Baking with Cookie Molds

Moving

2010-11-11T13:54:00.000-08:00

My online cookie magazine will be moving to my web site after this month. Please visit me at:

http://annelwatson.com/cookiemolds/magazine.html

The November issue is also there, with additional information.

2010-10-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the first issue of my online cookie magazine! This month, we'll explore flavors of the harvest, and molds to accompany them. Join me for recipes, featured molds, and baking tips. If you have any questions, please use the contact form on my web page.

Table of Contents

November 2010 Issue

Late Fall--An Appreciation of the Season

Acorn and Oak Leaves--November Cookie Mold

Recipe: Pumpkin or Apple Cookie Tartlets

Apple Picking--November Cookie Mold

Recipe: Cinnamon Chestnut Cookies

Wheat Sheaves--November Cookie Mold

Bountiful Harvest--November Cookie Mold

Recipe: Cranberry Pecan Layer Cookies

Grapes--November Cookie Mold

Turkey--November Cookie Mold

November Technique--Cookie Tartlets or Other Small Cookies

Late Fall--An Appreciation of the Season

2010-10-31T10:35:00.001-07:00

Fall is one of my favorite times of year. The sudden change in sunlight, from clear to golden, a new scent in the wind, a new school year. Fall has always seemed to me to be a season of beginnings, not endings.

Here on San Juan Island, fall is everywhere. Leaves turn to yellow, brown, and orange, swirl from hill to hill. Garden tools retreat from the aisles of the hardware store, replaced by fireplace logs and road salt. Old pear orchards, untended for years, bear heavily among tall weeds. The pears are harvested only by deer and raccoons. Pumpkins are piled outside the market, and the new crop of apples dazzles us.

And the windstorms begin. I'm told I live on the windy side of the island, and I believe it. Some November nights, the south-west wind sounds like a freight train. I grew up in hurricane country, and I've never heard winds quite like this.

Surprisingly, though, there has never been any damage--aside from losing the seat cushion from a lawn chair when we first moved here. We looked and looked, but never found it. I imagine that seat cushion sailing through the night air like a Frisbee, maybe sailing out to sea. Neptune may be sitting on it this minute, for all I know. We're wiser now--when wind is in the forecast, we bring the chairs in.

Here at the 49th parallel, fall is over by the end of November. Winter doesn't start officially until the solstice, December 21, but the year itself knows no such rule. Late November in the islands is cold. We close our windows at night now, and our footsteps crackle on frost in the early morning. Often, we have snow around Thanksgiving. It's a good time to celebrate houses, brightly lit and welcoming--our own, or our friends' --a good time to be home, or to entertain. The scent of baking cookies fills the kitchen. We hear the storms outside and count our blessings.

It's time to pause and feel thankful for all we have. And many cultures do this at harvest time, whenever it occurs. Traditional harvest celebrations include Sukkot, Harvest Home, Festival of the Autumn Moon, Martinmas, Thanksgiving, and many more.

This month, let's look at cookies to celebrate the earth's bounty. November's recipes feature the flavors I associate with autumn--nuts, cranberries, apples, pumpkin, and warm spices.

Acorn and Oak Leaves--November Cookie Mold

2010-10-31T10:19:00.000-07:00

Autumn leaves, and squirrels caching acorns--maybe, if you're a squirrel, an acorn is a cookie!

Here's a fall springerle mold from Gene Wilson at HOBI Cookie Molds:

And here's my cookie:

Recipe: Pumpkin or Apple Cookie Tartlets

2010-10-31T09:20:00.000-07:00

Pumpkin or Apple Cookie Tartlets

These require a special mold--usually called a "pineapple tart mold." It's intended for an Indonesian specialty, but these molds make wonderful cookies as well, and are very easy to use. I like the apple jelly for apple pies and the honey for the pumpkin pies.

1 cup (225 grams) butter or margarine

1 large egg

1/2 cup (120 milliliters) apple jelly or honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon milk

1/2 cup or 100 grams sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

About 4 cups (585 grams) all-purpose flour

1. Melt the butter. Set aside.

2. Beat the egg in a large bowl.

3. Mix the honey or jelly, vanilla extract, and milk. Add to the egg.

4. Mix the sugar and salt. Add to the egg mixture.

5. Add the butter slowly to the egg mixture and beat well.

6. Add flour slowly until the mixture is solid enough to knead. If you are using an electric mixer, stop the mixer once or twice as you add flour, and scrape the sides of the bowl to get all the flour mixed in.

7. Transfer the dough to a counter or breadboard and knead in more flour to make a soft, slightly sticky dough.

8. Wrap and refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes.

9. Roll and form the dough according to the directions for your mold.

10. Chill the cookies while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius).

11. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly browned at the edges.

Fill with commercial pumpkin pie or apple pie filling, pumpkin or apple butter, or with your own pre-cooked pumpkin or apple pie filling. It's best to add the filling just before serving.

This month's technique section explains how to make a cookie sheet full of these tartlets with very little trouble or handling. Here's the tart mold, which is available from Biodiversity Herbs.

Apple Picking--November Cookie Mold

2010-10-31T09:09:00.001-07:00

Here's a mold that celebrates the apple harvest. You could make this cookie with the recipe for "Apricot Jam Cookies" from my book, "Baking with Cookie Molds," substituting apple jelly for the apricot jam. The mold is available online from Springerle Joy.

And here's the cookie:

Recipe: Cinnamon Chestnut Cookies

2010-10-31T09:02:00.000-07:00

Two warm autumn flavors, cinnamon and chestnut, combine to make a special seasonal cookie. Medium-light in color, and with a smooth texture, this recipe is good for complex molds. Make sure to use sweetened chestnut paste rather than unsweetened pureed chestnuts.

These cookies are crisp, on account of the high percentage of nuts. Make them thin for best results.

Cinnamon Chestnut Cookies

1 cup (225 grams) butter or margarine

1 large egg

1/2 cup (160 grams) sweetened chestnut paste

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 tablespoon cream

1/2 cup (100 grams) sugar

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

About 1 1/4 (165 grams) all purpose flour

1. Tear the chestnut paste into marble sized bits.

2. Melt the butter.

3. Combine the warm butter and the chestnut paste and beat well until smooth.See note.

4. Beat together the egg, vanilla extract, and cream and add to the butter mixture.

5. Combine the sugar, salt, and cinnamon, and add to the butter mixture

6. Add flour slowly until the mixture is solid enough to knead

7. Transfer to a work surface and knead in more flour to make a dough the consistency of children's modeling clay.

8. Roll and form the dough per the instructions for your cookie molds or the directions in my book, "Baking with Cookie Molds".

9. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees Celsius).

10. Bake one test cookie for approximately 15 minutes. Adjust time and temperature as needed, and bake the remainder of the cookies.

Wheat Sheaves--November Cookie Mold

2010-10-31T08:54:00.000-07:00

"All is safely gathered in, ere the winter storms begin."

Celebrate the harvest with sheaves of wheat. Here's a mold from My Cookie Mold, called "Wheat Sheaves"

And here's a cookie made from this mold, using my Cinnamon Chestnut Cookies recipe:

Bountiful Harvest--November Cookie Mold

2010-10-31T08:01:00.001-07:00

Here's a mold that shows a harvest scene. The original was created in the 1600s, and a replica is available from House on the Hill:

It's about six inches in diameter.

Here's a cookie I made from this mold, using one of my November recipes, Cinnamon Chestnut Cookies:

Recipe: Cranberry Pecan Layer Cookies

2010-10-31T07:27:00.000-07:00

Cranberry Pecan Layer Cookies

Use a mold that will look good with a tweedy, flecked cookie. The dough is divided, and the cranberries are added to part of it. After the two balls of dough, plain and cranberry, are rolled out, they are layered, and the dough is molded with the cranberry layer on the bottom. See directions for layer cookies in my book, "Baking with Cookie Molds".

