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I haven't posted in a while but I have been cooking. I had a brief fling with braising and and a couple of forays into soups but in these cold winter months I long for a familiar comfort....baking. I've been making whole wheat cocoa nib cookies, hippo cheese crackers and a giant New York Cheesecake. To be honest I've been doing a lot of Smitten Kitchen's recipes. I have taken a break from cookbooks as they have become an expensive habit and I wasn't feeling inspired. I tried the local library and was surprised that the Barefoot Contessa, Nigella or Sophie Dahl were not able to break my cookbook doldrums. 

A couple weeks ago I came across a post about The Communal Table, it's playful design and accessible recipes spoke to me. A Casual Setting is the first in a series of cookbooks about eating and gathering, curated and illustrated by Caroline Hwang. The recipes are accessible and appetizing. The bonus is that any money made from the books will be donated to a food-related organization. I can't wait to make the man steak for eight!

With Spring comes a new crop of cookbooks and while I have no interest in Gwyneth's book there were plenty of good books coming out. One in particular is Plenty: Vibrant Vegetable Recipes From London's Ottolenghi, I'm still on the waiting list for that one but I ordered another one with it that just arrived it's called Chicken and Egg: A Memoir Of Suburban Homesteading with 125 Recipes. I don't know if it's  the fact that we're getting more daylight or these new crop of cookbooks but I feel ready to cook again.

bakernoon turns to baking weeks

I’m going to say it “I hate winter.” Yes I know I live in Canada, I have lived here my whole life and it has never made winter any easier. Of course I love the snow and the chill in the air when it first shows up in December but when the holidays fade away and we move into the January and February I begin to resent the cold. Usually at this time I start to hibernate.  Baking returns with zeal now that the detox is over. I have decided that cookies are the ultimate food of choice. Over the last 2 weeks I have whipped up Smitten Kitchen’s Crispy Chewy Chocolate Chips (a favourite and one of the few things I repeatedly make), Dorie Greenspan’s Chocolate Roll Out Cookies in rabbit shapes and now Orangette’s Whole Wheat Sablés with Cacao Nibs.

I’ll always give a thumb up to the choco chip cookies. The rollouts were an experiment. As many of you may already know I don’t enjoy rolling out things, but I found a super cute rabbit cookie cutter that I had to use for Chinese New Years. It’s worth freezing the cookies for asked for time, the flavours were better, the dough was easier to roll and cut and the cookies did not spread as much. These cookies had a deep rich chocolate flavour due to mixing cocoa powder and chocolate together. They are definitely worth it if you roll them a little thicker (1/4 of an inch) and undercook them slightly. When you do that you get a bit more of a bite to it and had a brownie type texture to them. Dust them off with a little icing sugar and you’re good to go.

I’m not entirely convinced whole-wheat flour belongs in cookies but Molly from Orangette was convinced that this is the way. Using my last 1/3 cup of delicious cocoa nibs from Soma I made these cookies. Again I did something different by rolling the dough into a log and putting it in the fridge. Slicing them and baking them was a breeze. While there is a bit of nuttiness from the whole-wheat flour and a nice deep smoky chocolate flavour from the nibs I’m still not a believer. Molly says to give it day and it will taste better. I’ll try it again tonight and see….

Chocolate Roll Out Rabbits, adapted from Bon Appetit

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

3 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped

1 cup (2 sticks) butter, room temperature

1 1/3 cups sugar

1 large egg

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat over to 350 degrees. Mix the dry ingredients (minus the sugar) in a bowl together.  Melt the chocolate on a double broiler remove and let cool. Beat butter and sugar together until pale and fluffy. Beat in egg. Reduce speed to low and add vanilla and chocolate. Add flour mixture and beat until just combined. Make a ball with the finished dough and cut in half. Flatten the balls into discs and plastic wrap them for at least 4 hours.

Take the dough and roll it out on a floured surface until about 1/4 inch thick. Cut out the cookies and place about 1 inch apart from each other on parchment lined baking sheets. Bake for about 10 minutes. The cookies will be puffier and firmer and have slightly darker edges. Take out and let cool. Dust lightly with icing sugar.

Warning makes a lot of cookies but they won’t last long.