Eggnog Snickerdoodles

It's snack day on the pickle ball courts!  To make these festive cookies, I needed egg yolks and rum extract.  As it so happened, I had egg yolks left over from the chocolate-almond spice cookies, and surprisingly half a bottle of rum extract in my cupboard.  (I wonder how old that is...  The only thing I can remember making that was rum-flavored were these cupcakes, but they used real rum.)  I halved the recipe to make 12 cookies and changed the butter and salt, as shown.  The original recipe calls for baking the cookies on parchment on a rimmed cookie sheet; I opted for greasing an unrimmed sheet, which worked fine.  This is the full recipe, which makes 24 approximately 3¼-inch cookies:


3½ cups (445 grams) all-purpose flour 
1½ teaspoons cream of tartar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup (225 grams) unsalted butter (2 sticks), at room temperature
1¾ cup (350 grams) granulated sugar, plus ¼ cup for rolling
1 ⅛ teaspoon kosher fine sea salt
1 large egg plus 2 yolks, at room temperature
1 tablespoon rum extract
2 teaspoons freshly grated nutmeg

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cream of tartar and baking soda, and set aside. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter, 1¾ cups sugar and the salt on medium-high until very smooth and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Return the mixer to medium speed and add the egg and egg yolks, incorporating each before adding the next. Add the rum extract and continue to beat for another minute or two. Add the flour mixture and beat on low speed until combined. Set the dough aside to hydrate for about 10 minutes while you prepare to bake.

Heat oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease two baking sheets. Make the nutmeg-sugar mixture by combining the remaining ¼ cup sugar with the nutmeg in a small bowl.

Roll the dough into balls slightly larger than a golf ball (about 44--47 grams), then roll each dough ball in the nutmeg-sugar. Transfer the balls to the baking sheets, about 2 inches apart, and bake 10 to 13 minutes, rotating pans and switching racks halfway through, until slightly puffed and just set. Let the cookies cool slightly on the baking sheet before transferring them to a wire rack to cool completely. These cookies are even better the day after they're made, and will keep for 4 days sealed in an airtight container.

 

A note about the salt...  The recipe simply calls for kosher salt, but not all kosher salts are created equal.  Diamond Crystal kosher salt is very popular amongst celebrity chefs for some reason, but you have to use a lot more of it than you do Morton kosher salt, and both are coarse, which also affects the volume measurements.  I further complicated it by using salted butter instead of unsalted.  Most cookie recipes call for a little extra salt even when using salted butter.  Seems to me snickerdoodles run on the slightly less salty spectrum of cookies, so I added only a small amount extra; it was adequate.

At a little over 10 minutes, the cookies still looked wet within the cracks and I didn't consider them "set"-- they felt very fragile and dented easily when touched.  At 12 minutes they were pretty much the same.  At just over 13 minutes, the edges felt quite firm-- perhaps too firm-- so I took them out.  Vaughn kept referring to them as custardy; mine most certainly are not -- they should have come out just a bit sooner.  They had a very firm "tooth" and were crunchy on the bottom, but softened over the next two days.

Conclusion:   They really do taste like eggnog!  The flavor is very subtle.  They were very buttery and smelled like shortbread.  I definitely could taste the artificial aftertaste of the imitation rum extract in the dough, and was still detectable in the final cookie, but not as much so.  They were overall quite good.  I initially thought they were too sweet -- I felt it overpowered the delicate eggnog flavor -- but seemed less sweet by the next day.  I would make these at least a day in advance of when I was planning on serving them.

 Recipe:  Eggnog Snickerdoodles via Vaughan Vreeland for New York Times Cooking

Chocolate-Almond Spice Cookies (gluten free)

 

I was headed to a holiday cookie party and needed something gluten free.  This recipe is a riff on the Swiss cookie Basler brunsli.  The recipe halved easily, which produced 12 fairly large cookie balls.  Aside from that, the only way I deviated from the recipe as written was nearly doubling the spices (because I could barely taste them in the dry mix even before adding chocolate), using a mix of unsweetened chocolate and semi-sweet (almost 50/50, because it's what I had), and baking them on a greased, rimmed baking sheet rather than parchment on a flat cookie sheet.  I'll also mention that everything was at room temperature.

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
54 grams (¼ cup) plus 285 grams (1⅓ cups) white sugar
250 grams (2½ cups) blanched almond flour
21 grams (¼ cup) cocoa powder
½ teaspoon table salt
4 large egg whites, lightly beaten
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

In a 12-inch skillet over medium, combine the almond flour and remaining spice mixture. Cook, stirring frequently and breaking up any lumps, until fragrant and lightly browned, 5 to 7 minutes. Transfer to a large bowl and let cool until barely warm to the touch, 15 to 20 minutes. 

