Raspberry Chocolate Rugelach

Since I'm the youngest in my family (the youngest child of four), I have very fond memories running errands with my mom. She was an amazing stay-at-home mom who truly put her children first. Since there was no babysitter or nanny, wherever my mom went, we went along; especially me because I was the youngest. Often when we'd be running errands, my mom would stop at a local bakery to pick some treats up for my siblings for their after-school snack. When we'd go to the bakery, me and my older sister, Nadia, were always allowed to pick two or three cookies for ourselves. I can remember looking in the cookie case at all of the colorful cookies topped with chocolate, sprinkles, and decorative sugar. I think they were mostly butter cookies or sugar cookies just decorated differently, but I remember thinking that they each looked like jewels sitting under the lights of the cookie case. My sister always chose some jam filled cookie, and for whatever reason, I always chose these butter cookies that were twisted into the shape of a pretzel then dipped into white chocolate coating. Why would I choose a plain white cookie when there were fancy-pants decorated cookies? I have no flipping idea. I really think it was an inability to decide which fanciful cookie to choose that propelled me to choose the most bland, plain cookie in the entire place. Now whenever I go into an old-school American bakery and I see a sugar cookie pretzel dipped into white chocolate, I give into the memory of buying them in my childhood. But every time I bite into one, I'm disappointed. It tastes just as boring as it looks. My sister, on the other hand, still loves jam-filled cookies. So whenever I make a jam-filled cookie, there's always a nod to my sister, and she often gets a little bundle of cookies just for herself.

I originally made these raspberry chocolate rugelach cookies for the Mother-Daughter Cookie Exchange in 2009. Since then I've made them quite a few times. Since my sister loves jam-filled cookies, so I know I'll always have an appreciative audience.  I always thought they were over-rated, but I have to admit, I really liked these. The cream cheese dough is not too sweet, and it's serves as a nice crumbly texture against the sticky, sweet jam filling. And of course, I think the chocolate only made it better!

The dough is actually quite sticky once it's made. So allowing the dough to chill thoroughly is very necessary. I made the dough the night before rolling them out, thus ensuring the dough was nice and firm.



The recipe specifies dividing the dough into half, wrapping them separately to chill and roll out. I made a triple batch of the recipe, thus resulting in six dough disks.



I wrapped them individually in cling-wrap before chilling. At this point, I've actually frozen the dough for up to one month. Defrosting it in the fridge over night before proceeding with the recipe, and it works perfectly.



If I were a true perfectionist, I would have rolled the dough out into a perfect circle, but alas, I obviously didn't take the time to do just that. I smeared the dough with raspberry jam an sprinkled it with mini-chocolate chips.



After cutting and rolling the rugelach, I thought they looked delectable (although, not perfect). Before baking, I brushed them with egg wash and sprinkled a mixture of cinnamon and sugar on top.



Here's the recipe. It's adapted from The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book.
Ingredients:
 For the dough:
1 stick unsalted butter, softened
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 tablespoon sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup (5 ounces) flour

For the Filling:
1/3 cup (2 1/2 ounces) of sugar
1 tablespoon of ground cinnamon
1/2 cup raspberry jam
1 cup (four ounces) mini-chocolate chips
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

For the dough:
Beat the butter, cream cheese, sugar, vanilla, and salt together until light and fluffy. Occasionally stop the mixer to crape down the sides of the bowl. Reduce the speed of the mixer and add the flour. Mix until just combined.

Turn the mixture out onto a floured counter, divide it into two equal pieces. Wrap in plastic wrap, an d refrigerate until firm, about one hour. Pre-heat the oven to 375 F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment or a silpad.

Assembling the cookies:
Roll each piece of dough into an 11 inch circle, about 1/4 inch thick. Spread about 1/4 cup of the jam on top of each round. Then sprinkle each with 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and 1 tablespoon of the cinnamon sugar.

Using a pizza cutter, cut each dough round evenly into 16 wedges. Starting at the wide end, roll up each wedge into a cookie. Place the cookies on the prepared baking sheets, with the pointed end underneath. Place them about two inches apart.

