Molasses Carob Brown Rice Flour Cookies

The original recipe came from Cooking Light, April 2016. After many versions, this became Greg’s favorite.

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

6 tablespoons vegetable oil

6 tablespoons softened butter

1/3 cup molasses

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg

2 cups rice brown flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup carob chips

Preheat over to 375 degrees.

Beat brown sugar, butter, and oil with electric mixer at medium speed until well blended. Add molasses, vanilla, and egg; beat until well combined.

Add brown rice flour and baking soda to mixture and beat at low speed until just combined. Add carob chips and beat until combined.

Spoon dough with rounded spoonfuls onto prepared (I use Pam spray) cookie sheets. Bake at 375 degrees for about 13 minutes until barely browned around the edges.

Cool on pan for 3 minutes, place on wire rack to cool.

Bizcochitos and New Mexico Tradition

You have to use lard if you’re going to make bizcochitos.

I can’t remember the first time I had the traditional New Mexican Christmas cookie but I remember the second year I lived in Albuquerque, when I was having a dinner party, and a friend brought a slew of them that she and her mother made. There are certain things you don’t mess with (like putting colored sprinkles on them) but not using lard changes the flavor. And once a year, why not?

On my birthday Saturday my friend Monica came over to help me make bizcochitos (really, she did most of the work) for a party I’m having this Saturday night.

The recipe we used is from New Mexico Magazine and you can find it here. However, instead of whiskey we used vanilla and don’t tell Monica’s mom but I had bought the Penzey’s ground anise instead of the full seed (which you would crush and then add to the dough) which definitely violates tradition although Monica agreed it gave it a smooth flavor rather than the crushed pieces.

Still, the cookies came out great. One note of caution: add the anise in small doses because not everyone likes that licorice flavor although that’s what makes a bizcochito the traditional cookie that it is.

A Minty Chocolate Cookie

These aren't about Girl Scout cookies. Instead, they are about the Frango Mint cookies. If you've ever had a Frango Mint cookie (a staple of Marshall Field's now sold at Macys during the holidays– unless you live in the Chicago area and you can find them at Macys any time), you know what I mean. The Girl Scout cookies don't hold a candle to the Frango cookies. 

Because I was recently cleared to eat chocolate again after suffering years of allergic reactions to it, I've been sampling different types of cookies and such. I found the thin mints are awful. And Oreos aren't any better. Ah, but those Frangos.

While the recipe below doesn't include any Frango chocolate, it's as close as I can get. For now. And Greg will agree, it's pretty good.

Minty Chocolate Cookies

(The wafer cookie recipe is from the Cooking Channel– Homemade Chocolate Wafer Cookies by Zoe Francois)

1 stick unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup dark brown sugar, well packed

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 Dutch processed cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 350 F degrees.

Cream together butter, sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla until light. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Sift the dry ingredients before adding to the creamed butter if there are any lumps.

Add the dry ingredients to the creamed butter mixture and mix just to combine, adding the milk and again mixing just to combine.

Form the dough into two 1 1/2-inch-thick logs, wrap well in plastic wrap, and refrigerate at least an hour. 

Prepare two baking sheets with parchment or other non-stick surface. Slice the log of cookie dough into 1/8-inch-thick coins.

Arrange on the baking sheets with about 1 1/2 inches between the cookies. Bake for 8 minutes and rotate the trays back to front and switch from top and bottom racks (I used the top two racks). Bake for 2 more minutes or until they are dry looking and firm. But don't let them stay in the oven too long because they will burn and you won't be able to tell.

Let cookies cool on a rack and prepare mint dip, this from Martha Stewart.

12 ounces semisweet chocolate, coarsely chopped

1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract

Place the chocolate in a microwave safe dish and microwave until melted, about 2-3 minutes. Add the peppermint extract and stir until the mixture is smooth. 

