STEMS & FORKS

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Rolled Sugar Cookies with Lemon Glaze Icing

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 I have been accused many times of being a cookie monster. Without any exaggeration, I can quite easily consume a dozen or so cookies in one sitting. I can see my family and friends nodding their heads right now. Honestly, cookies are so deceiving. They’re presented as cute little entities that are about 3 bite sizes or less. After eating 6 or so, I tell myself, “It’s fine Betty. Cookies are small.” And so I continue eating until someone stops me. Usually it’s my 10 year old daughter demanding I save some for her.

With the holiday season approaching, I don’t hold myself back at all. This is the time to indulge, enjoy and share. Normally I bake about 4 different types of cookies right about now and bake 3 dozen of each. I have rotating baking trays out on my front porch cooling with Roxie my trusty yellow Labrador on the lookout for any pesky and hungry squirrels or birds. She barks as soon as something comes remotely close. Even a blowing leaf. 

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Tahini Maple Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

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It’s only been about 6 six weeks since I started this blog and so far I’m loving it. The more I bake, the better I get and the more I realize that I need to continue to challenge myself by not always replicating or adapting other bakers’ recipes. I need to create original recipes that actually taste great.
 
I suppose deep down inside I’m insecure. I have no formal baking education. Almost everything I learned has been through trial and error, ups and downs. Sometimes the failures turned out to be wonderful new recipes. Other times they are as my daughter would say, “Hashtag fail, Mom.” My insecurity still lingers, but with every victory in producing a winning recipe, that small, undermining voice gets a little more subdued.
 
These Tahini Maple Chocolate Sandwich Cookies are soft to bite, taste nutty and chocolatey (without any nuts) and are ultimately scrumptious. After concocting these mini sandwiches, I realized the cure to my self-doubt was simple. Make my own recipes. 
 
Bon app!
Tahini Maple Chocolate Sandwich Cookies
Yields 24
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COOKIES
  1. 300 g/ 2 1/2 cups AP flour
  2. 90g/ 3/4 cup hulled and roasted white sesame seeds
  3. 1 teaspoon baking powder
  4. 1/2 teaspoon salt
  5. 170 g/ 3/4 cup butter softened
  6. 2 eggs
  7. 110 g/ 1/2 cup granulated white sugar
  8. 100 g/ 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
  9. 1/3 cup 100% maple syrup
  10. 2 teaspoons vanilla bean paste or extract
CHOCOLATE FILLING
  1. 100g/ 1 cup Cocoa powder unsweetened
  2. 1 cup 100% maple syrup
  3. 90g/ 3/4 cup hulled and roasted white sesame seeds
  4. 1 teaspoon vanilla bean paste or extract
Instructions
  1. Sift flour, baking powder and salt in large bowl and set aside
  2. Take food processor/Kitchen Aid/Ninja and process all the sesame seeds until it is nicely ground.
  3. Take about half of the ground sesame seeds, add to the flour mixture, put aside the remaining sesame seeds to be used later for the chocolate filling
  4. In stand mixer with paddle attachment, beat the butter, brown sugar and white sugar for about a minute on low speed until they're well blended
  5. Add the maple syrup in slowly until just combined.
  6. Beat in egg, one at a time. Scrape bottom and sides
  7. Add the vanilla and beat for a few seconds
  8. Add flour and mix on low speed, scraping sides and bottom until flour has been fully incorporated - about half a minute or so
  9. Dough consistency should be moist and ever so slightly tacky...not sticky or gummy
  10. Take dough and make into a ball and double wrap with plastic wrap
  11. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour or overnight
  12. Place rack in middle of oven and preheat oven to 350F
  13. Take cookie dough out of fridge and let it come to room temperature about 10 minutes
  14. Roll out about 1/4 inch thick on lightly floured surface and cut out with desired cookie cookies
  15. Remember you need pairs to make the bottom and tops for cookie sandwiches!!
  16. Bake for 10 minutes until the shine on the cookies has disappeared.
  17. Allow to cool about 5 minutes on tray, then transfer to cookie rack
  18. Repeat for the remaining cookies
CHOCOLATE FILLING
  1. Take the remaining ground sesame seeds and add the maple syrup and blend with your food processing gadget (I used my NINJA) until it looks like tahini paste about 1 minute (depends on the gadget you're using)
  2. Add the vanilla bean paste or extract and blend
  3. Then add the cocoa powder and blend for another half minute
  4. Consistency should be like very thick paste
  5. After the cookies have cooled either pipe or spread the paste on one half of the cookie sandwich
  6. Put the other cookie on top of paste and give them a soft squeeze
Notes
  1. I used 1", 2" and 3" heart shaped cookie cutters which made approximately 24 cookie sandwiches.
  2. Store in air tight container for up to one week.
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Chocolate Cut Out Cookies

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I remember seeing a Staples ‘Back to School’ commercial last fall, to the tune of, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year.” In this commercial, the dad gleefully drags a rope attached to a sofa with his grumpy kids in anticipation of getting them out of the house and seeing them off to the start of school. Fast forward a couple months, and as the winter holidays are coming to a close here in Ontario,  I’m feeling a bit giddy like that dad in that Staples commercial. 

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Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

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As a mother I am always trying to sneak healthy foods into my kids’ meals. As every parent knows, chicken nuggets and pizza can be great to satiate the kids, but the challenge is trying to include nutrient-rich foods into their fickle little diets. Sometimes these covert operations are met with more success than other times. Recently, I was making chocolate zucchini bread (well, chocolate bread to my 10 year old daughter), when she caught me red-handed standing over the bowl of chocolate batter with the offensive green squash in one hand and a grater in the other. I may as well have been holding a a bottle of rat poison and a dirty syringe based on her reaction.

Just as the trust was being rebuilt, (and she was finally convinced I wasn’t trying to poison her), my culinary antics were blown wide open again. For years I had strained anchovies into her miso soup, but the gig was finally up when she discovered a tiny little anchovy eyeball staring back at her from her bowl. Clearly, I should have used a finer strainer. Her reaction was epic as far as meltdowns go. 

Even now, I still mince yellow peppers (so finely that it might as well be a puree) into her spaghetti bolognese. The older she grows, the more her taste buds and sense of smell evolves. Most attempts at concealing healthy food now are as she put it a “#fail”. Thus the days of fooling my little princess into believing her food is unadulterated are pretty much done.

Trying to outsmart a 10 year old is challenging. My daughter likes things simple. If it’s apple pie, it better not have blueberries, just apples. Same with chocolate cake. Add a few raspberries on top and suddenly its not a chocolate cake anymore. It’s a raspberry cake.

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