Sweet Little Party Cookies

Last Saturday we had the second annual Scholar's Social for the winners of Chapter AJ P.E.O.'s local scholarships. The young women who attended are awesome, with various educational goals including a freshman whose long term goal is to be a medical doctor. One will be studying in Italy this year. Another is not only attending college, she is spearheading an effort to form a non-profit to assist women who have escaped human trafficking. Two others will be continuing their education toward degrees in biology and environmental sciences. These women are intelligent, articulate and altogether wonderful. So glad that we can assist them in furthering their education through scholarships.

For the party, which was an afternoon gathering with finger foods and iced tea and lemonade, I made a recipe that was new to me from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts. The results were little pastries that not only were delicious, but that looked impressive. The truth is that they were fairly easy, but that is often the way with impressive looking food. In the photo above, they are the cookies on the small plate by the napkin stack. The dough is made from almonds, sugar and egg whites, rather like marzipan. It's shaped into a long strip and a trough indented into it, while keeping the sides high. The shaped dough sits out overnight and then the indent is filled with apricot jam and sprinkled with sliced almonds. Bake until golden brown, cool, and slice on the diagonal and you have a yummy cookie that looks like something from a pastry shop.

I also tried making a tart with the cookie dough, baking it partway, then adding jam and raspberries and baking it a bit more. Unfortunately, the jam turned to liquid and soaked the pastry overnight, so they were tasty but no longer finger food. If you decide to make them, just be sure to serve them as soon as they are chilled.

Almond Macaroon Slices - a two day recipe
from Maida Heatter's Best Dessert Book Ever (slightly changed)
Makes about 12 slices

7 1/2 oz. (1 1/2 cups) blanched almonds
2 3/8 oz (1/3 cup) granulated sugar
2 egg whites graded 'large' or extra large', separated from each other
About 1/3 cup apricot preserves
sliced almonds (for topping)
confectioners sugar - optional - (for topping)

Line a cookie sheet with parchment paper or silicone mat and set aside.

Place the blanched almonds and granulated sugar in the bowl of a food processor fitted with the metal chopping blade. Process until fine and powdery. Through the feed tube add one of the egg whites and process briefly. Beat the remaining white slightly since you will only be adding part of it, Gradually add the second egg white, just a bit at a time, until the mixture holds together and forms a paste firm enough to hold its shape...but better too wet than too dry. You will most likely not use all of the second egg white.

Turn the mixture out onto a floured surface, form it into a ball, turn it over to flour all sides. With your hands mold it into a sausage shape about 11 inches long and about 1 3/4 to 2 inches in diameter.

Carefully transfer to the prepared cookie sheet. To form the trench down the middle, dip your middle finger in water and with the wet fingertip, press a trench in the dough. The long sides and the ends of the strip much remain high or the preserves will boil over during baking. The trench should be about 1 inch wide and about 3/4 inch deep. As you are shaping, support the outside of the strip with one hand while you shape the trench with the middle finger of your other hand.

Let stand uncovered overnight.

The next day, before baking, adjust the oven rack to the middle of the oven and preheat to 350 degrees F.

Stir the preserves well to soften. With a small spoon, place the preserves in the trench. The preserves should just about fill the trench but should not be higher than the sides anywhere or they will run over during baking. Too much preserves will also be too runny/sticky.

With your fingertips, placed a generous layer of sliced almonds all over the preserves, placing them casually every which way.

Bake for 25 to 28 minutes until the macaroon mixture is lightly colored and the preserves start to bubble. Keep an eye on them for the last few minutes to avoid having the preserves run over the sides.

Remove from the oven. Run a long, thin spatula under the whole cookie to loosen the bottom. Let cool completely. Cookie will firm up some as it cools.

Transfer carefully to a cutting board. If desired, lightly sprinkle confectioners sugar through a fine strainer on the top. Then, with a sharp knife, cut the strip on an angle into slices a scant 1-inch wide.

To make the raspberry tart variation: make the macaroon dough as described above. Flatten it into an even layer in a rectangular tart pan. push the dough up the sides of the pan. Bake in preheated 350 degree oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. When cool, spread about 1/3 cup seedless raspberry jam over the bottom of the tart. Cover surface with fresh raspberries. Bake an additional 10-15 minutes until tart dough is golden and jam bubbles. Remove from oven and let cool. Cut into squares. Eat the same day!

