Sables- Chocolate and Lemon Sandwich Cookies

Wow- I have a blog? Really? I nearly forgot. My life has been completely turned around- in a good way- but turned around nonetheless. So the big news is our new abode. Historic firehouse turned loft in beautiful Lowertown St. Paul. Our lovely capitol city. We will miss Northeast Minneapolis, but never fear, we still own our house, so we don't have to really say goodbye, not yet.

Any Christmas or Hanukkah gifts given by us were an official miracle. Between moving and moving and cleaning and moving, we are tired.

My family does a make or bake gift exchange, which is easy for my crafty sister and sisters-in-law, but buying is much easier for me. One year I made Sables- a French Butter cookie that was amazing. This is actually a very simple recipe, but this was before I did any baking or cooking, so I was pretty proud of myself.

I decided to do this again. I've been asked for the recipe so many times, I had the wherewithal to document the process so I could post it here. My life is coming back together after all.

I must confess, this recipe is not my own. It came to me through our favorite food magazine Cooks Illustrated. Many of you know about this gem, but if you don't you must get a subscription.

These are very special butter cookies, each one literally crumbles in your mouth leaving a buttery, slightly sweet taste with the smallest hint of salt. Sandwich some chocolate or lemon honey between two of those cookies and they are worthy enough to be given as a gift. So that's what I did.

There is a secret ingredient, discovered through the rigorous scientific method employed by the America's Test Kitchen crew of Cooks Illustrated. The ingredient is hard boiled egg yolk crumbled into the batter. That's it. One little egg yolk makes all the difference. I never would have guessed. Which is why you should order the magazine. 

Sables (French Butter Cookies)
recipe makes about 20 sandwich cookies
Ingredients:
1 large egg
10 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
1/3 c granulated sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1 large egg white lightly beaten with 1 tsp water
4 tsp turbinado sugar aka raw sugar
3 1/2 ounces of chopped dark or milk chocolate
Lemon honey or curd.

1. Hard boil the egg by placing it in a pan, covered with water, bring to a boil, cover and remove from heat and let sit for 10 minutes. Fill a small bowl with ice water. Remove the egg from the hot water and place it in the ice water. Leave for 5 minutes, peel the egg and discard the white (or eat it with salt- waste not). Press the hard yolk through a fine mesh strainer into small bowl.

2. Using a stand mixer with paddle or food processor: beat butter, granulated sugar, salt and cooked egg yolk on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, scraping as needed. Reduce speed to low, add the vanilla and mix until incorporated. Stop mixer or processor, add flour and mix until just combined- about 30 seconds. With a rubber spatula, press dough into a ball.

3. Divide the dough in half and shape each piece into a log about six inches long and 1 3/4" diameter. Wrap each log in parchment paper and twist each side to seal. Like this.  

Tip: the smoother you get the dough rolled, the more perfectly round your cookies will be. To do this, twist  one end first and set it upright on the counter, pressing the dough by tapping it a few times, so it settles evenly. We also ended up using our sushi mat to roll them tight.

Chill dough for about 2 hours in your refrigerator. 45 minutes in the freezer will do as well. Or you can do what I did, which is throw it in the fridge and go to bed.

4. Arrange your oven racks to the upper middle and lower middle positions and pre-heat your oven to 350*.
Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Unwrap your dough and using a chef's knife, slice dough for sandwich cookies into 1/8" thick slices. Rotate the dough as you slice so the cookies stay round.

 As you can see, mine aren't perfect, which is okay, since they still turned out fabulously. I attempted the pretzel shape, which I found much easier the last time I did this. To do this, take two of the cut round cookies and smush together into a ball. Roll the dough into a 6" long rope and form the pretzel shape, one side at a time. This ended up to be too much work- they kept falling apart- you can see I gave up after 8 took about 15 minutes. The sandwich cookies are way easier.

5. Using a pastry brush, brush half the cookies with the egg white mixture and sprinkle the cookie with turbinado sugar. Place in the oven for about 10-13 minutes, until the centers are pale golden brown with slightly darker edges. Switch and rotate the baking sheets in the oven halfway through. Remove from the oven, let cool for 5 minutes on the baking sheets and then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

6. Place the chopped chocolate in a small bowl and microwave on half power for 1-2 minutes and let it cool slightly. 







The cookies with the sugar are for the top of the sandwiches.







