Emergency Cookies

If you’re someone who bakes a lot, or are the recipient of home baked goods, you’ll know what I mean when I say store-bought cookies just don’t cut it any more. No matter how nice the brand is, nothing compares to fresh cookies right out of the oven. Which is always a problem when cookie-craving-hour unexpectedly strikes. You know buying cookies for the moment is just going to lead to disappointment, but baking an entire batch of cookies seems like so much effort. If you manage to conjure up the energy, then you have to work out what to do with the rest once the craving is satiated. If you live in a full household baking an entire batch of cookies mightn’t be an issue. But if, like me, your household is tiny, you’re left with more cookies than anyone has the stomach for. It’s often not long before I decide the effort is just too much and wallow in cookie-craving-self-pity instead.

Lately I’ve spent so much time making fancy stuff that it had been months since having anything simple, like cookies. Increasingly so, a little voice kept popping into my head going, “Ooh, cookies. Must have cookies.” It was always defeated by the effort involved when I just wanted one or two. Eventually I decided I needed a solution to the dilemma and dedicated an afternoon to what I call Emergency Cookies at home.

“What are emergency cookies?” you might ask. They’re pre-prepared packages of cookie dough that can be stored long-term and baked on an as-needed basis. Any time someone in the household gets hit by the cookie cravings, I can throw as many cookies as required in the oven with minimal effort required. The best part is the amount of variety you can get out of one or two batches of dough: definitely everyone’s favourite part of emergency cookies.

There’s lots of different doughs that are suitable for emergency cookies. One of my favourites are log cookies. Their shape makes them really easy to find freezer space for, and you can simply cut off as many cookies as you need.

This recipe is one of my favourites. The dough is made with icing sugar, which makes the resultant cookie really short and buttery — very similar to shortbread.

It begins with creaming the butter and sugar, then folding in the flours until you end up with a giant batch of dough. This recipe yields a lot of cookies normally, but I doubled it for even more emergency cookie fun.

Once you have the plain dough, this is where the fun really starts. Now you get to invent all the flavour combinations. I usually start by raiding the pantry and seeing what odds and ends I have. The dough is really forgiving so you can add most anything. You do need to be careful to not make the dough too moist or too dry, but otherwise you can throw in anything: citrus, cocoa, booze, fruit, spices… anything that compliments a sweet cookie.

The first choice is obvious: chocolate chip cookies. No batch of emergency cookies is complete without adding chocolate chips.

I had caramel choc chips on hand, so I began with those. The choc chip portion is the easiest and only involves kneading a handful of chips into the dough. You don’t want to go too overboard with the chips for this recipe, as they can get in the way when slicing the dough later.
Once it’s complete you’ll roll it into a long log shape, as wide as you want your resultant cookies to be.
Next I went for orange and poppy seed cookies, another of my favourite flavour combinations.

For the citrus flavour you have a number of options. You can use the rind and/or juice of an orange. I didn’t have any fresh oranges on hand so I used a flavouring essence.

I could have kneaded in the poppy seeds as well, but I went for something a little less conventional. If you want to border your cookies in any seeds, sprinkles or other decorations, simply place a heap of them on baking paper and roll the dough sausage in it until it’s well covered. Wrap it up and set it aside.

The third cookies I called cherry ripe flavoured: chocolate, cherry and coconut. I knew I wanted one of the batches to be chocolate, and once I found some glacé cherries in the cupboard the rest followed suit.

To make any of the batches chocolate, simply knead in a little cocoa at a time until the dough is as dark as you like. Try not to do too much at once because the cocoa does love to go flying if it gets a little puff of air during kneading.

To make the kneading process easier, and to avoid drying out the dough, you can mix it with a little milk first to form a thick paste. But because I was adding glace cherries, which pack a lot of moisture, I didn’t have to worry about it.

Last of all I went for another citrus flavour: lemon and cranberry. I has some dried cranberries left over from a chicken stuffing I made, and lemon just felt like the right accompaniment.

I used lemon flavouring essence again for this, then kneading in the chopped up cranberries.

Once your doughs are all wrapped up, place them on a tray or flat surface in your fridge, and chill for at least an hour.

The dough needs to be firm enough to slice without buckling.

When it’s cold enough, slice off as many cookies worth of dough as you want and place them on a baking tray.

20 minutes later you’ll have a batch of cookies that are as rich in variety as they are in freshness and flavour. I used about 1/8 of each log and got 28 cookies, so you can expect to get about 100 cookies out of the total batch of dough. To store the logs you can wrap them in foil and/or place them in an air tight container to keep them safe from freezer smells.

But the emergency baking doesn’t stop there. Because, there’s another favourite recipes of ours that I love to have on hand. These chocolate chip cookies are so light and fluffy, and when they’re fresh out of the oven with all their oozy melted chocolate chips no one can say no.

