A Surprising Discovery and Chocolate Macadamia Shortbread

Right now I am feeling pretty stupid. For the last two or three months, I have been receiving regular comments on my blog in Chinese. As any blogger will tell you, receiving comments is one of the great things about blogging. It is incredibly gratifying when people find what you write interesting enough to give you some feedback. So I was flattered and would think to myself how nice it is that someone overseas is reading my blog, and be amazed yet again at how the Internet is making the world a smaller and smaller place. Lots of warm feelings....

And then today, I received a lengthy comment in Chinese and started to wonder what on earth my correspondent could be saying. Most comments that I receive run about a sentence or two, while this one appeared to be a lengthy paragraph. I decided to send it on to my clever sister-in-law who can read Chinese characters, who immediately responded "It's a list of adult short films, with a short description of each film. DELETE! DELETE!" So, if you can read Chinese, and thought that I was starting to act as a middleman peddling exotic services, rest assured that I will be sticking to the core business of cooking from here on. Also understand that I have now activated comment moderation, so I will be able to bin the adult services before they get posted on my blog. Apologies to anyone who has been offended in the last month or two. And here I was thinking they must be keen on mango recipes......

Now, onto something sweeter. This shortbread recipe appeared in this month's Delicious in Belinda Jeffrey's column. I really rate Belinda Jeffrey's recipes as scrumptious and achievable. I have two of her cookbooks ("100 Favourite Recipes" and "Tried and True Recipes") and have made so many brilliant things from them, that if I posted all of them I would be reproducing virtually half of each book. I noticed that one of them has recently been reprinted so if you want a recommendation for a cookbook you will keep turning to, I suggest you take a look. Or you can just accumulate her columns from Delicious!

This shortbread was made as a thank you present for a neighbour, who later phoned and asked for the recipe - always a good sign. It came out a little moister than I expected despite my decision to leave it in the oven for an additional ten or fifteen minutes. I think this may have been because it was so hot here when I was making them that my butter was half melted, instead of the firm butter envisioned by Belinda. So the final biscuit, in texture, was closer to a slice than to shortbread. But it was completely scrumptious - just the thing for me to nibble on over a cup of tea as I contemplate how daft I can be at times.

I have been cooking from Delicious all month with Melinda from Melbourne Larder in a challenge to make use of our food magazines. If you would like to join us, drop either one of us a line. Oh, and watch out for any unintelligible comments...

Chocolate Macadamia Shortbread Biscuits
from Delicious Dec 09 / Jan 10

1 1/2 cups plain flour
2/3 cup fine semolina
1/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup chopped roasted macadamias
60g chopped dark chocolate
300g unsalted butter at room temperature, chopped
180g caster sugar
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Grease and line the base and sides of a 18 x 28 cm lamington pan, leaving a 3cm overhang on all sides. Place the flour, semolina, baking powder and 1/2 tsp salt in a bowl and stir well to combine. Stir in macadamias and chocolate.

Combine butter, sugar and vanilla in a food processor and whiz for 1-2 mins till creamy, stopping occasionally to scrape down the sides with a spatula. Stir butter mixture into flour mixture until well combined. The dough should be quite thick and a bit hard to mix - mine wasn't because of the very soft butter. Press the dough into a pan and prick all over with a fork. Chill for 15 mins. Preheat over to 160C. Bake shortbread for 25-30 mins until firm to the touch. While it is still hot, use a knife to score the biscuits. Cool in the pan for 10 mins, then lift out the shortbread and cut into fingers. Keeps for 5 days.

Speculaas for Christmas

Inspired by Melinda from Melbourne Larder, I decided to whip up a batch of these speculaas during the week. I had never heard of speculaas until they were featured in this month's Gourmet Traveller, but the description grabbed my attention: baking speculaas "will make your kitchen smell like the inside of a gingerbread house." Who could resist that?


I have always been completely taken by gingerbread houses, from Hansel and Gretel onwards. When I was little my mother made a beautiful gingerbread house once at Christmas time. I think she used a recipe in "The Cooking of Germany", part of a Time Life series, which featured an amazing gingerbread house on its cover. I remember Mum's gingerbread house sitting proudly on the dining room table, tiled with lollies, so picture-perfect that I was completely dazzled by it. It was in the dining room to keep it away from little hands, but I kept sneaking in to look at it. Sadly the Sydney humidity ensured that within a day or so of completion, it had collapsed in on itself, and we wound up picking the lollies out of the gingerbread rubble. Poor Mum. (Note to self, if I ever attempt a gingerbread house, make sure to use a local recipe, not one that presumes European winter conditions.)


So, on to the speculaas and my attempt to make my kitchen smell like a gingerbread house.... This recipe certainly creates a lovely crisp biscuit, with rich spicy gingerbread flavours, and your kitchen really will smell superb while you are making them. The downside is the work involved. Like many Christmas treats, these speculaas are much more a labour of love than a simple batch of biscuits. Firstly there is a spice mix to make. Then a dough which needs resting overnight. Then the dough needs to be rolled out, and returned to the fridge for more resting, and then it is cut with cookie cutters and returned to the fridge for more resting. And only then does it hit the oven and turn your kitchen into a gingerbread house. Incidentally, the final resting is to ensure that your cookies hold the intricate patterns of some speculaas cutters, but I got a bit bored and impatient and reduced it dramatically with no apparent ill-effect. As long as your biscuits aren't too intricately patterned, you cold probably get away with it too. Incidentally, in case you are wondering, my cutters are supposed to look like Christmas ornaments, but I think they wound up looking a little like some sort of medical instrument. You've got to laugh - at least they tasted good.


