Grandma's Sugar Cookies

Christmas is, for me, probably above all other things, a time of comfort food.

My father abandoned my mother and me when I was seven, leaving us a mountain of debt and not much else. Doing what was necessary to survive, my mother became a real estate agent. The hours were long and uncertain, and there definitely were no vacations. Luckily, my grandparents were around, so the long breaks (summer and winter) were often spent with them.

Summer generally meant exploration, tooling around the country in a Dodge van converted to a camper. Summers I expanded my horizons, saw new things, and and learned. Summer was Indian fry bread at  various pueblos, carnitas in small cafes, and Canadian pizza.

Winter was about warmth, and comfort, and family. It was a time of deep, rich, satisfying flavors, like my grandfather's exquisite prime rib roast, or roast turkey with sage stuffing (my number one comfort food). And the desserts, oh the desserts! My grandmother's desserts were amazing. Pumpkin and apple pie, homemade mincemeat pie, Christmas steamed pudding, popcorn balls in red and green, date nut porcupines. But, the number one important ritual of the season was making sugar cookies.

And what a production it was! On sugar cookie day, we made enough for ourselves, for me to take home, to give to friends, take to holiday parties, gift to carolers, and otherwise spread around. I'm pretty sure Santa got a big plate set out for him every year. One batch of dough makes 4 - 5 dozen cookies; I bet grandma made four batches.

Grandma made the dough, rolled out and cut out the  cookies, and did the baking. I had two jobs. One was decorating the cookies. We generally had a wide variety of things to work with; green and read sugar, rainbow dots, chocolate sprinkles. silver balls, and cinnamon candies, I now understand part of my  grandma's frustration, having made a batch all by myself. I tended to treat each cookie as an individual work of art, my grandmother wanted me to just mass produce a tray and get on with it.

My other job was sorting the cooled cookies by shape. Long rows of Santas, trees, stars, reindeer, wreaths, and more.

Almost all of the bonding with my grandmother was over food, and no ritual was deeper or more fulfilling than the sugar cookie marathon.

This recipe is for thin crispy sugar cookies. They are light and crunchy, a perfect accompaniment to coffee, tea, or milk.

My grandmother used a pastry cloth to roll them out on. I use my marble slab. It is important that the surface be well floured, and flour the rolling pin as well. You want them just as thin as you can get them. I roll the dough out until it is translucent, and I can just see my marble through the dough.

Sugar Cookies

3 cups AP flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1 cup vegetable shortening

1 tsp. vanilla bean paste

1 cup sugar

3 eggs, beaten

Sift together flour, baking soda, and salt.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream shortening. Add flour mixture a third at a time, creaming together.

While whisking eggs, slowly add sugar. Whisk until smooth, Add vanilla paste, and whisk in thoroughly.

Add egg mixture to flour mixture. Run mixer at medium speed until well combined. 

Form into a ball, and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate for at least 3 hours.

Pre-heat oven to 350 F.

Working with a small amount of dough at a time, roll out on a well floured surface until very thin.

Cut to desired shapes. Transfer to a lightly greased baking sheet.

Sprinkle cookies with granulated (white) sugar. Decorate as desired (colored sugar, jimmies, dots, etc.)

Bake for 5 - 8 minutes, until light brown.

Transfer to a cooling rack.

Happy Eating!

Ladies of the Rose Tea

Within the medieval group I play with, there is a group of women that have served previously as Queen. They are know as the Ladies of the Rose, and their symbol is a yellow rose. I suggested to the current queen that I'd like to do a tea for these ladies. She thought this sounded like a great idea.

Now, there is nothing remotely medieval or renaissance about a formal tea. It is a Victorian invention. However, our group has strong roots in Victorian Gothic Romanticism. I don't think it is a great sin to acknowledge that. Besides, how cool is it to sit in the shade, nibble delicacies, and chat the afternoon away?

The Queen expressed a preference for leaning toward savory. I tried to pick a menu that reflected that.

For the savory course, we made two items. For the first, I did a riff on the classic BLT. When shopping at the El Cajon Farmer's Market, I found a little local company, Jackie's Jams. She had a tomato jam, and I just had to try it. It was really good, and I bought a jar. I thought it

would be a great idea to build a BLT around the jam. We got some good, crusty sourdough bread, and I toasted it on the grill. I then cut it into squares. We spread a thin layer of tomato jam on the bread, place a piece of bacon the size of the bread on top. We put a little dab of jam on the bacon, to act as glue for the chiffonaded bronze leaf lettuce that went on last.

