The Last Indulgence: Chocolate Dipped Hazelnut Cookies.

        
   Finally I'm looking at the holidays in the rear view mirror. I'm also looking at other stuff in the rear view mirror and it's time for some serious treat cutbacks. As the Monty Pythons used to say:

   "And Now For Something Completely Different!"



But before we go all veg and vegan on ourselves once again, one final thing I could not resist.

Hazelnut cookies to be precise, and to be even more honest, I was planning on getting this recipe up well before the 1st, but.... New Years Eve, Parties, More Parties. You get the drift. So, better late than never as I always say. In the meantime, between first baking these cookies and then baking them again, my friend Anne at Cocoaplanet suggested that I might drizzle my macaroons with melted Cocoaplanet chocolate. Which I did and they were freaking amazing. So if drizzled chocolate is good on macaroons how would it be on something else? Duh. Before I knew it I was melting and dipping like mad, and this is what comes of going down that path. The recipe comes from the famous French confectionary A la mere de famille, the dipping part comes from Anne's influence, and since she's French...she has to be right.

Chocolate Dipped Hazelnut Cookies

Here's What You Need:
1/2 cup plus 3 Tbs softened melted butter
1  1/3 cups of powdered sugar
2 eggs (room temperature)
2  3/4 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/4 cups of chopped hazelnuts
3 oz of semi sweet  dark chocolate (I used Cocoaplanet deep dark truffle)

Here's What To Do:
In a large mixing bowl add together the flour...

...and Baking powder, set the mixture aside.

Chop the hazelnuts roughly in a food processor or by hand then set them aside.

In a large bowl or a stand mixer, cream together the sugar and butter.

Mix it together until it's pale and fluffy, then add in the eggs.

Add them in one at a time until each is well blended.
Add in the flour baking powder mixture.

When that's well mixed, fold in the hazelnuts by hand.

Roll the cookie dough into a fat roll, and wrap it in waxed paper.

Shove it in the fridge to chill for at least an hour.
If you are planning on baking these cookies right away (hey why not?) preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Set your oven racks to the upper and lower middle position in the oven.
When the dough has firmed in the fridge take it out and flatten the roll.

You want to get a long rectangle about 2 inches thick.

Use a sharp knife and cut the cookies into rectangles.

Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper or silicone mats and pop them in to bake.

Bake them for about 12 minutes, or until golden.
Take them out of the oven and cool them on a cookie rack.

So, this is what I thought I had.....

Then came Anne's suggestion. So here's how to do the chocolate dipping.

Melt your chocolate either in a Pyrex bowl sitting in a heated pan of water on the stove, or quick and dirty, a few seconds (30 perhaps) in the microwave.
When the chocolate is all melty and soft, use a pastry brush and apply it to the cookies.

Let the chocolate dry.

Then, if you can wait that long, enjoy!

   So, I must confess I started brushing almost the entire batch of cookies I'd made, they were that good. Hazelnut cookies are not super sweet, in fact they have a nice nutty flavor that's enhanced by the addition of chocolate. Think Nutella.
  
   Now, for something completely different, back to the wonderful world of Indian food and finally idili, where I take my new idili maker for a spin. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Proust, Eat Your Heart Out. New York Deli Style Black and White Cookies.

  
   Everybody's got a certain food something that rockets them back to childhood, a Philly Cheese Steak, those fries they call Poutine, Red Beans and Dirty Rice, Slow cooked Sunday gravy with Pasta. What ever it is, it says HOME in big bright neon letters. Probably the most famous guy with a food craving was Proust and his madeleine cookies

Proust was so enthused about these little gems that they wound up on school reading lists everywhere. Closer to home, like right around here, the big cookie memory revolves around New York Deli-style Black and White Cookies.
 
   Alan was born in the Bronx and lived all over New York city. He's got memories of candy stores, clubs, egg creams, living in Alphabet City, going to NYU, riding the Staten Island Ferry and the subway, everything New York has to offer. As Jay Z says, that's a lot.



   Alan also grew up eating Black and White Cookies. Not being a New Yorker, I'd never heard of them until I met him. Black and White Cookies orginated when bakeries had left over cake batter. This was in the days before twee little cupcakes were in fashion. The thrifty bakers turned batter into big hand sized cookies. The cookies have a yellow cake texture and rise up into puffy mounds similar to muffin tops. They're then flipped over and the flat bottoms are frosted generously, half with vanilla, half with chocolate.

