Cookies and wine

Yesterday was one of those days. I started it sleepy and cold and in the dark, and when I got home from work I was still sleepy and cold and, sigh, it was dark. Ah, winter doldrums, you've settled in again. Yes, yesterday was one of those days that only a little baking could fix.



















When cookie season began back in November, I was confident that trying out a recipe or two would be just the fix I needed - enough to satisfy my sweet tooth, impress my family and friends and give the house the perfectly sweet smell of the holidays. Oh how wrong I was. Countless batches of Dorie Greenspan's chocolatey Korova Sables (aptly re-christened World Peace Cookies courtesy of Smitten Kitchen), Cooking Light's crackly chai spice shortbread and Bon Appetit's melty brown butter shortbread - plus the more than occasional batch of brownies - it was December and I was in trouble. New Year's resolution: stop the cookies.

I lasted 23 days. An impressive effort if I do say so myself.

And so, last night, I settled into the couch with a glass of wine and a stack of cookbooks and recipe printouts. It didn't take long before I found it. There, in the Chocolate & Zucchini cookbook was the namesake Gateau Chocolat & Courgette. The cake looked purely majestic in the photo, moist and crumbly and oh so decadently chocolatey, crowned with a gleaming slice of zucchini. Then I remembered, I was looking for cookies. Oh, wine. All it takes is a couple of sips and giant pictures of pastry to get me all worked up.

A few pages later, I found what I was actually looking for: Navettes a la Fleur d'Oranger (Orange Flower Shuttle Cookies) and Biscuits Tres Chocolat (Very Chocolate Cookies). But, could I make two kinds of cookie? Another sip of wine and I knew sure as anything that yes, I very well could.

Into the kitchen I went, a girl on a mission. I glossed over descriptions - "Navettes are from Provence... Paris is a super-loaded cookie..." - and recipes. What I had in gusto - mmm, I like Provence, Paris and cookies... - I apparently lacked in ingredients, if a look through the fridge, pantry and even the highest up cabinets were any indication. But, my mission. I could not fail. So I gathered up what I had and [- insert sip of wine -] I decided to improvise. Now, I'd always heard about the need for precision when it comes to baking. Precision, schremision, I thought. This was one of those days to throw caution to the wind and see what the wind would blow up.

The navettes, which Clotilde Dusoulier tells us were named in honor of the boat that brought the Saintes Maries, three Christian women fleeing Palestine after the crucifixion of Jesus, to the Provencal coast, which the saintes later evangelized, came close to following the recipe at hand. I had all the ingredients I needed, save the zest of an "organic" orange; the wine told me that the slightly awkward orange, which may very well have been organic, sitting in the fruit bowl, would work just splendidly. I would have to wholeheartedly agree.

"Dry and crunchy cookies that reveal a tender and crumbly heart," the navettes came out true to Dusoulier's word. They were lovely. A little salty, a little sweet, crisp on the outside and utterly bitable on the inside. And the orange was just perfect, a punch of freshness on the palate. Thank you, wine.

What didn't come out as expected was the look. The first few navettes I shaped, following Dusoulier's instructions about shaping the firm dough into 3-inch logs, cutting them in half, pinching the sides to form a boat shape and slitting the "boats" lengthwise (to create an opening where the sailors would presumably sit), looked nearly nautical. But - and this may have been the wine again - the more I shaped, the more the boats looked like grotesque lips smiling up at me from the baking sheet. Let's just say the look was not improved when the pouty, orange-specked boat-lips emerged hardened and browned from the oven. Not one to discriminate based on looks, my mom quickly stole a navette, piping hot, from the cooling rack. I, equally inconspicuous, followed closely behind. Unanimous approval of the boats/lips/whatever they are followed.

The Very Chocolate Cookies had their own issues. I was missing whole wheat flour and half the required bittersweet chocolate, and my box of light brown sugar had hardened into a golden rock that even repeated slams against the staircase could not crack. I considered shelving the idea until I could make a grocery run, but a look at the photograph of a dark, nubby giantess of a cookie balancing precariously on the edge of a glass of milk, proved too much for my self-control. Improvise, I reminded myself.

The whole wheat flour was replaced by plain old all-purpose, the brown sugar with granulated white, and the missing bittersweet chocolate with... with... ah ha - two teensy boxes of mini Smarties, the UK's version of M&Ms that I picked up at Heathrow a couple of weeks ago. That should do, I thought, and it did.

