12 Days of Cookies Archives - Page 5 of 6

Soft Gingerbread Tiles with Rum Butter Glaze: Day 6, 12 Days of Cookies!

By threejamigos | December 22, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

My kitchen gadget addiction got the best of me yet again. The culprit? A beautiful holiday cookie from Ottolenghi’s latest book, Sweet, Soft Gingerbread Tiles with Rum Butter Glaze. The cookies are made with either an embossed rolling pin (which I purchased to make graham crackers not so long ago) or cookie stamps holiday or all season, which I had to have. After my cookie stamps arrived I immediately set out to make these.

The dough is a snap to make. The aroma that filled my kitchen while they baked made me smile. The cookies are soft, cakey and spicy. Just like a classic gingerbread cookie.

The recipe calls for blackstrap molasses which is the last extraction of sugar from sugarcane. It’s pretty bitter. The first extraction produces cane syrup (like Golden Syrup), the next produces molasses and the final extraction, with even less sugar left, produces blackstrap molasses. I wanted to be faithful to the recipe so I used blackstrap molasses. The cookies are not very sweet at all. I learned that regular molasses is about 70% sugar whereas blackstrap is about 40%, BIG difference. I plan on trying this recipe with both cane syrup and regular molasses just for the added sweetness.

The most difficult part of the recipe is stamping the cookies. During baking, the cookies will rise and the pattern blurs a bit so be sure to press the cookies well so the imprint is really bold and defined in the dough.

I tried two methods for stamping the cookies. For the first method, the dough is rolled into a sheet about 1/4 inch thick, stamped and cut out with a round cookie cutter. For the second method, the do/ugh is rolled into a ball (about 1.5-2 tablespoons of dough) which is then pressed with the stamp to create a cookie. Both methods worked well.

I love the rum butter glaze. It was really easy to put together and added a sheen and sweetness/flavor to the cookie. Though I brushed the glaze on, I think dipping the cookie or spreading the glaze with a spatula would make a nicer finish. The cookie does need to be warm when glazing.

These cookies are a showstopper. I can’t wait to bake another batch.

Gingerbread Tiles with Butter Rum Icing: Day 6, 12 Days of Cookies!

A delicious and festive gingerbread with rum glaze from Ottolenghi

Course cookies, sweets

Cuisine American, British

Keyword gingerbread, holidays, ottolenghi, Peanut and Bittersweet Chocolate Cookie

Prep Time 30

Cook Time 10

Ingredients

Dough: Da Wet Mix

6 tbsp 85 g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/3 packed cup plus 2 tbsp 90 g dark brown sugar
1/4 cup 100 g blackstrap molasses (can substitute golden syrup or reg molasses 1:1 for sweeter cookie)
1 large egg yolk*

Da Dry MIx

1 3/4 cups plus 2 tbsp all-purpose flour (235 gms) plus extra for pressing
1 tbsp Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Rum-Butter Glaze:

2/3 cup 80 g confectioners' sugar
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tbsp 15 g unsalted butter, melted and warm
1 tbsp dark rum or lemon juice
1 tsp warm water

*On Food52 it was suggested to use extra-large egg yolk or add 1 teaspoon-1 tablespoon of water to dough if it doesn't come together. I added about 1 teaspoon water. It won't come together until you knead it). Makes 12–14 depending on the size of stamp and cutter

Instructions

Preheat the oven to 375°F/190°C.
Place the butter, sugar and molasses in the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment in place.
Beat on medium speed until smooth and incorporated. Add the egg yolk and continue to beat until fully combined.
Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, salt and pepper into a bowl. Turn the speed of the mixer to low, and add the dry ingredients to the butter and molasses. Once the mix comes together, tip the dough onto a lightly floured work surface and knead gently.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.

Forming Cookies: Rolling dough

Roll out the dough so that it is about 1/4 inch/ 0.5 cm thick. If the dough is very soft, you will need to chill it.*
Dip cookie stamp in a small bowl of flour, shake off any excess, then press them firmly into the dough, one at a time to create a deep imprint. How far you need to press to get an imprint will depend on your stamp; the patterns on some are more deeply cut than others. Bear in mind that the cookies rise a little when cooked, so any soft imprints will disappear.
Using a round cookie cutter that is slightly larger than the pattern, cut out the pieces of imprinted gingerbread. Transfer the cookies to the lined baking sheets, spaced about 3/4 inch/2 cm apart. Reroll the dough and continue to stamp and cut cookies until all the dough is used up.

Stamping Cookies: No Rolling

I also tried instructions from the cookie stamps, roll 2 tablespoons of dough into a ball and flatten with cookie stamp. With both methods, make sure you press firmly enough to create a bold definite pattern in dough!
Bake for 9–10 minutes, rotating the sheets halfway through, until firm to the touch. They will continue to firm up as they cool, so don’t be tempted to bake them for any longer.