 Once the cookies are cooled, spoon some chocolate on the bottom cookie...

...top with the sugared cookie, slightly off center so the chocolate shows a bit.

Just for variety, I also heated some lemon honey I bought at Byerly's, you could also use lemon curd. The honey hardens when cooled, so it worked very well for this purpose.

I repeated the process with the lemon.









                                                  The finished product...plates of cookies!

 

                                               See? Gift worthy after all. Happy New Year!

Bourbon Bacon Peaches

I almost never eat or make sweets or deserts. However, I was reviewing our posts the other day and I realized almost every desert I have made in the last year or so has been post worthy.  I might have a flair for creating items I don't eat. Correction, that I usually don't eat. And yes, I really enjoyed this one. I even made it twice. Actually, that isn't fully correct. The second time I made it the UB made a Manhattan killing almost all my rye whiskey. Inventory control in the kitchen is important to those who cook. I ended up making a variant -I will list that too.


How to make:
First make the sauce by covering and heating in the 'nuker' for 30-45 seconds one ounce of maple syrup and the leaves from 1/3 sprig of fresh rosemary.  Once cooked and cool mix in the whiskey and a pinch of salt. Stir.

Halve the peach. Melt the bacon fat on medium. (yes, you heard me - bacon fat) in a pot/pan (with a lid) that can barely hold the two peach halves flat side down.





Once the fat is liquid, coat inside of the peaches with bacon fat (pour some of it inside each peach) and then place them in the pan face down.

Cover, bring to medium heat, lightly boiled  for 8-10 minutes, until cooked.

Pour sauce on top of peaches, make sure rosemary stays on top.


Place the peaches on small plate and spoon the now thickened sauce on top of the peaches. Eat and enjoy the goodness of making a healthy snack unhealthy.


Ingredients:

1 peach halved
1 1/2 tsp bacon fat

Sauce:

1oz maple syrup
1/3 sprig rosemary (8-10 leaves)
1 oz rye whiskey: Variant:1/3 oz rye whiskey, 1/3 oz dark rum, 1/3 oz cognac
A titch of salt

Got Pears?

Ahhh, Pears. It could be me, but pears seem to be making a comeback. They are sweet, like most fruit, but have a subtle, fresh taste that is reminiscent of summer. They can do savory just as easily as sweet and are just a bit unexpected. I work with really picky, McDonald's loving, adolescent girls and even they love pears. The cook has to put them out one or two at a time and even raw, they are snatched up and enjoyed.

The AC has been on a pear kick lately too, and it's pretty awesome. Even better, the pear kick has equaled more desserts, which is always good for me.

Exhibit A

I present to you three dishes, four pictures. The fourth is just to demonstrate the end result, and I liked the image- remember, this is also about photography for me.

Exhibit A. Made while we were hosting some new friends for Art-a-Whirl. Preparation was scant and overall, these were quite spontaneous- The AC gets up from the dinner table around midnight after an evening of over indulgence. He doesn't say a word.  I don't disturb him. And my art friends and I get a treat. Kinda like my sister when she visited. see the fried bananas post and you'll get the idea. A common, green Bartlett pear was sliced thin and marinated in St. Germaine Elder Flower liqueur for a little over 20 minutes. The AC put the pears and the sauce used to marinate in a med-high frying pan, coated with butter. He added cinnamon and ground ginger and fried on both sides until browned and slightly soft. He halved some dried cherries and served.  All were eaten voraciously. The result was a semi-sweet, buttery, warm, just perfect follow-up to a meal.

Exhibit B

Exhibit B. Oatmeal. Served on a standard Saturday morning, with bacon, or course. This was added to demonstrate yet another way to add excitement to oatmeal. Honestly, oatmeal had no idea how exciting it could be until it met the AC.

This version used the pears, again Bartlett, marinated in St. Germaine. The oatmeal was prepared with ground clove, cinnamon, orange and lemon peel and a small hint of french lavender. Think about that, meaty, hearty oatmeal, balanced with citrus, subtle pear sweetened with St. Germaine (yes, I guess that means we consumed alcohol for breakfast) and the clean taste of lavender. This is your license to go crazy on your oatmeal...ready?? Go!

