A trayful of handicapped gingerbreads

I got my fun day. I kind of feel all sticky though. Today we worked on piped cookies and icebox cookies which meant we christened the piping bags that came in our knife kits. It also meant that I spent the same amount of time trying to dig out the remaining cookie batter from my piping bag and tip to avoid washing it (because that would waste so much time ya know?) as I would have spent washing it out and drying it so that it was so fresh and so clean clean. At the end of the day, I had cookie batter in my armpit. I don't know how it got there but it serves only to indicate that I REALLY got into today.

 First off: madeleines!!!!!
Whenever someone talks about madeleines, they inevitably bring up Marcel Proust. In "In Search of Lost Time", he talks AT LENGTH about the nostalgic quality of madeleines for him. Whenever he eats them, he is taken back to his grandmother's house where he used to eat them dunked in tea. I have never read "In Search of Lost Time". (Has anyone?!)  So I'm not going to talk any more about Proust. I'm certainly not going to dedicate anything about mine to him. I'm more interested in the rumour that the cookies were named after Madeleines Paulmier, who was a servant who had to come up with a dessert when the chef stormed out. She used a recipe she had from her grandmother. Everybody was impressed. The end. The moral of the story is grandmas always come through for you. And have a cute name, I guess, because someone might name a cookie after you.

Madeleines are gorgeous. They come out with these crispy, buttery edges and they are similar to sponge cake in the middle. So very light. I poked around for the best method to pipe the mixture into the tray. (I got called a bake geek for this action -which I let stand uncontested.) Some people chilled their batter (from an hour up to overnight) so that it held together for firmly in the piping bag. Some used it at room temperature. Some didn't even use a piping bag. Judith Choate just spoons hers in with a tablespoon. Some used those clicky ice cream scoops. Either way you work it you want to get the batter fairly level in the shell mould to avoid strange bumps on the back side of the madeleine once it's baked. I ended using a zigzag method to get the batter to lie the flattest. But then I baked them in a convection oven which has an overachieving fan and blew a ridge on to ours anyway. Life is funny.

 The almond spritz have that amazing almond flavor, like amaretto or those almond cookies you get at italian weddings (of which i have been to only one). The cookies start with an almond paste or marzipan base that then gets butter and more sugar added to them. They are then piped in a "shell". The shell was a good exercise because just like the following shortbread, the dough was so stiff that grunting it out of the pastry bag in any semblance of a shape took patience (and the occasional use of expletives).


The piped short bread were most like the shortbread cookies I grew up on. Whipped so they are light and fluffy and literally just fall apart in your mouth they are so soft. It is a texture that is described as "sandy" in our books which  is, in my opinion a rather unfortunate denomination. It makes it sounds gritty but it really is simply meant to indicate that it has a small crumb and delicate texture -Falls apart like a sandcastle in your mouth. Piping it made me feel like Mr. Bean. Every attempt resulted in a similar but different ridiculously shaped result. It was like piping cling wrap. It was sticking to all the wrong stuff!

Lastly we did the checkerboard icebox cookies. I'm glad we did them as part of our program because I likely never would have made them in my own and now that I have made them I desire to never make them ever again. In a way we brought it on ourselves, my partner and I. We made very delicate layers and fine stripes when everyone else made Tonka blocks of shortbread, which meant in short that theirs baked longer and were far sturdier. Ours would be perfect as something small on the side of something like pot au creme or a dessert espresso. The perfect size to eat eleven of them. We let ours sit unattended a little too long before we pulled them from the oven so they approached golden brown and walked right by. They are still tasty but they are more like biscotti now than they are like shortbread, shall we say, 'brittle'. There are FAR easier designs that you can do on the icebox cookies but the checkerboard was more challenging and I am nothing if not a stubborn bitch out to prove something. Again with the expletives.

We also made gingerbread men, and women, and amputees! Not that amputees aren't people but hopefully you get my point. You don't get a trayful of cookie people with goiters, no feet and/or oblong shaped heads every day. A lot of them came out with excessive bell bottoms as well. The very picture of diversity. Pictures will emerge tomorrow because we kept them at school in order to decorate them. We made some royal icing and we are going to practice our piping skills. Mine have been egregiously neglected. But soon I will pipe like a pro, or at the very least someone on the road to pro-dom. 

We start pies on Friday, which means I am going to have to rig up a different system to get my baking home everyday. A cloth bag with a 'closure' that is rather indifferent to the idea of closing up anything -during the rainy season. We'll need to have a talk.