1 cup (225 grams) butter or margarine

1 large egg

1/2 cup (120 milliliters) honey

1/2 cup (98 grams) sugar

1/2 cup (80 grams) finely ground pecans

1/4 teaspoon salt

About 3-3/4cups (515 grams) all-purpose flour

1 cup (170 grams) finely chopped dried cranberries

1. Melt the butter. Set aside.

2. Beat the egg in a large bowl.

3. Add the honey to the egg mixture.

4. Mix the sugar, ground nuts, and salt. Add to the egg mixture.

5. Add the butter slowly and beat well.

7. Transfer to a counter or breadboard and knead in a little more flour if required to make a soft, slightly sticky dough.

8. Divide the dough into two balls, one about twice the size of the other. Knead the cranberries into the larger ball.

9. Wrap the two dough balls separately and refrigerate for 30 minutes.

10. Roll each dough ball separately to about the same dimensions. (The cranberry layer will be twice as thick as the plain layer).

11. Lay the plain layer over the cranberry layer and roll the two together gently.

12. Roll with a springerle pin or form with cookie molds, using the manufacturer's directions or the directions in my book, "Baking with Cookie Molds." The plain dough faces the mold. If you use a springerle pin, separate the cookies after chilling and before baking.

13. Chill the cookies while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius).

12. Bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly browned at the edges.

Grapes--November Cookie Mold

2010-10-31T07:18:00.001-07:00

Fall is the harvest season, and one of the most beautiful harvests is the grape harvest. Here's a cookie to celebrate that, made from an antique butter mold. Butter molds often make excellent cookie molds. This is especially true of butter molds that consist of a flat plate with detachable sides, like this one. The photo doesn't show the detachable piece, as I don't use it with cookies, but you can see the holes for the pins that fasten it to the mold.

Here's the cookie, made with this month's recipe for Cranberry Pecan Layer Cookies:

Turkey--November Cookie Mold

2010-10-31T07:04:00.000-07:00

The symbol of the season--the turkey!

Here's the mold, a Brown Bag ceramic mold that is no longer made, but can often be found on Internet auction sites and from other secondhand sellers:

And here's the cookie, made with this month's recipe for Cranberry Pecan Layer cookies:

Notice that the cookie is speckled. This is something to keep in mind when you make cookies with ground nuts. Speckling is fine for a turkey, but it might not look good if the mold were a flower or a person's face.

November Technique--Cookie Tartlets or Other Small Cookies

2010-10-31T06:05:00.000-07:00

I'm showing this technique with the cookie tart mold, but it would work just as well with cookie stamps or small springerle molds. The basic idea is to roll a sheet of dough, remove a small strip between rows of cookies, and then press, cut, and trim off the scraps. This saves handling and re-rolling, both of which toughen your dough.

Here, I've rolled and trimmed a sheet of dough for cookie tarts:

Notice that I've rolled it on a sheet of nonstick foil. This is important, because it makes it possible to cut and bake the cookies without moving any of them.

When you have your sheet rolled and trimmed, set your mold on it and decide how many lines of cookies you can make. Then cut a channel to separate the lines.

Now press and cut your cookies. If you're using tart molds, assemble the mold and place it on the dough. Press down on the center piece, then on the outer cutter.

Then lift the cutter off the dough. Press the center piece down lightly with your forefinger to help separate them.

Tip the center piece to remove it without lifting the cookie from the foil.

Now cut the dough, remove the scraps, and continue to the next cookie:

Transfer the aluminum foil sheet to a baking sheet and bake your cookies.

Other small molds and cookie stamps would be used in a similar way, but instead of working with the built-in cutter piece, you'd use a cookie cutter after you'd pressed the image with the mold.

Questions? Use the contact form on my web page, and I'll answer quickly:

http://annelwatson.com/contact.html

October Cat--"Little Grandmother's Cookies"

2010-10-07T11:29:00.000-07:00

A Cookie for October

2010-10-07T11:27:00.000-07:00

I got this neat Brown Bag cat mold, and decided to make a Halloween cat with chocolate dough. Chocolate dough isn't the best choice for some cookie molds--it's not all that dark, but it doesn't transmit detail as well as pale doughs. So the cat, all abristle, seemed the perfect choice. It wasn't too detailed, and what would October be without a black cat?

The recipe is below--"Little Grandmother's Cookies," with flavors of Mexico--chocolate, cinnamon, and coffee.

Recipe: Little Grandmother's Cookies

2010-10-07T11:26:00.000-07:00

Little Grandmother's Cookies

Mexican hot chocolate features a combination of chocolate and cinnamon flavors. One of the more popular preparations for making this drink is called "Abuelita," or "little grandmother".

For this cookie recipe, inspired by Mexican hot chocolate, I've added coffee--a specialty of Mexico--and the rich, sweet vanilla that's also a valuable product of that country.

1 cup (255 grams) butter or margarine

1 large egg

1/2 C honey

1 T heavy cream

1 teaspoon chocolate extract

1 teaspoon vanilla extract (I used Mexican vanilla, but other vanilla is fine)

1/4 cup (50 grams) white sugar

1/4 cup (55 grams) brown sugar

2 tablespoons unsweetened baking cocoa

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon instant espresso powder (has to be instant--regular espresso won't dissolve)

1/8 teaspoon salt

About 4 cups (560 grams) all purpose flour

1. Melt the butter and set aside.

2.Beat the egg in a large bowl until yolk and white are fully mixed.

3. Stir together the honey, cream, chocolate extract, and vanilla extract, and add to the egg. Beat until well blended.

4. Sift together the white sugar, brown sugar, cocoa, cinnamon, espresso powder, and salt. Add to the egg mixture and beat until well-blended.

5. Add melted butter and beat until well-blended.

6. Add flour, first using your mixer on low speed, scraping the bowl to incorporate all the flour, then by kneading. The consistency should be similar to children's modeling clay. Don't add more flour than it takes to reach this consistency.

7. Shape according to the directions for your cookie mold. Bake at 350 degrees--baking time depends on thickness, but should be around 15 minutes.

Texture and Molded Cookies

2010-09-26T09:19:00.000-07:00

For some people, the ideal cookie is a soft, gooey, cakey morsel. Those can be great. However, molded cookies have to be a bit more solid than that--more like shortbread or gingersnaps.

Also delicious, just different.

For slightly cake-ier molded cookies, serve them warm.

Or, go the other way: make them thin, serve them at room temperature, and enjoy their crispness.

Or serve your cookies with fruit or ice cream, cocoa, tea, or coffee. Or mulled cider.

I do have a few cookie molds that seem to make cookies that are better to look at than to eat. For the most part, they're antique molds. These molds make large cookies, and often they're thick as well. This gives a chance for the cookie to have a beautiful design, but if you serve them, they're an awful lot of cookie for one person to eat. And of course, when you break them up, the beautiful design disappears.

It's a good idea to experiment with any mold/recipe combination before you serve it for a special occasion.

Aha (Duh)

2010-09-13T08:59:00.000-07:00

I was having a lot of trouble with a cookie mold sticking to the dough. In one of those "Aha's" that feels like a "Duh" the next minute, I realized I was creating the problem myself.

It's a smallish mold, and the pattern is not particularly deep. I was trying to get a better print by pressing harder. And the dough was sticking.

Then I realized that there's no way I could make it print better by pushing the mold deeper than the depth of the design. Any more that that just makes it stick.

I lightened up my touch and the problem disappeared. The design printed beautifully, by the way.

Preparing Cookie Molds

2010-09-09T10:51:00.001-07:00

A cookie mold that's properly prepared is one of the keys to success. But they're not all alike.

For most molds, I oil the surface of the mold very lightly, wiping off any oil that looks sparkly. The mold should have the kind of slight sheen that painters call "satin."

Then I use a fine-bristle pastry brush (Ateco makes a good one) to spread flour thinly over the surface of the dough.

The cookie almost always comes out of the mold beautifully, at least with my recipes.