If you are cooking something from Gourmet Traveller this month and would like to join Melinda and I, on our new We Made It challenge, drop us a line either here or at Melbourne Larder.


Speculaas
Australian Gourmet Traveller December 09
Makes about 30-40 biscuits

500 gm (3 1/3 cups) plain flour, sieved
2 tsp baking powder
220 gm butter, softened
250 gm dark brown sugar
2 tbsp milk

Speculaas spice
8 green cardamom pods
8 cloves
5 star anise
1 tsp white peppercorns
1 piece of mace
2 tbsp ground cinnamon
2 tsp ground ginger
½ tsp finely grated nutmeg

For speculaas spice, finely grind cardamom, cloves, star anise, peppercorns and mace in a spice grinder or mortar and pestle. Transfer to a large bowl, add cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg, stir, add to flour and baking powder, and set aside.

Beat butter, sugar and a pinch of salt in an electric mixer until creamy (3-4 minutes). Add milk, beat to combine, then add flour mixture and mix until just combined. Form mixture into a dough with your hands on a work surface (add extra milk if mixture is too dry), shape into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate to rest (8 hours-overnight).

Preheat oven to 170C. Roll pastry on a lightly floured surface to 5mm thick, then refrigerate until firm (30 minutes). Cut into desired shapes (see note) and place on trays lined with baking paper. Re-roll scraps and repeat. Chill until firm (20 minutes), then bake in batches until light brown and crisp (10-12 minutes). Cool for 5 minutes on trays, then transfer to wire racks and cool completely. Speculaas will keep, stored in an airtight container, for 1 week.

Cappucino Biscuits

On the list of my sins ( far too exhaustive to contemplate listing or even contemplating), both caffeine and chocolate are prominent. For a long time, caffeine kept me moving through the day. Through the infancy of a daughter who wouldn't sleep, through crisis management (an airline collapse, terrorism and anthrax attacks spring to mind), and midnight conference calls, there was always a coffee nearby. Additionally any private management meeting, in my world of open plan offices, also happened "over coffee", which meant downstairs at the coffee shop. Things got so out of control that caffeine stopped it's positive effect on me and started giving me heart palpitations. Yikes. I was forced to severely reduce my intake. Periodically I fall back into bad habits, and find myself having to cut back again. I have never indulged in chocolate as wantonly as I drank coffee - just a little nibble here and there, with a mouthful of bitter dark chocolate usually sufficient to quash any craving. But the chocolate and coffee combination? I adore it. Cappucino? Yes please.



These tiny cookies bring all that is good about chocolate and coffee into one little biscuit. And they are really a little treat. The dough is rolled out into sausages that are about 3cm in diameter before being chilled and sliced and then baked. They wind up the perfect size to sit on the saucer next to your coffee - a tiny unit of energy to nibble while you read the paper or take that conference call or manage that crisis or do whatever. The recipe comes from a wonderful old cookbook of mine by Barbara Tropp: "The China Moon Cookbook". If you ever see this cookbook, even if you don't like Asian food, grab it for the cookie recipes.





Cappuccino coins
from "the China Moon Cookbook" by Barbara Tropp

makes 10 dozen cookies
125g cold unsalted butter, cut into 8 pieces
¼ cup packed dark brown sugar
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 extra-large egg
1 cup plus 2 Tbs. all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp. instant coffee powder or granules
1 ½ tsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
½ tsp. cinnamon
¼ tsp. fine sea salt
½ cup finely chopped semisweet chocolate

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream butter and both sugars on medium speed until smooth, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the egg and mix until smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. Add the flour, instant coffee, cocoa, cinnamon, salt, and chocolate bits; mix thoroughly for 2 to 3 minutes.

Gather the dough together and turn onto a lightly floured board. Using lightly floured hands, roll the dough into 2 or 3 even 3cm-thick logs. Wrap the logs separately in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 175C. Move an over rack to the middle position. Line large baking sheets with parchment paper.



Slice the logs into 1/2 cm thick coins, and place them ½ inch apart on the prepared baking sheets. One sheet at a time, bake until the cookies are lightly golden and are firm enough at the edges to slide off the parchment without sticking, 15 to 17 minutes. Cool on the baking sheets set on wire racks.

The Chocolateiest Chocolate Chip Cookie Ever

Today was the first day back at school for the last term of the year. Term 4, for those of you without kids, is like the sprint at the end of the marathon. Calendars are already filling up with concerts and performances and carols and a million other commitments ... Not surprisingly, everyone gets tired of it all very quickly and starts to get itchy for that fantastic stretch of holidays in December and January, which always arrives before any of us are ready for it.

But since today was the first day, and I wanted to start the term well (perhaps more accurately on a chocolate and sugar high), I spoilt the kids with a very yummy treat in their lunchbox - a Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookie. This biscuit is easily the most indulgent I have ever made. Rich and gooey with a slightly salty taste, that just makes the chocolate sing more. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm. The recipe, from Nigella Express is meant to only make 12 biscuits. I got 16 out of the mixture and each one was the size of my palm or possibly a little larger. So don't feel you need to follow Nigella's directions for 12. They freeze well, either as dough or baked so you can get temptation away from you.

I am sending this over to The I Heart Cooking Clubs midnight sneaks theme. They wanted recipes so good that they would pull you out of bed and back to the kitchen for one more morsel. This is definitely one of those - somehow they have been disappearing nibble by nibble out of the cookie jar.