Brush the melted butter over the cookies and sprinkle with the remaining cinnamon sugar. Bake the cookies until pale gold and slightly puffy, about 20 min. Immediately transfer the hot cookies to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving (about an hour).

Makes 32 cookies.

Cookie Exchange 2009

Yes - that's right, this post is about our annual Mother-Daughter Cookie Exchange in 2009. It isn't a typo. I'm just a horrible procrastinator. I'm hoping I post about this year's cookie exchange before 2011.

The Second Annual Mother-Daughter Cookie Exchange was held in the basement this year. Last year I did it on the main floor of our house, and it was a huge mess. I don't know what I was thinking. Mixing little children, cookies, and sugar-over load was just a recipe for disaster. Then again I was only four months post-partum for the first cookie exchange, so who knows what my sleep-deprived brain was thinking. I probably wasn't thinking too clearly at all. The other big difference between the first and second cookie exchanges is the activities. The 2009 cookie exchange featured three different activities. The first was cookie decorating. They decorated sugar cookies in the shape of mittens.



Here's one of the two cookie decorating stations. There were a variety of candies and frosting colors available to the girls for decorating.




Here's are some completed cookies. Some children took the opportunity to dump as much candy on to their cookie in hopes of chowing down on the treats for days to come.







One of the other activities I thought would be fun was a watercolor crayon relief project. The children used white crayons to draw on white paper. Then they used the watercolors to "reveal" the drawing they made with the white crayon.



The last activity was a tissue paper craft. I didn't realize that they well pre-cut squares of tissue paper. The time I would have saved if I had known that...



This is the sample I made to help demonstrate the activity.



Finally, here's a picture of all the cookies. The table wasn't quite complete when I took the photo, but you can see my contributions.  I made the chocolate candy cane cookies and the rugelach. You can find my post about the chocolate candy cane cookies here and the rugelach here.



Stay tuned, I'm hoping to post about the Third Annual Mother-Daughter Cookie Exchange soon!

My Obsession with Sandwich Cookies Continues...

So, my obsession with sandwich cookies continues with these beauties - Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies. I find myself drawn to sandwich cookies, and I'm not quite sure why that's the case. At first I thought it was because sandwich cookies are so substantial. I mean one sandwich cookie is really two cookies smashed together with a delactible filling peeking out between the cookies (in the case with these cookies the filling isn't really peeking out, it's oozing out!). Another thought is that sandwich cookies are an example of a very simple method (using a tasty concoction to stick two cookies together) that often produces a rather show-stopping result (visually and gastronomically).While making these cookies this holiday season, I've come up with yet another possible explanation for my affinity for sandwich cookies. It boils down to this - you always want what you can't have. In the '80's, Oreos were made with lard. Good o'l fashioned pig fat. That made them null and void in my household due to dietary restrictions. That meant, if we wanted to eat chocolate sandwich cookies, we were forced to opt for Hydrox. I realize that there's a huge fan base out there for the now discontinued Hydrox, but no matter how many of those suckers I ate, I just knew that they weren't as phenomenal as Oreos (I actually didn't know because I couldn't eat the lard Oreos, but my nine-year-old instincts told me that Hydrox just fell short). I finally beheld the chance to test my instincts when, in the '90's, Oreos replaced the lard with vegetable fat. My gut instinct was right - Hydrox had nothing on Oreos. Thus, my love affair with sandwich cookies began (or at least that's my hypothesis as of right now).

On with the recipe for Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies. The recipe is from the December 2005 issue of Bon Appetite, and can be found here. I made these (six dozen of them) for the 2009 Mother Daughter Cookie Exchange. They were a big hit, but hey, who could resist chocolate- peppermint-sandwich cookies rolled in crushed candy canes? Only the Grinch!

One of the biggest bonuses of this recipe is that the cookies are drop cookies (no rolling and cutting dough). I used a handy ice cream scoop. Then used my fingers to flatten the cookies. Next time I'll use the bottom of a drinking

glass to flatten the cookies because my fingers left a

bit of an indentation!

