melting your mouth

This is another recipe that we always make at Christmas and that I don’t remember having any other time of year. They are a pecan shortbread cookie rolled in powdered sugar (the ones on the left in the picture). I’ve also seen similar cookies by other names, such as Mexican wedding cookies. We make ours in a skinny finger shape though, so we call them nutty fingers or lady fingers.

The recipe makes a bunch, but they are small and tend to go fast. They are slightly more labor intensive than some cookies, but they are absolutely delicious. The recipe comes from my grandmother, who always made them when my mom was growing up.

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This recipe comes from my grandmother Pat, who I think got it from her mother as well. I’m not putting in a picture, as the only one I have is also in the Nutty Finger post. Mom and I often make them for Christmas, although this year we had some that Pat made instead. They are one of Matt’s favorites, and another that we only have at Christmastime. It makes a bunch of cookies, but you can keep the dough in the fridge if you don’t have time to make them all at once. They are a dense chewy cookie with lots of dates, nuts and raisins — delicious!

Ingredients:

1 c butter
1 1/2 c brown sugar
3 eggs
3 c flour
1 t baking soda in 3 T boiling water
1 t cinnamon
1 lb chopped dates
1 lb chopped pecans
1 lb raisins

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix all ingredients together. This will give you mixer a real workout! Drop by teaspoons on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for about 9 minutes.

So in case you haven’t noticed, I’m on a baking kick lately. Last weekend seemed like a good time to make some cookies. I made three kinds: Heidi’s Minty Chocolate Christmas Cookies, Espresso-Toffee Shortbread Cookies, from Dorie Greenspan via Smitten Kitchen, and Madeleines. Below are a few more details about how the cookies turned out, and the recipe for the madeleines (the other two recipes you can get from the links above).

Minty Chocolate Christmas Cookies

These have a short, crunchy chocolate cookie with a peppermint filling. I made the cookies pretty much as directed in the recipe, except I used baking sugar instead of powdered sugar, and white flour. For the filling, I used half powdered sugar and half baking sugar (I ran out of powdered). I didn’t want to use cream since I was giving them as gifts and thought they might be around for a few days, but I didn’t really want to just add water. So I creamed the sugar with a few tablespoons of butter to make a buttercream type frosting, and then added enough water to get the consistency right before adding the peppermint extract.

The cookies were very good, and I liked the balance of the rich, dark cookie with the mint frosting. However, they got soft very quickly (the next day). So, if you’re going to try them, I would recommend not filling them until just before serving, which I feel silly for not having thought of in the first place.

Espresso-Toffee Shortbread Cookies

In Deb of Smitten Kitchen’s post about these, she suggested substituting chopped Ghiradelli Toffee Interlude bar instead of the chocolate. I did this, and it was good, but I honestly am not sure the toffee added all that much; it mostly just tasted like chocolate chips, maybe because the coffee flavor covered it up? I also used very strong espresso instead of instant espresso powder because I didn’t want to buy any. They were good, but I think the coffee flavor would’ve been good if it had been a bit more pronounced. Overall, these are delicious and I will definitely make them (or some variation) again. Also, the rolling the dough out in a bag trick is a really great idea.

Madeleines

I make madeleines with a slightly adapted version of the recipe that came with my madeleine pan, which in turn came from Williams-Sonoma. As you can see in the photo, I use a metal non-stick pan, and it works very well. I know some people like these new-fangled silicone molds. After my recent experience trying silicone muffin tins, as well as several too many headaches from silicone swim caps, I’ve decided to try to avoid silicone if at all possible (though I realize computers make it a little hard to escape). Anyway, here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

5 T unsalted butter
1/2 c all-purpose flour
1/2 t baking powder
Pinch of salt
1 egg
Grated zest of 1/2 lemon
1 t vanilla (or orange-flower water)
1/3 c granulated sugar

Special equipment:

Madeleine pan (to make one dozen regular sized madeleines)

Instructions:

1. Melt the butter. Brush a little in the mold of the madeleine pan. Place pan in the freezer. Reserve remaining butter.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt into a bowl.
3. Lightly beat together the egg, lemon zest, vanilla, and sugar.
4. Stir egg mixture into flour mixture and beat until well combined. Beat in remaining butter just long enough to incorporate.
5. Refrigerate batter for about an hour. (This is probably not absolutely necessary, but I’ve read that it helps get the characteristic madeleine “hump.”)
6. Preheat oven to 375 F. Fill molds half full with batter.
7. Bake 12 to 15 minutes, until the tops are golden and the edges start to brown. Unmold onto a wire rack. (Better to put the shell side down; the tops may get dents in them from the wire rack.)
8. If desired, dust with powdered sugar. (I usually don’t.)

As I said before, I’ve been dying to make peppermint bark cookies, inspired by 101cookbooks. I’m also continuing to search for the perfect double chocolate cookie. These Double-Chocolate Espresso Cookies from Cheryl St. John’s blog seemed worth trying, so I made them with chopped peppermint bark instead of the chocolate chips (the ones added whole; I still used semisweet for the ones melted at the beginning of the recipe). I also used 1 tsp of espresso instead of 1 T of instant coffee, since I didn’t want to buy instant coffee.

They turned out pretty well. The cookies are pretty chewy and brownie like, and very rich. They were delicious, but I’m still going for something chewy in the middle like that but a little crispy on the edges and top. Also, I wanted them to be a little bit more peppermint-y. Next time I’ll add a few drops of peppermint extract. I garnished them with little bits of chopped peppermint bark, but they were too small, so they don’t really give a hint to the cookie’s contents like I wanted. Next time, I’ll reserve some of the peppermint bark and press in a few larger pieces into each cookie before baking. The peppermint bark is a little unusual in a cookie, and I liked the way it turned out a lot. The candy cane pieces add a pleasant chewy-crunch, adding more texture than a normal cookie. These are definitely something I will make again.