Totally Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson

120g semisweet chocolate

1 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa, sifted

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

125g soft butter

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1/4 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 egg, cold from the fridge

2 cups semisweet chocolate morsels or dark chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 160C. Melt the chocolate gently in a heat proof bowl over simmering water. remove from heat and allow to cool. Measure the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt into a bowl. Cream the butter and two sugars in another bowl. Add the melted chocolate and mix together. Beat in the vanilla extract and cold egg, and then mix in the dry ingredients. Finally stir in the chocolate chips. Scoot out 1/4 cup-sized mounds - an ice cream scoop and a palette knife are the best tools for the job - and place on a lined baking sheet about 2-1/2 inches apart. Do not flatten them. Leave to cool on the bakign sheet for 4-5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack to harden as they cool. Makes 12 big cookies (or 16 big cookies for me).

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies from Martha

Martha Stewart sends me (and probably most of the rest of the English speaking world) three emails every day: one with a Cookie of The Day; one with a Craft of the Day and one with an Organizing Tip of The Day. Some are very useful:

- a downloadable stain chart to stick on the inside of the laundry cupboard

- how to fold a T-shirt (who knew there was a "right way'?)

Some are stupid:

- Rope seat stools which seem to me a good way to make a perfectly comfortable stool a lot less comfortable

- Clothespin picket fence for pot plants when surely not even the most desperate housewife feels the need for picket fences around her pot plants.

And some make me want to run straight into the kitchen and start cooking.

I know that I was not the only one to feel that way when this recipe turned up recently, because I saw it surface on blog after blog. Shortcake is an American bakery icon similar to scones, with a texture somewhere between cake and biscuits. These biscuits are easy to make with a very light and deliciously cakey texture. Just the thing to enjoy with a cup of tea and the paper, if the kids don't demolish them first.

Strawberry Shortcake Cookies

from Martha Stewart

Ingredients
Makes about 3 dozen
350g strawberries, hulled and cut into a small dice (2 cups)
1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse salt
90g cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
2/3 cup pouring cream
Demerara sugar, for sprinkling

Directions
Preheat oven to 185 degrees. Combine strawberries, lemon juice, and 2 tablespoons granulated sugar. Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, and remaining 7 tablespoons sugar in a large bowl. Cut in the butter with a pastry cutter, or rub in with your fingers, until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Stir in cream until dough starts to come together, then stir in strawberry mixture.

Using a 1 1/2-inch ice cream scoop or a tablespoon, drop dough onto baking sheets lined with parchment, spacing evenly apart. Sprinkle with sanding sugar, and bake until golden brown, 24 to 25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack, and let cool. Cookies are best served immediately, but can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 day.

A Chinese Supper For Cook The Books

This month's choice for the Cook The Books Club is "The Last Chinese Chef" by Nicole Mones. "The Last Chinese Chef" introduces the reader to the intricacies of Chinese life and Chinese cuisine through the eyes of Maggie, the outsider journalist from the US, who is recovering from personal tragedy. Maggie arrives in China with two missions: to conduct an interview with chef Sam Liang and to resolve a paternity claim against her husband's estate. Her stay becomes an education (for the reader as well) as she follows Sam's preparations for a competition banquet held in the lead up to the Beijing Olympics. He shares with her thoughts on everything from achieving the right intensity of taste in a dish, to balancing the textures of a meal and even the importance of making allusions to history and literature (in particular poetry) with dishes. Sam's cooking is Chinese food at haute cuisine level - and, as he points out, it bears no resemblance to the western dishes like spring rolls, lemon chicken or sweet and sour pork that are the only Chinese dishes many people have tried.

I found myself completely swept away by this book, so much so that I somehow forgot that it was fiction on the way through. By the time I got to the end and read the author's notes, I was really sad to have these people (who had become so real to me) firmly sent back to the world of fiction. You see I wanted Maggie and Sam to fall in love, commit to each other and run the restaurant together. I wanted them to hire Gao Lan as a waitress and have Shuying as a permanent part of their lives. I wanted Sam to reach enormous professional heights and for his mother to come from the US and see all he had achieved, and for his father and he to discover a closeness as adults that they had never previously had. I even wanted to read the fictional reference materials, quoted in each chapter. Maybe even eat at their restaurant one day......

For me, the cultural reference points were particularly interesting. Some of my family are Chinese, although not from China, but there are clearly many similarities and connections (guanxi!). Certainly the Chinese concern with food and flavour and texture, rang true with me, as did the importance of restaurants in daily life. I felt that much of what Maggie learnt along the way, are also things that I have learnt. I also felt that the ongoing tension between western and eastern perspectives, as personified by Sam who straddles both, was very illustrative. I will certainly be handing this book on to family that I know will love it as much as I did.

So when it came to choosing a meal to cook inspired by this book, I had lots of thoughts on what I wanted to achieve:
- I wanted to illustrate "guanxi" or relationships and connectedness because I was cooking for my family.
- I decided to make the poached chicken that Sam makes for Maggie early in the book. When Sam made this chicken, he reached across the usual journalist / subject divide and paved the way for their friendship to develop, as well as setting her on the path to healing. Maggie says "It was as soft as velvet, chicken times three, shot through with ginger and the note of onion....I may never have tasted anything so good." I had to have a go at it!
- I wanted vegetable dishes to complement the chicken. I chose braised soya beans which were in Kylie Kwong's book "My China" as a Beijing dish, and are therefore hopefully true to the sort of thing that Sam would make. Soya beans are also symbolic of the continuance of society (more guanxi). The snowpea and garlic stir fry introduces the colour of jade to the table, while snowpeas are a Chinese symbol of unity, and garlic symbolizes luck and health.
- I wanted to make a reference to a Chinese fable, as many of the book's dinners referred metaphorically to literature as well, and so I chose the story of the Moon Lady, Chang Er. We ended the meal with ginger cookies in the shape of a moon with a little speck of candied ginger to represent Chang Er sitting on the moon.

