Unusual Cookies

Sometimes it's freeing to bake something so unusual that there are no emotional connotations. I'll never bake the perfect chocolate chip cookies because the hundreds I've had in my life all pull me back in my heart and I can't shake the fact that store-brand chalky oversweet chocochip cookies taste public schoolish and that au bon pain chocochip cookies--half price at four o'clock--taste like my first real job. No red velvet cake recipe will taste as good as my grandma still being alive to bake hers. It's just the way it is.

So last night I was bored, and since boredom leads to baking (force of nature!) I decided to try two strange cookie recipes from Martha that I found intriguing: Earl Grey Tea Cookies and Rosemary Pinenut Cookies.

Earl Grey Tea Cookies

2 Cups all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
2 Tablespoons finely ground Earl Grey tea leaves, (from about 8 bags)
1/2 Teaspoon salt
2 (8 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 Cup confectioner's sugar
1 Tablespoon finely grated orange zest

Whisk together flour, tea, and salt in a small bowl; set aside.

Put butter, sugar, and zest in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix on medium speed until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to low; slowly mix in flour mixture until just combined.

Divide dough in half. Transfer each half to a piece of parchment paper; shape into logs. Roll in parchment to 1 1/4 inches in diameter, pressing a ruler along edge of parchment at each turn to narrow log and force out air. Transfer in parchment to paper-towel tubes; freeze 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut logs into 1/4-inch-thick slices. Space 1 inch apart on parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake until edges turn golden, 12 to 15 minutes. Let cool on sheets on wire racks.

I swear I followed the Earl Grey Tea Cookie recipe to the letter, but I either added too much flour or the recipe calls for too much flour because the first bite said "melt-away!" and the second bite said "oh, christ, what's going on." The tea taste is strong, and the orange zest flatters it, but I was not taken with the finished product. The next time I make a regular cookie dough I'm going to try adding earl grey; it's a marvelous, sophisticated complex flavor and it definitely has the potential to rock.

Rosemary Pinenut Cookies

1/2 Teaspoons coarsely chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 Cup pine nuts, toasted, plus more for topping cookies
2 1/4 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Teaspoon baking soda
1/2 Teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 Teaspoon coarse salt
10 Tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1 Cup plus 2 Tablespoons granulated sugar
2 Tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 Tablespoons heavy cream
1 large egg
Granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 325 degrees;. Finely chop rosemary in a food processor. Add pine nuts; pulse until coarsely ground. Transfer to a large bowl. Whisk in 2 cups flour, the baking soda, ginger, and salt; set aside.

Put butter and granulated sugar into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Mix on high speed until pale and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Mix in oil. Reduce speed to low. Mix in flour mixture. Add cream; mix until well combined, about 2 minutes. Mix in egg, then remaining 1/4 cup flour.

Shape dough into 3/4-inch balls, and space 2 inches apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Flatten slightly with fingers, and dip into granulated sugar.

Bake cookies, rotating sheets halfway through, until edges are golden, about 13 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes on sheets on wire racks. Transfer cookies to racks to cool completely. Cookies can be stored in airtight containers up to 3 days.

The pinenut cookies: such a bizarre idea! I was expecting to be mildly grossed out, but I was just so curious that I made them anyway.

They were divine ten minutes out of the oven, still warm; they are pretty awesome the next day. I wouldn't serve them to little kids or anyone with a conservative palate, but share these with someone who takes pleasure in being startled. Rosemary tastes good + chewy cookies taste good -- just not used to them being combined; (I forgot that) pinenuts are rather sweet and do serve to ameliorate the strange union of the two. Dang. I think the texture is so awesome because of the olive oil in the recipe ("mouthfeel"); I always loved the texture of cake-mix-from-a-box and I suspect the lightness/moistness comes from using oil, rather than butter? I've never baked cookies with oil in them before; the chewiness is bakery-esque. While olive oil complements the rosemary, I would use veggie oil with more conventional cookie flavors; I want to figure out a way to work it into other recipes.

NB: I used skim milk instead of cream + dried rosemary instead of fresh (because it's what I had) and it turned out fine. I was also careful not to burn the pinenuts, which I think is rather important. I kept an eye on them until they were just lightly brown. Same the the cookies themselves: I cooked them for 6 minutes, rotated the pan, and then cooked them six minutes more. The bottoms were lightly golden-- not a hint of black. They might be a bit undercooked, but I think they taste great like that.

I Love TV

I was watching Everwood, Season 1, Disc 6 while I was cooking. The third to last episode is a beautifully complicated meditation on abortion that never lowers itself to hysteria but still factors in religion, politics, and agency. By the latter, I mean that this 18-year old is so passive: her boyfriends knocks her up, her dad tells her she's going to get an abortion. It's pivotal when Dr Brown gives her the chance to think about the options -- raising in, adoption, abortion -- and she finally gets what she really needed, which was a chance to make a choice for herself. Have agency. Active-verb sentences.

I love how everything clicked when Dr Brown realized he was thinking about Delia the way the preggo-chick's dad was thinking about her. I can see how he naively thinks he is protecting his children this way: he knows what they need to do to stay safe and be sucessful and he thinks he can secure good future for them if he makes them do the right things. However, ultimately he realizes it's the act of making those choices that produces strong, capable, happy adults and infantalizing his children leaves them unprepared to make decisions when he's no longer around to make them for them. But still, it's scary to let them loose, because they do make mistakes, either inconsequential/embarassing like Delia or accidental/terrifying like Ephraim. All in all, I thought the structure of the episode was gorgeous.

I rarely like teenage female main characters. It's like in order to base a tv show around them, they get written into being narcissistic, hysterical, and weak. Amy Abbot is such the exception. I am in awe of her bravery not to take shit from her boyfriend just because he's terminally ill, and her beauty, most of all when she was jogging around the track in a grey sweatsuit and her cheeks were red like she'd really been running, not made up. She's so rad. She's too good for all these dudes.

I've got one episode left of season 1, and then I can crack the season 2 episodes I downloaded. If they don't put the whole series out on dvd, I'm going to flip out.

The only thing that sucks is that I skipped America's Next Top Model and I'll have to wait until Sunday to make sure they didn't cut my favorites: Jaslene, who stole my heart by looking & acting like Raci from Transgeneration and generally being nuts; Natasha, the mail-order bride who also acts nuts; and Jael, who reminds me of Kaitlin Cooper & to whom I related when she said she was worried about being disliked when she won. I hope someone smother Sarah with a pillow. I can't stand precocious.