My mission/project restated for new blog

Why cookies? Because they are small, easily given to others and are a lot of fun to make. I will be making 210 recipes in 42 weeks. In other words, I will be finished with the book just before Thanksgiving. I figured out that I have to bake 5 recipes a week. A majority of the cookies are sweet but there are a few savory "cookies" in the book and I am looking forward to creating them as well.

Filled, rolled, bar and refrigerator cookies

I had a blast baking cookies this morning. I made the last of the recipes for the week – 7 in total. I delved into the creation of refrigerator cookies. I made 3 recipes – Palm Beach Lemon, French Vanilla Sables and two-tone Peanut Butter Thins. Along with these I made Yoyos, Orange Shortbread Squares (earlier in the week), Cinnamon Diamonds (I cut them in squares) and Petit Buerre.

Below are the four I made to give away this week. The swirled ones on the right are the Two-Tone Peanut Butter thins, the middle creations are the Cinnamon Diamonds, the right ones are the Yoyo's. They are a sandwich cookie and are filled with an lemon filling. The cookies at the top are the Petit Buerre cookies. The dough is very buttery. In fact I rolled them out between plastic wrap. The dough is incredibly sticky so I avoided this altogether and they came out fine.

Week 4 and 14 cookie recipes done

This week is week 4 and I realize that I got off to a slow start but I didn't realize it was that slow until I counted how many recipes I've cooked so far. I need to step it up. The good news is that I am enjoying the process. I made Orange Shortbread Squares. They are made like a bar cookie – easy and tasty – a great combination. This recipe is good but not as good as Janette's shortbread. Janette is my Scottish friend and she makes the best shortbread I have ever tasted. I believe she includes some rice flour in her recipe. Anyway, Nick Malgieri's recipe is good, but…

On another note I finished off the Linzer Hearts dough. That dough is so tough to work with. I persevered and finished the cookies. I filled them with cherry jelly this time. I shared them with friends and they loved them. I think they taste good, but really not THAT good. Anyway, I am glad people like them so much.

My plans for this week are to venture into the area of refrigerator cookies. These used to be known as icebox cookies (when people had iceboxes). The process is that you make the dough, roll it into a log and refrigerate it until it is cold. You then slice the chilled log and bake the sliced cookies. Nick has 19 recipes in this category. I'm looking forward to getting to know the process. I have never made any cookies of this kind.

Valentine’s Cookie Baking

This week's cookies included Linzer Hearts, Chocolate Chocolate Sandwich Cookies, Chocolate-Iced Peanut Squares and Crackled Chocolate Cookies.

I started off with the Linzer Hearts which are classified as sandwich cookies. I learned how to blanch nuts with this recipe: Hazelnuts get baked until their paper-like skins flake off, with the aid of a towel rubbing; Almonds get boiled and their skins slip off, they then have to be dried in the oven. I ground the nuts, combined the flour and spices, beat the butter and sugar, added the nuts and flour/spices and then tried to flatten the "mixture" into dough and refrigerate. It was very crumbly. It didn't cooperate but I smooshed it all together and stuck It in the frig. I did this twice. I made one "dough" with hazelnuts and the other with almonds. I cooled the dough and when I took out the hazelnut dough and started to try to roll it out it broke up. I struggled and struggled and managed to get 24 cookies (1 top and 1 bottom) baked them and then let them cool. The cookies held together and then I reduced the raspberry jam, spread it on the bottom, topped it and then filled the opening with a bit more jam. They look really good. I sampled just the cookie part and it was good. I have the almond-based dough to tackle. I think I'll do that tomorrow. The first batch was traumatic.

The chocolate chocolate sandwich cookie is also a sandwich cookie. So it used sort of the same process. Make the dough, chill the dough, roll the dough, bake the dough, chill the cookies, make the filling and fill the cookies. This dough came together nicely. I could easily shape it into a rectangle and chill it. When I started to roll it the dough became fussy. I rolled and baked about half of it before I gave up. I think the cookie-baking time is a bit off. I baked them per instructions but some of them came out toastier than others. So another day, perhaps tomorrow I will finish off the batch. The filling was simple and came out great.

Crackled Chocolate cookies: another dough that needs refrigeration before use. This cookie is a molded cookie. It is dropped into confectioners sugar and then rolled into a ball put on the baking sheet and voila, cookies with a lovely white/dark crackle. A great success. I took some to Altar guild set up today and got favorable nods.

The Last cookie I baked for Valentine's day is a bar cookie (baked in an 11 x 13 baking dish) called Chocolate-Iced Peanut Squares. This was easy, easy, easy. You blend the ingredients smoosh it into the baking dish and bake. Then you make the topping melting chocolate, mixing in the butter and spread it on the cooled 'cake' and then top with peanuts. Wait for the chocolate topping to set and then cut.

I have given a tray of all of these cookies to our church coffee hour. They will join the mounds of delicacies that are made by the extremely talented Pam. We'll see.

