Cookie Hive Reviews--Part 2

My friend Gitte brought along a batch of Chocolate Ginger Shortbread. These refrigerator cookies needed several hours of chilling, so she made them up the night before. It is a handy thing to do when you know you are expecting company and want to have some fresh cookies to serve. They roll into a tube shape and you can cut as many as you need from the roll, saving the rest for another time.

Gitte's Chocolate Ginger Shortbread

Never mind the cookies. Gitte gave me the best kitchen tip of the day. She reuses butter wrappers whenever she can. When the piece of parchment I cut did not cover the entire baking sheet, she reached for the butter wrappers to fill in the empty spaces. Why didn't I think of that?

She was reluctant to have me spill this tip in my blog. "Maybe you'll find it's toxic or something!"

It turns out that lots of people keep their butter wrappers and reuse them to butter a pan. And for many other purposes. See the comments posted here.


#40 Honey Nut Squares (Biscotti Quadrati al Miele e Alle Noci) (2003)

The combination of nuts makes this a hearty bar cookie with new flavors to savor with every bite. I thought the instructions for the dough overly difficult, though. It is similar to a pie dough, with extra sugar and an egg for the liquid. I think it could be turned into the cookie pan and simply pressed down, but it calls for kneading in four parts to distribute the fat. Whatever.

The caramelized topping is so glossy you want to dive right in. But wait--you have to work at these. The topping wants to stick to the lining of the pan. Next time, I would use parchment paper (rather than foil). I've had better luck with the releasing action of parchment.

Although the recipe did not say to chop any of the nuts, I would chop the hazelnuts a bit. Added to the mixture whole, they stuck up unevenly above the rest of the nut layer. I would also make twice as much, because after gathering all these nuts together, and caramelizing the topping, you want to have plenty of cookies to show for it.

The recipe is here and here (p. 49).


#41 Gingerbread Men (1959) -- 

Actually Gingerbread Bears. I combined the ingredients for these the night before, because they  wanted thorough chilling.

We looked at my assortment of cookie shapes and Phyllis thought the bears were the best size to make enough for all our bakers.

I have always thought gingerbread a bit dry, kind of like fall spices on toast. Not the case for these, which were moist and full of flavor. I think the dark molasses had a lot to do with the superior flavor.

Bears with frosted extremities.

Aside from melting in the mouth, we sort of melted to see them come alive with the silver balls for the eyes and buttons, and slivers of candied lemon or orange peel for the mouths. Awww!

The glitter dust on ears, hands and feet really made them sparkle. I think it must have been about that time that we broke out a bottle of champagne and we sparkle-dusted our faces, too.

The recipe is here.



#42 Cranberry-Pistachio Biscotti (1992) 

Those are the biscotti (Italian for twice-baked)
at the top of the plate.

I have made this variety of biscotti before. It is a hit at the holidays because the green pistachios and red cranberries, say Christmas all day long.

The Gourmet recipe calls for more egg and less vanilla than my favorite version. They also include baking soda and powder. These changes, slight though they may seem, produce a less flavorful cookie that has more rise and more give to it. Soft-cookie aficionados will prefer them, but those who prefer a crunchy-cookie prefer mine. I swear everyone would prefer more vanilla.

The recipe is here and here.

More to come ...