All posts tagged: cookies

For The Raspberry Lovers: Double Raspberry Bars

Published by Kathy Hunt

Last summer, I went on hiatus from food writing. I hadn’t intended nor had I particularly wanted to take a break, but, I’d started a full-time editorial job while continuing to write long-form freelance articles — see clippings.me for samples from my other writing life — and do occasional book events. What free time I had, I used to complain about the lack of free time. Over a year later, I complain a little less and dabble a little more at some of the things I love — writing, cooking and taking photographs. What changed? My pandemic garden and its prolific raspberry bush. Planted in the summer of 2020 alongside tomatoes, cucumbers and a few herbs, the raspberry bush was a bit of a lark. I love raspberries so, although I was a first-time gardener, I decided to take a chance. I didn’t expect the plant to yield fruit that first year, if ever. By October 2020, my expectations had been met. The next two summers, the bush surprised me by producing a handful of …

In 2020 Give the Gift of Cookbooks

Published by Kathy Hunt

Most of us have done a lot more cooking and baking in 2020. I know that I have and not just because I’ve been testing recipes for my cookbook Luscious/Tender/Juicy (Countryman, 2021). More time at home has meant more time spent in the kitchen, working through some fascinating food titles. Among the books in which I’ve found comfort and inspiration are two baking and two vegetable-focused cookbooks, a celebration of contemporary Black cooking, food narratives with recipes for fall, winter and Christmas, a restaurant history, and the foods and traditions of one of my favorite cities, Copenhagen. If you have cooks, bakers and/or readers on your holiday shopping list, the following titles will delight them. Arranged in alphabetical order, they comprise this holiday season’s cookbook review. 2020 Cookbook Review Copenhagen Food – Trine Hahnemann (Quadrille, 2018) In Copenhagen Food Trine Hahnemann takes readers on a culinary tour of Copenhagen, her home of 40+ years. Each chapter highlights a different neighborhood and its specialties. With stories and photos of the city, famed restaurants, public markets and …

Crunchy & Sweet Anzac Biscuits

Published by Kathy Hunt

Traveling through Australia and New Zealand’s South Island, I learned that Anzac biscuits are about as prevalent and popular as chocolate chip cookies are in the U.S. They’ve been around a bit longer, though. While chocolate chip cookies originated in the late 1930s, Anzac biscuits date back to World War I, when Australia and New Zealand established the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, or ANZAC. Sent to Egypt for training, the ANZAC soldiers took along tins of sturdy and wholesome oatmeal biscuits. Hence the name “Anzac biscuits.” Created without eggs, Anzac biscuits traveled well and possessed a long shelf life. These traits came in quite handy, because loved ones often mailed these cookies to the troops. The baked goods then spent two months on a ship without refrigeration before reaching the soldiers. ANZAC Day Had it not been for the ANZAC troops’ efforts and sacrifices at Gallipoli, Turkey, their eponymous treats may have drifted into obscurity. However, as a result of the corps’ bravery during eight months of fighting, Australia, New Zealand, Tonga, Samoa …

Swedish Spice Cookies

Published by Kathy Hunt

In a season filled with rich, heavy foods and cloying sweets I like to take a page from my stack of European cookbooks and bake a few dozen spice cookies. These fragrant cookies date back to the Middle Ages when ingredients such as pepper, cinnamon and cloves were rare and expensive commodities. As a result, they were used sparingly and for special occasions such as Christmas. All sorts of spice cookies Most Europeans countries have some type of spice cookie. In Germany it’s the bite-sized pfeffernüsse while in Russia it’s clove- and black pepper-seasoned pryaniky. The Netherlands has crisp, windmill-shaped, spice-laden speculaas while Spain offers an anise-flavored, cinnamon-dusted, cut-out known as biscochito or “little biscuit.” What I usually bake, though, are ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, clove and nutmeg-laced Swedish pepparkakor. Cutting cookies Featured in Astrid Lindgren’s “Pippi Longstocking” tales, Swedish spice cookies are cut into the shapes of pigs, horned goats, reindeer, bells, stars, hearts and a bearded, gnome-like man known as Tomte; I think of Tomte as the Scandinavian version of Santa Claus. Since my …

Let’s Bake Maple Sugar Cookies!

Published by Kathy Hunt

As promised in the previous post, I have the perfect treat in which to feature your homemade maple sugar, maple sugar cookies! Inspired by a recent visit to Montreal, where I spied a wide range of maple-themed sweets and saw that, as rumored, Canadians adore pure maple syrup-infused foods, Canadian Maple Sugar Cookies are a delicious way to bring that sweet, earthy taste to your baking. For this recipe don’t skimp on the maple sugar or syrup. Stay away from those mass-marketed mixtures of corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup and artificial colors and ingredients. Don’t get fooled by tiny bottles of “maple extract” or “maple essence,” either. Thinking that I could punch up a traditional poundcake, I tried one of these flavorings once. Consisting of alcohol, water and “natural flavors,” the so-called extract smelled like soy sauce and tasted nothing like maple. It did not end up in my cake. If you own a maple leaf-shaped cutter, you can make your cookies even more “maple-licious” by using that. Since I have a surplus of …

Grab a Cup of Coffee and Some Rusks!

