Cookie Collection Recipe 6

When we lived in Twentynine Palms, we had a next-door neighbor who loved the cream cheese brownies his mother would make. His wife asked her mother-in-law for the recipe many times, but, somehow the mother-in-law would always forget to get it in the mail to her, or it got lost in the mail, or she was sure she'd sent it... Then, the wife tasted the cream cheese brownies made from this recipe at one of our biennial holiday cookie parties and realized that they we a dead-ringer for those elusive brownies of her husband's childhood.

I gladly gave her the recipe and she immediately made up a batch, wrapped them up and shipped them to her husband (who was on deployment at the time). He was thrilled, she was thrilled, but I suspect the mother-in-law was not very thrilled. So here they are... cream cheese brownies, just like mom makes...

Cream Cheese Brownies
Makes sixteen 2”-square browniesŽŽŽ

⅔ cup bleached, all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon baking powder

2 ounces unsweetened chocolate
4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate
8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter

1 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 large eggs

8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon vanilla
1 large egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and lightly grease an 8”-square baking pan and fit an ~8”x16" sheet of aluminum foil in bottom of pan so the foil overhangs both sides of the pan to use as handles to remove the brownies from pan after they are baked (it is really worth the trouble to do this). Spray with non-stick spray or lightly grease the foil.

In a small bowl whisk together the flour, salt and baking powder. Set aside. Melt the chocolate and butter over very low heat on the stovetop, in a double-boiler or in the microwave and stir until smooth. Remove the melted chocolate mixture from the heat, whisk in the 1 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons vanilla, then whisk in the 3 eggs, one at a time, mixing each egg in thoroughly before adding the next and mix until completely smooth. Add the reserved flour mixture and whisk just until incorporated.

In a small bowl, beat the cream cheese with the ¼ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon vanilla, and the egg yolk until mixed well. Pour half the brownie batter into the prepared pan and drop spoonfuls of half of the cream cheese mixture over the batter. Repeat the layering with the remaining brownie batter and cream cheese filling, then use the blade of a table knife or a spoon handle to gently swirl the batter and cream cheese filling together, creating a marbled effect.

Bake the brownies until the edges have puffed slightly, the center feels not quite firm when touched lightly, and a toothpick or cake tester inserted into center comes out with several moist, fudgy crumbs adhering to it, 50 to 60 minutes. Cool the brownies in the pan on a rack for 5 minutes, then, using the foil, lift the brownies from pan. Place the brownies on a rack and allow them to cool to room temperature. If you can stand the wait, refrigerate the brownies until chilled, at least 3 hours, cut into squares and serve.

Cookie Collection Recipe 5

Here is another flourless-cookie recipe for you all...

Meringues are a favorite of my niece and all of the friends she made while visiting us one summer when I hosted a little ladies tea party for her (picture five 7-year-olds, one 4-year-old, tiaras and feather boas with their accompanying cloud of pink feathers). Adding one drop of red food coloring per ½ cup of egg whites makes meringues with a very nice, young girl-pleasing, light pink color.

("Meringue" also happens to be the same way I always misspell a certain Latin dance with that has a fast one-two, one-two beat... the Merengue.)

Meringues
Makes ~48 cookies

½ cup of egg whites
pinch cream of tartar
1 cup sugar

1 drop food coloring (optional)

Preheat oven to 200 degrees and line a couple of half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

In a very clean bowl, whip the egg whites and cream of tartar to soft peaks. Gradually add the sugar and whip to stiff peaks. If using food coloring, add it and mix at low speed until incorporated. Pipe (or drop by the spoonful) the meringues onto prepared pans and bake at 200 degrees for 1 to 2 hours or until completely dry. Do not let the meringues brown.

Helpful Hints:

Any oil in your bowl, on the beaters or bits of egg yolk can prevent the whites from being beaten to their full air-holding capacity. Make sure everything is very clean.

If you have a problem with meringues slumping and losing their shape in the oven, try beating the egg whites longer or increasing your oven temperature a smidgen. I usually cook mine at ~200 degrees.

Or, if the issue is that they hold their shape but are just not dried, you may need to bake them longer. I bake mine for around 1½ hours, then turn off the oven, leave the oven light on and let the meringues sit in the oven overnight. If you are living someplace humid, you will definitely need to bake them longer and might have to leave them in an oven set on "warm" for several hours or overnight (that is the only way I can get them to dry while in the D.C. area during the summer). Basically, as long as the oven is low enough not to brown the meringues, they can stay in there as long as is needed to fully dry them.

Meringues can be formed in pretty much any shape or size (within reason). The only thing to watch for with the bigger shapes is that they will take considerably longer to completely dry out.

Cookie Collection Recipe 4

Last night at dinner, a friend inquired when I was going to post more cookie recipes here and it was just the kick I needed to quit being so negligent in this endeavor. I’ll try to make up for the missed weeks ASAP. In the meantime, here are a couple of Passover-friendly macaroon recipes.

Macaroons really do need to be baked on parchment paper or a silpat because they’ll stick like glue to an ungreased pan and spread too much on a greased one. Luckily rolls of parchment can now be found at nearly all supermarkets. But, if you frequently bake cookies, you may want to buy parchment paper in larger amounts. King Arthur Flour Baker’s Catalog carries pre-cut sheets of parchment that fit a standard half-sheet pan ($17.95 for 100 sheets, item #5854, here).

And, although I prefer not to recommend recipes that require specialty equipment (and pricey equipment, at that), these macaroons are easiest to make with a food processor. If you don’t have one, you may be able to grind the almonds/coconut in a blender in smaller batches and then mix in the eggs by hand. However, one of the best material items that RWT brought to our marriage (and one of the few we still own) was his father’s old DLC-7 Cuisinart, so I have no experience using anything else for these cookies.

