I am actually blogging a recipe before I've even tasted it. This seems terribly backwards, but it's a cookie recipe, I've just taken them out of the oven, and they are far too hot to eat. So I've got about 5 minutes during which I can either fold laundry or get started on tonight's blog.
Anything, anything, to avoid folding laundry.
Atlanta Mom sent me this recipe, which looked wonderful. I gotta tell you, though, my finished product looks nothing like the picture. Let's hope all our mothers were right, and looks really aren't everything.
Let me start by saying: Oh, hell.
I just went to the website to copy the recipe and noticed a very helpful link. To step-by-step pictures of the recipe being made. And let me tell you - not only do my cookies not look like the picture, but my steps didn't quite resemble theirs, either.
Pressing on. Here's the recipe, with my notes.
Sparkling Cranberry Gems, courtesy of King Arthur Flour
1 cup (4 1/4 ounces) King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour, organic preferred; or King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (I did the white whole wheat flour. Who knew such a thing existed? Not me until about a week ago, but I'm going to try it in my pumpkin bread recipe next)
1 1/2 cups (7 ounces) dried cranberries, packed
2 tablespoons (1/2 ounce) confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
6 tablespoons (3 ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into pats
3 tablespoons (1 1/2 ounces) milk
Coating
scant 1/2 cup (about 3 1/2 ounces) coarse white sparkling sugar (Which, for the record, is NOT the same as natural turnadino sugar. Guess which one I bought at the grocery store, since my Publix apparently does not sell coarse white sparkling sugar. )
Place the flour and dried cranberries in the bowl of a food processor. Process until the cranberries are coarsely shredded. Imagine a single dried cranberry cut into about 4 pieces: that’s your goal. (Okay, I was totally with you here)
Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets. (Got it. Done.)
Whisk together the flour/cranberry mixture, sugar, baking powder, and salt. (Oops. From the pictures that I NOW see, when you said "whisk," you actually meant "whisk." I must admit that caused some confusion when I was making these, because here I was, trotting along in my food processor. And then I thought, surely they don't mean for me to pull out two major countertop appliances all for one recipe? So I didn't. But you did.)
Add the vanilla and butter, mixing until the butter is thoroughly distributed, but some pea-sized chunks still remain. Dribble in the milk while mixing; the dough will become cohesive. (So far, so good, this still worked out okay in the food processor, at least theoretically. Hey, if it's good enough for pie crust, it's good enough for cookies, right? RIGHT?)
Place the coarse sugar in a plastic bag; about 1-quart size should do. Using a teaspoon cookie scoop (or a spoon), scoop the dough by 1 3/4-teaspoonfuls (about 1 ¼" balls) into the bag, 6 or 8 at a time. Close the top of the bag, and gently shake to coat the balls with sugar. Place them on the prepared baking sheet, and use the bottom of a glass to flatten them to about ¼" thick (about 1 ½" in diameter). (I must confess, I didn't do this step. I had a comment from a reader with my last post that perhaps I should refrigerate my cookie dough to keep it from spreading. So tonight, once I had the dough made, I popped it in the fridge for about 2 hours, and then wasn't going to blow all that effort by mushing them down myself - otherwise how would I know if they spread or not? Sure enough, I have a whole sheet pan of still-fat cookies cooling downstairs. Brilliant. I'll try the oatmeal ones one more time.) Repeat with the remaining dough.Bake the cookies for 16 to 17 minutes, until they’re set and barely, BARELY beginning to brown around the very edge; the tops shouldn’t be brown at all. Remove them from the oven, and cool right on the pan.
Yield: about 3 dozen cookies. (Really? Because I barely got 19. Is this where the whisk would have helped me out?)
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For those of you who want the helpful link, instead of my version, here it is.
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Now - hold on just a sec, I'm running downstairs for a glass of milk and a taste test.
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I'm back. And the verdict is...
Um. Weird.
But perhaps you'll have better luck, following the real directions?
Happy eating!
