The allure of shortbread

What is the perfect cookie? Simple, yes, but not dull. Adaptable. Something you would reach for again and again. A treat, in the truest sense of the word.

There we are, me and Mary, Queen of Scots. Well, I haven't been accused of plots to assassinate Elizabeth I (I'm pretty sure), and I haven't spent any time in exile recently but we totally could bond over cookies. Specifically the delicate, buttery, infinitely versatile shortbread.  Probably the easiest and most useful cookie dough on the planet. It's 3 am and I need a cookie? I'm making shortbread. I need a crust for a cream tart or cheesecake? Ground shortbread. Something different to top my cobbler? Bring on the shortbread dough. Just a little something crunchy to go with my scoop of sorbet? Something I can smear with ganache, or jam, or peanut butter, flavor with nuts or cocoa, or dip in whiskey? How about a recipe that is easily adaptable to things like adding oatmeal powder or rice flour? Endless variation from a simple ratio?

Shortbread. You know that's right.

That's the thing about recipes that stand the test of time - they tend to be easy, with ingredients that are often just lying around, and they also tend to be good. If shortbread sucked, we would have stopped making them in the 12th century. Mary would have to have had something else sprinkled with caraway seeds (which, as it happens, I haven't tried yet but will have by the end of today) and I would be one of those people constantly searching for something but having no idea what that thing was.

The basic ratio for shortbread is simple: 3 parts of flours, 2 parts butter, 1 part sugar. I say flours because I like to use all purpose with a bit of cornstarch for crunch, but I have worked with rice flour, buckwheat, and my grandmother loved to make oatmeal shortbread. The butter is your key flavor so for the love of Sweet Potato, use good stuff. Some folks like to use salted butter, but I like to control the salt more, and go unsalted and add to my taste. If you want to play with sugars, try brown sugar (my favorite) or vanilla sugar. Add spice if you like, vanilla if you like.

As far as baking goes, I like to get good color on my shortbread, so I slice my cookies a little thinner, and let them bake a little longer, but once the edges are golden, pull them whenever they look good to you. Just make it the cookie you want exactly at that moment. And if you just want a recipe, here's my 3 am batch:

I Just Need a Cookie Shortbread:

125 g flour
10 g cornstarch
4 g salt
90 g cool unsalted butter, cut in small chunks
45 g brown sugar
white or raw sugar

Cram all the ingredients together with your hands in a bowl. It's three am, you really want to wash anything extra? Roll into a log, and press the white or raw sugar on the outside of the log. Slice into as many cookies as you need right now, plus two, just because. Place on a parchment lined baking sheet, and bake at 350 at least until the edges are golden brown. Wrap any remaining dough in plastic and freeze for the next cookie emergency. Try not to eat all the cookies until they have cooled a bit. Will store for a week in an airtight container if you aren't me.

Demon's Farts and Other Legacies

So, I have a new job. Actually I've had this job for a smidge over a month now, but I'm just starting to get a finger and toe hold of an idea of what my life will be like on this train I am currently riding. It's been a fun, crazy, breathless time, and somehow in there I managed to learn something about pumpernickel.

 Me and pumpernickel, we go way back. I know it appeared for sandwiches (pastrami was probably my gateway to pumpernickel) but mostly I remember the bread dip. It was a recipe from my aunt, and it was creamy and full of dill and always served in a bowl of pumpernickel bread. On such occasions as this dip would appear, I would happily eat what was left of the bowl, with its thin layer of remaining dip, delighting in the flavors and textures. Those loaves even had the occasional raisin in them. I have no idea what made that baker put raisins in the pumpernickel, but it's probably the reason I like raisins, especially in savory items.

When faced with the prospect of making my own pumpernickel, it was that pumpernickel of my memories I wanted to recreate. Like so many other cooks before me, I found the task daunting, frustrating and perplexing. True pumpernickel is not what most Americans eat. The name refers to a sourdough rye bread that was baked low and long to get its dark color and was considered so indigestible that the name describes what the consumer was to experience later as a result of eating it. I'm not quite sure what demon's farts are supposed to be like, but it sounds really awful. So I'm mostly glad that the recipe in America was lightened up and enhanced, even if the name stuck. My sticking point was the enhancements. Pumpernickel color makes a nice dark loaf, but it is really just food coloring. Bleh. Pumpernickel flour, when checking the label, turns out to be dark rye flour with a variation that existed only on the price tag. Phooey. And everyone who loves pumpernickel has their own absolute list of what can and cannot appear: caraway or no, onions or no, coffee, chocolate, etc, etc, etc.

