Notes on Irish soda bread

I made some over the weekend. I soaked the raisins, which were golden raisins, overnight in a mixture of Grand Mariner, bourbon, and water, so they were quite plump. I wound up plucking burnt raisins from the surface of the bread, so next time I will check on it sooner and maybe decrease the temperature. I also thought it needed a bit more salt, so I edited the recipe here. It was still really yummy, though.

This is not a cookie.

But it is tasty.

Irish Soda Bread

2 c flour

3/4 t baking soda

1 t salt

2 T sugar

6 T butter

1 c raisins

1 T caraway seeds

1/2 to 2/3 c buttermilk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix dry ingredients. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse cornmeal. Add raisins and caraway seeds. Gradually stir in buttermilk, adding just enough to form a dough. Knead a few times and shape into a round loaf. Place on a greased or parchment-covered baking sheet. Cut a bold cross on the top, extending over the sides. Brush with milk. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes.

Edited to increase the salt from 1/2 t to 1 t.

Insanely delicious

These were fabulous, soft and rich, like a warm fluffy cookie version of English toffee. They instantly became my favorite cookies.

Brown sugar cookies with milk chocolate chips

14 T butter

1 3/4 c dark brown sugar

2 c + 2 T flour

1/2 t baking soda

1/4 t baking powder

1/2 + 1/8 t salt

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

1 T vanilla

1 c milk chocolate chips

Divide the butter, putting 10 tablespoons in a large sauce pan, and remaining 4 tablespoons in heatproof mixing bowl. Over medium heat, carefully brown the butter in the sauce pan. I recommend stirring constantly with a silicone scraper, because it allows you to sort of push aside the foam that will form and see the bits on the bottom as they turn golden and then mahogany brown. Black is not the color you're looking for. Pour the browned butter over the remaining butter. Set aside for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Sift together dry ingredients, of which the sugar is not one. I like to put them in a large Cool Whip bowl, because it makes it easier to pour into the bowl of the mixer.

Once the wait is over, add the brown sugar and salt to the butter and mix until the lumps are gone. Add the eggs and vanilla and mix again. Add dry ingredients, mix a bit, then add chocolate chips. Even my Kitchen Aid mixer had trouble powering through this, so give it a stir with a spatula, too, until there's no white showing. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and scoop on 12 scoops of dough at a time. I use my medium sized disher, which measures about 1 1/2 tablespoons. If you're not as finicky as me, just make some balls of dough.

Bake for about 12 minutes, but be sure to check after 10. They're done when they're puffy, dry on top, and the edges are set enough that you can gently lift the edge and they still hold together. Leave them on the sheet for 5 minutes. Seriously, they need to finish cooking, and you'll burn your mouth if you eat them straight out of the oven. I got 44 cookies out of this recipe.

Experimenting

I made the E cookies last night. They were good, but they didn't live up to their full potential. So after some debate (which took place during the few minutes it took us to snarf down all the prototype cookies) I decided to try again before I post about them. In this case, good enough just . . . wasn't. Not when they could be truly amazing.

Dreamsicle cookies

These turned out exactly the way I wanted them to. The crystalline glaze that gently breaks under your teeth, the sharp tang of orange, the soft, creamy vanilla inside . . . everything I love about dreamsicles, in cookie form. Mmm, I want another one, right now, but I've gotta post first.

Scott doesn't like citrus-flavored cookies, or ice-cream bars, or cakes -- he says citrus-flavored desserts are "gross". I made these anyway, and he totally changed his ideas about citrus, said that he loved them and asked for some lime sherbet to go with them! Oh, wait, no, he totally didn't. He doesn't like citrus-flavored desserts. Oh well.

I was feeling silly, so I shaped these in a vaguely ice-cream bar shape, but there's no need to do that. For further silliness, I didn't coat the bottom fourth-inch or so of the cookie, because I wanted the 'ice cream' to peek out. I did make a few simple round ones, and dipped the tops of them in the glaze, which was easier and prettier, but not as cute.

