Tea and Cookies (8 page)

For accuracy’s sake, always test the oven temperature with an
OVEN THERMOMETER
. The best thermometers have alcohol-filled glass gauges, but dial-type thermometers can be good, too. The most important factor is the visibility of the numbers. Place the thermometer in the center of the oven rack, well away from the sides.

Many ovens have the option for convection baking, but most of the home cooks I know are simply afraid of it. Convection baking uses a fan to circulate the hot air in the oven, which promotes browning and cooks food more quickly. When using convection baking, decrease the standard temperature in a recipe by 25°F, and estimate that the cookies will bake in about two-thirds of the conventional baking time. You will have to rely on visual and touch tests to check for doneness, but that’s a good idea for any kind of cooking, whether or not convection is used.

ELECTRIC MIXERS

A
HEAVY-DUTY STANDING ELECTRIC MIXER
has become standard in the passionate home baker’s kitchen. Cookie bakers will use the paddle-blade attachment for creaming butter and sugar and subsequent dough mixing, and the whisk attachment for preparing royal icing for decorating. (The dough hook is reserved for kneading bread dough in the work bowl.) The 5-quart model is the most versatile size, and its motor is strong enough to mix cookie dough from start to finish. When adding the flour at the end, be sure to turn the mixer speed to low, or simply stir it in with a wooden spoon.

If you don’t have a standing mixer, all the recipes in this book can be made with an
ELECTRIC HAND MIXER
. The only caveat is that a hand mixer may not be strong enough for mixing in the flour. In that case, stop the mixer and stir in the flour by hand with a sturdy wooden spoon. And in cases where there aren’t enough ingredients to sufficiently fill a standing mixer, the hand mixer is a must.

BAKING SHEETS AND PANS

The majority of cookies in this book are baked on baking sheets.
H
ALF-SHEET PANS
, which measure about 18 × 13 inches and are made from sturdy aluminum, are the choice of professional bakers, and I used them to test these recipes. (I have no idea why they are called pans when they are only 1 inch deep. A full sheet pan, used in professional kitchens, measures 26 × 18 inches, so now you know where the term “half-sheet” originated.)

As I stated in the introduction, I made excuses for not buying half-sheet pans, but as soon as I made the change, most of my serious cookie-baking problems disappeared. Half-sheet pans are easy to find at kitchenware shops, but you’ll find the best prices at restaurant suppliers. Buy as many sheets as you have room for in your kitchen (at least two), as you can never have too many baking sheets when holiday baking time rolls around. And they come in handy for savory cooking too, such as roasting vegetables.

Traditional cookie sheets are too thin and they darken with use, and as dark colors absorb oven heat more readily than shiny surfaces, cookies baked on them cook more quickly and can scorch. Also, cookie sheets don’t hold as many cookies as half-sheet pans, lengthening the time needed to complete a batch. Furthermore the cheap sheets tend to warp. You may find double-thick insulated cookie sheets, but these actually discourage crisp bottoms, so they aren’t right for every cookie.

For bar cookies, I use 9 × 13-inch oblong and 8-inch square pans. I prefer metal pans as they reflect oven heat and bake evenly. Pyrex pans absorb oven heat, so if you use them, reduce the oven temperature by 25°F and keep a close eye on the cookies to avoid overbrowning. For some shallow bar cookies, I also use a
QUARTER-SHEET PAN
, measuring about 13 × 9 inches, a size that I have found to be as useful as its big sibling, the half-sheet.

For special cookies that require molding, I bake shortbread cookies in a 9-inch springform pan and madeleines in their specific pan with scallop-shell indentations. You will need two mini-muffin pans (measuring 1 7/8 inches across the top and 7/8 inch deep) for the Candied Walnut Tassies (page 121).

UTENSILS AND TOOLS

A
COARSE-MESH WIRE SIEVE
does a great job of sifting dry ingredients. Do not use a fine-mesh sieve, which should be reserved for straining the tiny seeds from raspberry puree and the like.