Crushing the candy canes was much more of a challenge than I thought. I found that placing them in a freezer-grade zip top bag (freezer-grade works best because it's thicker) then using a rolling pin and some good old elbow grease is the most efficien

t way to crush them.

Here they are, sandwiched together, rolled in the candy canes, ready to be devoured.

Better Than the "Real" Thing - Waaaay Better

So, the title of this post sets the bar really high, but I have to say that this recipe lives up to the hype. This recipe was originally described as "grown up Oreos," but I think they're waaaay better than Oreos. These cookies are so unassuming. They look plain and bland, but they are anything but boring. The cookies are wafer like - with a dark chocolate taste and a hint of saltiness. The filling isn't the usual pseudo buttercream (which I shouldn't knock, because the overly sweet powdered sugar/butter combo has its rightful place among baked goods). Instead, the filling is a creamy white chocolate ganache that balances the crispness of the chocolate wafers surrounding it.

I make the dough a day ahead of time, and roll it out in two batches. Each half of the dough is rolled between two pieces of parchment paper. Then I place them on top of an inverted cookie sheet, and place it in the fridge. (The cookie sheet allows me to easily remove the thin sheets of cookie dough without fear of destroying the dough while transporting it from the fridge to the kitchen counter.) One more important tip about the cookies: Do NOT store them in an airtight container because the cookies will become soggy and soft. I would suggest placing them in a traditional cookie jar or cake platter with a domed top in order to retain a crisp cookie.

Without further delay, here's the recipe for Double-Chocolate Sandwich Cookies (from Gourmet):

Ingredients:

For the Dough:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1/2 pound) unsalted butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

For the Ganache:
1/2 cup heavy cream
1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup (I use golden syrup because I don't like corn syrup. Golden syrup is available from whole foods.)
3/4 pound fine-quality white chocolate, melted
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions:
For the Dough:

Whisk together the dry ingredients (not including the sugar).

Beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, then beat in yolk and vanilla. At low speed, mix in flour mixture in 3 batches just until a dough forms. Divide dough in half and form into a disk, then chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, 2 to 3 hours.

While the dough chills, make the ganache:

Bring cream and corn syrup just to a simmer in a small heavy saucepan, then stir into melted chocolate. Stir in butter and vanilla until smooth. Cover surface with cling wrap and chill, stirring occasionally, until very thick, about 30 minutes.

Back to the Cookies:

Preheat oven to 350°F with rack in middle. Line two 2 large baking sheets with a silicone liner or parchment paper.

Roll out 1 piece of dough between sheets of parchment paper about 1/8 inch thick. Slide dough in parchment onto a tray and freeze until dough is firm, about 10 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough.

Cut out as many rounds as possible with a 1 3/4 inch round cookie cutter, reserving and chilling scraps, then quickly transfer cookies to a buttered baking sheet, arranging them 1/2 inch apart.

Bake cookies until baked through and slightly puffed, 10 to 12 minutes. Cool on sheet on rack 5 minutes, then transfer to rack to cool completely (cookies will crisp as they cool).

Assemble Cookies:

Beat ganache with an electric mixer at high speed just until light and fluffy. Spread ganache onto flat sides of plain cookies, then top with another cookie to make sandwiches. Chill, layered between sheets of parchment, in an airtight container until filling is set, at least 1 hour.

Makes about 3 to 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

Cookies for Sweetie Mama's First Birthday

So, I've baked literally dozens of cakes and desserts for my family's special occasions (birthdays, weddings, engagement parties, etc.), so how could I pass up on making something for my daughter's first birthday. Yes - there will be almost 200 people there, but I'm crazy enough to attempt to bake something. I cannot let go...

So, I decided the most practical items for me to make are cookies. I'm planning on having chocolate chocolate chip, sugar cookies, and chocolate chip cookies. Now, you might be thinking, "Well that's boring." But actually, purchasing good quality cookies is rather expensive. Supermarket bakery cookies just don't cut it for me. I love the chocolate, chocolate chip cookies from Panera. Mmmmmmm, so good.