However, a few molds just have to be different. Sometimes it's an unfinished wood mold or an unusually coarse pottery one.

If a difficult mold has very fine detail, I use just flour, no oil. The cookies will often have flour on the surface when they're unmolded, so I let them sit at room temperature until it's absorbed, usually about half an hour. You can also chill them and brush the flour off the surface. Some mold makers recommend powdered sugar or cornstarch for dusting molds. I prefer the flour, but you might prefer something else.

If the difficult mold has large flat areas, I use just oil, no flour. This has--so far--always been a coarse pottery mold, like terra cotta flowerpot material. I soak the surface with oil and let it sink in. Then I use it. So far, this has worked for me much better than flour.

The best thing to do is, try the main method first. A little oil on the mold, a little flour (or cornstarch or powdered sugar) on the dough. If this doesn't work, experiment.

Maple

2010-09-07T05:04:00.000-07:00

Maple is a nice flavoring, especially for holiday cookies. The most easily available form is maple syrup, which works well for molding.

Maple syrup is graded differently in different countries, but all the ones I've researched have the same quirk: The higher the grade, the milder the maple taste. This goes back to the days when maple was an important sweetener for all kinds of cooking, not a specialty. So, unless you wanted half your food to taste like maple, the preferred kind would be the one with the least distinctive taste.

Today, we use it mostly for its special quality, so lower grades might be preferable in cookie baking. In the US, this would be Grade B. You have to look to find it--Trader Joe's used to sell Grade B maple syrup, but I don't know if they still do. It isn't significantly cheaper.

Maple cream is available--it is maple syrup that has been cooked and cooled to bring it to the consistency of peanut butter. I haven't tried it in cookie baking. It's also called "maple spread."

Maple sugar is syrup with the water content evaporated. Since the syrup is already reduced to 1/40th the volume of the maple sap, it won't be a surprise that maple sugar, even more reduced, is expensive.

Both natural and artificial maple flavorings are available. A very little goes a long way, in my experience. You may prefer not to use them.

The flavor of maple goes well with pecans, walnuts, hazelnuts, nutmeg, ginger, orange, figs, and vanilla. Many cooks avoid mixing it with brown sugar, as the favor may become quite intense.

Butter and its Cousins

2010-09-06T05:02:00.000-07:00

I had a professional cookbook copyeditor for Baking with Cookie Molds. During one of our phone conversations, she questioned my use of "butter or margarine" in my recipes.

"Does anyone use margarine anymore?" she asked.

Well, yes. I do. I tested both, of course, but when I'm baking for home, I use margarine. My husband is allergic to butter. Many people are lactose-intolerant, and they use margarine. And some people don't use animal products at all, including dairy products.

Margarine makes good cookies, and the dough is a little easier to handle and unmold than dough made with butter. If you're an absolute beginner with cookie molds, it might not be a bad idea to try it, at least at first. Vegan margarine, which is sold in the health food section of my market, is actually even better.

But don't use buttery spreads, or similar products. They contain too much water, and will not work in baking. A product should say it's either butter or margarine.

I've also tried coconut oil, and, in terms of handling, it's more like butter than margarine.

Why the difference? Butter and coconut oil melt at a lower temperature, so the warmth of your hands tends to make the dough sticky. If you're using a recipe sweetened with honey, that's not as important. But if you're using a sugar-sweetened recipe, it can be a major issue.

What about the taste and texture of the cookie? Butter is definitely better to spread on bread. But in cookies, it just doesn't seem to make much difference--except in shortbread or other very delicate cookies with butter as a dominant flavor. For most, it's a toss-up.

So, in the book, I give a choice: butter or margarine. Either works.

Almond

2010-09-05T11:15:00.000-07:00

Almond extract is easily available, but what about other forms of almond?

One traditional use of almonds is the crushed almonds on the back of windmill cookies. Or sliced almonds, I've seen it both ways. The way I do this is to lay down a sheet of parchment or nonstick foil and spread a thin layer of almond slices or chopped almonds on it. Then I roll out my dough on a separate sheet and flip this onto the almond layer. Then I roll lightly and use my molds.

If you're using a springerle rolling pin, you can do this as one large sheet. For smaller molds, you'll probably do better match the size of the mold and make the cookies one at a time.

Almond paste works well in molded cookies, substituting for part of the fat and part of the sugar.

I haven't had good results with almond butter in molded cookies, though peanut butter works fine. I'm not sure of the reason, just passing this along.

I've looked at various kinds of almond syrup, mostly intended for flavoring coffee drinks. They seem to be just sugar, water, and almond flavoring, so I doubt they'd contribute anything special to cookies.

I've used Amaretto liqueur, which has an almond-like flavor (supposedly, it's made from apricot pits). It's quite good, if not precisely almond.

Almond flavor goes especially well with chocolate, lemon, coconut, orange, and vanilla.

Orange

2010-09-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Orange flavor in baking often comes from orange juice, fresh or concentrated, or fresh orange peel. Other sources are orange extract, orange peel powder, culinary orange oil, or orange liqueur such as cointreau.

Orange flower water is traditional in some cuisines, and makes a nice flavoring for wedding cookies, since orange blossoms are the traditional bouquet flower.

A mild orange flavoring is traditional in Danish butter cookies.

Orange blends well with chocolate (think of orange cookies with chocolate backing). Also with walnuts, cranberries, vanilla, cinnamon, brandy, or lemon.

Chocolate

2010-09-03T08:58:00.000-07:00

There are several kinds of chocolate: bitter, bittersweet, semi-sweet, milk, and white chocolate are some of the best-known. These names are actually regulated according to proportions of chocolate, sugar, and other ingredients. If you want a real technical rundown, Wikipedia is a good source. In addition to block chocolate, there are two kinds of cocoa powder: natural and Dutch.

As bought for use, chocolate contains cocoa solids, cocoa butter, sugar, and possibly other ingredients including condensed milk, milk powder, vanilla, and vegetable oil. The higher the percentage of cocoa solids, the more bitter the chocolate will be.

White chocolate contains no cocoa solids. It must be 20% cocoa butter by weight, but often contains vegetable oil, as well as sugar and milk. It works well as part of the fat content of molded cookie recipes, but it doesn't taste like chocolate.

Dark chocolate isn't used much in molded cookies. If you add enough chocolate to the recipe to get a strong chocolate flavor, the dough is too dark for the patterns to show well. And chocolate chips don't work well with cookie molds either. I've solved this by using either chocolate backing or layered cookies, where the dough is laminated in dark and light layers, with the light layer against the mold. Layering is also good where chocolate chips are used.

Cocoa can be used as a spice, as in some Speculaas or Dutch windmill cookie recipes. They don't really taste like chocolate, but it adds a complexity. The best type of cocoa for baking is the natural unsweetened variety. Dutch cocoa is treated to make it less acidic, and it's mostly for drinking.

Chocolate extract is available, and it is made out of chocolate. It's very dark, and it does darken dough. Not everyone likes it--it's not a complete, true chocolate flavor.

Chocolate marries well with flavors such as coffee, raspberry, orange, hazelnut, rum, cinnamon, or mint.

Nutmeg and Mace

2010-09-02T04:07:00.000-07:00

Nutmeg and mace are two products of an Indonesian evergreen tree. Nutmeg is the seed inside its fruit; mace comes from a lacy covering over the seed. The flavor of mace is described by most sources as similar to nutmeg, but sweeter and more delicate. Personally, I find the two so different that I was surprised to learn they came from the same plant.

Fresh, whole nutmegs are much more flavorful than commercially ground. However, hand-grated nutmeg will show up as flecks in your cookies, probably more so than the prepared ground kind, depending on your grater. This can give you a problem with design. If your mold design isn't one that can tolerate a sprinkling of dark dots, it might be better to use finer-ground spices. Some sources recommend substituting mace for nutmeg in recipes where the dark flecks aren't acceptable.

