FORGOTTEN COOKIES

I was looking at a couple of spare eggs in the egg basket late one evening and remembered this recipe which I had seen on the Good Food website a while ago.

The “late one evening” bit is the point, as these are essentially little meringues which you whisk up and put in the oven, then you turn the oven off and can leave them or “forget about them” until the next day.

As far as I can remember, this is the first time I have ever made a meringue, other than the sort you would put on top of a lemon meringue pie.  They turned out well, crisp on the outside and chewy inside, with nice little bits of nut and chocolate to surprise you as they melt on the tongue.  I also liked their rather rustic appearance and they are of course gluten free.

Some of them had nice hard, dry bottoms, which is how they should be I think.  Others were a bit gooey on the bottom and more difficult to remove from the baking sheet without falling apart.

I suspect this might be due to the efficiency of my fan oven in my French kitchen, which is newer than the one back home by about ten years.  I wonder if the fan that comes on to cool the oven down when you switch it off was too effective and cooled the oven too quickly.  I believe this oven has an option to turn the fan off so next time I make them I will see if I can find the instruction book (and understand the French text) and give that a try.

And I will definitely make them again.  I used a pack of Sainsbury’s Belgian chocolate chips and pecan nuts but I might try white chocolate and almonds next.  I also fancy making them even smaller so they could be served with an after dinner coffee.  Posh, eh ??!!

Ingredients

2 large egg whites

pinch of salt

120g caster sugar

120g pecan nuts, roughly chopped

150g dark chocolate, roughly chopped, or chocolate chips

1tsp vanilla extract

Method

Preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°fan / gas mk 4.  Line two baking sheets with foil.

Whisk the egg whites with a pinch of salt until stiff. 

Whisk in the sugar a little at a time.

Fold in the nuts, chocolate and vanilla essence.

Drop heaped teaspoons of the mixture onto the baking sheets, spaced 2-3 cm apart.  Put them into the oven and turn it off.  Forget about them for at least three hours, or until the oven is completely cold, or overnight.

Makes 30-35 cookies and they keep well for a few days in an airtight tin.

NAVETTES À LA FLEUR D’ORANGER

This month’s Tea Time Treats Challenge is for something French and I fancied making something that seems unique to France.

Navettes are a speciality of the south of France and are little cookies made in the shape of a little boat or shuttle to commemorate the arrival of the Saintes Maries to the coast of Provence two thousand years ago.  Fleur d’oranger is the classic flavour and you can read all about it here.

 

They are easy if rather time-consuming to make.  I imagine it would be something children would enjoy doing – all that rolling and shaping of the thirty two little “boats” would keep them occupied for ages.

 

You end up with a small cookie which is crunchy on the outside and soft inside, just the right size to serve with coffee mid morning or after dinner.  They also dunk really well ! ! I will definitely be making them again.

I think next time I will boost the orange flavour by adding some orange zest, just because I love the flavour, even if it would no longer be traditional.

I am therefore grateful to Karen of Lavender and Lovage, and Kate of What Kate Baked for putting on this monthly event and causing me to explore my many French cookbooks and bake something I may have otherwise overlooked.  Karen is hosting this month’s Challenge and you can read about it here.

Ingredients

50g unsalted butter at room temperature

100g caster sugar

3tblsp orange flower water

1 large egg, lightly beaten

260g plain flour

a pinch of salt

For the glaze

1 egg yolk beaten with 1 tbslp water

Method

Put the butter and sugar into a food processor and process until light and fluffy.  Add the orange flower water and egg and process again until well combined.

Add the flour and salt and mix again until a dough is formed.  Remove to a floured work surface and knead into a ball.

Split the ball into two balls, flatten slightly and wrap each on in cling film   Chill in the fridge for at least an hour and up to 24 hours.

When you’re ready to make the navettes, preheat the oven to 180°C / 160°fan / gas mk 4.  Line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Divide one ball into 8 segments and roll each segment in your hand to form a little ball.  Put each of these balls on the floured work surface and roll into a log about 8cm long.  Cut each log in half so you now have 16 4cm logs.  Repeat with the other half of the dough so you have 32 little logs.

To make the shuttle shape, nip the ends of each log and roll on the work surface slightly to make a smooth, even taper.  Flatten slightly and cut a slit along the centre using a knife or spatula, running the whole length of each cookie but not cutting all the way through.

Brush each one with the egg glaze and bake for 15-17 minutes until pale gold and slightly browned at the ends.

Makes 32 navettes.  They keep well in an airtight tin.

PALMIERS

I first saw these little morsels of tastiness on TV when Lorraine Pascale made them in her first series, possibly even in her very first programme.  They looked both dead easy to make and very yummy in equal measures, so when we were chez nous in our little French house, expecting visitors, I was thinking about something quick to make for pre-dinner nibbles and decided to give them a go.

