cookies

Now that my number is public (because of the catering thing), I don’t just get feedback via the internet. Every once in a while I have readers calling me up asking me where I found blueberries, or if it’s really a bad idea to order a KichenAid from the US, or simply because they felt like chatting with me after reading my blog.

Yesterday was one of those days. Just as I was making orangefoodie’s birthday cake, a reader called me up sounding rather panicked. “Are you taking down your website?” That stumped me a bit. Now how did this piece of news spread? “A friend of mine told me you’re removing your site”, she continued. I cannot imagine doing that. Ever. Blogging’s become a bigger part of my life than I would have ever anticipated. I assured her that that isn’t the case, and I’d check on that (turns out my hosting co. was throwing up an error page on certain links – all fixed!). And then we went on to chatting about baking and pans and all that.

After that conversation, I had the biggest smile pasted on my face. I thought to myself “People really enjoy what I do!” Now while emails and statistics pretty much convey that (thank you, dear readers), hearing someone say that, felt great! Makes me want to scream from the rooftop about having the best set of readers. You guys rock!

Now let’s talk about baking, shall we? Today I’m baking Dorie’s salted butter break-up from her new book Around my French Table (which I can’t wait to get my hands on!) from the recipe I found Tim’s blog. I love everything he makes (remember the garlicky fries or the chocolate caramel tartlets? You have to thank him for it). And when something has butter in its title, it’s going to grab my attention no doubt. Plus the gorgeous criss-cross pattern made me want to run to the kitchen immediately.

I followed the recipe exactly, but what I did additionally was sprinkle some fleur de sel on the rolled out cookie dough right before baking, and that made it so, so good! I couldn’t stop eating these. The salt did all the magic of cutting the sweetness. And if you’re still on the fence about making these, then I must tell you that they hardly take any effort – once the dough is ready, you simply need to roll out the dough and let it bake, unlike other cookies where you labouriously work with cookie cutters and rulers to get the perfect shape. And the criss-cross pattern? How can you resist the adorable criss-cross pattern? Make them. You’ll be happy you did.

Salted Butter Break-Ups

Recipe from  Dorie Greenspan’s  Around My French Table (USA | UK | India) via Lottie and Doof.

Note: Vegetarians can leave out the egg glaze. The cookies will taste just as fantastic, they just won’t have a shiny coat. After sprinkling the salt, press it into the dough with the rolling pin, else it might fall off after baking.

Ingredients:

1 3/4 cups / 200g all-purpose flour
2/3 cup / 130g sugar
3/4-1 tsp sel gris, kosher salt, or fleur de sel. More for sprinkling
9 tbsp / 125g cold butter, cut into 18 pieces
3-5 tbsp cold water
1 egg yolk mixed with a few drops of water, for the glaze

Equipment: Silpat, Pastry cutter

Method:

1. Put the flour, sugar, and salt in a food processor and pulse to combine. You could also use the paddle attachment in a KitchenAid or a pastry cutter.
2. Drop in the pieces of butter and pulse until the mixture looks like coarse meal—you’ll have both big pea-size pieces and small flakes.
3. With the machine running, start adding the cold until the the dough almost forms a ball.
4. Scrape the dough onto a work surface, and pat it down to flatten it a bit. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill it for about 1 hour. The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or wrapped airtight and frozen for up to 2 months.
5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F/175°C.
6. Remove the dough from the fridge and, if it’s very hard, bash it a few times with your rolling pin to soften it. Put the dough  on a silicone baking sheet or parchment paper, using a little flour to making handling easier. Roll it into a rectangle that’s about 1/4 inch directly onto the parchment or baking sheet, so transferring later doesn’t make it cumbersome.
7. Brush the top surface of the dough with the egg glaze. Using the back of a table fork, decorate the cookie in a crosshatch pattern. Sprinkle with coarse sea salt.
8. Bake the cookie for 30 to 40 minutes, or until it is golden. It will be firm to the touch but have a little spring when pressed in the center — the perfect break-up is crisp on the outside and still tender within. Transfer the baking sheet to a rack and allow the cookie to cool to room temperature before breaking it up into shards. Eat!

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