March 30, 2009 - Simple Cookies

First Day of pastry school!! I arrived at 5:30 to change and eat dinner (the full time culinary students make us dinner before they leave....yes, guaranteed delicious gourmet dinner every Monday and Wednesday night). We had a delightful vegetable soup with fresh green salad and spread of cheeses, bread, and fruit.  

Class starts at 6 pm sharp. After a short intro to Tante Marie, we jumped right into a brief demo and then were put straight to work! There are 13 or 14 students and were each assigned two recipes (each one made by two people). With recipes in hand, we have 2 hours and 15 minutes to finish. Finishing on time means you have everything prepped, plated, and displayed on the front table and your station is clean.  The kitchen is pretty much chaos for the next 135 minutes, some organized and some not...mostly not, though everyone did finish on time.

My assignments were Mexican Wedding Cookies and Almond-Chocolate-Thumbprints. I'm not a huge fan of crumbly cookies like the Mexican Wedding, but they came out alright so I was happy. The thumbprints I like much more and have already made them again at home, which leads me to....

The Delicious Recipe of the Day: Almond-Chocolate-Thumbprints 

(courtesy of Tante Marie's Cooking School, about 3 dozen cookies)

For cookies:

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 4 oz whole almonds
• 12 oz unsalted butter, but into large chunks and slightly softened
• 4 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 13 1/2 oz all purpose flour
• sanding sugar or grain sugar, for rolling

For chocolate:

• 2 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 5 tsp unsalted butter

Process the sugar and salt in a food processor until it looks powdery and a littler finer, 30 to 60 seconds. Add the almonds and process until finely chopped, about 20 seconds. Add the butter and vanilla and pulse until the butter is smooth, scraping the bowl as needed. Add the flour and pulse until a soft dough begins to form around the blade. If there are still patches of flour, transfer to a bowl and stir briefly with a rubber spatula. 

Roll dough into 1" balls. Roll each ball in sanding sugar and set on waxed-paper lined tray. Press your finger or the end of a wooden spoon into each ball to create a depression. Refrigerate until firm (1-2 hours). Remove cookies from refrigerator and place 1" apart on parchment-lined sheet tray. 

Bake at 325-degrees for 10 minutes. Gently redefine the depressions with finger or wooden spoon end. Rotate sheets and continue to cake until the tops are lightly colored and bottoms are golden, another 8-12 minutes.  Cool completely.

Meanwhile, melt chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Fill each depression with mixture.