Snowballs
As I wrote in the previous column, Betty Crocker's Cooky
Book reissue is a wonderful gift for bakers. As cookbooks often are, The Cooky
Book is fascinating as a historical document. Anyone who appreciates vintage kitchen photography will love the earnest, campy photos and illustrations, all
intact from the original 1963 edition. What a difference those decades make!
The Cooky Book takes for granted ingredients we don't see that often anymore --
for example, there is an entire section devoted not just to date bars but to types of date bars. There are cookies
showcasing pineapple, and bananas, and mint, and cream cheese, and brandy.
There is cookie dough tinted green for St. Patrick's Day, yellow for Easter,
and, yes, red and green for Christmas. There are doughs rolled in candy
sprinkles or dabbed with jelly or shingled with marzipan or adorned with maraschino cherries or whored up with silver dragées.
But the funny thing is, a cookie is really a basic thing: it
is a simple dough of butter and flour. If The Cooky Book teaches
anything beyond five four-column index pages worth of cookies,
it's that how the dough is interpreted determines what kind of cookies the
dough will become. In the way of the day, there is a great deal of diversity,
if by diversity you mean Euro-centric identifiers. There are Greek cookies, and
Russian and Italian and Spanish and German and so forth. There is also
diversity by species: dozens of brownies and fruit bars and thumbprints and those globs of
sugared breakfast cereal and marshmallow fluff. And, in the whirlwind of
mixing, dropping, baking, cooling, and decorating cookies cookies cookies cookies cookies, the home economists of the Betty Crocker kitchens didn't forget to include a recipe for snowballs.
As with many foods, it's hard to know definitively the provenance
of snowballs. There's reason to believe that snowballs were thrown from
American kitchens beginning in the late 1800s. At that time, as Christmas moved towards a secular celebration, ways emerged of making the season special beyond church or, just as likely, to retain the prominence of church. One such
was treats, especially confections like candy and cookies. Walnuts were a
common touch in a Christmas stocking, and mixed nuts, heaped in a cut glass
compote crowned with a silver cracker, were as sure a sign of Christmas
plenitude as a roasted goose or a pineapple. However it happened (it should be
noted that there is also reason to believe that snowballs proceeded from a
professional kitchen representing a consumer item, likely butter), the distinguishing characteristics of snowballs are ground pecans or walnuts and powdered sugar. So it probably isn't that
much of a stretch to associate Christmas opulence with walnuts making their way
into sugar cookie dough to be tossed in a snowfall of powdered sugar to become,
ta-da, snowballs.
In today's whirlwind domesticity, snowballs have become a
go-to because they are simple to make but still special enough for the season,
and because everybody likes them. Snowballs show up at every cookie party and
bake sale of the holiday season. They are presented in tins to hosts of weekend Christmas parties, and served in bulk by caterers at the endurance-driven and -evaluated office
equivalent. They reside under glassine at the supermarket if you're in a rush,
and look splendid in glass jars at bakeries if you're splurging.
They are also nearly infinitely versatile. I started baking
snowballs for just this reason. Well, that, plus I take seriously my obligations regarding
the recipes, techniques, and proceeds from Grandma's Kitchen. Over time, I have
developed a master dough -- the basic sugar cookie dough mentioned above,
enriched as follows -- and utilized the technique, also isolated in The Cooky
Book, of chilling the dough. Refrigerator dough results in uniformly cut and baked
cookies, and it allows for logs of dough to be waiting in the fridge for when
the urge or obligation to bake strikes. There are ten different kinds of
snowballs in the recipe below, including an interpretation of pfeffernusse, the holiday spice cookie popular in Germanic cultures, that is somewhat akin to gingerbread. This is not
authentic pfeffernusse but it is
good, so in the spirit of Christmas and in service to cookie anthropology, I have included it
anyway.
Snowballs
Snowballs
Once you have made and wrapped the dough, it can be kept,
refrigerated, up to a week. Silpat baking mats are invaluable for cookie
baking; click here for one source to order online.
1-1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1-1/2 cups powdered sugar
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tablespoons cornstarch
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
Make the dough
- Unwrap the butter and place it into a large mixing bowl. Set the butter aside to soften.
- Sift the flour into a mixing bowl. Remove 1 tablespoon of the flour.
- Measure the cornstarch, baking soda, salt, and any dry ingredients from below into the flour. Use a whisk to stir the dry ingredients together until they are thoroughly incorporated.
