Dennis Weaver - Mrs. Claus Christmas Cookies: Make Impressive Holiday Treats

Cookies are wonderful concoctions of flour, suga r, and fatusually butter and eggs. To these basic ingredients, we add fruit, nuts, and flavors. If we start out with compromised ingredients, the cookies from any recipe will be inferior.

Sugars

Sugars not only sweeten, they add moisture and tenderness to the cookie and help the cookie brown. Sugar grains cut into the butter when the two are creamed together creating tiny air pockets for a lighter, airier cookie. Always use the type of sugar called for in the recipe. Since superfine sugar melts faster than does granulated, it will create more spread. Brown sugar adds a caramel flavor and more moisture than granulated. Powdered sugar has added cornstarch and makes a firmer, drier cookie. Measure sugar in measuring units designed for dry ingredients. For granulated sugar, use a knife to level the top of the measure. Pack brown sugar firmly into the measuring unit. Always use fresh, soft, brown sugar. Hardened brown sugar will not add enough moisture to the cookie. An old trick to soften brown sugar is to add a slice of bread to the container. Since sugar is hygroscopic, that is it attracts moisture, it will draw the moisture from the bread. In a day or two, the sugar will be soft and you can throw away the now hardened bread.

Flours

Use good quality, fresh flour. If your bag of flour has been sitting open too long, it may be dry or in a humid climate, it may have absorbed moisture. For a more tender cookie, use pastry flour. Bread flour with its gluten creates a tough, chewy cookie and is unsuitable for most recipes. All-purpose flour is suitable for most cookies. Measure flour as you would white sugar, in a dry measure and scrape the top off with the back of a knife. Do not dip the measure into the flour. Flour packs easily and scooped flour results in too much flour for the recipe. Whisk or sift the flour to lighten it and then carefully spoon the flour into the measure.

Butter

Nothing tastes like butter. It contributes much of the flavor that we love in cookies, some of the color, and much of the tenderness. Butter acts as a shortening, that is, it shortens the gluten strands found in flour and gives the cookie a soft, melt-in-your mouth texture. Margarine can be substituted for butter. Margarine often has more water than butter and some adjustment to the recipe may be necessary if you substitute margarine for butter. Shortening can be used in place of butter but the cookie is likely to be very different. A cookie with shortening will have less spread, will tend to be crisper, and will lack that buttery flavoreven if you use butter-flavored shortening.

Eggs

Eggs add structure and fat to the cookies. The eggs, as they are beaten, create bubbles that make the cookies lighter and the protein in the egg solidifies to create a firmer, higher profile as it bakes. Always use fresh eggs and use the size of eggs called for in the recipe. Set the eggs on the counter for thirty minutes before usingwarmer eggs will make a lighter cookie.

Fruits and Nuts

Where would we be without raisin cooki es or those nut-filled cookies? Nuts become rancid easily. The smaller the nut pieces, the quicker they will spoil. Always taste the nuts before using them in the recipe. If they taste even slightly rancid, discard them. For longer life, store your nuts in the refrigerator, or better yet, the freezer. To enhance the flavor of nuts, consider toasting them. Place them one layer thick on a baking sheet and bake at 300 degrees. The type and size of the nuts will determine the baking time, anywhere from three minutes to ten minutes. Determine when the nuts are toasted by both fragrance and color. Always let the nuts cool and reabsorb the oils before mixing them into the batter. Nuts can also be toasted in a skillet.