Cookies While it Rains

Is there anything better to do on a cold rainy Sunday than bake a batch of cookies? Not only does the hot oven warm you up, but the glorious smells that emanate from it perfume the house all day, making it bearable to stay inside for one more wintry day. Plus cookies make everyone happy (especially my partner, Jon).
The biggest decision on a cookie baking day is just which of the thousands of recipes out there to make. There are hundreds of cookbooks dedicated solely to cookies and if you search for cookie recipes on-line, you might be looking through the list so long you’ll run out of time to bake.
I try to cut down on my choices before looking for the perfect recipe by deciding how much time I want to spend in the kitchen. Of the six general categories of cookie, some definitely take more time than others. Drop cookies like chocolate chip and oatmeal and bar cookies like brownies are the quickest to make. Refrigerator or rolled cookies like butter and sugar cookies require some patience while you wait for the dough to firm up in the fridge. Hand formed cookies like Mexican wedding cookies and pressed cookies like spritz take a bit more time and effort (and in the case of pressed cookies, need some extra equipment you might not have laying around the house).
Next I look to see what ingredients are in my house. Cookies can be made from just three ingredients (nuts, eggs and sugar make a great macaroon) or you can get very extravagant and add such hard to come by ingredients as rose geranium jam or parched benne seeds. Most of the time you can come up with a pretty tasty treat if you have butter, flour, sugar and eggs.
As I stared into my cabinets, trying to decide between ginger shortbread or coconut huckleberry bars (or, as my stomach growled in anticipation, both), I thought back to past batches and wondered what made some of them soft and cake-like, some crisp and crunchy, and still others chewy and dense. There was only one place to find the answer, so I headed to my bookshelf and pulled out On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee. Sure enough, he had the answer.
Much of the texture of cookies can be found in the flour. The type of flour, the ratio of flour to water, and how much you “work” the dough all affect the consistency. Interestingly, both bread flour (high gluten content) and cake flour (low gluten content) help keep cookies from spreading, but for different reasons: the first because of its high gluten content and strong protein network and the second because its starch is more absorbent, removing some of the moisture from the dough. All purpose and pastry flour tend to allow the dough to spread more.
More flour than water makes a crumblier cookie, like a shortbread. More water than flour, as in drop cookies, makes cookies more cake-like if they are slightly undercooked and more crispy and crunchy if they are slightly overcooked.
Sugar also plays an important textural role. When creamed together with butter and beaten in with eggs, it helps incorporate air into the batter making the cookies lighter. When the proportion of sugar to liquid rises, only some of the sugar dissolves in the dough. However, as the cookie bakes, more of the sugar dissolves, liquefying the dough and causing it to soften and spread. Then when the sugar cools after baking, it re-solidifies and gives the cookie a candy-like snap.
Other sweeteners, like honey and molasses, cause the dough to spread more and then firm as it cools. This leads to a moister, chewier cookie.
Eggs, fat and leavening each play a smaller role in cookie texture. The more eggs, the more cake-like the final product will be. Butter tends to make cookies spread more than margarine or shortening (but you will never catch me using anything but butter in my cookies, I don’t care if they spread to Montana, they will still taste better). Leavening, which can simply be incorporating air bubbles into your sugar-butter-egg mixture, allows cookies to rise slightly, giving them a lighter, cakier texture.
Armed with this information, I decided to try an old stand-by: Oatmeal Raisin with Coconut and Chocolate Chips, which are quite delicious but often come out too cake-like for my taste, and see if I could make the recipe a bit chewier.
Now a good scientist would change one ingredient and see what happens, then change another one until she got the desired results. I am not a good scientist and I wanted to achieve a chewy cookie right away (and not do the dishes from 5 batches of “experiments”), so I changed the whole dang recipe.
I substituted honey for some of the brown sugar. I reduced the number of eggs. I didn’t beat the sugar, butter and eggs for as long as I usually do. And I didn’t use any baking powder. The batter tasted delicious.
Then I waited. Twelve minutes seems like an awfully long time when you’re waiting for the results of such an important experiment.
The buzzer finally sounded and the cookies looked like delicious golden mounds but still I waited and let them cool just a bit (no need to burn the roof of my mouth just for the sake of journalism).
At last, they were the perfect temperature. The chocolate chips were still melted but my mouth was safe from second degree burns. I broke one in half and it looked good, denser than the original recipe, but not crumbly or hard. I took a bite. They were perfect (okay, maybe not perfect but it was a warm fresh baked cookie; you can’t get much better than that). I tried another one just to make sure. Yes, I had achieved what I set out to do. I now had a chewier, but still completely delicious version of my old stand-by. I also had two dozen fresh baked cookies to keep my spirits up as I impatiently wait for Spring.

