Gingersnaps / Never Tell a 13-year-old that 1=0

Gingersnaps

3/4 C. butter
2 C. flour
1 C. sugar plus about 1/3 C. in a small bowl for coating
1 egg
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 C. molasses
1 tsp. ginger

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Combine the dry ingredients.  Cream together the butter and sugar.  Beat in the eggs and molasses.  Combine the wet with the dry, kneading the dough a little by hand if needed to blend everything together into a uniform ball of dough.  Break off walnut-sized lumps of dough and roll them into small balls.  Roll each dough ball in the extra sugar and place about 1 inch apart on cookie sheets.  Bake at 350F for 12 minutes, or until the dough has set and puffed slightly.  Remove from the oven and let cool.  They are really done, I promise.  They will fall a little bit after you take them out, but that's normal-- if you leave them in the oven too long they will scorch and also be too hard.
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Never tell a 13-year-old that 1=0.  Okay, let's begin at the beginning.  Why would you never tell a 13-year-old that 1=0?  Because that person could be my mother.

It was the late '60s.  My mom was in high school.  Because she was bright, she was a little bit younger than the other kids.  She was in all the advanced classes.  One of the advanced classes was a science class (if she told me which one, I've forgotten).  In that science class, the teacher informed his class, as a piece of triviality, that anyone could shut down the most complicated computer by programming it with the information that 1=0.  Interesting, my mother thought.  I wonder if that's really true.  And she filed that one away. 

Flash forward to the very special field trip that some of the better students were taken on.  It was to one of the universities that had one of the newest computers in their research department.  My mother was on that field trip.  The computer took up a whole room.  (Remember, it was the late sixties.)  The grad students there were very excited to have these high school students to show around and tell all about their new exciting big fancy computer.  And then they made their fatal mistake.  They told those high school students that, for a short while, they could play around with it.  I mean, what could go wrong?  They weren't factoring in my mother.  All the time since that fateful science class my mother had been hoping to test her teacher's statement.  And so she did, neatly and correctly  entering it into the computer.

The grad students couldn't figure out what went wrong-- one moment there were a bunch of kids barely out of puberty playing with ENIAC Jr or whatever it was called, and then it suddenly shut off and wouldn't turn back on.  Because my mother acted like she had no idea what had happened.  Sadly, the field trip ended early. 

Peanut Butter Cookies

1-1/3 C. crunchy peanut butter
3/4 C. granulated sugar (or you could use brown sugar too)
2 C. flour
1/4 C. molasses
1 tsp. baking soda
1 large egg

Preheat the oven to 350F.  Butter a baking sheet or line it with parchment paper.  Mix together the flour and baking soda.  In a separate bowl, combine the crunchy peanut butter and sugar.  Add in the egg and molasses one at a time.  Combine with the flour, mixing until well-blended.  Shape into walnut-sized balls (small cookies) or egg-sized (but not -shaped) balls (large cookies) and place about 2 inches apart.  Put some more sugar in a small bowl.  Dip a fork in the sugar and press it into the top of a cookie until it is partially flattened.  Redip it in sugar, then press it into the cookie again to make a criss-cross pattern and complete the flattening.  Do this for all the cookies.  Bake them for 10-12 minutes or until lightly golden on top.
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My grandparents are very traditional.  They also have a healthy marriage, which makes for some interesting divergences from "traditional".  For example, Grandmom is responsible for all the housekeeping (much to her chagrin), except for the yard, garage, and indoor vacuuming.  Yes, I said vacuuming.  Grandpop at some point must have been relegated to the vacuuming (possibly under duress) but has learned to love it with a deep abiding passion that requires him to own and maintain a vacuum for each vacuuming situation.  So, Grandpop has a vacuum for each floor (3), a shop vacuum (the garage), as well as a dustbuster (the stairs) and bissel sweeper (light mess).  This information may transform the conditions of women everywhere.  Dear Laundry Detergent Companies: please market your products as containing many moving parts or complicated steps that require systematic attendance that only a man could achieve.

Another way that Grandpop has broken out of his traditional man role is that he has always been the Chief Executive of Making Peanut Butter Cookies for Me.  It is his specialty, and only Grandpop can make them exactly right.

