Recipes from Cooking with Doyle Moore on Focus 580
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Cooking on Focus 580: Recipes for October 2008
October 1, 2008: Cookies
Who can not embrace the idea of cookies? You may have a very basic recipe, or something special, or something traditional in your family at a particular time of year. Now that summer is over, folks are willing to be back in the kitchen and turn the oven on. Doyle has suddenly been inundated with cookie recipes, some of which are “most peculiar.” But he made some of them, so they do work in practice.
A-PEES
Doyle doesn’t like the name (perhaps it comes from “appease” – but that’s not what you call a good recipe!). But the cookies are so, so good, though the recipe is weird.
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2 cups all-purpose flour (Doyle uses white whole wheat flour)
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½ cup sugar (Doyle uses dark brown sugar)
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1 tsp. ground cinnamon
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1 tsp. ground nutmeg (Doyle substituted allspice)
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1 tsp. ground mace (Doyle substituted ½ tsp. cloves)
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½ cup butter or margarine (1 stick), cut into the flour mixture
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1½ Tbsp. caraway seeds
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⅓ cup dry white wine (or a little bit more)
No egg, no milk, no cream, no cream cheese. Doyle wondered how you could make a dough out of this, but it ended up making the best-feeling dough he’s ever encountered, soft and yielding but still firm; it’s dark brown. Mix it all as best as you can with a spoon, then work it with your hands. Form the dough into a ball and roll out to ¼-inch thickness on a lightly floured surface. Cut with a 2-inch round cutter, and place on a lightly greased baking sheet.
Bake in a hot (375º) oven for exactly 20 minutes.
They’re very good, but an exotic taste; they are not like spice cookies or ginger snaps, the texture is different. The cookies don’t dry out or get hard, almost like shortbread.
A caller from Terre Haute was curious about the use of mace in these cookies, he thought mace was only used in sausage. Mace has been used in many dishes for a long time. It’s the covering between the nutmeg and the hull of the nutmeg, but it doesn’t taste like nutmeg. For more information see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_(spice).
It is used mostly in spice cakes and other foods where you have combinations of spices.
POTATO CHIP COOKIES WITH DRIZZLED CHOCOLATE
Doyle has, over the years, searched for recipes that use potato chips. He feels that they make a good product for cooking rather than a food to snack on. He wants to go beyond crumbling them up on the top of casseroles, that’s sort of a waste of their special qualities.
This cookie is so simple! And, there is no liquid in it.
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1 cup butter, softened
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½ cup sugar (Doyle used brown sugar)
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1 tsp. vanilla (Doyle used vanilla paste)
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1¾ cups flour
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1 cup crushed potato chips
Cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add vanilla and flour gradually and beat until blended. Stir in potato chips. Drop by teaspoonful onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake at 350º for exactly 15 minutes.
When cookies are cooled, drizzle chocolate ganache (see http://www.joyofbaking.com/ganache.html for a recipe) over the tops of the cookies.
Makes 3 dozen cookies.
They don’t have a strong flavor, but a nice shortbread-like cookie with a crunchy texture with great mouth appeal. The potato chips are an integral part of this cookie.
SUBSTITUTES FOR BUTTER?
A caller from Vermillion County remarked that we all love cookies, but we want to be sure we’re not using Crisco any more, so we’ve switched to butter. Has anyone figured out the right proportion so that you can use part butter and part canola oil? How can we lower the fat? Or, are there any good cookie recipes that are lower in fat? Doyle has seen recipes that offer an either/or with oil substitute, but he hasn’t found any formulas; he suggests do some experimenting. Smart Balance now has canola oil in it; but you can just decide in some instances that instead of a tablespoon of butter you’re going to use a tablespoon of oil. Make it up, but don’t push it too far. You may find it will make the batter too liquid, in which case you can sprinkle a little more of the flour in. Doyle shares the caller’s concern. He has found it very easy not to use a full measure of sugar in baking: the result will not be as sweet but will still be good. But oil is part of the chemistry of cooking. Here is one online discussion on the subject from the Cooking Light website: http://community.cookinglight.com/showthread.php?t=1297.
DREI EIGEN
Doyle’s mother made an unusual cookie, and he has recently learned that they are called “drei eigen” (three eyes). She made them rarely and with great care, a special event. The bottom piece is flat, there is a jam spread on top of that, and a second piece of crust is put on top with three holes in it. She always made the three holes with her thimble. He never was asked to help, so it was always a surprise when they were made. They were always served on a plate, never put in the cookie jar. What was so unique about them, basically a sugar cookie? You ate them slowly and with reverence. He imagines that this is a German cookie that her mother taught her, and he also has the idea that the same reverence was passed on. If you squished them just right, you could squeeze the jam up through the holes.
BRITTLE PEANUT COOKIES
A caller from Charleston has a favorite cookie that is made with no milk and no eggs; she got the recipe when she was allergic to milk and eggs.
You must use raw peanuts, which are hard to find.
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1 cup raw peanuts
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½ cup water
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scant ½ cup oil (any oil you want)
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1 tsp. vanilla
Grind the above ingredients all together in a blender.
In your mixing bowl place:
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2 cups oatmeal (rolled oats or cut oats, it doesn’t seem to matter)
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½ cup brown sugar
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½ tsp. salt
Mix the dry ingredients together and add the liquid. Then, place another
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½ cup peanuts
in your blender and break them up into crushed pieces. Mix that together with the rest and form into small balls (it helps to use a small scoop) and place on a cookie sheet; tap down the balls a bit, because these don’t spread. Bake at 325° until lightly browned, 20-30 minutes. Loose them with a spatula and let cool before you handle (otherwise they fall apart).
They’re crunchy because of the crushed peanut pieces. They’re a little like homemade granola cookies, only a little sweeter.
SWEDISH CREAM WAFERS
A caller from Champaign inherited from her grandmother a cookie called Swedish Cream Wafer. She makes it about once every five years, because it’s a lot of work. It basically has butter, cream, and flour for the wafer, and the inside is more butter and confectioner’s sugar. They really are decadent. The recipe does call for an egg yolk in the filling, but she doesn’t use it. The wafers are very fragile, they have to be cooked just the right amount of time.
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1 cup soft butter
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1/3 cup thick cream
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2 cups sifted white flour
Mix the above ingredients thoroughly. Chill at least 1 hour. Roll out 1/8-inch thick. Cut into 1 ½-inch rounds. Transfer to waxed paper heavily sprinkled with white sugar. Turn rounds with a spatula to coat with sugar on both sides. Place on an ungreased baking sheet. Prick in 4 places with a fork. Bake at 370º F for 7-9 minutes until slightly puffy but not brown. Remove from sheet and cool. Put each two cooled cookies together with creamy butter filling.
Creamy Butter Filling
Blend together
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¼ cup soft butter
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¾ cup sifted confectioner’s sugar
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1 tsp. vanilla
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1 egg yolk (this is in the original recipe, but I leave it out)
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