Holiday Tea

This past Saturday was the annual Girl Guides’ Holiday Tea, which was held at Epiphany Anglican Church just like last year. This year the funds from the tickets, bake sale, and calendar sales were being raised to finance a trip to Europe for the local Pathfinder troupes. Parents of girls in the Guiding movement were asked to contribute baked goods to the tea, so this year I used up some of the bananas in my freezer and made mini banana muffins.

(Bananas for scale.)

I used the recipe that I almost always use, the one for Banana Bread Cockaigne on page 628 of the Joy of Cooking (75th Anniversary Edition, Rombauer & Becker, 2006). Of course, I omitted the chopped nuts and/or dried apricots (which usually have come into contact with peanuts or tree nuts), since anything baked had to be school-safe. I also omitted the grated lemon zest, as I usually do, since I don’t often have lemons in the house unless I’ve bought them for a specific purpose.

As usual, the tea was lots of fun, with the tiniest of Sparks and Brownies bringing out cold drinks and trays of treats, while the Guides were in charge of serving hot drinks, and the Pathfinders and Rangers ran things from the kitchen.

Of course, I never got any of the fancy-looking shortbread or thick brownies because the children snatched them up right quick. And I didn’t see any of my tiny muffins come by, so I guess they went out earlier in the day, since my container came back empty. I was rather impressed with the surprise flavours of lemon in some of the shortbread, and maple syrup in the Rice Krispie squares. I think I’ll have to try those additions myself in the future.

Meemaw’s Cookie Recipe

I have a number of friends and family who are huge fans of the television show The Big Bang Theory, and I don’t mind the show myself. I thought that, since Christmas is coming up, I might try to make a show-based recipe that has been floating around the Internet for a while. It’s for a type of cookie purportedly baked by Meemaw (Sheldon Cooper’s grandmother). My Google-fu has failed me and I haven’t been able to find the original source, else I would link back to it to give proper credit.

Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons) holding a cookie baked using his Meemaw’s recipe, as baked by Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik) in The Big Bang Theory, season 8, episode 11.

The recipe I’ve found is a cookie press or spritz cookie, although from the reference photos I’ve found that the final product looks more like something made with a cookie cutter. Or possibly they started with a flat cookie and created the tree design on top using a pastry bag filled with dough? Granted, you don’t see the cookies in the show for very long, and I could totally be wrong. I thought I’d try the spritz version anyway.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 being very serious about getting the cookie dough just right.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 did most of the work this time (okay, mostly Thing 1), so it’s definitely a simple recipe to follow. The kids really like working with the caulking-gun-like cookie press, and they also love to add the sprinkles. Of course, this meant that the final product looked far from perfect, but who cares so long as they had fun and it tastes great?

In the end, I was really happy with this recipe, even though it may not be a hundred percent screen accurate. Here’s what I did:

Meemaw’s Christmas Cookies
Makes about 8 dozen small cookies

Preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).
Beat together until creamy:
– 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, softened
– 1 cup granulated sugar
– 1 tsp almond extract*
Beat in, about a third at a time:
– 3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
Insert any shape of disk into cookie press (the ones in the show are tree-shaped, but any shape will do). Press dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet one inch apart. Alternately, use a pastry bag with a wide tip to create designs.
Decorate with:
– coloured sugar or sprinkles
Bake for 10 to 13 minutes, or until firm and very slightly browned.
Remove from cookie sheet onto a cooling rack. Serve immediately, or place into a container once they are cooled, where they can last up to a week.

*If nuts are a problem, vanilla extract may be substituted (although the flavour will change a little bit).

Halloween Party Food

I hosted our family’s annual Halloween party this past Saturday, and of course that meant lots of food. I put out bowls of chips, Cheetos (the “Bag of Bones” kind that are shaped like dismembered skeletons), pretzels, cheese & crackers, a shrimp ring, a meat tray, a veggie tray, and fruit. And then I added the food that I’d actually cooked.

Salsa and guacamole served with black corn chips are a perennial favourite, but I had fun with the presentation this year. I got the idea to use the “puking” pumpkin from a BuzzFeed 7 Terrifying Halloween Food Ideas video. The guacamole was store-bought, but the salsa was the Blender Salsa (page 92, Preserving by the Pint: Quick Seasonal Canning for Small Spaces (Marisa McClellan, 2014)) that I’d canned earlier this season. I did want to try the “Rotten Deviled Eggs” from the same BuzzFeed video, but I ran out of time and just ended up making normal deviled eggs instead. They went over well anyway, and disappeared quickly.