Mace is a wonderful spice in baking, but many people have never used it. It's a bit harder to find than nutmeg, and more expensive.The name is associated more with the self-defense "pepper spray" than with baking, but there's no connection.

I've always bought mace ground, but it is available whole. Better-quality ground mace is orange-ish in color, not beige.

Anne's Carrot Cake Recipe

2010-09-01T04:46:00.000-07:00

Anne’s Carrot Cake

A bit off-topic for a cookie blog, but...

4 large eggs

1 C white sugar

½ C brown sugar

2 t cinnamon

pinch cloves

pinch allspice

1 ½ t nutmeg

1 t salt

1 ½ t baking soda

1 T baking powder

2 C flour

1 t vanilla extract

1 ½ C vegetable oil

2 ¼ C shredded carrots

¾ C crushed pineapple, drained overnight if possible

1 C toasted walnuts

½ C raisins

½ C golden raisins

Preheat oven to 350. Grease and flour 2 – 8” layer cake pans. Put parchment paper in bottoms.

Toast nuts and cool. Chop finely.

In a large mixing bowl, combine eggs and sugar, mixing well. Add spices, salt, baking soda, baking powder and vanilla. Mix well. Add oil, then flour, one cup at a time. Stir in the carrots, pineapple, raisins and nuts.

Bake about half an hour or until done. Cool for 20 minutes, then unmold onto cake rack to cool completely.

Frosting

Soften 4 T butter and 8-oz. cream cheese. Whip together. Add 2 t. vanilla, l t. ea. grated orange rind and lemon rind and beat until smooth. Gradually add 3 ½ C or more sifted powdered sugar.

A couple of tips: For best results, all spices are fresh, spice-vendor versions. Cinnamon and nutmeg are freshly ground.

I use something called "cake strips" which you can find on Amazon and elsewhere--they're heavy strips that go around the outside of the cake pan to make the layers rise evenly instead of humping in the middle. Not necessary, but it makes a professional-looking cake.

Cinnamon

2010-09-01T04:18:00.000-07:00

Who knew? Cinnamon isn't cinnamon.

At least, most of what we buy as cinnamon isn't true cinnamon. It's a related plant, cassia, or Chinese cinnamon.

So what is true cinnamon? It's also called "Ceylon cinnamon." It has a smoother flavor than cassia. In stick form, it's papery, easily ground in a coffee or spice grinder. The secret to my wonderful carrot cake (which, now that I've mentioned, I'll post a recipe today) is freshly ground Ceylon cinnamon.

An interesting thing about cassia cinnamon is that it contains the same substance that made the FDA ban traditional Mexican vanilla. Cassia cinnamon is regarded as unsafe to consume in large quantities--not that you'd put a large quantity in cookies.

There are two other types of cinnamon: Saigon or Vietnamese cinnamon and Indonesian cinnamon. All the plants are related, but in my opinion, the Ceylon is by far the best. I buy mine from The Spice House, but I'm sure other spice vendors would have comparable quality.

Ginger

2010-08-31T13:10:00.000-07:00

I love it. Gingerbread, ginger snaps, the more gingery the better.

It's available in lots of forms:

Ground ginger--Like all ground spices, it's best when very fresh. See if your town has a spice shop--if not, look at the online ones such as The Spice House, Penzeys, Buck's Culinary Exotica, and other spice merchants. Usually, their wares are both cheaper and better than grocery store spices.
Fresh ginger--Available in most grocery stores. Avoid ginger root that's soft or wrinkled. You can freeze it whole and grate as needed--just don't let it thaw. If you don't freeze it, grated fresh ginger can be somewhat fibrous.
Ginger paste, juice, bottled minced or grated ginger--All are available from The Ginger People. I haven't tried any of them, so please comment if you have. Check any ginger preparation before buying it to use in cookies. Some are meant for sushi, and contain vinegar and/or salt.
Ginger spread, marmalade, and syrup--The spread and syrup are also from The Ginger People. Ginger marmalade is made by several manufacturers. I haven't tried these in cookies, either, but would think that any of them would be useful for sweetening. If they contain larger chunks, they should be strained or pureed.
Crystallized or candied ginger--I use this in layered cookies, where I laminate a chunky dough with a smooth one and face the smooth side into the cookie mold. Detailed directions for this technique, which (as far as I know) I invented are in my book, Baking with Cookie Molds.

Vanilla

2010-08-30T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's one of the most-used of all flavorings, often by itself, also quite frequently with other flavors. Here's the forms I know of, most of which I've tried:

Vanilla bean--The way I've used whole vanilla beans is to split them and bury them in a tightly lidded container of sugar. After several months, the sugar becomes infused with a vanilla scent. It's nice, but not that strong.
Grocery store vanilla extract--For most of us, this is probably the basic form of vanilla. I've had at least one bottle of it that was awful, a restaurant supply store brand. The "natural" brands taste slightly better to me than McCormick's, but not a lot. Artificial vanilla flavoring doesn't taste right to me at all.
Upmarket vanilla extract--Bourbon, Tahitian, etc. are very good. Pricey, too. I wouldn't use this except for the only flavoring in a cookie. It seems sort of wasteful to combine it with strong flavors like peanut butter.
Mexican vanilla extract--I separate this from "upmarket" vanilla because the traditional Mexican vanilla extract is no longer available in the US (you can buy vanilla extract from Mexican beans, and it's good, but it's not the traditional kind). It has a percentage of tonka beans, which have mild anticoagulant effects (as do many other things, including aspirin). The FDA banned it, although I think you'd have to drink about a quart of it to experience any effect. It is absolutely delicious, like nothing else, including export-produced Mexican vanilla extract. If you go well into Mexico (stuff for sale in border towns is fake) and aren't worried about tonka, I recommend trying it.
Vanilla powder--I think this is mostly produced for use in frostings, where the idea is to add substantial flavoring without thinning. I haven't tried it in cookies.
Vanilla bean paste--Very nice. It is expensive, and it does color the dough and also add a slightly flecked appearance. If those drawbacks don't bother you, give it a try.

More about Lemons

2010-08-28T05:38:00.000-07:00

The fresh ones. The ones that cost a dollar apiece.

When you buy lemons, look for ones that feel slightly rubbery when you press them. If they are hard, they probably have thick skin. The thin-skinned, juicy ones will give a little in your hand.

Before you squeeze a lemon, get it warm. Prick a few holes in the lemon with a fork, and microwave it for ten to fifteen seconds. Or store lemons at room temperature overnight before juicing.

Before you cut a lemon, roll it on the counter under your hand, pressing hard to break down the cell membranes so the juice can be released.

Lemon

2010-08-26T09:13:00.001-07:00

Lemon is one of the most popular flavorings for cookies. Here are the kinds of lemon flavoring I've come across so far, with comments.

Store lemons: I've lived in places where they were cheap, especially at restaurant supply stores. Inexpensive lemons usually come in net bags, sometimes several pounds for only a few dollars. When I could buy those, I'd grate all the rind, juice the lemons, and freeze. Where I live now, I can't get any deals, and lemons cost about a dollar apiece. Ouch!
Grow your own: I've also lived in places where you could grow lemons, but these were Meyer lemons, which are good, but not as sour as other varieties.
Lemon extract/flavoring: I like the natural kinds, but don't like artificial lemon flavor at all.
Lemon powder: King Arthur sells this, and it's pretty good. I don't think it's as definite a flavor as fresh lemon and rind, but it's natural, and it's a pretty fair substitute.
Bottled lemon juice: This can be bought either frozen or not. The frozen kind is all lemon. I prefer fresh, but it's not bad. The unfrozen kind is full of weird stuff, and it doesn't exactly taste like lemon. Better than artificial lemon flavoring, but not exactly good.
Natural lemon oil: About the same as natural lemon extract. Pretty good, but I don't think I'd mistake it for fresh.
Dried lemon peel: Unless it's powdered, I'm not sure it would work in cookies. Too hard and dry.

What would I do differently next time?

