Lemon Thumbprints

The original recipe is for Orange Thumbprints. But when I went to buy the ingredints the oranges didn't look so good but the lemons were great. So I took them instead. I was pretty satisfied with the end result.
Other then the Orange Thumbprints the filling for the Lemon Thumbprints is a lot paler.
I found the filling a little dull. So I changed the recipe to intensify the lemon taste and make it a little sourer.
The cookies were good when they were fresh but I liked them a lot more the next day. So it's a good recipe to make beforehand.

When I was visiting my family I made them the Orange Thumbprints. Mostly because they had some oranges lying around and all the other ingredients are of the kind that you always have at home. I started rather late and then I stalled for longer and longer to finish the cookies, until it was almost evening. And I really wasn't in the mood anymore. So I finished them the next morning. The dough was still great. 

I liked both the Orange and the Lemon Thumbprints. I want to try it with limes next time, see how that works out.

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Lemon Thumbprints

Dough

225 g butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
2 egg yolks size L, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp salt

1. Mix the butter and the sugar with a hand mixer until it's light and fluffy.
2. Add the egg yolks and the vanilla extract and mix it for about 1 minute.
3. Slowly add the flour and the salt. Mix the batter until it is entirely incorporated.
4. Form the dough into a 1-2 cm thick square sheet and wrap it in plastic wrap.
5. Store the dough in the fridge for at least 1 hour. The dough can stay there for up to 24 hours.

Filling

1/3 cup sugar
1 tbsp flour
1 egg size L, room temperature
2 tsp lemon zest
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/8 tsp salt
1/8 tsp lemon extract, optional
1 pinch citric acid, optional

1. Whisk the egg with a fork.
2. Add the sugar and flour and whisk everything together.
3. Add the lemon zest, the juice, the salt and possibly the lemon extract and citric acid. Whisk it all together.

To Assemble

1. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/360°F.
2. Put baking parchment on a baking sheet.
3. Take the dough out of the fridge. Cut it into even squares, each should be the size of about 2 tsp dough.
4. Form balls out of the squares. Place them on the baking sheet, leave about 2 cm between the balls.
5. Use the end of the handle of a wooden spoon or something similar, it should be round and flat, and carefully press it into the dough balls to make small wells. Try not to break the sides, better to leave them a little shallow.
6. Bake the cookies for about 10 minutes.
7. Use the spoon again to make the wells deeper.
8. Carefully fill the wells to the top.
9. Bake the cookies for another 10 minutes, the edges should be a light brown.
10. Leave the cookies on a cooling rack to cool down.

Bon appétit!!

Chocolate Pear Turnover

A friend and I were baking cookies. I wanted something special. So I looked through my whole online bookmarks regarding Cookies. It's a long list. And I found these.
These cookies are really prestigious. And they taste great.

Some of the dough was left over. I just made some medallions. They were tasty too. Simple but still good. Because of the cacao the dough is really dark, in taste and color. As soon as I find a good filling I will make my own Oreos with these recipe.

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Chocolate Pear Turnover

Dough

125 g butter, room temperature
200 g flour
50 g cacao
1 egg
125 g sugar

1.  Use a fork to "cream" the butter.
2. Add the flour and the cacao and blend everything with your hands until it's crumbly.
3. Make a well in the middle and add the egg and the sugar. Use your hands to blend the dough until it's smooth.
4. Form a Ball out of the dough and wrap it with plastic wrap. Put it for at least one hour in the fridge.

Filling

400 g pears
1/4 cup water
20 g hazelnuts, ground

1. Peal and core the pears. Afterwards cut them into small cubes.
2. Put the pears with the water in small sauce pan and bring it to a boil.
3. Reduce the heat to low. Cover the pan with a lid and leave it to simmer for about 1 hour. Stir occasionlly.
4. Take of the lid in the last 15-20 minutes. So the water can vaporize.
5. Heat a skillet and toast the hazelnuts in it for about 2-3 minutes.
6. Use an immersion blender to blend the pears.
7. Press the pear mash through a fine sieve. You need about 125 g.
8. Add the hazelnuts and blend everything together with a fork.

To Assemble

1 Egg

1. Put baking parchment on a baking sheet.
2. Unwrap the dough. Roll it out on lightly floured surface.
3. Cut out circles with a 8-10 cm big diameter.
4. Put about 2 tsp pear mash on the circles and fold them to half moons. Use your fingers to squeeze the edges together. If some dough is left over, form small medallions.
5. Place the turnovers on the baking sheet.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 180°C/360°F.
7. Whisk the egg in a small bowl.
8. Brush the cookies with the egg wash.
9. Bake the turnover for about 15 minutes.
10. Leave the cookies on a cooling rack to cool down.

Bon appétit!!

Painted Vanilla Cookies

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The recipe for the Vanilla Cookies. 

Bon appétit!!

Vanilla Cookies

I had nothing to snack on so I thought I make myself something sweet.

A few days before I've seen some painted on cookies on pinterest and I really wanted to try that out. It's kinda like painting in watercolors and I'm not that bad with those.
So I found myself a cookie recipe that would work for that. I'm satisfied with this recipe. The edges stay sharp after baking. But you still have to be careful not to break of the corners. And of course they taste good.

I actually didn't eat all that many of them. Effectivly only those you can see on the picture at the top.
On all the other cookies I put some royal icing, as you can see on the picture beneath.

