I was so excited to see fresh rhubarb start appearing at the grocery store and farmers markets in early May. I decided to use my first rhubarb of the season to make Donna Hay's "White Chocolate and Rhubarb Jam Drops" from Modern Baking.
These cookies include a quick rhubarb jam that you make by bringing a mixture of chopped rhubarb, sugar, vanilla, and water to a boil, and cooking until thickened. The rhubarb I used for this recipe was the most intensely-colored rhubarb I have ever seen -- it was bright red virtually from base to tip, with almost no green on the outside of the stalks. The jam was a beautiful and vibrant pinkish-red and had a stretchy, elastic texture (I know it's an odd comparison, but it the texture reminded me of aligot).
To make the cookie dough, you cream room temperature butter and sugar (the recipe calls for caster sugar but I always used granulated instead because caster sugar is insanely expensive in the United States) until pale and creamy; add vanilla, an egg yolk, and melted white chocolate; and incorporate all-purpose flour. You chill the dough for 30 minutes before forming it into balls (I used a #40 scoop and got 20 cookies from a batch of dough); flattening the cookies slightly; making an indentation in the center; and filling the cookies with rhubarb jam before baking.
These cookies were delightful. While the white chocolate in the dough made the cookies quite sweet, the sweetness was nicely balanced out by the tart rhubarb jam, which was wonderfully bright (although I do think that a pinch of salt in the cookie dough might do wonders). The cookies were rich and chewy and they kept exceptionally well in the fridge for a few days.
The recipe mentions you will have some excess rhubarb jam that can be kept in the fridge for two weeks, and I had a lot of jam left over. I tried using it as a substitute filling with my mother's Taiwanese pineapple cake recipe. Her pineapple cakes have a shortbread dough made with both all-purpose flour and almond flour encasing a homemade pineapple jam, and I figured that the rhubarb jam would be a good stand-in for the pineapple filling. The resulting little rhubarb cakes were delicious, but for some reason all of the cakes developed cracks in the pastry while they baked, allowing some of the jam to leak out (I've never had a leak with the pineapple filling). Nonetheless, Tom and I relished eating all of the disfigured cakes.
The jam definitely makes this cookie, and while it could be re-purposed for a multitude of baking uses, you could just enjoy it on some toast. These cookies are delicious, and the extra jam is a nice bonus.
Recipe: "White Chocolate and Rhubarb Jam Drops" from Modern Baking by Donna Hay.
These cookies include a quick rhubarb jam that you make by bringing a mixture of chopped rhubarb, sugar, vanilla, and water to a boil, and cooking until thickened. The rhubarb I used for this recipe was the most intensely-colored rhubarb I have ever seen -- it was bright red virtually from base to tip, with almost no green on the outside of the stalks. The jam was a beautiful and vibrant pinkish-red and had a stretchy, elastic texture (I know it's an odd comparison, but it the texture reminded me of aligot).
To make the cookie dough, you cream room temperature butter and sugar (the recipe calls for caster sugar but I always used granulated instead because caster sugar is insanely expensive in the United States) until pale and creamy; add vanilla, an egg yolk, and melted white chocolate; and incorporate all-purpose flour. You chill the dough for 30 minutes before forming it into balls (I used a #40 scoop and got 20 cookies from a batch of dough); flattening the cookies slightly; making an indentation in the center; and filling the cookies with rhubarb jam before baking.
The recipe mentions you will have some excess rhubarb jam that can be kept in the fridge for two weeks, and I had a lot of jam left over. I tried using it as a substitute filling with my mother's Taiwanese pineapple cake recipe. Her pineapple cakes have a shortbread dough made with both all-purpose flour and almond flour encasing a homemade pineapple jam, and I figured that the rhubarb jam would be a good stand-in for the pineapple filling. The resulting little rhubarb cakes were delicious, but for some reason all of the cakes developed cracks in the pastry while they baked, allowing some of the jam to leak out (I've never had a leak with the pineapple filling). Nonetheless, Tom and I relished eating all of the disfigured cakes.
The jam definitely makes this cookie, and while it could be re-purposed for a multitude of baking uses, you could just enjoy it on some toast. These cookies are delicious, and the extra jam is a nice bonus.
Recipe: "White Chocolate and Rhubarb Jam Drops" from Modern Baking by Donna Hay.
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