The second savory item was a lettuce cup with curried tuna salad. The intent was to use all endive, but the head we bought didn't have quite enough leaves, so I used some heart of romaine as well. The tuna is a simple mix of canned tuna, mayonnaise, curry powder, and hot curry paste.

For the scone course, I decided to keep it simple, and I made just one kind of scone, the cream scones I made for the Princess Tea, the only difference being that I did not sprinkle the top with sugar after brushing them with cream.

I also made some gluten free scones, as we had an attendee that was gluten intolerant. The gluten free scones were made with Bisquick Gluten Free Mix. I followed the biscuit recipe on the box, but substituted heavy cream for the milk, to get a richer scone.

We then made a choice of four toppings, two savory and two sweet. For the savory, I made a chili lime butter, and a pesto butter. For the sweet, I made kiwi curd and the spouse made mock Devonshire cream. The kiwi curd was sweeter than I'd expected, and set up a little soft, but it seemed to be popular.

For the sweet course, the spouse made rose tea shortbread cookies, and I made safflower infused white  modeling chocolate roses.

I wanted to make yellow roses, and I'd hoped to use natural color to do it. I originally planned to use saffron, but realized I was out, and couldn't find any on short notice, but safflower was easily available. I couldn't get a deep enough color, so added some commercial coloring paste. The safflower added a bit of a savory note to the rather sweet modeling chocolate. Modeling chocolate is just white chocolate and corn syrup.

I included instructions for making a modeling chocolate rose in this post.

Recipes

Curried Tuna Salad

3 cans tuna, drained
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1 Tbsp. curry powder
1 1/2 tsp. hot curry paste
salt to taste

In a bowl, mix all ingredients until tuna is well moistened.

Chili Lime Butter

8 oz. by wt. butter, softened
1 ripe jalapeno chili
zest of 6 key limes
juice of two key limes
kosher salt to taste

Char outside of chili over open flame. Remove skin, seeds, and inner membranes. Mince.

Mash together butter, chili, zest, juice, and salt until well blended.

Pesto Butter

8 oz. by wt. butter
1 cup fresh basil leaves
1/4 cup pine nuts
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 tsp. minced garlic
kosher salt to taste

Place all ingredients in  a food processor. Run until butter is smooth.

Kiwi Curd

1 cup sugar
4 eggs, beaten
1/2 cup kiwi fruit puree
pinch kosher salt

Combine all ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium low heat. Cook, whisking constantly, until curd thickens, about ten minutes.

Strain curd. cover surface with plastic wrap to prevent a skin from forming. Chill in freezer for 20 minutes, then transfer to refrigerator to finish cooling.

Mock Devonshire Cream

8 oz. by wt. cream cheese
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract

In the bowl of a stand mixer, whip cream cheese until fluffy. Add rest of ingredients, whisk until stiff peaks form.

Rose Tea Cookies

1 cup flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 tbsp. Scottish Breakfast tea
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 Tbsp. water
1/4 tsp. rose water
1/2 cup butter

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees.
Mix together rose water and water. Set aside.

 In the bowl of a food processor, pulse together flour, sugars, salt, and tea leaves until tea is well incorporated.  Add vanilla, 1 tsp. of the diluted rose water, and butter. Pulse until a dough forms.

On a floured surface, roll dough very thin. Cut out cookies, place on an ungreased sheet pan. Bake until crisp, about 10 minutes. Cool on a rack.

 

Safflower Infused Modeling Chocolate

1 cup corn syrup
1 cup safflowers
10 oz. by wt. white chocolate

In a microwave safe bowl, combine corn syrup and safflowers. Heat in microwave until syrup just begins to boil.

Remove from microwave. Let cool to room temperature. Strain.

In a double boiler, melt chocolate to 100 F. Add 1/3 cup of the safflower infused corn syrup. Mix with a spatula until smooth and shiny. Let stand at least 4 hours before using. If kept refrigerated, good for up to one month.

 Combine with rubber spatula until smooth and shiny. Let sit 4 hours to over night.
Happy Eating!

 

Pastry Class: Ice Cream, Frozen Yogurt, Sorbet, and Tuile

This was my last pastry lab. Monday I need to turn in my research paper on my favorite pastry ingredient. I will also take my practical exam. I will draw a random item from five things we have made this semester (cookies, scones, chiffon cake, pate a choux, and creme brulee) and make it. I'm fairly confident. I've made plenty of cookies, scones, and creme brulee, and I have practiced both the chiffon cake and the pate a choux at home. I need to spend a little time reviewing the procedures. We will be given a list of ingredients, and times and temps for baking, but not the instructions.

