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Dec. 21st, 2016 08:08 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickHoliday cookies! I like Moravian Spice Cookies and Sand Tarts.
Sand Tarts
Ingredients:
* ¾ cup butter
* 1 ¼ cup white sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* 2 eggs, one of them separated – the yolk gets mixed, the lone white is saved for later decoration
* 3 cups white flour, plus some for rolling out cookies
* extra sugar for decoration
* sliced almonds for decoration
Moravian Spice Cookies
Ingredients:
* 4 cups flour
* ¾ teaspoon baking soda
* ½ teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon each of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon
* ½ teaspoon each of allspice, cloves
* ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
* ½ cup (one stick) butter
* 1 cup molasses (Grandma’s is a palatable brand)
Instructions for mixing (applicable to either cookie recipe):
Cream butter and sugar.
Add seasonings (spices, vanilla, lemon zest, salt, baking powder) and liquid (molasses or egg + egg yolk). Mix well.
When all other stuff has been mixed in, add the cups of flour, one cup at a time, mixing as you go. Most mixers won’t handle these recipes after the first two cups of flour, so I switch to a wooden spoon. You may have to knead the last cup of flour in with your hands as these are very stiff doughs. (NOTE: When measuring flour, sift flour first and then measure by gently scooping a forkful of dough at a time into the measuring cup. Dipping the cup in and scooping out flour compacts the flour so that you get more. Too much flour and the dough won’t hold together for you.)
ONCE DOUGH IS MIXED:
Divide dough into eight balls. Flatten each ball into a hamburger-patty shape. Put the patties (one layer thick, not stacked on top of each other) in a gallon ziplock and set them in the fridge overnight. This may take more than one ziplock. The reason you are prepping the dough like this now is that it will harden up solid like a rock by tomorrow morning and you will not be able to divide it then without unhappiness. Also, the thinner, patty-shaped dough amounts warm up to “rollable” in a more even and amenable fashion and thus are easier to work with. Look, just divide the dough now. I’ve made these before, and I know how it works. Take my word for it. This step is WORTH YOUR TIME.
Wait overnight with dough patties chilling in fridge.
The next day, preheat oven to 375. You’ll be working with one patty of dough at a time, leaving the rest of them in the fridge to stay cool. Roll out the one patty of dough pretty thin. It helps if you let the dough patty sit out a little while so that it warms up enough to work. Two to three minutes should be plenty. When rolling, shoot for less than 1/8" thick. (Seriously.) Work quickly in a cool setting. Chill leftover bits while you work through the other fresh patties.
Sand Tarts: These are thin enough when you can see the countertops through the dough. I am not kidding.
Moravian Spice Cookies: Use a lot of flour underneath the dough or they won’t roll thin for you. You will not taste the extra flour. It will be fine. I do mean it about the 1/8" thickness.
For either cookie: If the dough cracks in the center while being rolled, it is not warm enough or you are rolling too hard all at once. Try being a little gentler/slower. You can reroll the dough twice before cookie quality is adversely affected and you should get 12 2" cookies from one dough patty pretty easily. 8 x 12 = 96 cookies plus 1 tray of “re-roll” cookies = 108 cookies, give or take. Yield depends on stuff like how thin do you roll, how big is your cutter, etc. Leftover dough may be fed to children or thrown in the trash. (The primary danger for eating "raw cookie dough" is from the uncooked flour not the eggs, but IMHO, life is too short to worry about salmonella vis a vis cookie dough regardless of the source. You do you, but I sneak bits of the cookie dough.)
Once it is rolled out, cut the dough into shapes and arrange them on trays. Moravian Spice Cookies need to be cooked on greased (lard or crisco) cookie sheets. Sand tarts hit the sheets naked. Neither cookie recipe moves, shifts, expands, or spreads when baked.
Sand Tarts: Pick a basic, mostly-solid shape without a lot of sticking-out bits (I like spades) and make that shape. I do not suggest using the air-bake cookie sheets. With sand tarts, browning is essential so that they develop the full buttery flavor. Browning happens a lot better on regular old-style cookie sheets.