Rum Glaze

Make the rum butter glaze while the gingerbreads are in the oven, as the glaze needs to be brushed onto the cookies while they are still warm.
Sift the confectioners’ sugar and cinnamon into a small bowl. Add the melted butter, rum (or lemon juice) and water and mix with a spoon until smooth. The glaze will thicken slightly if it sits around, if so stir a little more warm water in if you need—it should be the consistency of runny honey.
Remove the cookies from the oven, leave them to cool for 5 minutes, then brush or dab the glaze all over with a pastry brush. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Notes

If you want to keep the glaze booze-free, the rum in the icing can be replaced with lemon juice.

Make-Ahead: Once the dough is made, it can be covered in plastic wrap and kept in the fridge for up to 2 days before baking.

Storage: These will keep for up to 5 days in an airtight container. The glaze will discolor and crack a little, but this will not affect how they taste.

Mighty Mouse? No, Mighty Jamie To Save the Day (12 Days of Cookies)

By threejamigos | December 16, 2017 | Comments 1 comment

My Christmas present arrived early this year. The twins are home! Lucky for me Jamie is in a baking mood and immediately tackled one of our favorite cookie books, Dorie’s Cookies. So, without further ado…

Heeeeeere’s Jamie with Day 3, 4, and 5 of our 12 Days of Cookies

Hey everyone! Jamie here. Home for the holidays! I got home Thursday night, so naturally, I have already baked three different kinds of cookies. I decided that mom needed some help with completing her “12 Days of Cookies” blog posts. Between you and me, she gets MAJORLY stressed when she bakes during the holidays, so knocking out three different cookies for her is really just me trying to make my holidays a lot more pleasant. But don’t tell her I said that.

To be honest, I’m really not a cookie person. I’d much rather eat a slice of super dense chocolate cake than a gooey chocolate chip cookie. Call me crazy, I know. I will say that baking cookies is a little more enjoyable than baking cakes. It’s SO easy! They take a 3rd of the time to bake, and once you bake them you don’t have to spend extra time making more frosting or fillings which really means I only have to do dishes once. (HUGE).

I picked these three cookies because they looked pretty easy to me, and their pictures in the cookbook looked pretty good. The Swedish Visiting Cake Bars are better cold and almost have a custard-like taste to them. My dad wasn’t super thrilled about all the almonds on top, but I think they add a nice crunch. They are more cake-like than you would expect, but they have an awesome almond flavor that I am a huge sucker for. These cookie-cake bars definitely grew on me. The Snowy Topped Brownie Drops are basically small lumps of brownies with a ton of powdered sugar on them–what’s not to like??? Unless you don’t like chocolate. My least favorite part of these cookies is that the dough must be chilled for at least 3 hours. I tend to get impatient and want to finish baking all in one fell swoop. But my dad did say that they are his favorite of the three, so maybe it’s worth it. Last but not least, the Coffee Malteds cookies. I made a tiny mistake (or a huge mistake if you talk to my mom) when I didn’t sift the malted milk powder before mixing it into the wet ingredients, so my cookies have some weird lumps of malted milk powder in them. But other than that, they taste pretty good (ps. you can’t even taste the weird lumps so w/e). I dipped them in chocolate, which in my opinion makes them 10000000 times better. We are taking the cookies to our annual pre-school cookie exchange tomorrow, so we’ll see which one is everyone’s favorite!

HI CLAIRE

Ho Ho Ho! Yo-Yo’s are here! Day 2 Holiday Cookies

By threejamigos | December 14, 2017 | Comments 0 Comment

Day 2 of 12 days of Cookies. I am off to a slow start having posted the first cookie days ago. But I promise, this cookie will make up for the wait. Once again I found a delicious treat in Ottolenghi’s dessert book, Sweet. Yep, my new fav. I am a sucker for shortbread and their Yo-Yos are just that, buttery, melt in your mouth shortbread cookies. They didn’t stop there, the cookies are then paired with a luscious buttercream to make an absolutely delicious sandwich cookie. Perfect for a holiday cookie platter.

The cookies are made with custard powder, an English invention. A thickening agent like cornstarch, the custard powder gives the cookies their sandy texture. The addition of annatto to the powder creates that lovely yellow-orange hue. I found Bird’s Custard Powder at a local Indian supermarket, cornstarch can be used instead but I love the color from the Bird’s Custard.

The dough comes together quickly. Dry ingredients are sifted into a bowl and butter cut into it. The mixture starts out very dry and crumbly but after adding the vanilla and increasing the speed of the mixer the dough comes together nicely.

Use a tablespoon ice cream scoop to measure out portions of dough. Roll each scoop into a smooth round ball and then smoosh each with a fork.

I have a confession to make. I couldn’t find rhubarb so I substituted strawberries instead to make the buttercream. The berries give the buttercream both flavor and color and make very striking sandwich cookies. No wonder they call these cookies Yo-Yos. Can’t wait until rhubarb is in season.

and to get you into the holiday baking mood….Mariah

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