International Baking

There's something about making old recipes.  They often have quirky measurements, odd instructions, or bizarre names.  Take Swedish Thumbprint cookies.  I somehow doubt one will find this is the national dish of Sweden.  In fact, it's probably about as authentic as the Swedish Berry or the Swedish Chef.

There's also an incredible simplicity to a lot of these old standards.  Four ingredients, really.  It tops out at six, if you count something to roll them in and fill them with.

Butter, sugar, and egg yolk in the bowl.  Beat it up until its a nice, light yellow colour.

After you've mixed in the flour, it looks about like this.  Good enough to eat right out of the bowl, apparently.

You are going to need something crunchy to roll them in.  The recipe technically calls for nuts.  Growing up, we used whatever crunchy cereal needed using up. Corn flakes, Special K, you name it.  Today, we are featuring Rice Krispies.

I was playing around, trying to devise clever ways of crunching up the cereal.  I should have just mushed the bag with a rolling pin.  This method (if you can call it that) was just plain old painful.

Not a very uniform crush.  Definitely better to mush in the bag.  Note to self.

Again, another opportunity to use the handy-dandy ice cream scoop.

Perfect little cookie balls into the egg white.  The egg white that was 'left over' from making the cookie dough.  I love frugal and efficient recipes.

Now, perfect little cookie balls coated in egg white into the crunched up cereal.  This part can get a little tricky.  The wet hand-dry hand method probably would work best.  In my case, I just employed child labour.

And onto the cookie tray.  You don't have to worry about spacing them too far apart.  They will not spread like a drop cookie will.

The cookie balls do look a little alien once they are coated in cereal.  Half bake them at a low, 300 F oven, for about 15 minutes.  Don't worry - the world won't end if you leave them there for 20 minutes because you got caught up watching the Food Network.

Now for the fun, and slightly dangerous part.  You are now going to jam your thumb into the middle of a hot, butter-based cookie.  Work quickly.  After the first couple of burns, your thumb nerves will become desensitized and you won't feel a thing any more.

Now, for the homemade jam.  What?  No homemade jam at your house either?  I thought we had talked about this earlier?  No salsa, OK, I can let that pass.  But no jam?  We are going to have to work on that this summer.

Fill all the little indents you have made with just the tiniest bit of jam.  Because it is going back into the oven, the jam will temporarily liquify again and run all over if there's too much in there.  I used one of those tiny tea and crumpets teaspoons for this.

Pop them back in the oven again for 15 minutes at 300 F.  When they are done, you will have a delicious little morsel.  Several of them in fact.  This recipe doubles, triples, even quadruples, with incredible ease.  These will store in an air tight container for about a week, depending on what type of crunchy coating you have used.

You can also sub out the jam for a candy of some description.  Hershey's Kisses are popular.  At Christmas, candied cherries cut in half add a very nice decorative touch to dessert trays.

This one is great for kids.  With only a few ingredients, it is a quick recipe to make, perfect for short attention spans.  And what little kid doesn't love to squish their fingers in something gooey like egg white?

A word to the wise, though.  Wait until they have completely cooled off before gnashing.  You will be tempted to pop the entire thing in your mouth and the sugary middle holds the heat for a long time.  Take it from one who knows. 1. 2.

International Baking

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Tidbit Thursday

In the blogger world, there is now something called Wordless Wednesday.  The idea is that bloggers can post an intriguing photo on their site and not have to say, er, type, a word.  Fun for the readers and a bit of a break for the blogger.  Since I have not, as of yet, run out of things to say, I have no participated.

Call me a spoil sport.

At any rate, I am hereby declaring the fourth weekday to be Tidbit Thursdays on this site.  And if it catches on elsewhere, I won't even ask for a royalty.

Maybe just a shout out.  That might be nice.

So, without further ado, here is today's life altering tidbit

Big hairy deal, you say.  It's a pan of overcrowded chocolate chip cookie dough balls.  Be still my heart.

No so fast there, compadre.

What you actually see here is the ticket to selling your home faster, the key to filling up the bottomless pit that is your teenager, and the magic button to making last minute hostessing look like a breeze.

These little suckers are frozen.

You heard me, frozen.  Ready to be baked and served warm, ready to fill your home with the aroma of homey goodness, ready to be devoured.

Scoop as many as you can fit onto a cookie tray and lay it in the freezer.  If you don't have a deep freeze, a plate will do.  I would recommend having parchment, wax paper, or foil on the tray to make removal easier.

