I first became interested in buying Mindy Segal's cookbook Cookie Love after coming across her recipe for "Folgers Crystals with Sour Cream Gianduja" on Sweet Paul; the recipe produces a coffee shortbread cookie sandwich filled with sour cream and gianduja, dipped in more gianduja and garnished with homemade toffee. I love gianduja. Unfortunately, gianduja is expensive and difficult to find in brick and mortar stores around here, so I decided to try the recipe without it.
To make the shortbread, you cream room temperature butter with powdered sugar; add egg yolks and vanilla; and mix in the dry ingredients (flour, kosher salt, flake salt, and Folgers instant crystals). You chill the dough for a few hours before you roll it out; chill it; dock it; cut it; sprinkle on some turbinado sugar; and bake.
You're supposed to pair the cookies together as sandwiches around a filling made from softened butter, powdered sugar, sour cream, melted gianduja, salt, and vanilla. I was in a rush and didn't have any gianduja anyway, so I just skipped the filing altogether. But I did finish off the cookies by dipping one end in bittersweet chocolate (I didn't have any milk chocolate, which was the suggested substitution for gianduja) and sprinkling on some crushed homemade toffee (made from butter, sugar, corn syrup, water, salt, and vanilla).
I thought that these were good-looking cookies; there's a lot going on with the chocolate and toffee and raw sugar and specks of freeze-dried coffee. The shortbread was firm and buttery, but I thought that the coffee flavor was a little too strong. I love the flavor of coffee in baked goods, but I personally think it's best as an enhancement to chocolate or when it tastes like Häagen-Dazs coffee ice cream -- milky and sweet. Because you're getting a lot of straight freeze-dried coffee crystals in these cookies, they were somewhat bitter. The bit of chocolate and toffee on one end moderated the bitterness quite a bit, but the naked end of the cookie was too strong for me.
My tasters liked these cookies, and I know that a lot of people enjoy the taste of black coffee -- if you're one of them, this cookie might be right up your alley! But now I know why these are designed to be sandwich cookies. A filling of gianduja and sour cream would do a lot to mellow out the overall flavor. I think plain Nutella might also be a great filling option that would deliver a similar flavor profile.
I'd like to try these cookies again with the filling -- if for no other reason than the fact that I've got a leftover jar of Folgers in the cupboard! I think these might be worth the gianduja splurge.
Recipe: "Folgers Crystals with Sour Cream Gianduja" and "Toffee" from Cookie Love by Mindy Segal, recipes available here from Sweet Paul.
Previous Posts:
To make the shortbread, you cream room temperature butter with powdered sugar; add egg yolks and vanilla; and mix in the dry ingredients (flour, kosher salt, flake salt, and Folgers instant crystals). You chill the dough for a few hours before you roll it out; chill it; dock it; cut it; sprinkle on some turbinado sugar; and bake.
You're supposed to pair the cookies together as sandwiches around a filling made from softened butter, powdered sugar, sour cream, melted gianduja, salt, and vanilla. I was in a rush and didn't have any gianduja anyway, so I just skipped the filing altogether. But I did finish off the cookies by dipping one end in bittersweet chocolate (I didn't have any milk chocolate, which was the suggested substitution for gianduja) and sprinkling on some crushed homemade toffee (made from butter, sugar, corn syrup, water, salt, and vanilla).
My tasters liked these cookies, and I know that a lot of people enjoy the taste of black coffee -- if you're one of them, this cookie might be right up your alley! But now I know why these are designed to be sandwich cookies. A filling of gianduja and sour cream would do a lot to mellow out the overall flavor. I think plain Nutella might also be a great filling option that would deliver a similar flavor profile.
I'd like to try these cookies again with the filling -- if for no other reason than the fact that I've got a leftover jar of Folgers in the cupboard! I think these might be worth the gianduja splurge.
Recipe: "Folgers Crystals with Sour Cream Gianduja" and "Toffee" from Cookie Love by Mindy Segal, recipes available here from Sweet Paul.
Previous Posts:
- "Silky Soft and Coffee Fresh: Downy Golden Cake with Coffee Buttercream," August 30, 2014.
- "A Little Cake a Lot Like Tiramisu: Coffee Mascarpone Cake," June 30, 2013.
- "Delayed Gratification Tastes So Good: Butterscotch-Glazed Coffee Shortbread Bars," May 9, 2013.
- "Dessert in Stripes: Vietnamese Ice Coffee Panna Cotta," July 4, 2012.
- "My New Cake Crush: Chocolate Cofffee Cake with Dark Chocolate Ganache," January 14, 2012.
- "Baked Sunday Mornings: Coffee Ice Cream (and Tart!)," August 28, 2011.
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