While everything was good, I particularly enjoyed the chicken and will definitely use this technique to poach chicken in the future. It was so tender that I could have nearly carved with a chopstick, while the chilli, ginger and coriander dressing gave it a very powerful kick. The cookies were also good - not too gingery, just sweet and crisp with a slightly warm aftertaste. All in all, a great meal that capped off a wonderful story, and which was enjoyed by all of us. In the next few weeks, I will make another meal to take advantage of some of Nicole Mone's recipes - sadly I had already planned my dinner before I discovered that treasure trove.


White Cooked Chicken
from "Recipes and Stories" by Kylie Kwong

1.6 kg free range chicken
6 litres water
3 cups shao hsing wine
6 green shallots, trimmed
12 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed
1 1/2 cups coarsely chopped ginger
4 tbls sea salt

Place all ingredients except chicken in a large stock pot, bring to the boil then simmer for 15 mins to infuse flavours.

Rinse chicken and cut away any excess fat. Lower chicken, breast side down into simmering stock ensuring it is fully submerged. Poach gently for exactly 14 mins (reduce the temperature so that there is nothing more than the occassional ripple breaking the surface). Remove pot immediately from stove and allow chicken to steep in stock for 3 hours at room temperature.

Gently remove chicken from stock, being careful not to tear breast skin (I lifted it out with y hands). Place chicken on a tray to drain and cool. Cut the chicken chinese style (bone in with a cleaver). Serve drizzled with soy chilli and coriander dressing below.

Soy Chilli Dressing
1/4 cup mushroom soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1 finely julienned large red chilli
1 tbl ginger julienne
1/2 tsp white sugar
2 1/2 tsps peanut oil
1/3 cup corander sprigs
Pinch of szechuan pepper

In a bowl, combine soy sauce, sesame oil, chilli, ginger and sugar. Drizzle over chicken. In a small pot heat peanut oil to smoking point then pour over the chicken. Garnish with coriander and pepper.

Red Braised Soy Beans with Star Anise and Vinegar
from "My China" by Kylie Kwong

1 cup dried soy beans
1/2 cup shao hsing wine
5 cm pice of ginger peeled and finely sliced
1 spring onion trimmed and cut into 5 cm lengths
3 star anise
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1 tsp sesame oil
1/2 cup water
2 tbls brown rice vinegar

Soak beans overnight in cold water, then rinse and tip into a heavy based saucepan. Cover generously with cold water, bring to the boil then simmer, adding more water as necessary, for 1-1 1/2 hours or until tender. Drain and set aside.

Sauce: Place shao hsing wine, ginger, star anise and spring onion in a wok. bring to the boil and simmer for 2 mins. Add suagr, soy sauce and sesame oil and simmer for a further minute. Add chickpeas and water and simmer briskly for 10 mins. Stir in vinegar and serve.

Stirfried Snow Peas With Garlic
from "Recipes and Stories" by Kylie Kwong

2 tbl vegetable oil
1/2 tsp sea salt
250g snow peas
2 garlic cloves crushed
1 garlic clove finely diced
1/4 tsp white sugar
1/2 cup chicken stock (I used the stock from poaching the chicken)
1/4 tsp sesame oil

Heat vegetable oil in a hot wok until it shimmers. Add salt and snow peas and stir fry for two minutes. Add garlic and stir fry for 1 min. Add sugar and stir fry for 10 secs. Pour in stock and sim mer for 2 mins or until snow peas are tender. Lastly add sesame oil and serve immediately.

Ginger Moons
from "China Moon Cookbook" by Barbara Tropp

125g cold unsalted butter chopped
1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 tbl minced fresh ginger
1 tsp powdered ginger
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup plus 2 tbl plain flour
1/4 tsp baking soda
Pinch of sea salt
1/4 cup finely diced crystallized ginger

Cream butter and sugar for about 3 mins until smooth. Add both gingers, vanilla, flour, baking soda and salt. Mix until the dough just comes together. Turn out the dough, gather into a ball and flatten slightly.

Dust some parchment paper on a tray with some flour. Place the dough in the centre and roll out to an even thickness of about 2-3 mm. Cover and refrigerate the dough until firm (abt 1 hour). Preheat the oven to 175C, and line baking sheets with parchment. Using a cookie cutter, cut crescent moons, and place 1 cm apart on baking sheets. Press a pie of ginger near the tapered end of each biscuit. Bake until the biscuits are golden, 10-12 mins. Cool on wire racks.

Brown Sugar Biscuits - Yum

With a couple of dinner parties to attend, it was time to get baking, and make something delicious for the lovely hostessi (do you like my latin plural of hostess?). I am quite taken with baking gifts for friends at the moment, partly because it gives me extra sweet things to write about here. And let's be honest, a batch of biscuits (cookies to some of you) takes half an hour to make, so its easier than ducking out to the shops for a bunch of flowers. This recipe for brown sugar biscuits caught my eye because, brace yourselves, THEY KEEP FOR THREE WEEKS. There is nothing worse than creaming butter and sugar and doing everything else to make the perfect biscuit and then have your beautiful creation taste much less delicious than it should because it has gone stale in half a day. Grrrrrr. These beauties would never do that to you.