This was the first time I used royal icing. It was harder to use than I thought. I need some more practise until I can make a straight line.
I had some problems with making the royal icing. I just couldn't get stiff peaks, only really soft soft peaks. The reason for that was most likely that I didn't use cream of tartar. I've never seen it in a grocery store, couldn't find a substitute and I didn't want to buy it online (the shipping costs are as high as the buying price).
But the consistency is alright for cookies.

So my fist try at painting cookies worked out better than I thought. It's really more or less like watercolors. I used Wilton Gel Colors and diluted them with water.

I didn't have the time nor did I fancy to come up with my own motif. So I found myself some illustrations online. Except of the panda (I found that on pinterest), I used illustrations from the French artist Benjamin Lacombe and the German artist Anne Pätzke/Trenchmaker. I love them both. And now I made fanart on cookies.

Another reason why I chose this motifs is that they all have a rather simple form. I could sketch the outlines on the icing with severely diluted black but I couldn't erase anything. So the first sketch had to be more or less perfect. I did't make exact copies. Some things I had to change because of the dimension of my "canvas" and some I changed because I liked it better that way.

So I as I said I was rather satisfied with the outcome. The cookies looked really good. So good in fact that I couldn't bring myself to eat them. But I just couldn't let them laying around either. So I thought I send them to my mom. Not that I think she is going to eat them, but that way it wouldn't be me that has to suffer.

You can see the cookies up close here.

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Vanilla Cookies

Dough

225 g butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
8 g vanilla sugar, optional
3/4 tsp salt
3/4 tsp baking powder
4 1/2 cups flour

1. The butter shouldn't be to soft, it's enough if you take it out of the fridge one hour before you need it. Put the butter, the vanilla sugar and the sugar in a big bowl. Mix everything together with a hand mixer until it's creamy.
2. Add eggs and vanilla extract and mix well.
3. Add baking powder and salt and mix well.
4. Add the flour, one cup at a time. Use the dough hook to mix everything together.
5. Dust your work station with a little flour. Roll the dough out on it. It's easier if you only roll out small portions at a time. Cover the dough you aren't working with with saran wrap, so it doesn't dry out. If you don't want to ice the cookies they should be about 0,5 cm thick. If you want to ice them make them thicker, about 1 cm.
6. Pre-heat the oven to 190°C/375°F.
7. Put baking paper on a baking sheet.
8. Cut out the cookies with a cookie cutter or a knife.
9. Place the cut out cookies on the prepared baking sheet. Don't place the cookies to close, they will raise a little during the baking.
10. Bake the cookies for 10-15 minutes, depending on size. The edges should have a light gold-brown color.

The dough is enough for 2 1/2 - 3 baking sheets.

Royal Icing 

3 egg whites
500 g icing sugar
1/2 tsp lemon juice, freshly squeezed

1. Clean out the bowl you will use, to make sure it is absolutely fat free.
2. Sift the icing into a bowl.
3. Put the egg whites into the cleansed bowl. Beat them lightly for a few seconds.
4. Add the lemon juice.
5. Add the icing sugar one tablespoon at a time, while continuously whipping the egg whites on high.
6. Whip the egg whites for about 5-10 minutes. Until you have stiff peaks (soft peaks worked too).
7. Cover the bowl with a clean damp towel, while you are not working with the icing. To keep it from drying out.

To Assemble

piping bag
decorating tube, small round
decorating tube, medium round
3-6 tsp water

1. Prepare a piping bag with the small round decorating tube.
2. Fill some icing into the bag.
3. Pipe an outline onto the cookies.
4. To make the icing to flood the cookies, add water to the royal icing. One teaspoon at a time. To test the royal icing for the right consistency, move something through it. When the icing smooths out after 15 seconds, than it has reached the consistency you want.
5. Prepare a piping bag with the medium round decorating tube.
6. Fill some icing into the bag.
7. Flood the "outlined" cookies with the icing. Shake them a little from side to side to smooth it out.
8. Let the icing dry over night.
9. Paint the cookies.

Bon appétit!!

"Navette" Style Cookies

These cookies are really delicious. And what makes them so delicious? They are soft in the middle and crunchy on the sides. 

The original "Navette" Cookies are without the jam. But I love cookies with jam and that way they stay soft for some time. 

Without the jam they get too hard, at last for me.

I didn't use normal jam for them. Last summer I made a mistake when I weighed the strawberries and mangos for a homemade jam. In the end there was too much jam sugar in it and it came out too firm. But it's great for these cookies. 

I actually tried a batch with normal jam and it melted of too much. They still taste good of cause but they don't look as good as with these "wrong" jam.

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"Navette" Style Cookies

500-530 g flour
90 g butter, soft
200 g sugar
2 eggs
4 tbsp "White Chocolate" sirup
ca. 1 cup jam

1. Put the sugar and the butter into a bowl and blend it with a hand mixer.
2. Put the eggs in induvidually and mix well in between.
3. Put the sirup in and blend that too.
4. Put the flour in slowly. Blend it with your hands. When the dough no longer sticks to your hands and is a smooth solid mass it is enough flour.
5. Prepare a baking sheet with baking parchment.
6. Flour your work surface lightly. Roll the dough on the surface and cut the roll into ca. 1 cm thick pieces.
7. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/390°F.
8. Pinch two sides of the pieces to form the "Navette" shape. Put a cut in the middle and push the sides of the hole to make it a little bigger.
9. Place the boats on the baking sheet. Fill the holes of each cookie with about 1/2 tsp jam.
10. Bake the cookies for about 17-20 minutes.

The dough is enough for two baking sheets.

Bon appétit!!