Category: Slice & Bake

All Things Reconsidered (Raspberry Diamants)

All Things Reconsidered (Raspberry Diamants)

Not all was amazing during our impromptu trip to New York for my cousin Mike’s surprise party in January (here is the good stuff though, from my The Big Apple post).  After visiting Ground Zero, we headed to Payard’s, a well known French bakery with an outpost on Houston Street.  All I can say is maybe it was an off day, but the pastries were disappointing at best.  We ordered a lemon tart, an oatmeal cookie and a Napoleon.  The Napoleon and cookie weren’t memorable at all, which is a good thing because the lemon tart was memorable because it was NOT good.  The crust (I love crust) was so tough we had to use our knife and fork to chisel through it.

Ugh, so Disappointing

I went up to the counter (ok, never said I wasn’t obnoxious) and asked “what one item in here would prove to me that Payard is worth his reputation.  To her credit she laughed and gave me a complimentary slice of the Payard Tart.  It was ok, definitely better than the lemon tart.

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Anyway You Slice It

When we first arrived I spied his book Payard Cookies on display and my reaction was oh nooo, not another cookbook and its about cookies!  My cookbook addiction was about to rear it’s ugly head since I seldom pass up the opportunity to add to my collection.

After trying the desserts I walked out without a copy.

You might be asking where is this story going?  Well, having put Payard Cookies out of my mind I was perusing a favorite blog, Ipso-Fatto recently and to my surprise she had posted glowing reviews of a couple of cookies from Payard.  Well, maybe we did catch Payard on a bad day. I tried the Raspberry Diamants and you know, they’re pretty darn good and a breeze to make.

It is a slice and bake cookie which I love, so flippin’ easy.  You can make the dough in advance and leave it in the fridge.  You can bake as many or as few as you want and freeze the remaining dough for a rainy day.  These cookies are a riff on sables’, the French version of shortbread cookies.  Diamont, French for diamonds, refers to the sparkly edge on the cookies created by rolling the dough in coarse sugar before baking.  Description done, let’s go make some delicious cookies!

It’s Berry Good

Adding raspberry jam makes this cookie a little softer than a classic sable’.  Which gives the cookies a sweet tart flavor and flecks of red color.  Payard adds red food coloring to the dough to make the cookies pink but I didn’t.  Use jam with seeds, it adds a bit of crunch.  You can kick these cookies up a notch by making a sandwich cookie using raspberry jam for the filling or a raspberry buttercream.  Oh snap.

Uh-oh looks like I may be adding yet another cookbook to my collection.

All Things Reconsidered (Raspberry Diamants from Payard)

Prep Time 20 minutes
Total Time 45 minutes

Ingredients

Adapted from Payard Cookies

  • 14 tablespoons 200gms unsalted butter, room temperature
  • 2/3 cup 80 gms powdered sugar
  • 1 large egg yolk reserve egg white
  • 1/4 cup 60gms raspberry jam with seeds (I used TJ's)
  • 1-3 drops of liquid red food coloring optional
  • 1 3/4 cups 225gms all purpose flour
  • Pinch of salt
  • 1 cup 200gms granulated sugar or sanding sugar

Instructions

  • In a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat softened butter with powdered sugar until fully combined. Add egg yolk, raspberry jam, and food coloring. Mix until well combined.
  • Add flour and salt and mix only until dough comes together. Careful to not overmix.
  • Place dough on piece of parchment paper and roll into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Freeze dough for approximately 2 hours, or until log is chilled all the way through. You can freeze dough for up until one month.
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment.
  • Remove dough from fridge. Put granulated sugar in a large rimmed baking sheet.
  • Brush the reserved egg white on the outside of the cookie dough.
  • Roll in granulated sugar until completely coated. Return to fridge for 5 minutes to chill.
  • Remove from fridge and slice roll into 1/4 inch slices. Place on parchment lined sheet approximately 1 inch apart.
  • Bake for 8-10 minutes or until cookies just begin to turn color and the edges are golden brown.
  • Remove cookies from oven and transfer to a cooling rack. Cool completely and store in an airtight container for up to one week.
Cookie Sleuth (Sally’s Sesame Cookies)

Cookie Sleuth (Sally’s Sesame Cookies)

Day 4 of the 12 Days of Cookies..surprisingly I’m on schedule…I think

I wanted to choose a song that fit this cookie recipe but instead, I picked a beautiful song that is so relevant to what is happening in our world right now.  Someday at Christmas sung by Jack Johnson.

When it comes to cookies I border on obsessive.  If a recipe doesn’t turn out as expected, I turn into Sherlock Holmes.  The game is afoot to solve the mystery of why a cookie doesn’t taste quite right, why it spreads too much or too little.  I tried different baking sheets and tested parchment versus Silpat.  Maybe it’s the butter, did I cream it too much or too little?   Auugh, enough to drive me bonkers.  I do have a few friends that I  commiserate with who will leave no cookie unturned.  My friend Kristine is like that.  In another life we would both be happily ensconced in America’s Test Kitchen furiously measuring, testing, mixing, tasting.

Swap Cookies and Tips

For our cookie exchange, Kristine made her always-popular sesame cookies.  The recipe was given to her by her mother-in-law Sally.  Much like Benne wafers of the South, these little gems are crispy, buttery, and jam-packed with sesame seeds, a sesame flavor bomb.  Kristine first shared Sally’s cookies and recipe at our inaugural preschool cookie exchange.  I loved them.  I made a batch but they just weren’t the same.  The bottom looked lacey with lots of holes, the texture was different, and the cookie was much too crunchy.

This happens randomly with both tried and true recipes and new recipes.  I  would then e-mail the author of the recipe, call King Arthur Flour’s hotline, or run it by fellow bakers.  At our most recent exchange, though we hadn’t seen each other in quite a while, Kristine and I immediately launched into a conversation about the texture change in my batch of cookies.  Obsessive? Crazy?  You be the judge.

Luckily, Kristine’s batch was perfect!

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This is the perfect holiday recipe.  It is a slice-and-bake cookie.  You can make the dough in advance, throw it in the fridge or freezer, and bake off cookies when you need them.  It makes a boatload of delicious cookies (~ 100 of those bad boys).

Sally's Sesame Cookies

Also known as Bennes, these southern favorites are crisp, light and redolent of sesame
Course cookies, Dessert
Cuisine American
Keyword Benne Wafer, black sesame seeds, cookies, slice and bake, Southern
Prep Time 20 minutes
Cook Time 10 minutes

Ingredients

  • 1 lb. butter 4 sticks
  • 1 ½ c. sugar.
  • 3 c. all purpose flour
  • 1 c. sesame seeds
  • 2 c. Angel flaked coconut sweetened
  • ½ - 1 c. chopped almonds or walnuts.

Instructions

Preheat oven to 300F.

  • Cream 1 lb. butter and 1 ½ c. sugar until blended and smooth. Do not over overmix.
  • Add all purpose flour, sesame seeds, coconut, chopped almonds or walnuts. Mix well. Chill; divide dough into four equal logs. Wrap each roll in plastic and keep refrigerated (may be frozen).
  • Take out one roll at a time and slice ¼ inch. Leave ½” space between cookies.
  • Bake for approximately 30-min. being careful not to over brown. I’ve never baked them the full 30-min.

Makes over 100 cookies.

    Notes

    Recipe is easily halved