Archive for the ‘Cookies and Bars’ Category

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Tea and Biscuits

Friday, February 25th, 2011

 
Alas, once again I am unprepared for the Academy Awards. I’ll watch the ceremony, OF COURSE, but I’m not having a party. And the only nominated film I have seen this season is How to Train Your Dragon.
 
I guess I spend too much time with the very young and the very old!
 
Not having seen most of the films doesn’t keep me from thinking about what might have been eaten in them. I may not have a dish for each of the best-picture nominees as I did in my filmgoing heyday, but I did want to offer one recipe for those of you who are looking for an Oscar nibble this year. 

I have seen photos of Helena Bonham Carter pouring tea as Queen Elizabeth, consort of King George VI (Colin Firth), in The King’s Speech, so I know that tea and biscuits are appropriate for this film.

 
It’s one of the nominated films I really look forward to seeing. History, human drama, tea, and Colin Firth all in one cinematic package. Not to mention a celebration of the human voice. Who could ask for anything more?
 
I was tickled to learn that PG Tips Tea is holding a King’s Speech/Oscar tea contest.
 
This British tea company bills itself as “the ONLY tea being served in the Oscars’ Green Room.”
 
I’m not sure this is a huge honor since I have a feeling that the Hollywood glitterati might favor stronger beverages on Oscar night. But a tea-party contest is a fun idea.
 
PG Tips is inviting tea fans to send in photos of people sipping its tea at an Oscar party. Where the photos are supposed to be sent is a mystery, but I have asked the company’s publicist to let me know. When she does I’ll update this blog post.
 
Meanwhile, here’s a recipe for shortbread, a cookie type that always goes well with tea.
 
Unfortunately, I don’t have any George VI china for my Oscar party. I did find a little cup in our China cupboard from the coronation of his father, George V (played in the film by Michael Gambon).
 
The back of the cup features the lyrics to “God Save the King.” 

I have a feeling that director Tom Hooper and company will be humming that song quietly Sunday night as the envelopes are opened………

 
King’s Speech Shortbread
 
Ingredients:
 
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
1/3 cup confectioner’s sugar
1 pinch salt
1 pinch baking powder
1 cup flour
 
Instructions:
 
Thoroughly blend the butter and the sugar. Beat in the salt and baking powder; then stir in the flour.
 
The mixture will be crumbly!
 
Mold your crumbs into a ball or at least a blob. Wrap the blob in waxed paper and refrigerate it for 1 hour.
 
At the end of the hour preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
 
Gently pat the blob into a 1/4- inch-thick rectangle on a silicone mat or a plastic cutting board. Cut the rectangle into 12 smaller rectangles. Gently place the rectangles on an unbuttered cookie sheet.
 
Prick holes in the rectangles. Bake the cookies—pardon me, the biscuits–for 20 to 25 minutes until they begin to turn golden on the edges. 

Cool on a cookie rack. Makes 12 cookies.

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Posted in Cookies and Bars | 15 Comments »

The Twelfth Cookie of Christmas

Friday, December 24th, 2010

 
I’m sorry to say that the cookies I’m sharing with you (metaphorically, at any rate) today are not my finest work.
 
There’s nothing wrong with the recipe, I assure you. But some cookie batches—and days—don’t turn out QUITE the way we hope they will.
 
Yesterday was my birthday. We weren’t planning a family celebration until tonight due to the Washington Capitals’ nefarious habit of scheduling hockey games on my birthday every year. 
 
My brother, sister-in-law, and nephew love me, but they are die-hard Caps fans, and I don’t want to ask them to choose between hockey and me. I don’t think I’d be happy with their choice.
 
I had only two simple goals for the day. I wanted to buy some peppermint-stick ice cream, my annual birthday treat. And I wanted to post my last cookie recipe for this year.
 
The day started out nicely with phone calls, emails, and Facebook messages wishing me a happy birthday. At about 10:30 in the morning it went downhill.
 
It wasn’t an awful day by any means.
 
I wasn’t hit by a truck.
 
I didn’t start a fire in the new apartment–unless you count the little melt down on one of the stove burners. (I really HATE electric stoves.)
 
