The COOKIEPEDIA by Stacy Adimando

Hello friends. This is a post about The Cookiepedia by Stacy Adimando. Some nice publishing-type people sent me a copy of this new cookbook to look over, and it’s pretty neat. In typical Ugly Dude fashion, I spent a lot of time with this book. Some of that time was spent looking at it. A lot of the time was spent not looking at it. Somewhere along the line, the date of release came and went. Oops! But look, it’s a fun book.

As the title indicates, this is a cookbook full of cookies. It’s got a lot of cookies, pretty much anything you can think of with some variations. The most intriguing cookies to me were the variations on name-brand cookies. There are recipes for chocolate sandwich cookies, and recipes for some thin, minty cookies. I’ll be trying those as soon as I get the chance.

One nice thing is that there’s plenty of photo reference in the book. There are cookbook style photos for most recipes, and every section has a table of contents with a picture of the cookie. It’s very helpful. I found myself asking, “What the hell are alfajores,” and then I looked it up. Now I know what the hell alfajores are: they are a kind of cookie.

Part of the reason it took me so long to review this book was because I wanted to actually try the recipes out; since there are only two of us in this townhouse, I needed to wait for appropriate opportunities to make cookies. I eventually did make two cookies: the classic peanut butter cookies, as well as a variation of the author’s butter balls.

These are the peanut butter cookies – classic, delicious. I brought them to a dinner at my parents’ house and they disappeared.

These are the butter balls. Instead of rolling/dusting these with powdered sugar, I ended up rolling them in a mix of powdered sugar and cocoa. This made them look like little potatoes. They were delicious.

Anyway, if you like cookies and want a handy book that has all the cookies, this is one such book and I’m sure I’ll get a lot of use out of it because I am fat. Maybe you can like it too! You can go here to see a few pages and maybe even buy the book.

Tuesdays With Dorie – Salt and Pepper Shortbreads

Hello,

These were pretty good. I couldn’t taste the pepper in these specifically, but I could definitely taste that there was something going on here. Not my favorite recipe, but tasty nonetheless. I’m curious to see what my workmates have to say about all this.

These look kind of bad, just like everything I do.

Sports sports sports sports sports

SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS SPORTS!

Mike gets to eat a cupcake because he’s a good guy at sports.

Okay, so I know nothing about sports. These cupcakes are my interpretation of sportsballs when I have neither photo reference nor appropriate icing tips. This is for a sports party in honor of sports. There are three sports: based ball, basket’s ball, and football.

When my wife saw these cupcakes, she finally said those three words that everybody longs to hear from their partner: “Welp, nice try.”

Tuesdays With Dorie – Classic Brownies

Not much to say here. These turned out great. Classic. Brownies.

Tuesdays With Dorie – Chocolate Spice Quickies

Dorie indicates that these cookies can be baked in very little time, save for the 4 hour chill time. I’m here to inform you that this is not accurate. Here is the actual timeline.

1. Process ingredients together in food processor
2. Roll dough into logs
3. Chill
4. Discover remaining dough in food processor
5. Look for spoon
6. Where is the spoon?
7. There is no spoon (The Matrix)!!!
8. Use your finger, try to get all the dough out
9. There is still dough lodged on the food processor blade
10. Oh no, how do we get the dough out!
11. Lick the dough off of the food processor blade
12. Cut tongue
13. Oh god oh god oh god
14. Should I go to the emergency room?
15. Go to the emergency room
16. Get stitches on tongue
17. Go home
18. Slice cookies
19. Bake (7 min)
20. Consume

Tuesdays With Dorie – Cornmeal and Fruit Loaf

I baked this. It’s good. I could leave it at that but here are a few side notes.

1) This is a crumbly bread.
2) I used fresh diced apple, and dried currants. The recipe didn’t call for currants. I bought the only item in the grocery store that said “dried apples” on it, only to find that I had bought dried apples covered in an artificial yogurt layer. They are awful.
3) There is no third thing.
4) Again, this baked my bread in 1/2 of the appropriate cook time. Weird.

Tuesdays With Dorie – Golden Brioche Loaves

The oddest thing happened with these loaves. The dough rise went perfectly, just as Dorie described in the book. But when the pans went into the oven: total flop. They sank in on themselves. The brioche is still delicious, but probably not what it’s supposed to be.

Add’l notes: I had to do this whole thing by hand with a spoon, since I do OWN a stand mixer, but not enough counterspace to use it.

