pistachio rhubarb linzer cookies

Linzer cookies are my absolute favorite cookies--spicy nut sables sandwiched with tart jam. The best thing about them is that they taste better as they age. They'll be good on the first day, but if you let them sit for a few days the jam will soak into the cookie and they become perfect. I make them every Christmas, and usually only then, with a hazelnut sable and raspberry jam. Most recipes I've seen for linzers have this hazelnut/ raspberry jam combo, but I read in Anita Chu's Fieldguide to Cookies that the traditional linzer was an almond-based sable with a black currant jam filling. That sounds divine. If there are black currants at the market this summer, I will definitely give that a go (I guess I could also buy some black currant jam. . .).

I decided that linzers shouldn't be reserved for Chirstmas baking, so I started playing around with my fav. Since I've learned that the hazelnut/ raspberry combo isn't traditional anyway, I don't feel bad about messing with the recipe. Last week, for part of my coffee shop order, I baked this pistachio rhubarb version of the linzer (a flavor experiment I loved, which inspired my pistachio rhubarb cupcake). The cookie was a big hit at the coffee shop, and I was thinking about baking more until I read news about a salmonella-related pistachio recall.

Ugh, when will it end?! The recall was voluntary on the part of the processor, so at least there is more responsibility with this one than with the peanuts. I guess I won't be baking with pistachios for awhile until I learn more about how far and wide these pistachios traveled.

So, don't bake these cookies now, but save them for later. You'll enjoy them even more for the wait.

Pistachio Rhubarb Linzer Cookies
2/3 cup unsalted roasted pistachios
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temp
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

Whisk together dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon). Set aside.

In a food processor, finely grind pistachios with 1/4 cup brown sugar.

Beat butter and remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar until pale and fluffy. Add nut mix and beat until combined well. Add egg and vanilla and beat until combined. Mix in flour mixture.

Form the dough into two balls. Flatten each ball to a 5 inch circle, wrap in plastic wrap and chill for at least two hours.

After the dough has chilled, heat the oven to 350 F.

Put one disk of dough between two sheets of wax paper to prevent sticking and roll the dough to 1/8 inch thick (you’ll get a circle that is around 11 inches). Use a 3-inch fluted cookie cutter to cut as many rounds as you can. Using a 1 inch cookie cutter, cut the center from half of the cookies. Put the cookies on a parchment-covered baking sheet about an inch apart. Bake for 10-15 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough. Note: For the dough you don’t use in the initial cutting, reroll the dough and chill it for 10-15 minutes, then roll again. If the dough ever gets difficult to work with, just throw it back in the fridge to chill a bit more.

Once the cookies cool, sprinkle the cut-out cookies with powdered sugar. Spread jam on one cookie and then top with the windowed cookie.

Quick Rhubarb Jam
1 cup sliced rhubarb
1/4-1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp. cornsarch

Mix 1 tsp. cornstarch with 1 tablespoon of water. Mix with rhubarb and sugar in small saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and boil for about 5 minutes. Set aside to thicken.

cupcake extravaganza

Today was Cupcake Camp in Ottawa, a crazy smorgasbord of something like 3,000 cupcakes. The room was packed, with a line out the door and down the stairs. Trays of cupcakes were brought out in fifteen minute intervals and quickly devoured. One participant came prepared with a camelbak full of milk. Kudos to all of the event organizers, volunteers, bakers, and of course all the eaters.

In preparing for my contribution for the event, I changed my mind every few days about what I would bake. I finally settled on four flavors.

The Maple Bacon has made an appearance on the site before. It's a simple cupcake, lightly flavored with maple sugar and cinnamon, topped with maple buttercream. I added bacon directly to the batter and topped the cupcakes with a bit of fleur de sel. I think bacon in sweets is a hard sell for most people, but I really liked the sweet-salty flavor of these.

I also played around with lavender, one of my favorite flavors in baked goods. I originally tried to do a lavender cupcake with honey buttercream, but I the flavors clashed a bit. W., my official tastetester, recommended a lemon buttercream, so I settled on Lemon Lavender. Both flavors were light, and I thought it made a good spring combination.

