After becoming slightly obsessed with the Baked cookbooks, I decided to join the Baked Sunday Mornings baking group. The group is baking our way through the second Baked cookbok, Baked Explorations.
This weeks recipe is one of the cookies featured on the cover, Salt-n-Pepper Cookies.
This photo is a tad misleading, or I'm a lot stupid but I thought the recipe featured a light sandwich (salt) and a dark sandwich (pepper). Even as I was starting the recipe I kept looking for the direction to split the dough and only add cocoa to one portion. It was then that I saw the caption for the photo - Salt-n-Pepper Cookies and Malted Milk Cookies. The recipe just got a lot easier!
Baked's trademark is taking traditional recipes and adding a twist. Obviously a riff on an Oreo, salt and pepper are the twists here, specifically the addition of white pepper. The dough comes together easily enough and is thrown in the refrigerator for a few hours to chill. I prefer making drop cookies (making me lazy in addition to stupid) but actually enjoyed rolling these out. The dough was sticky but forgiving. The chocolate disks are sprinkled with salt's fancy french cousin, fleur de sel, and baked until the tops are slightly cracked.
While the cookies cool, the filling is made in a mixer by combining shortening and butter and then adding salt, vanilla, and rum. I had to add several drops of water to get the filling to the paste like consistency expected. Spackle the filling between two cookies and then lightly smoosh together to finish the cookies.
I tasted a cookie sans filling and the pepper was fairly strong. Once the filling was added, the sweetness added some balance and the pepper wasn't as discernable. These cookies were certainly unusual but very good. This is one of those dishes that the full intensity of the flavor takes a minute to evolve on your palate. My co-workers finished these off fairly quickly with a couple telling me more than once how good they were. Definately a success!
Notes:
- I reduced the withe pepper to 1 teaspoon. Using the 2 teaspoons called for would have been too much for me.
- I omitted the rum from the filling
- I wish I had used a smaller cookie cutter. This is a rich cookie and the 2 inch cutter made the cookies a bit too large.
To find the recipe and see the delicious creations of the other bakers, visit the Baked Sunday Morning's blog!
Welcome!!! What wonderful cookies - and an easy one to start off with! Glad you sub'd for what you knew you would like. Others thought the pepper flavor was too strong -. Funny, my shamrocks were "huge".... :) Great post!
ReplyDeleteI agree with all your notes! The pepper was strong, I also omitted the rum, and I did feel like the cookies were quite large. I didn't roll out the dough (I'm lazy too!) and instead sliced off pieces and shaped them by hand. They were still good, I would probably just modify in the future. Welcome to the group!
ReplyDeleteI'm so glad you joined us - Welcome! Your cookies turned out beautifully! I much preferred them with the filling. Funny, I had the same reaction about the cover photo. :)
ReplyDeleteI totally left out the pepper, and i thought the same about the cover too and i didn see the caption but presumed they must be some other cookie:-)
ReplyDeleteOmitted the rum tool-)
I actually loveddd the large cookies ,, i eat alot and can say i ate only one.
U cookies are pretty.
I wish I had tried your idea of reducing the pepper -- I think I would have preferred the result! The dough really was quite peppery -- every time I caught a whiff of it, it made me want to sneeze!
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the tips and for visiting my blog. If I ever get around to baking these, I'll keep all your suggestions in mind. Your cookies look great.
ReplyDeleteThese cookies look great! I'm intrigued by the salt-and-pepper in a cookie.
ReplyDeleteI appreciated reading your post before I baked my cookies...gave me some things to think about. Your cookies are really pretty.
ReplyDeleteHi There, Sorry you are having a problem! why don't you send me an email with your email ID not from blogger and I will be happy to send it to your as an attachment ... priyamahadevan@hotmail.com
ReplyDeletecheers,
Welcome!! Great to have you with us! Your cookies look lovely. I also thought that the 2 inch cutter was a bit big and next time, I would definitley use a smaller one. Glad you made the adjustmens with what worked for you. My co-workers LOVED these!
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the group and I'm still laughing because the first time I spotted this recipe I did the same thing, kept looking for the part about separating !! Nice job. I could taste the pepper before I iced them, but once I iced them I lost the pepper taste. They were unusual but not one I would bake again-I want to try Thomas Keller's take on the oreo and see what that tastes like.
ReplyDeleteI love these! One of my favorite cookies ever!! Sooo good! Oh, by the way, I thought the same thing about the cover. :-)
ReplyDelete