R
UBBER (OR SILICONE) SPATUL AS
are used to scrape ingredients down from the sides of a bowl during mixing, or to transfer every bit of batter from the bowl to the cake pan. Silicone spatulas are heat-resistant (some up to 800°F), so they are perfect for cooking and stirring hot ingredients on the stove, especially sticky ones that need to be occasionally scraped from the sides of the saucepan.

Many cookie recipes call for shaping the dough into 1-inch balls. To portion the dough quickly, use a
SMALL, STAINLESS-STEEL SPRING-LOADED ICE-CREAM SCOOP
with a .5 ounce (1 tablespoon) capacity. These are available at restaurant suppliers, many kitchenware stores, and online at www.surlatable.com. You may also see plastic scoops designed just for portioning cookie dough, and they work fine as well.

You’ll use a
ROLLING PIN
for rolling out dough for cut-out cookies such as Alfajores (page 106) and Sugar Cookie Teapots (page 123). The heavier the pin, the better, as the weight does much of the work for you. I love my
SILICONE BALL-BEARING ROLLING PIN
because its surface doesn’t stick to sugary doughs.

A
LARGE OFFSET METAL SPATULA
is the tool for evenly spreading soft dough for brownies or blondies in the pan. Use a
SMALL OFFSET SPATULA
when icing sugar cookies.

W
IRE CAKE RACKS
give the baker someplace to cool the cookies. The truth is that most cookies can be cooled directly on their baking sheets—they will not overbake. However, many bakers don’t own more than two baking sheets and must remove the cookies from the sheets in order to bake more, so cooling racks are not entirely optional. Large rectangular racks can easily hold a large batch of cookies. For holiday baking when you may be making lots of cookies, or if you have a small kitchen with limited counter space, stackable cooling racks are great space savers.

Bakers love
PARCHMENT PAPER
for its nonstick and heat-resistant properties. In cookie baking, it is most often used to line baking sheets. Using parchment paper means that you will never have to grease and flour a baking sheet again, and it saves on cleanup, too. Parchment paper commonly comes in rolls, but it is very difficult to uncurl. (If you are stuck with this kind of parchment, place a dab of butter in the corner of the baking sheet to glue the paper in place.) With a little searching online, you can find flat sheets of parchment paper cut to fit half-sheet pans, which eliminates the curling problem. Boxed sheets of parchment paper cut to fit full-sheet pans are sold at restaurant suppliers. I shared the expense of a box with other home bakers, and now we all have (close to) lifetime supplies. (The large sheets need to be cut in half to fit the common half-sheet, which is a fair trade-off for the convenience of flat parchment paper.)

S
ILICONE BAKING MATS
, sold under such brand names as Silpat and Expat, are popular with some bakers. They have the same nonstick properties as parchment paper, and can be reused many hundreds of times. Personally, I still prefer baking parchment because my baking mats have been known to pick up other flavors and aromas (such as butter, left from baked cookies on the mats, that has turned rancid). Also, they tend to insulate the cookies, and the bottoms won’t crisp as well as those baked on parchment.

Do not substitute wax paper for parchment paper to line cookie sheets. Parchment paper is heatproof to about 400°F (some brands can withstand higher temperatures), but the wax on the wax paper will start to melt at temperatures much lower than that. (It is safe to line cake pans with wax paper, as the batter will cover the paper and protect it from the heat.)

You’ll also want a collection of
COOKIE CUTTERS
to give creative shapes to your cookies. If the box of cookie cutters in my basement is any indication, they can become a minor obsession with bakers. Be sure that the cookie edges are relatively sharp—file them with a knife-sharpening steel if they are dull. Stainless steel or copper cutters keep their edge longer than plastic cutters. Wash the cutters and dry them well before storing.

A
PASTRY BAG
is needed to shape the
macarons
and meringues on pages 112 and 142. The pastry bag should be at least 12 inches long to hold a sufficient amount of meringue. I use only three
½-INCH-WIDE PASTRY TIPS
in this book: plain (Ateco #805), open star (Ateco #825), and French star (Ateco #865). Ateco tips are available at kitchenware shops and online at www.pastrysampler.com.

TECHNIQUES

Most cookies are prepared with the same technique used for making butter cakes—cream the butter and sugar, add the eggs, and then add the flour and leavenings. There are exceptions, as meringue-based cookies seem to be making a good showing in tearooms around the world.

