Granny's Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies

 

Granny's Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies  (Source: Maida Heatter's Cookies (Andrews & McMeel Publishing, 1997 ed.), pg. 63.

Another holiday season, another sugar cookie recipe. These cookies are very good with an nice lemon flavor. However, I found the dough hard to work with - very sticky and requires a lot of flour to keep it manageable.  A few years ago, I made the Plain Old-Fashioned Sugar Cookies and I recall that the dough was easier to work with. Still, these are quite delicious and they last a long time if kept airtight.

1 3/4 sifted all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
4 oz. unsalted butter
Finely grated rind of 2 lemons
1 TBS. lemon juice
1 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
2 TBS. whipping cream

Cinnamon Sugar

1 TBS. granulated sugar
1/3 tsp. cinnamon
Pinch of nutmeg

Sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Set aside.

Beat the butter until soft.

 

Beat in the lemon rind, juice and sugar.

 

Beat in the eggs and the whipping cream.

 

Add the flour mixture until smooth.

 

Turn the dough out onto wax paper or plastic wrap. Wrap and refrigerate overnight.

 

When ready to bake, preheat oven to 375. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper or foil.

Cut the dough into thirds. Roll out the dough until thin (about 1/8 inch). If the dough is cold, pound it to soften up slightly. 

 

Cut out the cookies with a cookie cutter (about 3") and place them on the baking sheets about 1/2 inch apart. 

 

Sprinkle the cinnamon sugar over the cookies.

 

Bake for 10-13 minutes. The cookies are done when they are sandy-colored and dark around the rims. Transfer to a rack to cool.

Abby Mandel's Boule de Neige (Snowball)

 

Abby Mandel's Boule de Neige (Snowball) (Source: Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts (Andrews & McMeel Publishing, 2006 ed.), pg. 201.

For New Year's Day, I wanted to make my favorite type of dessert - something chocolate-y, maybe gooey, rich, decadent. I was about to settle on a cheesecake when I came across this recipe. Jackpot! I don't want to over-do the gushing but oh my word, this thing is divine!

This is in Maida's chocolate book and it is attributed to Abby Mandel, a chef and cookbook writer who I was unfamiliar with. She helped found the Green City Market in Chicago and wrote a book in 1982 with Cuisinart recipes that is apparently still well admired, judging by the reviews I was reading.  

Speaking of the food processor, Maida gives an aside to this recipe and describes how Mandel put it all together in less than a minute. So I opted to try it Mandel's way and it is indeed very fast and easy. The description here is the Mandel method. Maida's involves doing it in a mixing bowl, similar to the way she does most recipes.

How to describe this? Well, I would say it falls somewhere between a cheesecake and a mousse. It is very creamy and rich with a distinct coffee flavor (I might reduce the coffee granules next time but not by much). A little piece goes a long way...

Unfortunately it doesn't serve up that pretty. It is very delicate and I finally resorted to using a cake lifter to get it on a plate in one piece. You can see the photo at the bottom of the page.

A note about the bowl to use - at first I thought I wasn't going to be able to make this because I had a hard time locating one. You need a mixing bowl with a 6-8 cup capacity. A deeper, more dome-shaped bowl would be idea but I did not have one. The bowl can be glass or metal but does need to be ovenproof. I ended up using a glass bowl. 

One more bit of advice - after making the topping, you might think that there isn't going to be enough to cover the cake. I certainly thought so but turns out there is plenty. So as you are piping, don't be afraid to pipe the rosettes right next to each other to avoid gaps.

 

8 oz. semisweet chocolate (in small pieces)
2 tsp. dry instant coffee
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup boiling water
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) sweet butter (room temperature, cut into small pieces)
4 large eggs
1 TBS. Cognac or dark rum

Line an oven-proof mixing bowl (glass, metal or pottery) with foil. Set aside.
(See note above about bowl size.)

 

Place the chocolate, instant coffee and sugar in a food processor bowl.
Pulse until finely chopped.

With the processor running, add the boiling water through the feeder tube.
Process until the chocolate is melted.

Add the butter until blended.

Add the eggs.

Add the rum or Cognac. Process about 15 seconds.

Pour into the foil-lined bowl.

Bake for 55 minutes at 350 degrees. When done, the top will be puffy and cracked.

