Cyber-friendship Cookies

Recently, I joined foodbuzz.com, which is a bit like Facebook for food bloggers. The difference, though, is that I don't actually know any of my "friends"-- I didn't go to kindergarten with them, I didn't secretly have a crush on any of them in high school, and I don't cut their paychecks, so they are not obligated to befriend me. Yet nearly 50 total strangers welcomed me to the Foodbuzz world within 2 or 3 days, and have left little bundles of encouragement all over.

I've been in a female-dominated profession for the last decade. While I have met and befriended some fantastic and supportive women, I have also witnessed some catty behavior-- you know, that whole lobsters-in-a-tank mentality-- and so I appreciate the genuine interest, feedback, and willingness to share that has come my way in a genre of blogging that also seems to be dominated by women.

Feeling all warm and fuzzy inside (a not-so-common occurrence for me; just ask my face-to-face friends), I googled "friendship cookies," thinking I'd heard of such a thing, and thinking they seemed the perfect cookies to make now. My search results, though, were ambiguous at best, and it seems that any cookie can be a friendship cookie, so long as it is baked for a friend. Or 50.

I knew Dorie Greenspan wouldn't let me down, especially at a moment like this. I needed something that was relatively easy, not sickeningly sweet, and pretty**, since ugly friendship cookies just don't send the right message.  Oh, and I needed to use the 4 ounces of cream cheese I had on hand. Greenspan suggested rugelach. OK, not really, but the photo looked delicious and the dough calls for cream cheese, so it's sort of the same thing.

** I reread the recipe as I was writing this and realized I missed the step that told me to refrigerate the cookies for 30 minutes before baking. This probably explains why mine look like pigs in blankets. However, if you actually follow directions, you will probably get more shapely rugelach.

As with many of her cookie recipes, Greenspan says you can halve the dough and freeze it for those I Just Made A New Friend moments. I kept the second half of the dough in the fridge for a few days simply because I didn't have time to make all of them at once. Either way, they work well. I gave a few away to a live friend, who reported that they were so good that she was still thinking about them the following morning. I guess that means we'll be friends for a while.

Greenspan also notes that rugelach invite experimentation, and I agree. This recipe calls for jam, nuts, currants, chocolate, and cinnamon sugar in the filling. I used almonds, raisins, dark chocolate, and raspberry-apricot jam. I omitted the cinnamon sugar in the second half, because while the first ones were very good, they were on the verge of being too sweet. I doubt the original rugelach, made by Ashkenazi Jews, contained dark chocolate or jam, but if your new friends like chocolate, use it, by all means.

Foodie Friends Rugelach

from Baking: From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan

*Greenspan says this recipe makes 32 cookies. I got about 24, but if you chop your ingredients finely and cut your triangles smaller, you can eek out 32.

For the dough

4 oz cream cheese, cold

1 stick (8 TBSP) cold, unsalted butter

1 C all-purpose flour

1/4 tsp salt

For the filling

2/3 C raspberry or apricot jam, heated over low heat until liquified

2 TBSP granulated sugar (I omitted this)

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 C chopped nuts

1/4 chopped raisins (or currants)

4 oz dark chocolate, finely chopped (I used about 2 oz)

For the glaze

1 egg

1 tsp cold water

1-2 TBSP sugar

1. Let cream cheese and butter rest on counter for 10 minutes, so they are slightly softened but still cool. Cut into chunks.

2. Put cream cheese, butter, flour, and salt in food processor. Pulse machine 6-10 times, and then process until the dough forms large curds but does NOT form a ball on the blade.

3. Turn dough out onto work surface, form into a ball, and divide in half. Shape halves into disks and wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate dough for at least two hours, or freeze for up to 2 months.

4. Working with one disk at a time, roll the dough out on a lightly floured surface into an 11-12" circle. Brush a thin layer of jam over dough, and sprinkle with half the cinnamon sugar, if using. Scatter half the nuts, raisins, and chocolate over the jam. 