Sand Tarts Twee Foolishness: Using the egg white you kept “for later”, glaze the center top (a quarter-sized area) of each cookie. (Use your finger for this. Dip finger in egg white, smear egg white over cookie. You will not die of salmonella. One egg white is totally plenty for one batch of cookies.) Put one almond slice on each cookie in the middle of the glazed area and then sprinkle a pinch of sugar over that.
Moravian spice cookies: I make them round. Mine are totally unadorned but they can be frosted with royal icing if you’re interested in that sort of twee foolishness. (If I want twee foolishness, I make sand tarts, see above.)
BAKING: Bake at 375 for six to eight minutes or until nicely browned on the bottom. Because they are so thin, both cookies burn fairly quickly. Keep a sharp eye on ‘em. Unless you are a professional baker, do only one tray at a time. These are not forgiving cookies and the margin for error is as thin as the cookies themselves.
Sand Tarts: You can see these brown up because they are pale. Looking at them is the best way to tell if they are getting done.
Moravian Spice Cookies: They’re brown. You can’t see much on the browning front – a little around the edges, but it’s subtle as hell. However, you can *smell* the spices getting a bit too toasty. That’s when they are done.
Be sure to cool the cookie sheet under the tap and dry it off between batches. You will regret it if you do not start with a cold cookie sheet for each batch.
NOTE: It is OK to take the tray out, remove the brown-enough cookies, and put the rest back in the oven for further browning. This is not cheating. This is standard operating procedure.
These are thin cookies. Here is a picture:
The sand tarts are translucent if you make them properly thin. I shit you not. Here is a picture:
Both sorts of cookie are exceptionally crispity, crunch crunch, crunch. They should be stored in an airtight thingie or in a house with a running woodstove. "Normal" levels of humidity will make them soggy and that's sad. Sand Tarts in particular pick up the flavors of what they are stored with. Store them individually, please.
Sand Tarts
Ingredients:
* ¾ cup butter
* 1 ¼ cup white sugar
* 1 teaspoon vanilla
* 1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
* ¼ teaspoon salt
* 2 eggs, one of them separated – the yolk gets mixed, the lone white is saved for later decoration
* 3 cups white flour, plus some for rolling out cookies
* extra sugar for decoration
* sliced almonds for decoration
Moravian Spice Cookies
Ingredients:
* 4 cups flour
* ¾ teaspoon baking soda
* ½ teaspoon salt
* 1 teaspoon each of nutmeg, ginger, cinnamon
* ½ teaspoon each of allspice, cloves
* ½ cup light brown sugar, packed
* ½ cup (one stick) butter
* 1 cup molasses (Grandma’s is a palatable brand)
Instructions for mixing (applicable to either cookie recipe):
Cream butter and sugar.
Add seasonings (spices, vanilla, lemon zest, salt, baking powder) and liquid (molasses or egg + egg yolk). Mix well.
When all other stuff has been mixed in, add the cups of flour, one cup at a time, mixing as you go. Most mixers won’t handle these recipes after the first two cups of flour, so I switch to a wooden spoon. You may have to knead the last cup of flour in with your hands as these are very stiff doughs. (NOTE: When measuring flour, sift flour first and then measure by gently scooping a forkful of dough at a time into the measuring cup. Dipping the cup in and scooping out flour compacts the flour so that you get more. Too much flour and the dough won’t hold together for you.)
ONCE DOUGH IS MIXED:
Divide dough into eight balls. Flatten each ball into a hamburger-patty shape. Put the patties (one layer thick, not stacked on top of each other) in a gallon ziplock and set them in the fridge overnight. This may take more than one ziplock. The reason you are prepping the dough like this now is that it will harden up solid like a rock by tomorrow morning and you will not be able to divide it then without unhappiness. Also, the thinner, patty-shaped dough amounts warm up to “rollable” in a more even and amenable fashion and thus are easier to work with. Look, just divide the dough now. I’ve made these before, and I know how it works. Take my word for it. This step is WORTH YOUR TIME.
