Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies

I should just move to the south, I think. There's pretty much nothing I love more than southern cuisine, including (especially?) the regional peculiarities and delights. This is one reason I am a huge fan of the Red Velvet Cake.

Somehow that delightful southern dessert has made its way into the spotlight pretty recently – I've seen it popping up a lot in the last couple years, and now it seems every restaurant or bakery you patron offers their variation on it. This is, of course, good and bad; it's become a bit of a Red Velvet crapshoot.

I'm lucky to live just a couple miles from Phoenix's award-winning "Best Red Velvet Cake" winner, Lo Lo's Chicken and Waffles. It's enough to compete with the best I've had while in the south. It's amazing.

But… it's time to make a confession: I hate cake. Red Velvet Cake is pretty much the only cake I like, and it really has to be dense and moist for me to attempt to eat it (luckily, Lo Lo's is!). And what's the alternative, cupcakes? The frosting-to-cake ratio always makes me a little queasy, especially the more upscale the cupcake shop, where there always seems to be an icing competition going on; the greater the mountain of instant-diabetes piled on the top of a good-sized hunk of denser cake does not determine a better cupcake and, frankly, I think it downplays the deliciousness (and star!), the cake part. Now that everyone's churning out their own version it's easy to find it, but they often miss their mark. That's why I played with this recipe a bit and tried to make something combining my favourite parts.

A friend asked for a Red Velvet Cookie of some sort for her birthday. I knew I wanted something that was a nod to the original but played more to the proportions I liked: 1/3 frosting, 2/3 Red Velvet. I wanted to work with a different texture and still keep it portable. I wanted the tang of the cream cheese frosting (don't even talk to me about Red Velvet if you're a buttercream fan… it has to be cream cheese base! I'm a purist!). I wanted a bastardized (but delicious!) version of one of the southern comfort classics. It's more portable and digestible -- it's small but still filling and completely over-indulgent. That's how these cookies came to be.





Red Velvet Sandwich Cookies

COOKIES

Ingredients:
3 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt


1 cup superfine/bakers' sugar
1 cup of unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
2 Tablespoons buttermilk

2 Tablespoons cocoa powder (heaping)
4 Tablespoons red food colouring

1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vinegar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. Mix the dry ingredients, the first group of ingredients. Set aside.
   
3. Cream first group of wet ingredients, the soft butter and sugar. Add the egg and buttermilk after it's creamed. Blend well.
   
4. Add the third group of ingredients to the other wet ingredients; add cocoa powder, slowly. Be careful, if you add it too fast or blend it too quickly you will be breathing this stuff in. When it is well incorporated, add the red food colouring to the creamed mixture. The 4 Tbl is an approximation; I had a small bottle of colouring and simply added the whole thing, the point is to make it very red. Blend well.
   
5. Add the last ingredients to the wet mixture. To do this, combine the baking soda and vinegar in a small dish and mix well until the reaction is done (Science experiment in the kitchen! Anyone feeling the urge to papier mache a volcano?). Add the vanilla to that well-mixed paste. Combine the mixed vanilla, vinegar, and baking soda into the wet bowl. Blend well.
   
6. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ones.
   
7. Form teaspoon-sized balls of batter and roll into small balls with your hands. Squash the ball down a bit with the ball of your hand before popping the baking sheet into the oven.
   
8. Bake for 7 minutes.
   
9. Allow to cool.
   
10. Layer frosting (recipe following) between two cookies and eat!
    

FROSTING (Thanks, Pinch My Salt! I'll only ever use your recipe, it's the tangiest!)

Ingredients:
16 oz. cream cheese (2 packages), softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter (one stick), softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
pinch of salt

Directions:

1. Cream together cream cheese and butter until smooth.
   
2. Blend in powdered sugar, salt and vanilla extract into creamed mixture.
   
3. Turn mixer on high and beat until light and fluffy.
   
4. Use immediately or refrigerate, covered, until ready to use. If refrigerated, the frosting will need to be brought to room temperature before using (after frosting softens up, beat with mixer until smooth).
   

Enjoy!

