Springtime Cookies and Curd

Continuing from the previous post…this is recipe #2 using the cookies from last post.  This looks so simple but for some reason the flavors were so complex…it was delicious!

Word of warning though it can be costly to make if you don’t have some of these ingredients sitting around in your house.  I already had to buy the almond flour for the cookies, then the Rhubarb and Angostura Bitters, Grenadine, and Strawberries.  I always feel so out of place going to my Total Wine store…”excuse me, I am baking and need these, showing them my paper, can you help me. :). The good news is, now I have these supplies and can make this again more easily.

This is a dessert that you make all the components ahead of time and then construct it when you are ready to eat.  There are a few steps!

1. First bake the Double Baked Double Butter Petite Beurre Cookies
2. Make the Curd consisting of grapefruit and lemon juice.  This needs to be chilled minimum of 4 hours.  I made this the night before.
3. Make the Roasted Rhubarb with Bitters.  This is an optional step but I would say this completes the diverse flavors in this dessert.  It gives it a taste that I would equate to cloves or allspice. I am not sure, but wonderful!
4. Prepare the strawberries with sugar 10 minutes prior to serving.
5. Assemble the “parfait”…crumble the easy to crumble cookies on the bottom,  spoonful of curd, spoonful of rhubarb bitters, and spoonful of strawberries.  Top with more cookie crumbles.

I don’t know what we were all expecting, but I can tell you, not something tasting as complex and delicious as this.  The flavors all complimented each other so well…and the textures just put it over the edge.  This was a wonderful surprise…and certainly not the usual dessert I prefer.  I am so glad I gave it a try because I loved it.   I would totally make this again…even those high maintenance cookies  haha!  This one is a keeper for sure!

 

Double-Butter Double-Baked Petit Beurre Cookies

On first glance you would think this is a very simple, plain cookie…you would be wrong.  Although this is a plain cookie on its own, it is not simple and is usually used as a part of a more elaborate dessert.

This month we will bake a little differently than in the past.  We will still have two recipes, but this first one will be used in the second.  We have a double duty kind of thing going on.  I have made both as of this posting but will refrain from speaking about the second except to say…it is simple delicious!!!  Any of you who have not made it yet, go the extra mile and make the Rhubarb Bitters to go with it.  I think it takes it over the edge.

Back to our recipe at hand, the plain cookie that is not simple.  These cookies are a VERY fragile butter cookie.  The lengths you have to go to in order to have an unbroken cookie is unbelievable haha…so yay for me for accomplishing the first task 🙂

These cookies actually have a few steps.

Mix up the dough until you have crumbs resembling streusel and turn them out onto a cookie sheet squeezing some together to create different sizes

• Bake the mixture, turning the crumbs every 5 minutes.  Cool the crumbs to room temp.
• When the crumbs are cool, transfer them back to the mixer and add the remaining butter and beat…keeping some of its irregular texture.
• Shape dough into a disk and roll between parchment paper.  Freeze dough for at least an hour.
• Using a cookie cutter cut the dough out, knowing the dough will most surely crack as you do this.  We are to take heart that all will end well.
• Bake the cookies and without moving them off the cookie sheet let them cool to room temp.
• After the cooling we are “suppose” to then move them gently still on the cookie sheet into the refrigerator and let them chill for 1 hour THEN we can remove them from the cookie sheet.  High Maintenance would you say!!!  (I skipped this step and I still was able to have whole cookies)

We tasted the cookies and thought ok, good but rather bland.  It is a simple butter cookie that crumbles and dissolves in your mouth.  Good…but at this point I was seriously saying to myself, and some of my tasters, I will not be making these again.  Too much work for not enough flavor.  This is where this post ends but the story does not.  Like I said these cookies are used as part of a much more elaborate dessert that had me saying to myself, sure, yes, I can make those cookies again. The next dessert is THAT good.  Stay tuned.  I guess I would say then this one is a keeper! 🙂