5. Cut the circle into 16 wedges (cut into fourths first, then cut each fourth into fourths again).  Starting at the base of each wedge, roll up the dough into little crescents. Place on baking sheet coated with cooking spray or parchment paper, pointed end down. Refrigerate cookies for 30 minutes before baking. You can also freeze unbaked cookies at this point for up to 2 months. Don't defrost before baking. Just add a couple of minutes to your baking time.

6. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 

7. Stir together water and egg. Brush a bit of the egg wash over the tops of the cookies and sprinkle a bit of sugar on top. Bake for 20-25 minutes until they are puffed and golden. Cool on wire racks.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

 There's no  pumpkin in these muffins.

I bought an enormous butternut squash for another recipe, and quickly realized I had way too much. I considered making a pie, since it is officially time for the orange flesh + cinnamon + cloves + nutmeg combination. But pies are big. I wanted something smaller. And butternut squash could easily stand in for pumpkin in these fabulous little muffins.

Since I had already baked the squash, I threw the unused portion into the food processor to purée it. This makes better-than-canned pumpkin. Or baby food. Whatever. The purée was sweeter than canned pumpkin, so I reduced the sugar in the recipe by about an eighth of a cup. I also used hazelnuts instead of pecans or walnuts, because that's what I had. I toasted them in the oven before I added them to the batter, because that's how I like them.

The recipe calls for unsalted raw sunflower seeds to be sprinkled on top of the muffins just before baking. Clearly, this would make them all earthy-crunchy-granola. These are listed in the "Breakfast Sweets" section of Dorie Greenspan's Baking, and while breakfast + sweets = oxymoron, there's no point trying to healthify things now. Face it, Greenspan: a few sunflower seeds will not neutralize an entire stick of butter for breakfast.

Muffins are best eaten the day they are made.  This disclaimer appears next to each muffin recipe in Baking, and in the directions of many other muffin recipes I've encountered. It's true, of course, but here's my alternate interpretation:  Find something moist and delicious to spread on the muffins on Days 2 and 3.  Butter is not an option, since cold butter spread on room temperature muffins creates Crumbs. Something spreadable would be perfect. Like cream cheese.

Starbucks has these pumpkin-cream cheese muffins with the glob of cream cheese built into the center of the muffin before baking. Mine were already baked, but I thought a little cream cheese icing would be perfect. Maybe with a little lemon juice to create a tart-sweet effect. I beat together some cream cheese, a few tablespoons of butter, a little powdered sugar, and some lemon juice and got the perfect spread. But my spreading attempts were not pretty. 

I remembered I had some piping tools in a drawer that I never use, so I gave the vintage one of my mother's a try. I wasn't sure about putting anything with acid in a metal container, but since the Icing Debacle lasted only a few minutes, I did it anyway. So far, I haven't died. And my icing is not Metal Flavored. 

My decorating skills, however, leave a lot to be desired. This is probably why the tools have stayed untouched in that drawer for ages. Yeah, I know-- chicken or egg. Anyway. The fancy star attachment did not magically create starry designs on my muffins. I thought it might be because my muffins have pointy tops, so I tried cutting off a muffin top and putting the icing on the now-flat surface. But, as everyone who watches Seinfeld knows, the muffin tops are the best part. So I put it back on. Somehow, I don't think that's what Elaine meant.

Many thanks to Kahori of Chuzai Living for telling me about Picasa and its nifty collage feature. Plus, I went to see the Picasso exhibit at the de Young museum last weekend. That guy had some issues. But he also had that whole collage thing down pat.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

adapted from Baking: From my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan

makes 12 muffins

2 C all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/8 tsp grated nutmeg (I used just a pinch)

a pinch of ground allspice (I used 1/4 tsp)

1 stick (8 TBSP) butter, at room temperature

1/2 C granulated sugar

1/4 C packed brown sugar 

2 eggs

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

3/4 C canned unsweetened pumpkin 

1/4 C buttermilk (I used 2% milk with about a teaspoon of lemon juice mixed in; let stand for 10 mins) 

1/2 C raisins

1/2 C chopped pecans, walnuts, or hazelnuts (try them toasted first!) 

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray. If you use paper cups, spray the insides so they release the muffins instead of tearing off half your muffin.