Chinese Almond Cookies

Chinese Almond cookies are a real favorite of my father. When he lived in Port Washington he used to go to a local Chinese restaurant to eat and loved the cookies they gave diners at the end of the meal. When he moved up to Rochester he moaned that the local restaurants here didn't offer these cookies and he missed them. We tried several restaurants and none had them. In the past I had looked for a recipe for them and found a few, tried them but they didn't taste right.

Then along comes Nick Malgieri and he has a Chinese Almond cookie recipe. His intro to the recipe recounts his childhood experience at Chinese restaurants and recollections of the almond cookie for dessert. Of course this piqued my interest and since Valentine's Day is coming up I thought, okay, I'll make these and send them to Dad. So far so good, but I read the next intro paragraph and here it is: "by the way, lard is the right fat to use for these,…Don't substitute vegetable shortening for the lard, or the cookies wont' have the right taste and texture." Well, that put the fear of God in me. I dutifully went to the store and asked if they had lard. What do you know? It is right next to the butter! An ordinary item, who knew. Please understand that I haven't eaten meat in 27 years so the thought of having LARD in the house did not sit well. I sucked it up and proceeded to create the cookies.

I decided to make a double batch because 1) it's easy and more cookies for Dad and 2) I will get rid of the lard faster. The cookie production was straightforward and the cookies were in the oven in no time flat. But they have a weird and not so pleasant smell as they baked. The double batch made 94 cookies. I have packaged them up and am now on my way to the post office where they will be shipped to Cape Cod. I can't wait to hear the verdict on the cookies!

Cookie baking is great. There is a great deal of satisfaction in the creation of small cakes.

I haven't quite been keeping up to my schedule. I am behind. This week I have made Mother B's bars (Claire really likes them), Buttermilk Fudge Gems, Pennsylvania Dutch Soft Sugar Cookies and Easy coconut Drops.

Let's talk about the process. Nick Malgieri's Cookies Unlimited, to be honest, is an easy cookbook to follow, if you follow it. I believe I suffer from a cook's hubris. I think I already know how to make a batter and cook a cookie. Not so. With the Buttermilk Fudge Gems I neglected to prepare the small muffin tins properly so some of the cookies didn't make it out of the molds (it is described as a molded cookie, more to come in the future). Mother B's bars were easy and very, very tasty. The Pennsylvania Dutch Soft Sugar Cookies are "Nilla wafers". Remember them? The box cookies that, I guess are still around. They are small OK cookies. Well, the Pennsylvania Dutch Soft Sugar Cookies are those cookies only better, fresher, softer, better tasting. This cookie was comfort food to me.

I have received some lovely feedback. I am grateful people at church are eating them up and smiling. I am so enjoying this.

Today, Saturday, I made a double batch of Easy Coconut Drops. Half of these are earmarked for church coffee hour (a small part of the best church coffee hour ever) and half to take to a friend's house tonight. These came out great. To my great surprise the cookie count also came out perfectly. The recipe said 40 cookies per batch and lo and behold, the batter produced 80 cookies.

So hopefully next week I will kick my production up a notch.

Forming the Challenge

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Why cookies? Because they are small, easily given to others and are a lot of fun to make. I will be making 210 recipes in 42 weeks. In other words, I will be finished with the book just before Thanksgiving. I figured out that I have to bake 5 recipes a week. A majority of the cookies are sweet but there are a few savory "cookies" in the book and I am looking forward to creating them as well.

So I've begun. The first 2 cookies I made where macaroons, French macaroons, to be exact. What is a macaroon? It is a cookie with nuts and egg whites, no flour. They are a fussy cookie because they are similar to meringues because the dough needs to dry out in the baking process. Why start with macaroons? Well I had egg whites sitting in the refrigerator so I said to myself what can I do with these and so the macaroons popped up. I went to church and brought some of the cookies.. I didn't follow the directions exactly with the French macaroons and they turned out fine. I followed the directions exactly with the French coffee macaroons and they didn't turn out well. What do you think of that? But time is a wonderful thing. I revisited the cookies the next day and they were fine, still a little sticky but I think that again is a function of the cook not the recipe. As I read the recipe one more time, Nick says to cool the cookies on the cookie sheet, not to transfer the cookies to the cooling rack. Anyway they have further solidified with time and I have filled them with the chocolate ganache. I took them to our church coffee hour and got pretty good reviews. Of course I don't know if all are being kind, but the cookies disappeared. And that's good.

Now it is Monday and I've got my plan in place. 5 recipes this week:

My next cookies have buttermilk as an ingredient. I made a bar cookie called Mother B's. This is a blondie-like cookie with buttermilk and nutmeg for the seasoning. Simple enough to make. I also made Buttermilk Fudge Gems. These are described as molded cookies. A molded cookie, whatever does that mean. Well it means that it is baked in a pan (envision a muffin tin or tartlet) or formed into a ball. Who knew? Anyway this recipe produced more than the recipe indicated.