My friend Dorothy gave me a wonderful birthday gift last month -- tickets to a Smithsonian evening seminar and book signing for Baking Chez Moi with Dorie Greenspan. Dorie was so warm and kind when I met her briefly a few years ago in New York City, and she was absolutely delightful at the Smithsonian event. I haven't had much time to look at Baking Chez Moi yet, but after seeing Dorie in November, I wanted to make at least one recipe from the book for our holiday party.
I picked a recipe that doesn't evoke the holidays at all, but it still seemed like it would be a good cookie for our party: Green Tea Sablés. What I particularly liked about the recipe was the fact that it included green tea, but not matcha powder -- so the cookies don't have the dull green color normally associated with green tea baked goods.
The recipe headnote says that Dorie prefers berry- or citrus-flavored green tea, and it also says you can use loose-leaf tea or tea bags. I used some supermarket tea bags that I happened to have on hand, Bigelow Green Tea with Peach. I didn't need to crush my tea leaves because the pieces of tea in the bags were already very small. You use your fingers to rub the tea together with sugar and salt, add flour, and then incorporate small pieces of butter by hand. You work the dough into a ball, form it into a log, and chill the dough until firm.
I chilled my dough for a day before baking. I tried rolling the log of dough in turbinado sugar before slicing it and found that it made things more difficult, because then I was trying to slice through hard grains of sugar. Instead, I sliced the cookies first, and then rolled the edges of each one individually in sugar.
The cookies had pretty small specks of green tea leaves throughout. I thought they were delicious. They were super buttery, and the peach flavor was wonderful -- these gave me the sensation of eating a Peach Tea Snapple in a cookie. And coming from someone who loves Peach Tea Snapple, that's a wonderful thing.
For the benefit of our guests who asked for recipes (and to help me remember what was on the menu!), everything I made for the holiday party is listed below. Surprisingly, some of the most popular and talked about items were the alcoholic jelly shots (which gives me some vindication because my husband Tom looked at me like I had two heads when I said that I wanted to serve Jello shots this year). Both layer cakes were also extremely popular, as well as the samosas and puddings. My personal favorites were the apple cider caramels and the frozen maple-mousse pie. Oh, and the marshmallow-chocolate potato chip garnish for the chocolate pudding was pretty addictive.
Thanks so much to all of our friends who came to party -- and we're already looking forward to next year!
Baked Goods:
I picked a recipe that doesn't evoke the holidays at all, but it still seemed like it would be a good cookie for our party: Green Tea Sablés. What I particularly liked about the recipe was the fact that it included green tea, but not matcha powder -- so the cookies don't have the dull green color normally associated with green tea baked goods.
The recipe headnote says that Dorie prefers berry- or citrus-flavored green tea, and it also says you can use loose-leaf tea or tea bags. I used some supermarket tea bags that I happened to have on hand, Bigelow Green Tea with Peach. I didn't need to crush my tea leaves because the pieces of tea in the bags were already very small. You use your fingers to rub the tea together with sugar and salt, add flour, and then incorporate small pieces of butter by hand. You work the dough into a ball, form it into a log, and chill the dough until firm.
The cookies had pretty small specks of green tea leaves throughout. I thought they were delicious. They were super buttery, and the peach flavor was wonderful -- these gave me the sensation of eating a Peach Tea Snapple in a cookie. And coming from someone who loves Peach Tea Snapple, that's a wonderful thing.
For the benefit of our guests who asked for recipes (and to help me remember what was on the menu!), everything I made for the holiday party is listed below. Surprisingly, some of the most popular and talked about items were the alcoholic jelly shots (which gives me some vindication because my husband Tom looked at me like I had two heads when I said that I wanted to serve Jello shots this year). Both layer cakes were also extremely popular, as well as the samosas and puddings. My personal favorites were the apple cider caramels and the frozen maple-mousse pie. Oh, and the marshmallow-chocolate potato chip garnish for the chocolate pudding was pretty addictive.
Thanks so much to all of our friends who came to party -- and we're already looking forward to next year!
Baked Goods:
- Chocolate Chip Cookies by Jacques Torres (see this post from July 11, 2008).
- Sweet and Salty Brownies from Baked Explorations by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (see this post from December 5, 2010).
- Farmeeoh Cookies from the Los Angeles Times (see this post from November 9, 2010).
- Triple Ginger Biscotti from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle (see this post from December 20, 2014).
- Ginger Bites from The Good Cookie by Tish Boyle (see this post from December 20, 2014).
- Green Tea Sablés from Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan.
- Assorted Macarons (matcha, vanilla, and strawberry) from Stella Parks (see this post from December 20, 2013).
- Derby Cookies from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.
- Pumpkin Cheesecake Tart from Food and Wine.
- Wintermint Cake from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (see this post from December 21, 2014)
- Tricolor Cake from Baked Occasions by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito.
- Carol's Caramel Corn from King Arthur Flour.
- Beer Brittle from the Los Angeles Times.
- Spiced Cashew Brittle from Food and Wine.
- Apple Cider Caramels from King Arthur Flour.
- Blueberry Martini Jelly Shots from the Los Angeles Times.
- B-52 Jelly Shots from the Los Angeles Times.
- Rice Pudding with Almonds and Cherry Sauce from epicurious.com.
- Dark Chocolate Pudding from epicurious.com, garnished with Brown Butter & Marshmallow Potato Chip Treats from Sweet Paul.
- Frozen Maple-Mousse Pie with Candied Cranberries from Food and Wine (see this post from December 19, 2014).
- Frozen Chocolate-Peanut Butter Decadence from epicurious.com.
- Samosas with Quick Flaky Pastry from King Arthur Flour.
- Shrimp and Sesame Sticks from epicurious.com.
- Peanut Butter and Wine Jelly Sandwiches, with Homemade Wine Jelly from America's Test Kitchen Feed.
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