Tag Archives: Pierre Herme

World peace Cookies V 4.0

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with milk 1
If you found yourself in the post office last week, chances are that the lineups were long and they seemed awfully short-staffed. Were they off sick with the flu, or perhaps hung-over from last night’s office party where our loyal postal workers may have tied one on? No, not quite. I have, in fact, uncovered the real truth. Many of these postal workers were in the storage room in the back of the post office where all the parcels are kept. These mild-mannered civil servants were shedding their conservative navy blue uniforms and changing into their alter ego costumes; several were caught red-handed and charged with tampering with federal mail. The guilty parties could be seen with cookie crumbs caught in the folds of their fur and around their mouth. You see, December 5 was the postal deadline for mailing your cookies for the Great Food Blogger Cookie Swap. Over 600 food blogger across North America had signed up to participate. With over 1800 boxes of cookies being shipped all across North America, who could blame these postal workers for breaking into the booty?
It all started at the beginning of November when I received an email invitation to participate in a cookie swap. My automatic response was to hit delete. This sort of thing is fraught with landmines. Having people over to your house and then having to be polite and pretend to like their green christmas tree cookies or spritz cookies with a maraschino cherry in the center. Smiling and nodding with a mouthful of vegan shortbread when a fellow baker asks you, “Can you believe they weren’t made with butter?”

Before I hit the delete button, I read a bit further and realized that this cookie swap did not require any human contact. This was my kind of get together! “The premise is this: sign up. Receive the addresses of three other food bloggers. Send each of them one dozen delicious homemade cookies. Receive three different boxes of scrumptious cookies from other bloggers. Eat them all yourself (or, you know, share. If you want. No judgement either way.) Post your cookie recipe on your blog. See everyone else’s cookie recipes. Salivate. Get lots of great ideas for next year’s cookie swap.” This creative endeavor is the brainchild of Lindsay at Love and Olive Oil and Julie of The Little Kitchen. They “hosted” their first swap last year and had over 600 food bloggers participating. I hit reply and before I knew it, I had the mailing addresses of 3 food bloggers to send my creations to. The last time I impulsively hit reply and joined something resulted in my becoming a food blogger, so more goodness could only follow. The rules of this swap stipulate that you can not submit any cookie recipe that has previously been posted on your blog.

I have over 25 cookie posts on this blog! That meant I’d have to come up with something new and completely different. My brother-in-law Richard came to the rescue and presented me with a new cookbook, “The Sugar Cube” by Kir Jensen. Kir is part of the exploding food cart scene in Portland Oregon. Her tiny little pink food cart turns out some majorly delicious treats. I was immediately taken with a little cookie called Kir+DorriePierre. How could I not try these with a name like that! It turns out that the Dorrie behind these cookies is cookbook author Dorrie Greenspan and the Pierre is the famed Parisian chocolatier Pierre Hermé. This is a well-travelled little cookie!

In Version 1.0, Parisian chocolatier Pierre Hermé created these chocolate sable (French butter cookies) for the Paris restaurant Korkova. Pierre’s version pushed the traditional sable envelope by using light brown sugar in addition to white sugar and adding cocoa powder, chunks of bittersweet chocolate and enough fleur de sel to make them completely addictive. In 2000, Pierre passed the recipe onto cookbook author Dorrie Greenspan and she dubbed them Korkova cookies. When her neighbor Richard tasted them Version 2.0 was born.  He renamed them “World Peace Cookies”, because he was convinced that a daily dose of Pierre’s cookies is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness. These cookies went viral on the blogosphere. Then Kir Jensen, owner of the charming Portland food cart “Sugar Box” took the recipe and tweaked it to create Version 3.0. She substituted dark brown sugar for light brown, added an egg yolk for additional fat, mixed in some cacao nibs, rolled the edges in sugar and sprinkled the cookies with extra fleur de sel. I followed Kir’s recipe, but found the resulting cookies “too chocolatey”. I know that this phrase may be blasphemy to some of you chocoholics out there, but the nuances of the three different types of chocolate in the cookie (cocoa powder, bittersweet chocolate chunks and unsweetened cacao nibs) were not detectable.

chocolate versionchocolate baked 2

Enter Version 4.0. I removed the cocoa powder and replaced it with an equal amount of all-purpose flour. I feel that this modification really allows the bittersweet chocolate chunks and the unsweetened cacao nibs to really shine through. I hope that Pierre, Dorrie and Kir would approve. These are not the typical chewy gooey chocolate chip cookie. You get a nice little crunch from the rolled edge of turbinado sugar when you first bite into these cookies. The inside is tender and slightly crumbly and the bitter note of the unsweetened cacao nib plays off beautifully with the bittersweet chocolate and the deep molasses flavour of the dark brown sugar. The flakes of sea salt take this cookie to the next level. These cookies are perfect for mailing because they will keep well in an airtight container for up to two weeks. These cookies deserve the best quality chocolate you can find. I chopped up 10 ounces of  66% bittersweet Valrhona feves.