Anyway, we made a variety of churned frozen desserts. Each table made a different dessert. My table made chocolate malted ice cream. Other tables made French vanilla, black current frozen yogurt, green apple sorbet, and passion fruit sorbet.

I learned what the French in French vanilla actually means. There are two types of ice cream; French and Philadelphia. French has eggs, Philadelphia does not. French style can also be referred to as frozen custard.

Since French style ice cream has eggs, the base must be cooked to 180 F. This will ensure any nasty things get killed.

I personally prefer the richness of the French style. Ice cream without eggs just doesn't have the right mouth feel to me.

I love sorbets. I love fruit flavors, and particularly appreciate a well balanced sweet/tart combination. I like frozen yogurt that actually tastes like yogurt. I thought the black current frozen yogurt was the best. It had a very intense flavor, and a noticeably yogurt tang, but was still balanced.

The green apple was also very good. It had a great granny smith flavor, and they did a great job of capturing the color. That green is just from juicing the apples with the skin on, no coloring agent was added.

The passion fruit was probably a teaspoon of sugar away from greatness. It had a good flavor, but was a hair too tart, even for me.

The vanilla was a good vanilla, using bean rather than extract. Needed warm apple pie, though.

Our chocolate malt wasn't bad. We used mostly milk chocolate, with a little bitter chocolate to up the flavor. Malt is not one of my favorite flavors, though, so it might appeal to someone that really likes malted milk balls.

Tuiles are thin, crisp cookies. The name comes from the French for 'tile'. When just out of the oven they are malleable, and can be shaped. Probably the best known tuile to Americans is the fortune cookie.

The tuile batter is a thick paste that can be spread over a template or stencil. You can buy commercially made stencils, or cut your own out of food grade rubber or plastic.

Place the stencil on a silicon baking mat. Using a small spatula, spread the tuile batter over the stencil. Lift the stencil carefully.

Bake the tuile until light gold in color. Remove from oven, and shape quickly. If the tuile are too rigid to mold, return to the oven briefly to re-heat.

Tuile, like most crisp cookies, must be kept tightly sealed in air-tight containers. They will go stale quickly. They are often used as a garnish for plated desserts.

As always, all recipes are courtesy of Chef James Foran.

Recipes

Vanilla Ice Cream

9 oz by vol. milk
9 oz. by vol. cream
100 g sugar
1 vanilla bean
15 g invert sugar
25 g corn syrup
6 egg yolks
pinch salt

Split vanilla bean in half lengthwise, and scrape out seeds. In a saucepan, combine milk, cream, sugars, and vanilla bean pod and scrapings. Scald milk over medium heat. Temper egg yolks by adding a little of the hot milk mixture to the yolks while whisking. Add egg mixture to rest of the milk mixture. Cook until mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon.

Remove from heat. Stir in salt. Strain. Pour into a metal bowl, and place in an ice bath. Allow to chill completely. Pour base into ice cream freezer, and follow directions for your machine.

Milk Chocolate Malt Ice Cream

12 oz by vol. milk
4 oz by vol. cream
3 1/2 oz by wt. sugar
6 egg yolks
2 oz by wt. milk chocolate , chopped
1/2 oz by wt. dark chocolate, chopped
2 oz. by wt. malt powder

In a saucepan, combine milk, cream, and sugars. Scald milk over medium heat. Temper egg yolks by adding a little of the hot milk mixture to the yolks while whisking. Add egg mixture to rest of the milk mixture. Cook until mixture coats the back of a wooden spoon.

Remove from heat. Stir in chocolates and malt. Wait for chocolate to melt, then thoroughly blend. Strain. Pour into a metal bowl, and place in an ice bath. Allow to chill completely. Pour base into ice cream freezer, and follow directions for your machine.

Frozen Black Currant Yogurt

16 oz by wt. plain yogurt
6 oz. by wt. black currant puree
4 oz by wt. sugar
1 oz by vol. corn syrup
tiny pinch salt

Combine all ingredients, whisk well. Pour base into ice cream freezer, and follow directions for your machine.

Green Apple Sorbet

20 oz by vol. fresh green apple juice
4 oz by vol. corn syrup
juice of 1 lemon
2 oz by vol. simple syrup
tiny pinch salt

Combine sugars, lemon juice, and salt. Clean, cut, and juice apples, adding five ounces  at a time. Strain. Adjust sugar or lemon juice as needed. Pour base into ice cream freezer, and follow directions for your machine.

