Baking FAIL!!!
Oh Woe!
I tried to make the following cookies because I love shortbread, these look perfect for hostess and other gifting and I happen to have cacao nibs and sea salt on hand. This was the Toronto Star's Cookie of the Day for December 12.
Chocolate shortbread with cacao nibs and sea salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cacao nibs, crushed fine with rolling pin
1 tsp fleur de sel + more for sprinkling
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
Sift flour and cocoa powder into small bowl.
In small bowl, stir together cacao nibs and 1 teaspoon fleur de sel.
In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar, using electric mixer on medium speed, until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture. Turn speed to low and beat until moistened. Add nibs mixture. Use wooden spoon to finish blending until mixture clumps together. Turn out onto sheet of plastic and pat gently into square. Cover with another sheet of plastic.
Roll out into square about 1/4-inch thick, adjusting edges with metal scraper. Cut into 1-inch squares. Set scraps aside.
Fill 1 baking sheet with squares 1 inch apart. Bake in centre of preheated 325F oven until tops look dry, 12 to 14 minutes. Halfway through baking time, sprinkle lightly with fleur de sel. Remove pan from oven. Let sit on rack about 2 minutes. Transfer cookies to rack to cool completely.
Meanwhile, fill second prepared baking sheet with squares. Re-roll scraps into 1/4-inch thick squares. Cut 1-inch squares and add to baking sheet. Repeat baking.
Makes about 75.
Star-tested by Susan Sampson
ssampson@thestar.ca
The disaster began when I went to pulverize the cacao nibs. I failed to notice that there is a little shell on each of them that has to be peeled off first. So I wasted the first 1/3 cup.
Then I did everything like the recipe said, but the cookies did not turn into the elegant little squares in the picture - NOOOOOOoooo. They turned into flattened lacy wafers of great breakability.
They will not be suitable for shipping to people.
Don't get me wrong, the taste is fabulous. The cacao nibs add a nutty chocolate flavour that gives depth to the regular cocoa, and the pairing of a hint of salt with the cacao nibs is surprisingly delicious. However, I have 7 dozen extremely thin, extremely fragile, totally crumbly cookies in a tin on the counter. There was a huge pile of cookie bits under the racks just from the ones that crumbled as a moved them from the cookie sheets.
I think that that the "Star Testers" got the proportions of dry ingredients to butter all wrong, or I was on crack when I measured stuff. I do not recall taking any crack, however. I'm just saying.
Since the cacao nibs are not something I normally have (they were left over from my mexico trip), I don't know when I'll be able to try this again, but it's worth tinkering with if I get the chance. I want to make thick, spectacular Gourmet, foo-foo shortbreads, dammit!
Unbowed by my failure, I cleaned the kitchen and tried to make perishke (think of them as baked perogies).
The filling part (which is mashed potatoes with pressed cottage cheese, sauteed onion, crumbled bacon and dill) was delightful. In fact, I had to quickly add the eggs and hide it in the fridge before I crossed the line from tasting for quality control into NOM NOM NOM-ing the lot.
I messed up the dough part. The dough is made with yeast, but it's not supposed to be allowed to rise. My mistake, in retrospect, was two-fold. First I used quick-rise yeast and then I left the batter too long while I cut the lard into the remainder of the flour. I had a giant assload of dough. It made three times the number of dumplings than the recipe calls for. I had to almost double the flour to turn it into dough. Fortunately, I had made a huge batch of filling. I was cutting and rolling and filling until midnight!
In the oven, what was supposed to be neat rows of teeny little dumplings in a baking tray exploded into a giant pillow of massive buns that baked into a solid mass. I've pulled it into bits to stick in freezer bags and freeze. Once again, they taste great, but they didn't stay intact after their grand expansion.
I also will have to rebake the middle bits which stayed pretty soggy.
The broken bits of giant bun mountain will taste good in the dill cream sauce, but I can't serve it to anyone because it looks hideous and bloated and misshapen. I may be eating giant-sized perishke mounds for months.
Oh well. I will be taking the extremely fragile chocolate wafers to gal's poker night tonight. If I have to, I'll crumble them into bowls and serve them with spoons. I have six freezer bags full of Parishke explosions in the freezer and a seventh in my fridge. Maybe I can mix them with some of my chile, or perhaps I'll make some soup to float them in.
So, essentially, the flavour was right, but the form was horribly, horribly wrong. I have ruined Christmas.