   Black and Whites aren't just found in New York. They're also found in that home away from home for so many New Yorkers, LA.  Canters, Juniors, Nate and Al's, the delis of LA bake a mean Black and White. Many nights were spent hanging out in these places watching Alan and his fellow ex-New Yorkers go nuts over these cookies. Now, living in Sonoma, the only way he can get a decent Black and White is when we're in LA on business. He discovered there are quite a few New Yorkers now living up here in wine country and they missed these cookies too. This led to Alan talking to the owner of the best bakery here in Sonoma, Scandia, asking her if she could please make Black and White Cookies.

Marcella is a real artist.

She's also a perfectionist. She said she would love to offer Black and Whites but she needed a truly great recipe. A recipe that would make all the exiled New Yorkers here in town go "Wow!"  when they tasted them. She said that if I could bring her a great Black and White recipe she'd swap me that for a Taj Mahal Cake. The challenge was on! I had to find a cookie that made the Sonoma-New Yorkers go nuts. I found a basic Black and White recipe on Epicurious and tweaked it a few times. I spent the last week baking and it seems that I finally got it right.

New York Black and White Cookies

Here's What You Need:

(cookies)
2 and 1/2 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
2/3 cup of buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup of unsalted butter
1 cup of sugar
2 eggs

( vanilla icing)
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 Tbs light corn syrup
1 tsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp vanilla
1 Tbs water

(chocolate icing)
1 1/2  cup powdered sugar
1 Tbs light corn syrup
1/4 tsp vanilla
2 Tbs water
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Here's What To Do:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease a cookie sheet or use a silicone mat on a cookie sheet if you don't want the extra butter. set these aside.
Whisk together the flour...

...baking soda and salt.

Set them aside
In the  bowl of a mixer cream together the unsalted butter...

...and the sugar.

Mix them together slowly until they're pale yellow and fluffy, this takes about 3 minutes.

Add two eggs to the butter and sugar mix.

Keep beating until the eggs are combined.
Add 1 tsp of vanilla to the buttermilk.

Mix the flour and the buttermilk into this separately in small batches, alternating them, starting and finishing with the flour.

Keep the beater speed on low while doing this.
Mix everything together until it's smooth.

Drop large globs of batter onto the cookie sheet.  (abt 1/4 cups worth) keep them 2 inches apart as they'll spread some.

Bake them in the middle of the oven for about 15  minutes or so.

They'll start to puff up.

When they're puffed and lightly golden, make sure they spring back at your touch.

If they do, they're done.
Place them on a cookie rack to cool and start making your icings.
For each icing mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla, corn syrup and water.

Whisk everything together until it's thick and smooth.
If the icing is too thick, add a bit more water. If it's too thin, more powdered sugar.
Do the same thing making the chocolate icing.

Since you are using unsweetened cocoa, taste the chocolate icing and make sure you have the desired sweetness. This is a matter of taste.
 Turn the cookies flat side up, and frost what used to be the bottom.

To get a smooth line of frosting, dip your frosting knife in some cool water. Oh, and Alan says don't be stingy with the frosting. It should be thick.

Let the iced cookies set so the frosting can harden.

When the icing is firm, the vanilla side should have barely visible fine cracks in it like the lines on ice. This is coming from him by the way,  he says new Yorkers can tell.
When the cookies are ready serve them up.

We took a bunch over to our friend Bruce's store Salsa Trading Company . Bruce is another ex New Yorker. The guys tasted, and I got notes.

Sort of like turning in a script, if someone were eating it instead of reading it. I wound up making three batches of cookies, the recipe above was the final product. This recipe makes 8 large cookies. I'll be making more of them and taking them to Marcella later this week.
 
   Now these guys want to have a blind tasting, my Black and Whites against the real deal New York cookies. I'm supposed to make the cookies, then they'll order some by mail and then hold mine until the ordered ones arrive or some such bullshit. I think it's just an excuse to eat more cookies. Coming next and Indian gluten free alternative to the fried and the breaded. Follow along on Twitter @kathygori

Tasty Little Gujia, Holi Treats Great For Any Holiday Table. Baked Not Fried

  
   The last few weeks I've been feeling sort of like a car that's been up on blocks getting a full makeover in someone's driveway. In short I've been getting all the medical work/checkups/tests/etc done that I've neglected for the last year while we were taking care of Fran. This kind of stuff does not necessarily put me in a great mood. I've been poked, prodded, x-rayed and compressed, so far so good, just a couple more checkups and I'm done for this year. Meanwhile we've been trying to catch up with the work we're supposed to be doing, celebrating Easter, and this weekend I'm throwing a birthday party for my dad.

