Meyer Lemon Petites Madeleines

Yesterday was my neighbor's birthday and I wanted to make her a little treat. I knew I wanted to flavor the goods with the Meyer lemons James and I picked from my girlfriend's tree last week, and I wanted to make something that was feminine and sweet and would make the birthday girl feel special. Being such a sucker for specialty kitchen goods, I had bought a madeleine pan a few months ago and it had just been sitting there. Lonely. Unpurposed. It was time for it's kitchen debut.

I turned to the blogging hemisphere for madeleine recipes and ended up choosing and adapting Heidi Swanson's. Heidi's recipes are always pretty simplified and generally yield fine results. I feel confident and secure when going by her instructions. She's a wonderful partner in any culinary effort. You do need a madeleine pan to make these, of course, but if you don't have one, or the idea of buying one never entered your mind, I encourage you to go get one. If you like madeleines, that is. And make sure it's metal, and not the newer silicone kind. It will make much prettier cookies.

                    1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter (6 ounces)
                    2 tablespoons melted unsalted butter (for greasing pan)
                    3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
                    4 large eggs
                    a pinch fine-grain sea salt
                    2/3 cups sugar
                    zest of one large lemon
                    3 tablespoons lemon juice from the lemon
                    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
                    powdered sugar
                    a little flour for dusting the pan

         Special equipment: A madeleine baking pan, any size

Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

Melt the 1 1/2 sticks of butter in a small pot over medium heat until it's brown and smells nutty and fragrant. About 15 to 20 minutes. Strain with a mesh strainer and discard the solids. Cool the butter to room temperature.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter and use it to brush the madeleine molds. Dust with flour and invert the pan tapping out any excess flour.

Whisk the eggs and salt on high speed with the whisking attachment in an electric mixer until thick, and the eggs have doubled or tripled in volume (about 3 minutes). Continuing to whisk on high speed, and slowly and steadily add the sugar. Whisk for 2 minutes or until the mixture is thick and ribbony. Then, fold in the lemon zest, 3 tablespoons of lemon juice and vanilla with a rubber spatula, just until combined.

Sprinkle the flour on top of the egg batter, and gently fold it in. Next, fold in the butter. Stir gently, only enough to bring everything together.

Spoon the batter into the molds, filling each mold 2/3 -3/4 full. I used a 1/2 teaspoon measuring spoon for the petites madeleines and it worked perfectly.

Bake the madeleines for 12 - 14 minutes (7-10 minutes for smaller cookies), or until the edges of the madeleines are golden brown. Remove from the oven and invert the madeleines onto a cooling rack immediately. Cool on racks and dust with powdered sugar.

Makes 2 -3 dozen regular madeleines.


Adapted from 101 Cookbooks.

Lemon Lime Cookies

After ogling endlessly at these over at lovely Hannah's Honey and Jam, I decided to try them - with a twist. I had a surplus of both lemons and limes, so it made sense to use both, rather than just limes as in the original recipe. As well, I literally lost control while making these, and found myself sprinkling the beyond belief gorgeous zest-infused sugar over the top, instead of just rolling it around the sides. In my opinion, this is the best part of the recipe. The zest gets worked into the sugar for several minutes making it moist, fragrant and beautiful.

There's a bit more to this story. The recipe calls for forming the dough into cylinders, and for the life of me, I could not get a perfectly round tube of dough. The pathetic aesthetic was further accentuated by the fact that when I put the dough on a plate to chill in the fridge, the bottom side took a flat shape and when slicing off the 1/4-inch "rounds", mine weren't, sadly. Round, that is. They were roundish, with one straight edge - if you can imagine that. It was near catastrophic. Soooooooo, Plan B. Okay Life, if this is how it's going to be... I can "fix it" as my childhood art teacher, Mrs. Kinney, used to say when I would ask if I could start over. Ironically, I've thought about her a couple of times lately. For the first time in almost twenty years. So I fixed it. I took small handfuls of the dough and rolled them out to a 1/4"-thick, and then used a cookie cutter. Not bad. Then I joyfully sprinkled the sugar all over the place.

For the cookies:

                    3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

                    1 3/4 cups raw cane sugar

                    1/4 teaspoon salt

                    zest of 1 large lime, and 1 lemon

                    12 ounces (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into 24 pieces

                    2 large eggs

For the sugar coating:

                    1 1/2 cups raw cane sugar

                    zest of 1/2 a lime and 1/2 a lemon

Mix the flour, 1 3/4 cup sugar, salt, and zests in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse 10 times to reduce the zest to smaller pieces.