.10 oz of chocolate

Cacao nibs are added to these cookies as well. Cacao nibs are the edible part of the cocoa bean after it has been harvested, dried, fermented and hulled. Cacao nibs have a similar taste to roasted coffee beans. They add some textural crunch and a hint of bitterness to these cookies which sounds strange but really complements the sweetness in these cookies. cacao nibs

I shaped the dough into a rectangular loaf and then wrapped and chilled it. forming square 2

After an hour in the fridge they were ready for slicing. slicing 1 slicing 2

The edges were rolled in some fine turbinado sugar and then they were baked. finishing sugar cooling on baking sheet 1

Click here to print the recipe for World Peace Cookies Version 4.0. 

stacked

Rhubarb Curd Strawberry Tart and Some Surprising Discoveries

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For those of you who have been following my blog for the past little while, you know that I have been suffering from some disc problems that landed me flat on my back in bed for about 8 days. I’m pleased to report that I am continuing to feel much better. But while I lay in bed, in agonizing pain, I became quite anxious about the fact that I was unable to do any of my regular forms of fitness (treadmill, elliptical, weight training and yoga).

I have come to rely on exercise as a stress reliever, as well as a way to allow me to control my weight. A mentally balanced sane person would be more concerned about the errant disc fragment lodged in her spine, pressing on the nerve that connects to her left hip flexor and quadriceps. Yet, I seemed to be more concerned about weight gain.

Surprising discovery # 1: Shockingly in the past 3 weeks I have actually lost 5 pounds! I am not quite sure how that happened. It may have something to do with muscle loss (muscle weighs more than fat) or it could have something to do with the fact that I was unable to get down the stairs to my kitchen, where we keep the food, for 9 days. Now don’t misunderstand me here.  I didn’t starve for 9 days. The lovely family members in my house did bring me food and water at regular intervals. It’s just that perhaps my regular intervals are a bit more frequent than theirs!

Again, a mentally balanced and sane person would look at this weight loss and begin planning healthy meals of quinoa, kale and lentils, so that the pounds do not creep back on. However, I saw a loss of 5 pounds and immediately started planning what I would bake and blog about next.

I knew I wanted to be seasonal and bake something with rhubarb. Of course the obligatory strawberry rhubarb pie was a possibility, but I am not really a pie lover, unless it involves coconut cream. Searching for inspiration I turned to Melissa Clark’s “Cook This Now.” And sure enough, in the May chapter, she had a recipe for a Rhubarb Curd Tart. As I read through the recipe, I made surprising discovery #2: Curds are not just for lemons anymore! You can make a curd from any fruit juice you fancy.

While I love the tangy flavour of rhubarb, I find the stringy texture a bit off-putting. Melissa had come up with a genius way to get all the tang of rhubarb, without the texture. Puree the raw rhubarb in the food processor and then strain the pulp and squeeze out the juice. Use this juice instead of lemon, in the curd. Brilliant!

For the tart crust, I wanted to try a recipe from Anna Olsen. She has a new show called Bake, on the Food Network (Canada). This week’s episode featured desserts made with Pate Sable (tender tart dough). As I watched Anna prepare the dough, I made surprising discovery #3:  A hardboiled egg yolk contributes greatly to the texture and richness of Pate Sable. This European way of making tart dough was created by French pastry chef Pierre Herme.

The final tart was perfect. The crust was reminiscent of shortbread; crumbly and just a little bit sweet with the richness of butter (and egg!). The curd plays tricks on your mind. You see the yellow curd and you think lemon, but once you take a bite your mouth immediately recognizes the tart and tangy taste of rhubarb. Balanced by the sweetness of strawberries, this is one perfect bite. I think that should Anna and Melissa ever meet, they would be quite proud of their collaboration!

The secret ingredient to the rich crust is the yolk of a hardboiled egg! Butter and icing sugar are creamed together. The hard-boiled egg gets sieved and added. Additions of vanilla extract, salt, raw egg yolk and cake and pastry flour  complete the dough. I like to roll out the dough between 2 sheets of parchment paper. Transfer to tart pan with removable bottom. If the dough cracks while transferring, don’t sweat it. It’s a forgiving dough and is easy to patch. Trim off excess dough by running the rolling-pin across the tart pan. Line with parchment paper and fill with pie weights or dried beans to bake.

While the tart is baking, prepare the curd. The idea that any juice can be turned into a curd has just blown my mind. I’m not sure why I only thought curd could be made with lemon. I guess I’m just not an out of the box kind of thinker, but now that I know, the possibilities are endless. I am planning a pomegranate curd tart for the fall! I always associate pomegranates with my mom. She used to make us strip down to our underwear and  go outside in the backyard to eat pomegranates, because the fruit stained so badly. Luckily, these days you can already buy the fruit juiced.

When making the curd, Melissa says to stand at the stove and whisk constantly for 18-20 minutes. I did not. I walked away for several minutes at a time and everything came out just fine. Although, I must admit, when I strained the curd, I did see a few bits of scrambled egg in the bottom of my strainer.

This tart would also be wonderful with fresh raspberries, but strawberries seemed like the right choice today.

Click here to print the recipe for Rhubarb Curd and Strawberry Tart.