Pumpkin Spice Cookies: pumpkins and autumn leaves

 

Everything is pumpkin spice these days, right?  It can get a little out of hand, but since it's for only a short time once a year, I'm okay with it.  Now, if marketers started saying, "Hey, people are really into this stuff!  Let's give it to them all year!" that would be another story.  But once a year, it's a good reason to try new things.

So here I am with pumpkin spice cookies.  There is no pumpkin involved*; these just contain the spice mix that goes into pumpkin pie.  So all these "pumpkin spice" items would be more appropriately called "pumpkin pie spice mix" whatevers, but it doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely.

The assignment my art group had this week was for anything seasonal, artist's choice.  What with decorations and shorter days and festivity plans, the idea of stretching myself further with an "art project" was taking the fun out of the activity, which defeats the point.  So I opted to make autumn themed cookies.

This recipe seemed a little light on spices compared to others.  I decided to test this one because it has a raising agent; I wanted to see how the designs worked out.  (In looking this recipe up again, I found she has added canned pumpkin to the original, claiming it makes for a softer cookie.  I did not use the pumpkin, but wish I had... just because.)  I followed the recipe faithfully, with only two small changes.  There was no salt in the original recipe and that is not a good thing.  Also, I think my allspice has expired.  I use the berries and crush them as needed, but still they don't seem to have much flavor, so I doubled that.  I have no idea whether it made a difference..

Here's what I used to make about 3½ dozen 3" cookies:

3 cups all purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated if possible
1/4 teaspoon allspice (I used 1/2 teaspoon)

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2/3 cup granulated (white) sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract (best quality available)

1/4 cup pumpkin puree (optional)

In a large bowl bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, and spices. Stir with whisk to combine.  In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter until smooth. Add both sugars and beat until fully combined and fluffy.  Add egg and vanilla (and pumpkin, if using) and beat to combine. Scrape down the sides of your bowl with a spatula. While the mixer is running on low, add the flour mixture, slowly.  Mix until all of the flour is incorporated, and the mixture begins to ball up and pull away from the sides of the bowl. Dump out the dough onto a clean work surface, knead in any extra bits of flour or dough, and divide the dough into two large balls. Place balls of dough in a plastic bag (or plastic wrap), flatten dough into large disks and place in the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.  (If you leave it too long, it becomes quite hard and difficult to work with.) When the dough has chilled, roll out onto lightly floured surface and cut out desired shapes. Bake cookies in a pre-heated, 350F oven, on ungreased baking sheets, 9-15 minutes, depending on the size of the cookies.

Frosting (approximately 1/2 cup):
2/3 cup powdered sugar, sifted
1½ teaspoons Wilton meringue powder
1+ tablespoon warm water
food coloring gel

Mix the first 3 ingredients on low with a mixer, adding more water as necessary to produce a
somewhat thick paste. Add color, and continue to mix and adjust water until desired consistency is achieved.

I left the dough in the refrigerator until the next day and had to let it sit out for a bit to soften.  However, once warm, the dough is very soft and can be difficult to work with.  For that reason, I ended up chilling the dough between rolling sessions, as well as the sheets of cookies prior to baking.  (I wanted to make sure to preserve the designs, but that didn't end up being an issue.)

Aside from their taking longer to bake (and that might have been my oven --- it seemed to be losing temperature), these were easy to make and baked up really well.  Despite so much butter and a raising agent, the didn't spread or lose their shape and also retained the designs.  Which means this recipe would work well for a stamped pattern.  Good to know.

For the decorative icing, I reduced the original recipe by a factor of 6 to produce about 1/2 cup or so.  The directions were to mix it for 10 or more minutes, but I didn't know what I was looking for, and other directions said it wasn't necessary.  So I didn't.  Also, it seems formulas vary; here's another that uses more meringue powder.

Conclusion:  Absolutely delicious!  They were lightly spiced, but still noticeably so, and they made the kitchen smell fabulous.  They were crisp, but with a delicate crumb, and could easily be manipulated for crispness by rolling them thicker or thinner.

