Hot Cookie - the Archive

Admire the Brown Butter Cookies now; no more to come. Like an edible sand castle, if there were such a thing, these cookies have a fine texture that crumbles and melts in the mouth. Delicate and short-bready, these cookies smell a lot like the "cookie soap" my friend gave me (see the May 20, 2011 post). They are true novelties that get great reviews from friends. Those same friends must have wondered at the quizzical expression on my face while listening to their compliments. My furrowed brow said, "Really?" I didn't want them to be a hit. In fact, I never want to make them again. Here's why. These cookies want a cup of butter to be heated in a pan until it browns.  This is the step that is supposed to produce the sandy texture. Not the way I prefer to spend 30 minutes. Kneading is fun. Making shapes from rolled out dough can feel creative. But watching butter simmer...well, I might as well watch my tomatoes "grow" in a Seattle spring. Jus...

First batch (top) with rounded edges due to parchment; second batch with fading edges baked on buttered sheet. I remember making lace cookies as a teenager. Probably got the recipe from the newspaper. They consisted of brown sugar and butter. I swear that's all. OK, maybe something else--it didn't really matter what else. I was in love with the cookies that bubbled in a hot oven and spread out on the cookie sheet, creating see-through holes in a crisp wafer that trailed to nothing at the edges. They were the most "different" cookies I'd seen in my young life. Delicate and not so good for storing on top of each other (they'd break or stick together), they'd have to be consumed in a fantasy binge with milk or ice cream. Based on the photo, I expected the Gourmet Lace Cookie recipe to tempt me to the same kind of binge. I expected the batter to spread out and bubble  No such luck. Instead, these spread into flat cookies with rounded edges and no bubb...

"Benne wafers?" Annette asked, eyes wide as she peered into my container. "Yes. How did you know the name of these cookies?" I asked. I'd brought about a dozen to a weekend basketry retreat. "I'm from the south. We ate them all the time, mostly for special holidays."  "Maybe I should find a better recipe if they are that popular. They caused me no end of trouble." Flattened with a knife on left, only dented on right. Cookies spread out the same, regardless of knife technique. I told Annette, a fellow basket weaver and retreat attendee, about my project. These cookies were published in my birth year. I suppose some people, when confronted with a year by year compendium of cookies, would skip directly to their own birth year and imagine that cookie the best of the bunch. Others would contemplate how representative it is of the era. I did no such thing. In fact, the recipe of 1954 crept up on me. Like each passing year seems to...