2010-08-24T04:17:00.000-07:00

Every time I try something new, I come up with ideas to modify it a bit. Some of these are already in the recipe I provided below--such as the stiff backing when you flip the mold over. I didn't use one on this cookie, and it would have been easier if I had. The cookie came out of the mold a bit rumpled, and I had to straighten it.

Also, the advice to chill the dough thoroughly before molding, and to trim only after chilling. I know better than to mold dough that's not cold enough, and I know I get a cleaner trim if I chill again beforehand. This time I was impatient.

I think I'd have a backing board for the finished cookie if I planned to do much with it besides take a picture. A cake board might be available in an appropriate size, depending on the dimensions of the cookie. Then I'd use shrink wrap to hold it on the board.

The Huge Cookie

2010-08-24T04:07:00.000-07:00

This cookie is over a foot tall. Cookie molds like this one are quite common--I've seen about eight on eBay in the past year. They're old, but not particularly expensive. Traditionally, they were decorated to emphasize the details.

The Huge Cookie!

2010-08-24T03:36:00.000-07:00

The huge cookie was a success! Here's what I did:

Recipe:

Ingredients

1 cup (227 grams) butter or margarine, see note

1 large egg

7/8 cup (200 milliliters) honey (see note)

1/8 cup (30 milliters) molasses

1 teaspoon almond extract

1 tablespoon milk

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ginger

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon salt

About 4½ cups (630 grams) all-purpose flour

Directions

Melt the butter. Set aside.
Beat the egg in a large bowl.
Stir the honey, molasses, almond extract, and milk together and add to the egg.
Add the spices and salt to the egg mixture.
Add the butter slowly and beat well.
Add flour slowly until the mixture is solid enough to knead. If you’re using an electric mixer, stop the mixer once or twice as you’re adding flour, and scrape the sides of the bowl to get all the flour mixed in.
Transfer to a counter or breadboard and knead in more flour to make a soft, slightly sticky dough.
Wrap and refrigerate the dough for 30 minutes. It should be cold, but workable, with a texture similar to children's modeling clay.
Oil the cookie mold lightly. Don't let oil build up in the details. Blot with a cloth towel if you get too much.
Roll the dough to a rectangle about the size of the cookie mold. Flour the top well, using a pastry brush to distribute the flour evenly.
Lift this rectangle and push it into the mold, filling the hollow completely. Roll it in with the rolling pin.
Lay a sheet of nonstick foil over the top, nonstick side against the dough. Back this with your cookie sheet or a cutting board--something stiff. Flip the whole thing over.
Lift the cookie mold away from the dough. Pull gently at the foil and the excess dough around the edge to get the unmolding started. Check the mold for stuck places, and start the cookie unmolding where it is loosest. In the case of my cookie, this was the figure's head.
Chill the cookie while you preheat the oven to 325 degrees Fahrenheit (177 degrees Celsius).
Trim the edges of the cookie, including any cutouts.
Bake for 20-25 minutes or until the cookie is firm and slightly browned at the edges
Handle carefully to prevent it from breaking, especially while it's hot.

Notes:

To measure the liquid sweeteners, put 2 tablespoons of molasses into a measuring cup. Fill to the one-cup line with honey.

For the spices, you can substitute 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice mix.

I used margarine because my husband is allergic to butter. In my experience, margarine is a little easier to handle, but it doesn't make a big difference.

This recipe is a modification of a honey speculaas recipe in my forthcoming book, Baking with Cookie Molds.

Huge Cookie Molds

2010-08-23T05:17:00.000-07:00

Many antique cookie molds are simply huge--one of the most common ones is a woman who is almost a foot tall. When I first started buying molds, I tried to make cookies in these molds a couple of times--not successfully. Now I'm going to try again, and will write about my efforts. After all, if people a hundred years ago could do it, why can't I?

The Secret of Great Lemon Curd

2010-08-09T17:21:00.000-07:00

This comes from a recipe my MIL used--I can't reproduce it because it's out of a book, but there was only one big idea in it anyway. Most lemon curd recipes are similar, and I'm sure this would work in any of them.

Here's the tip: Lemon curd contains lemon juice, grated lemon peel, eggs, sugar, butter, and sometimes other ingredients. My MIL measured the sugar and grated the lemon peel into the bowl with the sugar. Then she rubbed the lemon peel thoroughly into the sugar. This made the oil from the peel release into the sugar. It makes a huge difference.

Just keep rubbing it in your hands. You have to rub and rub until the sugar actually looks different. You can smell it, too.

The Perfect Shortbread-What makes it perfect?

2010-08-09T15:20:00.000-07:00

Use the softest flour you can use with your mold. If it's too soft, the cookies will break, but up to the breaking point, the softer the better. If you use a small round mold, as I did, you can get away with more. Also if the mold is sharply cut and not too fancy.
When you cut your cookies, save the scraps in a bowl. The cookies from these re-rolled scraps won't be quite as good as cookies from dough that has only been rolled once. They won't be as tender, and they may puff more, blurring some design details.
The best of my cookies were the ones that were mixed, formed, and immediately baked. Dough that sat for a while, even if it was chilled, puffed more than dough that had been formed and baked right away.
Chilling the dough after forming did not produce a better looking cookie with shortbread, as it often does with other cookies

I'll be happy to discuss, explain or elaborate! Just contact me via my web page contact form:

http://www.annelwatson.com/contact.html

The Perfect Shortbread

2010-08-09T14:28:00.000-07:00

I'm working on shortbread, with the idea of developing THE ideal technique for these tricky cookies. Of course a lot of that is in the book, but I'm always discovering something new. Next week I plan to post my results.

So far, I've worked on molds.

It turns out that, to get perfect shortbread, you can only use certain molds. The best shortbread is very brittle, so a small round mold is what's needed. Cookie stamps were disappointing because it was very difficult to make level cookies, even when I used dough levelers--the dough was perfect after I'd rolled it, but not after it was stamped. They came out looking very lopsided, and did not bake evenly.

The very best mold was one that's not intended for cookies at all--an Indonesian pineapple tart mold. These are available all over the Internet, including eBay, for less than $10. They make a cookie with a beautiful fluted edge and a slight hollow in the middle. These shortbread "tarts" are great filled with lemon curd, and when I post the recipe and technique, I'll explain my MIL's secret for perfect lemon curd.

Or you can use ganache, hazelnut-chocolate spread, or even half a fresh strawberry. Whatever you like--it's the perfect shortbread cookie.

What got me started on this quest was comparing my mom's non-molded shortbread with my own molded version. Mine is prettier, but--hands down--hers is more tender, melt-in-your-mouth. I wondered why I couldn't have both.

After a lot of experimenting, I found I couldn't have 100% of both. The reason is that the structure that makes a molded cookie hold its shape comes mostly from the protein, or gluten, content of the flour. My mom's shortbread is better because she uses "soft," or low-gluten flour.

To get down to specifics, she uses White Lily flour. White Lily is about 7% protein. In the US, cake flour, depending on brand, is 5 to 8% protein. Pastry flour is 8 to 9%. All-purpose is 9 to 12 percent. However, flour varies a lot from one country to another, so if you're thinking about really calculating how to make ideal shortbread, you should look at the flour package to see what you have.

If you don't want to get into math, though, here's how to wing it. If 7% is ideal, you can experiment. If your all-purpose flour is 10%, try mixing half and half with cake flour.

With White Lily, you can make great shortbread, but it's too soft to make a very large or complicated shape. So your experiment would be to mix flour, harder and softer, to see what works best with the molds you want to use. I'll be going through what I did, step by step, in the next post.

OK, given that I used 100% White Lily flour, and I used the recipe I've already posted here (I replaced the rice flour with the same quantity of White Lily), I figured out how to mold the cookies to get the best results.

I used my small (about one inch) round "pineapple tart" mold. This is a two-piece mold, with an outer cutter and an inner molding stamp, sort of a plunger affair.

