Lemon Poppy Seed Thins

Lemon and lime. They just aren't the same.  Or are they? Never gave it much thought really! Thick skin, thin skin, yellow and green, tart, sweeter, small and big.  Most of us here are more familiar with the small, thin skinned ones.  Lemon, oops, lime rice, lime juice, lime pickle are so much part of our culinary culture.  I am just opening my eyes to lemon and lemon based desserts.  When the sister visited in July, I pestered her to carry some lemons for me across the seas. Lemons of all things !? Well ! The exasperated busy doctor made a last minute trip to the supermarket to get them as fresh as she could get for me. 

Aromatic and bright hued, they looked gorgeous indeed! Wish they were as commonplace here as well. Snugly wrapped in cling film, they sat in the fridge much longer than I meant them to. Worried they might lose their charm, I hastened to make some Lemon Thins from my favorite cookie book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Cookies.  In contrast to the much smaller thin skinned ones we get here, the lemons gave their zest and juice so generously! Times when I wish I had more than just a passing interest in gardening!

These cookies, Medrich claims, are more lemony than most. The recipe is from her friend Maya Klein, hence the name Maya's Lemon Thins. She reduces the lemon juice, concentrating the flavor, thereby producing buttery, tender-crisp thin cookies with a pleasant lemony taste. If you love all things lime and lemon, you must give these a try! I made these with lime as well and they taste just as good, but be sure you use the freshest and best you can find.

Ingredients : To make sixty-four 2 1/2 inch cookies.  

Freshly squeezed lemon / lime juice - 60 ml / 1/4 cup 

Unsalted butter, soft and cut into pieces - 170 grams / 1.5 sticks / 12 tablespoons

All purpose flour - 315 grams / 11.25 ounces

Baking soda - 1/4 teaspoon

Egg whole - one / 48 grams 

Egg yolk - one / 18 grams 

Vanilla Sugar - 200 grams / 1 cup ( I use powdered)

Freshly grated lemon zest - 1 tablespoon plus one teaspoon

Salt - 1/4 teaspoon

Method : Mise en place. 

Whisk together the flour and baking soda. Set aside.

In a heavy sauce pan, heat the lemon juice on medium heat till it becomes thick and syrupy and reduces to 1 tablespoon. This will take hardly anytime, so stick around. Measure it sooner than later, you can always put it back on heat to reduce further if needed. Turn off the heat. 

Add the butter, stir till it melts. I have cooled this and then whisked in the zest. 

In a medium sized bowl, whisk together the egg, egg yolk and sugar till homogeneous. Whisk in the butter mixture.  I find my tiny whisk very handy here.

Tip in the flour. Using  a spatula, stir until just incorporated. The dough will be very very soft. Wrap it in clingfilm and refrigerate at least 20 minutes. Once you refrigerate the dough, you can store it for up to 2 days. The dough will firm up. You want it firm enough to roll out easily without it being too hard. If you refrigerate longer, keep portions of the dough out at room temperature till it is fairly firm, but soft enough to roll easily. 

(After the first 20 minutes of chilling, Alice directs to divide the dough into 4 portions, roll each piece 1/16 inch thick between 2 sheets of plastic or wax paper. Slide a cookie sheet under each plastic sheet, refrigerate till firm, cut and bake) Since I found the dough too tender to to do this,  I have divided the dough into smaller portions and rolled out the chilled dough.

Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment. 

Take out one small portion of the dough from the fridge. Lightly dust your counter. Carefully, roll the dough thin, about 2 mm.  Cut the cookies with a 2 1/2 inch cookie cutter. Transfer the cut outs to one sheet, chill briefly (about 20 minutes) and then bake them on another lined sheet. I find my large and small metal dough scrapers very useful for lifting the rolled dough and transferring the cookies to the sheet. 

Re-roll scraps.  When ready to bake, pre-heat oven to 200 C / 400 F. Carefully transfer the cookies to the lined sheet, spacing them 1 inch apart. Bake for about 6-7 minutes or till golden around the edges. Watch carefully as they burn quickly. A test batch will tell you the exact baking time. Cookies crisp up as they cool. 

Can store the cookies air-tight for at least  a week. The dough freezes well Alice says, which is an added bonus. 

Variations: 

Lemon Poppy Seed Thins : Add 1/4 cup of poppy seeds to the flour mixture.

Lemon Ginger Thins - Omit the lemon juice and the boiling step. Melt the butter and add 2 tablespoons finely grated ginger. Mix one teaspoon ground ginger with the flour and baking soda. Proceed as directed.

Dainty, crisp and lemony, don't you want these in your cookie jar?

Winter Solstice Cookies

The baker's most awaited magical month is here! The time when compulsive bakers bake more than usual, reluctant bakers bake at least something! And those who don't bake wish they did! Come December, and you can feel Christmas in the air. If you did miss it - a one in a hundred chance, the magical, inspiring blogosphere constantly throws up gorgeous Christmassy  reminders saying 'Bake, bake'!

