But now I have a "free" night, and it's about time I post my cookies before I forget what they were..
A few months ago, I broke my frosting bag, and I haven't yet bothered with replacing it. Sometimes there are workarounds for this - I have a cookie gun too - but sometimes they don't work. I tried to use my cookie gun, and the dough wouldn't come off properly, so these "bows" ended up being rounds instead.
These cookies are full of butter with a bit of cream cheese, along with lemon zest and juice. After baking, they were pretty delicious, but a bit dry for my taste. Maybe it had something to do with changing the shape, but I wasn't too impressed.
Oh, these were good. The cookies are crisp and lemony, given some extra nice texture with the addition of almond flour and corn starch, and apricot is a fantastic pairing. The cookies themselves weren't very sweet, which meant that the jam completed the taste rather than making the cookies too rich.
Here's another winner. These flaky cookies made with bourbon and currants (as indicated by the title) can be cut out into any shape, but I thought elephants were appropriately whimsical, and everyone I shared this with seemed to agree. Before being baked, the cookies were brushed with heavy cream, and somehow that flavor came through spectacularly. I will absolutely be making these again!
There's something about chocolate filling that makes everything better, and these cookies are no exception. These cookies were pretty flaky, probably due to the combination of butter and heavy cream in them. Although usually cookie fillings are some kind of ganache (that is, heavy cream mixed with melted chocolate), these are filled with melted milk chocolate. A note on cooking with milk chocolate: you should always opt for the more expensive stuff. Cheap milk chocolate is not the same at all.
I'm always skeptical of the glowing comments that go along with the recipes in this book, but the ones for this recipe were entirely deserved. Indeed, these cookies were not difficult to make, and they're full of whole wheat flour and wheat germ, which makes them pretty healthy! Oh, right, and they taste really really good. I'll be making these again and trying them with s'mores.
I have a confession to make. I went home over the 4th of July weekend and completely ran out of time to make cookies. Yes, that's right, I skipped a weekend. This was not okay with me, so last weekend I doubled up and made two batches of cookies. This was the first batch, prepared for a pizza-making and Munchkin-playing party at my friend's condo. And so, in the midst of a busy Saturday, I had yet another meringue fail. I don't know why, but I just can't seem to get meringues to work when I use the whisk attachment on my electric mixer. It's very frustrating, and every time it happens it make me feel like a total kitchen failure.
So I beat and beat these egg whites, waiting for them to form stiff, glossy peaks, and I guess I added the vanilla too early, because they went from soft peaks to no peaks at all. Nevertheless, I cooked what I had made, and the meringues turned out decently. In the middle of the baking (drying?) process, I took them out of the oven and pushed their bottoms in a little bit. When it was time to serve them, I put apricot jam in the divot of one and whipped cream with almond extra in the divot of the other, and sandwiched them together. Everyone enjoyed these very much, but I think the meringues were a little too sweet. If I ever try making these again, I will add less sugar to them.
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