The cookies were very chocolatey, as promised, perhaps extra chocolatey. There was the velvety luxury of melted bittersweet chocolate, the crunch of raw cacao nibs and the kapow factor of unsweetened cocoa powder, capped off by the sweet snap of a candy coating containing softened milk chocolate. Again, the little guys looked a little busted. The oozed more than they should have, expanded beyond the bite-sized chunks they were destined to be, busted into the world as thin, nubby chocolate landscapes. And so was born the Quadruple Chocolate Cookie, the child of winter, ingenuity, and an unfinished glass of wine. Happy birthday. (Happy birthday to Sandy and Darius, too.)

***

Navettes a la fleur d'oranger

Adapted from Chocolate and Zucchini by Clotilde Dusoulier

4 tablespoons (one-half stick) unsalted butter

one-half cup sugar

one large egg, lightly beaten

3 tablespoons water with the zest of one orange

2 cups all-purpose flour

one-quarter teaspoon sea salt

one large egg yolk, lightly beaten with one tablespoon fresh water

Combine the butter and sugar in a food processor and process until fluffy. Add the egg and orange water and mix until blended. Add the flour and salt and mix until smooth. Turn out the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead gently until it forms a ball. Divids the dough into two slightly flattened balls, wrap each half in plastic, and refrigerate for an hour, or up to a day.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper or silpat.

Remove one ball of dough from the refrigerator and divide it into eight equal pieces. Roll each piece with the palm of your hand on your work surface until it forms a log, about three inches in length. Cut the log in two with a knife so you have two one and on-half inch logs, and set aside. Repeat with the other pieces until you have sixteen small logs.

Pinch the ends of each log and flatten the top slightly to form a boat shape. With the tip of a round-ended knife, carve a deep slit lengthwise down the center, not quite reaching the other side or the ends. Arrange the cookies on the baking sheet and repeat with the second half of the dough.

Brush with the egg yolk mixture. Bake for fifteen minutes until golden and slightly browned at the tips. Transfer to a rack to cool completely, if you can stand the wait, before serving. The cookies will keep for a couple of weeks at room temperature in an airtight container. They will harden after the first few days but you can revive their initial texture by reheating them for three to four minutes at 350 degrees F - Dusoulier points out that in Provence, it is claimed that a bit of sunshine does the trick. The dough can be frozen for up to a month.

Quadruple Chocolate Cookies

one cup all-purpose flour

one-quarter cup unsweetened cocoa powder

one-half teaspoon baking soda

2 ounces good-quality bittersweet chocolate

2 small boxes, or 2 to 3 ounces, of miniature Smarties or other candy-covered chocolate

one-quarter cup cacao nibs

one-half cup (one stick) plus one tablespoon unsalted butter, at room temperature

one-half cup sugar

one-half teaspoon fleur de sel or kosher salt (or one-quarter teaspoon fine sea salt)

one teaspoon pure vanilla extract

In a medium mixing bowl, sift together the flours, cocoa powder and baking soda. Set aside.

Melt the bittersweet chocolate and set aside; combine the Smarties and the cacao nibs and set aside.

Put the butter in a food processor and process until creamy; or, do as I did because I was too lazy to clean the food processor, and use a wooden spoon to soften the butter. Add the sugar, salt and vanilla, and mix until combined. Add the melted chocolate and mix again.

Add the reserved flour mixture and mix until just combined. Transfer the dough into the flour bowl and add the chocolate and nib mixture into the dough, working with a wooden spoon and/or your hands. Be careful not to overmix the dough.

Cover the dough with plastic wrap and chill for 20 minutes, or up to a day. The dough can also be wrapped tightly and frozen for up to a month.

Preheat the over to 350 degrees F and line a baking sheet. Remove the dough from the refrigerator. Carve out rounded teaspoons of dough, shape them into slightly flattened balls and place them on the prepared baking sheet, separating them by one-half inch.

Bake for ten to twelve minutes, until the tops are just set. The cookies will be a little soft, but they will harden as they cool. Transfer carefully to a rack and cool completely before serving, at your discretion.

The cookies will keep for four days in an airtight container at room temperature, or can be frozen for up to a month.