I made some tomato ones, using a jar of “delices de tomatoes”, which is a sort of sundried tomato paste.  I also sprinkled on some grated parmesan cheese for good measure.  They were made in a jiffy and went down very well with our guests.

 

Later in the week, with the help of my young baker friends, Isabella and Amélie (more about that later), I also made some Speculoos ones, using a jar of Speculoos spread.  The idea came from one of those little mini French recipe books that you find in petrol stations and supermarkets.  The actual recipe was for pinwheels but I made them into palmiers instead.  They were also a big hit, especially with the two girls !!

 

Definitely worth doing again and the variations of fillings are, I suspect, endless.

Here’s how I made the palmiers.

Ingredients

One pack of ready-rolled, ready-made puff pastry

A jar of sundried tomato paste, or Speculoos spread

Method

Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°fan/gas mk 6.  Line two baking sheets with baking paper.

Unfold the pastry and, if it’s a French pastry and therefore a circle,  trim into a square or oblong shape. 

Spread the pastry thinly with your choice of flavouring, right up to the edge.

With the shorter end nearest to you, roll each longer side of the pastry towards the middle, making a sort of double sausage shape – it helps to mark the centre of pastry sheet so you know where to stop rolling.  Brush the inside edges where the two rolls meet with a little beaten egg, milk or water so they stick together.

Cut your double sausage into thin slices using a sharp knife.  Place them well apart on the two baking sheets to allow room for spreading.

Bake for 10-15 minutes until the pastry is puffed up and golden.

Allow to cool on the sheets for a few minutes then transfer to a rack.  Allow to cool completely before serving.

Makes approx. 24 palmiers.

GLUTEN FREE ORANGE AND POLENTA BISCUITS

After my disaster with Jamie Oliver’s recipe for orange and polenta biscuits, then the success with the Cookie Girl’s recipe, I was interested to see how this one would turn out.  I found it in the little Hamlyn book, “200 gluten free recipes”.

 

The recipe uses polenta, rice flour and ground almonds.  You make a dough, chill it for a while, then roll out very thinly before cutting into small rounds.  I didn’t have a suitable cutter in my little French kitchen so I used a small glass.

Interestingly, this is the only thing I have ever used this set of glasses for.  I spotted them in Ikea in Tours and thought they looked cute and the sort of thing we might find useful in our little French cottage.  Silly really, I would never have thought they might be useful in England.  But they were dead cheap, so that’s not so bad.

You sprinkle flaked almonds on top of the biscuits before baking and a very few minutes later they are done.

And absolutely lovely they were too.  Thin, crispy and very moreish.  In fact the last few were still very crispy two days later – we munched on them on our way back home to England.

Whether you need a gluten free recipe or not, this one is a winner if you like a light, crispy biscuit that is not too filling.  Perfect with morning coffee or your cup of tea in the afternoon.  Luckily the recipe makes a large batch because as they are so thin and light, just a couple is simply not enough !!

This is what you need.

75g polenta

25g rice flour

25g ground almonds

½tsp cream of tartar

¼tsp bicarbonate of soda

75g icing sugar

50g butter, cubed

1 beaten egg yolk

grated rind of 1 orange

25g flaked almonds

This is what you do.

Put the polenta, rice flour, ground almonds, cream of tartar, bicarb, icing sugar and butter into a food processor.  Blitz until you have fine breadcrumbs.  Add the egg yolk and orange rind.  Process again until a ball of firm dough is formed.

Wrap the dough in cling film and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.

Preheat the oven to 180°C/170°fan/gas mk 4.  Line two baking sheets with baking parchment.

Dust a work surface with rice flour and turn the dough out onto it.  Roll the dough out thinly and cut into circles about 4cm dia. 

Put the biscuits on the baking sheets, allowing a little room for spreading.  Sprinkle each one with flaked almonds.

Bake for about 8 minutes until golden.  Leave to cool on the baking sheets for a few minutes then remove carefully and cool completely on a wire rack.

Makes about 20 biscuits.  They keep well in an airtight tin or box.

LACE BISCUITS

This is my entry for Bellau Kitchen’s March Random Recipe Challenge.  This month the idea was to choose a recipe at random from the 17th book from the left on the bookshelf.  I wasn’t sure if this was to be the top shelf or bottom shelf.  Or even, in my case, the middle shelf.  Anyway I decided to go for the top shelf which is where the least used cookbooks end up.  That was bound to turn up something challenging.

I bought this book some time ago for 50p from a charity shop.  It was in less than tasty condition; some of the pages were a bit wrinkly due to it having been in a box of unloved books outside the shop and the dust jacket was a bit grubby.  When I got it home I took the dust jacket off and binned it which made it seem more hygienic, although bits of it still remain stuck to the back cover.   After a brief flip through the book I was not too inspired which is why it ended up on the top shelf.

