Dessert Party Recipes: Nut Cookies and Jam Tarts

Miracle of all miracles! A new post! I apologize for not posting at all recently, but I have been tres, tres busy. School started a couple weeks ago and between school and work I have had very little free time. And since school is back in session I really need to get this blog updated so I can share all my fun from the bakeshop. But for right now I am going to share some more Dessert Party recipes. The dessert party that was over a month ago. I feel like such a slacker.

Nut Cookie

Jam Tarts

I made both nut cookies and jam tarts during fundamentals last semester and they were both recipes I really wanted to try again at home. And I think they are perfect holiday cookies. I also got some graduated fluted round cookie cutters from Santa Claus that I was dying to use. Since both of these recipes are from school the ingredients are weighed, not measured.

NUT COOKIE

7 oz. Butter
2 1/2 oz. Powdered sugar
1 oz. Brown sugar
1/4 teaspoon Sea salt
1 teaspoon Vanilla extract
8 oz. Bread flour
6 oz. Ground nuts*

Procedure:

Preheat oven until 350 degrees
Cream butter and sugars
Mix in flour, salt vanilla and ground nuts
Mold cookies into desired shapes
Bake until golden brown
Dust cooled cookies with confectioners' sugar

*You can use whatever kind of nuts you prefer. I used pecans.

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The Jam Tarts are a short dough cookie with a jam filled center. We used a Stawberry Sambuca Jam my mom got at a craft fair and Smuckers Red Raspberry Jam.

BASIC SHORT DOUGH

8 oz. Butter
4 oz. Sugar
3/4 teaspoon Sea Salt
1 Egg
3/4 teaspoon Vanilla extract
12 oz. Pastry flour*

Procedure:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Cream butter and sugar
Add egg
Mix in flour, salt and vanilla
After mixing the dough it's best to refrigerate the dough so the dough is cold when you are ready to roll it out
Roll out dough to 1/8-in. thick and cut out dough with large, round cutters. Using a 1/2-in. cutter, cut out the centers of half the rounds
Bake until cookies are golden brown around the edges. It's best to put the tops and bottoms on separate cookie sheets to ensure even baking
Once baked, cool completely
Sandwich the tops and bottoms together with a small dab of jam, so the jam shows through the hole on top
Dust the tops with confectioners' sugar (don't worry if the sugar covers the jam in the center hole. The water in the jam will absorb the sugar)

*You can substitute all-purpose flour for pastry flour

Cookies + Brownies = YUMMY

Sometimes I struggle to come up with creative blog entry titles. I admit, the above title is rather lame and/or cheesy, but it will have to do. C'est la vie. And now for the actual commentary.

The school semester is quickly coming to an end. Which is good and bad. It's fun to be able to bake and decorate at no cost to me (well except for tuition, but that's just a technicality) and I think my oven issues have been well documented. But I am ready for a break from studying and projects (oh yes, it is not all just fun and games). We have ended fundamentals with cookies and brownies.

In the past two weeks we have made: devil's food cake with chocolate buttercream, jam tarts, nut cookies, Texas Gold cookies, butter cookies, bicotti and brownies. The Texas Gold cookies were definitely one of my favorites and probably a cookie I will make again in the future. I promise that one day I will pass on that recipe. Here is a little looksy at the products.

Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

The jam tarts are a basic short dough cookie with a raspberry jam filling and then finished with powdered sugar. In my opinion, they are the perfect cookie for a Mr. S. Claus on Christmas eve.

Jam Tarts

Nut Cookies

The Texas Gold cookies were super soft, super chewy and super chocolate-y (and I think everyone knows by now how I heart chocolate). The cookie dough is made with unsweetened & bittersweet chocolate and has semi-sweet chocolate chips....that's three different types of chocolate if you weren't counting.

Texas Gold cookies

The butter cookies were made with a good amount of almond paste so they were more like almond butter cookies. After mixing the dough was placed in a pastry bag and piped onto a sheet pan. Don't they look pretty?

Butter cookie -- make-up

Unfortunately, the dough was too warm before going into the oven and then cookies spread and lost their form. But it didn't affect the flavor.

Butter cookie -- finished product

Biscotti

We had some leftover buttercream from the devil's food cake the week before, so we frosted our brownies with some of the delicious buttercream.

Brownie

Next week is practicals and I will get a second attempt at the almond butter cookies. I also have to bake the lemon buttermilk pound cake from a couple weeks ago. I'll let you know how it turns out. And maybe (if I get my act together) I can send some pound cake to North Carolina and Virgnia.

Foam Cakes

We have moved on to cakes and cookies in fundamentals, which is both good & bad. Good because cakes and cookies are so yummy; bad because cakes and cookies are so yummy...and I have a rather large sweet tooth.

We started with Angel food and Chiffon cakes. Both cakes have a large amount of egg whites which help the cakes rise. Angel food cake reminds me of my childhood - It seems like every week my parents would be an Angel food cake from Tom Thumb. Normally, I would rave about my bakeshop creations, but truthfully, I still love that Tom Thumb Angel food cake from my childhood so much more! I think it needed some more vanilla. On the other hand, the Chiffon cake was great!

Angel Food Cake

Chiffon Cake

We also baked a lemon buttermilk cake last week which was so delicious! This is a cake I will definitely make again. I think I would like to try it as a layer cake with strawberry filling.

Lemon Buttermilk Cake

We ended Tuesday's class period with a traditional favorite: Chocolate Chip cookies. The dough was too warm when we put them in the oven so our cookies spread quite a bit (which according to the instructor is bad. And makes ugly cookies.) But according to those who consumed the "ugly" cookies they were the best cookies ever! (Just fyi: I am not the only one who consumed the cookies. I brought them to work where everyone went crazy for them.) The cookie recipe was just your basic, back of the Tollhouse bag so nothing too special there.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

On deck: Devil's Food Cake