Almond Macaroons
Makes about two dozen 2-inch cookies

3 cups (12 ounces) blanched, slivered almonds
1½ cups sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 large) egg whites
1 teaspoon almond extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line two half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

Put the almonds into a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade and process for 1 minute, add the sugar and process for 15 seconds longer. Add the eggs whites and almond extract and process until the dough wads around the blade. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and process about 5 seconds longer until the dough forms a stiff, but cohesive, malleable paste (similar in consistency to marzipan), about 5 seconds longer. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn the machine back on and add water by drops through the feed tube until you get the right consistency.

Scoop balls of the dough, 1 to 2 tablespoon-sized (you can also make them smaller, just be sure to adjust the baking time), onto the parchment-lined pans, spacing them ~1½ inches apart. For a more finished look, you can roll the dough into smooth balls with slightly-dampened hands. You can also make fancier macaroons by piping out the dough into mounds using a large pastry bag fitted with a ¾-inch open star tip, but if you do go this route, add a bit of water to the dough to make it slightly softer and be prepared to use considerable hand strength. Usually, I just use a small (1½ tablespoon-sized) scoop (like a mini-ice cream scoop) and then use dampened fingertips to smooth the tops of the dough.

Bake the macaroons, switching the positions of the pans midway through baking, until the cookies are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, the macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored (but we still always manage to choke them down… somehow…). After the macaroons have completely cooled on the parchment paper, peel them off and store in an airtight container.

Coconut Macaroons
Makes about two dozen 2-inch cookies

14 ounces sweetened flaked coconut
1½ cups sugar
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon (3 large) egg whites
½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees and line two half-sheet pans (or cookie sheets) with parchment paper.

Put the coconut into a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade and process for 1 minute, add the sugar and process for 15 seconds longer. Add the eggs whites and vanilla extract and process for 1 minute. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and process about 5 seconds longer until the dough forms a paste that resembles slushy snow. If mixture is crumbly or dry, turn the machine back on and add water by drops through the feed tube until you get the right consistency.

Scoop balls of the dough, 1 to 2 tablespoon-sized (you can also make them smaller, just be sure to adjust the baking time), onto the parchment-lined pans, spacing them ~1½ inches apart. For a more finished look, you can roll the dough into smooth balls with slightly-dampened hands. You can also make fancier macaroons by piping out the dough into mounds using a large pastry bag fitted with a ¾-inch open star tip, but if you do go this route, add a bit of water to the dough to make it slightly softer and be prepared to use considerable hand strength. Usually, I just use a small (1½ tablespoon-sized) scoop (like a mini-ice cream scoop) and then use dampened fingertips to smooth the tops of the dough.

Bake the macaroons, switching the positions of the pans midway through baking, until the cookies are golden brown, 20 to 25 minutes. If overbaked, the macaroons will dry out rather quickly when stored (I’ve found the coconut macs tend to dry out less quickly than the almond macs, but they also burn more easily, so you’ll still need to watch them pretty closely near the end of the baking time). After the macaroons have completely cooled on the parchment paper, peel them off and store in an airtight container.

Convergent Phobias

Yesterday evening RWT & I went out to dinner with some friends to Firefly. Since they do not have valet service during mid-week and we did not want to deal with the hassle of parking the car, we opted to take the metro. Simple? No. For me, metro is never a decision to be taken lightly.

While not exactly claustrophobic, I get extremely uncomfortable in places with limited egress. It does not matter how big or small they are. You can squeeze me into a large cardboard box and it is no big deal (unless it is made of particularly strong cardboard and you tape it shut!). In fact, for nearly my whole 3rd grade year, the favorite pastime of my friend and I was to spend hours sitting in a large cardboard box, playing Crazy Eights and eating pretzels with mustard. So it is not really a size-thing.

But you won’t be able to get me into anything but the shallowest of cave – no matter how roomy on the inside (I certainly won’t be listening to the Stalacpipe Organ at Luray Caverns anytime soon). I don’t like underground parking garages. Or going too deep underwater (no scuba diving for me). I’ve even been known to get short of breath when in the middle of a large, crowded room (I much prefer a table near the door, please).

The worst was when I worked as a corrosion control/paint expert and I had to inspect underground storage tanks. It would take all of my willpower to climb down the ladder into the tank. All of the tanks I inspected were huge, but every moment I spent inside, 98% of my attention was focused on fact that the exit was an itty-bitty circle high up at the top of a ladder. Ten minutes was about my limit, then I’d start to hyperventilate and flee the scene.

So taking the metro… ugh. Underground. No quick way out. And, to only make matters worse… in the D.C. area, the access to nearly all the metro stations is by escalator. Aaaack. Another phobia. Perhaps, when I was a child, my mother was just too diligent in her warnings to be careful not to get shoes/clothing/body parts stuck in the mashing escalator teeth. But to this day, navigating on and off an escalator is a feat that requires great concentration and bravery. Of course, there are elevators at the metro stations (if they are working), but, really, you’ve got to be kidding me.

The first five years we lived in this area, I never took the metro. However, about a year ago, after much encouragement and mental preparation, I finally took the plunge. RWT is wonderful and works diligently to keep me distracted from thinking about how I am deep within the bowels of the earth trapped in a very long, dark tunnel (even when the twenty-somethings sitting behind us start talking about what it would be like to be riding the metro and be claustrophobic and how one would want to pound on the doors screaming to be let out if the train suddenly stopped between stations). So now I am proud to say that I’ve ridden the metro. Four trips at that! I even have my own metro farecard.

Luckily, metro-riding does not also involve large areas of grating that I have to walk across, see-through stairs, crickets or needles (well, there probably are a few needle users on some of the trains, but as long as no one is poking me with any, I’m fine). Those would completely send me over the edge… or in search of parking.