- Once the butter is soft enough to work with, use a hand-held mixer to cream the butter until it is very smooth and workable. Measure the vanilla extract and any of the wet ingredients from below into the bowl containing the butter, and use the mixer to combine well.
- Measure 1/2 cup powdered sugar and any zest / dry ingredients from below into the bowl containing the butter mixture. Use the mixer to thoroughly combine the sugar-butter mixture until it is light and fluffy, approximately 1-1/2 - 2 minutes.
- Add the flour mixture to the sugar-butter mixture and mix on low just until combined. Note: if the dough is not holding together, break up an egg white in a cup and add that to the dough in this step.
- Pull two sheets of waxed- or parchment paper. Working one sheet at a time, use a spoon or silicon spatula to place half of the dough in a line down the long center of each sheet of paper. Lightly flour or sugar your hands, and shape each line of dough into a log.
- Roll each log in the paper, smoothing it out as you roll so that the logs are of uniform shape and approximately 1 - 1-1/2 inches in diameter. Once you have two logs of dough of uniform shape and diameter, wrap the paper-wrapped logs in plastic wrap and refrigerate until ready to bake, at minimum 1 hour.
Bake the cookies
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Prepare two cookie sheets by placing a Silpat liner in each.
- Remove a log of dough from the refrigerator. Unwrap the dough but leave it on its paper.
- Safely use a paring knife to cut each log of dough crossways into coins 1/4 inch thick.
- Transfer the cookies to the baking sheets, placing the cookies 1 inch apart.
- Bake until golden and slightly crisp, approximately 12 minutes.
- Gently transfer the cookies to wire racks to cool. Continue with steps 5 and 6 above until you have used up this batch of dough.
Coat the cookies
- While the first batch of cookies is baking (step 6 above), measure 1 cup powdered sugar along with any additional ingredients below into a large plastic food bag or clean plastic bowl with a lid.
- While the cookies are still warm but once they are cool enough to touch (step 7 above), place the cookies about 6 at a time into the bag/bowl containing the powdered sugar. Shake lightly until the cookies are coated with powdered sugar.
- Remove the sugar-coated cookies and place on lengths of waxed- or parchment paper to cool before serving or storing. To present the cookies as a gift, separate them with layers of waxed- or parchment paper cut to fit the presentation box.
- Pecan or walnut Remove an additional tablespoon of flour in Dough step 2 above. Add 2 tablespoons ground pecans or walnuts to the dry ingredients in Dough step 3 above.
- Almond Remove 1/2 cup flour from the dry ingredients and substitute 1/2 cup almond flour for the flour. Adjust the vanilla extract in Dough step 4 above to 1 teaspoon and add 1 tablespoon Amaretto in Dough step 4 above.
- Pistachio-Date Add 1 tablespoon ground pistachios to the dry ingredients in Dough step 3 above. Substitute 1 teaspoon orange extract for the vanilla extract in Dough step 4 above. Add 3 tablespoons snipped and pitted dried dates to the dough in Dough step 6 above .
- Lemon or lime Substitute 1 tablespoon fresh lemon or lime juice for the vanilla extract in Dough step 4 above. Add 2 teaspoons freshly grated lemon or lime zest, or 1 teaspoon of each to the dough in Dough step 6 above.
- Orange Substitute 1 tablespoon orange liqueur for the vanilla extract in Dough step 4 above. Add 2 teaspoons freshly grated orange zest in Dough step 6 above.
- Coconut Add 2 tablespoons grated baker's coconut to the dry ingredients in Dough step 3 above. Adjust the vanilla extract in Dough step 4 above to 1 teaspoon and add 1 tablespoon rum in Dough step 4 above. Add 1/2 cup grated baker's coconut to the powdered sugar in Coat step 1 above.
- Cherry Vanilla Increase vanilla extract to 1-1/2 tablespoons. Add 2 tablespoons snipped dried cherries to the dough in Dough step 6 above.
- Cappuccino Add 1 teaspoon instant espresso powder, 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg to the dry ingredients in Dough step 3 above.
- Green Tea Omit the vanilla extract. Add 2 teaspoons matcha and 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom to the dough in Dough step 3 above.
- Pfeffernusse Add 1/2 teaspoon each ground ginger, ground cloves and ground cinnamon; and 1/4 teaspoon each ground cardamom and ground white pepper to the dry ingredients in Dough step 3 above.
Comments
Post a Comment