The Great Cookie Experiment – Orange Dreams

The Great Cookie Experiment – Orange Dreams

 

I have seen several versions of this cookie floating around the internet, and I have been excited to try this one.   This is an orange cookie with vanilla chips and the idea reminds me of a dreamsicle- orange on the outside, creamy vanilla on the inside.  Mm.  Dreamsicles.   I think this is why these cookies are named Orange Dreams.  I’m pretty sure.

 

The cookies were a little dry- they stayed roundish instead of flattening out the way I like them to.  They tasted very good, and most everybody liked them.  I wanted MORE orange, however.  There’s only a bit of grated orange rind in the dough, so there was the occasional hint of orange, but for me there wasn’t enough.  Maybe a splash of orange juice and bit more orange peel would add more flavor, and solve my dry cookie problem in the meantime.  I would say, however, that this is a cookie that would be pretty reliable- it tastes good, and is unique enough that people will be impressed with it.

Orange Dreams

 

1 cup butter, softened

½ cup sugar

½ cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 Tbl grated orange peel

2 ¼ cups flour

¾ tsp baking soda

½ tsp salt

1 ½ cups vanilla or white chips

 

Cream butter and sugars.  Beat in egg and orange peel.  Combine the dry ingredients, and gradually add to the creamed mixture.  Stir in vanilla chips.  Drop by rounded Tablespoonfuls 2 inches apart onto ungreased baking sheets.  Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown.  Makes about 4 ½ dozen.

Mother’s Day meal – Featuring Cheese Sauce

One of the many many reasons I love Bunneh is because he cooks for me on Mother’s Day and it’s always tha awesome.  This year we had a nice rack of ribs, which I got on sale, in the freezer so we went for a braised rib with potatoes, broccoli and cheese sauce.  The ribs were made using Bunneh’s dry rub and braise method and the broccoli just simply steamed.  The potatoes he peeled and chopped, then they went through a three step, parboil, quick oil fry and bake.  They were so yummy and yet very light tasting and not at all greasy.  He pulled it all together with a lovely cheese sauce, which added color and a bit of richness to a fairly lean meal.  It was beautiful…and yummy…and we had ribs for lunch the next day too.  Gotta love leftovers!

So what was your Mother’s day munch?

Cheese Sauce

1/4 cup butter

1-2 Tablespoons Flour

3 cups milk

Salt

Pepper

1/2-1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

Ultra Gel

In a small sauce pan melt butter on medium heat.  Add flour and whisk well, cooking until a pale tan.  Add milk a little at a time whisking well with each addition until completely smooth.  Add cheese and spices, stirring constantly until cheese is fully melted.  Add Ultra Gel as needed to reach desired consistency.  Serve over vegetables or combine with cooked pasta for killer mac and cheese.

For a gluten free version omit the flour and increase the Ultra Gel to compensate.

Happy Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to all the Mother’s and Mother figures out there!

I always enjoy Mother’s Day as a time to pay a little extra respect and attention to the wonderful women in our lives and, honestly, I enjoy getting pampered by Bunneh which he is very very good at.  This I type as the smell of ribs fills the house…ahh…love…

Though we are fortunate not only to have mother’s in our own lives, but as a part of where this company started.  I will always remember watching my grandmother work candy on a marble slab and my dear mother twisting long ropes of dough into knotted rolls and I hope to instill the same memories into my kids.  Cornaby’s isn’t just a company, but a family and a farm that all started with a pretty blonde girl and a handsome boy…it’s a pretty good story…

Have a marvelous day out there!

The Great Cookie Experiment – Elven Lembas Bread, aka Shortbread cookies

The Great Cookie Experiment – Elven Lembas Bread, aka Shortbread cookies

This is not a cookie experiment, because it’s a basic shortbread cookie.  I’m sharing it however, because it was my daughter’s birthday, and she wanted a Lord of the Rings party.   There were a bunch of teenagers coming over to my house, and I figured food was probably a good idea.  We set up a Lord of the Rings feast, with foods that may have been from, or at least inspired by the events of The Fellowship of the Ring.  We had meat pies from the Inn of the Prancing Pony, crisp fried potatoes from the Shire (aka potato chips), Dwarven Ale (homemade cream soda), Vegetables from Farmer Maggots crops, Apples from Buckleberry Orchards, an Elven cake from Rivendell, and of course Elven Lembas bread.