So I made my own list, and did what anyone experimenting with food should do - I played until it tasted right. I know without a shadow of a doubt that there are those who will tell me how wrong I am doing it, but this is mine. Yes, dammit, there is caraway.  And despite the naysayers, there are those out there who have told me, "Hey, this is really good pumpernickel." I'm glad they like my memories.

A love letter to my kitchen

I went to fill the bird feeder yesterday and somehow, an hour later, I was standing in front of my stove with a toothpick cleaning out crevices and muttering darkly about ill fitting drip pans. I'm not quite sure how that came to happen, but the bird feeder did get filled. Eventually.

What I realized while I was doing this mad cleaning was that I spend more time cleaning my kitchen than any other room in my house. More time wiping, soaping, sweeping and clearing space in a room that has the same footprint as one armchair from the living room.

If I had to describe the kitchen, I would say small. My sweetheart goes to get a drink from the fridge and I stop moving because otherwise something will go horribly awry. I would then add comments about cabinet doors that don't close true anymore, especially in the rain. The single cabinet wide enough to hold my pans. Burner coils that only half work, and don't stay level. The fridge light has never worked properly. Two oddly placed outlets, total.

And yet, that tiny space is home. When I need comfort, I go there. When I want to celebrate, I go there. To bring together friends and neighbors, to find peace in solitude, that is the part of our house where I can make the world, for a little while, be what I wish it to be.

And really, that is why I cook for a living. Not because I love the craft of it, which I do. Not because I love the result, which without question is true. It's because that world that exists in my kitchen is a good world. If I move to a larger kitchen, then that good world I've created becomes larger, as well. If the people in that larger kitchen share their good world with mine, that good world becomes even larger. "Trying to make the world a better place" is trite and cliche to me. There is no try. When I cook, the world is better to me. I just want to get everyone else in on the action.

penuche, panoche

I have this thing about fudge. I don't know if it is a New England thing, a childhood thing, or what, I just know that when I was a kid, and it was summer, at some point there would be fudge. Miraculous stuff, made on marble slabs, creamy, rich and never, ever found at home. I suppose it had something to do with recipe cards that warned against making the stuff in cold weather, warm weather, humid weather, on a day that ended in the letter Y and any time between noon and four am, or something like that. whatever the reason, real fudge (not anything made with Fluff) was only found in shops, and sometimes those shops had Penuche.

Penuche originally referred to a coarse brown sugar, usually from Mexico. Around the turn of the 20th century, right around the same time that chocolate fudge was "invented", a brown sugar confection of similar texture to chocolate fudge started appearing under the name penuche. (Who knew the OED is an excellent food reference?) I found a recipe from 1919 from the book My Candy Secrets by Mary Elisabeth Evans for something called Mexican Penuchi that was made like fudge and contained three ingredients: brown sugar, molasses and water. The result tastes almost like it contains maple syrup, but the thing I wanted was the kind that my grandfather loved: buttery, creamy, a hint of vanilla, nuts. So I went forward two years and found a recipe for Panocha in a cookery textbook (yes, textbook) from 1921 that had exactly what I was looking for.

A note on fudge: seriously, if you are going old school and don't want to make fudge that contains corn syrup or marshmallow, you need a thermometer. It's going to be the closest you can get to an insurance policy. That being said, bad fudge that crumbles from overheating? Still tasty. I won't tell if you put it on top of your morning Cream of Wheat.

Penuche (adapted from Foods and Cookery by Mary Lockwood Matthews, 1921)

200 g brown sugar
200 g sugar
120 g milk
15 g butter
5 g vanilla
4 g salt
50 g toasted chopped nuts (pecans are common, I used hazelnuts)

1. Put sugars and milk in a large pot and stir briefly to combine. Boil to 238 degrees F and remove from heat.

2. Put butter, salt and vanilla on top of sugar mixture and DO NOT MIX. Leave it alone until the temperature drops to 110 F. This will help ensure small microcrystals rather than coarse crystals that taste gritty. In the mean time, warm your nuts a bit.

3. Add nuts and stir until your arm is about to fall off. The fudge will go from being shiny and glossy to dull and flat. Pour out on to a parchment lined sheet and mark for cutting. When cool, store in an airtight container

4. Fun Fact! Fudge is actually at its best the day after it is made, but those crystals do wonky things after that day, so better eat quickly!

It's got Raisins in it. You like Raisins: Pork Cake

My friend Stella is on a historical kick at the moment. She's been exploring old cookbooks, posting crazy recipes and lore and shared this little tidbit from De Witt's Connecticut cookbook and housekeeper's assistant.(1871):

A little four line bit that contained all the ingredients, directions, processes and proclamations regarding this dessert. Yep, dessert. Yep, with pork. I imagined, on reading the recipe, that it would be something like a cross between mincemeat and barbeque. In keeping with the time, it was likely to be heavy, and primarily flavored, well, like cloves and raisins. So why in the world did I make it? Because Stella is allergic to pork, and there it was, a cake made with pork. I had to know.