Short Term Memory

Not all food memories have to be from childhood, younger days, or even North Bay memories.

Today I went with friends to a lovely tea place in Benicia and we created wonderful memories.

One of us was a newly-initiated member of the group we belong to, P.E.O., which is a philanthropic educational organization that gives scholarships and loans to women. We were gathered to talk about our ways and what we do so well, raise money for women's scholarships. Of course we also talked about a wide range of other subjects, from travel to friendships to health issues.

The Camellia Tea Room, where we enjoyed the hot tea and delicious food, has been there on 1st Street in Benicia for many years. The room is beautifully decorated and today they had some Christmas decorations up, along with garlands and pretty lanterns on the tables.

The Full Tea here is presented on three tiers. The top tier has a selection of finger sandwiches, the middle tier has scones and tiny bowls of jam and whipped cream, and the bottom tier has sweets. Today's sandwiches included traditional cucumber sandwiches with herbed cream cheese, a tartine with chutney and sharp cheddar shreds and a third one that I can't remember the parts of, but I think it was turkey on pumpernickel. Since I was eating a delicious egg salad sandwich on herbed focaccia, which came with a small salad, I didn't really pay attention to the selection on the full tea tiers, but the cute lemon tart and the pumpkin cake with cream cheese icing looked really delicious.

Another in our party had a wonderful main dish salad with plenty of cashews and another had onion soup with toast and cheese on top. Everyone seemed quite pleased with their choice.

They have many kinds of sandwiches, salads, two soups, and plenty of combinations with sweets, plus an amazing choice of teas. My citrus blend, a black tea with lemon and orange, was delightful.

So today will be remembered for excellent food and tea, wonderful fun with good friends, and fine, cheerful service by our hostess and servers in beautiful surroundings. If you decide to go and make your own memories there, do make a reservation. They often have every table filled at lunchtime.

Design Instead of Food

Today, and part of yesterday, plus a day a week ago, I was really glad that I spent the time last fall and winter learning InDesign. Sometimes it comes in handy to know a bit about Illustrator and Photoshop, too.

As I know I've mentioned in the past, I belong to a great group of gals called P.E.O. Chapter AJ. We are part of the larger P.E.O. International organization, which is a philanthropic education organization, meaning a large number of women working together to fund educational opportunities for women. Just this year our Chapter has been part of awarding over $6,000 in scholarships to 7 women. Organization wide we are talking millions of dollars to help women reach for the stars and meet their educational goals. We've been around since January of 1869 in the U.S. and for almost that long in Canada.

So why am I telling you these two things dear reader? Because yesterday and today I spent the time I probably would have used to cook or bake something (which could be posted here) to create an invitation to our Chapter's 100th Birthday party.

We're going to invite all of our Chapter members and some friends to a tea party...and I got to create the invitations graphics and text...and print them...and cut them...and fold them...and stuff the envelopes...and address and stamp them. It's the kind of thing I'm good at and enjoy...and it's for a very round number birthday. You know that I love birthdays!

So tomorrow I'll be back with something yummy I cooked or baked and photos of the same but for today I only have photos of the filled envelopes and the front of the invitation. Wish you were going to be coming.

If you have any questions about P.E.O. send me an e-mail or leave a comment. There are chapters throughout the United States and a womens' college, Cottey college, too (http://www.cottey.edu/). If you live in California, I know that there are a number of scholarships given at the state level to support many kinds of majors and those can be applied for just by visiting the California P.E.O. website (http://www.peocalifornia.org/) and applying. In these difficult financial times when college is so expensive this information might just help a woman you know.

Group Bread Baking is Wonderful

There are going to be a LOT of photos in this post...because there were a LOT of women baking yeast rolls together this week. If they see this post and look carefully, they might see their hands doing the work of making those delicious rolls!

While I very much enjoy baking bread by myself, it can be fun to bake in a group, too. This week a friend offered her kitchen for a group bread baking session (my kitchen being much too small and hers being gorgeous and spacious...with a proofing oven!) to raise money for our scholarships for women group, P.E.O. Although some of the women had baked bread before I was supposed to act as the teacher as needed, so I spent some time in advance working out how 7 of us would bake two kinds of rolls in one kitchen between 10 am and 4 pm. Seems like a long time until you put together all the rising and baking times needed!