W's favorite was the Pistachio Rhubarb. I loved making the cake, a fluffy egg-white based batter with ground pistachios replacing some of the flour and pistachio-infused milk. The rhubarb buttercream is coming along, with this version finally achieving the tartness I was hoping for. I am still tweaking the recipe, but once it's perfected I'll post it--I know you can't wait!

My favorite was the Black-pepper Chocolate, with a whiskey glaze and vanilla buttercream. The basic recipe was based on a buttermilk chocolate cake that my mom used to bake. It turned out just how I wanted it--rich, moist, a good mix of dense and light crumb. The black pepper/ whiskey combination was inspired by my favorite dessert at Hell's Backbone Grill: a chocolate black pepper bread pudding with whiskey sauce. W. and I got married at Hell's Backbone and the bread pudding was served at our welcome dinner. It's the restaurant's 10th anniversary, so happy birthday! Since I couldn't make it to the party, I guess this cupcake is my way of celebrating.

I'm all cupcaked out! Now, I've got to go find something savory in my fridge full of buttercream.

If you want to see more photos from the day, check out this flickr set.

oat shortbread

Today is a wet and dreary day--cloudy skies and constantly drizzling rain. It's the sort of day you want to stay in bed, reading until your eyes flutter shut and then reading again--a long, sleepy cycle. But it's the sort of dreary day you don't really mind, even if you can't stay in bed all day, because it's a warm spring rain and you hope that maybe all of the warm water will melt the snow, finally.

You'll mind the weather even less if you can munch on buttery oat shortbread and sip hot tea. These cookies are like a warm sweater--and a tasty one at that! If you're like me, you'll want to keep wandering into the kitchen to eat more of them. But don't worry. It's March and spring is tempting you with the come and go sunny days, you are longing for the trees to start budding and the bulbs to start blooming (at least that's the case here in Ottawa, where spring still has a decidedly wintery feel), you have inadvisedly started wearing spring clothes even though you should probably still be in sweaters and tights. At this time of year, you need all the comfort you can get just to make it through to true, not just hopeful, spring. You need these cookies.

Oat Shortbread
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup oat flour
1/4 cup oat bran
3/4 tsp. salt
1 3/4 sticks unsalted butter (room temp)
1/2 cup packed brown sugar

(note: oat flour and oat bran can be found at health food stores)

Heat oven to 300 F. Prepare a pan. I used a 9-inch round springform for these, but you could also use an 8-inch square pan. For the springform, line the bottom of the pan with a circle of parchment paper. For the square pan, line with parchment leaving an overhang on two sides (this will help you lift out the baked shortbread.

Whisk together, the flours, bran and salt. Add butter and brown sugar and beat until all ingredients come together and form smooth dough. Press this evenly into the prepared pan. (note: If you use the springform pan, place on a baking sheet before putting in oven as there is a chance for butter leakage).

Bake for 30 minutes until brown on the edges. Remove pan from the oven. With a sharp knife, score the shortbread into even pieces (you don't need to cut all the way through). For the springform pan, score eight wedges. For the square pan, score 4" x 1".

Put pan back in oven and bake for another 15 minutes, until shortbread is lightly browned all over.

At this point, you can gild the lily by sprinkling granulated sugar (or perhaps even better, raw sugar) over the top. If you've used the springform, remove the pan ring and let the shortbread cool fully before cutting the wedges. If you've used the square pan, allow the shortbread to cool fully, then lift out of pan and cut through the rectangles. Enjoy! and try not to eat it all at once as I tend to do.

maple buttercream--and more!

I've realized that I hadn't really tasted maple until moving to Canada. I grew up eating pancakes covered with my mom's version of maple syrup: equal parts brown sugar, granulated sugar, and water boiled and flavored with mapleleine. If I were trying to raise seven kids on a social worker's income, I would have done the same. It was better than that nasty bottled artificial maple anyway.

When I left home, I started buying "real" maple syrup. How fancy. I thought it was pretty good and that I had moved up in the world. I was, of course, usually buying the cheap generic brand.

The maple situation immediately improved when we moved to Ottawa. Even the generic brand was better than anything I'd ever had. Then, a few weeks ago, we went out to Proulx Farm to check out the sugar bush activities.