Recipe:  Pumpkin Spice Cutout Cookies via Glorious Treats; Royal Icing via Wilton

Halloween cutout cookies: Jack-o-lanterns and tombstones

These are plain sugar cookies that I used to make two different shapes. For the tombstones, I used black gel food coloring to dye the dough grey in an attempt to achieve a stone-colored cookie. I didn't know how much to use; I had the dough the color I wanted the cookie, but the cookies came out much lighter. Next time I'd use more coloring, but I was still happy with the results. (Too bad I didn't have a fake grass mat to set them up on, like a real graveyard...)

For the Jack o'lanterns, I used uncolored dough.  For the large ones, I used a cookie press.  For the small ones, I made various faces with tiny cutters.

 

Then I frosted them with plain icing, using the "flood" technique.  It's the first time I've tried that, and it will take some practice to get the consistency right.

The cookie stamp left a raised impression, which was hard to ice cleanly.  It's better if the impression is indented so that the icing just pools in the hollow.

Cardamom-Semolina Shortbread Cookies

I so wanted to like these.  Shortbread is my favorite cookie, and cardamom my favorite spice.  But alas, it wasn't to be.  I didn't think it was possible to have too much butter in a cookie, but these have it.  Not only was the dough (call it more of a batter) extremely soft and sticky, the cookies themselves tasted downright cheesy.  You can't even taste the cardamom or orange-flower water due to the overpowering butter taste. It lingers on the fingers long after the cookie is gone.

Speaking of orange-flower water, I take great exception to anyone who suggests orange extract or orange liqueur as a suitable substitute.  Obviously these people are just making stuff up.  Sure, you could substitute those other items, but you might as well be substituting cinnamon, or anise extract, or black pepper for that matter.  Orange extract has a concentrated orange oil flavor; orange liqueur has a sweet, less-concentrated orange oil flavor.  Orange-flower water tastes NOTHING like orange oil!!  The best substitution to retain the flavor profile would be another flower water or flower extract.  Another clue that this author didn't know what he was putting together was the quantity.  I suspected that a measly 1/2 teaspoon wasn't going to have an effect.  I even doubled it, and it is still undetectable.  (I hate it when people just make stuff up.)

So the butter quantity was off, the flavoring quantities were off....  What went right?  Well, I liked the addition of semolina flour.  It gave a grainy, sandy texture and helped (along with all that butter) to create a very delicate cookie that melts in your mouth.  However, I recommend finding a happy medium and reducing the butter to about 1½ cups.  (If you choose to use salted butter, as I did, that will also help to balance the salt quantity.  A cup of salted butter has too much salt for this recipe, so stick with unsalted if you use the full amount.)  These cookies also lend themselves nicely to the use of cookie stamps, so if you have a pretty one, use it!

I should mention that I also greatly reduced the sugar, just for personal preference.  After making these delicious Brazilian guava cookies that used only a tablespoon of sugar per cup of flour, I will seriously rethink sugar quantities from now on.

Here's what I used:

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup semolina flour (pasta flour)
1¼ teaspoons ground cardamom, divided
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
2 large egg yolks
1/2 teaspoon orange-flower water, orange extract, or orange liqueur (such as Cointreau)

Whisk all-purpose flour, semolina flour, and 1 teaspoon cardamom in a large bowl; set aside. Using an electric mixer, beat butter, salt, and 3/4 cup 2 tablespoons sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Add egg yolks and orange flower water and beat to blend. With mixer on low, add dry ingredients and mix just to blend.  (It will be sticky.)  Place dough on a large sheet of parchment paper. Using paper as an aid, roll up dough into a 1 1/2-inch diameter log. Wrap in plastic and chill until firm, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350°. Mix remaining 1/4 cup sugar and 1/4 tsp. cardamom in a small bowl. Slice dough into 1/4-inch-thick rounds. (If using a stamp, cut slightly thicker so that the cookies are about 1/4" thick after pressing.)  Dip 1 side of each round in cardamom sugar and arrange, sugar side up, on 2 large baking sheets. Bake until golden brown and firm, 20-25 minutes.  (The thinner cookies I made baked for only 13 minutes.)  Carefully transfer cookies to a wire rack; let cool.