And as for taste? They have a similar flavour to a pecan pie with the combination of the pecan and the dark brown sugar. They are really crunchy (maybe not the best choice for someone with teeth problems) and are scrumptious dunked in a hot cup of coffee or tea. They even look perfect. I will make these again and again and again. Just don't tell my friends how easy they are.

The recipe comes from "From Market To Table" by Joan Campbell and Barry McDonald. Coincidentally, this was the book that supplied my first post just over a year ago. Since August is my blog's birthday month, I am giving away a food magazine subscription. If you haven't already entered send me an email or leave me a comment with a suggestion for what you would make for a milestone birthday.

Brown Sugar Biscuits

from "From Market To Table" by Joan Campbell and Barry McDonald

125g butter softened

250g dark brown sugar

1 egg, beaten

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups plain flour

pinch of salt

1/4 tsp baking powder

pecan halves to decorate

Preheat oven to 185C. Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Beat butter and brown sugar together until they are light and creamy. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Sift together the flour, salt and baking powder, and beat into the creamed butter mixture until just combined.

Roll teaspoonfuls of mixture on a lightly floured surface, then place on the oven trays, leaving about 5 or 6cms between each. Press a pecan onto the top of each ball, flattening it a little. Bake for 15 mins or until golden. Cool on a wire rack then store in an airtight container up to three weeks.

Oreos DIY

I was killing a little time the other day before an appointment, browsing through a local bookshop's selection of food magazines (as you do...), looking for something to thumb for half an hour before an appointment. Local Australian magazines often dominate this area: Gourmet Traveller, Vogue Entertaining, Delicious, Donna Hay, alongside Kiwi imports Cuisine and Dish. American magazines appear and disappear a little more sporadically. Martha is usually available, but Gourmet, Bon Appetit and Saveur are much more hit and miss. Some editions seem to make it through to Australia; some don't. Last week I came across a new arrival: the Food Network Magazine, and while skimming through it, found a recipe that made me buy the magazine: do-it-yourself oreos.

For a long time in Australia, oreos were an exotic and unknown biscuit (cookie), mentioned enticingly on TV shows like the Brady Bunch, but completely unavailable. About five years ago, they turned up in supermarkets here, and were taken straight to the same place in my children's hearts where TimTams, Montes and Choc Wheatens also live. The chocolate wafers and creamy centre are a winning flavour combination, which has been widely adopted as cookies and cream for everything from ice cream to kitkats. This do-it-yourself recipe comes from chef Emily Isaac at Trois Pommes Patisserie. It is absolutely fantastic and makes an enormous number of biscuits. We had so many that I was sending friends away with boxes of them just to get them eaten before they had a chance to go stale. And how good were they? Fantastic - the biscuit more chocolatey than the original and the cream more vanilla-y. No surprises then that the grown ups liked them just as much as children did.

Do It Yourself Oreos from Emily Isaac in The Food Network Magazine

For the Dough:
1 1/3 cups Dutch-process cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
2 cups granulated sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
For the Filling:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup vegetable shortening (copha), melted and then allowed to cool
3 cups confectioners' sugar, sifted
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Prepare the dough: Sift together the cocoa powder, flour and salt in a large bowl.
Using a mixer, cream the butter and sugar. Add the eggs one at a time, then the vanilla, incorporating each ingredient before adding the next. Add the dry ingredients and mix just until incorporated, scraping the bottom of the bowl with a rubber spatula.

Divide the dough into 2 pieces; place one piece between 2 lightly floured sheets of parchment paper and roll into a 1/4-inch-thick rectangle. Repeat with the other piece of dough. Refrigerate both rectangles, covered with the parchment sheets, until firm, at least 1 hour or up to several days.

Using a 2-inch round cutter, cut the dough into circles. (You can reroll the scraps.) Place the cookies about 2 inches apart on ungreased baking sheets and chill for 20 minutes. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Bake the cookies until they are set and slightly darker around the edges, about 20 minutes. Cool completely on wire racks.

Meanwhile, prepare the filling: Using a mixer, cream the butter and shortening until fluffy. Beat in the confectioners' sugar and vanilla. Flip half of the cookies upside down and top each with 1 level tablespoon of filling. Press the remaining cookies on top to make sandwiches.

Sweet Nothings for Valentine's Day

Two Poems for Valentine's Day
love poem by e. e. cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in

my heart) i am never without it (anywhere

i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done

by only me is your doing, my darling)

i fear

no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want

no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)

and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant

and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows

(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud

and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows

higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)

and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

or, if you are less romantic:

Reflections on Ice-Breaking by Ogden Nash

Candy

Is dandy.

But liquor

Is quicker.

Romantic or not, here are some sugar cookies for your loved ones from Ms Dorie Greenspan. They are easy to make, and the resting period in the fridge means you can make the dough up to three days in advance of actually rolling it out, cutting and baking. The dough also lends itself to whatever additions or toppings you want to give it, and was sufficiently firm to hold even fairly intricate patterns (I will be making these again cut out as snowflakes at Xmas, I suspect). Have a Great Valentine's day.

Grandma's All Occasion Sugar Cookies from "Baking: From My Home To Yours" by Dorie Greenspan

2 cups plain flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
150g unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Sugar or cinnamon sugar, for dusting (optional)

Whisk the flour, salt and baking powder together.