I did a huge amount (at least for me) of baking in the days leading up to the party so that I could serve a wide variety of sweets. I made Applesauce Cake (page 720, Joy of Cooking by Irma S. Rombauer et al, 2006 edition) into cupcakes, which I iced with Quick Brown Butter Icing (page 794, Joy of Cooking). When I was preparing the batter for the cupcakes, I put the margarine (which I had substituted for butter) in the microwave to soften it… And then I forgot about it. I didn’t realize I’d left it out of the batter until the cupcakes were already baking in the oven. They turned out okay anyway, but they were a little drier than I’d have liked.

I made pumpkin pie tarts using the Purity Pastry crust (page 73, The All New Purity Cook Book (Elizabeth Driver, 2001)) and Pumpkin or Squash Pie filling (page 686, Joy of Cooking). To make the pie dairy-free, I used canned coconut milk instead of heavy cream or evaporated milk. I wasn’t the only person who was going to be at the party who has issues with dairy, so I tried to avoid it whenever possible when cooking this time.

I forgot to include this find when I wrote about thrifting a while back, but I did find a cookie press for about $4.00. I’ve always loved spritz cookies; they were a favourite when I went to bake sales and bazaars, but I couldn’t make them at home since I didn’t have the appropriate tools.

I guess most people would associate this kind of cookie with Christmas rather than Halloween, but there’s nothing saying they can’t be eaten any time, really. I used the Spritz Cookies recipe from page 248 of The Canadian Living Cookbook (Carol Ferguson, 1987), which calls for butter, but I substituted margarine. Not surprisingly, the cookies weren’t as buttery as they could have been, but they were still pretty darned good.

Some time ago I asked one of my friends for her all-time favourite cookie recipe, and she said it was Elevator Lady Spice Cookies on page 99 of The I hate to Cook Book (1966 edition). I’d been looking for an excuse to try them out. Given the powdered cloves and ginger in the recipe, these cookies remind me a bit of a ginger snap in flavour, but with a less brittle texture. As a bonus, this recipe doesn’t contain any dairy in the first place, so I didn’t have to make any substitutions (like many older recipes it uses lard instead of butter as the fat, since it is cheaper).

I made these soft, moist cookies using the Pumpkin Cookies recipe from the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum. To make them dairy-free, I substituted margarine for butter and almond milk for cow’s milk. These were a big hit and a number of my friends asked if they could take a few home with them!

I splurged at the dollar store and bought some mini muffin tins so that I could make some miniature Double Chocolate Zucchini Muffins. Since there is milk in the chocolate chips and these wouldn’t be the same without them, I didn’t even try to make this recipe dairy-free. They’re still a fan favourite; out of three dozen mini muffins, I only had three left over after the party, which all mysteriously disappeared first thing the next morning.

At my friends’ request, I made up another loaf of Voodoo Bread. I learned from my mistakes and used gloves when I kneaded the bread this time. I still didn’t get the well-defined swirl that I was looking for, but it was still a really cool-looking bread.

Not pictured because I forgot, I also had three bread machines going at the same time and made three different kinds of bread, all from Bread Machine: How to Prepare and Bake the Perfect Loaf (Jennie Shapter, 2002):

– Egg-Enriched White Loaf (page 67), where I substituted equal amounts of olive oil for the butter in the original recipe.
– Light Rye and Caraway Bread (page 75), where I substituted canola oil for sunflower oil (I have a friend who is violently allergic to sunflowers), and I omitted skimmed milk powder, simply adding 1 Tbsp water.
– Golden Pumpkin Bread (page 167), where I made a lot of changes because I was missing a bunch of the ingredients called for in the recipe. I substituted whole wheat flour for cornmeal, maple syrup for golden syrup, almond milk for buttermilk, and I omitted the pumpkin seeds. Despite all of the changes, it still turned out great!

Last but not least, I made up a batch of Cookie Monster’s Famous Cookie Dough, which is a favourite recipe of mine since my childhood. I used margarine instead of butter, but the recipe calls for either, so it still tastes nigh on identical to what I remember. With my parents’ help, my kids rolled out the dough, cut it out, and then painted it with a glaze made of egg whites/yolks (depending on the colour) mixed with food colouring. Even with all of the different dishes that I put out for this party, the Cookie Monster Cookies were my favourite. All of the other food was good, but you can’t beat nostalgia.