Line a baking sheet with parchment (I used the sheets I had baked the cookies on) and place each cookie into the melted chocolate and turn to coat. With a fork, lift the cookie from the bowl, let the excess drip off, and transfer to prepared sheet. Refrigerate until chocolate hardens, about 10 minutes.

Makes several dozen cookies.

The Empty Dome

I'm a little pained that the dome is empty right now and it will remain so until our wedding the second weekend of June.

I had been planning to make the gluten-free blueberry muffin recipe from the Wall Street Journal yesterday until my fiancé stopped me, reminding me that our wedding is just a few weeks away and that he didn't need to eat so many sweets.

"Not even a bran muffin?" I asked.

He shook his head.

"But I think I have a sugar addiction," I said, knowing it's not a big one but it's there. "I can do without it but I might be cranky for a few days."

"No," he said, "I don't want to deal with you cranky. I'll show self restraint."

Instead I agreed to keep the dome empty as we prepare for the wedding. 

While we don't eat a lot of sugar because I'm careful with the ingredients I cook with, always looking for new ways to add flavor without it, I find myself needing something at certain points in the day, mostly the late afternoon, and no matter what I eat (vegetables, fruit, nuts) doesn't cut it. I want a cookie or muffin. Or something.

But with the wedding coming fast in twenty-some days I also know that I need to show my own self restraint and instead dream about banana cake and homemade bizcochitos (a Mexican cookie that is tradition to serve at celebratory events and during the Christmas holidays).

My wedding dress will thank me.

Recreating the Tagalong Cookie

I'll be the first to admit that I'm all for supporting Girl Scouts. I was one and I loved selling the cookies although my dad never took the order form to work so I never sold as many as other girls I knew. And there were so many of us in the neighborhood it was hard for all of us to get a lot of orders that way either.

Recently, I was cleared of my chocolate allergy and asked my fiancé to bring home a box of Tagalongs from someone who was selling them at work. I was so excited...until I tasted them. 

If you love the cookies, that's great. But I realize now I'm not a big chocolate fan and that has a lot to do with my disappointment so I set out to make my own. The recipe I followed is here. 

The recipe wasn't bad but I did make a few changes: I used the semi-sweet baker's chocolate and we, er my fiancé, rolled out the dough for me and we went a little thinner than the suggested half inch. This meant we needed more chocolate and we actually didn't dip a few, enjoying the peanut butter on top of the shortbread. I also would rather try them with carob but carob is hard to melt for dipping.

No matter, for me I like knowing I can control what goes into the cookies so I can avoid that long list of ingredients I can't pronounce. And knowing I can put in all the peanut butter I want.

Memories of Mom: The Cookie Press

These cookies are not going to win any awards for presentation and I definitely wouldn’t invite Gordon Ramsey over to eat any. But they represent something else to me: Mom.

Every year this was the one item on the list we could count on Mom to do at Christmastime, even in the last years when she didn’t go out to buy us cards. At least she still made the cookies. When her original Mirro cookie press broke, we found her a new one at an antique store.

But I will be the first to admit they are not my favorite recipe to make simply because of the cookie press. The dough has to be at an exact temperature for the cookies to come out perfectly. I used the trigger-operated press once but I never found it to be easier to use and now that Mom has died, I have her second generation press.

However, if I wanted any of her cookies this year, I had to make them. While the they are made of cookie basics (flour, sugar, butter), these also have almond extract which gives them that distinct flavor. And in my laziness, I combined the two colors of dough but found that they actually create tie-dye looking cookies.

Mostly, this was about eating the cookies and tasting the memories that came with them.

Mirro Cookie Press Recipe

2 ½ cups flour

¼ teaspoon baking powder

1 cup butter

¾ cup sugar

1 egg

1 teaspoon almond extract

green and red food coloring

decorating candies

Sift together flour and baking powder. Cream butter; add sugar gradually and cream thoroughly. Beat in egg, almond extract, and food coloring. Gradually blend in dry ingredients. Fill cookie press. Form cookies on ungreased baking sheet. Decorate with candies. Bake 10-12 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 6-7 dozen cookies.