BERGAMOT SABLÉ COOKIES

For all of you earl grey aficionados, and I know you are out there.

Consider yourself lucky if you come across a little citrus fruit too small and yellow to be an orange, too plump and round to be a lemon. Bergamot oranges are grown around the mediterranean. The oil extracted from bergamot peel is the fresh scent we know so well in Earl Grey tea but most of the little spherical fruits are used in the cosmetics industry.

It was the year 2000. Each day after school I stopped at the Church Street coffee shop and ordered a mug of earl grey tea with a chocolate chip cookie. I was 17. I didn’t know it then, but bergamot was probably my high school sweetheart.  When summer came, I ordered it in a glass on ice and sometimes skipped the cookie.  Unlike other high school sweethearts, bergamot grew with me, and I later discovered it in dark chocolate. No surprise to me: it was the dark chocolate in my after school chocolate chip cookie that made the match.

Ten years later. A little box of bergamot oranges was posed unassumingly by clementines and lemons at a small organic grocery shop that I frequent. By rule of thumb, when I see bergamot, I buy bergamot. So four of them went home with me.

The next step: find recipes! Borrow them, make them up, anything to make the bitter perfumed oranges edible, because alone, they are like lemons.

If they had sold these little cookies I discovered on Lucy’s delicious blog, Hungry Cravings, I might have skipped right to it and become a pastry chef.  But then, things could always have been different.

my adaptation of Lucy’s recipe for bergamot orange dreams

ingredients

• 1 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup cornstarch (or potato starch, as I had)
• ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
• 6 ounces (1 ½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1 tablespoon grated Bergamot orange zest
• 2 tablespoons freshly squeezed Bergamot orange juice
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350°F or 180°C.

In a bowl whisk together the flour, corn starch (or potato starch in my case) and salt. Don’t be afraid to go a little heavy on the starch and a little light on the flour.

In another bowl, beat at medium speed, using the paddle attachment, the butter and 1/3 cup of powdered sugar until fluffy and creamy.  Mix in the bergamot zest, juice, and vanilla extract.

Mix in the dry ingredients until the dough comes together.

Roll the dough into little logs and slice them into l inch long pieces. Place about 1 inch apart on a non-stick cookie sheet or on parchment paper.

Bake for 16 to 18 minutes, until the bottoms are slightly browned, but the tops are still pale.

Note: If you haven’t got very thick or good quality cookie sheets, double them up to help your cookies not to burn on the bottom. I have two types of cookie sheets, one from a consumer cookware shop, and one from a professional cookware shop. The difference was remarkable. The professional sheet yielded a much more evenly baked cookie than the other sheet. Over-baking is a no-no for citrus flavored cookies. The citrus flavor is easily thrown off by the slightly burned flavor. I admit that I sometimes enjoy a very well-baked crust with a lemon curd pie, but these cookies are much more fragrant if not overcooked!

I like to roll the cookies in powdered sugar almost directly after baking. The sugar absorbs some of the cookie’s melted butter, giving a silky effect.  But if you prefer the sugar to stay white and snowy, wait until the cookies are almost cooled down before rolling them in powdered sugar.

Now, eat!

TUILES À L’ORANGE

Like lace made out of crystal, these ephemeral cookies give eaters the pleasure of breaking something that seems too delicate to touch

If you have never tasted or made tuile cookies like this, you had better add them to your list, or better yet – make them right now. There are very few ingredients and the technique is simple. Stop! I know what you’re thinking… but you can put that stick of butter back in the fridge and sit back down. Read on for at least 15 seconds more. The witch within cackles and warns in nasal tones…  “pay attention to 3 very important details, or your lacy crystal will be nothing but an extra-chewy-stick-to-your-teeth patch of gobbely goo.”

1. You must leave plenty of space between each cookie on the baking sheet. Don’t put more than 5 or 6 tuiles on one sheet. Even though they are pre-flattened, they will expand.

2. They have got to be as flat as you can possibly make them… as thick as the grains of sugar that you will see in the dough. The only way I could do it correctly was the old-fashioned way: flattening into a large circle with the back of a spoon. It will seem bizarre. The dough is sticky. The rounds look imperfect and not at all like the end result. When you put them in the oven, your fingers will probably be crossed, and you may be thinking about never consulting the Sour Plum again. Just stay calm.

3. Respect the cooking time! Watch them, and when they are nicely golden, but not too much and not too little, that’s when you take them out.

Now, have at it!

recipe for orange tuile cookies

ingredients:

1 organic orange

zest of 1 lemon

120 g sugar

95 g butter

70 g flour

…

Zest the orange and press the juice.

Melt the butter.

Using your clean fingers, rub the orange and lemon zests into the sugar until the sugar has picked up the scent of orange.

Add two tbsp of orange juice, the melted butter, and the sifted flour. Mix well and refrigerate the dough for at least 1 hour.

Preheat the oven to 325°F or 150°C.

Place a tsp of dough on a nonstick cookie sheet (or on waxed paper) and flatten it to about 7cm diameter using the back of a spoon as described above. Leave plenty of space in between each cookie.

Bake for 10 – 12 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Allow to cool for about 30 seconds, then quickly transfer each cookie to the side of a rolling-pin to give them a curve. They will cool and harden within a minute or less. Store in an airtight cookie tin or jar. They will save this way for a few days, but with time they will absorb humidity and disintegrate. So eat them up before they are gone!

This recipe makes about 60 cookies. So if you think you won’t have enough dough for 60, your tuiles are too thick.

