Baking Bliss

When it came time to to figure out what to give my mom for mothers day, I thought back to what I've given her over the years, and what she's like the best.  I realized that she's always loved homemade gifts the best, so I figured I'd bake her something delicious, and send it along with some nice tea.  My mom's tea addiction may rival my coffee addiction--or explain where I got it.

I decided that a couple of kinds of cookies would be a great gift, especially if they went nicely with tea.  After a little bit of deliberation, I settled on two types--ginger cookies and linzer cookies.  Both travel well and taste good with tea.  To make sure they stayed fresh for the long journey from LA to Chicago, I packed them in glass jars.  Not only do they keep the cookies fresh, they look pretty!

In the jar on the left--Ginger cookies.  In the jar on the right--Linzer cookies.  We're gonna start with the ginger cookies.

Orange-molasses spice cookies- Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking:From my home to yours.  A fantastic cookbook if you haven't seen it.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp coarsely ground black pepper
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 (12 tablespoons) sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup molasses (not blackstrap)
1 large egg



For rolling
3/4 cup sugar
zest of one large orange



 

1. Whisk together the flour, soda, spices, and salt. In another bowl, or in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the butter, sugar, and molasses. Add the egg and beat 1 minute more. Blend in the flour mixture until you have a soft dough. It will seem softer than most cookie dough. That's just fine.
 

2. Divide in half; wrap and freeze for 30 minutes.

3. While freezing, make the orange sugar-- either in a food processor or just on a cutting board with a bench scraper or knife, work the zest of one large orange into 3/4 cup of sugar until it is a pretty sunshine-y yellow color and very fragrant.

4. Shape teaspoonfuls into balls; roll in sugar and orange zest mixture. Place 2 inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet.
 

5. Bake at 350°F for 9 to 11 minutes, until flattened and crackle-topped. Cool.

While I said above to cool the cookies, They're totally delicious warm and fresh out of the oven.  I'm careful with what I eat but the smell was so overwhelming that I just HAD to have one. So worth it.   And while they're fantastic with tea, they're also delicious with coffee or milk, and extra special as the outsides of an ice cream sandwich.  If jarring them up to ship, or just to keep in your own cookie jar, let them cool completely first. Trust me. If not you get a clumpy, sticky mess in your jar.  I knew better. I did not get a clumpy sticky mess.

Linzer Cookies-- Also adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours because it's such a wonderful book, and, well, I already had it out.

1 1/2 cups finely ground almonds
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 tsp fresh grated nutmeg
1 large egg
2 teaspoons almond extract
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup good raspberry jam
Powdered sugar



1- Whisk together the ground nuts, flour, cinnamon, salt, and cloves. Using a fork, stir the egg and extract together in a small bowl.

2-Working with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or with a hand mixer in a large bowl, beat the butter and sugar together at medium speed until smooth, about 3 minutes, scraping down the bowl as needed.

3. Add the egg mixture and beat for 1 minute more. Reduce the speed to low and add the dry ingredients, mixing only until they disappear into the dough. Don’t work the dough too much once the flour is incorporated. If the dough comes together but some dry crumbs remain in the bottom of the bowl, stop the mixer and finish blending the ingredients with a rubber spatula or your hands.

4. Divide the dough in half. Working with one half at a time, put the dough between two large sheets of wax paper, parchment paper (my paper of choice) or plastic wrap. Using your hands, flatten the dough into a disk, then grab a rolling pin and roll out the dough, turning it over frequently so that the paper doesn’t cut into it, until it is about 1/4-inch thick. Leave the dough in the paper and repeat with the second piece of dough.

5. Transfer the wrapped dough to a baking sheet or cutting board (to keep it flat) and refrigerate or freeze it until it is very firm, about 2 hours in the refrigerator or 45 minutes in the freezer. It was firm enough that I could pick up the dough on the paper and have it stay hard-- kinda the way frozen puff pastry does. The rolled-out dough can be wrapped airtight and stored in the refrigerator for up to 3 days or the freezer for up to 2 months. Just thaw the dough enough to cut and go from there.

6. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375° F. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

7. Peel off the top sheet of paper from one piece of dough and, using a 2-inch round cookie cutter—a scalloped cutter is nice for these—cut out as many cookies as you can. If you want to have a peekaboo cutout, use a small cutter or the round end of a piping tip to cut out a very small shapes from the centers of half the cookies. I found that cutting the peekaboo shape before cutting the large one worked better. Otherwise, the perfect rounds would morph a little and not fit exactly on the bases.Transfer the rounds to the baking sheets, leaving a little space between the cookies. Set the scraps aside—you can combine them with the scraps of the second disk and roll out and cut more cookies.

8. Bake the cookies one sheet at a time for 11 to 13 minutes, or until the cookies are lightly golden, dry, and just firm to the touch. Transfer the cookies to a rack to cool to room temperature.  Aren't they cute?

9. Repeat with the second disk of dough, making sure to cool the baking sheets between batches. Gather the scraps of dough together, press them into a disk, roll them between sheets of waxed paper and refrigerate until firm, then cut and bake.

10. turn half of the cookies flat side up and place about 1/2 teaspoon jam in the center of each cookie; dust the top halves with confectioner's sugar before sandwiching--that way, you end up with the nice raspberry jam showing through the hole, instead of powdered sugar.sandwich with the remaining cookies.

 Linzer cookies are a bit more delicate than ginger cookies.  Because of this, I had to be more careful when packing them.  While the ginger cookies were fine hanging free in the jar, these needed padding. I padded the jar with parchment paper so they wouldn't shift too terribly much in transit,  stacked them carefully in the jar, and padded around the cookies.

While I'm focusing more on the healthy cooking right now, it was great to have an excuse to cook something totally magically delicious.  I'm going to be doing more baking--it made me happy, so it's time to hunt down some high quality taste-testers to eat baked goods so I don't.

Happy Mother's Day Eileen!--and all the other moms out there.