Sunday Night Cookie Blogging: Tinkering with a favorite

It's been a while since the last round of Sunday night cookie blogging, and since I was nowhere near energetic enough to attempt any confectionary pursuits tonight, I decided to revert to one of my favorite cookies, the molasses spice cookie. Soft, chewy, warm with cinnamon and sharp with ginger, this cookie seems to please nearly everyone, and as an added bonus, the recipe I use most often is a snap to put together at the last minute because you melt rather than soften the butter.

The original recipe, from The Village Baker's Wife, is fabulous on its own, but that doesn't mean I can be trusted to leave well enough alone. I've been tinkering with it in various ways since the second batch, when I added crystallized ginger bits, and this time, I decided to push it even further. A while ago, I wondered what would happen if I added Chinese five spice powder to ginger cookies, and was pleased enough with the results to increase the amount this time from a very conservative 1/4 teaspoon to a full 1/2 teaspoon. I was also intrigued by a recipe for Joe Froggers, which added rum to the dough. I was reaching for the rum when I spotted the bottle of bourbon sitting next to it, and suddenly thought that would work even better with the five spice, since it's more assertive. The product of all this tinkering was an even better molasses cookie, with an exotic complexity from the additional spices and a lovely aroma from the bourbon, which does play exceptionally well with the ginger and star anise. Next time, I will probably add even more ginger, of both the powdered and the crystallized variety, because nothing is ever gingery enough for me, but I think the five spice/bourbon combo is a keeper.

Five-Spice Molasses Cookies
Makes approx. four dozen

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) butter
1 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 large egg
1 tablespoon bourbon
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon Chinese five spice powder
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup crystallized ginger bits

1/4-1/2 cup raw or turbinado sugar, for coating

Preheat the oven to 375 F, and line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, spices and salt.

Melt the butter and place in a large mixing bowl, allowing it to cool to room temperature. Once cool, add the granulated sugar, molasses, egg, and bourbon, and mix well. Add the sifted dry ingredients and stir until barely blended, then stir in the crystallized ginger. Cover the bowl and chill for at least 15 minutes.

Place the raw sugar in a small bowl or plate. Scoop out the cookie with a tablespoon-sized scoop and roll into one-inch balls, coating each ball with the raw sugar. Place the coated balls two inches apart on the cookie sheets. Bake 9-10 minutes, allowing the cookies to cool on the sheets for several minutes before removing them to a rack.


Notes: I would think that you'd want a good-quality bourbon here, with enough spicy undertones to compliment the spices in the cookie. Since His Lordship is picky about his bourbon, we keep the top-shelf stuff around anyway.

I keep the Ginger People's crystallized ginger baking bits around for cookies and the like, since it's easier than chopping bigger chunks of ginger, which tend to try to glom back into a mass rather than distributing evenly into the cookie batter. If you can't find the baking bits or don't want to bother with an additional product (and I'd hardly blame you), it would be a good idea to finely chop the larger chunks and then toss them in a bit of extra sugar so they'll separate into discrete bits.

If you don't have raw or turbinado sugar, you can use an additional amount of granulated sugar for dredging, but the bigger crystals add a really lovely glittery quality to the finished cookies, as well as a hint of crunch.

Sunday Sweets Blogging: Cashew-Macadamia Hearts

This is what happens when I get really ambitious on a Sunday.

Inspired by one of my favorite food blogs, which recently featured homemade brazil nut cups, I decided to finally get around to using the heart-shaped molds I'd bought ages ago with the intention of using them for chocolates and other molded treats. I thought about using a plain ganache filling, but since I've been big on all kinds of nuts and seeds lately, I decided to go with a nut butter filling instead. I had tried a cashew butter recipe from Alton Brown last year and liked it quite a lot, so I decided to start with that, supplementing the cashews with macadamias and the macadamia nut oil I've been putting into a lot of baked goods lately. (It's really lovely stuff and works miracles on vanilla cupcakes.) The results are fragrant and tropical and a million times better than plain old peanut butter.

Making chocolates isn't really that hard. It's just a bit time-consuming, and the only tricky step is tempering the chocolate properly, so that it stays shiny and crisp when you bite it, instead of developing a waxy "bloom" or turning brittle. I researched several methods of tempering and decided to start with the "seeding" approach, melting most of it while reserving some for addition off the heat, to bring down the temperature and encourage stable crystals. Unfortunately, I didn't do it well enough, and the chocolate was a bit distempered, so they did develop a whitish bloom, but I can't complain too much, because these do taste wonderful, especially at room temperature, when the filling is creamy and smooth and melds perfectly with the yielding chocolate coating. I cheated a bit for presentation purposes by painting them with additional macadamia oil to make them glisten (a trick I picked up from Jacques Torres, another celebrity chef I decidely don't hate) and dusting the tops with cocoa.