Cherry Biscotti

So, I thought I would provide info on the cherry biscotti that made it into the picture of the Walnut Snowballs!  It's really easy:

Make a batch of dough for the anise toast, leaving out the anise extract.  You can omit it entirely--or--substitute vanilla extract if you want.  Coarsely chop about 2/3 C. dried cherries.  In a small bowl, mix together the dried cherries and about 1/4 C. sugar.  Divide your dough into two portions.  Put both portions on a lightly-greased baking sheet.  (They will both fit on one.  Do the filling and shaping on the baking sheet rather than on a work surface because the dough is fairly soft and otherwise it would take some serious coordination to keep them from falling apart midair while you were attempting to transfer them.)  Pat each portion out into an oval about 8 inches long by 4 inches wide by 1 inch thick.  Pat half of the cherry-sugar mixture on top.  Roll up the dough jellyroll-fashion.  Pat into a loaf about 10 inches long by 2-3 inches thick by 3 inches wide.  Repeat for the other half of the dough.  Bake as directed for the anise toast, including the slicing and retoasting part.  My experience making this is that you want to let your baked loaves rest about 5-10 minutes (it's okay if they get a little cool) before trying to slice them and toast the slices.  They'll hold up better and be less likely to crumble when you're cutting them.  The ones in the picture turned out really crispy and flavorful!  They are good for dipping in coffee, but are not hard, so you can eat them by themselves also.

Bowknot Cookies

Dough
water
12 eggs
24 TB. sugar*
1 C. orange juice
13 C. flour
12 tsp. baking powder
2-1/4 C. shortening

Icing
2 lbs XXX sugar
juice of 2 oranges
juice of 2 lemons

Rainbow jimmies, or jimmies of your color preference**

Melt shortening.  Mix with eggs, vanilla, 24 TB. sugar, 1 C. juice, baking powder, and flour.  Knead with your hands until workable-- the dough should be smooth and elastic.  Roll small pieces of the dough into snakes, then twist into knots or pretzel shapes.  Bake on ungreased cookie sheets at 350F for 8 minutes or until lightly browned.  Remove from baking sheets onto sheets of waxed paper and let cool.  Mix together the icing ingredients and spoon over the cookies to coat them.  (Some will run down the sides onto the waxed paper, but that what it's there for.)  If desired, sprinkle them with the jimmies while the icing is still wet.  Allow the icing to dry uncovered overnight before storing to allow it time to harden.  Makes 400 cookies.  (Each cookie is about the size of the walnut.)
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*Why, you ask, are the measurements in this recipe impossible units like "24 tablespoons of sugar"?  Because the only way my mom could get the recipe off of Great-grandmom Canduci was to watch her while she made it.  She, in the time-honored tradition of Italian women, practiced the "dump and eyeball" method of cooking, a tradition still alive today in the best kitchens.  (Think about it: do you ever see a participant on "Top Chef" or "Chopped" cautiously measuring out exactly 2 teaspoons of salt?)  However, it's kind of hard to convey this in print.  So, my mom sat and counted dumps.

**One of my first memories of college life (several years ago) is my first roommate's boyfriend.  He had come over to our room to visit her and help her set up a toy bear that rode a toy unicycle across a length of fishing line.  It was a pretty neat toy, but don't ask me why she wanted it in her dorm room.  Regardless, the bear had a tendency to slip off the fishing line and have unfortunate accidents with the area that, had he been a real bear, would have contained reproductive properties.  Us all being about eighteen years old, her boyfriend took great joy in saying, in a gravelly voice that was supposed to be the bear's voice, that he wanted my roommate to knock him off the fishing line.  "KICK ME IN THE JIMMIES!" he (the boyfriend) crowed and, of course, we all laughed hysterically.  Did I mention that we were eighteen?  In fact, I think he was nineteen and a mighty sophomore in that Hall of Learning.  Anyway, jimmies, besides being the gonads of a toy bear, are also small cylinder-shaped candies used for sprinkling onto desserts and particularly ice cream. 

