Candycane shortbread

As promised in a previous post, I am here to discuss candycane shortbread.

This is something I've been making for a few years that seems to give me a bit of grief every time. I would alter/dump it, if it didn't give me these every time...

Don't tell me that doesn't look scrumptious!

The issue I have with these cookies is how I go about getting the crushed candy canes.

I'm not a fan of noise, as the plethora of headache medication can attest to, so the act of putting candycanes into a ziploc bag and crushing the life out of them with my rolling pin is definitely not ideal. Not to mention the mess it makes, and the complaints I get about "loud banging".

I've tried many ways: wrapping the bag in a towel, chopping the candy canes, whizzing them in my food processor (I don't recommend this if you want to prolong the life of your processor), nothing really is that great of a solution.

I know I know... such a small complaint. But really, I can't believe how much it is that I detest this job.

But I digress, let's return to the issue at hand.

As I mentioned before, shortbread is a very simple recipe but can have an endless amount of variation. I add the crushed candycane for flavour, and they also lend a chewiness because they soften after the baking. The other change in this recipe is the substitution of flour with corn starch.

There are pros and cons to corn starch, and it is up to you whether you use it in your kitchen or not. I don't use it often, but when I do, it comes with a great desirable effect. Corn starch lends flexibility, and in the case of shortbread, they aren't very flexible to begin with. This in turn, yields softer cookie, gives it a slight chewiness.

Candycane Shortbread

1/2 cup icing sugar
3/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/2 cup corn starch
1 cup flour
pinch salt
3 candycanes, crushed 

1. In a large bowl, combine the icing sugar, corn starch, and flour. Blend in the butter until the dough holds.
2. Add crushed candycane and blend with hands until well mixed.
3. Roll into 1' balls and place 2" apart on a cookie sheet.
4. Flatten each ball with the tines of a fork.
5. Bake at 300F for 15 minutes.

Cranberry bars

Cranberry really is something that evokes "holiday" in my mind. Granted, I eat dried cranberries all year (it's in my homemade granola), the smell of cranberry cooking away is reminiscent of Thanskgiving and Christmas.

This year, I was asked to make some truly decadent cranberry white chocolate bars. These sure are the devil in disguise, I definitely can't imaging having more than one of these squares.

Cranberry Cluster Bars

1/2 cup butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cup ground graham cracker crumb
1 can sweetened condensed milk
2 cup white chocolate
1 1/2 cup dried cranberries
1 cup flaked coconut 

1. If using whole graham crackers (I used HoneyMaid), pulse one sleeve of graham crackers (~30 crackers)  in a food processor until evenly ground.
2. With your hands, mix butter and graham cracker until crumbly. Press into a 7" x 11" casserole dish.
3. In a medium bowl, combine condensed milk, white chocolate, cranberries and coconut until even. Spread over the graham cracker base.
4. Bake at 350F for 25 minutes, rotating halfway through for even brownness.
5. Cool evenly. Chill fully, and slice into bars.

Chocolate almond biscotti

I don't think there is a "time of year" for biscotti, but this was another cookie ordered for a Christmas/birthday party. Of course, I'm happy to oblige.

I like how unique it is to make biscotti. It's not often that things need to be baked twice (possibly with the exception of tuiles).

Biscotti, also known as cantuccuni, are "twice baked" Italian biscuits, as derived from it's Latin root word biscoctus. These cookies have a long and rich history, as Pliny the Elder boasted their shelflife as centuries long.

Mostly, biscotti is seen in coffee shops, where dunking it into your steaming cup o' jo will soften it up to be perfect to bite into. The reason being, is the twice baked process dries them out to the point where you wouldn't want to regular munch on these without some coffee on hand.

Stripped to the core, a basic biscotti recipe is as follows:

• 2 eggs
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 cup flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup butter*

* Depending on your variation of mix ins, this may be left out.

With a chocolate almond variation, butter is not necessary. Don't ask me why, I don't know the exact chemistry behind these wicked cookies, but David Lebovitz doesn't either, so I'm going to go with that.

