Happy Mother’s Day!!!
Although every day is Mother’s day to me, I would like to specially dedicate this issue of Smart Cookies to all mothers around the World.
Linzer Heart Cookies for Mothers or Sweethearts. Making linzer heart cookies is both fun and rewarding with this easy recipe. These homemade cookies are thoughtful gifts for Mothers anytime.
A Crisp Recipe for Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies. Following this easy crisp recipe to bake the crunchiest, most delicious, flourless homemade cookies. It includes precise directions and illustrative images.
Marzipan Basics Including a Simple Sculpting Project. Showing you how to make marzipan, how to work with it, and how to preserve its quality.
An Oreo Cookie Recipe Featuring Creme or Peanut Butter Filling. This Oreo cookie recipe includes images taking you through the easy baking process. It also offers either cream or peanut butter filling.
- Ingredient Fallacy – Chocolate or Cocoa Powder?
- Recipe Comparison – Pignoli Cookies
- Cookie Names
Chocolate or Cocoa Powder?
Common belief is that chocolate is always better than cocoa powder. Therefore, when a cookie recipe calls for chocolate, you are understandably reluctant to substitute cocoa powder for it. I will not, however, hesitate because
- Cocoa powder is easier to use and store. Unlike chocolate, it neither melts in the summer nor bloom with age.
- Dutch processed cocoa powder is actually pure chocolate.
- It has dark color which most people tend to associate with rich flavor, and rightly so.
Substituting proportion is available at cocoa powder.
This segment is to give you a general idea of possible taste and texture cookies might have before you actually bake them. It is not to determine that one recipe is better or worse than the other.
It is not too difficult, nowadays, to bake great tasting homemade cookies that are low in fat. Unfortunately, low fat does not necessarily mean low in calories. Many cookie recipes including the following two (2) for pignoli cookies demonstrate this point very well.
R 1 – Martha Steward’s Baking Handbook by Martha Steward. First Edition. Clarkson Potter Publisher. 2005.
R 2 – Sweet Maria’s Cookie Jar by Maria Bruscino Sanchez. First Edition. St. Martin’s Griffin, New York. 2002.
1 cup = 8oz = 16 Tbsp = 48 tsp
1 whole egg is approximately 2 oz., yolk is about 0.5 oz. and the white 1.5 oz.
Amount | Baker’s % | |||
R 1 | R 2 | R 1 | R 2 | |
Almond paste | 7 oz | 24 oz | 100% | 100% |
Granulated sugar | 4 oz | 12 oz | 57% | 50% |
Confectioners’ sugar | 4 oz | 8 oz | 57% | 33% |
Egg white | 2.5 oz | 6 oz | 36% | 25% |
All purpose flour | 1.5 oz | 0 | 21% | 0% |
I realize that I am actually just repeating what you already know.
Therefore, the first three (3) subscribers, who send in an acceptable analysis of probable taste and texture of pignoli cookies that are made from the above recipes, will receive an attractive blank cookie tin. I will mail it to your home absolutely free.
Please use the contact form on the Web site to send in your answer.
This contest will close at 12 P.M. on Sunday May 20, 2007.
Most cookie names refer to either baking techniques or texture of cookies. For example: sandies, lemon drops, brownies, etc. Other names, however, keep us guessing for as long as we can remember. I’m talking about snickerdoodles, pfeffernuesse, ….1
What is a cookie name that implies leaving the cookies alone for a few days so that all the spices can blend together and improve the flavor?
Please stay tuned…….I will post the answer by Thursday May 10, 2007.
1Sweet Maria’s Cookie Jar by Maria Bruscino Sanchez. First Edition. St. Martin’s Griffin, New York. 2002.
Published date: May 7, 2007
Copyright 2007 by Trinh Lieu. All right reserved.