Beat the butter at medium speed for a minute or so, until smooth. Beat in the sugar and continue to beat for about 2 minutes, until the mixture is light and pale. Add the egg and yolk and beat for another minute or two; beat in the vanilla. Reduce the mixer speed to low and steadily add the flour mixture, mixing only until it has been incorporated — because this dough is best when worked least, you might want to stop the mixer before all the flour is thoroughly blended into the dough and finish the job with a rubber spatula. When mixed, the dough will be soft, creamy and malleable.

Turn the dough out onto a counter and divide it in half. If you want to make roll-out cookies, shape each half into a disk and wrap in plastic. If you want to make slice-and-bake cookies, shape each half into a chubby sausage (the diameter is up to you — I usually like cookies that are about 2 inches in diameter) and wrap in plastic. Whether you're going to roll or slice the dough, it must be chilled for at least 2 hours. (Well wrapped, the dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.)

Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line two baking sheets with baking paper. If you are making roll-out cookies, working with one packet of dough at a time, roll out the dough between sheets of plastic wrap or wax paper to a thickness of 1/4 inch, lifting the plastic or paper and turning the dough over often so that it rolls evenly. Lift off the top sheet of plastic or paper and cut out the cookies — I like a 2-inch round cookie cutter for these. Pull away the excess dough, saving the scraps for rerolling, and carefully lift the rounds onto the baking sheets with a spatula, leaving about 1 1/2 inches between the cookies. (This is a soft dough and you might have trouble peeling away the excess or lifting the cutouts; if so, cover the dough, chill it for about 15 minutes and try again.) After you've rolled and cut the second packet of dough, you can form the scraps into a disk, then chill, roll, cut and bake.

If you are making slice-and-bake cookies, use a sharp thin knife to slice the dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds, and place the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 1 1/2 inches of space between the cookies.

Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 9 to 11 minutes, rotating the sheet at the midpoint. The cookies should feel firm, but they should not color much, if at all. Remove the pan from the oven and dust the cookies with sugar or cinnamon sugar, if you'd like. Let them rest for 1 minute before carefully lifting them onto a rack to cool to room temperature.

Repeat with the remaining dough, cooling the baking sheets between batches.
Storing: The cookies will keep at room temperature in a tin for up to 1 week. Wrapped well, they can be frozen for up to 2 months.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies for a Long Weekend

Thanks for all your kind wishes but sadly we are very much still in the grip of chicken pox. Darling daughter has recovered enough to return to school tomorrow, however darling husband is still unwell. Very very unwell in the way that adults seem to get when they catch childhood diseases. So the gorgeous Australia Day long weekend saw us confined to barracks, with lots of DVDs, and general mooching around. On the bright side, it was a last chance to catch our breath before school starts for the year tomorrow. And, fingers crossed, maybe he will start to improve tomorrow....

These chocolate biscuits (cookies) from Bill Granger are very easy and very more-ish; I love teh slight salty taste. They got a big thumbs up from both darling daughters. Incidentally, the recipe makes a huge number - Bill claims 30, but I got more than 50, so feel free to halve the recipe and you will still have more biscuits than you know what to do with. Unless all you have to do is ponder the giant long weekend crossword. Anyone know what a slang term for a New South Welshman is? Cockroach doesn't fit.

Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

from "Simply Bill" by Bill Granger
250g unsalted butter, softened
350g soft brown sugar
1 tsp natural vanilla extract
2 eggs lightly beaten
310 g plain flour
60g cocoa powder
2 tsps baking powder
2 tsps sea salt
350g dark chocolate, chopped

Preheat the oven to 180C. Beat together the butter and sugar, until fluffy, then add the eggs and vanilla, incorporating everything well. Sift in the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt, then stir in until just combined. Place large spoonfuls on baking trays lined with baking paper, leaving some room for spreading. Cook for 15-20 minutes, then cool on trays for a couple of minutes before transferring to wire racks. As soon as they are completely cool, put them into an airtight box, so the humidity does not make them soggy.

Macaroons To End Off A Lovely Meal

Macaroons are one of my favourite sweet treats. Coconutty and moist, they are a perfect little indulgence at the end of a meal, with a cup of coffee or tea. They are also gluten and dairy free - so a good choice for anyone trying to limit either one in their diet. The best bit is that no one else at the table will feel deprived either. Macaroons are not to be confused with the pastel-coloured French macarons that have taken the world by storm. According to Wikipedia they originated in Scotland.

These delicious bites are also easy enough for a child to make - if only my children loved coconut the way I do. I like to make them very small and dainty - feel free to roll them bigger if you would prefer a more substantial morsel.

Coconut Macaroons

adapted from "Modern Classics Book 2" by Donna Hay

2 cups dessicated coconut

1/2 cup caster sugar

2 egg whites

Preheat oven to 180C, and line a baking tray with baking paper. Mix ingredients in a bowl until well-combined. Roll heaped teaspoons of the mixture into balls, and place on tray. Cook for 10 minutes or until they are light golden.

Halloween Chocolate Biscuits

Halloween has just started to take off in Australia. As a child, I can remember jealously watching shows like The Brady Bunch and wishing we had Halloween here. Now it has arrived and is spreading like wildfire - after all what's not to love about dressing up and buckets of lollies? When you are in a household with a nine year old and an eleven year old, it is pretty obvious that Halloween is something you will be involved in.



Because of the time of year, I was inspired to make Halloween themed biscuits this week. I used an online recipe from Martha Stewart, which is pretty simple to make. Unfortunately, (and I know it is because the dough needs to maintain its shape), these biscuits were a bit on the dry side. You also need to watch them carefully in the oven because they can burn pretty easily. I don't think an adult would be in raptures over these cookies, but a kid faced with a chocolate pumpkin biscuit? What's not to love?

