Milk & Cookies

Lemon zest

Well this baking session went about as well as everything else has been going for me this week, the main difference being that all the problems here were entirely my fault and preventable, like starting out without any butter in the kitchen, not being prepared for the 2 hour wait while the dough sits in the fridge, leaving out 33% of the sugar, and fatally burning 15% of the cookies. Whoops!

Before I manage to explode this blog post somehow, I’ll get to the recipe, from Joy the Baker. You can get the directions from her too, I won’t write them out because they’re so long.

• 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter (preferably high-fat, like Plugra), softened at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted before measuring
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably sea salt
• 2 large egg yolks, preferably at room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• zest of 1 lemon and zest of 1 lime

For the decoration (optional):

• 1 egg yolk
• Crystal or dazzle sugar

Not part of the unlucky 15%

Now here’s what I actually did:

• 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter (preferably high-fat, like Plugra), softened at room temperature
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted before measuring
• 1/2 teaspoon salt, preferably sea salt
• 2 large egg yolks, preferably at room temperature
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• zest of 1 lemon and zest of 1 lime 1 lemon…. that is 2 lemons (Meyer lemons from my aunt Beth’s lemon tree in Berkeley)

For the decoration (optional):

• 1 egg yolk
• Crystal or dazzle sugar regular sugar
• that confectioner’s sugar from above, dusted over the cookies

The cow is back from haitus

As you can see, I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. And they get this ringing endorsement from Jason: “They taste a little like cardboard.” I actually think they taste fine. Maybe they’re not as good as the past few on here but hey, they can’t all get 5 stars.

Objects in oven may be smaller than they appear.

Last weekend Zoe’s parents came out to visit us and we spent some time hanging with the family. Some how we ended up inheriting a bag of fresh juicy lemons. How does that saying go? “When life gives you lemons…. you make lemon cookies!”

The recipe this week comes from AllRecipes. There are many variations on the internet for a recipe very similar to this one, so I wasn’t afraid to take some liberties to make it my own. Sadly, I couldn’t find any recipes that used fresh lemons very much in them, so even this recipe I substituted lemon extract for a combination of lemon juice and lemon zest in order to utilize our abundance of lemons.

INGREDIENTS

• 1 (18.25 ounce) package lemon cake mix
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup canola oil
• 2 tspn. lemon zest
• 2 tspn. fresh lemon juice
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar (for decoration)

DIRECTIONS

The dough for these cookies takes almost no time at all, so go ahead and start off by preheating the oven to 350°F.
To make the dough, get out a medium mixing bowl, and your favorite rubber spatula. Combine the cake mix, eggs, oil, lemon zest, and lemon juice. Mix them together until the dough is smooth and consistent. You will have to mix by hand because this dough is pretty thick stuff.
On the side, prepare a small bowl with the powdered sugar, and lay out a sheet of parchment paper on a cookie tray. Take a teaspoon and scoop out dough balls one at a time. Roll each ball around in the powdered sugar bowl until it is nice and coated, and then place it on the cookie tray. These cookies expand a bit, but not too much, so you can place them about 1-2 inches apart. (I got ~25 per tray)
Once the tray is loaded up, pop the cookies into the oven for 7-9 minutes. They will start to brown just slightly around the edges when they are done.
Let them cool a bit and then start inhaling them. They are very small cookies so you probably want to eat like 3 or 4 cookies along with your glass of milk… maybe even more.

Blackberry Heaven

Overview

Zoe and I have been making cookies every week for a few months now. It is a tradition formed out of necessity, hunger, and desire for something to look forward to on an otherwise boring day… Thursday.

For my first entry on Milk & Cookies, we are featuring these fruit filled delights.  The recipe originates from allrecipes.com, but was tweaked ever so slightly.  The fresh blackberry on top is also a new addition, and one that I would highly recommend.  Now, on with the baking…

Ingredients

• 3/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tspns. vanilla extract
• 1/2 tspn. salt
• 1/2 cup blackberry preserves
• 1 cup fresh blackberries

Directions

First things first, we will need to mix up the dough.  It’s good to soften the butter before mixing it with the sugar, and I like to just plop my butter sticks into a microwave safe bowl and nuke them for about 15 seconds.  Put the butter, sugar and eggs into a large mixing bowl and cream together.  This should take about 1 minute with some beaters, or until your arm gets too tired to keep going if you are doing it manually.  Add the vanilla and salt and mix them in.

To complete the dough, mix in the flour about 1/2 a cup at a time.  Once the dough is soft and workable, put it in the refrigerator for about an hour.

When you are ready to bake, preheat the oven to 375 °F.  Scoop out some dough and roll it into a ball about 1 inch in diameter.  If you powder your hands with some extra flour, this step will be much easier.

Place the cookie ball on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet. As you make more cookie balls try to space them a few inches apart on all sides.  I was able to make 15 cookies on each cookie tray in a 3 x 5 grid.

Use your finger or thumb to make a well in the center of each cookie.  If any cracks form in the edges of the dough you can either leave them or pinch them shut.  Make sure that any cracks aren’t too deep or the filling will spill out and mess up your cookie.

Fill the holes with preserves.  I have found that the easiest way to do this is to spoon the jam into a ziplock bag.  Squish it around a bit to soften it.  Then cut the bottom corner of the bag off to create a little nozzle.  Now you can neatly squeeze the jam out and feel like a real gourmet pastry chef!

Bake each tray for 8-10 minutes in the preheated oven.  The cookies will get a slight browning along the bottom and the jam will just start to bubble.  These cookies are very easy to over cook so be vigilant!  As soon as you pull them out, plop a fresh blackberry into the center and let the cookies cool.  Since I was making a large batch of them, I just threw each tray into the fridge for about 15 minutes before removing the cookies.

Well, there you have it…. the first Cookie Blog entry!  Hope you enjoy making and eating these cookies.  Don’t forget your ever important side-kick… a nice cold glass of milk.