International Blogger Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange

( it is too early to leave these for Santa, but it sure is a nice idea! )

What foodie doesn’t love a good cookie swap? But how do you do that amongst food bloggers all over the world? You swap recipes and ask each blogger to post their experience with another participants recipe. When I first saw this I immediately thought “that has to be the coolest idea I have seen in some time.” I threw my cookie chops in and a few weeks later received an e-mail from Joanne from Eat’s Well With Others with the recipe for Maple Brown Sugar Cookies.

Maple Brown Sugar Cookies
Makes 24, adapted from Indulgence Cookies

1/2 cup plus 1 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1 cup soft brown sugar
1/3 cup maple syrup
1 egg yolk
2 cups AP flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cardamom

1. Preheat the oven to 350. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Add the maple syrup and egg yolk, beating until just combined.
Sift in the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and cardamom. Stir with a wooden spoon to form a soft dough.

3. Shape the dough into a flat disk, cover with plastic wrap and put in the freezer for 20-30 minutes or in the refrigerator for at least an hour. (The book tells you to put it in the fridge for 20 minutes. And let me tell you, this was nowhere near enough time. Basically just refrigerate until chilled and slightly hard.)

4. Roll out the dough between two pieces of parchment paper until it is 1/4 inch thick. Cut the dough into 2-inch round cookie cutters. Or if your dough is too soft to do any such thing because you are impatient and refuse to wait until it is cold to work with it. (Not that I would know anything about that.) Roll it into balls and then flatten them slightly with your palm. Place on the prepared sheets 1 1/2 inches apart and bake for 8 minutes or until lightly golden. Allow to cool on the sheets for a minute and then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Repeat until all the dough is used up.

Cookies and I are no strangers and this time of year I always make some and I try to make new and different kinds for a little holiday fun. Last week I posted about making cookies with my Mom, something she and I had done quite a bit since I got interested in cooking. I can recall marathon cookie-making days in preparation for swaps that had so many participants we had to bring boxes to cart our haul home. We would end up with so many cookies I swear we could have fed an invading army!

These cookies are spicy, but the cardomom offers a twist that makes them much less like a Snickerdoodle than you might think. The rooty, earthy flavors from the maple syrup makes a New Englander real happy.

For a second serving of the cookies I went with a twist, ice cream sandwiches! I used pairs of the cookies, vanilla ice cream and Demerara sugar to create a treat for a holiday dinner with friends. The sugar was dusted over the edges of sandwiches before letting them rest in the freezer for 20 minutes before serving.

Another holiday season and another successful cookie swap. Lori from Fake Food Free (the organizer of the exchange) was my recipe recipient and posted the story I shared and her experience with my Mom’s recipe for Russian Teacakes last week. I read the post to my Mom while I was down for a visit. She laughed when I said that her recipe and story were making her famous on the Internet. I could tell she was happy and that made the experience complete.

I hope you are taking some time to enjoy holiday foods this year. If you try something new and would like to spread the word, let me know. I’m always up for trying new holiday treats!

Cheers!

Jason

Making Holiday Cookies with Mom

The weekend before Thanksgiving my father found himself in the hospital and as a result my parents didn’t make it up to VT. My mother and I had planned to do some holiday baking during that trip, something we both look forward to and especially when we get the chance to team up. Margot and I went as planned and I cooked the pies for our holiday enjoyment.

Fast forward a few weeks later. Dad is quickly recovering from bypass surgery and I visited today to check in and spend some time with my parents. I was pleasantly surprised to find that my mother had planned to make cookies while I worked. I had my camera with me so this made for a great opportunity for an unexpected post.

My mother subscribes to the e-mail newsletter of the Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board. The daily recipe sent to subscribers on December 4th was for Scotch Rosemary Biscuit Cookies created by Andrea Newberry of the Forkable blog.

The recipe is intriguing for a couple of reasons. First off, it contains scotch. I haven’t baked with scotch before so I didn’t really know how much or little of the smoky flavor from the scotch would come through. Secondly, rosemary. Our friend Amy made rosemary shortbread cookies earlier this year, something that was new for me. I have to admit I ate way too many of them, but the rosemary flavors wrapped in butter and sugar were just too much.

The cookies came out fantastically and I have a nice satchel of them to take home. They aren’t going to last long! I couldn't detect any remnants of the scotch, but the rosemary flavor can't be missed. The coarsely grated parmesan cheese creates a chewy texture that really brings these cookies together.

I am participating in the International Blogger Holiday Cookie Recipe Exchange this month. I’ll be posting the recipe I was assigned early next week. The recipient of my recipe, Lori from Fake Food Free, posted her recreation of the recipe and the story I sent along with it yesterday. As you can see there is a history with my mom, me and cookies!

Cheers!

--Jason

Taking It Easy – Baking Cookies

( Pumpkin Pie Bars )

Being a good patient I was following my doctor’s orders to the letter. No stacking firewood, no lawn cleanup and no high impact workouts. He didn’t say anything about time in the kitchen though. It turns out that standing at the counter for too long can be more taxing when you are fighting an infection and haven’t got back to sleeping normally yet. I fought through it though.

As I was working through the messages in my Foodbuzz this past weekend inbox I came across two cookie recipes that screamed Fall! It turns out both are from the Brown Eyed Baker which comes as no surprise!

Pumpkin Pie Bars

and

Gingered Carrot Cake Cookies

The only difference in my final product as compared to the recipes linked above is that for the Pumkin Pie Bars I used freshly roasted pumpkin and I used walnuts in the Carrot Cake Cookies.

Both of these recipes are very straightforward and came out exactly as advertised. I am a sucker for anything pumpkin and pumpkin bars had such a wonderful texture I was very glad they were destined for the freezer. Eating too many is would not be good for your health!

Both of these cookies were thoroughly enjoyed with a cup of Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee (Margot's idea) on a cool autumn afternoon. While my cooking adventures slowly come back to normal it is moments like these that make me realize that simple is ALWAYS better!

Cheers!

--Jason

Late Harvest Wine with Lavender Sugar Cookies

I caught this recipe for Lavender Lemon Sugar cookies in the Foodbuzz Top 9 today. It is brought to us by the 52 Kitchen Adventures blog.

http://www.foodbuzz.com/recipes/2238861-lavender-lemon-sugar-cookies

I immediately thought of a late harvest wine that is sweet, but not too sweet, with enough acidity to work well with food. I realized I hadn't had one that I could recomend first hand.

I have experimented with lavender from my own garden and with some more on the way this year I plan to try some additional preparations. Not only does it smell great during the growing season, think about a strategically placed flower box where the breeze blows into the house; it smells great during cooking and makes a wonderful compliment to both sweet and savory dishes.

After a bit of research I found a Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc made by Errazuriz from the Casablanca Valley in Chile. From the description seems like it would do the trick. The description includes mild aromas and flavors of melon and pineapple and is summarized as being a more intense version of its traditional dry sibling. I can imagine some amped up grassy and herbal notes as well that present as fresh fruity in nature. I read the review at http://www.slashfood.com/2006/12/21/dessert-wine-notes-errazuriz-sauvignon-blanc-2005-late-harvest/ as the basis for my conclusion. Both the healthy, but not super-high, sweetness and crisp acidity are mentioned which I think are requirements for these delicate cookies.

This is truly a fanciful pairing that is imaginative and inspiring. Hopefully it forms as wonderful of a mental picture for you as the experience should prove to be.

Cheers!

Jason