Heat the oven to 375°F with racks in the upper- and lower-middle positions. Line 2 baking sheets with kitchen parchment.

In a small bowl, stir together the cinnamon, cardamom and ginger. Measure ¼ teaspoon of the spice mixture into another small bowl, stir in the 54 grams (¼ cup) sugar and set aside.

Once the almond flour mixture is cool, whisk in the remaining 285 grams (1⅓ cups) sugar, the cocoa and salt. Use a spatula to stir in the egg whites and vanilla until evenly moistened. Stir in the chocolate. The dough will be sticky.  Using two soup spoons, drop a few 2-tablespoon portions of dough into the spiced sugar, then gently roll to coat evenly. Arrange the sugar-coated balls on the prepared baking sheets about 2 inches apart. Repeat with the remaining dough.  Bake until the cookies have cracks in their surfaces and a toothpick inserted into a cookies at the center of the baking sheets comes out with few crumbs attached, 12 to 15 minutes, switching and rotating the sheets halfway through. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, then transfer to a rack to cool completely.

I had some questionable moments making these.  The first was knowing when the almond flour was toasted sufficiently, but I think I got it right through several tastings, the aroma, and change in color.  Then when I was measuring the cocoa powder, I first filled the volume measuring cup, but added it to the bowl while checking the weight.  I barely added half the volume before I'd met the weight quantity!  I suppose it stands to reason that different cocoa powders might have different weights per gram.  I used the weight quantity (as well as the weight quantity for the almond flour.)  Then I made the mistake of leaving my bowl of chocolate sitting on top of the oven while it preheated; when I went to add it to the dough, I found it warm and the bottom had melted.  I went ahead and mixed it in anyway, thinking it was just a small quantity, but I think the chocolate was warm enough that it dissolved into the batter.  I don't detect very many pieces (although I did chop it pretty small.)  

When scooping the dough, I wasn't sure how big to make the cookies.  "Soup spoons" can vary greatly in size, and of course there's the heaping factor.  How much to heap?  Since I was making only 12, I could quickly see that I wasn't making them nearly large enough; they should be about 1 1/2" in diameter.  I ended up jamming more dough onto the bottoms of some of the balls to end up with an even 12 that were more or less the same size.  I also nudged them a bit after sugaring to make them a little less bumpy, but I wish I'd picked them up and rolled them (gently!) between my palms to fully round them.  They didn't really change shape at all as they baked, so they ended up looking more like lumps of coal.  (Were they supposed to flatten somewhat?  It looks like it in their photos, but mine didn't.  That affects the baking time.)  The fact that you're supposed to test them with a toothpick indicates these should have some depth to them.  When I tested mine, they came out still wet inside.  I ended up adding about 5 -- 6 more minutes to the baking time before I felt safe taking them out.  (You definitely don't want to over bake these or you won't get that chewy interior.)

Because these are coated in sugar, you want to let them cool on the pan long enough to firm up a bit, but not so long that the sugar starts to harden or you won't be able to get them up.  Five minutes was a bit too long in my case.  They came up okay, but just barely.  They probably could have done with a minute less in the oven, as the bottoms were quite brown and overly chewy.  I debated about using an air-bake pan, which I use with cookies I think might burn easily (because my oven heats from the bottom), but since there was no butter I thought it would be okay just using a heavy aluminum pan and placing them on the next rung above the middle.  (Things tend to bake more slowly on an air-bake, so I use those pans with caution.)

These were a little sweet for their uncomplicated flavor.  The spices were very subtle, and the sugar crust on the outside added to the sweet impression.  They could have used more salt-- I would double it even, or at least sprinkle it on top.  Otherwise, they tasted a lot like a brownie, with a similar texture on the interior.  A little orange, tahini, chili and/or coffee would pump up the flavor as well-- pretty much any flavor that goes with chocolate-- however these additions take them further away from their inspiration to the point of being almost an entirely different cookie.

Conclusion:  I wouldn't be inclined to make these again unless I used a different flavor.  (I'm really leaning towards the coffee.)  They're so similar to a brownie, but not as good, and more work.  With more spices and more salt (and more finesse), they would be a nice chocolate addition to a cookie plate (or if you need a gluten-free option), but they're nothing to get excited about on their own.  

Recipe:   Chocolate-Almond Spice Cookies via Milk Street