The post is technically on Tuesday – 11:15pm on Tuesday in my zone – but later than usual because ol’ Mike doesn’t start baking until Monday at 10pm. How was I supposed to know about the elaborate rise time?

Tuesdays With Dorie – Tropical Crumble (and orange berry muffins)

THIS POST HAS BEEN EDITED. It originally said that the crumble contained papaya. This was a weird mental slip. It contained mango per the recipe.

Hello.

This is the tropical crumble – a syrupy mix of mango, bananas, and ginger, topped by a pecan/butter/brown-sugar crumble.

My crumble melted into a layer. Otherwise, this is pretty good. It cooked up right, it tasted fruity and a bit summery, and I didn’t explode after I ate it.

I did a little baking over the weekend for a friend’s sympathy basket. These are Dorie’s orange berry muffins. This is one of the few recipes that I missed before I joined the group; eventually I will do them all. These turned out okay, although they got pretty dark and they didn’t even need all the cook time. I ended up only donating half the batch, as the other half was a bit too dark to share. They tasted fine though.

Tuesdays With Dorie – Carrot Spice Muffins and various cakes

Hello, friends.

These are the Carrot Spice Muffins from Dorie. They were very simple to throw together, and they cooked up perfectly. Taste great, and I’m sure the remaining muffins will be a hit at work. Also pictured: rising pizza dough, tomatoes, and chocolate buttercream icing. A winning combination.

This is a cheeseburger cake. I made this for my wife’s birthday. It was made using this recipe. I used a box cake mix, like the directions call for (this is actually the first time I’ve ever used a box, believe it or not), however I made the buttercream frostings (chocolate and vanilla) from scratch using Wilton’s basic recipes.

This is another cake that I made for one of my work friends. I used the leftover icing from the previous cake. It’s iced in vanilla, with chocolate buttercream between the cakes. The recipe for the cake itself was an adaptation of Dorie’s Perfect Party Cake (minus the lemon extract and lemon zest, plus 1 tsp of vanilla extract). I need to learn to work on my lettering, which would probably be easier with a smaller round icing tip.

Tuesdays with Dorie – Cocoa Almond Meringues

It’s my pick again! That means the recipe is included in this post. Now that I have your attention, please allow me to shamelessly self-promote for a moment.

Leroy Pitts – joke Twitter
Pizza Tumblr- a blog where I discuss all the pizzas I eat (I eat a lot of pizzas, mainly homemade)
My Facebook page, if you are so inclined.

These are but a few of the many Internets that I have. Please peruse my Internets at your leisure.

With that out of the way, let’s get to the meringues. I picked this recipe because my mom makes white meringue “kisses” every Christmas and I love them. The consistency, flavor, and relative low-cal nature of the meringue make my mouth want to sing.

Here is my finished product. As you can see, my meringues turned out pretty good. They tasted great. Definitely richer than the sugar-and-egg-whites meringues I’m used to, but the chocolate makes itself known without overwhelming.

My M.O. around here is that the pictures are ugly. I take absolutely no care to come up with a nice presentation. What I lack in aesthetics, I make up for with jackassery.

Cocoa Almond Meringues (Dorie Greenspan)

1 C confectioner’s sugar, plus extra for dusting
1/3 cup finely ground almonds
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
4 large egg whites, at room temperature
pinch of salt
1/2 C sugar
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/3 cup very finely chopped bittersweet chocolate or finely chopped store-bought chocolate chips

GETTING READY: Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 300 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats.

Sift together the confectioners’ sugar, ground almonds, and cocoa.

Working with a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment or with a hand mixer in a large dry bowl (make sure the bowl is impeccably clean and dry), whip the egg whites and salt on medium speed until the egg whites are opaque. Increase the speed to medium high and continue to whip as you add the sugar about 1 Tbsp at a time. Then whip until the whites are firm and hold stiff peaks – they should still be very shiny. Beat in the vanilla and remove the bowl from the mixer. With a large rubber spatula, quickly but gently fold in the dry ingredients, followed by the chopped chocolate. The whites will inevitably deflate as you fold in the dry ingredients – just try to work rapidly and use a light touch, so you deflate them as little as possible.

Drop the meringue by tablespoonfuls onto the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between the mounds. Dust the tops of the meringues very lightly with confectioners’ sugar.

Bake for 10 minutes, then, without opening the oven door, reduce the oven temperature to 200 degrees F and bake for 1 hour more. Remove the baking sheets from the oven and allow the meringues to stand in a cool, dry place (not the refrigerator) until they reach room temperature.

Carefully peel the meringues off the parchment of silicone lining.