Friday, October 8, 2010

Not dead, but I do have cookies

Yes, I've been neglecting ye olde blog. Generally when I finish a particularly large painting, my muse goes into hibernation for at least a month afterward, and that's been the case.

I did, however, make cookies yesterday morning. These ones, with several exceptions. I did not let the dough sit around to blend flavours, and I most certainly did not wait two days before breaching my supply. I also only filled some of them with jam. I am not a jam person. I like it in very, very thin scrapings on toast, not sugary blobs. In this particular case, I used some seedless wildberry stuff in similarly small amounts, and liked the results. These really need a tart jam to set them off; they'd be sickeningly sweet otherwise. I'll probably make them again next time there's lemon curd around.

Waiting is necessary after you fill them, but a few hours is sufficient for the jam to soften the cookies (the unfilled ones are very crisp and tasty in their own right--more sandy and less melty). I'll have to see if another day does anything.

The spoon-shaping sounds irritating, but it's not (although I may be biased, since I like doing such things). A bit time-consuming, but that just gave me something to do while one batch was baking. It also had the benefit of making them perfectly uniform in size, so I'll never have to guess at the timing (13 minutes) again. An ordinary teaspoon is perfectly serviceable.

If I have not yet implied it, they're pretty damned glorious.