Christmas Cookies with The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion
Everyone has fond memories of warm cookies straight from the
oven. The warmth of the cookie, the sweet taste in your mouth, I
have never met someone without a favourite cookie, many of them
centered around the holiday season. Lets face it, even your real
estate agent will tell you to bake cookies to sell your home
faster and for more money. But with hundreds of different
varieties of cookies, it can be just a little daunting trying to
come up with something new for your holiday gatherings and/or
the yearly cookie exchange.
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Flour Cookie Companion: The Essential Cookie
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Never fear, The King Arthur
Flour Cookie Companion is here. Subtitled “The Essential Cookie
Cookbook” this tome is not only full of wonderful recipes but is
stuffed full of tips, diagrams, and answers to all of your
cookie questions. The recipes in the collection are not simply a
hodge podge of interesting cookies, these recipes were carefully
researched and tested with only the best and most sought-after,
the essentials, included.
The essential cookies were broken down into nine separate
categories; Chocolate Chip, Sugar, Oatmeal, Molasses, Peanut
Butter, Shortbread, Biscotti, Brownies and Decorated Cookies. So
many different ways to bake a similar cookie required not just
one or two different recipes but no less than 11 pages of
recipes and tips per essential cookie type. The rest of the book
is dedicated to Bars & Squares, Drop Cookies, Roll-Out Cookies,
Shaped Cookies, Batter Cookies, No-Bake Cookies, The Finishing
Touch and a detailed section on Ingredients.
As they did with
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow">The King Arthur Flour Baker’s
Companion, the book is full of information to help you
along at every step. Detailed drawings demonstrate various
techniques such as folding, freezing cookie dough, leveling and
more. The multitude of available cooking utensils available are
discussed and illustrated, there is even a step by step
illustration for packaging cookies for transportation.
It is always, in my opinion, the little extras that make a
cookbook great. The extras in this case are enough to justify
the purchase of this cookbook, even if there were no recipes
included. The incredibly detailed drawings for how to decorated
cookies make it easy enough for even the beginner baker to
figure out. For anyone, beginner to expert, The King Arthur
Flour Cookie Companion will become your Essential Cookie
Cookbook.
Looking for a special cookie for your holiday gathering or
cookie exchange? Don’t miss the Holiday Cookie Exchange online
at:
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow">http://www.1001recipes2send.com/db/detail_page
b.cgi?ID=2228
Try this favourite:
Roll-Out Sugar Cookies
Often sugar cookies are fat and soft, the cumulus clouds of
cookiedom. But when you roll out the dough rather than drop it
from a spoon, you reach the other extreme: thin and crisp. Make
them just a bit thicker, and you’ve got crunchy. These golden
cookies pair nicely with ice cream or fresh fruit. The dough is
sturdy enough to be cut into fanciful shapes and decorated.
Yield: About 3-1/2 Dozen
Baking temperature: 350 degrees - Baking time: 10 to 12
minutes
- 1 cup (2 sticks, 8 ounces) butter
- 1 cup (7-1/4 ounces) sugar
- 3/4 teaspoon salt
- 1-1/2
teaspoons baking powder - 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- 1/2
teaspoon almond extract (optional) - 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup
heavy cream or sour cream - 3 tablespoons (3/4 ounce)
cornstarch - 3 cups (12-3/4 ounces) unbleached all-purpose
flour
In a medium-sized bowl, beat the butter, sugar,
salt, baking powder and vanilla extract until light and fluffy.
Add the egg and beat well. Add half the cream, all of the
cornstarch, and half the flour; beat well. Add the remaining
cream and the flour, mixing just until all of the ingredients
are well incorporated. Divide the dough in half, flatten each
half slightly, and wrap well. Refrigerate for 1 hour or longer,
to facilitate rolling.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Lightly grease (or line with
parchment) two baking sheets.
Lightly dust both sides of the chilled dough with flour. If
you’ve just taken it out of the refrigerator, allow it to rest
at room temperature for 5 to 10 minutes. When you pinch a piece
of dough, it should feel pliable, not break off in a chunk.
Trying to roll ice-cold dough is like trying to flatten an
ice-cold stick of butter; it’s more likely to crack and break
into pieces than to roll flat and smooth.
Transfer the dough to a lightly floured, clean work surface.
Starting in the middle, and rolling out toward the edges, roll
the dough into a circle 1/2- to 1/4-inch thick. Thinner cookies
will be crisper, thicker cookies will be sturdier.
Using a metal turner, pick up individual cookies, and place them
on the prepared baking sheets. Edge the turner under the cookie,
lift slightly, pull away the scraps around the edge, then give
your hand a gentle jerk to slip the cookie onto the baking sheet.
Put the cookies in the oven, on racks set as close to the middle
as possible. Halfway through the baking time, exchange the pans
on the racks (top to bottom, bottom to top), and turn each pan
around so the cookies that were at the back of the oven are now
at the front. This will help counteract any hot spots you may
have in your oven.
Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes, until they’re set but not
browned. Remove them from the oven, and let them cool for 5
minutes on the baking sheet before transferring them to a rack
to cool completely. Use a metal turner to pick up one cookie; if
it seems fragile or breaks, let the cookies continue to cool
till you can handle them easily. When the cookies are completely
cool, store them in an airtight container or in a plastic bag,
at room temperature.
Nutrition information per serving (1 cookie, 3lg): 134 cal, 7g
far, 2g protein, l0g complex carbohydrates, 7g sugar, 26mg
cholesterol, 81mg sodium, 21mg potassium, 69RE vitamin A, 1mg
vitamin C, 1mg Iron, 18mg calcium, 22mg phosphorus.