I used some cake flour for these, because I wanted them to be fluffier, but all purpose flour can be used instead, with no adjustments.

The cookies should stay quite pale. To check for doneness, gently lift up on an edge. If it's done, it should hold together, and not be gooey.

The secret ingredient for the glaze is pureed apricot preserves. If you don't happen to have any left from your Apricot Thumbprint cookies, you can warm up some unpureed preserves and run a bit through a strainer. Or just replace it with butter. It won't give you the same zing, but, it's butter, so it's probably worth the trade.

The recipe for the glaze calls for a double boiler. I don't have one, so I used a heat proof bowl that fits over a small pot. You could try the microwave, but I'm not sure it would work out. I tried spooning the glaze over the cookies, but it took too long, and dipping looked better.

Oh, and if you happen to have the ingredients on hand, you could whip up some of the glaze from the Brownie Bites recipe and make yourself some fudgesicles. These might come in handy if you have a husband who has a weird dislike of citrus-flavored cookies. For example.

Grades- Scott: D+ (B for the fudgesicles), Becky: A, Greengirl: A, Blueboy: A+

Dreamsicle Cookies

1 c butter, softened

2 c sugar

2 eggs

2 t vanilla

2 c all purpose flour

1 1/2 c cake flour

1 1/2 t baking powder

1/2 t salt

Cream butter and sugar. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Stir in all purpose flour, baking powder and salt. Stir in cake flour. Shape the dough on waxed paper, making a rectangle with a rounded top. Chill 1 hour or longer.

Cut into slices. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, until just cooked.

As the cookies cool, prepare the glaze.

2 c sifted powdered sugar

1 T pureed apricot preserves

1/4 t orange extract

3 T orange juice

1 T lemon juice

5 drops of yellow and 4 drops of red food coloring, if desired

In the top of a double boiler, combine all ingredients. Heat (over, not in hot water) for 10 minutes, until it becomes somewhat translucent, stirring frequently.

Dip the cookies in slightly cooled glaze.

Cinnamon Crisps, pt 2

These don't change a bit for having been stored. They're still sweet and crispy, and they're still a literal example of style over substance. Grades are same as day 1.

Cinnamon Crisps

I cannot believe how long I put off writing about these cookies. The trouble is, I'm of two minds about them.

The good: they are crispy, cinnamon-y, sweet, and they look impressively elegant.

The bad: they are labor intensive, time intensive, pain intensive, unpleasantly buttery (which I would have thought was an oxymoron, but these proved me wrong), and difficult to eat. They're also just unsatisfying on their own, almost as if they should be a garnish for a real dessert. On day two I tried filling some with ice cream, but it didn't work out very well, as much of the ice cream oozed out onto our fingers as we ate them (also, if you over-fill them, they will slowly explode). The flat ones would look very nice standing up in a bowl of ice cream, or the cup-shaped ones would look neat as a cage over something.

If I were to make them again, I would try decreasing the amount of butter. It rendered out as they cooked, anyway, ending up puddled on my cookie sheets, and on my fingers as I tried to roll them, then on the spatula, on the oven handle, on everything.

Grades: Scott: B, Becky: B, Greengirl: B, Blueboy: A

Cinnamon Crisps

1/3 c pancake syrup

1/2 c butter

1/2 c sugar

1/2 c flour

1 T cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Melt butter in a saucepan, add sugar and syrup and stir just until smooth. Remove from heat. Add flour and cinnamon, stirring until smooth. Drop small spoonfuls onto cookie sheet, only 4-5 per sheet. Bake 5-7 minutes, or until the bubbles, which should have spread across the entire surface of the cookie, have quieted down for about one minute. They will be dark brown. Let cool on the cookie sheet just until they are cool enough to handle. Roll around the handle of a mixing spoon, or drape over the back of a muffin tin, or allow to cool flat, of shape some other way. Makes about 2 dozen.