Cookies.
Cookies are one of the economical delights of the culinary world. For the same amount of effort it takes to create a pie or a cake with frosting, one can produce a great quantity of deliciousness without a huge expenditure of ingredients or time.
Every year during the holiday season the Washington Post, in an effort to break us out of our chocolate chip cookie rut, publishes a variety of cookie recipes, perfect for sharing, and in my case, for producing a variety of holiday dessert placeholders. As in “what’s for dessert?” Answer: “Have a cookie.”
This year I tried three new recipes, two from the Washington Post and one from the New York Times. The NYT cookie was the Bacon Fat Ginger Snap. This was the least favorite cookie produced. The cookies did not spread out on the pan to produce a crisp cookie, but were rather fat and chewy and would have been well received if the taste had been more than just ordinary. Ah me.
The Butter Brickle Cookies were yummy and easy and produced a LOT of cookies. Their appearance was plainly disarming, but when popped in the mouth the impulse to have a second one was overwhelming. Frequently, a third cookie was required just to confirm their true greatness. This is a recipe that will go into the LOT OF COOKIES section of the cookie binder. (Yes, I have a binder of cookie recipes – don’t you? Why not?)
Finally, the most interesting, intriguing cookie was…the Forgotten Chocolate Cookie. This is a meringue cookie found in Jewish delis and beloved by the author. The ingredients are very few – egg whites, cocoa powder, flour, vanilla, powdered sugar, walnuts. Any moderately stocked pantry has most of these ingredients and you can easily run out and get the walnuts. You can whip this up in minutes and the recipe produces 30 cookies consistently. I know because I made them five times between December 1 and January 15. Here’s why.
The first batch did not turn out exactly right. I used a little too much powdered sugar, but even with that failing it was pretty obvious that a fourth egg white was needed. The cookies were a little too dense but had a good flavor and were somewhat chewy in the center. This was intriguing. Further exploration was needed.
The second batch with the fourth egg white added were absolutely divine. Glossy chocolate cookies, a half inch thick, with a crisp bite and then a chewy center with walnuts. They were like a really elegant brownie. As foodie daughter described it, the flavor was marvelous but it was more about the mouth feel. No kidding. Biting into one of these was a distinct pleasure.
Of course, I had to try to guild the lily. Could these be made rum-flavored? Made a third batch with a tablespoon of rum. No, they could not be made rum-flavored and the vanilla flavoring was missed.
Fourth batch. This was the worst batch of cookies ever. In a misbegotten effort to turn these delightful cookies into something like a turtle (you know that chocolate covered caramel pecan delight) I substituted caramel bits instead of walnuts. Well while the caramel did melt, it didn’t melt into a sticky filling. With each successive mastication the cookie formed an ever-sturdier glob in one’s mouth. The glob wasn’t so solid that it couldn’t ultimately be chewed and swallowed, but it did constitute something of a choking hazard. This batch was nothing short of unpleasant. Mouth feel was out the window. Cookies went in the trash. I really can’t stress how awful they were.
To wash the taste of that terrible experiment out of my mouth and mind, I made a fifth batch for a group of friends who came over for lunch. Everyone loved them. Everyone asked for the recipe. Everyone except for the one person who had already saved the Washington Post cookie section.
Click here to get to the Washington Post recipe for the Forgotten Chocolate Cookie, forgotten no more and universally loved. Click here for the Butter Brickle Cookie which is pretty darn delicious.
No link will be provided for the NYT Bacon Fat Ginger Snap cookie. That needs more research and development. But I’m optimistic.
January 2020
Forced Perspective 