Apricot Cookies

2 sticks of butter or margarine, softened
6 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 C. flour
Jar of apricot preserves
powdered sugar for dusting

Mix together the butter or margarine, flour, and cream cheese.  (I usually combine the butter and cream cheese, then do the flour.)  Knead it Italian-style.  IE get your hands dirty.  So dirty.  And sticky.  It's part of the process, I swear.  Scrape your hands off and lay your dough on a floured surface.  Knead it a little further if necessary to get it to a workable consistency, adding additional flour if needed.  Roll the dough to 1/4th to 1/8th inch thick.  Cut into 2-inch squares.*  Place 1/4 tsp. preserves in the center of each.**  Fold two opposite points inward to make a roll with points for ends.  Bake at 350F for 12 minutes or until golden.  Remove from the oven and dust liberally with powdered sugar.
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*The way Grandmom does this is to use what is popularly known as a pizza cutter but which actually is meant to cut pastry.  You know, the wheel-shaped blade with a handle.  It works like a dream, whatever you want to call it.  I don't own one, so I use a sharp knife, which works almost as well.

**I know this sounds like an infinitesimally small  amount of jelly, and to be honest I do not personally get out a 1/4 tsp. measuring spoon to do the job, but you really do NOT want to put too much jelly in a cookie.  The reason is this: ovens are hot, and when jelly gets hot, it will run all over the place like a merry little flood of sugar.  Sometimes it's so pleased with itself that it actually catches on fire.  I know.  Don't we all wish we could be alight with joy.  But countertops are cold, and the jelly, now coating your pan, returns to its original lugubrious or new blackened state.  (Hey, it takes a lot of energy to be on fire.)  I will satisfy your curiosity right now: it is a B*%#@ to clean up burnt-on jelly.  So when you're filling your cookies, use a regular teaspoon and get just enough jelly to be a little tiny dab on the very tip.  Scrape that off into the center of your cookie.  There.  Perfect.

Cherry Biscotti, Walnut Snowballs, & Gingersnaps

These walnut snowballs actually have less powdered sugar than I usually put on them.  I got kind of busy pulling things in and out of the oven and missed a crucial step, which I will now emphasize to you: dredging the snowballs in the bowl of powdered sugar immediately after they come out of the oven.  The powdered sugar you dust over them later sticks better to a good initial coating of dredged powdered sugar, and the initial dredging sticks better if the cookies are still a little steamy from the oven.  (Since they have so much butter in them they end up a very crisp cookie with an almost-non-existant moisture content once they cool.)  These one still tasted good, though!

Raisin Nut Rolls

Dough
1 C. butter, softened
1/2 C. sugar
1 egg
2/3 C. flour + extra if needed*
1 tsp. baking powder
8 oz. sour cream
Confectioner's Sugar for kneading and dusting**

Filling
1/2 C. raisins
2 C. chopped pecans
1-1/2 C. apricot jelly
1 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 C. sugar

Cream together the butter and sugar.  Add in the egg.  Add in the dry ingredients and sour cream in alternation.  The dough will be sticky and loose.  Divide into two or three portions, wrap each portion in waxed paper, and chill them overnight in the refrigerator.  The day of baking, combine all the filling ingredients in a bowl.  Take one portion at a time out of the refrigerator and roll on a work surface sprinkled with confectioner's sugar until about 1/4-inch thick.  Cut the dough into 2 inch squares.  Place a small amount of filling in the center of each square and roll it up like a rolled thing.  (A burrito, a newspaper, a handmade cigarette, whatever image works for you.)  Place the rolls on an ungreased baking sheet and bake at 350F for 15 minutes.  (They should be flaky when done, but they will not really turn brown, much like the walnut snowballs.)  Let cool slightly, then dust liberally with confectioner's sugar.
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*I always end up needing to add more flour to this recipe, and I have never written down exactly how much that is.  Basically, the consistency of the dough should be extremely soft and gooey, but should hold a shape for at least half a minute after released.  Ergo, if you shmursh it (I made that word up) into a round shape, it should immediately start to ooze somewhat back into its natural shapelessness, but it shouldn't ooze and gush all around your fingers while you're still trying to make it be round.  IE, it should be more solid than liquid.  This is a dough that, because of its high fat content, is very tender.  It pretty much has to be chilled to be workable at all.  So, to sum it all up, you probably will need to add about 1/2 C. to 3/4 C. more flour.  I wish I could be more specific!