So, here's my version minus the nuts (due to my nephew's allergies to nuts) and white chocolate.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

1 3/4 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch process)
3/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup packed light brown sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 tsp. vanilla
2 cups chocolate chips (I like to use bittersweet chocolate chips)

Sift the dry ingredients together in a medium bowl. Beat the butter and sugars together until light and fluffy. Then beat in the egg and vanilla until well combined. Beat in the flour mixture until just combined and stir in the chips.

Make sure to space the cookies about 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.

Makes about 4 dozen cookies.

For these cookies I used Hershey's special dark chocolate cocoa powder. It gave the cookies a nice, deep, chocolate taste without a lot of sweetness. I felt like it was as chocolaty as a Dutch process cocoa.

I have a rather strong type A personality (I think that's the only strength Type A personalities actually come in - honestly, have you ever heard of a mild Type A personality? Mild and Type A do not fit together), so I like to be organized, clean, and efficient when I cook/bake. Below are my ingredients all measured out, ready to be mixed, rolled, baked, and devoured in the form of a chocolaty bundle of satisfaction (otherwise known as a chocolate chocolate chip cookie).

Here's the batter ready to be scooped and baked:


Finally - behold the cookie! (I can't tell you how many of these I had to eat before packing them away for the party. Let's just say that I probably gained about five pounds worth of cookies!)

The Never Ending Search for THE Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

I'm crazy about chocolate chip cookies (or have chocolate chip cookies made me crazy? hmmmm....) Since I can remember I've been obsessed with finding the perfect recipe for these delicious treats. Actually, I shouldn't say "the" prefect recipe because I've actually been on the hunt for two very different, yet equally perfect, chocolate chip cookie recipes. 

In my opinion, the vast world of chocolate chip cookies can be classified into three main categories: 1) Thin, crispy, crunchy cookies (not my favorite by far). 2) Chewy, soft chocolate chip cookies (love these) 3) The thick, fudge-like cookie that packs a punch. The fudge-like cookie I'm referring to in particular is the Carol's Cookies species. I first discovered Carol's Cookies in college. I lived in an apartment across the street from Whole Foods, and I stumbled upon these gems one fateful afternoon. 

In my quest for the perfect chocolate chip cookie recipes, I've been working on variety number two (soft, chewy) of late. I need to learn more about baking science before even attempting to recreate Carol's Cookies. 

These one's turn out pretty well. They are an adaptation of the Ghirardelli chocolate chip cookies.  Here's the recipe:

11 ounces of semisweet chocolate chips

2 3/4 cups of all purpose flour

1 1/4 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 cup butter softened

3/4 cup granulated sugar

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped walnuts

Bake in a preheated 375 degree oven for 8 to 9 min. They may look underdone when taken out of the oven, but they continue to cook as they cool. They are delicious!

This entire plate of cookies was gone in one afternoon when guests came over for tea. I'm already thinking about ways to make it even better...hmmm.....

The First Annual Mother-Daughter Cookie Exchange

I always wanted to host a cookie exchange, but I never managed to get my act together in time for the holidays. This year I actually did it! It was a bit insane on my part because my daughter was only three months old, but with my husband, sister in-law, mom, and sisters' help, we did it! It turned out great. I'm all about starting traditions, and this is one I'd love to start with my own daughter. Above is a photo of about 3/4 of the cookies from the exchange.




The cookies on the white footed platter are mine. I made two types of chocolate sandwich cookies. One is a Martha Stewart recipe called Chocolate Mint Sandwich Wafers. They were fantastic. The other cookie was from Epicurious. It's a more sophisticated version of oreo cookies with a white chocolate filling. I added crushed candy canes to the filling to make it more festive. You can see the recipe here.



I asked each of the participants to send me a copy of their cookie recipes in advance, and I put them together in a little booklet. It's a great way to recreate one's favorites from the exchange.


Along with the recipe booklet, there were bags for each person to fill with cookies. I included some decorations for the kids to decorate the bags. It was a hectic party that took a lot of organization, but it was enjoyable. Nearly all of the guests e-mailed me telling me how much fun they had at the party. Let's see if we can pull it off again next year...