Vicki Reich cooks and bakes and longs for Spring in Sagle, ID. She’s much rather be riding her bike to work off all the cookies she ate than going to the gym, so she’s somewhat thankful that the rain is quickly melting the snow.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Coconut and Chocolate Chips
Makes 2-3 dozen

8 T. butter, softened
½ c. sugar
¼ c. packed brown sugar
¼ c. honey
1 egg
1 c. all purpose flour
2 c. rolled oats
½ t. cinnamon
Pinch of salt
½ c. shredded unsweetened coconut (optional)
¼ c milk
½ t almond extract
½ c. raisins
½ c. chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375F
Cream together the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and honey (I use an electric mixer). Add the egg and beat until just blended.
In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, oats, cinnamon and coconut. Alternately add half the dry mixture and half the milk to the butter mixture, blending after each addition. Add the almond extract. Stir in the raisins and the chocolate chips by hand.
Drop by the teaspoon onto an ungreased baking sheet (or better yet, make the investment in a silicone baking sheet like a Silpat (you won’t regret it) and drop the dough onto this miracle of modern cookware). Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown on the edges. Cool for 2 minutes on the pan then transfer to a cooling rack.
Eat while watching the snow melt.

Potluck Fever

Jon and I went to two potlucks this past weekend. We ate some amazing food. The first one was a small gathering for dinner at a friend’s home. There were only about eight different dishes but they went together well and there was more than enough to go back for a plate full of seconds. The second potluck was the Kick-Off party for Six Rivers Market (Six Rivers Market is the new on-line local products market just starting in town. I’ll come clean and tell you I’m the market manager and you can learn more about it at our website www.sixriversmarket.org). Let me tell you, people who are interested in local food sure know how to cook. The magnitude and variety of food on that table was mind-boggling. It was like going to an international smorgasbord. Plates were piled high and I don’t think anyone left hungry.
After digesting all those delicious meals, I started thinking about where and when the idea of potlucks started. I’d always thought the word originated from the Native American word potlatch but Wikipedia set me straight. The word is actually of English origins and appeared as early as the 1500s. Back then, it was used to refer to what guests at inns would have to contend with if they wanted a meal. They’d get whatever was cooking in the large stew pot. Sometimes they’d get lucky and get something that hadn’t been cooking for too many days and had some meat in it. Sometimes they’d just get gruel.
Potluck parties, like the ones we just attended are a newer use of the word. Parties where each guest is asked to contribute something to the meal began at the end of the 19th century. They’ve gone in and out of fashion ever since. Personally, I never tire of them.
I love the fact that I can spend time making just one dish and yet share in a diverse and delicious meal with friends and community and not spend very much money doing it. Sure, we could all go out to a restaurant and share food around the table but then you might never learn that Ronnie makes the most amazing cheesecake or your perpetual bachelor friend makes some mean guacamole.
I must admit that I like to show off my cooking skills as well. For some reason, making something that takes all day for a potluck is doable, making it just for me and Jon doesn’t seem worth the effort.
Potlucks can be as simple or complex as you want. You can throw a potluck and tell guests to bring whatever they like without any structure to the meal. However, you are more likely to end up with all chips or all dessert if you don’t give any specifics. A friend of mine actually pulled a practical joke on a host that wasn’t willing to specify what to bring. She called all the guests and told everyone to bring brownies. When the host started getting nervous, they went back out to their cars and brought in the real dishes they’d made.
You can assert a bit more control and rest easier by telling guests what type of dish to bring: a main dish, drinks, or dessert. Or you can do what my mom and her friends have been doing for over 30 years. They don’t call it potluck (and might be offended to hear me call it that), they call it a gourmet group. Everyone brings one dish to share but the host exerts some control over the meal by assigning dishes, and often times recipes, to each participant. The dishes are quite a bit more elegant than chips and salsa or green bean casserole and the table is set with fancy plates. Still, it depends on each guest to supply some of the meal, and in my mind, that makes it a potluck.
Potlucks have been getting more imaginative lately. You can have a potluck with a theme. I’ve been to a potluck where the dishes related to the movie we watched after dinner. You can involve a whole neighborhood by having a progressive potluck where each course is served at another persons house (which I’m not totally in favor of; too many dishes to do afterwards). There’s even a website (www.luckypotluck.com) where you can invite people on-line and they can list the dishes they are going to bring (that would definitely take care of the multiple batches of brownies).
The potluck we just had for Six Rivers Market is my favorite kind. What better way to bring together the community than through the sharing of food. Now if I could just figure out who made the enchilada pie so I could get the recipe.

Vicki Reich lives in Sagle with her partner Jon. They always plan and cook their potluck contributions together, and love to attend any and all food related events. Vicki can be contacted at wordomouth@yahoo.com

My friend Laura is always invited to my potlucks because I can count on her to bring a platter of stuffed mushrooms. They never last long. Here’s my tribute to her.

Stuffed Mushrooms
Makes at least 6 servings

1 lb large button mushrooms (either white or brown)
3 T. butter
1 clove garlic, minced
¼ c shallot, finely chopped
1 egg
½ c fresh bread crumbs
2 T. fresh parsley, finely chopped
1 t. fresh thyme, finely chopped
½ c. + 2 T. Parmesan, grated
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 400F. Carefully remove the stems from the mushroom cap. If the caps need cleaning, use a damp towel to carefully rub the dirt off. Set the caps aside and finely chop the stems
Heat the butter in a skillet over medium high heat. Add the garlic and shallot and cook 2 minutes. Add the chopped mushroom stems and cook for 8 minutes. Place the mixture in a bowl. Let cool for 5 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients (reserving the 2T of cheese). Season to taste. Stuff each cap full. Sprinkle with the remaining cheese. Arrange on a lightly oiled baking sheet and bake for 15 minutes until cheese begins to brown. Serve warm or at room temperature.