**Confectioner's sugar, XXX sugar, XXXX sugar, 10X sugar, whatever you call it, is needed to the amount of 2 C. total for this recipe.  I'm not saying you'll use all if it, but just have that much on hand.  As for the kneading, a baker trick that works for some cookies (but not all) is to dust your work surface with confectioner's sugar instead of flour.  Instead of making your cookies breadier and less flavorful, it actually makes them better, plus it improves workability nearly as well as flour.

Anise Toast

2 C. flour
3/4 C. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
3 large eggs, lightly beaten
1/2 C. vegetable oil
1 tsp. anise extract

Preheat oven to 375F.  Mix together dry ingredients.  Make a well and add in the wet ingredients.  Mix together with your fingers until well-blended; the dough should be sticky.  Make two 10-inch long loaves.  Bake on a lightly-greased baking sheet for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are lightly browned.  Remove from the oven (leaving the oven on!!) and let cool about 5 minutes, then slice into 1/4-to-1/2 inch slices.  (Ergo, if you like your toast crisper, slice them thinner, if not, slice them 1/2 inch thick.  They should look like long strips either way.)  Return the toast strips to the baking pan and bake them until they are golden on one side, then turn and bake until golden on the other side.  Cool and store in an airtight container.  Makes about 24 anise cookies.

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Anise toast is what Italian babies were teethed on before baby product companies caught on that they could sell teethers and people would buy them.  FYI Anise toast is cheaper and healthier than the blue goo in the teether (should the baby, you know, actually bite the teether and get at it).  If you don't want your baby to get tooth decay before she even gets teeth, instead of giving her anise toast wrap an ice cube in a washcloth.  Problem solved, no blue goo, no chokeable parts, NO MONEY SPENT.  Oh yeah, you can also dip anise toast in your coffee if you already have teeth and you like the taste of anise.  Which I do.

Walnut Snowballs

1 C. butter, yes butter, only butter, don't even think of substituting
1/2 C. confectioner's sugar, plus plenty for dusting later on
1 tsp. vanilla
2-1/4 C. flour
1/4 tsp. salt
3/4 C. finely chopped walnuts (but you could use any tree nut and it would probably be just as good)

Cream together the butter, sugar, and vanilla.  In a separate bowl, mix together the flour and salt.  Using the Italian Knead*, blend together the wet and dry ingredients.  Mix in the nuts.  Form the dough into a ball and let it chill in the refrigerator (not overnight, just a couple of hours until it's a bit firmer).  Preheat the oven to 400F.  Roll walnut-sized balls of dough and place on an ungreased baking sheet.  (They have enough butter in them that they don't really need the sheet to be greased.)  Bake for 10-12 minutes or until set, probably with fine cracks showing in the surface of the balls, but not browned.  (Some of them may get a tiny tiny suntan, but they should basically be the same color as when they went into the oven.  Trust me on this one.)  Remove from the oven and roll in a bowl filled with more powdered sugar.  Let cool slightly, then dust with still more powdered sugar.  Makes about 60 small cookies.
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So, to cap off my baking trials and tribulations of the weekend, I leave you with one decent recipe.  This recipe has been in the family for at least 50 years.  The product is a buttery, sweet, nutty delight that is both crisp and melts in your mouth.  So yes, it's one of my favorite holiday cookies.

The Kitchen Is for Cooking...and Swearing.

Yesterday I discovered a new swear word while in the kitchen.  How does one discover a new swear?  From my experience, it is like the way a chemist discovers a new element by manipulating raw materials.  When I discovered my Italian fruitcakes from the Talisman cookbook to be little burnt tasteless bricks after half the recommended baking time and a whole lot of expensive ingredients, I broke forth with my new swear.

DAMM DAMMERSON! 

Is a Swedish man who sneaks into your kitchen when you're not looking and f-'s up your baked goods with the real butter, hand-chopped walnuts, and hand-candied fruit.

So I have sung the praises of the Talisman cookbook in two posts now.  While it is true that I have eaten many of the foods named in that tome, the actual recipes provided tend be a hot mess.

The Pinza Bertoldese is a case in point.  What it should have been: light, sweet yeast bread with fruit and nuts and a hint of cocoa.  What the recipe called for: 5 cups of flour and 5 tablespoons of water.  For my metric afficionados, that's 75mL of fluid.  I should have stopped right there.  But oh no!  I'm smart, I thought to myself.  I don't need a guide to tell me how much water to put in bread dough.  What I didn't bargain for, but should have, was that apparently every other measurement in the recipe was similarly flawed.

