Not Molasses Sugar Butter Cookies

Tempting as it was to title this post 'no yucky molasses', I resisted the urge. Well as far as the first sentence anyway. Needless to say there is no (yucky) molasses in my biscuits. When I think of molasses it's actually a fond association with the delicious and exotic sounding molasses taffy of Little House on the Prairie. However, as I discovered with the nasty molasses cakelets, fiction is sometimes exactly that. I have three-quarters of a bottle of the stuff languishing in the fridge, waiting for someone to take it off my hands.

Apart from clarifying the butter, this recipe is the epitome of quick and easy. There's not even any rolling out of the dough. And they turned out looking very nice. I'm not convinced my biscuits are quite cooked in the middle although I clarified the butter (which Rose says is the key to a squidgy but cooked middle). I haven't cooked the second batch so I might try baking them a bit longer at a lower heat.

I had a furry assistant while I was making these biscuits. I suspect the usually forbidden benchtop repose was a protest against the general topsy-turvy of the renovations. Cats aren't big fans of change, in general, and specifically not fans of moving their food bowl. 

The golden clarified butter is a lovely colour. I wonder if it should be darker but the solids were looking very dark brown and I couldn't bear to ruin all that butter. I'd put it on the stove and then unpacked multiple boxes of books and had a long phone conversation with my mother before it was anywhere near ready.

You can't tell by looking at the dough but it has quite a lot of spice in it. In fact the finished biscuits are quite gingerbread-like in flavour. 

Next week the Alpha Bakers are making Party-size Blueberry Crumble (or something along those lines).

Mini Gateaux Breton, ho hum, ho hum

Well, it was a pretty average week of baking for me. First I had ho hum results with the Bread Bible Pretzel Breads, after which I produced tasty but unimpressive looking Mini Gateaux Breton for the Alpha Bakers' Baking Bible project. Have I lost my baking mojo? Or was it something more mundane such as too much moisture in the biscuit dough? I'm not sure, but I cooked the dough in two batches, a day apart, but they both came out fluffy on the bottom. I put the second batch in some mini baking papers so at least they looked cheery. The flavour was more developed with the second batch of biscuits when the dough had been in the fridge for a day.

These were certainly quick and easy to make. The only 'complication' was the toasting of almonds before grinding them. 

The biscuits were meant to be baked in mini brioche tins (which did look very sweet) but they're difficult to find, so I used a baking tin I had in the cupboard with mini-sized shapes.

Unfortunately the bottom of the biscuits came out fluffy/crumbly rather than smoothly replicating the swirl from the bottom of the baking tin as I'd hoped. 

Next week we're baking Chocolate Hazelnut Mousse Tart.

Splodgy Spritz Butter Cookies

My Alpha Baker project for this week, the Butter Spritz Cookies, came out looking very pretty if a little splodgy. I think the splodginess is due to the fact I should have refrigerated them before I baked them. I was lead astray from my hard-learnt Principles of Baking in High Heat and Humidity by the fact that these are so quick and easy to make and the dough is very well-behaved. 

Somehow this didn't dampen my enjoyment of these biscuits, both making and eating. The flavour is very nice, with a distinct almond taste, and the texture is soft with a slight crunch. If I was going to start a rating scale for Christmas biscuits (and why wouldn't I) these would be a 7 out of 10 for ease of baking and aesthetics, only losing marks for being a little plain in flavour (I enjoy the spice that comes with a lot of Christmas goodies but other may see plainness as a positive).

The only thing I wasn't too keen on for this recipe was the glace cherries which I grudgingly bought. I always pick them off but you do need some colour and shine to make the biscuits look a bit interesting (i.e. Christmassy). Happy days though, as I was strolling the aisles of the supermarket I spotted not one but two different types of jelly tots (one from the UK, one Australian version). I bought them both, a move which really heralds the start of my annual campaign of Christmas excess and general overkill. They do bring down the tone of the biscuits a bit (to something a bit more childish), but they taste a lot nicer that the cherries. Guess who's getting glace cherries in their stocking? (hello Mum).

Piping bag or ancient hand-me-down biscuit press? This is the type of big philosophical question we Alpha Bakers have to face week in, week out. And the answer is...biscuit press.

I tried the piping bag first (you can see the cute little test-biscuit below) but the biscuit came out so small and then my $2.99 piping bag started expelling dough from the sides, so I gave up. I got out a biscuit press which came from either my grandmother or great aunt, which I have never used.

The biscuit press took a little while to work out. You can't see too clearly in the photo but the biscuit closest to the camera is enormous with decreasing size as you move away around the baking sheet. I put these back in the dough pile and started again.

The first tray was pretty comical looking. Pressed too close to the tray, too far away from the tray, double press. I tried it all. But it was a lot of fun and the dough was very easy to deal with. I could have scooped them back in and started again but I wanted to see what shape the different models baked into. And how the different jelly tots held up in the oven.

*Phew* much more evenly sized. I started to get the hang of it. This is when I should have put them in the fridge.

The third tray - evenly sized with sparkles!

Now I'm off to the kitchen shop to see if I can find a modern biscuit press and a better piping bag.

Next week we're making Pumpkin Pecan Pie, which is what I said last week, but this week it's really true. See you then.

And Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends for Thursday!