Misadventure 5 - Cookies Trials

Hera here, this time, I'll be going solo on this as everyone is busy with their own things. Every year, I participate in a cookie exchange at work with around 10 co-workers before X'mas.  Basically, each person bakes a batch of cookies, and we give some (half a dozen is the best we've worked with) to the other participants.  In the end, each person gets about 9 half dozen cookies to bring home.  So far, we've been pretty good in people not having duplicates amongst participants.  And every year, I use this event as an excuse to try a new recipe (and making cookies of course).  I thought I should be diligent this year and try some recipes ahead of time so I won't be scrambling in December.  As a side note, I am a real snob when it comes to eating cookies...so baking cookies is one of my worse traits as they never turn out the way I imagined them to be in taste and appearance, so we'll see what happens this time =)

I will be making 5 3 different kinds of cookies today (I got a little too ambitious).  I have picked recipes that have similar ingredients so all of these are basically a butter cookie base. Since these are trials and I suck at baking cookies, I'll be cutting the portions to half so people don't have to suffer too greatly should these become disasters.  Always good to have a plan B, people.  

Cookie #1 - Russian Tea Cakes: I'll be making these first because they seemed the easiest...

Ingredients for Russian Tea Cakes (missing in pic: vanilla and salt)

For nuts, I'll be using macademia nuts but any of your favourite nut will do.

Cream butter, icing sugar and vanilla first, now add the nuts!

 For the nuts, I grinded them using the Magic Bullet.

Then goes the flour and salt.

Mix together until it comes together as a big piece of dough.

 

The kitchen smells so good...filled with buttery goodness!  And now they're ready for the oven...waiting time begins...

Halfway done!

 

Roll the warm cookies in icing sugar and voila!

Final Thoughts: This was fairly simple and foolproof...they taste like a butter cookie, but I find that rolling icing sugar at the end pushed the sweetness factor a little high.  And I can't really taste the macadamia nuts, perhaps another nut may provide a more pronounced nut flavour.  It's easy enough to make different variations of this such as dipping this in chocolate, etc.  This is pretty plain for something festive like X'mas, so I shall reserve this recipe for giving out to families as they prefer less sweet cookies.

RECIPE from LifeMadeDelicious.ca:

RUSSIAN TEA CAKES

Yields: 48 cookies

Ingredients: 

1 cup butter or margarine softened

½ cup icing sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 ¼

¾ cup finely chopped nuts

¼ tsp salt

icing sugar (to roll in at the end)

1) Heat oven to 400°F

2) Mix butter, ½ cup icing sugar and the vanilla in large bowl.  Stir in flour, nuts and salt until dough holds together.

3) Shape dough into 1-inch balls.  Place about 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet.

4) Bake 10 to 12 minutes or until set but not brown.  Remove from cookie sheet.  Cool slightly on wire rack.

5) Roll warm cookies in powdered sugar; cool on wire rack.  Roll in icing sugar again.

Cookie #2 - Lime Snowball Cookies

Recipe calls for lime oil which I don't have, but I think the lime juice and lime peel should give enough     lime-iness.

Again, pretty simple directions, basically mix all the ingredients together until you form a dough.  The lime juice and peel give a very refreshing aroma.   

Refrigerating the dough for 45 min.

Spoon them into balls and place them on baking sheets. Then into the oven it goes.

They're a lot more crumblier than the Russian Tea Cakes, so I had to handle them with care.  And it was hard to knead away the cracks as the dough is quite dry. 

Rolled in icing sugar.  These absorbed the icing sugar a lot better than the Russian Tea Cakes.

Final Thoughts: Definitely can taste the tanginess from the lime.  And it gives a very refreshing flavour with the buttery base.  It cuts down the richness factor for sure.  It does get a little messy as it basically crumbles after biting into it and the icing sugar goes everywhere...not that it's a bad thing =)  The lime helped with balancing the sweetness so there would be no need to reduce the sugar until you have to.  Again, this seemed less festive for X'mas, so I'll be reserving this for personal use.

RECIPE from BonAppetit.com:

Lime Snowball Cookies

Yields: 30 cookies

Ingredients: 

1 ½ cups all purpose flour

½ cornstarch

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

½ cup powdered sugar

2 Tbsp fresh lime juice

1 tsp (packed) finely grated lime peel

½ tsp lime oil

1) Preheat oven to 350°F.  Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.

2) Whisk flour and cornstarch in medium bowl to blend.