Scottish Shortbread

I told you, I looove caramel. And chocolate. And butter. That's all these next cookies are.

When I was in Brighton, England for my foreign exchange I kept seeing all these signs for shortbread around. I've never been a solely-shortbread kind of person. I like mine flavoured or scented, or with something, but all that was ever written was shortbread. Finally, toward the end of my stay, a visiting friend bought some on a whim and shared it with me. It was AMAZING. It was rich, buttery, sweet, salty, crumbly, melty, and all at once. Unfolding the simple ingredients in my mouth, sorting them out, I determined this to be the finest offering of a baked good the UK could offer me. I got boxes of them before I left, packed my small carry-on with them for the trip home. They were good.

I got home, though, and nothing. A dry spell of deliciousness! I knew I had to go to the internet to find what I was looking for.

Soon I came across the information that what the Brits in Brighton were calling shortbread was actually short for Scottish Shortbread. It was regular shortbread layered with thick caramel and milk chocolate on the top. I hunted down a score of recipes and tried more than a handful until I found one that was reminiscent of that first taste I had. That's what I present to you now, with my helpful hints alongside it because it can be a bit dangerous – boiling molten lava-like caramel, melting chocolate… it's kind of full of unpleasant tasks, but it is so worth it.

I made these for a Christmas party this year at my parents' place and they were devoured in no time at all, so fast that I had to make another double-batch Christmas night for the Boxing Day party with my friends the next morning. Be careful, though, they're overindulgence in a 1-inch square (it's saving grace!) and they're very filling.

If you're not a caramel fan, I apologise, I was asked to post this recipe next. I'll be packing the caramel recipes away for a while and will be moving on to something else just as tasty soon!





Scottish Shortbread

Ingredients:2/3 cup butter, softened
1/4 cup white sugar
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk

1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. Combine the first group of ingredients in a medium bowl – the 2/3 cup butter, the 1/4 cup white sugar, and the 1 1/4 cups flour with a fork. It should be light and crumbly, even throughought. The softer your butter is for this step, the better the shortbread will come out, texture-wise.
   
3. Press this mixture into an 8x8 or 9x9 baking pan. I prefer disposeable because it makes for easiest removal, and glass after that. You really don't want to have to use non-stick spray on metal here.
   
4. Bake for 20 minutes at 350.
   
5. Remove from the oven and allow to cool. Turn off the oven, you're done with that part.
   
6. In a medium saucepan, combine the next set of ingredients: 1/2 cup butter, 1/2 cup packed light brown sugar, 2 tablspoons light corn syrup, and 1/2 cup sweetened condensed milk over medium-high heat and bring to a boil with constant, vigilant stirring. If you leave this mixture for more than a few seconds without agitating it it can scorch, brulee, and other unpleasant things that you just don't want. I suggest using a wooden spoon here, too, because it doesn't distribute heat differently through the mixture like a metal spoon could, plus it's easier to clean. Continue to boil the mixture for 5 minutes from the point when it just begins to boil.
   
7. Remove from the heat and vigorously stir the caramel mixture for an additional 3 minutes.
   
8. Pour the caramel mixture over the baked shortbread and allow it to cool until it begins to firm.
   
9. Once the caramel and shortbread have cooled move to the last ingredient, the milk chocolate chips. I suggest getting a high quality brand here because the chocolate is extremely important to this recipe. It needs to be chocolate you'd be willing to eat without anything else, not waxy or mockolate or something you'd throw into a three year olds' Easter basket – this needs to be indulgent. Anyway, follow the instructions from the Salted Caramel Cookies -- melt the bag of chocolate chips in a microwave safe bowl. Try 1 minute, stir. If it still needs more heat to melt, add 20 seconds, stir again. Keep adding 20-second increments until the chocolate is still thick but melted. It shouldn't be lumpy or fudgy at all, it should be smooth and just the point of having been solid.
   
10. Pour the chocolate over the caramel layer of the shortbread pan and chill in a refigerator for a bit but not so long that the chocolate will crack when you cut it.
    
11. Tradition dictates that these squares ought to be cut into 1-inch squares or so because they're so rich. Cut them and store them in an airtight container.

