BUCHE AVEC NEIGE
France
Log with Snow – a nutmeg laced shortbread cookie with rum flavored icing
Three-dozen, 350 F. 13-15 minutes
Shortbread Dough:
1C. soft butter
¾ C. sugar
1 Egg, beaten well
2 tsp. Vanilla extract
2 tsp. Rum flavoring
3 C. sifted flour
1 tsp. Fine grated nutmeg
¼ tsp. Salt
Icing:
2/3 C. soft butter
4 C. sifted confectioners sugar
3 Tbsp. whole milk or ½ & ½
2 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. rum flavoring or 1Tbsp. rum
Cream butter and gradually beat in sugar. Add the egg until incorporated, then vanilla and rum flavoring.
Sift four, nutmeg, and salt together. Add gradually to butter mixture until smooth. Refrigerate. Shape dough into ½ inch rolls. Make “bark” with tines of a fork, roughly pressed down the cylinder. Cut one and a half inch slants on the diagonal. Place on greased cookie sheets. Bake at 350 F. for 13 -15 minutes, until light brown on the bottom edges of the cookies. While cooling, make icing.
Cream butter and confectioners sugar until satiny and light, add vanilla and rum flavoring or rum liquor. Add whole milk or soymilk until desired consistency. To make a snowdrift effect, fit a star tip into a pastry tube and squeeze icing in ruffle style to make two drifts on the top of the cooled cookie.
Store in closed container for up to three days. Cookie dough may be made up to four months ahead and frozen.
LEMON CHOCOLATE SWIRL COOOKIES
Sweden
Whirls of lemon and chocolate create a graphic statement within any cookie assortment.
Four-dozen, 400 F. 10 – 12 minutes
Lemon Dough
½ C. soft butter
1 C. sifted sugar
1 beaten egg
1 tsp. vanilla
¾ tsp. fine grated lemon rind
1 ¾ C. flour
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. double acting non-aluminum baking powder
Cream the soft butter and sugar first, next adding the egg, vanilla, and lemon rind. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a separate bowl. Add the flour mixture in one-cup measures until all is added and is cohesive.
Chocolate Dough
½ C. soft butter
1 C. sifted sugar
1 beaten egg
2 tsp. vanilla
1 ¾ C. flour
½ tsp. salt
1 ½ tsp. double acting non-aluminum baking powder
2 oz. quality semi-sweetened chocolate, melted, cooled to room temperature
Dipping sugar (Organic preferably, as it’s chunkier than non-organic, and gives a crisper bite)
Cream the soft butter and sugar together, adding the egg and vanilla. Sift the flour, salt, and baking powder together in a separate bowl. Add the flour mixture in one-cup measures until all is combined well. Then add the melted semi-sweet chocolate, mix thoroughly and chill.
To Form: Cut six pieces of waxed paper, about twelve inches by twelve inches. Separately roll out lemon and chocolate dough into sheets 1/8 inch, with a rolling pin. Cut 10” x 10” squares out of each dough. Place the lemon square on top of your chocolate square between the last two clean sheets of waxed paper. With a rolling pin press the sheets together until they are a little less than ¼ inch in thickness.
Remove the top piece of waxed paper. Trim as large a square as you can out of the rolled two-tone dough. Using the bottom paper as a helpful assist, slowly and firmly roll the dough into a tight cylinder. Refrigerate rolls. (You can use the scraps later to make marbled chocolate-lemon cookies by folding the scraps a few times together. Rolling to a little less than ¼ inch thickness and cutting them out with a cookie cutter)
When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 F. As oven is warming, slice cookies, ¼ inch thick, place one side into the dipping sugar and place it on a greased cookie sheet or Silpat silicon baking sheet, sugar side up. Bake for 10 – 12 minutes.
Cool and store for up to one week in a tightly covered tin. Swirled dough cylinders may be frozen for up to six months and defrosted in the refrigerator for two days until ready for slicing and baking.
CHOCOLATE CHIP CRAISIN BISCOTTI
Italy
Crunchy, sweet-tart, chocolate chip punctuated, biscotti.
Three dozen, 375 F. 20-25 minutes baking, toasting at 350 F. 5-10 minutes
1 C. sugar
½ C. butter
2 ½ C. flour
1Tbsp. baking powder
½ tsp. salt
2 eggs, 1 egg white (reserve yolk for later)
1 Tbsp. vanilla
¾ C. Craisins
¾ C. chocolate chips
Sift together the flour, baking powder, and salt. Cream the sugar and butter. Whisk the egg ingredients together and add vanilla. Add this to the butter and sugar, beat until smooth. By one-cup measures add the flour mixture until all is added and dough is consistent. Mix in the Craisins and chocolate chips. On a floured surface knead the cookie dough for four to five minutes to work out air and evenly distribute Craisins and chocolate chips. Cut into thirds and roll each into a 1½-inch cylinder. Place on a greased cookie sheet or Silpat and lightly pat down to slightly flatten the loaves. Add one tablespoon of water to reserved yolk and whisk. With a pastry brush glaze loaves with yolk.
Bake at 375 F. for 20 – 25 minutes, adding an additional glaze of yolk fifteen minutes in for a high glossiness. Cool until room temperature.
Cut loaves into ½ inch slices, on the diagonal. Place slices on ungreased cookie sheets and toast for 5-10 minutes on a side. Turning once with tongs. Let cool and stack in an airtight jar or can for a couple of days to intensify and marry the flavors.
Ships well, packed tightly in a box within a box. Stores for up to a month in sealed jar or tin.