The first step was to roll out my dough on a sheet of nonstick aluminum foil. I used rolling pin guides to make the dough a uniform thickness. These are plastic strips that you put on both sides of the dough, and roll the rolling pin over them.

The next step was to chill the dough. Then I cut the chilled dough into squares about the size of the cookie mold. I separated the squares so they were about an inch apart.

I floured the top of each square, using a pastry brush. I also floured the mold (center) piece of the pineapple tart mold.

I assembled the mold and put it on one of the squares. First I pushed down on the center part to stamp the design. then I pushed down on the outer part to cut the cookie. Without removing the mold from the dough, I removed the scraps from around the outside of the mold.

After removing the scraps, I backed the cutter (outer) piece of the mold off the dough and removed it. (In other words, I lifted it back off the dough, leaving the inner part still on the dough.)

Then I tipped the inner piece gently to separate it from the dough.

I floured the center part of the mold again for each use.

When I'd done all the squares, I had a large sheet of aluminum foil (the size of my baking pan) with cookies covering it, separated by an inch or more. I baked these at 350 degrees for about twelve minutes.

When they're cool you can fill them with goodies--I like lemon curd. Also fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Do it at the last minute or they'll get soggy.

What about other molds?

2010-07-29T08:54:00.000-07:00

All kinds of molds are made, for all kinds of materials. There are soap molds, gelatin dessert molds, pudding molds, candy molds, and molds for craft clay. Will these work for cookies?

Hmmm...I don't know much about plastics, but I wouldn't use any plastic mold that wasn't designed for food until I do know more. So I wouldn't use my soap molds, even though I have quite a few nice ones. Or craft clay molds. I'll do a post if and when I find out more, but for now, I'm not considering them for use.

What about other food molds? At least they're safe, but they may not work for cookies. I recently bought a lovely mold, copper with a tin lining, at a thrift store. It was too deep, but I thought I could make it work. Except I couldn't. Getting the cookie out was too big a problem. Either it broke, or it distorted so much that it was worthless.

Candy molds often have designs that aren't sharp enough for cookies. There was one mold I bought on Amazon last year--it was copper, too, or copper-colored something. Metal, anyway. The design was the Twelve Days of Christmas, and I really thought it would make cute cookies. I was a little surprised when it arrived to see that the instructions were all for chocolate.

The cookies looked OK when I unmolded them, but they didn't bake well. The mold really wasn't good for cookie dough--not a clear enough design. The twelve days of Christmas was more or less a case of the twelve guesses of Christmas--what is this one supposed to be?

I don't even like all the cookie molds I see, for the same reason. But your chances of getting good cookies are better if you stick to molds that are made for them, in my experience.

Materials of Cookie Molds--Glass and Porcelain

2010-07-27T05:14:00.000-07:00

Glass isn't a common material for cookie molds. I've seen it only in a few cookie stamps, most of them small. Porcelain cookie molds, such as the ones made by Lenox, aren't recommended for kitchen use by the manufacturers, and are supposedly intended to just hang on the wall and look at.

This is probably because of the misconception that you have to tap or strike a cavity-type cookie mold on your work surface to unmold the cookie. Treatment like that would break a glass or porcelain mold very quickly. But if you use a recipe that's easy to unmold, you don't.

Glass cookie stamps can be sharply-molded enough to make very nice cookies--not all of them are, of course. And the porcelain ones I've seen will work well. Of course their non-absorbent surface helps with unmolding and makes them easy to clean.

Materials of Cookie Molds--Silicone

2010-07-26T06:06:00.000-07:00

Silicone cookie molds are new, of course. When I began testing recipes and molds for my book, I tried a Wilton heart mold made of silicone. I didn't like it. Pressing the cookie into the mold made the mold distort, and unmolding it was no better than unmolding any other cookie. It was a blob with very little recognizable pattern.

That was before I developed my recipes for easy unmolding. But by then, the silicone mold had long been sent to the greener pastures of the local thrift shop.

Recently, I bought a "kaleidoscope butterfly" mold made by Zanda Panda. I was expecting much the same results as with the Wilton mold, but the butterfly one was so beautiful, I just couldn't resist trying again.

With my new cookie recipes, it worked fine. The instructions said the cookies could either be unmolded before baking or baked in the mold. I tried both.

With speculaas, I got better results unmolding the cookies before baking. The cookies I baked in the mold did have a little more precise detail, but the sheet-baked cookies were a prettier color, and the texture was better as well. They were just more appetizing.

With shortbread, I wasn't able to unmold the cookies before baking. Baked in the mold, they came out better than any other pan-baked shortbread method I've tried. The texture was finer, the detail was near-perfect, and the bubbles that are typical of mold-baked shortbread were rare.

I did find that second batches in the mold were not as good as first. Apparently, the mold needs to be thoroughly cleaned, cooled, and re-oiled between batches.

One way this mold is obviously better than the Wilton one is that the patterns are very deep and sharp. This is actually the best test of quality in a mold of any material.

Materials of Cookie Molds--Metal

2010-07-25T04:40:00.000-07:00

Metal and metal-faced cookie molds have been made for many years, but appear to have always been less common than wood and other materials. I'm not sure why, since they would seem to combine the advantages of mass-production manufacture with an ability to produce detail that is at least as fine as any other material.

Metal-faced molds that I've seen have been springerle boards. They were made historically, and of course those old molds are relatively expensive. The metal content of these antique boards is somewhat questionable--the metal is an alloy which could contain lead or other metals that shouldn't be used with food. Modern metal-faced springerle boards are completely food-safe, of course.

Other metal cookie molds include individual cookie boards, gingerbread house molds, baking pans for alphabet and animal cookies, and even (rarely) springerle rolling pins.

Metal cookie molds are easy to use and clean. They do have to be dried very thoroughly after washing, or they may develop rust spots. It's a good idea to oil them lightly with vegetable oil after drying.

Disadvantages--It's common for metal molds that are really designed for chocolate molding to get alternate billing as cookie molds, but often they're not detailed enough to work well. In addition, I've been generally disappointed in cookies that are baked before unmolding--they just don't look as good.

So, even if a cookie mold is metal, I wouldn't bake in it--with the exception of gingerbread house pans. With those, you need the mold to keep the pieces uniform enough to assemble into a house. Otherwise, I'd unmold the cookies and bake them on a cookie sheet.

Materials of Cookie Molds--Composition

2010-07-23T03:18:00.000-07:00

Composition cookie molds are made of a mixture of resin and wood. All the ones I've seen are copies of antique wood molds.

They're really bakers' molds. If you were collecting cookie molds, you'd want originals. But if what you're after is cookies, composition molds are impressive.

The originals for these molds are museum pieces. Most of us couldn't possibly afford even one of them, and wouldn't use such a thing for making cookies if we did own it. So the composition molds make it possible to extend the life of the antique designs and to make them almost universally affordable.

Another interesting development is springerle rolling pins adapted from original flat molds. I don't know how many springerle rolling pins were originally made as very decorative molds. I have an idea there weren't many--it isn't easy to carve a cylinder. Some of the loveliest of the reproductions are copies of flat boards, adapted as rolling pins. Since the springerle rolling pin is one of the easiest of all cookie molds to use, this is especially nice.

Composition cookie molds are not fragile and are easy to clean. They will produce very complicated designs, with less probability of sticking than many of the more porous natural materials.

Early composition cookie molds, such as the Laxa molds, were produced as decorations and are not considered food-safe. As far as I know, all the current producers are using materials approved for use with food.

Materials of Cookie Molds--Wood

2010-07-22T03:38:00.000-07:00

Many of the most beautiful cookie molds are made of wood. They are works of art in themselves. Usually, not always, they're very dense hardwoods such as cherry.

For the artist, wood cookie molds have the disadvantage that they're one-of-a-kind, and pricing has to reflect that.

For the user, advantages are beauty and ease of storage.

Wood cookie molds may need to be seasoned if they are unfinished. You do this by rubbing them lightly with mineral oil and letting it soak in before first use.