PREPARATIONS

To keep the cookies at a safe distance from the heat source and avoid overbrowning them, position the oven racks in the center and upper third of the oven. (In gas ovens, the heat source is underneath the oven bottom, so placing the rack in the bottom third can easily cause overbrowning.)

Preheat the oven thoroughly before putting in the baking sheets. In most ovens, this takes 15 to 20 minutes, which is a fine time to gather the ingredients and mix the dough. However, take note if the dough needs to be chilled before using, as there is no use preheating an oven if the dough won’t be used for a few hours.

Use an oven thermometer to check the oven’s accuracy. Alcohol-filled thermometers are more accurate than spring-activated ones. Place the thermometer in the center of the middle rack for the most accurate reading. If the thermometer is too close to the sides of the oven, the reading could be hotter than the actual temperature.

Be sure that all of the ingredients are at room temperature. If necessary, warm the eggs or milk in a bowl of hot water, and soften the butter to the proper malleable consistency.

Line the baking sheets with parchment paper. In most cases, you will only need two baking sheets for an entire batch of cookies.

Sift the dry ingredients together as instructed. This easy step combines and aerates the ingredients so they are easier to mix into the batter. For the many recipes that use baking soda, which tends to clump, sifting pulverizes the leavening and distributes it well. For years, I thought it was sufficient to merely whisk the dry ingredients together, but I also had more than my share of cakes with little pellets of baking soda running through them. Sift the dry ingredients onto a large sheet of parchment or wax paper. When the time comes, use the parchment to lift the ingredients and pour them into the batter.

MIXING COOKIE DOUGH

While there are similarities between mixing the batter for butter cakes and the dough for cookies, there is one major difference. With a cake, the goal is to create as many air bubbles as possible into the batter. With cookies, too many bubbles can create a soufflé effect, making cookies that rise in the oven and then fall during cooling. Usually, 3 minutes is sufficient for creaming butter and sugar for cookies.

Place the room-temperature butter in the bowl of a standing electric mixer fitted with the paddle blade. Beat at high speed until the butter is creamy and looks a shade paler, about 1 minute. At a steady pace (not too slowly), gradually beat in the sugar, about a tablespoon or so at a time, then continue beating until the butter and sugar are homogenous, very pale yellow, and light in texture, about 2 minutes longer. Occasionally stop the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. You can cream the butter and sugar in a medium mixing bowl with a hand mixer at high speed, if you wish. And, of course, generations of home-baked cookies before the advent of the electric mixer proved that a wooden spoon and lots of elbow grease can also do the trick.

Now it’s time to add the eggs. A familiar phrase in recipes occurs when adding the eggs to the dough, “one at a time, beating well after each addition.” If the eggs are added too quickly though, the dough (which is really an emulsified mixture with a careful balance of ingredients) will curdle. Even a single egg, which may not seem like such a large amount of liquid, can be enough to curdle a dough. Sometimes the curdling is corrected when the flour is added, but more often than not, it isn’t, and the result is tough cookies. Adding room-temperature, beaten eggs to the batter is the best insurance against curdling. Beat the eggs together in a small bowl until well combined. With the mixer set on medium-high to high speed, add the beaten eggs slowly to the butter-and-sugar mixture, about a tablespoon at a time, so that the emulsification will remain in check. Like the advice for sifting dry ingredients together, this little tip will immensely improve your cookies.

You are now ready to add the dry ingredients (the flour sifted with the leavening, salt, and possibly spices) to the mixture. If you have a standing mixer, the motor will be strong enough to add the dry ingredients. Just be sure to reduce the mixer speed to low, and add the flour mixture gradually to the bowl. If you are using a hand mixer, it may not be strong enough to mix in the flour without straining. In this case, stop the mixer and use a wooden spoon to gradually mix in the flour. When the dough is cohesive, add ingredients such as nuts, dried fruit, or chocolate chips.

Sticky or soft doughs are often refrigerated to make them easier to handle. Just cover the dough in the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate it for an hour or so until it is chilled. Do not rush the procedure in the freezer. The edges will harden and freeze before the center chills.