I've been busy in the kitchen since I came home my trip. I decided to take a break from cupcakes, and try out my new book "Martha Stewart's Cookies". I had been wanting it ever since I made her recipe for financiers from the February issue of MS Living, and one day Charles picked it up for me as a very thoughtful (and somewhat self-serving?) gift.
Here are the financiers, which I made for an Oscar's Party, as a loose interpretation of "La Vie en Rose". They were very pretty, although the shape of the raspberry part was supposed to be a heart, which you make by dragging a chopstick through batter - not easy. They were a lot of work (you have to grind up the almonds that make the base of the batter, and make the raspberry puree from scratch), but worth it.
For my first recipe out of the book, I decided to try something totally homey and unfussy: Peanut Butter & Jelly bars. Both of us love PBJ, so it was a natural, and bars are so much more forgiving than cookies - plus I had most of the ingredients already. When they first came out of the oven, I thought that they were just ok, but after sitting for a day the flavors really developed and they turned out to be very good. I meant to give more of them away, but we found ourselves eating more than we planned! I used a nice Danish strawberry jam and regular Jif peanut butter - I have the all-natural kind in my pantry, but I don't think it would work well in this recipe.
Tonight, I made another recipe which was a little more difficult - Earl Grey Tea cookies. After mixing the dough (which included 9 bags of Earl Grey tea, a lot of butter, and orange zest), you are supposed to shape it into logs, wrap them in parchment paper, and stick each of them into a paper towel roll to freeze before cutting. I ended up with 2 totally different sized logs which wouldn't really form right, and then would not slice without crumbling when I took them out of the freezer. But the dough was so good that I just figured it out and made it work, sometimes having to spackle them together like slightly dried-out Play Doh. They're not uniform like the picture in the book, but they sure are tasty - like a shortbread cookie with a strong bergamot flavor. They would make a nice gift, wrapped in a cellophane bag and tied with a ribbon.
I'll share a cookie-making hint with you - most recipes call for unsalted butter in the batter, which is a given. However, I always use salted butter to grease the pan, especially for bar cookies or cakes, which gives the outside a little bit of extra flavor.
Next, I am ready to try something chocolate - stay tuned!
