Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Lavender Galettes

A galette can be a lot of different things.  Lavender Galettes, from Baking Chez Moi, are a thin, not too sweet, irregularly shaped cookie.

I found these cookies to be a delightful surprise.  Lavender doesn't usually hold much appeal to me.  Certainly baking cookies with lavender was not high on my list of things to do in the midst of summer.  But I was intrigued by Dorie's recipe, and stopped in at the spice merchant to buy a small amount of lavender buds.

I liked the technique of rolling out each cookie on a small piece of parchment paper.  Cutting out cookies is tedious.  This method gives a lovely thin and crisp cookie without all the fuss.

The cookies have an intriguing flavor or lavender, orange, olive oil, and vanilla.  The texture and the taste is very special.

Tuesday, July 18, 2017

Coffee Malteds

In her recipe for Coffee Malteds cookies Dorie Greenspan explains that she remembers drinking coffee malteds as a child.  When I was young I loved the flavor of coffee, especially coffee ice cream which remains my favorite.

We couldn't find a key ingredient in this recipe, unflavored malted milk powder.  Instead I baked these cookies using Ovaltine, a chocolate malted milk powder.  For the coffee flavor I used instant coffee.

The cookies turned out small and chewy, with a good mocha flavor.  The malt is a tiny hint in the background.  I think they'd be great topped with a bit of melted chocolate.