   Most of the time my dad never got a birthday party for his very own. Sometimes, his birthday was on Easter or his anniversary, and just got overshadowed by other family celebrations. Also, Fran was never a big one for birthday parties. When asked her age she'd usually just answer, "I'm older than dirt". Happy freakin' birthday to you. So this is sort of a unique event. I'm trying to throw a genuine shindig. The way I calculate it, the compiled ages of all the guests puts us at something a bit short of a millenium. Never mind the Spotify playlist for this event, coming up with the menu for this is gonna take a bit of "creativity."  With this crowd, imagine any food allergy or aversion that anyone you might know has and then  multiply it by say, a zillion.

  There's the guy who can't have nuts and the lady who won't eat any green vegetables for a reason you just don't want to hear but she'll tell you anyway, most graphically. (Note to self: Can one make a Mojito with Metamucil?) Then there are the ones who won't eat salad, and the ones who will but only if it's got iceberg lettuce, something I think I haven't eaten since I moved out of my parents house.  And then there's the lady who needs to sit on phone books at the table (Note to self: try and find phone books before this weekend) because she's very, very, very, short.  So, while tallying the list of "dos" and "don'ts" for this party and trying to come up with a menu that makes everybody happy, I've been amusing myself with something that makes me happy, and that's a delicious Indian dessert.

   So last weekend I decided to make a batch of Gujia, the deliciously sweet little fried Indian turnover cookies traditionally served during the Holi celebration. Note, that these treats are traditionally fried. Fried, considering what I'd been indulging in at my birthday party the week before didn't seem like such a fabulous idea, so I wondered if these cookies could be made a bit healthier. When I went searching, I discovered that I wasn't the only one who wanted to Eat My Gujia and not Fry Them Too. A lot of people did. I was not alone.

   As it turns out there are more ways than one to bake a Gujia. Some people bake them, some people bake them then brush them with a sugar syrup. I decided to split the difference. I brushed the gujia with a bit of melted butter before baking and then sprinkled each of them with a pinch of sugar. Sweet, but not too sweet, just right.

Baked Gujia

Here's What You Need:

1 cup of pastry flour, or whole wheat pasty flour
1 Tbs semolina flour
2 Tbs of melted butter or ghee
1/3 cup of water
1/4 cup of ricotta
1/4 cup of sugar
1/2 tsp of ground cardamom
1/8 cup chopped dried apricots
1/2 cup of dried unsweetened grated coconut
sugar for sprinkling
melted ghee for brushing

Here's What To Do: 

Mix the pastry flour, salt and semolina together.
Rub the melted butter or ghee into the flour mixture.
Add the water slowly, until you have a nice soft dough.
Knead it with a bit more flour until it becomes pliable and you can work with it easily.
Put the dough in a bowl, cover it with a damp cloth and set it aside for about 10 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
In a kadhai or pot, mix together the ricotta, sugar and coconut.

Heat the mixture slowly for 8 minutes or so, and keep mixing it so it doesn't stick.
Take the pan off the heat and add in the apricots and cardamom.

Cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper. Lightly grease the parchment paper.

Making the Gujia:
 
Divide the dough into small balls.
Roll each ball of dough into a small circle as though rolling chapattis.
Place a tablespoon of the coconut, ricotta, apricot filling into the center of each circle.
Fold the pastry circles in half.

Seal the edges and press them together with the tines of a fork.

Place the gujia onto the cookie sheet, brush each with a bit of melted butter and a pinch of sugar and bake them for about 10 minutes or until they turn a nice golden color. You may need to bake them a bit longer, depending on the speed of your oven.

 When they're done let them cool on a raised baking tray.

Serve them up with a nice hot cup of chai.

   No, these are not fried and you will not get that crunchy fried feeling in your mouth. You will also not get that horrible guilty fried feeling in your gut after indulging. And yes, we indulged. This recipe makes about 20 gujia, Next morning there were 2 left. Need I say more?
 
   Coming up next, there's a cauliflower giving me the hairy eyeball and daring me, just daring me to make my move. That's next. Follow along at Twitter at @kathygori