I tried to make the following cookies because I love shortbread, these look perfect for hostess and other gifting and I happen to have cacao nibs and sea salt on hand. This was the Toronto Star's Cookie of the Day for December 12.
Chocolate shortbread with cacao nibs and sea salt
1 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 cup + 2 tbsp cacao nibs, crushed fine with rolling pin
1 tsp fleur de sel + more for sprinkling
3/4 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
Line 2 baking sheets with parchment.
Sift flour and cocoa powder into small bowl.
In small bowl, stir together cacao nibs and 1 teaspoon fleur de sel.
In large bowl, cream together butter and sugar, using electric mixer on medium speed, until fluffy, about 2 minutes. Beat in vanilla. Add flour mixture. Turn speed to low and beat until moistened. Add nibs mixture. Use wooden spoon to finish blending until mixture clumps together. Turn out onto sheet of plastic and pat gently into square. Cover with another sheet of plastic.
Roll out into square about 1/4-inch thick, adjusting edges with metal scraper. Cut into 1-inch squares. Set scraps aside.
Fill 1 baking sheet with squares 1 inch apart. Bake in centre of preheated 325F oven until tops look dry, 12 to 14 minutes. Halfway through baking time, sprinkle lightly with fleur de sel. Remove pan from oven. Let sit on rack about 2 minutes. Transfer cookies to rack to cool completely.
Meanwhile, fill second prepared baking sheet with squares. Re-roll scraps into 1/4-inch thick squares. Cut 1-inch squares and add to baking sheet. Repeat baking.
Makes about 75.
Star-tested by Susan Sampson
ssampson@thestar.ca
The disaster began when I went to pulverize the cacao nibs. I failed to notice that there is a little shell on each of them that has to be peeled off first. So I wasted the first 1/3 cup.
Then I did everything like the recipe said, but the cookies did not turn into the elegant little squares in the picture - NOOOOOOoooo. They turned into flattened lacy wafers of great breakability.
They will not be suitable for shipping to people.
Don't get me wrong, the taste is fabulous. The cacao nibs add a nutty chocolate flavour that gives depth to the regular cocoa, and the pairing of a hint of salt with the cacao nibs is surprisingly delicious. However, I have 7 dozen extremely thin, extremely fragile, totally crumbly cookies in a tin on the counter. There was a huge pile of cookie bits under the racks just from the ones that crumbled as a moved them from the cookie sheets.
I think that that the "Star Testers" got the proportions of dry ingredients to butter all wrong, or I was on crack when I measured stuff. I do not recall taking any crack, however. I'm just saying.
Since the cacao nibs are not something I normally have (they were left over from my mexico trip), I don't know when I'll be able to try this again, but it's worth tinkering with if I get the chance. I want to make thick, spectacular Gourmet, foo-foo shortbreads, dammit!
Unbowed by my failure, I cleaned the kitchen and tried to make perishke (think of them as baked perogies).
The filling part (which is mashed potatoes with pressed cottage cheese, sauteed onion, crumbled bacon and dill) was delightful. In fact, I had to quickly add the eggs and hide it in the fridge before I crossed the line from tasting for quality control into NOM NOM NOM-ing the lot.
I messed up the dough part. The dough is made with yeast, but it's not supposed to be allowed to rise. My mistake, in retrospect, was two-fold. First I used quick-rise yeast and then I left the batter too long while I cut the lard into the remainder of the flour. I had a giant assload of dough. It made three times the number of dumplings than the recipe calls for. I had to almost double the flour to turn it into dough. Fortunately, I had made a huge batch of filling. I was cutting and rolling and filling until midnight!
In the oven, what was supposed to be neat rows of teeny little dumplings in a baking tray exploded into a giant pillow of massive buns that baked into a solid mass. I've pulled it into bits to stick in freezer bags and freeze. Once again, they taste great, but they didn't stay intact after their grand expansion.
I also will have to rebake the middle bits which stayed pretty soggy.
The broken bits of giant bun mountain will taste good in the dill cream sauce, but I can't serve it to anyone because it looks hideous and bloated and misshapen. I may be eating giant-sized perishke mounds for months.
Oh well. I will be taking the extremely fragile chocolate wafers to gal's poker night tonight. If I have to, I'll crumble them into bowls and serve them with spoons. I have six freezer bags full of Parishke explosions in the freezer and a seventh in my fridge. Maybe I can mix them with some of my chile, or perhaps I'll make some soup to float them in.
So, essentially, the flavour was right, but the form was horribly, horribly wrong. I have ruined Christmas.