Disadvantages of wood cookie molds may include difficulty in cleaning (you shouldn't wash them with water unless it's really necessary). I sometimes "wash" wood cookie molds with oil and a soft toothbrush, which is about as effective as soap and water for removing stuck dough. Old wood cookie molds may be impossible to clean.

Also, old wood cookie molds may have been treated with polishes, waxes, or insecticides, and this will make them unusable for food. If you buy an antique wood cookie mold from a trusted dealer, and you're told that the mold has been in the collection of a bakery, you're probably fine. But the cautious procedure would be to use antique wood cookie molds for decoration and buy new ones for making cookies.

Materials of Cookie Molds--Pottery

2010-07-21T04:25:00.000-07:00

Pottery is one of the most common materials for cookie molds. The well-known Brown Bag molds are pottery, as are many other brands. However, the type of pottery varies.

This is important. Brown Bag and several other brands are stoneware. This means that their finish is dense and hard. They require little oiling--in fact, it's easy to use too much oil.

Other pottery molds may be terra-cotta. This is often red, like flowerpots (some stoneware is also red). Sometimes terra-cotta is fairly dense, but it varies. Coarser molds may need much more oil than you'd use on stoneware. I even had one terra-cotta cookie mold that was so coarse, it came with directions for soaking it in milk and baking it before use. I suppose that treatment resulted in a coating that would be similar to old-fashioned milk paint. Terra cotta molds are somewhat harder to work with than stoneware.

Advantages of Pottery:

Pottery has the advantage for the manufacturer that a single design can be reproduced many times. Most pottery cookie molds aren't particularly fragile. They can be washed--check the manufacturer's instructions, but most of the stoneware ones can be washed in the dishwasher. It's possible to bake in many of them, but you get prettier cookies if you unmold before baking.

Future posts will discuss other materials.

How to Use Fresh Ginger in Molded Cookies

2010-07-20T12:32:00.000-07:00

Fresh ginger is great. However, it's hard to get it to grate properly. It tends to end up stringy--just what you don't want in your molded cookies. Here's how I deal with that:

When I bring the ginger home from the store, I rinse it and put it right into the freezer. When I want some, I grate it frozen (it doesn't need to be peeled) with a microplane hand grater or box grater. This makes it pretty fine, but then I combine it with about a cup of the flour in my recipe and run it in the food processor with the steel blade. It comes out very fine, and more fresh-tasting than powdered ginger. This is one for ginger lovers!

And of course, the ginger lasts indefinitely in the freezer, as long as you don't let it thaw.

One Crazy Way to Unmold Cookies

2010-07-18T13:25:00.000-07:00

When I first started to make molded cookies--big surprise! They wouldn't come out of the molds.

In desperation (I'd counted on them for a gift for my husband) I figured out a trick. I sprayed my countertop lightly with water, and pressed the filled cookie mold onto it, dough side down. This made the dough stick harder to the counter than it did to the mold. That made it possible to get the cookie out of the mold.

Now it was stuck to the counter. So I cut it off with dental floss, laid it on a square of baking parchment, and trimmed it. Half a dozen cookies later, I had a cookie sheet full of cookies to bake. Also an unholy mess to clean up. This technique works, and I might use it if I was very desperate, but of course I ended up working out better ways to do it.

All the same, if you're ever faced with a real problem cookie, give it a try.

Look at the Numbers

2010-07-16T06:43:00.000-07:00

More than once, I've been surprised by the size of a cookie mold. I've bought molds, either from vendors or at online auctions, and been astonished when they arrived.

One was so tiny, I wondered if it would work for any cookies. Possibly, a mold that's only an inch square will work for pale, easily-detailed dough like springerle. I doubt very much if it would hold an impression if you used it to shape shortbread.

Another was so huge, it would probably only have worked for gingerbread. At least, among traditional recipes, that's all I think you could do with it. I tried this mold, a foot-tall lady with an ordinary cookie recipe and had a real disaster.

If a cookie mold is very small, you won't see the pattern, especially after the cookie bakes. And it it's too big, it's hard to unmold the dough.

The ideal size is probably two to four inches for most recipes. So, if you're buying online, check the dimensions of any mold you're considering. If the vendor doesn't give the dimensions, it's a good idea to ask.

The recipes in "Baking with Cookie Molds" are designed to make this a little easier. They unmold well, even from fairly large molds, and keep their detail well, even with small cookies. Just the same, it's a good idea to make sure a mold you like is also a size that's going to work for you. Ask me how I know...

When Is a Cookie Mold Not a Cookie Mold?

2010-07-15T12:45:00.000-07:00

When is a cookie mold not a cookie mold? When it's something else.

You'd be amazed how many miscellaneous objects I've seen in online auctions--things that were called cookie molds only because the vendor had no idea what they were.

The worst is blocks for printing fabric, because, if they've ever been used, they have soaked up dyes. They should definitely not be used for food.

Other carvings may be safe, but they're not cookie molds. A mold has to have a negative carving--that is, the mold itself is the opposite of what you actually want in the finished cookie. Sometimes, even the regular cookie mold makers get this one wrong. And, of course, many wood items that are sold as cookie molds are really just decorative carvings. They are convex, not concave.

But it's hard to tell from a photo--you often can't tell whether a design is concave or convex. I've written to vendors more than once to make sure.

Another thing to look out for is wood cookie molds--usually antiques--where the vendor lists miscellaneous damage including wood worm damage. I'd consider it at least possible that such a mold has been treated with insecticide, and would not use it for food.

So What's the Problem with Shortbread Pans?

2010-07-14T01:59:00.000-07:00

I keep going on about shortbread pans--those familiar cookie molds, about eight inches in diameter, often with beautiful designs. I just don't like them, and I have good reason.

If you follow the directions that come with the pan, what you probably will get is a large cookie with a very strange appearance. Bubbles and heaves have distorted the beautiful design almost beyond recognition.

You can make them work--sort of--if you ignore the directions and, instead, after pricking the top of the dough all over with a fork, place a sheet of parchment or nonstick foil on top of the dough, and top this with one or two of those chains of pie weights that look like stainless steel beads.

This does prevent most of the distortion, but what you get is still disappointing. You get a pattern baked in the bottom crust of a cookie. It's coarser and rather darker than the top surface of a baked cookie, and the pattern is OK, but really not nearly as attractive as if the cookie were baked with the design on top.

Every tester who has worked with me has had the same experience with bake-in pans and molds, and I'm ready to say--these cookie molds just don't seem to have much potential to produce beautiful cookies. If someone out there has had a different experience, has found a technique that really works with these things, please let me know, and I'll blog it with a credit to you. For now, though, I think my mom has the best solution--she uses her shortbread pan as a serving dish for cookies she's made with other molds.

Choosing a Cookie Mold--Part 2 Shortbread Molds

2010-07-13T03:02:00.000-07:00

Since I gave a shortbread recipe earlier, I thought it might be helpful to talk a little about shortbread molds. I also dug out every shortbread mold I have, and tested them all with the recipe I gave in my earlier post.

I have a lot of them--that's about to change, since one mold won the contest by such a large margin.

Some of them fared really poorly--this includes all the "shortbread pans." I've worked out a technique for using a shortbread pan that gives the best possible results--however, I didn't think the cookies were nearly as attractive as ones that are molded in other molds.

Others were OK, but had various drawbacks. Most weren't deep enough. One thing I learned is that, unlike other cookie dough, shortbread dough should not be chilled between mixing and forming. It makes a big difference in the final product, because most cookies rely on that chilling to make them solid enough to form. With shortbread, if you do that, the cookies lose most of their shape in the oven.

Some of the shortbread molds were just too large. It made them harder to use, and produced a cookie too big to eat. And of course, if you break it up, it spoils the design.

The winner was a House on the Hill mold called "Symbols of the British Isles." It's the right size for a single cookie. The pattern is a deeply cut rose and thistle and it makes the prettiest shortbread I've ever seen.