My near and dear remained reasonably hale and hearty.
 
I did spend an awful lot of the day cleaning up after a slightly sick mother, however. I won’t go into details, but the clean up involved back-to-back laundry that lasted well into the night and a lot of on-my-knees scrubbing.
 
When she wasn’t being sick, the mother was longing to go for long walks in the open air—until she actually felt the wind blowing on her face.
 
I popped her into the car to search for the ice cream. She enjoyed the ride, but the frozen treat didn’t materialize. We found egg-nog ice cream and gingerbread ice cream. For some reason, peppermint stick was impossible to come by.
 
Luckily, my brother showed up in the middle of the afternoon to visit with the mother so I could work on the cookies.
 
Nevertheless, the baking process got a bit muddled. First I put too much milk in the dough (the recipe below gives the correct, not the Tinky, amount of milk).
 
Then I sprinkled sugar everywhere and spilled dough on the kitchen floor.
 
I couldn’t find my cutting board so I tried rolling the cookies out on a plate. They were a bit misshapen.
 
Finally, I tried to answer the phone while measuring vanilla and ended up with very pungent icing.
 
After all this I just plain didn’t have the energy to color and pipe the icing. I simply slathered icing onto the cookies, took advantage of the wonderful holiday sprinkles Wilton recently sent to me (really, I think sprinkles could save the world), and threw the things onto a plate.
 
As you can see from the photo above, I let the setting sun do its thing and dapple the cookies; I figured the light was nature’s decoration. And who am I to mess with nature?
 
Luckily, the cookies still tasted amazingly good—and brightened the day considerably. My mother also brightened up after a dose of sugar and sprinkles. She tried to feed one to the dog, but I explained that Truffle wouldn’t be able to fit into her Santa suit if she ate cookies.
 
My birthday wasn’t a perfect day, but it ended with laughter and good flavors. And I consoled myself with the thought that I will get a redo next year when I turn 39 yet again.
 
Merry Christmas to all. And remember, a loving family, sprinkles, and a cute dog can get you through just about any minor disaster.
 
Marge’s Star Sugar Cookies
 
This cookie recipe was given to me years ago by my friend and fellow thespian Marge Matthews. It’s simple and tasty. What more does one need in a Christmas cookie?
 
Ingredients:
 
3/4 cup butter (1-1/2 sticks)
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 egg
4 teaspoons milk
2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
 
Instructions:
 
Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla. Add the egg and milk, and beat until light and fluffy. Blend the dry ingredients and stir them into the creamed mixture.
 

Divide the dough into manageable pieces (2 or 3; it depends on how comfortable you are rolling out dough). Cover the dough, and chill it for at least one hour.
 
On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough to a thickness of 1/8 inch. Cut into shapes and bake on an ungreased cookie sheet at 375 degrees for 5 to 8 minutes (if you roll them out clumsily you may have to wait 10 minutes), or until the cookies begin to turn golden around the edges. 

Decorate with icing and/or sprinkles. Makes about 3 dozen cookies.


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Posted in Cookies and Bars, Holiday Foods, The Twelve Cookies of Christmas | 9 Comments »

Cranberry Key-Lime Squares

Tuesday, November 30th, 2010
 
Just in the nick of time here is my November recipe for my Twelve Cookies of Christmas series!
 
It combines two of my favorite flavors, cranberries and key lime. If you’re not a fan of tart foods, you may skip the cranberries and just make key-lime bars. The cranberries lend lovely holiday color and flavor, however.
 
One could also counteract the tartness by adding a tad more sugar. I like my bars tart, however. And I did put LOTS of confectioner’s sugar on top of the bars; they looked a bit like the ground after a dusting of snow.  (The cranberries represent our hardy New England rocks!)

Until December……

 
 
Ingredients:
 
for the crust:
 
1 cup flour
6 tablespoons confectioner’s sugar
1/4 teaspoon sat
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
 
for the middle:
 
1/2 to 2/3 cup cranberries
 
for the filling and top:
 
2 eggs
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons key-lime juice
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons flour
confectioner’s sugar as needed for dusting
 
Instructions:
 
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter an 8-inch-square pan.
 
