Leora the Sane

I have finally managed to make a perfect soft, chewy ginger cookie. Don’t get me wrong. Ginger snaps can be quite tasty. They definitely have their place. But when I want a ginger cookie, I want soft and chewy, with the deep earthiness of molasses and just the right amount of ginger bite.

Thus was born the Triple Ginger Cookie (inspired by a recipe from Alton Brown). And here I’ll make a small detour to chat a bit about my cooking philosophy and recipes in general. If you’ve seen any of my other recipes you may note that I play a bit fast and loose with quantities and that sometimes my recipes are more like vague guidelines. That’s because that’s how I view most recipes. They are a basic framework, a technique to start me on my path towards what I might be making. I freely change ingredients, sometimes for the good and sometimes… not so much. This recipe was one such rambling tour through one of Alton Brown’s techniques. Feel free to use what I’ve written exactly as I’ve written it. If you do I’m pretty sure you’ll end up with some mighty tasty cookies. But please feel equally free to change things up as much as you please. Add more ginger, use a different flour, or a different kind of sugar/molasses, or add some extra ingredients to make something uniquely your own. That’s my kind of kitchen magic.

Triple Ginger Cookies

Ingredients:

• 1 stick softened unsalted butter
• 1 cup dark brown sugar
• 1 tbsp and 1tsp blackstrap molasses
• 2 tsp grated fresh ginger
• 1 large egg
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole-wheat pastry flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tbsp ground ginger
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/3 cup finely chopped crystallized ginger

Preheat oven to 375 F.

In large bowl, mix together flours, baking powder, baking soda, ground ginger, and salt. Set aside.

In bowl of stand mixer using paddle (preferred) or in another large mixing bowl using a hand mixer, cream butter with sugar, molasses, and grated ginger.

Reduce speed to stir/low and add the egg, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Mix until fully incorporated.

Add the flour mixture in three installments, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary.

Stir in the chopped crystallized ginger.

Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Portion cookies using your favorite method. I use two spoons to form a little cookie dough blob, then flatten it slightly on the cookie sheet.

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the cookies have soft-set (so that the centers have set, but the cookies are still soft), rotating your pans after 4 minutes.

Once done, let cool on a rack and enjoy!

If you make your cookies between 3/4 and 1 oz you’ll get about 3 dozen 2″ cookies from this batch. They’re really nice sized, not too small that eating one feels unsatisfying, but not so big that eating two feels like too many. But it is a big batch. If you don’t want to bake quite so many many cookies at a time, you can always freeze your cookie dough blobs on a cookie sheet until solid, then bag them up and bake them later. That’s what I did!

October 5, 2009 at 9:19 pm | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (3)

A great while ago, you may remember my mentioning my joining a site called Spoonflower, where designers can have their own work printed on fabric. They are really lovely people. Wonderful fabric options, fun owners and employees, cool community of designers, great customer service.

Well, just a few weeks ago, they put out a call for Halloween themed fabric designs for their weekly design contest. I’ve never entered one of their themed contests before, but I figured who better to enter a Halloween design contest than a witch!

So this week, my design is in the running for votes. If you like the design, below, think about voting. I’m not very good at self-promotion, and I hope that I’m not being completely shameless by asking. But just take a look…

September 17, 2009 at 5:39 pm | Category: Uncategorized | Comments (2)

I made this galette for our Labor day mini-feast. It was quite a hit! Light and delightful. The pears really stand up on their own in this one, and the rest of the ingredients are just support. I ended up with much less sugar and what-not in the galette, so it tasted of fruit and not syrup. Our guest went back for seconds!

The pears were from our CSA share last week, but they were about the same size as a standard Bartlett from the store. They were still a bit firm, not quite eating ripe unless you like your pears really crisp, but they baked up perfectly because of that. Pears are normally so delicate that they needed that head-start. If they have been perfectly ripe when I sliced into them, they would have turned into mush in the oven (and that’s not good eats ).

The Recipe

• one 9 inch pie crust (again I used a store bought crust, but use whatever feels right to you, be it homemade or no)
• three pears, sliced about 1/8 inch thick
• one tbsp orange juice (you could use lemon juice here if you don’t have orange around the house)
• 1/2 cup turbinado sugar (although you could substitute white sugar, brown sugar, or even splenda, as you please)
• one tbsp cornstarch
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/4 tsp allspice
• 1/2 tsp almond extract
• one tsp butter
• one egg plus one tbsp water to eggwash the crust
• a few pinches of turbinado sugar to dust the crust before baking

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Prepare a baking sheet. This time I baked the galette on a baking sheet covered in parchment paper and had no problems with sticking or anything. It’s what I recommend. But you could butter a baking sheet or butter tin foil if you don’t have parchment paper around.

Put juice in a medium mixing bowl. As you slice the pears, toss them in the juice. This will help prevent browning. Once you have sliced all of the pears, add the sugar, cornstarch, spices, and almond extract to the bowl and mix until combined.

Roll out your crust onto your baking sheet, making sure that it has no weak/thin spots that may break during baking. Place filling in the center of your crust, leaving about 2 inches (maybe a little more) around the edges.If you want to be fancy, you can lay your slices out in circles. But I like the rustic look, so I let it be a little more chaotic.

Starting anywhere you like, fold the edge up and around the filling. As you pull each new bit of edge up, fold it gently over, to make a tucked crust. Once the crust is fully folded over, whisk the one egg with one tbsp of water and brush over the outer crust. Then sprinkle with turbinado sugar.

Right before baking, crumble one tsp of butter over the filling of the galette.

Bake for 25 minutes, or until golden, brown and delicious! Makes eight cute-as-a-button slices of galette, perfect for serving after a full dinner, or perfect with ice cream (maybe next time…).

Enjoy!

September 12, 2009 at 7:14 pm | Category: Cooking | Leave a comment

Last night, we decided to build a little fire, since it was so gorgeous outside.

Amazingly enough, this is actually the first time we’ve done this since we moved in over two years ago. We’ve always had fires with friends before now. While the fire building was not quite as smooth without our expert friends (thank you, Doc!), I have gotten better enough over the years by watching others that I managed to get a nice little blaze going (thank you again, Doc!), and we have vowed to do this more often. Just the two of us. It was lovely!

September 12, 2009 at 6:38 pm | Category: Photos | Leave a comment