 

In the books, Lembas bread is supposed to fill you up after just one bite.  It is made by elves, so it’s probably pretty yummy.  I figured that Shortbread cookies would fit the bill pretty easily.  It’s yummy, and it has a ton of butter in it, which is enough to fill you up after just one bite.  Perfect, right?

 

There are no surprises here with this recipe.  I made the dough, rolled it out, cut it into squares and baked it.  If I had looked harder, maybe I could have found some banana leaves or something to wrap them in, but I was satisfied with just putting them on the plate.  Five teenagers were there at the party.  Except for a few my husband and I snitched, they ate every cookie.  About two dozen of them.  They also ate both bags of “crisp fried potatoes”, all but two meat pies, all the vegetables and left two apple slices.  I’m glad there weren’t six of them!

 

Either way, the “Lembas Bread” was a hit.  It will be for you, too.

Shortbread Cookies

1 cup butter, softened

¾ cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

2 cups flour

¼ tsp salt

Beat together the butter and powdered sugar until smooth.  Beat in vanilla.  Mix the flour and salt together, and add to the creamed mixture.  Mix until just combined.  Roll into a ball, wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for an hour.    Roll out onto a floured surface, and cut into desired shapes (in this case, square).  Place on a parchment lined cookie sheet and bake at 325 for 10-12 minutes.  Makes about 2 dozen.

The Great Cookie Experiment – Raspberry Sandwich Spritz

The Great Cookie Experiment – Raspberry Sandwich Spritz

This is a beautiful cookie.   Lovely Cornaby’s raspberry jam sandwiched between two square ridged cookies, the ends dipped in chocolate, then dipped in chocolate sprinkles.  This is the kind of thing you make for a wedding, served on a doily with fresh raspberries garnishing the side.  It’s also a delicious cookie- raspberries, chocolate, and butter cookie.  Yum!  It’s also a pain in the behind to make!

I have a cookie press.  I won it at a basket auction many years ago.  It’s a pretty darn good cookie press for the hand-pressed variety.  I don’t use it.  It drives me crazy.   I struggle to get the mechanism working right, and end up holding the cookie press down, and pushing the plunger down with my chin until it finally clicks into place and produces a spritz cookie.  It takes several attempts like this until I can finally get it working correctly.  Please note, I am not suggesting at all that the cookie press is in any way defective or inferior to other cookie presses.  The problem doesn’t lie with the cookie press.  The problem lies with me.  I might be cookie press challenged.  Hello, I write a cookie blog and cannot use a cookie press.  This cookie requires that you use the ribbon disc, and press a long stream of cookie dough, then cut it into 2 inch pieces to make lovely rectangular ridged cookies.

Yeah.  In theory this should be easy.   In practice this took a LOT longer than it should have because I had to wrestle with the cookie press to get the dough and the plunger working just right.  Trying to keep a stream of cookie dough coming out without breaking while using your chin to press down the plunger was just as much fun as beating my head against the counter a dozen times.  I DID finally get a system down where I could churn out the cookie dough easily, but it took awhile.  I think there may have been swear words.

If you are not cookie press challenged, or if you have a super deluxe battery operated type of cookie press, then you won’t have a problem with this.  If you are like me, however, this cookie might be more trouble than it’s worth.  Maybe it would be easier to just roll the cookies out and cut them into squares and forget about the cool ridges.  Maybe it would be easier to make the ridges with a fork.  The cookie IS yummy and pretty, so the decision is yours.

One final note:  Make sure you serve these cookies right away.  They are much better fresh.  After two or three days the jam in the center makes the cookies get a little soggy in the middle, and they aren’t nearly as satisfying.

