two new cookie recipes

​I don’t care how hot the weather may be; I still bake a batch of cookies each week. In fact, this week, I baked two batches. On a recent episode of America’s Test Kitchen, Bridget Lancaster did a demonstration of a cookie called Baci di Dama, Lady’s Kisses. These hazelnut sandwich cookies have just a smidge of dark chocolate holding the two halves together.
 
For the recipe you’ll need hazelnuts, all-purpose flour, granulated sugar, cornstarch, salt, unsalted butter, vanilla extract and bittersweet chocolate chips. I did find a recipe on pastry chef David Lebovitz’s website for Baci di Dama. Mr. Lebovitz got his recipe from Terresa Murphy. Her recipe calls for rice flour or white flour. The rice flour he says, makes for a crispier cookie. 

​I highly recommend that you view the video from America’s Test Kitchen which shows an easier method for cutting the cookies. The method ATK uses is to place the cohesive dough into an 8-inch x8-inch pan, chill for 10 minutes in the freezer and then remove the dough from the pan. Once right-side up on a cutting board, the dough is scored in half, then quarters, then eighths. Rotate the dough 180° and score again. Once satisfied that everything is equal, cut the dough into 64 squares.
 
These little gems were delightful! They were crisp, had a lovely hazelnut flavor and a hint of chocolate. The cookie had a texture similar to shortbread. Despite their delicious taste, I gave a good portion to my neighbor who was celebrating her birthday the following day. However, I will make these again.
 
I really need to search my own website before I pursue selecting recipes to blog about. I just discovered that my so-called new recipe for Classic Peanut Butter cookies was one that I made back in 2016. My husband was delighted to have this cookie all to himself as I am not a fan of peanut butter cookies.
 
While I was typing this up, I got out my recipe box and found my husband’s grandmother’s recipe for peanut butter cookies. Next week, I’ll make hers. Enjoy!
 
Peanut Butter Cookies
Recipe from Grandma Freid
 
Yield: approximately 50 cookies
 
Preheat oven to 350°
 
½ cup margarine (I would use butter at room temperature)
½ cup peanut butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. baking soda
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
½ tsp. salt
 
I rewrote the directions as follows. I used a hand mixer for the Classic Peanut Butter recipe, but you can also use a stand mixer.

1. Cream the butter and peanut butter together. Add both granulated sugar and brown sugar until blended. Add egg and mix.
2. Sift together the dry ingredients. Adding ½ cup a time, mix the dry ingredients into the butter/peanut mixture. If it gets too stiff to use a stand or hand mixer, mix in by hand.
3. Shape into small balls; press flat with fork.
4. Bake at 350° for 10-15 minutes. Do not grease cookie sheets.

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Classic Peanut Butter Cookies
From King Arthur Flour Baking Company
Recipe by P. J. Hamel
 
Prep: 15 minutes
Bake: 12 to 16 minutes
Total Time: 27 minutes
 
Yield: about 2 dozen cookies
 
Ingredients
1/3 cup (57g) vegetable shortening or 8 tablespoons (113g) unsalted butter, for softer cookies
1/2 cup (99g) granulated sugar
1/2 cup (106g) light brown sugar, packed
1 large egg
1 teaspoon King Arthur Pure Vanilla Extract
​3/4 cup (198g) peanut butter*
1 1/2 cups (180g) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
*If you use all-natural peanut butter, grind your own, or use low-fat or low-salt peanut butter, the cookies won't turn out as described.
 
Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease (or line with parchment) two baking sheets.
2. Beat together the shortening or butter, sugars, egg, vanilla, and peanut butter until smooth.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, and salt to the peanut-butter mixture, beating gently until everything is well combined. It may take awhile for this rather dry dough to come together; and when it does, it'll be quite stiff. Only if necessary, drizzle in enough water to make the dough cohesive.
4. Drop the cookie dough by tablespoonfuls onto the prepared baking sheets (a tablespoon cookie scoop works well here), leaving 2" between them.
5. Use a fork to flatten each cookie to about 1/2" thick, making a cross-hatch design.
6. Bake the cookies for 12 to 16 minutes, until they're barely beginning to brown around the edges; the tops won't have browned. Remove them from the oven, and cool on a rack.
7. Store well-wrapped cookies at room temperature for a week or so; freeze for longer storage.

Tips from our Bakers

• Add 1 cup raspberry jammy bits to this recipe to create peanut butter and jelly cookies.
• For a pretty circular design on top of your cookies, flatten with the end of a food processor's plastic "pusher" (if it has a circular design on the end). For other imaginative ways to flatten your cookies, see our blog post, Drop cookies: beyond the fork.
• Looking for a gluten-free version of this recipe? Find it here: Gluten-Free Classic Peanut Butter Cookies.

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Baci di Dama
Lady’s Kisses
From America’s Test Kitchens
 
 
Makes 40 sandwich cookies
1 cup hazelnuts, toasted and skinned
½ cup (2½ ounces) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (1¾ ounces) sugar
2 tablespoons cornstarch
¼ teaspoon salt
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into ½-inch pieces and chilled
½ teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup (3 ounces) bittersweet chocolate chips
 

1. Adjust oven racks to upper-middle and lower-middle positions and heat oven to 350 degrees*. Line 2 baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Process hazelnuts, flour, sugar, cornstarch, and salt in food processor until finely ground, about 30 seconds. Add butter and vanilla and process until dough comes together, about 30 seconds.
   
3. Transfer dough to counter and divide into 4 equal pieces. Working with 1 piece of dough at a time, press and roll into 10-inch-long by 1-inch-wide rope. Using bench scraper or sharp knife, cut rope into 20 lengths, then roll lengths into balls with your hands and space them 1 inch apart on prepared sheets. Repeat with remaining dough. Bake until edges are lightly browned, 16 to 18 minutes, switching and rotating sheets halfway through baking. Let cookies cool completely on sheets.*
   
4. Microwave chocolate chips in small bowl at 50 percent power, stirring occasionally, until melted, 1 to 2 minutes. Spread ¼ teaspoon chocolate over bottom of half of cookies, then top with remaining cookies, pressing lightly to adhere. Let chocolate set, about 15 minutes, before serving. 

If you click on the America’s Test Kitchen name above, it is linked to the video for the making of these cookies. I prefer the method as demonstrated by Bridget Lancaster over the recipe above. Another discrepancy is the baking temperature in the video versus the print recipe. 
 
Directions from video: After processing the dough in the food processor, dump on a cutting board and knead until the dough is a cohesive mass. Line the bottom of an 8-inch square baking with a sheet of parchment. Press the dough evenly into the pan. Place the pan in the freezer for 10 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 325° and line two sheet pans with parchment paper.
 
Remove pan from the freezer; using a knife or bench scraper gently go around the edge of the pan to release the dough. Turn the pan over onto a cutting board; turn right side up.
 
Using a sharp chef’s knife, score the dough in half. Score each half into quarters and each quarter into eighths. Rotate the dough and do the same thing again. Once you’re done scoring, cut into 64 squares. Take each square and gently roll into a ball and place 32 balls on each pan.
 
Bake one sheet at a time for 20 minutes; rotate midway through. Bridget says the goal is to have lightly brown domed shaped cookies.
 
Let the cookies cool on the pan. Turn every other row over so that you have one domed row of cookies and one row with the flat side up. Proceed to follow directions in #4. 

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