Enjoy!

Other Mother Cookies

My first Gaiman-inspired cookie, and just in time for the premiere of the feature film!

I just read Coraline this past autumn while I was on my study abroad for university in the UK. I read it in the plane as I went to meet my friend who lives in Munich and I couldn't put it down.

It's a delightfully twisted book. I know if I had been a kid when it came out I would have loved it, because as an adult I thoroughly enjoyed it; it's Gaiman's usual dark, sharp wit and tells a story gentle enough for kids to read it, like it, and get something from it. Perfect.

This Friday, 6 February, the film version of Coraline will be hitting the theatres in the US. I am so excited. It looks amazing.



I had to make a cookie in the excitement and tried to think of something iconic. What better than a button?

This cookie is named after Coraline's Other Mother. It's meant to be a sweet, comforting cookie… with a bite. It's anise seed, a flavour reminiscent of black liquorice, a flavour people either love or hate. The clove is smoky and tangy, a spice that brings comfort to upset tummies and carries a bit of a shock to a biscuit. Together, they make a strongly scented cookie, one that's like a lot of spice cookies, but something's not quite the same… And pressed into a big button, these Other Mother cookies are just like her -- familiar, only not.




Other Mother Cookies

Ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cloves
1/4 tsp ground anise seed

1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp anise oil (picked up from a local Italian delicatessen)
1 egg
1 cup fine sugar
1 cup butter

black icing dye (mine was a gel-like consistency)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, ground cloves, and ground anise seed in a medium bowl.
   
3. Cream the butter and sugar. Add egg, anise oil, and vanilla. Beat well.
   
4. Gradually add the dry ingredients.
   
5. Work in the black icing dye. I ended up using approximately 1/2 teaspoon but I didn't keep track much -- add more if it's not dark enough. You want the dough black.
   
6. Divide the dough into a few sections so it will be easier to work with. Roll out one section to approximately 1/4 inch thick, or a bit thicker, onto a lightly floured surface.
   
7. Using a large circular cookie cutter, cut as many circles of dough as you can, then place them on your baking sheet, not too close to one another. Press a smaller circular cutter into the dough, but do not go all the way through -- you only want to make an impression that will last through baking. Poke four holes into the center with a chopstick or skewer, all the way through the dough.
   
8. Bake for 9 minutes.

Enjoy!

Salted Caramel Cookies

I'm notorious for being a candy fiend, a lover of all sweets (and sours!). But the top of the list? Definitely rich, chewy, buttery caramel. I looooove caramel. It's the essence of candy to me, simple and sugary and just delicious. Its flavours can be complex without a lot of effort. If you want to win me over, that's where my heart is: a good caramel.

I've noticed that caramel has been getting a bit trendy lately, and to my delight, one of the best caramels at that. I remember when I used to have to hunt for salted caramels, usually depending on Whole Foods for an expensive import from across the country, or settling for a less-rare-but-still-challenging-to-find salted dark chocolate bar and a side of chewy caramels. Now, though, there seems to be availability of this kind of caramel. I saw them at my local grocery store the other day, and I know when I've been to the airport a few times in the last month I've seen them in all the stores. I'm in caramel heaven!

Salted caramels. There's just something about them that hit the spot. The dark, rich chocolate pairs well with the sticky-sweet of the caramel, and then the salt that makes the mouth water… It's a wonderfully balanced composition of flavours, the salt making the sweet even sweeter, the chocolate enhancing the tang of the salt flakes. Yum.

So to honour the rise of the salted caramel, I had to make a cookie.




Salted Caramel Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

1 cup butter, softened
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg, room temperature
1/4 cup sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

14 oz. dark chocolate chips
sea salt flakes

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl.
   
3. Cream the butter and brown sugar. Add egg, condensed milk, and vanilla. Beat well.
   
4. Gradually add the dry ingredients.
   
5. Drop large teaspoons onto a non-stick baking sheet. It's a loose batter, and a bit messy, so don't expect perfect shapes here; the cookies'll spread to a pretty circular shape on their own.
   
