Cookie Day - Christmas season 2010

Friday, December 10th was Cookie Day. Cookie Day is a wonderful, annual event where 3 of us get together to make Cucidati - Sicilian Fig-filled cookies. We all make up the dough and filling a day or two before then we converge at someone's house and cook and chat. We are Pat Pauly, Varsi and me. We use Pat's mother's recipe which calls for 10 cups of flour and 1 pound of butter plus other things and this year it was at my house.
Here we are in the midst of production.

How Time Flies

It has been awhile since my last blog. It is not that the baking has ceased, though it did slow down over the summer because, let's face it, a hot stove makes the kitchen hotter. Anyway, I have been productive.  I've made these cookies:

Chocolate Mint Wafers

Chocolate Walnut Slices

Lekvar Squares

Spicy Oatmeal Walnut Cookies

Coconut Tuiles

Pecan Honey Squares

Paste di Meliga (Italian Cornmeal Butter Cookies)

W's (spritz cookies)

Lemon Fruit Swirls (refrigerator cookie)

Champagne Fingers

Pecan Wafers

Cornmeal Biscotti

Caramel Pecan Cookies

Ultimate Lemon Squares

Suvaroffs

Cucidati (Sicilian Fig-filled cookies)

Infasciadedde (Sicilian twisted cookies)

Lemonade Cookies

Sfingi (Cream Puff Pastry Fritters)

Sour Cream Doughnut Holes

Zaleti Bolognesi

Gingery Macadamia Biscotti

Bugnes Arlesiennes (Fried Cookies from Arles)

Osgood Squares

Sicilian Fig Pinwheels

Zeppole (Italian Bread Dough Fritters)

Glazed Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie

Shenkeli (Little Thighs)

Portland Fig Cookies

Appenzeller Biberli (Filled "Beavers" from Appenzell)

Olliebollen (Dutch Currant Fritters)

Basler Leckerli (Basel "Lickers")

Hazelnut Sticks

Kourabiethes Greek Almond cookies

Macadamia Lime Cookies

Elegant Almond Bars

Linzer Roll

Chocolate Hazelnut Truffles

Old-Fashioned Molasses Slices

Railroad Tracks

"Truffled" Breton Shortbreads

Coffee Pecan Meringues

Swiss Raisin Drops

Chocolate Meringue Wreaths

I have pictures of most of these but some are missing. 

To date I have made 125 of the recipes - with approximately 85 to go. I will share my experiences in later blogs. So, stay tuned...

This was an eventful week. Hari's 24th birthday was Tuesday, May 4th. I made 10th Avenue Brownies for his "birthday cake". This brownie recipe is the last brownie recipe in Cookies Unlimited. Onto other categories such as fried cookies, oh my.

Hari is a great guy and I wish him all of the best in life. And the brownies were nice and dense, chocolaty, great for a celebration.

Pastry Bag & Cookie Press

There are 23 recipes in the Piped Cookies chapter. This week I made a 4th and 5th batch of these. As I recall, my first try was the Langues de chat (Cat's tongues). These were thin cookies that spread while cooking and resulted in a thin crispy cookie. My second recipe was a meringue, Walnut Boulders. These were easy because I have made meringues before and so knew what to expect vis a vie consistency, texture, baking times, conditions.
So now we get to the 2 I made this week. One is called W's and the other, Paste di Meliga or Italian Cornmeal Butter Cookies from Piemonte. Both of these cookies called for a pastry bag to be filled and the cookies to be formed by piping shapes through a tip. Right. Both doughs were so dense that it took all of my strength just to get a bit out of the pastry bag. I fought with the bag and surmised that this is how male chefs keep fit. My upper body strength is no match for these cookies.
Anyway I slogged through with the Italian Cornmeal Butter cookies but gave up and used a cookie press on the W's - which became wreath like looking. They both taste alright, but what a pain.
The third offering this week is the Honey Pecan Squares which has a buttery crust topped with a honey, pecan, butter, sugar (what's not to love) topping. The whole thing is baked and then cooled.
I'm off to Pittsburgh to pick up my son, Anil and then we are off to Washington, DC where he will be interning in a medical robotics lab all summer.

Einstein on a Train (nothing to do with cookies)

Einstein was once traveling from Princeton on a train when the conductor came down the aisle, punching the tickets of every passenger. When he came to Einstein, Einstein reached in his vest pocket. He couldn't find his ticket, so he reached in his trouser pockets. It wasn't there, so he looked in his briefcase but couldn't find it.
Then he looked in the seat beside him. He still couldn't find it..

The conductor said, 'Dr. Einstein, I know who you are.  We all know who you are. I'm sure you bought a ticket. 
Don't worry about it.'

Einstein nodded appreciatively. The conductor continued down the aisle punching tickets. As he was ready to move to the next car, he turned around and saw the great physicist down on his hands and knees looking under his seat for his ticket.

The conductor rushed back and said, 'Dr. Einstein, Dr. Einstein, don't worry, I know who you are No problem.
You don't need a ticket.  I'm sure you bought one.'

Einstein looked at him and said, 'Young man, I too, know who I am. 
What I don't know is where I'm going.'' 

More Mandelbrot and Brownies plus ANZAC Biscuits

The other mandelbrot in the book is Carole Walter's Ethereal Mandelbrot. It is a more crumbly biscotti probably because butter is involved. Also this recipe includes pecans. I must admit that pecans have never really been a favorite of mine, but in this recipe the nut gives the mandelbrot a great taste. The dough for this is so sticky I just plopped it on the cookie sheet in two rows and it spread as it baked resulting in a very wide log. 

The brownie is White Chocolate Chunk made with cocoa powder and white chocolate chunks. I may have mentioned this before, but did you know that all chocolate recipes contain vanilla? 

The drop cookie for the week is called ANZAC Biscuit. ANZAC is an acronym for Australia and New Zealand Army Corps and biscuit is the British word for cookie (like crisps = potato chips). They were made during WWII and sent to the "boys" at the front. Interesting cooking technique, you cook the butter, sugar and honey together and add it to the oatmeal, coconut, and flour. Great crispy cookie. I must confess that I didn't share many of these.

Study Brownies

Next week is exam week at my son Anil's school. So in my "good mother" attempt, I made him Pecan Brownies. Wow, what a recipe, loaded with chocolate, eggs, and sugar. What's not to like. I baked them and sent them off. I hope the exams go well.