I'll work on my tempering techniques and see if I can't do even better next time by monitoring the temperature instead of using the less precise seeding method, but for now, I'm quite pleased, and I didn't hear any complaints at work this morning, either.

Cashew-Macadamia Hearts
Makes approx. 32 bonbons

1 cup cashew-macadamia butter (see below)
1/2 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1 lb bittersweet chocolate
Cocoa for dusting

Equipment: Clean, scrupulously dry candy molds
Double boiler
A cooling rack set on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper

In a food processor, blend the nut butter and powdered sugar until a firm paste forms. Taste and add additional salt if necessary to balance the sweetness. Set aside while tempering the chocolate.

Chop the chocolate very finely, setting aside 1/3 for later addition. Place the remaining 2/3 in the top half of a double boiler over simmering water and allow to melt, stirring gently. When the chocolate is just melted, remove from the heat and add the reserved third, stirring until the entire batch is melted together.

Fill the chocolate molds with chocolate, swirling and shaking to cover all surfaces, then set upside-down on the rack over the cookie sheet to let the excess run out. Set in the refrigerator for 10-15 minutes to set up. When the chocolate is firm, invert the molds and fill each chocolate-lined cavity with enough nut filling to reach about three-quarters to the top, pushing into the crevices to be sure that there are no air pockets. Seal the bonbons with the remaining chocolate, scraping the tops of the molds to remove extra chocolate and ensure clean unmolding. Return the molds, right-side up, to the refrigerator to set.

When the chocolates have firmed, carefully unmold them. If desired, brush with additional macadamia oil, and dust the tops with excellent-quality cocoa powder sifted through a fine mesh sieve.

Notes: Chocolate will "seize" or turn clumpy and grainy if it comes into contact with water, so be careful not to let steam from the double boiler condense into the melted chocolate, and be sure that the molds and all work surfaces and tools are very dry. Supposedly the best way to keep chocolate at a workable temperature and maintain the temper is to keep it on a low-temp heating pad while you're waiting for the first set, but I didn't have one, so I left it over the still-warm water in the double boiler, off the heat, which kept it warm enough to spread over the filled bonbons and also, oddly, resulted in slightly shinier bottoms on the candies.

Cashew-Macadamia Butter
Makes approx. 1 1/2 cups

8 oz raw cashews
2 oz macadamia nuts
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons honey
2 tablespoons macadamia oil (or other nut oil)
3 tablespoons grapeseed oil (or canola, or other very mild-flavored oil)

Preheat oven to 350. Toast the cashews in a single layer on a baking sheet until golden, approximately 12-15 minutes, being careful not to burn them. Let cool.

Heat the honey in a small container in the microwave until slightly runny, about 15 seconds. Combine with the oils in a liquid measuring cup.

Pulse the cashews, macadamia nuts and salt in a food processor until nearly pulverized, about 5 seconds. With the processor running, slowly add the oil and honey mixture through the feed tube and continue processing until a smooth paste forms. Taste and correct seasonings as necessary.

Another Legitimate Thirty Minute Meal: Southwestern Lentil Salad

Since I'm trying to get back into the swing of cooking, despite still not having as much time for it as I'd like, tonight's experimental dinner was particularly gratifying. When I got home, all I had decided was that I wanted to do something with lentils, but by the time I was finished adding components, I had a dinner that was easy, quick, nutritious, and most importantly, really delicious. The richness of the lentils and the avocado, the crunch of the cucumber and green onion, the sweetness of the tomatoes, the tang of the lemon, and the sharpness of the spices and cilantro all combined beautifully into a simple but flavorful southwest-ish whole. In addition to making a very satisfactory dinner, I think this will be a great addition to the summer barbecue season.

Southwestern Lentil Salad
Serves 4 as a main dish, and at least six as a side dish

1 cup black lentils
2 garlic cloves
1/2 an English cucumber, diced
1 pint cherry tomatoes, quartered
3 scallions, sliced
1/4 cup olive oil
Juice of one large lemon
Salt and pepper
1/4 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon cumin
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
1 avocado, diced

Place the lentils and garlic in a small saucepan, and cover generously with water. Bring to a boil, then lower the heat and simmer vigorously until the lentils are tender, but not mushy.

In the meantime, combine the cucumber, tomatoes, scallions, oil, lemon juice, paprika, cumin, and salt and pepper in a large bowl, and leave to marinate until the lentils are cooked. Once the lentils are ready, drain thoroughly and add to the bowl, tossing to combine. Taste and correct the seasonings as necessary, then add the diced avocado, stirring gently to avoid mashing it.

Notes: You could use any kind of lentil here, but I favor the black or green varieties over ordinary brown lentils when I'm making salads, because they keep their shape much better. If you would like to make it ahead, it should keep very well in the refrigerator for quite some time, but I would not add the avocado until the last minute, since it begins to brown very quickly after being cut open.