When you think about it, we make cakes with eggs and butter and don't give it a thought. Eggs provide protein and structure, butter is lovely lovely fat. But really, couldn't both those things be replaced? Well, there's protein & fat in ground pork so that should work. As for structure, well, this was never going to be angel food.

I did have a concern (many, actually) about the pork. Pork as we know it is a lean meat, bred that way because of crazed calorie conscious consumers in the 80s who demanded more fat be removed during trimming and less fat present in the meat itself. Well, my only fat in this cake would be from my pork. Luckily, my farmer's market has a couple of terrific meat producers. They understand fat, and why it is good. They smile at me when I ask for fatty things. I got to hear all about boar hybrids and proper diets and was presented with more ground pork than I needed which is good because I really want to just eat the pork, sans cake. Mmmmm pork.

And so, armed with scale and scoop, I made the cake. Easy mixing, one big bowl. I did a half batch, because I don't commit to seven cups of flour unless I know what I'm getting in to. The batter was thick enough going in to the oven that a toothpick came out clean *before* I started baking it, so I relied on instinct for doneness and in that slow oven doneness happened at about the hour and a half mark. After baking, the half batch weighed 3 pounds, 2 ounces. Sheesh.

So..... how was it?

Now, I'm inclined to think well of spice cakes in general. I love a good spice cake, gingerbread is one of my all time favorites. Yes, there was a bit of a meaty aroma while this was baking but it wafted away after coming out of the oven. It was dense, like a good hearty meatloaf, but the flavor was... not bad. There were raisins and cloves and molasses and it was pretty good. However, it felt like it had developed its own gravity field and it was only a matter of time before spaghettification began. But it was certainly palatable. I did find another pork cake recipe, this one from about 50 years later that used eggs and baking soda, but at that point I would say skip the pork, and just go for a good gingerbread recipe.

But hey, now I know.

Let's Try Science! Antler Cookies part 2

Cookies were an easy choice for my experimentation. I like cookies, I have many basic cookie recipes that are only leavened with baking powder, and from what I understood about the science of how this worked, the results had a good chance of being edible. Edible was important, because I was going to eat these things no matter what.

It has been said that I get caught up, sometimes, in details. I don't think this is a bad thing, mostly. And, of course, this kind of project just feeds that repressed scientist in me. The plan was I would make a basic sugar cookie, one batch of which would be leavened with baking powder, the other with an equal measure of powdered antler.

"But," said Crazy Brain Me, "you know that differences in mixing time, ingredient temperature, baking temperature all those things will make a difference!"

"Shut up, Crazy Brain Me! I'm just making cookies to see if this works." I said.

"Yes, but you want to *really* know, right? You don't want to just maybe have it work because of something else, right?"

Sigh. Crazy Brain Me was right. So I just made one batch all in the bowl but the leavening and mixed it until almost combined. Then, I pulled the mix out, scaled it, divided the dough in half, and mixed half with the baking powder and half with the antler powder. The dough logs rested for an hour, and then were baked. Of course, Crazy Brain Me kept coming up with new and exciting variables, but dammit, I don't have two ovens and they would have different hot spots so Crazy Brain me could just shut up.

In case you are curious, yes, there was a definite stink while the antler cookies were baking. Not painful or oh-god-fumigate levels, but enough to avert my nose when opening the oven door.

There were definite, obvious differences between the cookies even right from the oven. The Antler cookies (labelled A because I am not clever) were more colored, and crisper. The Baking powder cookies (B, same reason) had a softer texture, and very little color in the same amount of time. And as for taste, well, I had to subject other people to these cookies, so I took them to see friends at the farmer's market*.

The tasting came down to this: if you like crispy cookies with a more pronounced salt note, you liked the antler cookies. If you wanted a creamier, sweeter cookie, you liked the baking powder ones. Me, I am a crispy cookie girl all the way so I have to say, yep, I am totally going to make antler cookies again. And antler biscotti. And probably a savory antler cracker.

Antler Cookies:

8 oz cool butter, cut in chunks

.5 c sugar

2 egg yolks, save the whites for brushing the dough later

.5 t vanilla extract

.25 t lemon zest

1 t lemon juice

.5 t grated antler powder

.5 t salt

2.25 c all purpose flour

raw sugar

1. Cream together butter and sugar in a stand mixer with a paddle until smooth

2. Add yolks, lemon zest and juice, and vanilla, mix on low speed and scrape bowl.

3. Add dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just combined.

4. Divide dough in 4 and roll into logs. Wrap logs in plastic wrap and chill for at least 1 hour.

5. Preheat oven to 350. Brush each log lightly with egg whites and press raw sugar around the log. Slice into cookies about a quarter inch thick or less, and place on a parchment lined cookie sheet.

