Macarons

It has been over a year that I posted last. The year 2016 was a busy year with moving from Lome to  home and again back to Qatar. The whole year went past in a buzz around my head. I began to relax so much that it became habit.
My daughter kept pushing me to keep this space active so much so that she even sent pictures of what she had cooked and further on recipes. she would write it up and tell me all it takes to copy from mail and hit the publish button. I just did not.
She is now visiting us in Doha and has finally succeeded in her mission to get me started back.
From my earlier posts readers may have understood that I do not use eggs in my cooking. I have relished cakes and such, only I am not happy to try handling eggs. I am certain to be a failure with baking with eggs.
This post is my daughter's success in baking macarons, pictures and the recipe below are hers.
She had tried the recipe from the link given here, stopping short at not making sandwich macarons.

Macarons:

Yields: approx. 35 shells (slightly bigger than the original resipe) or about 17 sandwiches

Ingredients:

• Icing sugar - 150g (5½oz)
• Ground almonds - 75g (2¾oz)
• Egg whites - 2 large
• pinch of salt
• Caster sugar - 35g (1¼oz)
• Cardamom powder - a hefty pinch
• pink, green, yellow or lilac food colouring paste (optional)

Method:

•  Preheat the oven to 170°C/325°F and line two solid baking-sheets with non-stick baking-parchment.
• Sift together the almond powder, cardamom powder and icing sugar into a bowl.
• Place the egg whites in the metal bowl of a stand mixer (or a large metal mixing bowl, if using a hand mixer) and whisk on high speed till soft peaks are formed.
• Add the caster sugar, a teaspoon at a time, whisking well after each addition. Continue whisking until the mixture is stiff and glossy.
• Fold in the sifted dry ingredients, using a large metal spoon, taking care to not deflate the meringue. Fold till everything is just combined - do not overmix.
• Fit a piping bag with a 1cm (½in) plain nozzle. Stick the parchment down on the corners using a little bit of the meringue to prevent it from rolling up or flapping around. Pipe 5cm (2in) discs on to the baking-parchment.
• Dampen the tip of your finger and gently flatten the top of any macarons that are peaky, then give the tray a sharp tap on the work surface to knock out air bubbles. 
• Allow the meringues to rest for about half an hour, then bake in the preheated oven for about 9 to 10 minutes.  
• Cool the macarons on a wire rack. Once completely cool, these can be filled with buttercream, ganache or jam, and sandwiched.

Some notes that she shared with me on her mail:

Make sure, when separating the eggs, to not get any of the yolk in with the whites, as the fat messes up the meringue pretty badly. With the egg whites, I beat them with my hand mixer itself.. make sure to use a steel bowl, not a plastic one - plastic tends to have a film that inhibits the development of the meringue. The same with the folding in process... use a metal spoon, and fold gently, so as to not break up the air we built into the egg whites.
Before the addition of sugar, the egg whites are whipped to soft peak stage. It is a bit hard to tell, because the peaks are tiny. But, when the egg whites begin to look like a fluffy floating cloud, start adding the sugar.. and when it is finally done, you should be able to pick up a big dollop on the metal spoon, flip it upside down and not have it fall back down into the bowl. At this stage, you can fold in the sifted almond powder and icing sugar.. definitely sift this mixture, my icing sugar had little limps in it and the sifting really helped to make the mix less grainy.

Cranberries and Raisins Cookies

I do not qualify as an enthusiastic baker. I do not run away from baking, but I do far and few. Recently, baking with the WKtB group has given me more confidence to venture a few even without the illustrated and step-wise instructions.
Some time ago while visiting my daughter in the US of A, we were at a bookstore and it felt for me like a child in a candy store literally. we browsed the books on breads and in the used books section we picked up two books, both at a discounted price.
One of those books, is only breads, though not many. The other has more options and details techniques and every recipe has been illustrated. I had not found time to go through most of the recipes; to select something to bake was a task by itself. Few days ago, I bookmarked some recipes that did not call for eggs and this is one of those. Better still this does not call for butter either. I happened to have the cranberries and raisins which were given as variations. The original recipe uses prunes and candied citrus peel. So, here is what I baked from the book and am sharing today.