Add the butter and pulse until it is completely mixed into the dry ingredients, but the mixture is still powdery. Add the eggs and pulse until the dough forms a ball. Turn out the dough onto a floured work surface and divide into two equal pieces. Form each into a ridiculous wannabe cylinder about 8 inches long.

Clean any flour off the work surface and combine the 1 1/2 cup sugar and lime zest, working together with fingertips for a minute to release the lime flavor into the sugar. Pour the sugar onto the work surface in a wide line about 8 inches long. Roll one of the logs of dough in it to coat the outside completely. Repeat with the other log of dough. Wrap each log of dough in plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 1 hour. 

When you are ready to bake the cookies, set racks in the upper and lower thirds of the oven and preheat to 350˚F. Line cookies sheets with parchment paper.

Cut the logs of dough into 1/4-inch thick slices and arrange them on prepared pans about 1 inch apart on all sides. See how silly they look. Laugh nervously, panic briefly, and then opt for rolling the dough out to a 1/4" thick, working in small batches and being careful to handle it as little as possible. Cut the desired shape out with a cookie cutter.  Repeat with the second log of dough, or wrap, freeze, and save it for another day.

Bake the cookies until they are firm and golden around the edges, 15 to 20 minutes. After the first 10 minutes, place the pan from the lower rack on the upper one and vise versa, turning the pans from back to front at the same time. Slide the papers off the pans to cool the cookies. If you only have one pan of cookies to bake, adjust the racks to the middle of the oven. 

Store cookies at room temperature between sheets of wax paper in an air-tight container.

Makes 40-60 cookies, depending on the size.

Adapted from The Modern Baker.

Chocolate Puddle Cookies

 

What better way to celebrate the end of our refined sugar fast, than by baking something sweet for my honey on Valentine's Day weekend? If you don't live under a rock, surely you've noticed that for the last several weeks you cannot turn around without bumping into a decadent dessert. Because it's February, the recipes for sweet treats have been ubiquitous. I was torn between a couple of persuasive recipes for "mini chocolate desserts" in this month's Sunset, and about 47 other beautiful ideas found on the many fantastic food sites I love to read. In the end, I decided on this recipe for "Chocolate Puddle Cookies" from one of my favorite sites, 101 Cookbooks. What intrigued me about these, was that they are flourless and butterless. That's right - cookies free of flour and butter. How is this possible? Because they have an indecent quantity of confectioner's sugar. The description read that they are somewhere between a fudge brownie and a soft meringue. That did it for me. It took me all of about 3 seconds to think, "Hmmmmmmm, OKAY!" 

These were a complete success, but I have to stress that not under or over baking here is key. If you underbake, they will stick to the parchment paper and fall apart as you try to remove them after they've cooled. If you overbake, the tops will be too crispy. As amazing as they were, I must admit they were just a tad too sweet for my taste. If you love chocolate and really sweet cookies, you won't be disappointed. They'd also make a great dessert for someone who doesn't eat gluten or dairy.

                     3 cups walnut halves, toasted & cooled
                     4 cups confectioner's sugar
                     1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
                     scant 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
                     4 large egg whites, room temperature
                     1 tablespoon high-quality vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 320F degrees and position racks in the top and bottom third. Line three (preferably rimmed) baking sheets with parchment paper. Or you can bake in batches with fewer pans.

Make sure your walnuts have cooled a bit, then chop coarsely and set aside. Sift together the confectioner's sugar, cocoa powder, and sea salt. Stir in the walnuts, then add the egg whites and vanilla. Stir until well combined.

Spoon the batter onto the prepared sheets in mounds of about 2 tablespoons each, allowing for PLENTY of room between cookies. These cookies really expand. Don't try to get more than 6 cookies on each sheet, and try to avoid placing the batter too close to the edge of the pan.

Bake until they puff up. The tops should get glossy, and then crack a bit - about 12 -15 minutes. Have faith, they look sad at first, then really blossom. You may want to rotate the pans top/bottom/back/front.
Slide the cookies still on parchment onto a cooling rack, and let them cool completely. They will keep in an airtight for a couple days.

Makes 18 large cookies.

From 101 Cookbooks.