Conclusion:  There are lots of delicious shortbread cookie recipes out there, and lots of delicious cardamom recipes as well. I recommended a pass on this one.


Recipe:  Cardamom-Semolina Shortbread Cookies via Bon Appétit





.

Gingerdead Men

I love these!  They're so fun.  And surprisingly easy.  They came as a box mix, complete with cutter, that I bought at Cost+ for about $6.  (The company is Brand Castle, but I can't find this particular product online.)   I tried to buy a similar cutter last year for much more (JUST the cutter!), but they were sold out everywhere. 

The dough is actually chocolate, but I spiffed it up a bit with some cinnamon and ginger.  Nonetheless, the actual cookie was less than stellar (although some people really liked it.)  The package made 10  cookies with a little dough left over (for about 1/2 a cookie.) 

This is the imprint side of the cutter.

The cutter is two-sided -- one side cuts the basic outline, and the other side makes the imprint.  Much of the imprint was lost during baking because my cookies were thick.  However, this imprint makes it much easier to conform the icing to the image.  I highly recommend it if you don't have good hand coordination.

Conclusion:  The cookies tasted generic, but I'll definitely be using the cutter again with my own dough.

Valentine's Day Cookies: Wooden Hearts

I'm so bad.  I couldn't help it -- the temptation was irresistible.  I'm just not in to all the hearts and flowers and high pressure that comes with this day.  (Says the person who owns 6 different heart-shaped cookie cutters.)

The recipe recommends using a wood-grained texture mat by Chinese Clay Art.  I have one of their mats in a different pattern; they're very nice, but also rather expensive.  So I opted for a much cheaper version that didn't leave as deep of an impression (no pun intended).  The design nearly disappeared on the thicker cookies, even with very little rise in the dough.

I'm still undecided whether to spring for the better mat.  This could be a short-lived novelty.

Here's what I used:

5¾ cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon ground cardamom
1 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, cut into pieces and softened
1 cup dark-brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1/4 cup water
1/4 cup heavy cream, room temperature
1 large egg, room temperature
1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Whisk flour, baking soda, salt, cardamom, allspice, pepper, and cloves in a large bowl. Place butter in a mixer bowl. Bring sugars, corn syrup, and water to a boil in a large saucepan, stirring until sugar dissolves. Pour hot sugar mixture over butter, then beat on low speed until combined.  Beat cream, egg, and vanilla in a bowl, then add to butter mixture. Beat on medium speed until well combined.  Reduce speed to low, and add flour mixture, beating just until incorporated. Divide dough into thirds, and flatten each into a disk. Wrap each disk in plastic, and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out 1 disk between lightly floured parchment to 1/8-inch thickness. Alternatively, the dough can be rolled out to 1/16-inch thickness for a crisper cookie. Place a lightly floured plastic faux-bois mat on dough, pattern side down. With rolling pin, lightly roll over mat to imprint dough; carefully remove mat. If dough has become very soft, transfer dough on parchment to a baking sheet, and refrigerate until firm, about 10 minutes. Repeat with remaining disks. Otherwise, cut out shapes with holiday cookie cutters  and transfer to lightly-greased baking sheets, grouping similar sizes together and spacing them 1 inch apart. Roll out and cut scraps once.  Refrigerate for about 10 minutes to firm. (This will help preserve the imprint.)  Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden brown, 10 to 12 minutes. (If making small cookies, start checking after 8 minutes.) Transfer to wire racks, and let cool.

Conclusion:  The cookies were good. They're quite sweet, and taste primarily of cardamom, which is my favorite spice.  They're a little tough, which I find happens with all cookies where the dough is pressed.  The dough was extremely soft at first, but became very easy to work with after chilling, even when it came back up to room temperature.

Recipe:  Spiced Cardamom Cookies via Martha Stewart