Cranberries and Raisins Cookies
( A variation of the Prunes and Candied Peel Cookies from The Practical Encyclopedia of Baking by Martha Day)

Ingredients:
Makes 12 to 16 (depending on the size)
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
2/3 cups raw sugar*
1/2 cup chopped dried cranberries
1/3 cup chopped raisins
1/4 cup sunflower oil
5 tablespoons skimmed milk**
Finely grated rind of 1 lemon
1 teaspoon chai masala***

Notes:
* I used unrefined cane sugar.
**I used semi skimmed milk. I needed a little more than the listed 5 tablespoons.
*** The given recipe goes with 1/4 teaspoon each of apple pie spice, ground ginger and ground cinnamon. I used the chai masala instead.


Method:
Pre-heat the oven to 400 degrees F/200 degrees C.
Sift the baking powder into the flour.
Sift along the chai masala.
Stir in the sugar, cranberries, raisins and the rind of lemon.
Mix the oil and milk and add to the flour- sugar mixture.
Make a dough that is just about binding together.
Lightly oil a cookie sheet/ baking tray.
Spoon the cookie dough in rough mounds.
Bake for 20 minutes.
Cool on a wire rack before storing.

I may have rolled smaller quantity of dough and I got 16 cookies while the recipe lists 12 only.
These cookies are good to serve with tea.

We Knead to Bake - Torcettini di Saint Vincent

This is yet another bread that is overdue by several months. We Knead to Bake group did this for April 2013 project. I had to be excused for I had moved home to another country then and had not settled in. However, I did attempt these soon after I had my home functional, yet did not find the opportunity to post. Now I am hoping to be abreast with all the members who were regular and thus this recipe is here today. I have yet to share another bread to be at par. I look forward to be part of the baking group which is continuing into 2014 also with many more interested members. I hope I shall be more regular.
Torcettinis are sugar crusted twisted cookies, made with a bread like dough with yeast. These are smaller versions of Torcetti, which mean small twists; they are made in pear/ teardrop shapes. The dough is made of flour, butter and yeast, shaped and then rolled in sugar before being baked.
A snippet information that Aparna shared with us is that these are synonymous with the town of Saint Vincent in Valle d'Aosta, a small mountainous region in North-Western Italy, even though they are well known throughout the Piedmont region.

The origin of these biscuits, as Aparna shares, is believed to be from Grissini (breadsticks) which were made from the leftover scraps of bread dough. The story goes thus: One Grissini baker had some left over butter that needed to be used up. On a momentary whim he added the butter to the last of his batches of Grissini dough for the day. to be able to differentiate these from his other breadsticks, he rolled them in sugar and made them like loops.Thus the torcettinis came into existence. They taste even better if lemon zest  or anise is added to the dough.
It is also legend that Queen Margaret, wife of King Umberto I of Savoy loved these biscuits so much during her stay in Valle d'Aosta that she ordered enough supplies for her servants to bake them in abundant supply.
These biscuits are mildly sweet and pair well with milk, chocolate drink, tea or coffee. They taste good served either warm or cold. You may store them in airtight boxes for a period.

Torcettini di Saint Vincent
(Adapted from A Baker's Tour by Nick Malgieri)

Ingredients:
Makes 24 Torcettinis

1/2 cup warm water at about 110 deg F
1 1/4 teaspoon active dry yeast (or 1 teaspoon instant yeast)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon lime/ lemon zest
40 grams unsalted butter, cold, cut in small pieces
1/3 cup of sugar for rolling the cookies in

If you are making chocolate torcettinis, remove 2 tablespoons flour from the above and replace with 2 tablespoons cocoa powder. Also replace the lemon zest with orange zest.

Method:
Dissolve the active dry yeast in warm water and allow it to froth for about 15 minutes.
Whisk the flour and salt well, whether using a processor or kneading with hands.
Add the lemon zest and mix; next add cold butter pieces and rub it in to the flour mix to resemble powdery crumbs. I pulse it in the food processor until they looked powdery.
Add the yeast in and work until the dough comes together in a ball. Take care not to over run your processor or over knead the dough.
Place the ball of dough in an oiled bowl, turn it to be coated with oil on all sides. Cover the bowl and allow the dough to rise quite a bit. The dough will not double in its volume, but will considerably puff up in about an hour. You will find that the interior has acquired a honey comb like texture, if you pinch off a bit of the dough from top.
Press the dough down and deflate it. Cover with a cling wrap and refrigerate the dough. Leave it in the fridge for a minimum of an hour. It can be left in upto 24 hours.
Remove the dough from the fridge and lightly roll the dough into approximately a six inch square. Using a pizza cutter, cut out 24 equal pieces. This exercise is to get somewhat even sized pieces. You are free to pinch out portions too.
Roll each of the pieces in a 5" long pencil thick rope. Sprinkle sugar on the work surface while rolling these so the sugar will crust the rope uniformly. Make the rolled rope into a loop; cross the ends over.
Place the shaped dough on lined baking sheets leaving about 1 1/2 inches space between them.
Leave them for about 20 minutes allowing them a second rise. Again they are not going to rise much, but will look puffed ever so slightly.
Bake these at160 Degrees C for about 25 minutes until they are nicely golden brown.

