Rose's Alpha Bakers: Almond Coffee Crisps, part II

After my epic canelé post from yesterday, here is a short and sweet post about a second take on some delicious cookies.

Last week, in week four of my Rose's Alpha Bakers group, was the delicious, light and crunchy Almond Coffee Crisps from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Baking Bible.

I enjoyed them so much that I decided to make the recipe again to give to my family on Christmas. However, this time I used some cocoa powder instead of espresso powder since some family members dislike coffee. Ta da...here are my Almond Chocolate Crisps. They are very similar to the Coffee Crisps...except chocolatey, as you'd expect :)  I highly recommend this (and the original) recipe. It's very quick to make and the cookies are delicious!

Almond Chocolate Crisps - all bagged up and ready for gifting

Almond Coffee Crisps on the left; Almond Chocolate Crisps in the right

I only took a few photos from yesterday's Almond Chocolate Crisps, but you can see the step-by-step photos of the original Almond Coffee Crisps here.

I used some cocoa powder instead of espresso powder

the cocoa is so fine that it blended too well into the flour, so I didn't get any
of the pretty speckles that I had with the coffee version

which to eat first, coffee crisp or chocolate crisp...dilemma, dilemma!

Bye for now...

Rose's Alpha Bakers: Almond Coffee Crisps

The latest in my whirlwind baking adventure with my fellow Rose's Alpha Bakers is Almond Coffee Crisps from Rose Levy Beranbaum's The Baking Bible. The cookies are buttery and flaky; and because they are made without eggs, they are very delicate and melt in your mouth.

crispy with a hint of coffee flavor

Rose described these light and crumbly cookies as "crisp, fragile, ethereal" and they really are. I'd advise making these when you're going to serve and eat them all because they are very delicate (I broke two just lifting them from the baking sheet...you might think I did this on purpose so I could eat them, but that was just a lucky coincidence!). They were also very fast and easy to make, another plus.

These cookies would go wonderfully with coffee or tea...a tea party, perhaps? I'd love to have a little tea party and serve finger sandwiches, scones with clotted cream and jam, cookies, tiny pastries, and, of course, tea! These delicious cookies would fit in very well on my tea party sideboard!

mise en place for the cookies - so simple!

I was a little skeptical that the tiny bit of ingredients above would make 36 cookies...but, of course, they did (note to self: never doubt Rose!). The cookies spread quite a bit when baking, so what starts off as little cookies rounds when raw bakes up to nice 3" cookies when baked.

I decided to skip the final step of dusting each cookie with more espresso power. I wasn't sure if that would be coffee-overkill, or just make a mess. Either way, I'm glad I skipped it. There is still a hint of coffee flavor, but it's not overpowering. Overall? Yum! 

I processed the toasted almonds with a few tbsp of the flour mixture until finely ground
and then added the rest of the flour mixture and processed again

the result is similar to almond flour

the sugar and butter are creamed until smooth

then the flour is mixed in...

...and pulsed until the dough comes together

the finished dough is kneaded a few times to make sure all of the butter
is completely mixed in. The dough is extremely easy to make and work with.

tiny little balls of dough are measured out - 10g each...so small!

all of my balls of cookie dough

a dozen balls of dough placed on the cookie sheet...

...and then pressed into flat rounds

they spread quite a bit when baked, into thin, crisp cookies

and done! A delicious plate of almond coffee crisps

time to make a pot of coffee and enjoy a cookie

Bye for now...

Rose's Alpha Bakers: The Ischler

It's week three with Rose's Alpha Bakers and up this week is The Ischler. The Ischler is a light, flaky, almond cookie, traditionally made with a layer of both apricot lekvar and a thick chocolate ganache as the filling. I was in a time crunch this weekend (end of the semester paper time!) so I opted to just make the chocolate ganache filling. Next time I will make the apricot lekvar because the recipe looked delicious!

I think I'll call my cookie The Modified Ischler.

Yummalicious! A light nutty flavor, a very tender cookie, and chocolate. A win-win.

Rolled cookies are generally not my favorite to make...rolling...waiting...rolling...waiting. I'm too impatient! However, these cookies were pretty easy to make and I had them done in about 4 hours on Sunday morning.

The cookie itself tastes very similar to my all-time favorite Christmas cookies. If you like either making or just looking at pictures of gorgeous decorated cookies, I highly recommend the book Cookie Craft: From Baking to Luster Dust, Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions.

powdered sugar and almonds are processed until fine

so far, so good, until...

opps...made a mistake and added the egg and vanilla before the butter...
It was early Sunday morning, I guess I was still half asleep!
Instead of trying to mix it, I just tossed in the butter and hoped for the best.
It came out fine in the end :)

flour is added and the dough is pulsed until it is crumbly and comes away from the bowl

I added a bit more flour here (about 2 T). The recipe says that the dough will be sticky, but mine was super sticky because I had a hard time measuring out 1/2 of an egg. Even with my scale, I couldn't get 22 grams perfectly, so I ended up using a bit more egg than was called for. This resulted in my dough being very wet, so I added a bit more flour to get it to form a ball in the above step.

the dough is divided into 4 parts, pressed between plastic wrap and then refrigerated...
I actually just rolled mine nearly all the way to save time later

after 2 hours of chilling, it gets a final roll and then it's ready to cut

a quick bake and they're done! They smell fantastic.

the cooled cookies and ingredients for my chocolate ganache

the chocolate pieces are melted and the hot cream is stirred in...
voila, smooth and silky ganache

so cute! I love the chocolate peeping out...

delicious! Light and flaky with a bit of chocolate.

Bye for now...

Christmas cookies!

I was never a big rolled cookie fan until I found this book, Cookie Craft: From Baking to Luster Dust, Designs and Techniques for Creative Cookie Occasions by Janice Fryer and Valerie Peterson. Their nutty cookies, made with pecans, are my favorite...they are amazingly delicious. They have a toasted nutty flavor and the recipe and dough are so easy. This year I also made the plain sugar cookies and the gingerbread cookies from their book.

pretty cookies, ready for gifting

The cookies are very easy to make. The dough is so forgiving and manageable and the quality is the same even after rolling and re-rolling the scraps. After the dough is rolled and cut, it's chilled, then baked. The dough is also great because the baked cookies do not lose their shape or get distorted so what you see going in is what you get coming out.

After they are baked, decorate with icing, sparkly sprinkles...or just enjoy plain!

ground pecans...so yummy

the nutty cookie dough, ready to roll out

the chilled cookies are lifted off and baked

the gingerbread dough; just like the nutty cookies, it was so
easy to work with...and delicious too!

la dee da...making gingerbread people...

and, finally, on to the sugar cookies with lemon zest...
three cookies in one night...I'm tired!

nutty snowmen...into the oven

...and out of the oven!

pretty snowflake cookies, cooling

now that's a lot of cookies!

ready for decorating and for eating

gingerbread people and trees

the baked lemon sugar cookies

I decorated these cookies for my officemates and neighbors...

happy reindeer

Now, Dasher! Now, Dancer! Now, Prancer, and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid! On, Donder and Blitzen!!

shimmering snowflakes

snowmen lined up for inspection

Bye for now...