Ghostly Pumpkin (or Bat and Cat) Cookies

adapted from Martha Stewart Online

Makes 40 to 50
1 1/2 cups plain flour, plus more for rolling and cutting out dough
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
180g unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg



Preheat oven to 180 degrees. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa, and salt; set aside. In a large bowl, with an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy; beat in egg. On low speed, mix in flour mixture. Divide dough in half, and form into 2 disks, each about 3/4 inch thick. Wrap disks in plastic; chill until firm, at least 45 minutes and up to 2 days.


On a lightly floured sheet of baking paper, roll dough to 3mm thick. (If dough becomes too soft to work with, refrigerate for a few minutes.) Cut out shapes, dipping cutters in flour as necessary to prevent sticking; place on a baking sheet, spacing them 3cm apart. Bake until surface is dry to the touch, 10 to 15 minutes (if decorating, press candies into dough halfway through baking). Cool 1 to 2 minutes on baking sheet; transfer to a rack to cool completely. Serve, or store in an airtight container up to 3 days.

My Favourite Brownie Recipe

Brownies are one of those things (like chocolate chip cookies) that have probably been cooked by everybody at one time or another. Everyone knows what they like and most regular cooks (or at least regular cooks with children) have their own "go to" recipe that they look to whenever they are asked for a plate of brownies. And when it comes to brownies, everyone's taste is different - some people like brownies at the cakey end of he spectrum, some at the fudgey end of the spectrum, some in-between. I am definitely in favour of the fudgey brownie, and this is my "go to" recipe.

I first discovered this recipe because I wanted to whip up some brownies but had no chocolate in the house. I was going through recipe after recipe to see if I could find one that required only cocoa powder when I found this one in "Marie Claire: Flavours" by Donna Hay. It is dense and rich and soft and so gooey you need to keep the brownies in the fridge. Preferably a fridge with a padlock to stop the constant raids these brownies inspire. In my view, these brownies can't be beaten (although I do have one member of the household who prefers the Betty Crocker packet brownies which are thin and cakey, so there is no accounting for taste!) If you are cooking for grown-ups not kids, you can make these into fancier mint-chocolate brownies. (After putting half the mixture in the tin, cover it with a single layer of after dinner mints and then the remaining brownie mixture. Cool and slice as usual). Thanks to the darling daughter for the photo.

Chocolate Brownies

from "Marie Claire: Flavours" by Donna Hay

250g butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

4 eggs

1 1/3 cups plain flour

3/4 cup cocoa powder

1/4 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 170C. Place the butter, both sugars and the vanilla in a stand mixer and beat until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time and beat each one until well-incorporated. Sift the flour, cocoa and baking powder over the butter mixture and fold through. Scrape the mixture into a 20cm square tin lined with non-stick baking paper. Bake for 40-50 mins until set in the middle, but still quite soft (remember we are going for fudgey not cakey). Cool in the tin, and then cover and put in the fridge until completely set. Cut into squares. Fall into raptures.

School Holiday Treat - Chocolate Biscuit No-Bake Cake

The Magnolia Bakery was forever immortalised by Sex and the City, for a scene where Carrie and Miranda discuss Carrie's new crush on Aiden while munching on a cupcake. The result was a global cupcake boom, and in its wake, a wave of "nostalgic desserts". Allysa Torey, owner/ chef at Magnolia was subsequently interviewed by O The Oprah Magazine about her favourite nostalgic dessert and said: "The one dessert I have great memories of us [my mom and I] making together is the chocolate wafer icebox cake—the same one that we serve at the bakery today. Apparently, while the rest of the country was slaving away shaping Nabisco chocolate wafers into the log that was pictured on the side of the box, we were using chocolate snap cookies to make a really simple yet really delicious round icebox cake."

I was amazed by the look of this cake (check out the link here to the Oprah Magazine to see how pretty it is), and even more amazed by the fact that it requires no baking at all. The moisture from the cream seeps into the biscuits overnight, so they develop a cake like texture that can be sliced and served. I made it with Arnott's Ripple biscuits, a much chunkier (and dowdier) choice than the US version with lovely thin Nabisco Chocolate Wafers, and it was completely delicious (although I may hunt out some other biscuit choices). I know we will make this again and again. A perfect summer treat.

Chocolate Wafer Icebox Cake

adapted from " The Magnolia Bakery Cookbook" by Jennifer Appel and Allysa Torey
3 cups cream
3 tbls sugar
1 tbl vanilla extract
2 packets chocolate biscuits eg Ripples

Unsweetened cocoa powder

In a large bowl, beat cream, sugar and vanilla with an electric mixer on high speed until soft peaks form. On a flat serving plate, arrange 7 biscuits, with six in a circle and one in the centre. Spread with a generous layer of whipped cream. Repeat with remaining biscuits and cream, ending with a layer of cream (there will be a few biscuits left over). Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. To serve, dust top lightly with cocoa powder.

Thin and Crisp Choc-Chip Cookies - My Favourites

Choc-chip cookies is probably the recipe I bake most regularly (in common with the rest of the world I'm sure). I can't remember when it started, but now, every time the kids have a school event, a party, or just need to take a treat to friend's house, I make another batch. It happens often enough that I now keep choc-chips permanently in my pantry. And there is now some discussion in my house about which recipe I should use - see previous post here.