This morning I had a similar experience with the liebkuchen I was attempting to make out of the original 1950-something Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook.  I don't know if tastes have changed since the 50's, but I can tell you right now that when I think "love cake" (a rough translation from the German), I don't think "a cookie that is simultaneously hard and chewy", also requiring expensive ingredients, an actual baking time half as long as the stated baking time, and, despite the inclusion in the recipe of: molasses, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, nutmeg, lemon peel, honey, and walnuts, NO FLAVOR.

So the lesson for today is "trust your instincts".  If a recipe sounds crappy, it probably is. Don't get lured astray by exotic or toothsome ingredients (which are also probably expensive).  Much like a truly diabolical boyfriend, things always sound better in the beginning.  When you're remixing your cookie dough at 10pm because it still isn't firm enough after being in the refrigerator for 5 hours, or wondering yet again why that guy forgot your birthday but bought you a card for no reason last week, it's time to quit while you're ahead.  Don't go down the aisle of actually bothering to cut out and put those bad boys in the oven.  Just throw the whole batch away and start over.

Pizzelles

zest of 1 orange
1 C.sugar
1-1/2 C. flour
6 eggs
1 C. oil + some for brushing onto plates of pizzelle iron
2 large Hershey bars, cut into strips about 1/4 inch*

A pizzelle iron**

Combine all ingredients except the chocolate.  Cook about 1 TB of batter per side in the pizzelle iron for a few seconds each.  (You can tell the pizzelle is done when the hissing subsides somewhat.)  Peel the pizzelles off the iron gently with a fork.  Immediately roll the pizzelle in a tube shape around a chocolate strip and set aside.  OR let cool flat.  Or, fill with something you like better, such as jam, raisin filling, etc.  Either way, let the pizzelles cool until crisp.  Dust with powdered sugar before storing.  Makes about 60.
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You can also flavor your pizzelles with: whisky or vanilla and still be "traditional".
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*Large Hersey chocolate bars are about the size of a graphing calculator.  IE, 17 cm x 7 cm.  The best way to cut perfect strips out of them is to microwave the chocolate bars for a few seconds, then slice with a large chopping knife.  If you're too impatient, or not that much of a perfectionist, cut them cold, they will break into uneven pieces, but at the end of the day the pizzelles will still taste good because the chocolate melts in the pizzelle when it's still hot anyway.

**A pizzelle iron can be its own thing, or a part of an electric waffle iron. I've heard of ones that were basically cast iron pans that you'd put on the stove, but the only ones I've ever used were electric waffle irons with reversible plates, meaning you could take the metal "waffle-shaped" plates out and on the backside was pizzelle molds, which look like round floral- or waffle-design pancakes, usually two to a plate, but occasionally four really small ones.  When using the electric pizzelle maker, have a dish towel at the ready, so that you can press down on the top of the lid once you've closed it.  That way the pizzelles cook better and you don't burn your hands on the metal or from the steam coming out of the sides! 

Italian Cookies

6 C. flour
6 tsp. baking powder
1-1/2 sticks margarine
2 C. sugar
6 large eggs

Filling:
Apricot preserves
sliced almonds
raisins

Mix together flour and baking powder in a large bowl.  Blend in the margarine, sugar, and eggs by hand.  Cut the dough into 4 equal portions.  Doing one portion at a time, roll out the dough about 1/4" thick. 

To make sandwiches:
Cut equal numbers of round cookies out of the dough.  Spread a thin layer of apricot jam on the bottom half, leaving a 1/2" margin around the edges.  Sprinkle with the almonds and raisins.  Put the top half on.

To make biscotti:
Spread jam over intact rolled-out dough.  Sprinkle with almonds and raisins.  Roll up into a log shape.

Either way:
Moisten top of sandwiches or log with milk.  Sprinkle with seasonally appropriate confettis or colored sugars.  Place on a baking sheet and bake at 350F until light brown.  (About 10 minutes for sandwiches, about 20 for the log.)  For the biscotti, let the log cool before slicing into cookies.

Mary Febornia Julia Canduci Chiarello