 

Remove them from the oven and cool on wire racks.
Serve them warm or cool completely and store in airtight containers.

Jam Sandwich biscuits

The cover page of the book I have, sports a tea spread featuring these biscuits. Just as in all cookbooks the presentation would lead you to the page looking for the recipe. For the simple reason they are catagorised under rolled and cut cookies, I have been looking at the picture and shutting the book with a sigh. I think that rolling and cutting is a daunting task. The other reason was that the list of ingredients includes one small egg white. Until I read many blogs giving substitutes for eggs, I have not read the recipe past the ingredients list.

With the newly found knowledge of egg substitutes my interest in this recipe was rekindled. And Lo!!! the egg white is only for brushing the top of the cookies! now HOWZZAT, for such ignorance? I own this book for over 10 years now :(

Anyway, finally I read the recipe, then again for a confirmation and again with the zeal of trying it out. Now you see that I have successfully tried them out.

The recipe has been adapted from, of course, my only baking guide, Cookies Galore by Betty Saw. I halved the ingredients, and went one step further to bake a few minutes again after sandwiching the jam.

The hurdle was that my cookie cutter was not of desired size, I tried with lot many stuff I could think of, which did not work. So no floral pattern. I have skipped the egg wash which would otherwise add a shine to the top.

The day I baked they were soft, to the point that I thought they would break and the jam was oozing. But they were deliciously right by the next day and the jam was as chewy as in the jim jam biscuits we buy in India. However, I would like to reduce the butter and try with a better quality custard powder next time.

To quote Betty Saw,

"these are so buttery and deliciously short, that you will wonder why you ever bought them. They taste wonderful even without jam"

Unquote.

The recipe:

Rolled and cut cookies/ 45 minutes preparation time/ 15 minutes baking time.

Makes 34

Ingredients:

240 grams self raising flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

120 grams custard powder

250 grams butter at room temperature

180 grams icing sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

Ready to use jam, any flavour

Method:

Line the baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and custard powder.

Using an electric mixer, cream together the sugar, vanilla essence and the butter at medium speed until light and fluffy.

Stir the sifted dry ingredients and beat on lowest speed until they are blended well.

Roll out the dough between two plastic sheets to 0.75 cm thickness.

Chill this rolled out dough for 30 minutes.

Pre heat the oven to 175 Degrees Centigrade/ 345 Degrees Farenheit.

Using a 2" floral cookie cutter, cut out shapes of the dough. From one half of the shaped discs scoop out the centre making a hallow there. Place on prepared trays.

Bake for 15 minutes until golden brown.

Remove and cool on wire racks.

Place a small ball of jam over the whole cookie and cover with the ones with the hallowed centres.

Cool and store them in cookie jars.

The recipe as given in the book stops with this step.

I put the sandwiched cookies on the tray and baked them for a further 7 minutes at 170 degrees Centigrade.

Serve these very delicious biscuits with tea. The scooped out centres could be rolled out into cookies as well. I simply made some floral cookies with those tiny scoops of dough.

These are off to Ruchika cooks who is hosting the current session of Baking from a book.

Eggless Ginger biscuits

Last week, I tried this recipe, adapted from a book Celebrity Chefs' Cookbooks: Betty Saw, Cookies Galore.

I am very fond of the McVities Ginger nuts, a biscuit pack that I am likely to grab often. The love for the biscuits is so, that while in Egypt, I used to stop at the Shell pumping station's Select outlet in Cairo, just to pick them up. They were not available in the super markets in Port Said.

The book had a very workable recipe..but to my dismay, I can not just walk in to a store and pick most of the ingredients required. However, I wandered through the many sites and found
a way to make home made golden syrup and bought some interesting ginger jam which substitued preserved stem ginger ( preserved stem ginger can be made at home also) and I used freshly grated ginger too.

The resultant cookies were not really cookies but slightly thinner ginger biscuits which were a perfect match in texture and taste to my favourite McVities.

Now I have some more golden syrup left over from making 1/4th of the above recipe and would try the cookies again.