First, prepare the butter crust. In a small bowl combine the flour, confectioner’s sugar, and salt. Cut in the butter.
 
Press this mixture (it will be crumbly!) into the bottom of the prepared pan. Bake for 25 minutes.
 
Remove the pan from the oven and allow it to cool for 5 minutes. Press the cranberries into the crust (they may or may not press down effectively; if they float up, they will be just fine!).
 
Move on to the key-lime filling. In a bowl whisk together the eggs, sugar, salt, and key-lime juice until they are thoroughly combined. Whisk in the milk, followed by the flour.
 
Pour the filling over the crust and cranberries, and return the pan to the oven. Bake until the filling sets and the edges are just a little brown. In my oven this took about 45 minutes.
 
Allow the bars to cool in their pan; then cut them into squares. 

Makes 16 squares.


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Claire’s Spooky Whoopie Pies

Friday, October 29th, 2010

 
A few months ago my sister-in-law Leigh came home from her friend Claire Bradshaw’s house with several delectable whoopee pies.
 
The first thing I did was eat one, of course!
 
The second thing I did was call Claire and ask her for her recipe.
 
These pies are versatile. They can be filled with a marshmallow filling or a peanut butter filling. For Christmas I’m thinking of trying peppermint! I’m sure you’ll hear about that experiment.
 
Meanwhile, a plain butter frosting with a little spooky topping will stand me in good stead for Halloween. 

Claire suggested the spider-web design, and I’m sure she would do it much more neatly than I did (not a hard feat!).

 
Claire’s Spider-Web Pies
 
Ingredients:
 
for the pies:
 
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 egg
1-1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
5 tablespoons cocoa
1 cup milk
 
for the filling:
 
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter at room temperature
confectioner’s sugar as necessary to achieve desired consistency (I used about 2-1/2 cups)
2 teaspoons vanilla
milk or cream if necessary to stir
 
for assembly: 

candies and/or sprinkles if desired

 
Instructions:
 
Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease 3 nonstick baking sheets. (You may use silicone or parchment, but I found that these particular cookies stick less on well greased sheets.)
 
In a large bowl cream the butter and sugar until they are creamy. Beat in the egg, the soda and salt, and the vanilla.
 
In another bowl combine the flour and cocoa. Add this mixture to the butter mixture, alternating with the milk. Combine just until smooth.
 
Drop tablespoons of the dough onto your cookie sheets 2 inches apart. (I used a little cookie scoop I got from King Arthur Flour to make the cookies as uniform as possible.)
 
Bake the cookies until they are firm when lightly touched (about 10 minutes).
 
Remove the cookies from the sheets as quickly as you can and put them on racks to cool completely.
 
When the cookies are cool make your filling. Beat the butter until it is soft; then add the confectioner’s sugar a little at a time. It will be a bit lumpy, but the vanilla should make everything adhere nicely. If it doesn’t, stir in a little milk or cream.
 
Spread a small amount of filling on the bottom of one cookie and top it with another cookie to make a little sandwich. Continue until all of your sandwiches are complete.
 

For extra Halloween fun, pipe a little filling on top of some of the pies in a spider web pattern and put a little candy spider in the web. I gave up on this project fairly quickly because I’m hopeless at making things like spider webs. You could also spread a little filling on top of some of the pies. Or just enjoy the chocolaty goodness without any adornment.

Truffle was not allowed to sample these particular treats, but she still hopes for some kind of Halloween handout.

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The Ghost Farmer

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

Jody Cothey (Courtesy of Pleasure Boat Studio)

 
Jody Cothey scribbles bits of poetry on little pieces of paper as she goes about her daily chores.
 
A farmer as well as a writer, the poet lives and works in the hills of East Hawley, Massachusetts, where she and her husband Edward run Tregellys Fiber Farm. There they raise yaks, Icelandic sheep, Bactrian camels, and several dogs as well as other exotic and non-exotic animals.
 
Jody, whose pen name is Pamela Stewart, is attuned to the seasons and the cycles of nature. Her farm, animals, and companions appear in her new collection of poetry, Ghost Farm, released by Pleasure Boat Studio.
 
So do feelings about love and loss, the aging process, and the joys of literature and music. 