Another dish I would like to try, but I ran out of time, was Tasty’s Peek-A-Boo Pound Cake. Perhaps I could make something similar for Christmas with a different shape inside?

Perfect Moment

I don’t believe that there is such thing as a perfect day, or a perfect week. Life being what it is, you can’t expect everything to go smoothly for that length of time — but I don’t think you should expect it to. Life is full of ups and downs. However, I think it’s important to recognize and appreciate when you have a perfect moment. This was one of mine:

I was sitting on the dock at the cottage with a good book, chocolate fudge zucchini cookies, and my knitting. We’d just been for a swim in the rather-cool lake, so I was enjoying the warmth of my hoodie. The girls were enjoying some quiet time of their own on chairs beside me, Thing 1 reading a book, and Thing 2 listening to music on her headphones. For a few minutes there was calm, peace, fresh air and a gorgeous view.

Then it was time to make dinner.

Chocolate Fudge Zucchini Cookies: Rebaked

My kids and I munched our way through my first batch of chocolate fudge zucchini cookies in a matter of days, so I decided to bake some more.

Although I loved the flavour and moist softness of the original recipe, I wasn’t terribly happy with the texture that the grated zucchini gave to the cookies. This time I microwaved the zucchini first, covered, for four minutes, which softened it up nicely. Then I ran the zucchini through my blender until it had the consistency of a smoothie. I followed the rest of the recipe to the letter, and it worked out wonderfully. No stringy bits, just fantastic chocolate flavour and moist texture.

My kids prefer this version too. Thing 1 was quite willing to model the non-stringy inside of the cookie for me so long as she got the broken cookie as payment.

Chocolate Fudge Zucchini Cookies

I recently discovered that the Canada Agriculture and Food Museum has a whole list of recipes that it provides free of charge in PDF format. There are a number of what I would consider typical, traditional Canadian dishes on there — but there were also a number I’d never heard of as well. So of course I had to check them out.

I’d been craving sweets, so I decided that the first recipe I’d try from this collection was the Chocolate Fudge Zucchini Cookies. Also, although I didn’t grow any myself this year, zucchini is in season and hence is really affordable at the moment. And wow, was I ever happy with how these cookies turned out! They were soft and moist without falling apart, and incredibly rich. The recipe called for the cookies to be dropped by tablespoons onto the baking pans, but although the composition of the dough was too thick for this and each cookie had to be hand-formed, I don’t think that this affected the final product in a negative way.

I think that the only thing I’d change about this recipe is how the zucchini is prepared. The recipe calls for it to be finely shredded, but I found that this still left a few stringy bits in the otherwise-soft texture of the cookie. In the future, I might try peeling the zucchini first, or running it through the blender to change the texture. I wouldn’t want to get rid of it, though, as that’s what makes it so moist!

Maple Rhubarb Crisp & Maple Leaf Cookies

I was trying to be as Canadian as possible this week and made maple rhubarb crisp from the recipe on page 116 of Sweet Ontario Pure Maple Syrup: Our favourite Maple Recipes, which is published by the Ontario Mable Syrup Producers’ Association. I picked up a copy of this cookbook this past weekend at the Cumberland Farmers’ Market, which is where I also picked up the rhubarb for the recipe. I didn’t purchase any good Ontario maple syrup at the time, but only because I already had two big jugs in my fridge. Can’t get much more local than that!

Maple rhubarb crisp topped with non-dairy whipped topping

I was really happy with how this recipe turned out. The crisp was the perfect blend of sweet and tart. I’m really looking forward to trying other recipes in this cookbook, such as the french toast casserole and maple BBQ chicken.

Of course, I had to check out some of the Canada-150-themed foods that are being sold in preparation for the big day. The above cookie was from a two-cookie decorating kit that retails at Walmart for $1.50. They aren’t half bad, given the price! My kids are going to decorate their own tomorrow. For an American company, Walmart carries an awful lot of Canadiana. But as the Arrogant Worms quipped in The Mountie Song:

“Where would you get a tank?”
“Walmart.”
“Oh.”

Speaking of the Arrogant Worms, here’s their song Proud to be Canadian, from the album Live Bait.

I hope you all have a safe and happy Canada Day!