Storing cookies this way will work for any dough made using the creaming method. That is, one where you beat the butter and sugar together first, then add in the rest. You need a firm dough, so any cake-batter-like cookies (e.g. madeleines) won’t freeze well.

Again, because I need variety in my life, I divided this dough up again. This time in half. To one half I added cocoa and white chocolate chips, the other I left plain vanilla and added dark chocolate chips.

I roll tablespoons of dough into balls, place them on a tray and flatten slightly. This cookie recipe doesn’t necessitate refrigerating first, but I prefer to. I let them chill for about half an hour, then I bake as many as we want straight away. The rest I put in an airtight container and pop in the freezer for next time. You definitely need to chill the dough completely before transferring them into the container, as this stops them from sticking to one another. It then becomes as simple as taking out individual potions any time you want a few cookies. Though, once you taste these cookies you may be immediately digging in for more.

They’re one of our favourite chocolate chip cookies recipes ever, partially owing to the coconut in them, but mostly to how light and cake-ey they are.

Any butter-based cookie dough, like these, will store really well in the freezer. Most will last in the fridge for a week, and in the freezer for 6 months to a year (if you somehow make it stretch that long). For accurate baking times, it’s best to let the frozen dough defrost in the fridge. But these are emergency cookies, and no one has time for that, right? You can bake these straight from the freezer, though you will need to adjust baking times. The chocolate chip cookies, for example, cook perfectly after exactly 15 minutes straight from the fridge, but took 17 minutes from the freezer (15 minutes left the inside a bit too moist, whereas 20 minutes made the inside a bit too dry).

You can also freeze cut out cookies, which I haven’t baked lately so I don’t have any examples. To store them in the freezer for one-by-one bakeability, you’ll want to roll it out and cut them into shapes as you usually do. Refrigerate them as we did with the chocolate chip cookies, then freeze them. If your dough is still sticky after being in the fridge, put a layer of baking paper between the cookies before freezing to ensure they don’t stick.

Log Cookie Blank Canvas Recipes

Ingredients

500g (17.6oz) unsalted butter, room temperature400g (14.1oz) icing sugar 2 tsp vanilla extract 600g (21.2oz) plain flour 150g (5.3oz) rice flour 100g (3.5oz) cornflour (corn starch) 4 tbsp milk NB: This recipe is enough to make around 100 cookies. For a smaller recipe, this recipe can be freely halved, quartered as needed

Method

Cream butter and icing sugar together in a large bowl until light and fluffy; fold in flours a third at a time, alternating with the milk Turn dough onto a lightly floured surface; knead until smooth, then divide into quarters. Knead in chosen flavourings* into each dough portion. Roll the dough portion into a long long (approx 30cm long). Wrap each tightly with plastic wrap, then refrigerate until firm (about an hour). Preheat oven to 160°C (140°C fan-forced/320°F). Line a baking tray or cookie sheet with baking paper. Remove dough from the fridge, remove plastic wrap and cut as many slices of dough as required into 1cm thick slices. Place on baking tray and bake for 18-20 minutes. Cover the remaining dough in foil and freeze until required next. Allow to cool on wire rack. * flavourings I used: Chocolate chip: Knead in about 50g (1.8oz) of chocolate chips into the plain dough Orange and poppy seed: Knead in 1tsp of either orange flavouring essence or finely grated orange rind. You can knead in 3 tbsp of poppy seeds, or roll the dough long in them as shown above Cherry Ripe: Knead in enough cocoa to make the dough a rich chocolate colour. I used around 1/3 of a cup. Knead in 100g (3.5oz) of chopped glacé cherries and about 1/3 cup of desiccated coconut Lemon and cranberry: Knead in 1tsp of either lemon flavouring essence or finely grated lemon rind, then knead in 100g (3.5oz) of chopped dried cranberries.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients

250g (8.8oz) unsalted butter, room temperature220g (7.7oz/1 cup) caster sugar 2 eggs 85g (2.8oz/1 cup) desiccated coconut 450g (15.9oz/3 cups) self-raising flour 2 tbsp dutch processed cocoa 1/3 cup white chocolate chips 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips

Method

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy; beat in eggs and vanilla. Fold in coconut and self raising flour a third at a time Divide dough in half. To one half, fold in the cocoa and white choc chips. To the other half fold in the dark chocolate chips. Roll tablespoons of dough into balls, place on a tray and flatten slightly. Place in the fridge to chill for around 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 180°C (160°C fan-forced/355°F). Line a baking tray or cookie sheet with baking paper. Place as many cookies as you want immediately on the tray and bake for 15 minutes. Place the rest in an air tight container and freeze. Allow cookies to cool on trays slightly once baked.