I recently talked to Jody about her life and her poetry—and of course I asked her for a recipe! 

Courtesy of www.carabs.com

I was curious about the origins of the fiber farm. She explained that she met her husband in Cornwall, where she was working on a poetry project. The two spent seven years in the U.K. before returning to the U.S.
 
They lived in Montague, Massachusetts, for several years until he suggested a change in lifestyle. “Ed, who used to work on a dairy farm, said, ‘I miss animals. Let’s get a farm,’” recalled his wife. Tregellys Fiber Farm grew out of that longing.
 
Jody laughed in retrospect at the potential folly of the project. “We got this farm and made it too big. But if I hadn’t gone along, I would never have experienced the stuff I have.
 
“I would never have learned to spin. I would never have met a camel. I would never have met the Tibetan people that we love,” she said. She added, “I think the farm is the center for the poet in me.”
  

Courtesy of www.carabs.com

 
Nevertheless, she admitted that sometimes the farm overwhelms her poetry. She explained that she loves to run errands in her car. “That’s when I have time for me.”
 
When she has enough scraps of paper with snippets of poetry saved up, she takes a break from farming and goes to Wellspring House, a writers’ retreat in nearby Ashfield, which she called “a godsend.”
 
“I wouldn’t have been able to write the poems [in Ghost Farm] without it,” she noted. “I recommend it to anyone who needs to get away.”
 
About her writing process, she stated, “I write before I think. I have to write and then think. My angle is just scribbling everything. Then later I follow through on my scribbling.”
 
She compared composing a poem to making a soup or a stew. “You can start with something and then add something else and so on but you can’t always take things out.”
 
Asked whether she thinks of herself primarily as a poet or a farmer, Jody laughed. “Mostly I think of myself as a person with a large streak of housemother right now.
 
“It involves taking care of dogs, our friend’s son who’s about to turn 17, and my husband; and having my mother live with us,” she explained. “I feel that I think as a poet but it doesn’t often come out in daily life….
 
“I do what I want to do. I know other people for whom poetry is their all-consuming life. It’s not my all consuming thing. It’s a part of me.”
 
Jody agreed that poetry is not our culture’s most popular or most celebrated art form. Nevertheless, she clearly values it highly herself.
 
“I think poetry itself has a spiritual life of its own. It will always be there no matter what the culture or the society or the age is busy doing…. If you catch into it at any age, it becomes a part of you,” she said.
 
“When I’m doing it, I’m in touch with something that’s bigger than me and causes me joy–and sometimes agony, but mostly joy.”
 
Jody Cothey (and/or Pamela Stewart) will read from Ghost Farm and sign copies of her new book this afternoon at 2 pm at Boswell’s Books in Shelburne Falls. Massachusetts.
 
If you can’t make the signing, you may get her book from Boswell’s or from the publisher, Pleasure Boat Studio.
 
While you’re reading it you might like try nibble on one of Jody’s Ghost Farm Cookies.
 
When I asked for a recipe, Jody happily gave me these simple brown cookies. Their plain exterior belies their richness. “They are brown cookies—my forte,” she told me, “but lovely and crumbly/buttery.” 

I liked them so much I’m adding them to my Twelve Cookies of Christmas collection.

 
 
Ingredients:
 
1 cup (2 sticks) sweet butter at room temperature
1/2 cup dark (or light!) brown sugar, firmly packed
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups flour
 
Instructions:
 
Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Cream together the butter, brown sugar, and soda. Stir in 1 cup of the flour. Transfer the dough to a board (on which you have sprinkled part of the second cup of flour!) and knead it.
 
Knead in the remaining flour. The dough will be quite stiff by the time you finish incorporating all the flour.
 
Jody suggests a number of ways in which to shape her cookies, including rolling them out and cutting them. Here’s what I did: I rolled my dough into three logs and cut each log into little cylinders. I then pressed the cylinders into little flat circles.
 
Place the cookies on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake them for 15 to 20 minutes. Let them cool on the cookie sheet for a few minutes before transferring them to a wire rack to finish cooling. 

Makes about 24 cookies (depending on how big you cut/roll them).

Courtesy of www.carabs.com

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