Gingerbread Mouse’s Cookie Recipe

My youngest daughter noticed that there was a gingerbread recipe at the back of her copy of Gingerbread Mouse by Katy Bratun (2007). This picture book would usually be stored away with the Christmas decorations, but it ended up being in regular rotation at story time, so I am loathe to put it away until she loses interest. I had a great deal of success with the chocolate cake recipe at the back of Amelia Bedelia Bakes Off when I tried it last month, so I was optimistic about trying out another recipe from a children’s book. I was not disappointed.

Gingerbread, to me, is usually a tough cookie, able to withstand the stresses of being assembled into a house shape and decorated by little hands. Gingerbread is also a dark, rich brown. Going by these qualifiers, the Gingerbread Mouse cookies weren’t very gingerbread-like at all. They were buttery and delicate, more like a shortbread in texture. They would never stand up to house construction. They were also light brown — coloured by the ginger, cinnamon, and brown sugar, but missing the traditional molasses. They were also absolutely melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I am definitely making them again, but I will use a different recipe if I need to build a gingerbread house.

To me, one of the best things you can eat with a ginger-flavoured cookie is vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt. One of my favourite things to do after making my way through the maze of the local IKEA is to pick up a box of PEPPARKAKOR ginger thins at the Swedish Food Market and use them to scoop up some of the frozen yogurt that they sell in the bistro just past the checkouts. For dessert after the Sunday dinner that I hosted last night, I served the Gingerbread Mouse cookies alongside store-bought French vanilla ice cream. I’d love to say that I made the ice cream too, but I just don’t have the equipment. And hey, at least it was real ice cream and not a “frozen dairy dessert”.

Valentine’s Day Cookies: Cookie Monster’s Famous Cookie Dough

My girls wanted to bring cookies for their classes for Valentine’s Day yesterday, so that meant breaking out the recipe for Cookie Monster’s Famous Cookie Dough. This is a recipe that I’ve been using since I was a child — actually, that’s probably what we were cooking in the first picture of my introduction post. In my post-childhood but pre-Internet days, my family lost the recipe, but these days the recipe can be found online via TheKitchn.com.

This dough isn’t just for Valentine’s Day; in this photo we were using the recipe for Christmas cookies.

According to my research online, apparently the recipe first appeared in Big Bird’s Busy Book in 1975, which is not where I found it. Family photos reveal that we had The Sesame Street Treasury: Volume 1 (1983), on which the first part of the recipe is printed on page 6. Presumably the cooking instructions are in a later volume. The recipe was also printed The Sesame Street Library: Volume 1 (1978), with the basic recipe on page 7 and the baking instructions on page 26, under the title Cookie Monster’s Shape Cookies.

Heart cookies before baking.

I was lucky enough to snag both a copy of Vol. 1 of the Treasury and the Library a few weeks ago from a thrift shop. There were a few more volumes there, including The Sesame Street Treasury: Volume 5, which I clearly remember reading as a child. This volume has Cookie Monster’s Cookie Faces on page 27. This is a continuance of the Famous Cookie Dough recipe and also contains baking instructions.

Heart cookies after baking.

This recipe is very forgiving and, as such, is a great recipe to do with children. The dough can be rolled and re-rolled with impunity as the kids cut out the shapes. For fluffiest results, refrigerate the prepared cookies on a baking pan for an hour or more before baking. If you do so, you may need to add a minute or two to the cooking time so that they are done all the way through.

My girls painting their Christmas cookies two years ago.

One thing you may note is not in the original recipe is the coloured glaze — although that’s clearly what I was painting on in my childhood photo. (TheKitchn.com recommends sprinkling them with sugar before baking, which would be good too.) I’m not exactly sure why we started painting the cookies. Perhaps the instructions were in another volume of the Treasury that I haven’t yet found as an adult? The “paint” is very simple: for each colour, separate an egg into two bowls or small containers. Mix a couple of drops of different food colouring with each part of the egg, and then paint onto the cookie before baking. I find that the yolk makes the most saturated colours, but since it has a yellow base it’s hard to get colours like blue (which will mix to create green). Adding a few more drops of food colouring can help “overpower” the yellow. (If for whatever reason you can’t use food colouring, natural colours work as well. For example, a few drops of beet juice can yield an amazing colour.)

Painting the cookies was my favourite part of the process as a child, and is my kids’ favourite part as well. As a bonus, glaze doesn’t make nearly as much of a mess as icing when the kids eat the cookies. Do keep in mind that the glaze will crack when baking because the cookies do expand, so there’s no point in being too precise. Save the fine detail for fancy cookies that are iced after they’re baked.