Let the bowl stand at room temperature until the cake has cooled. The cake will shrink as it cools, especially in the center. To help level it, place a piece of wax paper over the cake, touching it, and gently press down. Do this several times as the cake is cooling. After the cake has cooled, remove the wax paper and wrap the bowl in plastic wrap. Refrigerate (or freeze).

The next day, remove from the refrigerator and invert onto a serving plate.

Carefully peel off the foil.

Return to the refrigerator until you are ready to apply the topping.

Whipped Cream Topping

1 cup heavy cream
2 TBS. granulated sugar
2 tsp. Cognac or dark rum

Whip the cream in a chilled bowl with chilled beaters until it holds a shape.

Add the sugar and the Cognac or rum and continue to whip until it holds a shape but not too stiff.

Transfer the cream to a pastry bag with a star tip. Cover the cake with rosettes of the whipped cream. (Hint: Place your rosettes so that they are touching each other - closer than what I did. It will look as though you do not have enough cream but there should be plenty.)

Return to the refrigerator.

Neapolitans

 

Neapolitans  (Source: Maida Heatter's Cookies (Andrews & McMeel Publishing, 1997 ed.), pg. 171.

Here is a festive-looking cookie, perfect for the holidays. The recipe had always intimidated me and I thought they would be a challenge - two different doughs, overnight chilling, etc. However, I was wrong and although maybe a bit time-consuming, they are quite simple to make and actually fun to put together.

Doing an Internet search brings up photos of other Neapolitan cookies and most of them have three colors - white, dark and pink (like the ice cream). This one is different from all of those but the ingredients sound similar. 

Another surprise is the taste - I expected them to be a firm cookies. But I was wrong - they are soft and almost chewy.  

I know that there have been food shortages this year and I wonder if that is the reason I had difficulty locating the candied cherries. I usually see mountains of it piled up in the grocery stores this time of year. I had to go to three different stores before finally finding them at Fred Meyer.

One half of the dough makes a good quantity of cookies. The remaining half can be saved for baking later, which is what I did.

 

Dark Dough  

3 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
6 oz. semi-sweet chocolate, finely chopped
8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 tsp. instant coffee
1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar, firmly packed
2 eggs
5 oz. (1 cup) nuts (pine nuts, pistachios, walnuts or pecans), cut into medium-sized pieces

You will use a 11 x 5 x 3 loaf pan for this or a pan with a 8-9 cup capacity (or you can use two smaller pans). Criss cross the pan with foil that is long enough to make handles so that you can easily lift it out of the pan.

 

Sift together the flour, salt, baking soda, clove and cinnamon and set aside.

Cream the butter. Add the brown sugar...

and the instant coffee

Mix in the eggs.

Add the chocolate.

Add the sifted dry ingredients.

Beat in the nuts.

 

Set the dough aside and prepare the second dough.

Light Dough

2 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
4 oz. (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 tsp. almond extract
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 TBS. water
1 egg
3/4 cup currants (unchopped) or raisins (coarsely chopped)
Finely grated rind of 1 large lemon
12 candied red cherries, cut into quarters
12 candied green cherries, cut into quarters

This is made in pretty much the same fashion with a few different ingredients.

Sift the flour, salt and baking soda and set aside.

Cream the butter.

Add the vanilla and almond extracts, the sugar and the water.

Mix in the eggs.

On low speed, add the sifted ingredients, scarping the bowl as necessary.

Mix in the raisins (or currants), the lemon zest and the cherries.

Place about half of the dark dough in the pan and press it firmly down with your fingertips.

 

Spread all of the light dough over the dark and press firmly down.

 

Cover the top with wax paper or foil and press down.

 

Chill the dough overnight in the freezer or refrigerator.

To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 400. Line the cookie sheets with parchment or foil. 

Remove the dough from the pan carefully. 

Cut the dough in half lengthwise. You can freeze one half for later use or bake both now. If you plan to bake both, replace one in the freezer while you prepare the other.

Cut the dough into slices about 1/4 inch thick. (If the dough crumbles, it needs more chilling).

 

Place the slices 1" apart on the cookie sheets.

Bake for 10 minutes or until the light dough is lightly colored. Watch carefully as the dark dough can burn easily.

Transfer to a wire rack to cool.