Once they are good and frozen, pop'em in a zip top bag and have them on hand for whatever baking/food/home selling emergency may come into your life.  Oh, and keep them in the freezer.  And do not succumb to the evil practise of eating raw cookie dough.

Bake them from frozen, just expect it to take a few minutes longer than it would if they were fresh.

Disclaimer:  I have shamelessly stolen this idea from my old friend, Anita.  Not that she is old, but rather that we have known each other now for 12 yeara.  She and most of her family stood in our wedding.  She now lives in another country, although we now live within local calling distance of her parents.

I don't know why you'd need to know that last part.  In fact, you probably don't.

Anyhoo, she uses this idea to feed her four spawn when they return from school and as a way to get them to all it down together in one space long enough to actually tell her about their day.  Truly an ingenious plan. 1. 2.

Tidbit Thursday

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The Old Standby

I received a curious call from my Romanian neighbour the other day.  No, Sir Winston had not escaped again.  My children were all fully clothed and accounted for.  My truck had not been in an accident with one of her husband's employees and no, I was not threatening to call the police about it. (Long story - OK, Coles Notes version - another one of my lovely neighbours drives almost the identical truck that I do.  The husband across the street owns a construction company.  One of his guys had slid into the other truck and was so distraught, thinking he did not have the money to pay for the damages, that the husband across the road was trying to track me down to pay for the damages that didn't actually occur to my vehicle.  He is an incredibly good man, my neighbour.  And a smart businessman. That employee is one of his best tiling guys.  The employee was so distraught he couldn't work.  Seems like a fair trade to me)

ANYWAYS...

An evil, evil neighbour brought over chocolate chip cookies and cream cheese brownies the other day.  Darn her.  They were so good I had to send some away with my father-in-law to keep from scarfing down the entire batch.

Apparently, my Romanian neighbour was the recipient of some as well.  And, apparently, she has never had chocolate chip cookies before.  Egads - she has been in the country 7 years and never had chocolate chip cookies?  Truly, we are failing our immigrants here, people.

At any rate, she asked me for a recipe, and I was more than happy to oblige

The recipe - please note, as always, the intricate detail noted on the recipe itself

And here we have the cast of characters.  And the ingredients.

Toss the sugars and the shortening in your mixer bowl and give it a whirl

This step is crucial, crazy as it may seem.  The goal is to coat each granule of sugar in the shortening you have added.  This will ensure that is evenly distributed in the final product and give you the nice, chewy consistency you are craving.  Or maybe that's just me.

After that, add in the egg, vanilla, and all the small dry ingredients (salt, soda)

Save the big guns for last.  I always make a triple batch.  I would make more, but that's all my poor old mixer can handle.  And a triple batch makes for easy math.

Here we go.  Note the nice dusting of flour.  Just about everywhere.  It is inevitable.  Do not fight it.  Do not attempt to hold the flour in with your hands.  Wear and apron, have your broom ready, and go with it.

Then, the good part.  Add the chocolate chips.  My mother always told me too many chocolate chips meant the cookies wouldn't bake well.  I have yet to break that threshold.

What I do like to do is a a mixture of chips.  Semi-sweet and milk chocolate, and on really daring days, peanut butter or butterscotch chips.

Mix'em in, but not too much.  The chips will break down and you'll loose the chocolate CHIP part of the cookie.

Then get yourself one of these little puppies.  I am tellin' ya, for an A-type like me, it is a sanity saver.  Call it an ice cream scoop, a disher, a measured scoop, whatever.  It's great.  I have a few different sizes.  Love them all.

Then you get to make pretty little rows of perfectly same-sized cookie dough balls.  Ah, sweet bliss!

Then into the oven. Be sure to enlist small people to carefully watch over them.  This is crucial.

Not really about the last part.  But it did manage to keep my kids occupied for a full 30 seconds without a single squabble, in close proximity to one another.  A small miracle indeed.

Then out they come.  Just look at that.

Remember:  UNDERBAKE.  They will keep cooking on the sheet.

Only once they've cooled should you move them.  Otherwise, they will take on the shape of your cooling rack.  And that would be weird.

Ah, sweet perfection.  Still warm and gooey.  Absolutely delicious.  Perfect for freezing and sharing.

And in case you were wondering.  E3 didn't get left out of the party. He made his own.

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The Old Standby

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