02-19-2009
Zimtsterne
"Here she goes again with her stupid cookies cutters and crappy photomontages". Well snap out of it people (faites pas la gueule) it's now officially one of my specialties. But today I feel like I'm perfectly entitled to it. You see, I have the flu.
(here, dramatic pause to let people express their commiseration)
I'm feelin' the pain (je dérouille sévère). No, I am, seriously. I'm going blind in my left eye, I can hardly taste the difference between peanut butter and chicken liver pâté, and my muscles feel like I've wrestled a yeti. Besides I'm miles away from home (3635 to be precise) and I have to make my own chicken soup. How much does that suck?
So I feel entitled to indulge in a lousy photomontage, cut me some slack. And if you were wondering, yes it is Hillary Clinton pointing her space-shooter at you.
Zimtsterne are miracle Alsacian and German cookies and ladies and gentlemen I weigh my words. Not only do they taste fabulous (otherwise I wouldn't bother posting, duh) and they are cholesterol free, but I also claim that they lower your cholesterol. It's my excuse to stuff my face with them and my answer to my doctor who wants me to quit egg yolks and butter and start running the marathon. Take THAT mister quacky quack.
Cinnamon ("Zimt" in case you wondered) is the real star here. As you will see, very few ingredients - use good quality so that every flavour really shines through. The original recipe, in French and grams, is available on Pauline's blog, but as I know you're going to give me hassle big time (je sais que vous allez me chercher des crosses) if I use grams, I'll translate and convert it for you.
2 egg whites
1 1/4 c plain sugar (yeah sorry guys, I said good for cholesterol not diabetes)
2 1/2 c almond flour (from whole unpeeled almonds, not the white kind. Trader Joe's carries it. Or stick raw almonds in the blender)
1Tbsp lemon juice
2Tbsp cinnamon powder
Whisk the eggwhites with a big pinch of salt, and when they are stiffening, add the sugar progressively. It should become glossy. I did it by hand (with my flu muscles, woohoo), so I never got a voluminous meringue, it's just *fine*. Put aside about half a cup of that meringue. In what remains, fold in the almond powder, the lemon juice and the cinnamon with a spatula until it coalesces into a ball.
Sprinkle your worktop liberally with caster sugar, and roll the dough, keeping it thick (about a third of an inch). Dipping your star cookie cutter in water every so often, cut out stars and put them on a silpat or parchment paper. Ice the top with the remaining meringue (it's fiddly - my stars were tiny, I used he back of a spoon, but apparently a piping bag works). Let it stand 12 hours at room temp (overnight is good). After this considerable long time, turn your oven on at 460°C and bake for 5 minutes (a little bit of an anticlimax). The meringue should not brown. They are incredible when still warm, and amazing when cooled. I challenge you to have just one.
And now I will go back to lying in my bed in the dark and strumming my guitar to melancholy Johnny Cash tunes. I love that husky voice of mine. It's hot.
Or not.
02-13-2009
Matcha Shortbreads
Some recipes are harder to post than others. You slyly nibble at the raw dough (tu grignotes la pâte crue en douce) and faster than you can say Jack Robinson there is hardly any left in the bowl. Bottom line is, no pictures. Or you end up cooking whatever remains of the dough. And eating the shortbreads so fast you don't have time to locate your camera. Or there isn't enough light in the room and it doesn't cut it (ça le fait pas) (is there EVER enough light in that room? do I live in a cave?). Or a dinosaur sneaks up on your glass of milk and tries to hijack your cookie. It engenders an endless taxonomic debate with your flatmate on the exact genus of the saurian in question (Brontosaurus? Diplodocus? Matchasaurus?)
Yes, sometimes it really is a miracle that there is any evidence left at all that you baked something.
Talking about saurians, I can't help but notice that many an unwitting reader of this blog stumbles on it accidentally, brought in this neck of the woods by concerns of an epistemological or philological nature.
It's all credit to them, of course, and since some questions have been
recurring lately, I'd like to make a point.
"what kind of animal does oxtail come from" "is oxtail really what it is"
Yes. Ox. Tail. You got it.
"why is a walnut called a walnut"
Because the Romans brought it to the UK.
Those sablés have been made by half the blogosphere (Yeah zero novelty factor - geese, I'm such a lemming), and it's Sunday morning, two very good reasons not to re-post the recipe. All hail Kelli and Fanny. When you bake the cookies, keep a very close eye on them and take them out as soon as you start seeing the sides changing colour (hardly even browning). It took only ten minutes in my oven. They will solidify as they cool, and you want to keep them as "sablé" as possible. Besides it would be a shame to lose that crazy green tint and subtle diplodocussy flavour.
Diplodocuses taste of green tea. Fact.