In addition to sampling a variety of tasty maple treats (maple cotton candy!), we learned all about the process from sap to syrup. I always knew that maple sap was processed to get syrup, but I always assumed that the sap was more sticky and maple-y than the syrup and that the processing was about thinning the sap to a usable form. (Perhaps this was because of the many sticky encounters I've had with pine sap on backpacking trips; I never thought about evaporation--duh). I was amazed to see that the sap is very clear, quite like water--in fact 96-98% water. The sap is boiled and reduced and filtered to make the syrup. I love this process of learning, of figuring out where my food really comes from and how it begins.

We brought home a block of maple sugar and a jug of maple syrup. The two have been delighting my kitchen and my tastebuds. The maple syrup, even at a medium grade, is more flavorful than anything I've had before. It's so dense and smoky and sweet. I've been playing around with in in a variety of concoctions. The macarons, of course, which you're probably getting sick of seeing; this version is an almond/ pecan meringue with maple buttercream. And a cupcake, which is another experiment for Cupcake Camp. It's a basic vanilla cupcake with a bit of cinnamon and maple sugar. Then the maple buttercream. At some point, this cupcake will have bacon, but I'm not sure what do with it: baked into the cupcake, sprinkled under the butter cream or on top, candied or straight. If you have suggestions, please. . .

I also played around with maple candy, based on an old family recipe for honey candy. My cousin gave me the idea to try this. The honey candy is a mix of honey, sugar, and cream boiled to nearly the hard crack stage (290 F) and then pulled--basically makes a hard taffy. I used the same basic process and the taste was amazing, but the texture not so much. It was ok, but a little grainy. I'm thinking skip the sugar on the next attempt--if there is one. I'm not much ofa confectioner, so I'm not even sure how to troubleshoot this one. Again, any suggestions?

My maple education. Thanks for joining me.


Maple Buttercream (adapted from MS Baking)

I recommend this maple buttercream. You will love it and you will want to eat it on everything. But be sure to buy the best maple syrup you can get--it will be worth the money.

3 egg yolks
1 cup maple syrup
1 cup unsalted butter

Beat the eggs until light and fluffy. Set aside. Bring maple syrup to a boil in a small saucepan; cook until it reaches 240 F. Slowly pour syrup into eggs--with mixer running--until completely incorporated. Continue beating until mixture is cool. Add butter one tablespoon at a time until frosting is fluffy.

Enjoy with cakes, cookies, by the spoon, etc.

(Note: Buttercream can be frozen for later. After defrosting, whip it for 3-5 minutes to restore the fluff)

rhubarb

I've been desperate for rhubarb the past few days, since seeing a picture in April's Gourmet for a simple rhubarb puff pastry tart. It was so beautiful, the pink of the rhubarb bright and pale. It was exactly what I needed to start dreaming spring dreams. I was thrilled to walk into a store yesterday and see this stunning rhubarb. The contrast of the hot pink and the vivid chartreuse really made my day. When I got home, I put the stalks in a vase and took pictures of them all over the house. They are apparently inspiration for art as well as baking. I probably could have forgotten about the baking altogether and just kept the rhubarb as flowers--why didn't I think of these for my wedding bouquet?

But, of course, I did eventually chop the stalks to bits. The tart was lovely, simple with the rhubarb flavor the dominant feature. The recipe (which you should be able get on Epicurious soon) calls for an orange-juice glaze. I made mine with blood orange juice because that's what was in the fridge. The taste was delicious, but the juice darkened the pale pink stalks--not a bad thing, but I was hoping to retain some of the stunning color from the original. The puff pastry was from a batch I made a few weeks ago. Easy peasy, and tart rhubarb was just what I needed for dessert after the week of excessive baking I've had.

I also played around with rhubarb macarons, since I am currently on a quest to perfect them. Since macarons are so amenable to bright coloring, I would love to figure out a way to mimic the chartreuse of the leaves for the meringue and hot pink for the filling. But, since I don't want to mess up my newly learned (or learning) process of meringue-making with the addition of another complicated step--and because I only have three food colors in the house--I opted for pale pink. Some day, there will be chartreuse baking on this blog. The rhubarb butter cream wasn't as rhubarb-y as I wanted, so this will be another project for me, as I like the idea very much. When I perfect the rhubarb buttercream to its envisioned (entasted?) creamy tartness, I will post a recipe.

Happy spring, everyone! Finally.