3) Using electric mixer, beat butter and ½ cup powdered sugar in large bowl until light and fluffy.  

4) Mix in lime juice, lime peel and lime oil. 

5) Beat in flour mixture until smooth.  Refrigerate dough until just firm, about 45 minutes.

6) Using scant 1 tablespoon for each, form dough into balls and place on prepared sheets, spacing 1 inch apart.

7) Bake cookies until pale golden on top and browned on bottom, about 23 minutes.  Transfer baking sheets to racks; immediately sift generous amount of powdered sugar over cookies.

8) Cool cookies completely on baking sheets. 

Do Ahead: Can be made ahead.  Store airtight at room temperature up to 5 days or freeze up to 2 weeks.  Dust with more powdered sugar before serving.

Cookie #3 - Hazelnut Shortbread Sticks

Missing from pic: salt and vanilla

I'm gonna use Ghiradelli chocolate for this trial but any of your favourites will do.

Again, a simple butter cookie dough.  This one is a shortbread, so it will be on the dry side.  For chocolate, I'm using Ghiradelli 60% bittersweet that I recently bought from the states, but I find when you are using chocolate for dipping or filling, anything that you eat will do just fine.  Sometimes depending on my mood, I like to mix some milk chocolate with some dark chocolate.  White chocolate will also work depending on your audience.  My tasters, in this case, like things a bit darker.  And I find the sugar in this recipe will be more than enough to balance out the bitterness in the dark chocolate.

For hazelnuts, I have grinded them to near powder with my Magic Bullet.  There's a bit of oil from them so it's more like a paste.  I added the necessary potion to the dough and left the rest out, spread out on a tray to dry a little for dipping later.

The dough is a bit dry so there's bound to be crumbliness, so it's hard to get the cracks out...but here's the chocolate...

I'm too lazy to do the double boiler method, so I melted the chocolate in the microwave...but be careful not to overcook, it will turn to a thick paste, losing its sheen...and it'll be unusable, not to mention, it tastes gross...cannot be salvaged at all. I pretty much zapped the pyrex cup in 20 second intervals, stirring it every time as microwaves tend to give you hot pockets.  With my reduced amount of chocolate chips, it was done in about two intervals of 20 seconds.

Shortbread sticks goes into the oven, waiting begins...

And here they are!  Fresh out of the oven...mmmm buttery goodness...

While I was coating these, I'm reminded of Mr. Hanky T.T

Final Thoughts: Appearance-wise looks kinda unappetizing, but taste-wise, it's as expected.  Basically hazelnut and chocolate is always a good combination for everything...that's why Nutella is so great! These were a little too dry to my liking, but my tasters say shortbread is suppose to be like this, so I guess Success?  You can definitely taste the hazelnut, but my tasters preferred to have a little bit more chew for the nuts as these were blended a little too much.  These were a little too much work if I were to make big batches such as the cookie-exchange, so again, this will be a reserved for personal use recipe.

RECIPE from BonAppetit.com:

HAZELNUT SHORTBREAD STICKS

Yields: 20 cookies

Ingredients:

1 cup all purpose flour

½ tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ (1 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

¹_/3 cup sugar

½ cup finely ground husked toasted hazelnuts (about 2 oz)

1 tsp vanilla extract

4 oz high- quality milk chocolate (such as Lindt or Perugina), chopped

¹_/3 cup coarsely chopped husked toasted hazelnuts

1) position rack in centre of oven and preheat to 325°F.  Line large baking sheets with parchment paper.

2) Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl to blend.

3) Using a electric mixer, beat butter and sugar in large bowl until smooth.

4) Beat in ½ cup ground hazelnuts and vanilla. 

5) Beat in flour mixture until just combined.

6) Shape dough by tablespoonfuls into 3-inch-long logs.  Place on prepared baking sheet spacing 1 inch apart.  

7) Bake cookies until light golden brown around edges, about 20 minutes. Cool on baking sheet for 5 minutes.  Transfer to rack; cook cookies completely.

8) Stir milk chocolate in top of double boiler over barely simmering water until melted and smooth.  Remove from over water.

9) Place ¹_/3 cup coarsely chopped hazelnuts in small bowl.

10) Dip 1 end of cookie into melted chocolate, then into coarsely chopped hazelnuts.  Return to rack.  Repeat with remaining cookies.  Let stand until chocolate is set, about 1 hour.  

Do Ahead: Cookies can be made 2 days ahead.  Store in airtight container at room temperature.

Final Picture...all together now...say "YUMMY!"