cookiecookiecookie

i may not have mentioned, but a few weeks back, i participated in a cookie takedown! and baked hundreds of cookies one saturday afternoon. see above, me with a platter of only maybe a third of the cookies that i made. but i am getting ahead of myself. let me back up...

about a year ago or so, i dragged tanya to the lamb takedown, in central square. i had heard about it through one of the various newsletters i get, and thought "i love lamb. this is 20 people making lots of delicious lamb. i must go to this." and let me tell you, that was an AWESOME decision. because it was deeeelicious. and while at the event, i must have signed up for the mailing list to be told about any future such competitions. so fast forward to a few weeks ago, and i get an email that there is a new takedown coming. a COOKIE takedown. could this be any more meant for me? i really don't think so. i immediately entered.

i started scouring my brain for which cookie to make. i was really tempted by the idea of making venetians, mostly because they are both delicious and incredibly impressive. but i decided against it when matt timms, the organizer, told me i needed to bring about 240 bites of cookie. even cutting those venetians small, with the pans that i have it would have required ~5 batches to make that many bites, and frankly, i cannot deal with that much almond paste and meringue.

so i continued thinking, and wondered "what is the cookie that everyone asks me for the recipe for? what is the one everyone loves?" and the answer came to me immediately -- the pistachio thumbprint cookies! AND it isn't that bad of a recipe to make! i knew i might still have to make 5 batches, though i would make the cookies smaller, but i could at least double a batch or two while doing it. so i set off to the grocery store for my supplies, and started baking the day before.

i am going to give you the recipe, which comes from my grandmother's christmas cookie recipes -- i dont know where it came from before that. i will mention, however, that i didn't *quite* make it this way. that is because it had been a while since i made the cookies, and i had a bit of a memory lapse. you see, in my memory, the nuts get mixed into the cookie dough along with the chocolate chips. in real life, the cookies are supposed to be rolled in the nuts on the outside. while this didnt totally kill me in the competition, and people still liked them and even told me they liked the texture a lot....i am so disappointed in myself for doing them wrong and unknowingly changing the cookie! also, i think that by making them smaller (and thus only having to do a triple batch to get ~300 bites) i made them a bit less delicious, and based on the fact that i had >100 leftover when i left, i could have made them bigger and more delicious. i guess they cant have been too bad though, because they won an honorable mention prize! which included a madoleine pan, so i have some new recipes to try!

links to a few of the blog posts written about the competition:

• official blog post from matt timms, the takedown man


• post from a blogger who was there, who took pretty pictures of the competition

and now, the recipe!

Ingredients:
1 cup butter
1/3 cup confectioners’ sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 tsp almond extract
2 cups flour
1 package (3.4 oz) instant pistachio pudding mix
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips (normal size also work)
2 cups finely chopped pecans or walnuts

In a mixing bowl, cream butter and sugar until smooth. Add egg and extracts; mix well. Combine flour and pudding mix; add to the creamed mixture. Stir in chocolate chips. Shape into 1-inch balls; roll in nuts. Place 2 inches apart on baking sheets, make a thumbprint in center of cookie. (I use parchment paper to make it easier. you dont need to butter the sheets in any case, there is enough butter in these cookies that they wont stick)

Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes. Remove to a wire rack to cool.

Filling:
2 tbsp butter
2 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 - 3 tbsp milk

For filling, cream butter, sugar, vanilla and milk. Spoon into center of cooked cookie. Let stand until set (the filling should be fairly thick)


Enjoy!

so i threw a dessert party

so, months ago at this point, on my birthday, we were out at the peoples republik, enjoying some tasty cocktails, and talking about how much we like dessert. and making dessert. and wouldnt it be fun if we had a party where everyone made some dessert and brought some and enjoyed it all? so we pulled out our blackberries and looked for the right weekend to do it. settled on one, and i put it in my calendar, and then a few weeks later i sent out invites and we had ourselves a dessert party! i, of course, had to bake a whole bunch of stuff in case no one brought anything. and also because i wanted to use up some ingredients i had lying around. so the first thing i made is this apple molasses cake that sarah hopp gave me the recipe to. spicy and delicious, though it drives me crazy when you cant get a cake out of its pan completely. i think maybe next time i will use parchment paper so that the top is perfect, just have to hope that the caramel doesnt run under it.


after the cake was squared away, i opened up my martha stewart cookie cookbook, and looked for something tasty. and i wanted something chocolate. and so...chocolate peanut butter brownies! this picture is horribly out of focus, but its the only one i took of them. and they were deliciousssssssssss. i dont think you can go wrong with chocolate and peanut butter. i am thinking of making them again tonight, actually.


and then i had to pick a 3rd thing out of the martha stewart cookie cookbook. and i had some figs leftover from when i made the fig sauce for the duck breast from months earlier. so here comes the fig pinwheel cookies. which were obnoxious as hell to make. i dont know if it was because the weather was warm and so the dough was melting too quickly, or what, but even with chilling, it was impossible to work with. so i probably wont make these too often. but they were fairly decent.

party was a total success. allison brought red velvet cupcakes. erin did these amazing brownie-cookie-dough things. malima made cookies. jay made a carrot cake - complete with little orange/green carrots decorating the top. there may have been other things, but that is everything i can remember.