Tutorial: Christmas Ornaments Cupcakes

SHOPPING LIST:
For the cupcakes: foil cupcake standard size liners, and any cupcake recipe of your choice.
For the Oreo cream cheese cookie dough truffle tops: 38 traditional Oreo cookies + 1 package of Philadelphia cream cheese (either 8 oz or 250 g work well). Makes about 8 domes.

Note: you may substitute this cookie dough recipe with your favorite cake truffle dough recipe if you want.

For the decorations: rolled fondant, small rolling pin, small knife, tweezers, scissors, some corn starch for rolling, gel paste food colors of your choice to color fondant, some luster dusts (pearl, gold, silver), clear food grade alcohol for mixing the paint, various sugar sprinkles and sugar pearls, clear piping gel, small spray bottle, art brushes, Dessert Dome Candy Mold by Wilton, snowflake paper punches.
You may find most of the cake decorating supplies at any Michael’s art and craft store.

Step 1: Bake your cupcakes according to your recipe, filling the cupcake liners about 2/3 full. Let cool, drizzle with simple syrup or flavorful alcohol and fill with your favorite butter cream or any other filling if you want. Chill in refrigerator.

Step 2: Prepare Oreo cream cheese cookie dough truffle mixture for the domes. Crush Oreo cookies in a food processor and mix with cream cheese until blended. Set aside.

Step 3: Un-wrap the Dessert Dome Candy Mold. You will find 2 clear plastic plates with 6 semi-sphere cavities each, one slightly larger in diameter then the other. We will need the larger one, and only 2 of its larger cavities. They fit the cupcake tops just perfectly!

Lightly dust these larger cavities with cornstarch and shake off the excess.

Note: if you can”t find the dome candy molds, try finding any other suitable semi-sphere molds of the suitable size available. Clear plastic 2-part Christmas ornaments at craft shops, or 2-part clear ball-shaped picture frames will work equally well.

Step4: Lightly dust your table with corn starch and roll out 2 pieces of fondant to about 1/16” (2 mm) thickness.

Lay them inside two of the larger cavities and fill with your Oreo cream cheese cookie dough. If your cupcakes baked with a dome on top, compensate this by making a small cavity in cookie dough filling by pressing it in the middle to make it lower. Compact your dough well, pressing firmly with your fingers.

Use a small knife to trim excess fondant around the edge leaving about ¼”overhang untouched. Place into freezer for 20 minutes to firm up the domes.

Step 5: After 20 minutes quickly unmold the domes by flipping the mold upside down on the table. With clean dry hands place the dome on the top of cupcake and cut the excess fondant around the base using small scissors. Smooth down the bottom of the dome with your fingers.

Step 6: To create shiny glass-like finish on the ball mix white pearl dust with some clear alcohol (vodka or white rum works best) and pour mixture into a small spray bottle. Shake well and spray on to the surface evenly. The surface will become wet. Let the alcohol evaporate and surface air dry for an hour or two or even overnight before continuing.

Be very careful and do not touch the surface with your fingers because you may leave finger marks.

Step 7: While the cupcakes are drying, let us make golden bails for the ornaments.
Knead some golden-yellow fondant, roll into a ½” diameter snake and cut into equal cylinder-like pieces.

Pinch each cylinder with tweezers all around the sides, holding the cylinder parallel to the surface and pinching them vertically on the sides.

Poke 2 holes on top of each cylinder using back side of a paint brush.

Roll out a 1/16” diameter snake out of  a piece of fondant, cut it into 1” pieces, form each one into U-shape. Apply a small drop of water into each hole on the cylinder top and insert the bail.

Let dry and paint with gold luster.

To make a luster paint mix gold pearl dust with some clear alcohol until you have a mercury-like consistency. Apply with paint brush. Note: you may get a true gold luster called “highlighter” in specialty cake decorating stores only, but regular gold luster dust from a craft shop will work, too.

Step 8: To make a faux crushed ice effect on edible Christmas ornament use clear or colored sugar sprinkles. The crystals are much larger and more defined than in regular sugar and therefore they reflect light better, creating a nice sparkling effect when light hits the surface. To apply sprinkles, generously brush the surface of the ball with clear piping gel, and shake sugar crystals all over the surface, distributing them evenly. Any excess sugar will simply fall off.


Note: to add even more sparkle, purchase edible foil-like glitter dusts (called Disco dust, Rainbow dust or Hologram) from specialty cake decorating stores. Apply over sugar layer with clean dry puffy brush.

Step 9: To make snowflakes, roll out your fondant paper-thin. The thinner the better, otherwise it will not fit into a paper punch slot.

Let air dry on the table for 20 minutes before using with paper punches, otherwise it will stick to the cutting blade and may even block it. Use golden-yellow fondant for gold snowflakes, and light gray for silver.

Step 10: Carefully place your designs on to a tacky surface of the ball. Make sure you do not touch the surface with your fingers. Paint with gold, silver, or white luster dust paint using a fine brush.