Irish Car Bomb Cupcakes

I'm not much of a St. Patty's reveler. W. pinched me today for not wearing green. Now I don't think I'll share any of my festive car bomb cupcakes.

The Irish car bomb is one of W.'s favorite cocktails, a drink in the boilermaker category, where a shot is dropped into beer and the entire thing is chugged: in this case, a shot of Jameson's w/ Bailey's dropped into a half pint of Guinness. Not for me, thank you. The tastes seem appealing, but downing a Guinness in one go? I'm too much of a lightweight.

But when it comes to sugar, I can hold my own. So, the other day when I was browsing around various cupcake shops online and saw the reference to car bomb cupcakes at Boulder's Tee and Cakes, I knew I had to make them.

These are one of the cupcake varieties I will be contributing to Ottawa's upcoming Cupcake Camp. Participants sign up as bakers or tasters and get together one afternoon to devour cupcakes. The money raised goes to a selected charity. What a brilliant idea. I've been busy concocting a variety of cupcakes, so more to come.

Anyway, back to today's cupcake. For the cupcake, I basically used the Guinness cake recipe from Nigella Lawson's Feast. Then, I drizzled the cupcakes with a whiskey syrup. Finally, I topped them with Bailey's buttercream. Delicious, boozy, and you don't have to down it in one go. But you just might want to!


Guinness Cupcake, adapted from Nigella Lawson's Feast
1 cup Guinness, or other stout
10 T. butter
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
2 cups flour
2 tsp. baking soda

Preheat oven to 350 and butter cupcake pans or line with paper cups. The recipe made 22 cupcakes for me.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour and baking soda. Set aside.

Heat Guinness and butter (cut in small pieces) in a large saucepan until butter melts. Remove from heat and whisk in cocoa powder and sugar. Mix in sour cream, eggs, and vanilla. Finally, whisk in flour mixture.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. Fill nearly to the top. Bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from oven and allow to cool completely.


Meanwhile, prepare the Whiskey Syrup
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup Jameson's (or other Irish whiskey)
Stir together sugar and water in a small saucepan. Bring to a boil and let boil for a couple of minutes. Remove from heat and stir in whiskey. Let syrup cool. Once the syrup and the cupcakes are cool, brush the cupcakes with syrup. You probably won't use all of the syrup, so just coat the cupcakes till they look damp. I'm sure you can find another use for the syrup.


Top with Bailey's Buttercream
4 egg whites
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) butter, cut into small pieces
3-4 tablespoons Bailey's or other Irish cream

Mix egg whites and sugar in a mixing bowl. Set the bowl over a pan of simmering water and cook egg white mixture until sugar is dissolved and mixture is warm (about 160 degrees). Whisk egg white mixture continuously while cooking.

Remove bowl from heat and whisk mixture on high speed until stiff peaks form. Continue beating until mixture is cool and fluffy (about five minutes). Change to mixer's paddle attachment. Add butter a few tablespoons at a time and beat in thoroughly at medium-low speed. Continue adding butter and mixing thoroughly. If buttercream separates, beat at high speed for about three minutes. Add Bailey's and beat into the buttercream. Give the buttercream a few strokes with a mixing spoon until smooth.

Note: If you don't want to fuss with the meringue buttercream, you could make a simpler buttercream. Replace the vanilla and milk with Bailey's. I would also recommend upping the butter to 1/2 cup.

Peeps!

The goal of this blog, ultimately, is to feature baking that utilizes seasonal produce--a goal I'm clearly not meeting yet with pb&j macarons and peeps. But it is March after all, a produce dead zone where all of the winter produce is starting to taste a bit tedious and the strawberries haven't quite arrived. And, technically it is Peeps season.

Years ago, Martha Stewart published a guide for recreating peeps in her magazine. I tore out the recipe, dreaming about the cute little creations, thinking maybe someday. Friends sent me copies of the article, knowing that if anyone would make the effort to make homemade peeps, it would be me. I love Peeps beyond words. I haven't bought a package of peeps in years because people always buy them for me. I have participated in a peeps eating contest, which you've certainly heard all about if you know me (I'm sorry I'm so redundant, I just loved it so!) This year, a friend suggested I submit an entry to the Washington Post's Peeps Diorama Contest. Even though I always want to make homemade peeps, I'm hesitant because while marshmallows are easy to make I have terrible piping skills. This year, though, knowing my piping skills are probably better than my diorama skills, I decided to give them a shot.

