French Butter Cookies - Sables

As December comes around, you can find stacks of butter cookie tins everywhere. They are probably available year round, but you just can't miss the huge stacks of tins during the holiday season. They are so delicious that I do cave into temptation and end up buying a couple of boxes. The ones that I see stocked in the local store,  generally are called "Danish" cookies and over the years I have come to associate butter cookies with being Danish.  A few days ago, I was watching the cooking show "America's Test Kitchen" and they demonstrated a cookie recipe called "Sables". Now they kept calling it a a French cookie. Their cookie platter looked delicious on the show and reminded me of butter cookies. Of course, I made fervent notes and jotted down the detailed recipe with all the tips they provided. I couldn't wait to try out the recipe, so I prepared the cookie dough (rather late at night) and then baked them the following day. Oh the result!!! Absolutely delicious and decadent. It was just like the butter cookies that I indulge in during the holiday season. So, based on this experience, I must conclude that I love all butter cookies. I have also learnt that they taste delicious and similar, irrespective of what they are named and what country they come from.

Ingredients
10 tbsp unsalted butter
1/3 cup plus 1 tbsp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
1 yolk of hard boiled egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1.5 cups all purpose flour/maida
1 egg white
1 tsp water
2-3 tbsp sugar (garnish)

Method
Mash up the egg yolk so that it is soft and lump free. Using an electric mixer or whisk, beat together the butter, sugar, salt and yolk for a couple of minutes. Once the ingredients are mixedd together, add vanilla essence and mix. Then add the flour a little at a time and mix till the flour is completely incorporated into the mixture. At this stage, the mixture will have a soft dough like texture. Bring it all together and roll out the dough into two logs. These will be about six inches in length and about 1.75 (1 and 3/4) inches in diameter. Roll up these logs tightly in parchment or wax paper. Refrigerate these rolls in the fridge for at least an hour. Then take these well chilled logs and cut them into diskettes about 1/4 inch in thickness. Place these on a baking sheet. Don't crowd the cookies, leave about an half to an inch space around each cookie. Then, make an egg wash by mixing together egg white of one egg and water. Brush the top side of each cookie with this egg wash. Sprinkle a little sugar on top of each cookie. Bake the cookies at 350F for 10-15minutes.

Cool the cookies for 5 minutes on the baking sheets itself, then transfer these to the cooling rack. Enjoy with a cup of coffee or tea.

Tips
Process the egg yolk through a sieve using a spoon to mash it up and squeeze out of the sieve. This will ensure there are no big chunks or lumps. The butter should be room temperature, but still solid. You can freeze the dough once you roll it into a log and you can bake the cookies when you are ready to eat them. The egg wash helps the cookies get a shine and also helps the sugar stick to the cookie.

Orange Cake - A Treat Indeed!!

As a child I don't remember the effort my mom used to put into baking cakes, but as I have mentioned in my previous posts, it was a time I cherish a lot. I remember that she used to dry out rind from oranges and then later use this in cakes. Sometimes she used to candy the rinds which used to taste wonderful. Last year I tasted a wonderful birthday cake, baked by my friend. It was an orange cake, with zest and some candy  and it brought back a flood of memories of orange cake that mom used to make. So I decided to bake one myself. Now, I believe if you find a good recipe, you should stick to it. So after doing a bit of research and looking at the ingredient list of several recipes, I decided to modify the butter cake recipe and convert it into an orange cake. Substitutions were simple and I must say it was an astounding success. I got positive feedback from family and friends. I baked this cake again recently and I baked two layers. I froze one to eat later and we finished the other one pretty quickly.

The recipe below has proportions for two cakes. For one layer of 9 inch cake refer to the butter cake proportions. Instead of milk use orange juice. Also, add the zest of one orange for a single layer as well as two layers.

Ingredients
2 and 3/4 cups all purpose flour (maida)
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup butter - room temperature
2 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 tsp vanilla essence
zest of one orange
1 cup orange juice
some butter or oil spray to coat the baking tin
some all purpose flour to dust the baking tin

Method
Grease two baking tins with some butter and dust with some all purpose flour. Preheat the oven to 350F.

Sieve all the dry ingredients together and keep aside. In another bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar. Beat it till the butter is fluffy. Add one egg at a time to this and beat each egg into the mixture till it is nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence. Add one third of the dry ingredients to the batter and fold it in. Then add half of the orange juice and mix. Alternate between the juice and dry ingredients till they are all incorporated into the batter. Then fold in the orange zest so that it is spread into the batter. Pour half the batter into one tin and the rest into the other. Tap the tin or use a spatula to spread the batter uniformly.

Bake the cake at 350 F for about 20 minutes. Use a knife and insert it into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. If not, bake for a few more minutes.

Take if out and let the pan cool on a wire rack for 10-15 mins. Then invert the pan onto the cooling rack and slide the cake out. Let the cake cool completely before icing  it.

Tips
Wrap the cake in foil and then some plastic wrap before you freeze it. A cake will stay in the freezer for upto a couple of weeks to a month.

Scrumptious Cake

Continuing with the cake theme, this is one of the best cake recipes that I have ever tried. It came out just like the ones that I used to bake with my  mom. I have these memories from when I was 6 or 7 years old. I used to sit in the kitchen with mom and help her mix all the different ingredients. I remember beating the eggs with a whisk and being thrilled to see the egg whites turn into foam. Each ingredient was handled individually and it used to seem like a long loving process. Moreover, we didn't have an oven, so my mom used to send me to get some sand from the garden and then bake a cake using that. And I used to wait quite impatiently for the cake to cool down before we could have a taste. It was a wonderful and magical time and I wish I could go back to those days. Baking this cake took me back to those days.

This is a recipe from the William Sonoma Cake book with some adjustments based on the ingredients I had and some modifications to the process.

Ingredients
1and 1/4 cups, plus 2 tbsp of all purpose flour (maida)
1 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter - room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup milk

Method
Grease a baking dish with some butter and dust with some all purpose flour. Preheat the oven to 350F.
Sieve all the dry ingredients together and keep aside. Sieve these ingredients a couple of times. In another bowl, whisk together the butter and sugar. Beat it till the butter is fluffy. Add one egg at a time to this and beat each egg into the mixture till it is nice and fluffy. Add the vanilla essence. Add one third of the dry ingredients to the batter and fold it in. Then add half of the milk and mix. Alternate between the milk and dry ingredients till they are all incorporated into the batter.
Bake the cake at 350 F for about 20 minutes. Use a knife and insert it into the center of the cake. If it comes out clean then the cake is ready. If not, bake for a few more minutes.
Take if out and  let the pan cool  on a wire rack for 10-15 mins. Then invert the pan onto the cooling rack and slide the cake out. Let the cake cool if you wish to ice it.

Tips
The cake should be completely cooled down before icing it. If the eggs are separated and the whites beaten separately before being added to the batter, the cake will be lighter. You can add the yolks after the butter and sugar. But fold in the egg whites after all the dry ingredients are incorporated into the batter.