The recipe I started with was from original Silver Palate cookbook, and I have used it so often that the spine of the book has broken, the page has fallen out, and it flaps around the binding, stained and dog-eared. The recipe gives two options - one for giant cookies, and one for small cookies, altering the dough scooped and baking temperature depending on what you are after. My personal preference is for small cookies, and these ones come out thin and crisp-ish. As a general rule, I don't like cookies and muffins that are as big as your head, and I prefer crisp to moist. And eating smaller cookies lets you have a couple, which in turn feels indulgent without actually consuming anywhere near as much wickedness as is in one giant cookie. Do you agree? How do you prefer your cookies?

Chocolate Chip Cookies

from The Silver Palate Cookbook

250g unsalted butter, softened

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups plain flour

1 tsp bi-carb of soda

1 tsp salt

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet choc chips

Preheat oven to 160C for giant cookies or 180C for normal cookies. Line a baking sheet with baking paper. Cream butter and both sugars together until light and fluffy. Add eggs and vanilla and mix in well. Sift dry ingredients and stir into the butter mixture until completely combined. Add chocolate chips to the batter (it will be very heavy and thick by now).

If you are making giant cookies, scoop out the batter with an ice cream scoop and flatten to about 12 cm. If you are making normal cookies, just use a heaped teaspoon of batter. Bake 15-17 mins for giant cookies. Bake 8-10 mins for ordinary cookies. Cool on the baking sheet for 5 mins then move to a wire rack to cool completely. Makes 25 giant or about 80 normal cookies.

The Never-Ending Quest For The World's Best Choc-Chip Cookies

A chocolate chip cookie is one of those rare recipes that almost everyone will have tried to make at some point in their lives. Even trickier, almost everyone will have an opinion on what makes them really good. The NY Times recently ran a big article on what makes for a good choc-chip recipe, but it does seem to vary person to person.

In our family, we are evenly divided on whether they should be thin and crispy (me and littlest daughter) or whether they should be soft and chewy (husband and eldest daughter). Without question, the chocolate is always semi-sweet, and I like to make them quite small (it feels less indecent when the kids want to have three or four). Choc chip cookies also freeze quite well, so if you make a big batch, you can always stash some away for later - I actually like them straight from the freezer. NY Times would definitely disagree with me on size, and not serving them warm! I would love to hear your suggestions if you have any on this???

I plan to share some more recipes for chocolate chip cookies in the future as my search for a definitive "best recipe" continues, and I will try the NY Times recipe for you as well (yes it is a sacrifice). In the meantime, this recipe from Martha Stewart has been called "quite possibly the best batch yet" by my husband. It comes from a special issue magazine called "Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies" that has a really wonderful range of biscuits in it - sadly I can't find it on Amazon, but look out for it on ebay.

Soft and Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

from "Martha Stewart Holiday Cookies"

2 1/4 cups plain flour

1/2 tsp bicarb of soda

250g unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup white sugar

1 cup light brown sugar

1 tsp cooking salt

2 tsps pure vanilla extract

2 large eggs

2 cups semi-sweet choc chips

Preheat oven to 180C. Whisk together flour and baking soda and put aside. Beat butter and sugars together at medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 2 mins. Reduce speed to low, then add salt, vanilla and eggs. Mix until well-combined, about 1 min. Stir in flour mixture by hand then stir in choc chips. Do not overwork the batter.

Line oven sheets with baking paper. Spoon out the dough depending on your preferred size of biscuit. I use a heaping teaspoon to give a nice smallish cookie size. Bake until the edges of the cookies turn golden but the centres are still soft, 10-12 minutes. Cool on trays for 2 minutes then transfer to wire racks to cool completely. Keep in an airtight container at room temperature for up to as week.

Milo and Malteser Biscuits

Last Saturday, I had a Mother Daughter weekend away in the country with darling oldest daughter, and thought a batch of biscuits would be good for Dad and darling youngest daughter at home as well as the other Mums and Daughters at our weekend away. Flipping through my new Dorie cookbook(Baking From My Home To Yours" by Dorie Greenspan), I came across Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops, which looked like the right biscuit for this particular weekend. I was right. By Monday they had been demolished.


Yum, yum, yum and yum! I played around with the recipe a little. My youngest daughter, who adores chocolate couldn't believe her luck when I told her I had made biscuits containing two of her favourite things in the world - milo and maltesers. She adores both, and dessert for her is often a glass of milk with milo. Maltesers are a less common treat - but one she really loves. Translation for any readers overseas: Biscuits = cookies; Milo = chocolate ovaltine but better; maltesers = honeycomb balls in milk chocolate.



Chocolate Milo Malteser Drops
(adapted from Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops from "Baking" by Dorie Greenspan)
1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup milo
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsps baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
170g unsalted butter at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/4 cup whole milk
2 cups maltesers, coarsely chopped
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips


Line baking sheets with baking paper. Sift the flour, milo, cocoa, baking powder and salt together. Beat butter and sugar together until light and floffy (about three mins). Add eggs one at a time beating well (1 min) after adding each one. Beat in the vanilla. Reduce mixer speed to low, and add half the dry ingredients, then add the milk, then the remaining dry ingredients. Do not overbeat! Mix in maltesers and choc chips by hand.

Place tablespoons of the dough on baking sheets, a couple of inches apart. Bake for 11-13 mins, rotating your baking sheets half way through. When done, the biscuits will feel soft and puffy (don't worry, they firm up as they cool). Allow to cool on the trays for 2 mins before moving to a rack for them to cool.