Stained glass window cookies, in my opinion, make fantastic festive edible decorations. Cookies you take delight in making, things your kids squeal over. Though the cookies taste good, what I don't enjoy eating is the stick-to-your teeth candy centers. Not that I can imagine I will relish eating sugar cookies decorated with royal icing. But the decorative part is the best part when we talk about these edible ornaments. Don't you agree? I have made these earlier, crisp eggless whole wheat cookies with candy centers. And this time, some chocolate cookies with caramel centers. These probably don't look as pretty as the non-chocolate ones, but then there are very few things which chocolate can't make up for!

Alice Medrich calls these Winter Solstice Cookies. Crisp cocoa cookies with amber centers letting the sun shine through. The cookies indeed bake up crisp and taste intensely of cocoa. If you are a cocoa lover,  you will love these. The dough is pretty simple, a slice and bake one. The cookies puff and spread quite a bit as they bake, so your only choice is to cut of the center after the cookies bake. And yes, you need to be careful when you make the caramel, the slightest bit of distraction or delay can cause it to overcook like mine and look darker (and slightly bitter) than you need it to be.

Winter Solstice Cookies - Adapted minimally from the book Chocolate Holidays

Ingredients 

All purpose flour - 130 grams / 1 cup

Unsweetened cocoa powder, Dutch process or natural - 1/2 cup (weighs 40 grams aprox)

Baking soda - 1/2 teaspoon

Baking powder - 1/4 teaspoon

Salt - 1/8 teaspoon

Unsalted butter, softened - 113 grams / 1 stick / 1/2 cup

Brown sugar, lump free - 1/2 cup, packed

White sugar - 1/2 cup ( I have used all white sugar, weighed and powdered fine)

Egg - 48 grams / 1 large

Vanilla extract - 1 teaspoon

To make the cookies (I made half of the below quantity)

• Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and the salt. Set aside. 
• In a large mixing bowl, beat the butter and the sugar(s) with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy but not fluffy - about 1.5 minutes on speed 3. Mix in the egg and vanilla. 
• Add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. I used my hand mixer on the lowest speed for a few seconds. The dough will be sticky. 
• Form it into a log, 6 inches for the full recipe( 3 inches for half), 2 1/2 inches in diameter. (Do not make the logs thinner as it will be tough to cut out the windows later). 
• Wrap the dough well in clingfilm and chill it for at least 3 hours, preferably overnight. (I chilled it overnight)

Before you start baking the cookies, keep a sharp metal 1 inch round cookie cutter nearby. If you do not have one, try cutting with the sharp side of a metal piping nozzle as I did.

• Line your cookie sheets with baking parchment. Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C / 350 F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven. 
• Using a sharp knife. cut the logs into 1/4 inch thick slices. Do bake one test cookie first, cut it out, check the window and cookie size and done-ness, the best way and time to cut out the center and then bake the rest. You are better off baking these in batches of  2 - 3 cookies. 
• Place them spaced 1.5 inches apart on the baking sheet (they spread). Wrap and refrigerate the remaining part of the log till your oven is free for the next batch. Or slice and place the remaining slices side by side on a baking sheet, cover well with clingfilm and refrigerate.
• Bake till the cookies puff up and settle down again, 10-12 minutes. Rotate the cookie sheets halfway through. I found that the cookies were easiest to cut immediately out of the oven. Let the cookies remain on the sheet when they come out, too fragile to slip out now.  Hold the tray with a small towel, and cut out the centers, using a repetitive turning motion( as you would twist open a bottle cap). Be gentle but decisive. The cookies tend to break as they crisp up quite fast.
• Carefully ease out the centers. The cookies crisp up as they cool. If they are not crisp, it means they needed more baking time.
• Transfer the cookies to an airtight container, placing them in a single layer. When all the cookies are done and you are ready to make the caramel, place them on a sheet of parchment. Space them an inch apart.

To make the caramel : Have a bowl of ice cold water ready near the stove. You will plunge the saucepan with the caramel in it to arrest further cooking. Check to be sure the water level is just enough, more may cause the water to splash in the caramel, the caramel will then seize. You will need a cup of water and a good silicon brush to dip and wash down the sugar crystals down the sides of the saucepan. A fork or skewer, a largish spoon  and a large white plate to test the caramel.

Sugar - 1 cup
Water - 1/2 cup
Lemon juice - 1/4 teaspoon

• In a light colored heavy bottomed saucepan, combine the sugar, water and the lime juice. Wash down any sugar crystals on the insides of the pan using the brush. 
• Over medium heat, stir gently (do not whisk) until most of the sugar has dissolved. Stop stirring and bring to a simmer. Cover and simmer 2 to 3 minutes to dissolve the sugar. 
• Uncover and wash down the insides with the brush. Without further stirring, continue to simmer until the syrup begins to color. This will take a couple of minutes, be patient. 
• Swirl the pan if needed to distribute the color evenly. Using a skewer or fork put a drop on the plate, the color will go from light amber to reddish to dark very quickly. Be really attentive. 
• When you see a nice reddish amber color, immediately take the pan off the heat and carefully plunge the saucepan in the cold water. This will arrest further cooking and help the caramel stay liquid for a few minutes. 
• Working quickly, spoon the caramel in the 'windows'. Let cool and harden. Store the cookies airtight.