Passion Fruit Sorbet

2 cups water

6 oz by vol. Passion fruit juice
6 oz by vol. simple syrup
5 oz by vol. corn syrup
tiny pinch salt

Combine all ingredients, whisk well. Adjust sugar as needed. Pour base into ice cream freezer, and follow directions for your machine.

Tuile

4 1/2 oz by wt. butter
6 oz by wt. powdered sugar
4 1/2 oz by wt. egg white
5 1/2 oz by wt. sifted cake flour
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/8 tsp. salt

In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter and sugar. slowly add egg white, occasionally scraping down bowl.

Add flour in two stages. When smooth, add vanilla and salt. Cover and chill for 1/2 hour.

Pre-heat oven to 325 F.

On a sheet pan lined with a silicon baking mat. Place tuile stencils on mat. Using a small spatula, smooth tuile batter over stencils. Remove stencils, and clean up mat.

Bake 5 - 10 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and quickly shape, if desired.

Happy Eating!

 

Pastry Class: Banana Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting and Chocolate Chunk Cookies

In my pastry class, we are starting to get into technique. Most of the class is focused on labs, rather than lecture. We've picked groups, and I ended up with a good one, I think. Three of the other guys have industry experience. I've done large scale cooking in the SCA, at science fiction conventions, and catered some LARPs. Everyone takes initiative, and just get things done. We communicate well. Just by random draw, I ended up being sous chef for our group for this lab. We seem to be fast and efficient, so may find ourselves doing Chef's mise en place, as well as our own. Sometimes there is a price to pay for being teacher's pets.

Our first recipe was a banana cake with cream cheese frosting. This was a very moist cake, and I loved the tanginess of the frosting. We were focused on professional methods, so much of the ingredients are measured in weight, not volume. The way we cut the cake, there was a row for each person in the group, so we each got to decorate our own. I just followed Chef's scheme. Others in my group came up with their own designs. My row is the second from the left.
The point of this exercise was to illustrate the Mix Method. This is the simplest of methods for combining ingredients. Dry ingredients are sifted together, wet ingredients are mixed together, then wet are added to dry and combined quickly. A lot of cakes and quick breads are done this way.

The other recipe we did was chocolate chunk cookies. Like chocolate chip cookies, but bigger pieces of chocolate. This recipe produces a moist, chewy cookie. We used a bittersweet chocolate, with 58% cocoa liqueur. That was fine with me, as I prefer darker chocolates. This recipe was to illustrate the Cream Method. In the cream method, the fats and sugars are beaten together to add air and provide leavening.

Both these recipes are provided by my instructor, Chef James Foran. As these are professional recipes, much of the measurements are by weight rather than volume.

Recipes

Banana Cake

Wet Ingredients
9 fl oz vegetable oil
6 oz by wt eggs
12 oz by wt peeled bananas
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 fl oz cream
5 oz by wt brown sugar

Dry Ingredients
10 oz by wt sugar
10 oz by wt cake flour
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt

Prepare  a half sheet pan, oiled and lined with parchment or wax paper.
Preheat oven, 325 degrees for a convection oven, 350 degrees for a conventional oven

Using an immersion blender, blend together wet ingredients. Sift together dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients all at once to dry ingredients. Whisk together until just combined. Pour batter into half sheet pan, and smooth. Bake 12 - 15 minutes, or until cake is browned and springy.

When cake is completely cooled, invert onto cutting board, and frost.

Cream Cheese Frosting

12 oz by wt cream cheese
3 oz by wt room  temperature butter
6 1/2 oz by wt powdered sugar
1 tsp. vanilla

Combine all ingredients in a stand mixer. Cream with a paddle until smooth.

Chocolate Chunk Cookies

fats/sugars ingredients
5 oz by wt butter
4 oz by wt sugar
5 oz by wt brown sugar
3/4 tsp. kosher salt

wet ingredients
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla

dry ingredients
8 1/2 oz by wt all purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
3/4 tsp. baking powder

garnish ingredients
9 oz by wt semi-sweet chocolate chunks

Line a sheet pan with parchment paper.
Preheat oven, 325 degrees for a convection oven, 350 degrees for a conventional oven

Using a paddle in a stand mixer, cream together fats and sugars for at least five minutes, until smooth.
Add egg and vanilla, cream until smooth.
Add dry ingredients in two stages, remembering to scrape down the bowl periodically.
Stir in chocolate.

Scoop out dough in approximately 2 tbsp. balls onto sheet pan. Top each cookie with a few grains of sea salt.

Bake about 5 minutes, or until flattened and brown.