Choosing a Cookie Mold--Part 1

2010-07-13T02:45:00.000-07:00

If you're considering a cookie mold, you're probably looking at the design first. This is good, but you can still be very disappointed in a cookie mold with a design you like. The reason is, many cookie molds are not sharply-modeled enough to make attractive cookies.

Almost all molded cookies come out of the oven with the design somewhat blurred, compared with the mold they're made from. It depends on the recipe, but you aren't likely to get 100% of the modeling of the mold. And many of the pictures used to sell molds are not of baked cookies. They're pictures of unbaked dough--which almost always looks sharper than the baked cookies. Or, sometimes the "cookies" in vendor photos are actually polymer clay.

So think about it when you're considering a cookie mold. How will 80-95% reproduction of that design look? For best results, get a mold that's deep and sharply cut.

With most recipes, this will give you another problem--how to get the cookie out of a deep mold. Future posts will talk about various crazy things I've done to unmold cookies and will give a recipe that will unmold well from a deep mold.

Beginning with Cookie Molds

2010-06-27T05:19:00.000-07:00

When you first look at cookie molds, you might see either too much or too little.

"Too Much"--If there aren't a million different cookie molds, it must be close. They're made out of all different materials, too. There's everything from antiques to this year's plastic cartoon characters.

"Too Little"--In all this chaos of cookie molds, you might miss the most important thing. And that is, that everything out there fits into one of two categories.

1. Some cookie molds are a flat surface like a board, carved or shaped so that when you press the mold onto the dough, you get a pattern. After that, you cut the cookies out with a knife or a cookie cutter. A cookie stamp, like Rycraft stamps, would be an example.

2. The other type is like a very shallow pudding mold. You press the dough into the mold, unmold it, and trim the edge. The familiar Brown Bag pottery molds are mostly this type.

Why is this important? Maybe it's not, if you're very skilled at molding cookies. But if you're a beginner, it is, because the flat board type is way easier to use with most familiar recipes.

There's a reason for this that goes back to the interesting history of cookie molds, but I'll save that for another post. But keep in mind, if you're just starting out, that you'll save yourself a lot of frustration if you start with a flat mold. Often they're called springerle molds, cookie stamps, or springerle rolling pins--they all work about the same way, more or less like a rubber stamp.

The more difficult ones aren't impossible, of course. In fact, it's like so many things...easy if you know how. But--if you don't--I'd recommend starting with flat molds.

About Shortbread

2010-06-25T07:31:00.001-07:00

About Shortbread

by Anne L. Watson, Author, "Baking with Cookie Molds"

Book to be published November 2010

When it comes to shortbread, feelings can run high.

People who love shortbread know exactly what they want. The problem is, they don’t all want the same thing. Desirable shortbread qualities include—depending on who you ask—“flaky,” “buttery,” “soft,” “delicate,” “caramelized,” and “crisp.” It’s possible to make shortbread with several of these qualities, but not all. Your choice of mold and ingredients will be the key to getting the shortbread you want.

Ingredients

Traditional ingredients are butter, flour, and sugar—that’s all. The flour content may include oat or rice flour as well as wheat. However, there are many variations and additions, some for taste, others for workability. These include vanilla or other flavorings, ground nuts, spelt flour, confectioner’s sugar, margarine in place of some or all of the butter, cocoa powder in place of some of the flour, eggs or egg yolks, water, cream, baking powder, and others.

Molds, Forms, and Pans

Shortbread as we know it today goes back at least to Elizabethan times. It was probably first made in Scotland. Traditionally, it was hand-formed as a round flat cake with a crimped edge. Probably later, shortbread was also made as “fingers,” which were narrow squares, and as small rounds. It was often pricked with a fork over the top surface. All these shapes were baked on a flat pan.

Commercial shortbread cookies have been manufactured since the 19th Century. They’re formed with mechanical rollers, and are thinner and crisper than the shortbread usually made by home cooks. It’s possible for these rollers to impress a pattern on the cookies, and some firms do this, though others duplicate the simpler traditional shapes, including the fork punctures. They’re baked on flat pans or sheets, like traditional homemade shortbread.

Shortbread molds are relatively recent. The earliest shortbread mold I’ve seen, one from the early 20th Century, reproduces the large, crimped round, though it’s hard to guess why anyone would bother to use a mold to make this shape.

In the late 20th Century, several firms began making ceramic or metal pans. The bottoms of these pans usually have fancy patterns—Scottish thistles, flowers, hearts, or even animals. The shortbread is baked in the pans, removed and sliced into individual servings while it’s still warm.

You can get fair results with these pans if you fill the pan about half full, lay a sheet of nonstick foil over the top, and lay a chain-type pie weight on top of that. However, I don’t know anyone who is completely satisfied with these molds. The image is formed on the bottom of the pan, which produces a coarser, less distinct result than you get with other molds.

Another problem is that steam from the baking dough tends to make the cookie heave and bubble.

Most people are happier if they use pottery or wood cookie stamps or roller or board type springerle molds. This is completely non-traditional as a home method, although it more or less duplicates the way commercial shortbread cookies have always been made. Rollers produce a crisper cookie, and the outer surface may taste somewhat caramelized—which is delicious.

Recipe: Bella Watson's Scottish Shortbread

2010-06-25T07:22:00.000-07:00

Recipe: Bella Watson's Scottish Shortbread

From "Baking with Cookie Molds," by Anne L. Watson

Book to be published November, 2010

Bella, my grandma, came to America from Glasgow in 1913 to marry her fiancé, John Watson, who had emigrated six years earlier. She probably wasn’t thinking about shortbread as she made her way through Ellis Island. But she had this recipe in her trunk, and in time, she passed it down to their grandchildren. Here it is, with some recent notes of my own.

These directions are briefer than the cookie directions in the book. I'll be happy to help anyone who has questions, though. You can reach me via the contact form on my web page, www.annelwatson.com

Happy baking!

Best Molds for this cookie: Shortbread stamp, springerle rolling pin

Cream together:

1 C butter

½ C sugar

Add:

½ C rice flour

2 C all purpose flour

Turn the dough onto a board and knead gently. Knead in up to ½ C more all-purpose flour. The dough should feel silky and somewhat sticky. Chill the dough until it's the texture of children's modeling clay.

Lay down a sheet of parchment paper or nonstick foil. Set your ball of dough on this sheet and flour it very lightly. Roll the dough out. Brush a light coating of flour on top of the dough and mold it with cookie stamps, a springerle board, or a springerle rolling pin to make the patterns. This dough is too delicate to unmold easily from cavity molds.

After you’ve formed the dough, chill it and remove scraps and excess. If you used a springerle board or springerle pin, cut the cookies apart and separate them from one another by about half an inch all around. If you don’t, the cookies will distort badly while baking. Don't try to separate the cookies until they're quite cold--you'll ruin them if you do.

You can re-roll scraps to make more cookies.

Bake at 300 degrees. Single large cookies are done when the top is lightly browned and the center feels firm to the touch. Individual cookies are done when the edges are lightly browned.

Introducing "Baking with Cookie Molds"

2010-06-16T08:39:00.000-07:00

"Baking with Cookie Molds" is the title of my book, to be published in November of 2010 by Shepard Publications.

The book gives directions and recipes for baking with traditional (and new!) cookie molds, including springerle, gingerbread, shortbread, modern ceramic cookie molds of all kinds, and others. In addition, the book has recipes and step-by-step instructions for using the molds.

The book is intended for beginners as well as accomplished cooks. I've tested recipes and methods in beginners' classes, with great results.

The primary use for this blog will be as a molded cookie "magazine" to accompany the book. Each month, a new "issue" will be posted, with new recipes, seasonal molds, and new tips and techniques. I'm planning a photo section for readers' cookie pictures, and other features will be developed as well.

Although you won't see a lot on this blog before fall, please bookmark this page if you'd like to be included in the cookie adventure!