Hot Cookie - the Archive

Crescent Cheese Cookies--prettier than they are tasty. I left off the powdered sugar dusting for the photo. Cookies with no sugar? It is not the same confection if all the sugar is powdered and sifted over the top. Feels like they're putting one over on me. This "cookie" is dough and filling. That's just not a real cookie. It is the dough that has no sugar. As if rolling out tiny pie crusts, you roll out 3" rounds or squares of dough, or cut a larger rolled piece of dough with cookie cutters. You put a half teaspoon of jam on each dough shape. Then, you fold the dough to enclose the jam. Crimp hard--trust me, the jam does not appreciate confinement and tries to escape. Then, roll into a crescent shape. They look like potstickers, except they are baked and drier on the outside. An unusual dough ingredient is "pot cheese," which also goes by the name "basket cheese." "Farmer's cheese" also is an acceptable substitute. P...

Sometimes I walk into my kitchen and baking cookies seems trivial in the face of other life issues. World finance and famine aside, life is hard emotionally right now. Family members struggle with health issues, change and loss. My most stressful responsibility is managing my mother's care in a city a thousand miles away. I call her every day, pay her bills, and coordinate doctor visits, house repairs and medication orders with her care-givers. I feel tense a lot. My blog began because I had trouble concentrating on writing about issues important to me. I had been writing regularly and bringing articles to a weekly writers' workshop for critique. After my mother's illnesses, my creative energies had stalled. My mind spun around friends and relatives far away. But I needed to keep busy and I wanted to keep writing, honing the craft. A cookie blog seemed the perfect choice. Busy-making, focused on a positive change (to lose 10 pounds), it seemed a less demanding writing p...

Hazelnut-studded Gianduia Brownies, dense and moist. When a flavor combination is right, the entire palate seems to come alive with sweet satisfaction. That is the effect of these brownies at first bite. Brownies lifted from pan by their parchment. Not your ordinary walnuts in these brownies. Instead, roasted, peeled hazelnuts and a bit of Nutella (a hazelnut-chocolate spread), enhance the nuttiness. Both bittersweet chocolate and milk chocolate add to the depth of flavor. I did a double-take as I bit in. These weren't what I expected, but in a good way. They take brownies to a new level. In the interest of full disclosure, these are not cake-like in texture. They are dense brownies, my personal preference, and are best topped with your favorite vanilla ice cream. Go ahead and add some brandy or a favorite liqueur, too. The flavor holds up to it. Hazelnuts, roasted and peeled enough. We don't need to get crazy about those skins. I admit the hazelnut proc...

Freckled cookies! An inviting praline shortbread. Have you ever made pralines? Neither had I--until this recipe. Praline is basically sugar and water (and for this recipe, cream of tartar) cooked in a saucepan until it is the color of your average Irish Setter. Then you add the well-chopped nuts, cashews in this case, and spread it on a buttered surface to set. This whole process results in a crisp and flat nut brittle that you can break up to add to a dough. It is kind of like making your chocolate chips from scratch, but I haven't seen praline chips ready to eat in my bakery aisle. The step is necessary. Praline with chopped cashews spread on buttered parchment paper. Supply Note: The recipe wants you to spread the praline goo onto buttered aluminum foil, but I prefer parchment paper. I only sliced through the paper a few times while I cut the praline into bits. Nut Note: The recipe calls for salted roasted cashews. If you use unsalted roasted cashews, add a te...

My week: Singing at a music camp for adults. When not singing, we are eating and wine-tasting.  The setting is Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington, home of dense, nuanced wines, which flow each evening at the "Fermata Bar" on the campus lawn. Buffet meals in the college cafeteria, and the food is good (really). What to do when faced with lots of easy-to-eat calories? In general, potlucks, parties and buffets can be especially treacherous for people who love food but want to cut back. So many new things to try, and so many that didn’t require any work on my part. Parties and buffets make food way too easy to eat. Nothing--not even preparation time--stands between my mouth and the food except some good strategizing. Remembering that my stomach is only as big as my fist, I have to be picky about what goes down the hatch. Here are some of my favorite strategies: Only a spoonful. If I don't know I'll really like something, I take as little as a teaspoonful o...