2. In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Set aside.

3. Beat the butter at medium speed until soft. Add sugars and beat until light and smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla. Mix in the pumpkin and buttermilk at low speed. 

3. Mix in the dry ingredients at low speed only until incorporated. 'Tis better to use a rubber spatula to mix in the last bits than to over-mix! Stir in the nuts and raisins with said rubber spatula.

4. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake for 22-25 minutes, or until a thin knife inserted into the center comes out clean. 

5. Cool muffins in the tin on a wire rack for 5 minutes. Remove muffins from tin and cool completely on rack. 

* For the icing, I used Greenspan's recipe for cream cheese icing for a carrot cake. It calls for a stick of butter, 8 oz of cream cheese, a pound of powdered sugar, and a tablespoon of lemon juice. I made a much smaller quantity, of course, but tried to keep the proportions in the same ballpark, except for the lemon juice, which I used lots of. Because that's how I like it.

World Peace Cookies

Might be the stupidest name for cookies EVER.


Fortunately they are also known as sablés.  Which is still fairly pretentious. But these cookies are good enough to stand up to any name in any language. That must be why about a million other food bloggers have already written about them.

I checked out a book from the library a few months ago whose author I had never heard of. Her name is Dorie Greenspan. I know. Anyway. In the book she tells the story of how her recipe for these cookies was served to her at a swanky party, only the host had no idea it was Greenspan's recipe. Even though it is really some French guy named Pierre Hermés I also hadn't heard of's recipe. I know. But up until this point in the story they are still called sablés and then some other guy told Greenspan that a daily helping of these cookies could ensure world peace, and now they are Stupidest Name Ever cookies. 

I googled the recipe after I'd returned the book to the library and forgotten to photocopy the recipe (copy pages out of a book? who does that?), and discovered that not only had every food blogger and her grandmother written about them, but there exists this exclusive food blogger club of sorts that picks a different recipe each week from that same cookbook of Greenspan's. Then they all make the recipe. Then on Tuesdays, they all write about it on their blogs. It's called Tuesdays with Dorie. Kind of like Tuesdays with Morrie. Except nobody dies. 

Even though I don't get to join the club (membership for this book is closed; I'll scurry to join when her next book comes out) or put that cute little button on my site which demonstrates affiliation with the club (I am SO envious), I am going to blog blog blog about these cookies anyway. Since discovering the recipe, I haven't made any other cookie. Nor do I want to. Ever. They are ridiculously easy to make. The batter can be frozen and popped into the oven whenever unexpected guests arrive, which of course happens to me all the time. The frozen ones are equally as delicious as the not-frozen ones. When does that happen?

Try sprinkling extra salt on top before you bake these cookies. I like Maldon flaky sea salt, but use your favorite.

World Peace Cookies

adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From My Home to Yours, who took it from Pierre Hermés

1 1/4 C all-purpose flour

1/3 C cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

11 TBSP butter, at room temperature

2/3 C brown sugar

1/4 C granulated sugar

1/2 tsp fleur de sel

1 tsp vanilla extract

5 oz semisweet or bittersweet chocolate chunks
Flaky sea salt, for sprinkling on top

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, and baking soda. Set aside. 

3. Beat butter until fluffy (about 2 minutes). Add sugars, vanilla, and salt. Beat for another minute or two. 

3. Add sifted flour mix to butter mix, being careful not to make a mess (Greenspan advises using a towel to cover the stand mixer bowl when you first add the flour, but I haven't had to do this). Mix until just incorporated. Add chocolate chunks and stir to combine. 

4. Shape dough into two round logs. Wrap in parchment or waxed paper and refrigerate for 3 hours. (At this point you can freeze one of the logs for future baking, if you want.)
NOW you can preheat the oven to 325 degrees!

5. Slice into thin cookies (approximately 1/4" thick) and lay flat on a baking sheet. Sprinkle with a little flaky sea salt. Bake for 12-15 minutes. They will look nearly the same as when you put them in the oven, but they are done. 

6. Cool a minute or two on the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely. Cookies will become crisper but should not be brittle. 

Batter will seem a little dry and crumbly.

The emptiness of this cookie jar just might bring on World War III.