MAPLE PECAN BUTTONS

Take a bite of a crumbly maple pecan cookie

If you make a list… people will ask you to bake.

In December, like many bakers around the world, I make a complete list of the cookies I want to bake. Even though we are only two this year, the list was made and I began to collect the ingredients. “Collect” may sound strange, but it fits this type of shopping activity:  organic chocolate, yeast, and cream from the grocery store, eggs from the market, lemons, oranges, and sugar from the organic foods shop, flour from the flour mill not far from here, pumpkins from the local vegetable farmer, butter from a farm in the north of France – stashed in my freezer, apples and walnuts from my husband’s parent’s garden…

The list had just barely been scribbled up when I was asked to bake something for a lunch.  My kitchen was still eggless, reducing my choice of cookie to two.

I present the first cookies in this year’s line-up.

These delectable sandies are from my copy of “In the Sweet Kitchen” by Regan Daley, Canadian pastry chef. It’s the kind of recipe that seems downright exotic here in France.  Most people have never tasted maple syrup. Pecans are pretty rare fare as well.  They are great winter cookies, and love to join a display of mixed holiday treats, or pile up in tins.

You can use walnuts or hazelnuts instead of pecans, but pecans are just divine with maple.

One last cookie

recipe for maple pecan buttons:

ingredients:

1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature

1/2 cup and another cup of confectioners’ sugar

1 1/2 cups finely ground fresh pecans (I use a coffee grinder)

3 tbsp pure maple syrup grade B or C

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

2 cups flour, sifted

…

Cream the butter until fluffy in a large bowl. Use a paddle attachment if you have one.

Sift 1/2 cup of confectioners’ sugar over the butter and cream until light and fluffy.

Add the ground nuts, maple syrup, and vanilla and stir until well blended.

Add the salt and flour and stir until well mixed. You can finish by mixing with your hands.

Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Roll pieces of dough into 1 inch balls and place about 1 inch about on two non-stick baking sheets. Place each sheet in the fridge for 5 minutes to firm up the dough, then bake one sheet at a time for 18 to 20 minutes, until the tops are just firm, and the undersides are golden.

Set the baking sheets on a wire rack to cool for 3 minutes, then roll each cookie in the rest of the confectioners’ sugar. Allow to cool completely, then roll once more in the confectioners’ sugar.

Share with any cookie monsters in your vicinity.

CHESTNUT SABLÉS

Chestnut cookies dipped in dark chocolat

Spring days whiz by stringing me along. Chive, thyme, and violette flowers are budding… (I plan to eat them).  An herb garden now grows on my little terrace. I’ve never had so many plants growing under my supervision… luckily they don’t seem to realize the danger they are in, and I am giving it all I’ve got not to kill them this time.  Yesterday afternoon I rushed my violette to the bathtub and frantically rinsed off a growing population of black aphids, sucking sweet juices from the poor plant. Where are the ladybugs???

I haven’t posted lately for 5 reasons. 1- No internet until last week. 2- Wine school takes up lots of time. 3-  Organizing new house. But most importantly,  4- Almost everything I cook lately could use some… (clearing throat)… perfection before sharing. The previous sentence expresses the cause of much agony and gastronomic frustration indeed.  What happened to those little cakes that knock my socks off??  Luckily, my gastrnomic  life is not completely at a stand-still, as I am discovering a number of delicious local specialties around Pézenas, and will surely do a little report in the coming weeks.  Lastly, 5- Of the few (ok, two) things that have turned out, I forgot to take photos!  Let us hope that my culinary frustration will soon melt into the perfect fusion of ingredients that so tantalize my taste buds.

But enough yahdi yahdi yah. Luckily there are still a few good recipes in my personal archives. On the the point of this post : Chestnut flour!  Chestnuts are delicious in the winter, but chestnut flour is good all year long.  I found some last year at a market in the Champagne region, and also here in the Languedoc-Roussillon.  If you can’t find any locally, you can find it online.

I made these cookies with palm oil butter, which is very neutral in flavor and gives you a cookie that is very delicate and crumbly. You could use butter instead and they will probably take on a little more color and a caramel flavor. They are perfect with a cup of coffee in the afternoon.

recipe for chestnut sablés

200 g white flour

100 g chestnut flour

1 pinch of salt

1 tsp baking soda

100 g powdered sugar

100 g palm oil butter, or butter at room temperature

Melted dark chocolate for decoration

…

Mix the two  flours, salt, and baking soda together in a large bowl.

Cream the powdered sugar with the butter.

Add the butter mixture to the flour mixture and cream together until well mixed.  Using your hands might be the easiest!

Roll into a ball, flatten with your hand, and refrigerate for 10-15 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 150°C or 300°F.

Roll the dough to the thickness of about 4 mm, quite thin, and cut shapes with a cookies cutter. You can re-use the scraps until you have no more dough.

Bake on a non-stick cookie sheet for about 10-15 minutes, until they appear hardened and have taken just a little color.

Allow to cool on the baking sheet before removing.

Melt some dark chocolate dip part of each cookie. Using a spatula or flat knife spread a thin coat of chocolate on the back side of each cookie. Place the cookies on parchment or waxed paper.  Use a parchment cone (how to make) to decorate the cookies. Don’t overfill a parchement cone, or your chocolate will come out the back end and get all over your hands. Make sure you leave enough space to fold the end a few times.  Allow the chocolate to set before serving.

These cookies save for 3 or 4 days in an airtight tin.