Published by

Flourless peanut butter cookies

Makes about 10 cookies. Can use crunchy or smooth peanut butter.

Preheat the oven to 175C (350F) and line a tray with baking parchment.

In a large bowl, combine 66 g (⅓ c) brown sugar, 66 g (⅓ c) granulated sugar, and 1 t baking soda. Add and blend in a pinch of salt if using unsalted peanut butter. Next, add 1 large egg and 250 g peanut butter, and then mix thoroughly to combine.

Use two spoons to maneuver walnut-sized balls of dough on to the tray, leaving ample space between each cookie since they will rise and spread. Flatten the balls slightly with a fork, creating a cross-hatch pattern.

Bake in a 175C (350F) oven for 8–10 minutes. Allow them to cool on the tray for at least 5 minutes, then move to a rack to cool further. They will be very soft to the touch fresh from the oven and firm up as they cool.

Published by

Chocolate crackle cookies recipe

The ingredients in this recipe are very similar to Prof. Bruce Maxwell’s Churchill Brownies recipe, so similar that I may consider trying the exact combo below as a brownie tray bake some time. Dust the top with powdered sugar and cut it in to squares. Could work!

There are a few factors at play in getting the crackle right including the fully preheated oven, the position of the oven rack, the liquid-to-dry ratio, the *sifted* powdered sugar, and the temperature of the dough before it goes in the oven. You could attempt to bake two sheets of cookies at once, but baking the cookies in separate batches helps them crackle more uniformly. Follow the instructions carefully, and use weights if you can. Weigh your eggs if you’re not sure about the chicken egg sizes in your country.

Makes about 18 cookies, on two baking sheets.

In a large bowl, combine 60 g (½ c) unsweetened cocoa powder, 205 g (1 c) granulated sugar, and 60 g (¼ c) vegetable oil until very homogenous and absolutely no lumps of cocoa are left. Beat in 2 large (~60 g each w/ shell on) eggs and ½ t vanilla extract or the zest of an orange.

In a separate bowl, whisk together 130 g (1 c) plain flour, 1 t baking powder, and ¼ t salt. Next, stir this dry mixture in to the wet mixture just until combined. Cover and place in your freezer for 45 minutes if you want them quickly or 4–8 hours in the fridge if baking the next day.

When you are ready to bake the cookies, preheat your oven to 175C (350F) and position an oven rack in the upper third of your oven. I use the second rung from the top. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper, and then sift about 35 g (¼ c) powdered sugar in to a bowl.

When the oven is fully preheated, remove half of the dough from the fridge / freezer and use a spoon to scoop out about 1–2 T for each cookie, quickly rolling them in to balls. The dough will be very sticky. When all of the dough balls are ready, quickly roll them in the powdered sugar and place them on the lined baking sheet, leaving decent space for the cookies to spread. Place them straight in the preheated oven and bake for 10–12 minutes until crackly and just a tiny bit soft. Let cool no longer than 5 minutes, then transfer them off of the paper and on to a cooling rack.

Repeat the process with the second half of the dough, using a separate cool tray or allowing the original tray to cool sufficiently.

Published by

Kołaczki recipe

This is my mom’s kołaczki [kɔˈwat͡ʂki] recipe, from her mom. I would guess that my grandma found it in the Chicago Tribune at some point. It was my absolute favourite as a kid, and my mom’s. The cookies are super light and the perfect size.

Makes about a dozen cookies if rolled to ¼” (6 mm) thick, closer to two dozen if rolled ⅛” (4 mm) thick

Let ½ c (110 g) butter and a smidge less than 3 oz (⅔ c, 80 g) cream cheese* sit at room temperature until semi-soft, then beat them together in a large bowl. Add a pinch of salt if using unsalted butter. Blend in 1 c (130 g) flour until just combined. Lay out some parchment paper, drop the dough in the middle, and then press it in to a rough rectangle.† Wrap it up and refrigerate it for at least an hour. If you can, stick your rolling pin in the fridge as well.

Preheat the oven to 350F (180C) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Lay some parchment paper out on a surface and then generously dust it with powdered sugar to prevent the dough from sticking. Remove your dough and rolling pin from the fridge. Working quickly to prevent the dough from getting too warm and sticky, roll out the dough to ⅛–¼” (4–6 mm) thick. Place another piece of parchment paper on top of the dough if it seems to stick to the pin.