Because my piping skills are poor, many of my chicks looked more like turkeys or Gonzo--nowhere near as adorable as these chicks you can buy at Etsy. But mine are still cute, in their own special way, don't you think? Even though they are no beauties, their bright colors do make me pretty happy when I walk in the door. They taste pretty good, too. I am waiting, however, for them to get dried out so that I can really enjoy them. As anyone who likes peeps will tell you, dry is the only way to go.

pb&j macarons

Patience is not my virtue. It is also probably the virtue that I most need in my life, especially right now when so many things seem uncertain. I have become fairly good at maintaining patient calm when faced with circumstances that I know I have no control over, but what I am currently having to learn is patience in circumstances where I feel like I should be able to have some control, when I feel like my best efforts should be enough. I am stubborn and tenacious, so I'll work a problem to death, but I am not always good at stepping back and waiting calmly.

So, this is what I am trying to learn in my life, a sense of patience and hope and calm. Sometimes the wonderful takes a long time to arrive. And sometimes the long-awaited wonderful comes in the form of cookies!

These cookies, my pb&j macarons were a long time coming, but oh, were they worth it.



Let's start with the macarons. Like many foodies, I got caught up in the macaron hysteria of late. They are hard to resist, after all, with their crunchy, chewy, smoothness. I suspect that part of their appeal is that they are so versatile, amenable to flavor combinations both subtle and surprising. As often happens with me when I discover a sweet I like, I try to recreate them in my own kitchen.

I made my first batch of macarons last year for my annual family tea party. They were fussy and frustrating and I threw out one batch before getting a batch that I thought was acceptable. The acceptable batch was full of uneven and mishapen cookies, but they were for my family who have committed to loving me anyway. I didn't try my next batch until this December, and the effort was a total disaster. I was too frustrated and had already made too many cookies anyway to attempt another batch. sigh. I wondered if maybe they were just above my baking ability, and I should just give up. I also thought about just steaming ahead with my inherited brand of ridiculous stubbornness and just keep trying the recipe I had (Martha Stewart) and make it work. But I thought better of it and decided to do some research.

I found Tartelette's excellent Macarons 101 guide and another helpful set of tips at Coco & Me. With these tips and the knowledge I'd acquired from my failed attempts, I decided I was ready to give the tricky things another shot. And I was determined to just going to keep baking until I figured things out. And to be patient in the process. So, first batch, pretty good. The process was improved by the added step of sieving the powdered sugar and nuts for a very fine mixture and the reduced cooking time (I knew something was wrong with that 20-25 minute cooking time in the Martha recipe). I skipped some of the fussier steps, like letting the age whites age overnight and letting the macarons set before baking. Some of the other guides I've read suggested that these steps aren't necessary, so I'm all for trying things the easy way first. This batch turned out ok. I didn't concentrate too much on the size because I just wanted to test my ability to make them without killing the lift of the egg whites. I didn't bother sandwiching them with anything and just let W. go crazy eating them all.

The success got me excited, so I branched out with a mix of peanuts and almonds for the nut mixture. One tray from this batch cracked and fell in the oven, but the second tray was excellent (this being the one that I let set out for awhile, I'm thinking that step isn't as optional as I want it to be).

Making peanut macarons was based on my desire to fulfill another failed baking project. Last fall, I made grape jelly. My first attempt was a total disaster, ending in an inedible and unmovable grape-carame type substance. I blame W. because he called me for a ride in the middle of the process. Because of travel, I almost missed the remainder of grape season and my opportunity to redeem myself. Luckily, I caught grapes on their last week at the farmer's market and made a small, but successful batch of jam. The jam, however, was a bit too much for me. Very grape and very sweet, sort of like a grape jolly rancher. My in-laws loved it when they came to visit, but I was left wondering what to do with the stuff.

Cookies, obviously. What else is super-sweet jelly good for? I made some peanut butter thumbprints and the jam worked ok with them, but it wasn't the cookie my tastebuds were imagining. I wanted something light, but rich, sweet, but savory, chewy, but crunchy. It took me a few months to realize that what I wanted was a macaron.

It only took me a year to get to this cookie, but I think it was worth the wait. Exactly what I wanted.