Raspberry Sandwich Spritz

1 cup butter, softened

¾ cup sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

2 ½ cups flour

½ tsp salt

¼ tsp baking powder

1 cup raspberry jam

1 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Chocolate sprinkles (or whatever other color you want if you want to change it up)

Cream butter and sugar.  Beat in egg and vanilla.  Combine the flour, salt, and baking powder, and gradually add to the  creamed mixture.  Using a cookie press fitted with a ribbon disc, form dough into long strips on ungreased cookie sheets.  Cut into 2 inch pieces.  Bake at 375 for 12-15 minutes.  Cool.    Spread one cookie with jam, and top with another cookie until sandwiches are formed.  In a microwave, melt chocolate chips, and stir until smooth.  Dip the ends of the cookies in the melted chocolate, then in chocolate sprinkles.  Place on waxed paper and let stand until firm.  Makes about 2 dozen.

Tarragon Beef

One of the things we enjoy getting from Bountiful Baskets is their Herb Pack.  I’ve talked about this before when we were making herb oils and butters, but despite these great uses there have been times where we’ve had more herbage (yes, that’s a word even if I made it up) than we could use through.  Recently we got another pack and I’ve made it my goal to look for recipes which use the fresh herbs so we can use them all before anything goes bad.  This is what lead me to my Tarragon Beef recipe, which was yummy…

The base for this is just a couple of thin beef steaks, in my case I used a couple of cube steaks I had in the freezer.  We’ve been working hard to avoid too many white starches, so we served up with steamed broccoli and some baked brown rice. The Ultra Gel replaces cornstarch which is often used in this kind of application and makes it so that we don’t have to keep the sauce at a boil which breaks down the veg too much for my taste. It made a nice total meal with a peppery tang from the tarragon.  We’d eat it again.

Tarragon Beef

1-2 Tbl olive oil (I used our herb oil)

2 4 ounce beef steaks

1/4 cup red wine

1/4 cup beef stock (Homemade gives an awesome depth to the dish)

1/4 cup water

2 teaspoons fresh tarragon, chopped

1 teaspoon fresh chives, chopped

salt and pepper to taste

4 ounce sliced button mushrooms

1/2 medium yellow onion, sliced

1-2 Tbl Ultra Gel

Season steaks on both sides with salt and pepper.  Heat a cast iron skillet and add the oil, giving it just long enough to come to temperature.  Add steaks and cook for 2-3 minutes per side.  Remove from pan and hold in a warm oven.  Deglaze pan with red wine (I just use a cooking wine), beef stock and water.  Add spices, mushrooms and onions and cook until the mushrooms and onions are soft.  Add salt and pepper to taste and thicken with Ultra Gel.  Serve sauce over beef with rice or potato.

The Great Cookie Experiment Pinterest Edition- Sugar Cookie Bars

The Great Cookie Experiment Pinterest Edition- Sugar Cookie Bars

 

I love sugar cookies.  I love frosted sugar cookies.  I’m not such a big fan of rolling out and cutting out the sugar cookies.  This is why I save sugar cookies for a holiday like Valentine’s Day because a holiday makes the labor more fulfilling.  I don’t really make them any other time of the year.  This recipe, however, changes all of that.  Sugar cookies in bar form!  Make the dough.  Press in the pan.  Bake, frost, and cut in squares!  No cookie cutters!  No rolling pins!   No fuss!  If I want something seasonal, I can just color the frosting and add the sprinkles I like.  No problem!  Completely Delicious, the lovely blog where this pin comes from has a great thing going here!

 

One problem.  One tiny problem.  These sugar cookie bars are also substantial.  They are heavy and thick and rich and super filling.  I cut these generously, and I shouldn’t have.  These were a LOT of cookie, and much smaller little square servings were definitely required.  Friends weren’t finishing the one cookie they got- not because they didn’t like them, but because….wow….this is a LOT of cookie.

 

Serving size aside, I can see turning to this method to get a sugar cookie fix on occasion- especially for a husband who adores sugar cookies and hopes that some neighbor makes us some for Christmas, because I don’t do sugar cookies until Valentine’s Day.  I may try to use my favorite sugar cookie recipe, perhaps using a bigger bar pan to press them thinner.  Either way, sugar cookie bars are a great idea!

 

You can find this recipe here:  http://www.completelydelicious.com/2010/03/sugar-cookie-bars.html