Published by Kathy Hunt

Last month I had a Marcel Proust-madeleine moment where a bite of a baked good—in my case, a rusk—brought back memories of a long ago event. Unlike Proust’s profound experience, where I ate this cookie was far more interesting than the memory itself. Chewing on a nut-flecked rusk while I stared out at four graceful impalas drinking from a water hole in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, I remembered that a decade ago I had written a syndicated article about twice-baked cookies and that that article had included rusks. Yeah, my memory wasn’t nearly as cerebral as Proust’s, either. Rusks have featured in South African cuisine since the 18th century, when Dutch farmers or boers living in South Africa looked for ways to make bread last longer. By baking loaves of dough twice, they learned that they could remove all the moisture from the loaves. This gave their bread or rusks an almost endless shelf life. In times when food was scarce and shopping for supplies involved traveling long distances over hot, barren landscapes, they …

Cinnamon Pie Crust Sticks Like Nana Used to Make

Published by Kathy Hunt

A few weeks ago I attended a food journalism conference where editors told the assembled writers, “No more grandmother stories.” Everybody has a grandmother. No one wants to hear about her anymore. The timing couldn’t have been stranger. Just that morning, while wandering around Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market, I came across something that I hadn’t seen or thought about in years, something that reminded me of my paternal grandmother, whom I also hadn’t seen in years and about whom I’ve never written. A relic from early childhood, they were strips of pie crust dusted in cinnamon sugar. At the Market they were called “cinnamon sugar pie fries.” When I was a little kid, they were ‘scraps of leftover pie dough that Nana had decorated with cinnamon sugar and baked.’ Now I think of them as cinnamon pie crust sticks. Unlike many food writers, I don’t have charming stories of baking with my grandmothers or mother. By the time that I was old enough to whisk eggs or roll out dough, my maternal grandmother was gone …

Tips for Cut-Out Cookies and Austrian Cinnamon Stars

Published by Kathy Hunt

Whenever I make the gluten-free, cut-out cookies Austrian Cinnamon Stars, I think of my late father. Although he was neither an ardent cook nor baker, every holiday season he and I spent at least one night in the kitchen baking and decorating cut-out Christmas cookies. The tricks he employed to ensure beautiful holiday sweets are ones that I use to this day. If making the aforementioned Austrian cinnamon stars and any other cut-out cookies possessing a soft, sticky texture, I refrigerate the dough for at least 30 minutes before rolling it out. After mixing the ingredients for the cookie dough, I shape it into a ball, cover it with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about 30 minutes. Depending on the size and tackiness of the dough, it may need to stay in the fridge for a little longer or shorter. No matter what, it shouldn’t get cold and stiff. If it reaches that stage, it’ll be difficult to roll and cut. Another trick that my father taught me was that, to stop cookie dough …

What to Eat at European Christmas Markets

Published by Kathy Hunt

My mother used to claim that I inherited my wanderlust from her late father, a civil and mining engineer who worked and traveled throughout Latin America. If he was to blame for my “itchy feet,” that unceasing desire to roam the globe, then she bore responsibility for my passion for European Christmas markets. As a kid, I spent countless Saturdays following her through crowded church Christmas bazaars. Which faith sponsored the event never mattered. As long as it featured homemade pizzelles, kolaches, stollen or fruitcake, we’d be there. A curious kid, I wondered how my hometown’s holiday bazaars stacked up against those in people’s homelands. If I visited Germany’s Striezelmarkt, would ladies jostle and push for the last few loaves of nut-studded stollen? If I went to Poland, would people nibble on onion- and potato-filled pierogis as they shopped? What did people eat at European Christmas markets? For that matter, did they even have these seasonal fairs? Turns out that Europe is chocked full of cheery, outdoor, holiday markets. Along with decorations, crafts and jewelry, …

Revisiting Palmiers – Cinnamon Palmiers

Published by Kathy Hunt

I spent last week preoccupied with the age-old question of how to pack just enough clothing and books in a carry-on—a carry-on that can only weigh 15 pounds and that will be my only piece of luggage on this trip—for a month of traveling and working on another continent. My fixation meant that I fell a tad behind on sharing a variation on Kitchen Kat’s Lemon Palmiers. Forget what that alternate recipe was? As they say in Australia, which is where I’m headed, “no worries!” It is for cinnamon palmiers. Think back to July 21st when I posted a scintillating entry on the flaky, caramelized, French cookies known as palmiers. As you might recall, these treats derive their name from their palm-like shape; in French palmier means “palm.” Comprised of folded layers of puff pastry and sugar, which gives them their distinct shape, they’re a light and delicious little sweet. Palmiers traditionally feature just those two ingredients, sugar and puff pastry. However, as indicated in the previous post, you can spice them up with such …