I give below the ingredients for the recipe the by Betty Saw for those who want to try the original. My substitutes are in brackets next to them. The method is similar to that given in her book, but the few alterations that arise with substitution of few ingredients.

Ingredients:

Shaped and hand moulded cookies/ Makes 62

Preparation time: 30 minutes/ Baking 15-20 minutes

400 grams/14 1/4 ounces/2&2/3 cups Self raising flour

1 1/2 teaspoon Baking powder

1/2 teaspoon Bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon Ground Ginger ( I grated 2" piece of fresh ginger)

50 grams /1 3/4 ounces Preserved Stem Ginger chopped finely (I used 3 table spoons ready to use ginger jam)

250 grams/9 ounces/1 cup soft margarine ( I mixed 100grams vegetable shotening to 150 grams margarine)

2 tablespoons Golden syrup

175 grams/6 1/4 ounces/3/4 cups Castor sugar

Method:

Line baking trays with non-stick baking sheet.

Sift together the flour, baking powder and the soda-bi-carbonate.
Mellt the margarine-shortening mix and the golden syrup. Remove from heat and stir in the stem ginger (ginger jam in this case along with the fresh ginger) and sugar.

Stir in the sifted dry ingredients to form a soft dough.

Roll this dough into walnut sized balls and place them on the prepared trays. ( I rolled them and pressed them down a bit, made a design with the back of a fork)

Pre heat the oven to 165 degrees C/330 degrees F ( My oven settings had only 10 degrees C increments, hence I set it to 170 degrees C)

Bake cookies for a good 18 minutes until golden brown.

Leave on the trays for a few minutes and cool them on wired racks.

They may feel soft while warm. On cooling they acquire a crunch and a harder texture.

The ginger jam had some small pieces of ginger in it and as with the bite, the feel of these pieces tasted purely delicious, that made me wonder how much preserved stem ginger would enhance the taste.

I took it for my friend's son who could not stop picking another even before he would finish one.

I am happy to have baked these even though they did not look anywhere comparable to the professionally baked picture that the book featured.

Find these Ginger nuts included in this month's edition of Baking from a book happening @ Ruchika cooks!

Oat Raisin Cookies

These cookies are some I've been wanting to experiment with for some time. As with most South Indian homes our typical breakfast will be idlis, dosais and such. My husband puts in long working hours and feels cereals for breakfast will never suffice. While the Bahrain project was being set up, the office used to stock up some energy bars and soft drinks and juices along with coffee and tea making facilities. He had the energy bars there and found the pack on supermarket racks, which he encouraged me to buy. I loved the chewy texture and that is when on I wanted to try them at home.

My Betty Saw book has few chewy cookies but the ingredients invariably use eggs. Though I have cakes from bakers or friends, I can not relish if something smells of the eggs. Cakes don't seem to develop this but cookies with eggs will give off the whiff if stored over two days. I don't like buns that are given one eggwash to bring out the shine. This is totally my personal taste which neither my husband nor Niki seem to share :( My distaste for eggs developped after being force fed bull's eye while at boarding school, many years ago.

Going thro' recipes that feature in Madhuram's space with so many others presenting countless egg-free recipes, I ventured to modify one of Betty Saw's cookies. She had used mashed banana, which I was forced to replace by apple that was available that day in my kitchen. She had used one small egg which also was taken care of by the apple. Rest of the ingredients were from the recipe given.

These cookies were chewy and crisp on the first day, but softened by the next. I should be giving slight improvements, I guess. However, I give you the recipe and leave the rest to you. If anyone of you find a suggestion, I would love it.

Betty says "Pack these chewy cookies filled with bananas (apples, apply here) and raisins in your children's snack boxes...."

Ingredients:

(Drop cookies/ 15 minutes preparation/ 12-15 minutes baking/ yield 24 cookies)

60 grams butter

2 tablespoons golden syrup

1 medium ripe apple (I weighed 100grams of cut pieces) (peel, core and microwave for 3 minutes and mash coarsely)

125 grams quick cooking oats ( Betty used rolled oats; I've used the only oats is available here)

75 grams self -raising flour, sifted

2 tablespoons castor sugar

75 grams raisins

Method:

Line baking trays with non-stick baking paper.

Pre-heat oven to 180 degrees C.

Melt the butter and golden syrup in a sauce pan over low heat. Cool slightly and mix the rest of the ingredients to it.

Drop the batter in rounded teaspoonfuls, spaced apart on the prepared trays. Flatten slightly using a fork.