Chocolate Almond Biscotti

1 egg
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/8 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp almond extract
1 cup unbleached flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/4 cup whole almonds
1/3 cup chocolate chips 

1. Beat egg and sugar until fluffy, approximately 2 minutes. Add the extracts and beat until combined.
2. Fold in the flour, baking powder, and salt until just combined. Toss in almond and chocolate chips.
3. Form the dough into 2 flap-top logs, at a consistent width of 5 cm.
4. Bake on parchment or silpat lined cookie sheets at 350F for 25 minutes.
5. Remove from oven and cool for 5 minutes.
6. Slice into thin sections approximately 2 cm thick, return to cookie sheets on their sides, and bake another 10 minutes. Turn cookies over to their other exposed side halfway through.

Shortbread

Christmas is my favourite time of year. Not only is it beautiful snowy white and chilly out with the promise of gifts and cheer and family, it's the time of year when I can break out all my Christmas baking recipes.

A couple weeks ago, I had a massive cookie order, that involved family recipes of my client's.  These are always a bit tricky, as you want to get the recipes exactly how they are known, but trying to put your own little twist on them as well.

Part of this order was 3 large batches of shortbread.

For any of you novice bakers out there, shortbread is what I would consider one of the easier recipes you'll keep in your arsenal. All you need to remember is:

• 1 part sugar
• 2 parts butter
• 3 parts flour
• a pinch of salt
• bake at 350F

Once you master the basics, you can start adding in your own little tricks (e.g., corn starch and candycanes, which I will talk about in a later post)

Anyways. Back to my story.

On top of trying to master a family recipe, I noticed some discrepancies in her recipe. Rather than having a 1:2:3: ratio, it was a whopping 1:2:4.5! Take about some stiff dough, there's 50% more flour than normal! Her recipe was what I liked to call a "low and slow" bake. AKA., bake it at a low temperature, for a long time, to dry out the dough.

I gave it a try for myself to bring to a party, and found the dough rather difficult to work with. With a dry crumbly texture, it was difficult to keep together when rolling out for cookie cutters, but they baked up beautifully!

These cookies have a dry crumbly flaky texture, rather than the slight softness commonly associated with shortbread.

Ginger Shortbread

1 cup sugar
2 cup butter
4.5 cup all purpose flour
pinch salt
ginger baking pieces 

1. Cream butter and sugar together until light and fluffy, approximately 4 minutes.
2. Fold in all purpose flour and salt in 3 separate additions, until almost just blended. Add ginger baking pieces in with the last of the 3 flour additions.
3. Knead the remaining specks of flour with your hands and work the dough until it holds. Take half the dough out onto a floured rolling surface.
4. Roll dough to 0.25" thickness and cut out desired shape. Bake on a parchment or silpat lined cookie sheet at 300F for 40 minutes. Rotate pans at the 25 minute mark for even brownness.

Coconut macarons

Macarons are hands down delicious. No if's and or but's about it.

Despite their deliciousness, I've never been one to attempt them myself. I've heard time and time again the difficult involved in them. The humidity. The temperature. The altitude. The oven. The temperature of the egg whites. The strength of your beater. So. Many. Issues!

Yes yes, that sounds like the problems associated with ALL baking.

But there's something about the technique for macaron cookies that can really test a baker's patience...

A girlfriend of mine has spent a long time crafting her ability to make macaron. When I invite her over, I don't even bat an eyelash at what she tells me she'll be bringing.

This time, instead of bringing them over, we finally made them together. And by together, I really mean that she did everything while I supervised.

I have to say, it wasn't as daunting as I expected. Even though I've watched Anna Olson make them. All it requires, is a little more patience and attention than the typical cookie.

I had fun piping out the cookies, the delicious swiss buttercream filling, and then squeezing them together to make even more delicious sandwiches!

What was great about this recipe is the ease of it. I've seen very finicky macaron protocols before, where one extra fold and it's over. I was happy to find that the meringue didn't fall even with the 25 folds used for the tant pour tant. Although I've been told by my friend that the recipe isn't as forgiving once you change it up to hazelnut... I was also happy to see perfectly even "feet" along all my cookies, which made them extra pretty once the buttercream was piped in.

I don't have the exact recipe for these coconut macarons right now, but will try to get it off my friend's hands and post it here.