Anyway, I flipped the pages again and the one that turned up had three recipes on it, so I picked the one for “lace biscuits”, something I had never heard of before.  The recipe was tucked away in the bottom corner of the page, as if it was an afterthought and there was no picture so I had no idea what they should look like. 

Sophie Grigson says it’s amazing that something made of oats can become so fancy.  Well, I’m not sure mine quite achieved that but although some may have been rather misshapen, they were delicious.  Thin and crispy, nice and crunchy with a buttery taste and very moreish.

They were unbelievably easy to make.  You simply mix the dry ingredients together, pour on the hot melted butter, add the egg and mix.  Literally moments later, when you have something that looks like buttery porridge, you drop teaspoonfuls onto a baking sheet and bake.  How easy is that??!!

The tricky bit was getting the dollops even in size and spaced far enough apart.  They spread much more than I expected as they baked.  Luckily I have three oven shelves and three baking sheets but still had to do a second batch.  But the ones that came out joined to each other were easily separated and still looked inviting once they had cooled.

Some of my dollops were better spaced than others!

They would be great to nibble with coffee or to dip into ice-cream or some other soft and gooey pudding.  My mixture made a huge batch of around 40 biscuits – they were not tiny either – and the ones left after we had pigged out first time around kept well in an airtight box.  Definitely a recipe to do again and again.

Lace biscuits – definitely worth a posh photo.

Which just goes to prove that all recipe books will have at least one recipe worth doing before you throw it out or take it back to the charity shop.  So thanks again to Dom for his Random Recipe Challenge, and for once more getting me to bake a recipe that I otherwise would never have given a second look. 

You can actually still buy the book via Amazon at a bargain price. 

I think this might be why they’re called “lace biscuits” !!

There is also a gluten free version of the cookies using coconut and cornflour, which I came across on the internet when I was trying to find out what lace biscuits are supposed to look like - you can see this version here.  When the biscuit tin is empty and I have a few spare minutes I will make those next, just to see how they compare.

This is what I used

1 tablespoon plain flour

110g rolled oats (porridge oats)

225g caster sugar

¼ tsp salt

110g butter

1 large egg, beaten

3-4 drops vanilla extract

This is what you do.

Line 4 baking sheets with baking paper, (or as many as you have and bake in relays).  Preheat the oven to 170°C/160°fan/gas mk 3.

Sift the flour into a medium sized bowl.  Add the oats, sugar and salt and mix together.

Melt the butter in a small pan and pour it over the oats mixture while it is still hot.  Stir to mix evenly.

Make a well in the centre and drop in the egg and vanilla.  Mix the ingredients together thoroughly.

Plop teaspoonfuls of the mixture onto the baking sheets, remembering that they will spread quite a bit so space them well apart, at least 5cm.

Bake for 10-12 minutes until golden brown.

Remove from the oven and leave on the baking sheets for 5 minutes.  Then remove carefully and leave to cool completely on a rack.

Makes 30-40 biscuits (depending on the size of your dollops!).  Will keep well in an airtight tin or box – if they last that long !!

MACAROONS

When is a macaroon not a macaroon?  Or, put another way, when is a macaroon a real macaroon?

When we were in France last summer we visited a macaroon museum.  Yes really.  The French have a museum for everything and anything including almond macaroons.

It was a delightful way to pass an otherwise unpleasantly warm and humid afternoon.  The museum presents the history of a family of artisans who began making almond macaroons in France a hundred years ago and at the end you get a little dégustation.  And very nice they were too.  I wrote about it here.

The original almond macaroons.

Then there are coconut macaroons.  I have my friend Elizabeth to thank for re-introducing me to the delights of those.

Coconut  macaroons. 

These are a dream to make and absolutely scrumptious.  Now that I have discovered my favourite recipe I make them often.  You can read about them here.

Then there is the Be-Ro book version of macaroons. You can see the original recipe here and I made a mincemeat version of them here.

Be-Ro book macaroons, well sort of.

However, I have never made anything like these.  Not only that, I have never eaten one either.  They always look incredibly fiddly to make and I have immense admiration for anyone who does make them.  They’re on my bucket list for a day when I’m feeling brave and frivolous.

Fashionable macaroons.

When we were in France last summer I took with me a book borrowed from the local library.  It soon became one of those books I couldn’t live without so I bought myself a copy.  It is now one of my very favourite cookbooks.

I was sitting on our little terrace under the shade of the big umbrella one afternoon.  Nick had gone fishing, the dog was snoring in the sunshine, I had a little pile of cookbooks on the table next to my glass of rosé wine and all was well with the world. 