Bake for 12-15 minutes, just until golden.

Cool on wire racks before storing in airtight containers.

I'm sending these cookies to Madhuram's Whole -grain Baking Event which features Oats this October.

Lemon Crackers -Yet another eggless treat!!

We baked these cookies while my parents and Niki were here. Based on the original recipe which calls for eggs, we decided to use the cooking oil alternative. Also, as I had made the lemon juice concentrate earlier that week, we used that juice. The result was a very lemony, sweet melt-in-the mouth crackers, which were a big hit.





Ingredients:
125 grams All purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking powder
pinch of Salt
70 grams cold Butter cut into small cubes
60 grams Powdered sugar or superfine Castor sugar
3 tablespoons sunflower oil
1 tablespoon grated Lemon rind


For topping:
3 table spoons Lemon juice concentrate.
Alternatively, mix icing sugar and 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and use it.


Line baking trays with non-stick baking sheets.
Sift flour and baking powder. In a mixing bowl, add salt to the sifted flour and slowly rub in the butter with tips of your fingers. The dough should resemble bread crumbs.
Stir in sugar, lemon rind and oil to form a soft but not sticky dough.
Divide dough into about 20 portions.
Roll them into ribbon like ropes of about an inch long.
Pre heat oven to 190 deg. C.
Place lemon ribbons on the prepared tray and bake for 15 minutes.
Take out and cool.
While still warm brush on top of crackers the topping.
When completely cool, transfer to airtight cookie jars.


Enjoy with your cup of tea just as we did :)

Cookies Galore

I bought this particular cookbook just because the author had a few eggless cookies included. Betty Saw is a well known name in Malaysia.My neighbour recommended this book and I went ahead and purchased. I've tried all of her eggless ones. Needless to say, I have had excellent results and at times disastrous ones that I resolve I should give up baking. I'm not cut out for it.




But when you 've had good ones why not share them?

Laavanya of Cookerycorner celebrates her birthday tomorrow. (19 th of June).
She was my niece's housemate in Singapore. When I first met her, I marvelled at how those young girls, who had until their school finals been protected and pampered by parents, had adapted to living on their own in an alien country, getting on by themselves. That infused some confidence in me to let the string lose for my daughter. Kudos to you Laav, I know Niki looked up to the three of you in her teens. She learnt a lot from you. Happy birthday dear. Wish you many more to come by.
This post, I have put up specially for you. There are, not one, but three cookies for you.

Butter cookies with jam centre: (Betty Saw )




270 grams plain ( all purpose ) flour.
1 teaspoon baking powder
240 grams butter at room temperature
90 grams icing sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
ready-to-use strawberry or any flavoured jam

Line baking trays with non stick baking paper.
Sift together flour and baking powder
Mix the butter, icing sugar, vanilla essence and sifted dry ingredients in an electric mixer.
Beat at lowest speed for 10 seconds and at medium speed for 5 minutes until the mixture is smooth and light.
Spoon the mixture into a cookie press fitted with large star nozzle. Pipe out circles with a tiny hollow centre on the prepared trays. Fill the centre with jam.
Bake in a preheated 180 deg.C oven for 12 - 15 minutes.
Cool on racks.

Butter Almond Crispies:(Betty Saw)




2 tablespoons corn flour
210 grams all purpose flour
250 grams cold butter diced
100 grams almond powder
100 grams icing sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
sugar dragées for decoration.

Line baking trays with non stick baking sheet.
Sift together cornflour and all purpose flour.
Cream icing sugar, vanilla essence and butter until light and fluffy.
Add sifted ingredients and almond powder pulsing until well combined.
Spoon into cookie press or piping bags and press out desired shapes on the prepared trays.
Bake in a preheated 180 deg.C oven for 15 minutes.
Cool on wired racks.

Cashew cookies:



70 grams cashews coarsely powdered.
150 grams castor sugar
250 grams all purpose flour
75 grams butter at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
Cardamon powder and clove powder just a hint
Cashews broken for placing on top

Cream butter and castor sugar until light and fluffy.
Sift together all purpose flour and baking powder.
Add to the flour the cardamon powder and powdered clove.
Mix the dry sifted ingredients to the butter-sugar and combine well while adding the cashew powder in small quantities.
Pulse until the mixture is smooth.
Hand roll the cookies, place a cashew on top.
Place on prepared trays.
Bake on preheated oven at 160 deg.C for 15 minutes or until golden.
Cool on wire racks.