Apply gold and silver pearls using tweezers.

Put the bail on top, securing it with a bit of piping gel, and you are done!

Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all of you!



And don’t forget to share the joy of Holiday cupcake decorating with your kids, they’ll love you for

Triple Chocolate Ripple Joconde

source: http://cakecrumbs.me/2012/10/04/triple-chocolate-ripple-joconde/

Ingredients

Chocolate Ripple Cake 2 packets of Arnott's chocolate ripple biscuits 300ml thickened cream 1 tbsp dutch processed cocoa powder 1 peppermint crisp bar, finely grated 1 tbsp icing sugar 1 tsp vanilla essence Cocoa Décor Paste 100g unsalted butter, room temperature 100g icing sugar 100g egg whites (approximately 3 large eggs), reserve egg yolks 85g cake flour 30g dutch processed cocoa powder  Joconde Sponge 45g egg white (approximately 1 large egg), reserve egg yolk 5g caster sugar 40g almond meal 40g icing sugar 15g cake flour 15 unsalted butter, melted Chocolate Mousse 1 tsp powdered gelatin 1 tbsp tepid water 1/2 cup (125ml) milk 175g milk or dark chocolate, chopped 300ml thickened cream Chocolate Ganache 200g dark chocolate, chopped 100ml cream 20g butter, chopped

Method

Chocolate Ripple Cake Combine all ingredients except the biscuits in a bowl. Whip the cream to soft peaks.  To assemble to cake, place one biscuit in the centre of a cake board or serving platter, then place enough biscuits around it to form a complete ring of biscuits around your centre biscuit. Cover the biscuits with cream, and add another layer of biscuits. When placing the outer circle of biscuits, try to alternate the position of the biscuits between layers. [To visualise what I mean, imagine you are building a wall of bricks. Your centre biscuit won't be able to move position between layers, but by making this brick formation with the outer ring you'll give the cake stability] Repeat until the cake is as tall as you desire (mine was about 5-6cm), then cover the entire 'cake' with a thin layer of cream.  Cocoa Décor Paste Cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy; add egg whites a little at a time, beating continuously. Fold in sifted flour and cocoa. Spread a thin layer of paste (around 5mm thick) onto a silicon baking mat (mine is 26 x 40cm). Pattern your paste as desired; freeze. Joconde Sponge Preheat oven to 250°C (475°F).  Whip the egg white and caster sugar to firm, glossy peaks. Set aside. In a separate bowl, sift almond flour, icing sugar and cake flour together. Gradually beat in reserved egg yolks. If mixture appears too loose, beat in an extra whole egg.  Fold in 1/3 of the egg whites to lighten the batter, then fold in the rest until just combined. Fold in melted butter. Joconde Imprime Ensure your décor paste has set. If it is not solid, the pattern may shift. Once the paste is solid enough, pour sponge mixture over the top and spread evenly. Bake in preheated oven for approximately 8 minutes. The sponge will cook very quickly, so keep a good eye on it. Sponge is baked when it bounces back when touched lightly. Remove from oven and cool slightly. Invert cake onto baking paper (so your pattern is facing upwards) that has been dusted with cornflour or icing sugar; remove silicon mat. Once completely cool, cut away burnt/dry edges. Measure the height of your chocolate ripple cake, then cut the joconde into strips approximately 1cm taller.  Chocolate Mousse Place gelatine and water in a heatproof glass and stand in a small saucepan of simmering water. Stir until mixture becomes clear; set aside. Heat milk until warm (a minute in the microwave will do it); pour in gelatine and stir.  Put chopped chocolate into a bowl; pour milk/gelatine mixture over the chocolate and stir until chocolate has melted.  Whip cream to soft peaks. Fold 1/3 of cream mixture into the mouse to lighten; fold in the rest of the cream in two batches until just combined.  To assemble: Use a circular mould that is larger than your ripple cake. I used a springform tin (without the base). Place the mould around the ripple cake so that the cake is centered. Line the mould if desired [I didn't bother].  Take you strips of joconde imprime and place them, pattern side facing out, around the mould. Ensure your imprime is packed in tightly and won't shift.  Pour the mousse over the cake, making sure to work the mousse into any gaps. Ensuring that your mould won't move, you can gently tap the cake on your bench to get the mousse to fall into all the little nooks and crannies. Chill cake in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours. Overnight is preferred. The longer this cake sits, the nicer (and more cake-like) it becomes.  Chocolate Ganache Heat the cream in a small saucepan until just boiling. Pour this over the dark chocolate and stir until chocolate has melted. Stir in butter. Pour the ganache little by little over the top of your cake, making sure it spreads to the edges. Be careful not to pour so much that it will spill over the edges of your cake.  Decorate with chocolate garnishes.