Caramel tastes way better than candy pieces in the windows for sure, but it still remains hard and sticks to your teeth. That said, they still make pretty pieces on your tree with the sun shining through! So you do have a reason to bake these for Christmas.

Happy Baking!

Carrot Cake Macaroons. Flavorful Little Bites!

Carrot is not just for cake, says Alice Medrich. And I nod in total agreement. I love her book Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Cookies for constantly reassuring me that there are heaps, heaps more of these delightful little things to be baked. An alluring variety of textures and taste, its so easy yield to the temptation and bake from the book over and over again! Having tremendously enjoyed her Bittersweet Decadence Cookies , Bittersweet Brownies, Cocoa Brownies, Mock Puff Pastry, Cocoa Tuiles, Citrus Tuiles , Coconut Wafers and Coffee Walnut Cookies I can safely say, if you enjoy your cookies, this is one book you may want to own.

Spicy Carrot Masala Macaroons. Wait! How did this one escape my eye! Desserts with a touch of heat - no, not really my thing. But I could surely imagine little chewy macaroons with carrots, almonds, and coconut, spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and orange zest. They turned out to be chewy, delicious little bites indeed! Watch the recipe video! Have you subscribed yet?

If you haven't tried macaroons yet, they have a crispy outer crust when just out of the oven, the interiors moist and chewy, think the ever popular South Indian Coconut Fudge. Unlike the famous French cookies macarons which are notorious for being tricky, these are really easy, quick and forgiving. Best the day they are baked, they soften the next day, but delicious nevertheless!

Ingredients:

• Whole almonds (with or without skin) - 105 grams / 3.75 oz / 3/4 cup
• Egg whites - 60 grams / 2, large
• Sugar - 200 grams / 7 oz/ 1 cup ( I have weighed and powdered it, you could use fine grained)
• Ground cinnamon - 1 teaspoon (or garam masala or pumpkin pie spice)
• Ground cloves - 1/8 - 1/4 teaspoon (will add this next time, just a suggestion)
• Salt - 1/4 teaspoon
• Carrots, medium - finely shredded - 158 grams / 5.625 oz/ 1 plus 1/3 cup lightly packed
• Unsweetened dried shredded coconut, NOT dessicated coconut - 63 grams / 2.25 oz / 3/4 cup
• Orange zest - 1/2 teaspoon (the recipe has much lesser lemon zest, please read note)

Procedure:

• Line your cookie sheets with baking parchment. Set aside. Pre-heat oven to 160 degrees C / 325 degree F. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven.

• Place the almonds in a zip lock bag and bash with a rolling pin till its mostly in smallish pieces. This helps in grinding it without making it oily or pasty before getting them to the texture you need. 
• Grind them to an uneven meal in the smallest jar of your mixer (or pulse in the food processor). The texture should range from mostly fine to finely chopped. Set aside.

• In a medium sized, thick bottomed steel saucepan with a handle (helps you hold it in place as you stir), whisk the egg whites with a fork till frothy. Whisk in the zest, ensuring there are no lumps. 
• Stir in the sugar, spices and salt. Add the grated carrot, coconut and almonds. Stir until all the ingredients are moistened. Set aside for 10 minutes to dissolve the sugar and hydrate the coconut.  
• Bring a large wide skillet of water to a very low simmer; place bowl in skillet. cook 5-7 minutes, or until the mixture is very hot and the liquid turns from opaque to translucent, stirring constantly with a silicone spatula, making sure to scrape the bottom.
• Drop heaping teaspoons 1 inch apart on the lined baking sheet. Or form tall beehives with your fingers. Bake for 20-25 minutes or till the tips of the carrot shreds begin to color and the bottoms of the cookies are deep golden brown. This again may vary depending on your oven. 
• I think I like these a tad underdone as they taste so moist and good! I have baked for about 20 minutes as mine were really small. Bake a small test batch (err on the side of under-baking rather than over bake), cool and taste. If they are too hard or jaw-achingly chewy or dry (don't ask me how I know), reduce the baking time by a couple of minutes. 
• Rotate pans halfway to ensure even baking.
• Set the pan on the rack, cool cookies completely before storing.
• In case, you find it difficult to remove them from the parchment, hold one cookie at a time, gently peel the parchment away.
  
• The cookies keep for 3-4 days loosely covered to prevent sogginess, rather than airtight.

Note: If you use more zest, it may overpower the cinnamon. Use lesser zest to play up the cinnamon, or omit altogether. But I had used the zest of almost one whole orange, it was very, very zesty, but paired amazingly well with the carrot and almonds.