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.

B is for Brownie Bites, pt 2

I normally make these without the glaze, so I was interested to see how glazing them would affect their longevity. Without glazing, they are easy to store, easy to transport, and just as tasty on the third or fourth day as they were on the first. With glazing, they are not stackable, so they're harder to store. If I had to transport them, I'd glaze them at my destination. The flavor, however, suffers not at all from being stored with the glaze. They just turned slightly fudgier in texture, which was awesome.

Day two (and three) grades are straight A's.

B is for Brownie Bites

These cookies are everything I love about brownies, with the added advantage of being in cookie form. The glaze gives an immediate flood of dark chocolate flavor, then the cookie flavor melds in with it, for an intense fudgy experience that lasts long enough to really savor.

The Baker's chocolate box calls them Soft and Chewy Chocolate Drops, but Brownie Bites is what they really are. In fact, when you compare the recipes, you'll find the only difference between them is some additional flour, and the incredible fudgy glaze. If you like the chewy middle part of the pan of brownies, bake them as directed. If you like the crunchier outer rim of the pan of brownies, cook them a little longer.

They are also great fresh from the oven, even without the glaze.

Grades are as follows-- Scott: A, Becky: A+, Greengirl: A+, Blueboy: A+

These are one of my two favorite cookies, and it so happens that my other favorite also starts with B. Brown Sugar Cookies, from America's Test Kitchen are incredible, with a deep, rich, super-sweet flavor that makes them worth the trouble of browning the butter and the shocking addition of 1 tablespoon of vanilla. I don't roll mine in the sugar coating like they do, but otherwise I follow the recipe, which can be found at Cook's Illustrated's website (they offer a free 14 day membership).

Brownie Bites

(http://www.kraftrecipes.com/kf/recipes/soft-chewy-chocolate-drops-106760.aspx)

4 squares BAKER'S Unsweetened Chocolate

3/4 cup (1-1/2 sticks) butter

2 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

2-1/2 cups flour

Glaze

1 tub (8 oz.) COOL WHIP Whipped Topping (Do not thaw.)

6 squares BAKER'S Semi-Sweet Chocolate (I used 1 cup of mini chocolate chips)

PREHEAT oven to 350°F. Microwave unsweetened chocolate and butter in large microwaveable bowl on HIGH 2 min. or until butter is melted. Stir until chocolate is completely melted. Add sugar; mix well. Blend in eggs and vanilla. Add flour; mix well. Cover and refrigerate 1 hour or until dough is easy to handle.

SHAPE dough into 1-inch balls; place, 2 inches apart, on lightly greased baking sheets.

BAKE 8 min. or just until set. (Do not overbake.) Let stand on baking sheet 1 min.; transfer to wire racks. Cool completely.

GLAZE:

PLACE frozen whipped topping and semi-sweet chocolate in microwaveable bowl. Microwave on HIGH 1-1/2 min. or until chocolate is completely melted and mixture is shiny and smooth, stirring after 1 min. Let stand 15 min. to thicken. Spread over cookies. Let stand until glaze is set.

Makes about 4 dozen.

A is for Apricot Thumbprint Cookies, pt. 2

A few cookies managed to survive until the next day, mainly because of timely action by the pizza delivery guy. Unfortunately, the cookies were a bit worse for the wear on day two, turning a bit flabby. Also, storing them was a challenge, given that they are not stackable. For the same reason, they would be hard to transport, and pretty well impossible to ship.

Day two grades- Scott: C, Becky: B, Greengirl: B+, Blueboy: A

A is for Apricot Thumbprint Cookies

(The recipe is after the notes.)

These are essentially shortbread cookies with a jam filled dent. I prefer the tartness of apricot over other flavors, but any jam or jelly would work. I added some milk to my standard shortbread recipe, because I wanted it to be more workable (my standard shortbread tends to crumble too easily for this application).

I don't normally make these cookies, because I don't like how the jam gets gummy when it's baked. To get around that problem, I baked them part way, then re-dented them and filled them, then baked them some more. I tried not denting them until they were half baked, but they tended to crack.

To further impress you with my finiky-ness, I should mention that I used a 1/2 teaspoon measurer that has a rounded bottom to make the dents, and used another 1/2 teaspoon measurer to measure the filling. I like uniformity, what can I say? I certainly don't advocate sticking your thumbs into half baked cookies, it might hurt.

If you prefer the gumminess, as Scott does, then you can save some work and fill them from the beginning. Just be sure you don't over fill, like I did.

Parchment paper rocks! I don't always use it for cookies, but in this case I highly recommend it. Burned on jam is a bummer to get off of cookie sheets.

One disadvantage to these cookies is that you cannot eat them fresh from the oven. Hot jam is like molten lava. Seriously, it sticks and burns in ways you don't want to imagine. Let them rest at least until the next batch is done baking before you take a bite.

Scott gives these an A, Becky gives them a B, Greengirl gives them an A, and Blueboy gives them an A.

Apricot Thumbprint Cookies

1 c butter

1/2 c sugar

1/3 c milk

2 1/4 c flour

1 t vanilla

1/2 t salt

about 1/2 c apricot preserves

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheet with parchment paper.

Cream butter and sugar. Mix in milk, vanilla, and salt. Add flour, a third at a time. Scoop onto parchment paper with 18/8 scoop (about walnut sized). Make a dent in each cookie. Fill each dent with apricot preserves. Bake for 15 minutes.

OR Make a dent in each cookie. Bake 9 minutes. Re-dent each cookie and fill with apricot preserves. Bake 6 minutes more.

Makes about 3 dozen cookies