6. Bake for 8.5 minutes. Edges will just be turning brown.
   
7. Let cookies cool completely. They cannot be even remotely warm for the next step to work correctly.
   
8. To make the topping of these cookies, melt a half-bag of high quality dark chocolate chips (or even a couple dark chocolate bars -- I'm talking 72% cocoa or higher here) in a microwave safe bowl. Try 1 minute, stir. If it still needs more heat to melt, add 20 seconds, stir again. Keep adding 20-second increments until the chocolate is still thick but melted. Be careful, chocolate burns pretty easy and its burning smell is really similar to popcorn -- it's hard to get out of the house for a while.
   
9. Drizzle the chocolate over each cookie so that a majority of the top is covered with cookie still seen on the sides.
   
10. Top with a pinch of sea salt flakes.
    
11. Allow chocolate to reharden, which will take at least a couple hours. Once solid, store. Yields approximately 3 dozen.

Enjoy!

Spicy Chai Cookies

A sugar cookie that tastes just like a mug full of warm spiced chai tea. Cardamon, ginger, black pepper, and other spices combine to make this comfort-cookie.

I feel it is only fitting that the first recipe I share in here be one of my favourites, Spicy Chai Cookies. I first came across the original recipe at Evie's Kitchen. Over the many, many times I've made this recipe I've tried changing it up a few ways. I've made some adjustments to the amount of tea and have found that the grade of sugar and warmth of the butter can even change the texture of these cookies. No matter how I make them, though, they make my mother talk about the cardamom cookies my grandmother used to make, a personal recipe she took to her grave, but with a little bite.

I took these cookies to Neil Gaiman himself this past autumn. It was Hallowe'en, a reading and signing event for the UK release of The Graveyard Book, and a couple friends and I stood in line for hours to get him to sign a couple things and present a box of freshly baked gluten-free/wheat-free version of these cookies to him. I was dressed as a babycake (a lumpy brown cake with baby doll parts sticking out here and there, wrapped in cling film and adorned with a price tag) as he tasted the cookies and approved, 'mmm'ing at the cookies and calling my costume 'perfectly disturbing.' This recipe ties a lot of what I want to do here together. It's where I came up with the idea of this blog.



These cookies are beautiful at this time of year, especially as dunkers. They're like a warm cup of spiced chai tea and filled with typically wintery flavours. They're good to give as a gift because they're a social cookie -- it's like inviting the giftee to a cuppa', they're light and spicy and usually bring a smile as people realize what it tastes like.

Spicy Chai Cookies

Ingredients:
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cardamom
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp fresh ground black pepper
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tea bags of black tea (English Breakfast or Irish, use DECAF if there's an option; cut open tea bags and grind leaves into a fine powder in a coffee grinder)

1 cup superfine/bakers' sugar + 1/2 c raw sugar (bigger granules) to coat outside of cookies
1 egg
1 cup of unsalted butter, softened
2 tsp vanilla extract

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350F.
   
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, salt, baking powder, spices, and ground tea leaves.
   In an electric mixer, beat together sugar and butter. Add egg and vanilla. Beat until well incorporated.
   
3. Gradually add dry ingredients.
   
4. You will probably need to stick the dough (in bowl) into the freezer for about 15 minutes. It is extremely soft and hard to roll. This will firm it up. I usually stick the dough back into freezer between each batch.
   
5. Scoop dough balls out with a tablespoon. Lightly coating your hands with a quick squirt of cooking spray/vegetable oil mist will keep this tacky dough from sticking to you. Roll each one in the 1/2 cup of reserved raw sugar to coat and place on baking sheet. Work fast, this dough sticks to yours hands as it warms -- touch the pre-sugar-coated ball as little as possible.
   
6. Press each ball flat with the bottom of a drinking glass or measuring cup coated with cooking spray.
   
7. [Note: I live at sea level] Bake for 8 mins 30 secs for soft cookies. Bake 10 minutes for crispy dunkers (the edges will be light brown). Yields approximately 2.5 dozen.

Enjoy, and of course play with this and pass it around! I swear only good things can come of this recipe!