Exhibit C

Exhibit C. Caramelized roasted pears. Enough said. This is truly bringing out the total dessert potential of this fruit. The AC really outdid himself with this. Bosc pears are used. They are the pears with the brown skin, they are ultimately slightly less sweet and very good for cooking.

Exhibit D

To make this, preheat the oven to 375 degrees, cut the pears in half and core. Squeeze fresh lemon juice on both sides. Turn round side up and then lightly drizzle vanilla extract and generously sprinkle with brown sugar. Place the pears on a baking sheet that has a lot of butter coating it, it will be used for more than release but part of a sauce when we're done. Create the sauce using various liqueurs, for these we used a combination of cointreau and plain triple sec. Add cinnamon, ginger, allspice, a bit of salt and a bit of cayenne. Cook the sauce until reduced, pour the sauce over the pears after the pears have cooked about 25-30 minutes (somewhat soft all the way through) and then place under a broiler. Broil until brown and bubbly. Remove from the broiler, pour the remaining sauce from the pan over the pears and then top with chopped dried cherries and fresh mint leaves.

Place in front of your lucky dinner guests and see Exhibit D.

Bacon Fried Bananas

Have you ever noticed that we don't mention desserts on this blog? There's a story behind that. The AC doesn't have a sweet tooth, a fact he always brags about whenever it comes up. Conversation drifts towards favorite candy, that new bakery that makes the best donuts, and AC gets quiet, waiting for his opportunity to shrug his shoulders and say "I don't eat that stuff, I don't have a sweet tooth, never have". Then he'll talk about the super-human, weight-lifter convenient fact that instead of sweets, he craves protein. Meat. Not sugar. This is usually followed by the story about his mother hiding sweets in his room because she knew he would never eat them. Apparently the Thanksgiving turkey was another story. It was gone before the first sandwich was made. Guess you have to pick your poison. 

As a result we don't order dessert often and make it even less. I, the UB, do have a sweet tooth, but feel like a pig if I eat more than a few bites of the dessert I ordered for myself, the one AC will have "a bite" of, and he does have just one bite. So it turns into a pretty great diet plan for me too. When we're with friends who want dessert, I joyfully join them, happy to have a partner in the crime of utter indulgence.

Out of the two of us I am the baker. I have learned to bake things AC will eat. Pancakes are one, and as you can see, I have several recipes. The recipe with cottage cheese and yogurt are his favorite...no duh. He also enjoys my fruit cobblers, his favorite is cherry/rhubarb, that really is amazing. I add very little sugar and a scoop of ice cream or coconut sorbet. If it ever warms up around here, I'll post the recipe. He'll also eat crepes with nutella, bread pudding, certain fresh baked cookies (but never day-after) and once ate a chocolate cupcake at a bonfire party we hosted, after several rounds of drinks. I was very pleased.

You can imagine my shock then, when AC offered to cook myself and my lovely sister (who was in town and happened to be over for dinner- yay!) bacon-fried bananas. He even said it this way "I've never made you my bacon fried bananas have I?" Apparently he's had this recipe forever and after eleven years hadn't thought about cooking it for me. I guess saving that stuff up makes for new discoveries? Anyway. They were fabulous. He took about five minutes to make them and here is the recipe:

1. Take 2 bananas, and slice into 1/2" slices.
2. Dredge the bananas in panko breadcrumbs to coat.
3. Sprinkle with cinnamon.
4. Take bacon fat and melt in a hot frying pan. He used enough fat to cover and coat the pan, about 1/8 inch. (Did I tell you we got a new hood? One that actually vents outside? Oh the possibilities...)
5. Place the bananas in the pan, flip when golden brown and cook the other side until golden brown. If you like it sweeter, sprinkle with powdered sugar.
6. Place in a bowl and put down in front of shocked partner and sister-in-law.
7. Earn major points. 

They were made before we even got through the first bit of crazy family gossip and gone before that bit was over. My sister and I were both awed that AC would even suggest a dessert, let alone get up from the table and start to make it, finishing before we even processed what had happened. Anything is now possible. Yes, I realized the dessert involved bacon, but let me have my moment.