With our recent trip to the macaroon museum still fresh in my mind, I found a recipe for these:

  Hazelnut macaroons.

I nipped straight down the hill to the little Spa shop in the village and there on the shelf was just what I needed, a packet of ground hazelnuts.

This always amazes me.  Here we are in rural France in a little village the size of Cromford in Derbyshire and you can get everything you need.  It might be basic and the choice may be limited but between the village butcher, baker, Spa shop and Thursday market, there’s not much you have to go without.  Twice we have spent a whole week in the village without venturing anywhere else and we managed perfectly well.  There are very few Derbyshire villages where you can do that.

 

The little macaroons were a joy to make and absolutely lovely.  Great with morning coffee and afternoon tea.  I always give our neighbour Mme André some of my baking.  It amuses both of us and she’s always most appreciative.  It’s also my way of thanking her for all the little gifts of flowers, fruit and vegetables that she leaves on our doorstep every visit.   She thought “les macarons” were beautiful and delicious.

This is what you need.

160g ground hazelnuts

2 egg whites

160g caster sugar

40g ground almonds

2-3 drops vanilla extract

This is what you do.

Mix the egg whites and sugar together and add the other ingredients.  Combine to form a sticky dough, cover with clingfilm and put in the fridge for half an hour or so.

Preheat the oven to 130°C/gas mk ½.  Line a baking sheet with baking parchment.

Remove the mixture from the fridge and stir to loosen slightly.

Take small pieces of dough, about the size of a large teaspoon, shape into rounds or balls and place on the baking sheet.  Allow a little room for spreading.  Flatten slightly.

Bake for 25 minutes or until the macaroons are light golden.  They should be firm on the outside but slightly soft in the middle.

Cool on a rack.  They will keep for several days in an airtight container – allegedly !!

Makes 25-30 macaroons.

ORANGE POLENTA COOKIES

I decided I might take part in Dom’s February Random Recipe Challenge which involves choosing a page at random from a randomly chosen cookbook.

So I ran my hand along the cookbooks in my collection and picked out this book.

It’s a beautiful book full of gorgeous looking recipes but  I had never cooked from it before.  So I flipped the pages and it fell open at “orange polenta cookies”.  

Well, fancy that.  I didn’t know I owned a book with another recipe for these cookies.  Having had a disappointing result with the Jamie Oliver recipe, should I or shouldn’t I have another go ??

My mum always said, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Einstein said, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results is the definition of insanity.

My other half said “I don’t know why you keep making stuff like this, it never works”.

That did it.  The next time I had a day off work, the minute he was out of the front door I fetched my pinny !!

In actual fact, this recipe used roughly twice as much flour as polenta, whereas in Jamie’s recipe it was the other way round.  I decided to reduce the ratio of polenta even more to see what happened.  I also decided to use caster sugar instead of granulated and omit the vanilla extract stated in the recipe.

The butter was at room temperature but was still not very soft so I used a tip taken from a Lorraine Pascale book and grated it to soften it.  Because the quantities of butter and sugar were fairly small, I started out beating the mixture by hand but soon got fed up with that so put it into my Kenwood mixer.

The mixture turned out just the right consistency for biscuits, not too firm or sloppy.  They were easy to shape but it all got a bit messy, which is inevitable really.

They baked beautifully in the maximum time stated in the recipe.  What’s more important is that this time they were delicious.

They had a delicate orange flavour and were not too sweet, with a nice crunch.  There was a suggestion on the polenta packet to substitute some polenta for the flour in pastry or biscuit recipes to give them extra crunch and obviously it does work, if you get the ratio right.

I was very pleased about that.  If I was to serve them with the little chocolate pots I would make them about half this size and probably adjust the cooking time slightly.

I would definitely make these again and certainly to accompany the little chocolate pots, or maybe ice-cream.

I then found another recipe using polenta for a cake…… marmalade polenta cake…..hmmmmm…..next time perhaps.

Here’s what I used for my version of orange polenta cookies.

85g unsalted butter

140g caster sugar

finely grated zest of 1 large orange

1 large egg

150g plain flour

45g polenta

1 tsp granulated sugar

Here’s what you do.

Line two baking sheets with baking parchment.  Preheat the oven to 170°C/160°fan.

Beat the butter and caster sugar together until light and fluffy.  Add the orange zest and egg and beat again until smooth.

Add the flour and polenta and mix gently until combined.

Take small lumps of the dough, about the size of a walnut, and roll into a ball.  Space them out evenly on the baking sheets to allow for spreading.  Flatten slightly with the heel of your hand and sprinkle with the granulated sugar.

Bake for 12-15 minutes until golden and slightly browned at the edges.  Lift carefully from the trays and cool on a wire rack.

Makes 18-20 cookies.