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Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2008
Holiday magic with cooking and baking
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closeWhen I was a kid, you'd know Christmas was coming when boxes of butter started to appear in the refrigerator.
Real butter, not the margarine my mom normally bought. Keep in mind, this was the 1970s, when everyone slathered margarine on everything and no one had heard of trans fat.
Fast forward to today. Dropping a box of Land O' Lakes in my cart still gives me a warm holiday feeling, even in the middle of summer. So it shouldn't come as a surprise that, for this week's recipe, I chose a cookie that takes three — yes, three — sticks of butter.
- Chocolate Candy Cane Cookies
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DID YOU KNOW?
Here's why you don't want to use salted butter in baking:- The relatively high amount of salt can unbalance a recipe's salt content.
- The salt masks some of the delicate nuance of butter, especially once cooked.
- Salted butter almost always contains more water, which can interfere with the development of gluten in the flour.
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STORING AND HANDLING
- To preserve butter's flavor and freshness, refrigerate opened butter in a covered dish in the butter compartment.
- Unopened, wrapped salted butter can be stored in the refrigerator for as long as two months. Salted butter can be frozen for about six to nine months in its original wrapper.
- Unsalted butter is best kept frozen until ready to use. For longer freezer storage, wrap in foil or plastic. Unsalted butter can be kept frozen for about five months at 0 degrees.
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OTHER FACTS
- TO PRESERVE FLAVOR: Properly storing butter in the refrigerator or freezer and tightly wrapping butter to minimize its exposure to air will help keep butter from going rancid. Exposure to oxygen increases the risk of rancidity. When oxygen comes in contact with the unsaturated fatty acids in butter, off-smelling and off-tasting compounds can develop. Rancid butter is safe to eat.
- TO SOFTEN BUTTER: For 4 tablespoons of butter, place the butter in one piece on a small microwave-safe plate. Place the plate in the microwave and heat for one minute at 10 percent power. Press on the butter with your finger to see whether it is sufficiently softened; if not, heat for an additional 20 seconds at 10 percent power.
- TO SUBSTITUTE: Unsalted whipped butter makes a fine substitute for unsalted stick butter in baked goods, but do not make the swap in uncooked applications, such as frosting. And remember to make the substitutions based on weight, not volume. A standard tub of whipped butter weighs 8 ounces, equal to two sticks of butter.
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CLARIFYING
Clarified or drawn butter is clear, melted butter separated from its milk solids and water. Here's how to do it:- Melt butter in a heavy saucepan over medium heat.
- Remove white froth as it forms on top.
- When the milk solids separate and settle at the bottom of the pan, carefully pour off the clear, yellow butter and discard the milk solids.
- Compared to regular butter, clarified butter can be heated to a higher temperature without burning and can be stored longer.
- One pound of butter makes 12 ounces of clarified butter.
For those of you who don't bake, three sticks is a lot, twice what you would use in, say, chocolate chip cookies.
Ahh, more warm holiday feelings.
The cookie? Chocolate candy cane cookies from epicurious.com.
The picture on the Web site made me swoon: dark chocolate cookies with a thick layer of pink frosting, dusted in crushed candy canes.
All the ingredients are available at the grocery store.
The kids, excited by the prospect of buying the candy canes, couldn't wait to get started.
Annie, 4, carefully measured out the unsweetened cocoa powder — emphasis on unsweetened — and jammed a spoonful into her mouth before anyone could stop her.
Rosa, 6, took great delight in pounding the little chocolate balls of dough into circles with the palms of her hands.
We baked the cookies just fine. But when we tried to take them off the cookie sheet, most of them broke, even though we had cooled them for the five minutes the recipe specified.
This left us with a lot of snacks, but only six individual cookies, enough to make three "cookie sandwiches" per the recipe.
While the cookies cooled completely, the girls and I made the filling. This was fun.
They dropped red food coloring in the powdered sugar-butter mixture and watched it turn pink.
Then it was time to put the "sandwiches" together.
I gave each girl two chocolate cookies, plus a tablespoon of frosting. They spread the frosting on one cookie, then squished the other cookie on top. They were too busy eating frosting off their fingers to roll the cookies in the bits of candy cane, so I did that.
When I finally tried a cookie, I couldn't decide if I liked it. The chocolate part was very rich and dense, which was good. The filling was ultra-creamy, but tasted too much of peppermint; not so good.
Still, I kept the recipe. A cookie that calls for three sticks of butter can't be all bad.
Bee staff writer Kerry McCray can be reached at 578-2358 or at kmccray@modbee.com.
I've made these cookies many times. The recipe is easy and fun. I always double the recipe to make sure I have plenty. If you like peppermint, you will really enjoy this recipe.
I found the chocolate cookie to be very dense. They don't spread in the oven, so try to press them as thin as possible. I guess mine were still too thick, so when I put two together for the sandwich, it was just too much cookie. I had promised these to my mom's church for a bake sale, so in a moment of desperation, I took them all apart, smoothed the frosting and sprinkled more crushed candy canes on top -- voilà, an ever prettier cookie! The ratio of cookie to frosting is much better in the open-faced version, and the pink frosting and candy canes are more visible, making it tastier and more festive.
I wish mine looked like the photo. They didn't flatten out much in the oven, which made the cookie sandwich a bit thick. Next time, I will omit the food coloring, I prefer white cream to pink cream. Overall, these were a nice afternoon reminder that the tastes of the holidays are here.
I don't remember my mother or my wife taking half a day to bake a batch of cookies, but that's how long it took me to make these. I admit to being a novice, but, even so, this recipe requires extra time: time to chill the batter, time to form balls and flatten them, and time to let the cookies cool before they are frosted. I couldn't find a successful way to flatten the balls, so I resorted to my early childhood memory of playing patty cake with mud pies. I flattened the balls by patting them flat with my fingers. That resulted in cookies too large to form into a sandwich with my butter-cream filling, which by now was too warm to hold up when squeezed between the too-large cookies. So I just frosted one side of each cookie and sprinkled the crushed peppermint on it. The cookies are delicious. I'll keep practicing, for the chocolate/peppermint pairing is one of the greats.
The cookie could have been a bit more chocolaty.
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