What does baking have in common with stocks and sausages, you may ask? (I know I did.) All are amenable to ratios--once you learn a certain balance of liquid, fat, starch, etc. you can use those ratios to create an almost infinite array of flavors. Since I was keeping things simple for the week, I made cookies. Very basic cookies:
They're 1 part sugar to 2 parts butter to 3 parts flour, plus whatever flavorings you add. And that's all. No eggs. I don't think I've ever made cookies without eggs before. I made one batch with a little salt, vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves, and another where I replaced the regular sugar with dark brown sugar but still added salt and vanilla.
They turned out well--dry, crisp, buttery, and more sophisticated somehow than most sweeter, cakier cookies. Will make again, and may use to introduce Miss Fraser to baking, since the dough molds like modeling clay and I wouldn't have to worry about raw egg issues. (I'll cheerfully lick the bowl clean myself, since I know the odds of the one or two eggs I used happening to carry salmonella are very low, but I'd feel like a Bad Mommy to encourage my daughter to do likewise.)
Oooh, they look good. Actually, the whole egg thing was one reason why I got the Vegan Cupcakes book. Some of the ingredients are slightly bizarre, but they are the best cupcakes in the world hands-down, and they even teach you to do that fancy frosting for complete no-hopers like me. And licking the bowl is just bliss..
ReplyDeleteI might have to find that one, though, as this blog series indicates, I'm far from short on cookbooks!
ReplyDeleteThose look good - the perfect cookie to go with a cup of tea. What do you bake them at and can you use cookie cutters? Might be a fun cookie to make in snowflake shapes and dip 1/2 in chocolate.
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I think they were the standard 350F. They'd probably work with cookie cutters, though I just followed the recipe suggestion to roll the dough into little balls and flatten by hand.
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