I love to try new recipes, particularly at the holidays, and over the past few years the cookie recipes that I’ve tried have come out pretty well. So when I saw this recipe in Real Simple, I really wanted to try it – mostly for a silly reason though, really. I had seen the same jars in Michaels a few weeks’ before, and thought I could package up these beautiful cookies in a fancy way and be all Martha-Stewart-like (though I don’t particularly like her).
See, aren't these lovely?
I got all the ingredients and settled down yesterday to bake the cookies…and they were a total disaster! The first batch weren’t even salvagable, and the second batch were only a little better. I’ll recreate the recipe here, and maybe someone can help me figure out where I went wrong! (Though I’m totally mortified by how terrible these look)
First, I got out the ingredients:
I thought anything with butter, cream cheese and vanilla would be good!
3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 8-ounce bar cream cheese, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for the work surface
1/2 cup seedless jam
1 large egg, beaten
2 tablespoons turbinado sugar or coarse sanding sugar
First, I put the room temperature butter in my mixer
Then I added the cream cheese
Then, the sugar
This was to be beaten until fluffy, so that's what I did, scraping down the bowl a couple of times
Then I beat in the vanilla
Next I was supposed to reduce the mixer speed to low (which I did) and gradually add the flour, mixing until just incorporated - did that, even scraping down the bowl a couple of times again
This is what it looked like
And here's how the dough appeared right out of the mixer
Then, the recipe said to gently knead the dough on a floured surface two to three times, just to bring it together (okay) and form the dough into two 1-inch thick squares.
Here's a square. Then I was supposed to wrap it in plastic wrap and refrigerate it for one hour. Did that.
After an hour, I got one of the two squares out and on a lightly floured piece of parchment, I rolled it into a 9x12-inch rectangle - I even measured it.
I spread the jam over the dough - now here's where I may have run into trouble - I just eyeballed jam amounts, and this may have been more than 1/4 of a cup - but it appears to be a thin layer!
Then, I was supposed to cut the dough into three pieces (which I did), making three 9×4 inch rectangles. And…oh no, I just realized my error – it says to start from the LONG side of each rectangle and roll it into logs. Yup, you got it, I started with the shorter edge of each rectangle. Darn! Okay that explains the whole issue….
But anyway. Once you roll each of those three pieces into a log, wrap it in wax paper and refrigerate until firm, at least 30 minutes. Repeat with the remaining dough.
Then, heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Slice the logs into 1-inch pieces and place on parchment-lined baking sheets, spacing them 1 1/2 inches apart.
Brush with the egg and sprikle with turbinado sugar (I couldn't find it, so I had to use regular sugar)
Bake them until golden, about 20-25 minutes. If you've messed up the recipe like me, lie down on the floor in despair and take pictures of the ceiling.
Cool slightly on baking sheets, then transfer to wire racks to cool completely - store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to a week. (Sorry this picture is blurry, I think it was my tears of disappointment clouding the lens...)
Okay, now that I’ve figured out what went wrong, I may or may not try to see if I have the ingredients to do it again tonight…we’ll see!
**Update: I did go ahead and remake half a batch of the cookies to see how they would come out, and it was SO much better than yesterday’s batch!
Mmm, fully cooked, kept their original shape, not too much leaking jelly!
And I finally got my pretty jar of cookies! If I weren't so tired, I'd add pretty ribbon to it too, like in the photo. For the other three jars I had, I put the pasta fagioli that I made for dinner tonight - yum!