Wait overnight with dough patties chilling in fridge.
The next day, preheat oven to 375. You’ll be working with one patty of dough at a time, leaving the rest of them in the fridge to stay cool. Roll out the one patty of dough pretty thin. It helps if you let the dough patty sit out a little while so that it warms up enough to work. Two to three minutes should be plenty. When rolling, shoot for less than 1/8" thick. (Seriously.) Work quickly in a cool setting. Chill leftover bits while you work through the other fresh patties.
Sand Tarts: These are thin enough when you can see the countertops through the dough. I am not kidding.
Moravian Spice Cookies: Use a lot of flour underneath the dough or they won’t roll thin for you. You will not taste the extra flour. It will be fine. I do mean it about the 1/8" thickness.
For either cookie: If the dough cracks in the center while being rolled, it is not warm enough or you are rolling too hard all at once. Try being a little gentler/slower. You can reroll the dough twice before cookie quality is adversely affected and you should get 12 2" cookies from one dough patty pretty easily. 8 x 12 = 96 cookies plus 1 tray of “re-roll” cookies = 108 cookies, give or take. Yield depends on stuff like how thin do you roll, how big is your cutter, etc. Leftover dough may be fed to children or thrown in the trash. (The primary danger for eating "raw cookie dough" is from the uncooked flour not the eggs, but IMHO, life is too short to worry about salmonella vis a vis cookie dough regardless of the source. You do you, but I sneak bits of the cookie dough.)
Once it is rolled out, cut the dough into shapes and arrange them on trays. Moravian Spice Cookies need to be cooked on greased (lard or crisco) cookie sheets. Sand tarts hit the sheets naked. Neither cookie recipe moves, shifts, expands, or spreads when baked.
Sand Tarts: Pick a basic, mostly-solid shape without a lot of sticking-out bits (I like spades) and make that shape. I do not suggest using the air-bake cookie sheets. With sand tarts, browning is essential so that they develop the full buttery flavor. Browning happens a lot better on regular old-style cookie sheets.
Sand Tarts Twee Foolishness: Using the egg white you kept “for later”, glaze the center top (a quarter-sized area) of each cookie. (Use your finger for this. Dip finger in egg white, smear egg white over cookie. You will not die of salmonella. One egg white is totally plenty for one batch of cookies.) Put one almond slice on each cookie in the middle of the glazed area and then sprinkle a pinch of sugar over that.
Moravian spice cookies: I make them round. Mine are totally unadorned but they can be frosted with royal icing if you’re interested in that sort of twee foolishness. (If I want twee foolishness, I make sand tarts, see above.)
BAKING: Bake at 375 for six to eight minutes or until nicely browned on the bottom. Because they are so thin, both cookies burn fairly quickly. Keep a sharp eye on ‘em. Unless you are a professional baker, do only one tray at a time. These are not forgiving cookies and the margin for error is as thin as the cookies themselves.
Sand Tarts: You can see these brown up because they are pale. Looking at them is the best way to tell if they are getting done.
Moravian Spice Cookies: They’re brown. You can’t see much on the browning front – a little around the edges, but it’s subtle as hell. However, you can *smell* the spices getting a bit too toasty. That’s when they are done.
Be sure to cool the cookie sheet under the tap and dry it off between batches. You will regret it if you do not start with a cold cookie sheet for each batch.
NOTE: It is OK to take the tray out, remove the brown-enough cookies, and put the rest back in the oven for further browning. This is not cheating. This is standard operating procedure.
These are thin cookies. Here is a picture:
The sand tarts are translucent if you make them properly thin. I shit you not. Here is a picture:
Both sorts of cookie are exceptionally crispity, crunch crunch, crunch. They should be stored in an airtight thingie or in a house with a running woodstove. "Normal" levels of humidity will make them soggy and that's sad. Sand Tarts in particular pick up the flavors of what they are stored with. Store them individually, please.
