was there for dipping in that little bowl off to the right. I will admit I was not at all sure the eggplant would cook through enough. But it worked rather nicely, and now we have a new way to enjoy the aubergine.

That's all.

Giant Spun Sugar Dessert Recipe

Photo:  "Soleil Sucre: A Giant Spun Sugar Confection"

Recently I wanted to create a really WOW dessert for a special occasion.  What better way to do it than create a fabulous sculpture out of crystallized sugar? (see photo) With a little planning ahead and ingenuity, and a fundamental knowledge of physics, a simple sugar solution can be spun and formed into limitless shapes, like this giant sunburst created for a wedding reception of a dear friend. That's my husband Jim, on the right, and our two sons Evan (far left) and Ethan (in the middle). Note: you will want to have help with sugar scuptures of any significant size.

INGREDIENTS: (and equipment)

256 pounds of sugar (organic)
5 cups food coloring (I used yellow!)
three copies Sunday section of New York Times
25 pounds organic beeswax (or parrafin)

METHOD:

First, begin your sugar solution by heating the 256 pounds of sugar in about 26 quarts of water, in large vat until it dissolves completely. Remove from stove.  In a separate bowl, melt all the beeswax (or parrafin).

Meanwhile, taking five sheets of the newspaper at a time, create your desired shapes, like the twisted spirals used here.  Tape the paper to keep its shape.

Take the melted beeswax (or parrafin) and slowly pour it into the paper cone spirals, taking care that the wax coats the entire interior of the form. Set aside and let harden.

Now for the fun part! Add food dye to your sugar solution and stir until well blended.  Now very carefully, pour the sugar into the cone shapes so that it coats the interior. (Careful! It will be hot!) Allow to harden.

The next day, remove the paper forms from your brilliant crystalline shapes. Who knew sugar could be so fanciful?

Finally, assemble your sugar "stalagtites"  into pleasing shapes and use a blow torch to fuse into place. Allow to cool completely before moving into display position.

Now stand back and watch the stunned faces of your guests as they wonder if it is, indeed, edible!

Sadly, the above sugar scupture was dissolved in rain soon after the photo was taken, shown here at the California Palace of Legion of Super Heroes museum, San Francisco.