Once it is rolled out, cut out the dough with a 2″ (50 mm) diameter circle cookie cutter or cut in to 2″ (50 mm) squares and place the shapes on to the lined baking sheet. The cookies can be spaced relatively close, they rise a bit and spread only very slightly. Dab a small amount of apricot preserve‡ on the centre of each cookie. If using the square cookie technique, fold two opposite corners in so that they slightly overlap over the preserve.

Bake at 350F (175C) for 10–12 minutes until very lightly browned. While warm, sift powdered sugar over the cookies and then let them cool on a rack.

* I have lactose issues so I tried making this with vegan cream cheese. It worked really well! The vegan cream cheese was a little less sweet than I would want for this recipe, so I replaced a tablespoon (10 g) of flour with powdered sugar. It also seems to be a bit softer than regular cream cheese, so next time I would probably add 1–3 more tablespoons of flour.

† If you double or triple this recipe, separate the dough in to thirds before you refrigerate it. You can then roll it out in stages to prevent the dough from getting too warm.

‡ Apparently you could put all sorts of fillings in this. Apricot preserve is what we always had when I was little, but this time I ended up using the gooseberry and blackcurrant jams we had on hand. More traditional fillings are poppy seed (masa makowa) and plum butter (powidla sliwkowe). The website In Ania’s Kitchen has some good recipes for these fillings.

Published by

Lemon-glazed Pierniczki recipe

I went to Wrocław recently with some good friends and we picked up a bag of minty Uszatki (“eared”) pierniczki from Kopernik at the airport with our few remaining złoty. Pierniczki, or pierniki, are Polish gingerbread biscuits, slightly soft and heavily spiced. They come in a lot of shapes and sizes and are sometimes filled. Traditionally the dough is allowed to rest for a long time, possibly a year. This is a quicker recipe, though it does still call for at least a few hours’ rest.

Read recipe

Published by

🌶🍅🥑🥭🍋

Cooked a big meal for friends this past weekend, will definitely make a bunch of these things again. Particularly polvorones! I hadn’t had those in years, since I was a kid. The asterisked items are things I hadn’t made before, I mostly referred to Saveur recipes for guidance on those. We had this with flour + corn tortillas from the shop and rice.

  • Mango salsa – frozen, thawed mango; minced red onion; minced jalapeño; lime juice; chopped coriander; salt
  • Chiltomate* – roasted, peeled roma tomatoes; roasted garlic; roasted habanero; salt
  • Pico de gallo – diced roma tomatoes; diced yellow onion; minced jalapeño; lime juice; chopped coriander; salt
  • Guacamole – mashed avocados; minced jalapeño; lemon juice; salt
  • Quick pickled red onions – finely sliced red onion; white wine vinegar; salt
  • Carnitas* – pork shoulder; bouillon; ground cumin; ground coriander; bay leaf; salt; ground black pepper
  • Black beans – dried black beans; chiles in adobo; bouillon; sliced onion; whole orange, cut in to chunks; bay leaves; toasted, ground cumin seed; toasted, ground coriander seed; salt
  • Polvorones* – pecans; white flour; cinnamon; butter; vanilla extract

Published by

Grandma Piper’s Sugar Cookies

The best & easy
Bake @ 375°F (190°C) 8 min

Cream:

  • 1 c (226 g) butter
  • 1 c (200 g) granulated sugar

Beat in:

  • 1 egg
  • ½ t vanilla

Add:

  • ½ t baking powder
  • 1 c (120 g) wheat flour
  • 1 ½ c (188 g) white flour

Use 3 trays. Make a fat rope. Pinch off pieces on to trays. Flatten each 3x by dipping ⅓c measure into sugar in ½c measure. Cool cookies on newspaper.

The recipe above was written by hand in to a community cookbook she gave me in 2001. It retains her original wording and formatting, though I have added gram and Celsius conversions.

We miss you so much.

Published by

Fig & peanut butter thumbprint cookies

Fig and peanut butter cookies

I’ve made these simple, flourless peanut butter cookies for years but have never thought of putting something in the center. Need to try it with apple butter next time.

Fig and peanut butter thumbprint cookies

Ingredients

  • 260 grams (1 US cup) peanut butter
  • 180 grams (scant 1 US cup) sugar
  • 1 large egg
  • 2 figs (or possibly some sort of preserves)

Read more