6. Bake 10-12 minutes or until light golden brown, rotating the sheet pan once. Cool completely on a rack. Share. Eat. Marvel at your apocalypse preparedness.

*an interesting note: a debate sprung up on whether or not these cookies could be considered vegetarian, as the antlers were naturally shed and therefore there was no animal trauma involved. I went the safe route and asked folks before offering cookies. If you have an opinion, I'd love to hear it.

Let's Try Science! Antler Cookies part 1

I sat in my living room, looking at a piece of naturally shed antler from Bend, OR, a box grater, and a tiny pile of shavings that were the result of almost an hour and a half's worth of labor.

This... was going to be interesting.

Cooks get excited about weird things. If it is stinky, obscure, odd and edible, chances are a cook wants to do something with it. So, there was a sense of inevitability in my soul when I first heard about antlers being an early method of leavening baked goods. "I! Have! To! Do! This!" The synapses declared it, and there but for the grace of St. Honore go I. Or something like that.

First: acquisition. Luckily the internet makes conversation between strangers possible, so Ron Zimmerman was not simply helpful, but also supportive of my internet stalking/agenda. A hunter, eBay, antique store... the age didn't matter, he stated. OK! I explained the situation to basically everyone I met. My neighbors casually made my day, "Oh yeah, "they said, "we sell them as dog treats at the pet store. " Genius!

Second: preparation. Um, dudes, bones is hard. Antlers are hard. I looked at the antler piece. The cats sniffed it. I consulted awesome people. Microplane, maybe? Well, kind of, and the result was very fine but miniscule amounts and the microplane needed an edge to work from. Well why not the stubbly, sharp, knuckle destroying side of a box grater. Aw, yeah... Still slow going, but the result was a powder finer than I had expected, certainly finer than my salt.

Yes, I thought to myself, I can work with that.

Now I just need to bake. And what should I bake? Cookies, of course...

After the zombie apocalypse, there will still be cake

Best thing I have heard recently that I now have to try: before there was baking powder, there was deer horn. That's right, antlers, ground fine, can be used as a leavener in the same ratio as you would use baking powder. Similarly to baker's ammonia, it is stinky on baking, but the smell disappears when cool. And, bonus, like baker's ammonia it actually results in a better texture.

Now who's got an antler they can send me?

Grasping at Straws

This has not been the best summer. I admit it, I've been struggling to put a good face on things but when you find yourself listening to Queen's Innuendo for motivation you aren't in the best place.

You need a Shirley Temple.

Ok, maybe you don't, but I do. I don't know what it is about this drink that wraps me up in footie pajamas and says, "It's ok, you can have fun now.", but it never fails to make me feel better about the world. Of course, as a grown up I can play with it in ways that wouldn't have been suitable when I was eight. Also, as a grown up, I can decide how many cherries it gets. This may be the best part, especially when you use cherries you have done up yourself. Or, if you have had a really bad set of weeks, you can do something like what I did. You can get really crazy and take someone else's inspiration and really customize your drink. Like, for example, making a cherry cheesecake shirley temple float.

Put rum cherries in the bottom of your glass(about a dozen, depending on how your day was.) Top with rum from the cherries, and some cherry syrup. Add cheesecake ice cream. If you think cheesecake tastes like ick, you can use vanilla or almond ice cream. Pour ginger ale over the top. You may need another cherry. Or more rum.

And footie pajamas.

Cherry Syrup

750 g of cherries, pitted (I used Ayers Creek's amazing montmorency cherries)

150 g sugar

50 g water

a dash of bitters

a squeeze of lime juice

a pinch of salt

Put everything together in a pot and bring to a gentle boil. Boil for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Strain through a fine strainer into a bowl pressing all of the syrup out of the fruit. The syrup will thicken slightly when cool, but you can reduce the strained syrup to intensify its flavor and thicken it if you want (you risk scorching it, so use caution!). Cool and store in a covered container in the fridge. I have no idea how long it will keep because I use it too quickly.

Ideas worth borrowing

I was going to do a big ol' thing about lavender this morning but then I left a burner on and now I have to deal with a house full of smoke. So, here's some things that have inspired me lately from other people:

1. macarons without nuts

2. charred dates

3. horchata

4. chicken skin crusted pot pie (yes, you read that right)

5. cooking favas in the pod

6. alternate ideas in piemaking

7. lime cordial (seriously, I've made many batches of this stuff now. love it.)

8. black & white cookies

9. eggs in a corn silk nest ( I know, it's Ideas in Food again, but how lovely is this?)

Ok, the smoke appears to be clearing. More news as it happens.