The first shortcut was to make two of the dough batches ahead of time. The sesame seed rolls need to have the starter sit overnight anyway, so finishing them to the first rise stage in the morning, then letting them rise as I gathered my supplies and equipment and drove to the Baking Day site worked perfectly. I took photos to show them how the starter looked before it was mixed into dough

and it was fun to have some dough ready to shape to start off the day.

By starting this way (with clean hands) we were able to immediately handle the dough and to feel what dough that is smooth and supple and ready to go feels like.

That helped later when they were working with the second kind of dough that they had made themselves. It also meant that when we stopped for the delicious lunch provided by the hostess, with yummy cookies brought by one of the bakers, there were baked rolls to enjoy with lunch. Talk about a great incentive!

One of the best parts of this sort of day is there is lots of laughter and playfulness. I think the bread responds to that because these were really delicious rolls.

Some of the advantages of hands-on teaching is that I could show them how to adjust for too little water and to not get worried when the exact amounts given in the recipe don't quite make the dough we want. We were also able to feel the right temperature (not very hot) for the water, and to talk about how resilient bread dough is and how soothing it can be to knead the dough. I'm sure there were lots of other things that were learned that I'm not even aware of...I'm not a professional teacher and trust that a lot of things can be learned by doing and observing rather than being told stuff.

Each baker was provided with a sheet of baking tips I wrote up and with both recipes and they were encouraged to bake bread again soon to help retain what they learned...and because freshly baked bread smells SO good.

I'm going to send this over to Susan at Wild Yeast for her Yeastspotting event, a weekly carnival of awesome yeast breads and rolls and sweets.

Here are the recipes we used for our marathon roll baking:

Braided Sesame Rolls
from King Arthur Flour

Starter
• 1 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/3 to 1/2 cup cool water, enough to make a stiff ball of dough
• pinch of instant yeast

Dough
• all of the starter
• 2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1 1/4 teaspoons salt
• 2 tablespoons Baker's Special dry milk or nonfat dry milk
• 2 teaspoons instant yeast
• 2/3 cup lukewarm water
• 2 tablespoons olive oil

Topping
• 1 large egg white beaten with 1 tablespoon cold water
• 1/2 cup sesame seeds

Directions
1) To make the starter: Mix the starter ingredients together, cover, and let rest at room temperature overnight. Note: This is a dry, stiff starter. If it's too dry to come together, it may be that you measure your flour differently than we do here at King Arthur, or that you're in a particularly dry climate. Dribble in sufficient water to make the dough come together, and proceed with the recipe as directed.

(Note: In the morning you can see that the starter is good to go if it has gluten strands like those in this picture)

2) To make the dough: Combine the starter with the remaining dough ingredients, and mix and knead — by hand, mixer, or bread machine set on the dough cycle — to make a soft, smooth dough. You may need slightly more or less than 2 cups flour.

3) Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl or large (8-cup) measure; cover, and let it rise for about 90 minutes, till it's just about doubled in bulk.

4) Gently deflate the dough, and divide it into six equal pieces. Shape each piece into a rough log, and let the logs rest, uncovered, for about 10 minutes. This gives the gluten in the dough a chance to relax, which in turn will make the logs easier to roll.

5) Working on a lightly greased surface, roll each piece into a thin rope about 18" long.

6) Take three of the ropes. Whisk together 1 large egg white and 1 tablespoon water. Brush each rope with the egg white/water (this will be the “glue” to hold the seeds)and coat with about 1/2 cup sesame seeds rolling the ropes gently in the seeds to pick up as many as possible.

7) Grab one end of each rope, and squeeze the ends together firmly. Braid three 'snakes' together.

Repeat with the remaining three ropes. The resulting loaves will be about 18" long.

8) Cut each braided rope into six 3" rolls. Squeeze the cut ends together to seal, and tuck them under.

9) Space the rolls on a parchment lined baking sheet. (We used Silpat silicon mats).

Cover the loaf or rolls with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow to rise till very puffy, about 90 minutes. Towards the end of the rising time, preheat the oven to 425°F.

10) The rolls will need to bake for about 25 minutes. Remove from the oven, and cool on a rack.

Don't these look beautiful?

Yield: 12 rolls.

We found the water amount given in the recipe for these rolls to be much less than needed for the amount of flour called for. We ended up using over 1 1/2 cups water instead of 1 1/8 cups.

Shaped Bread Rolls 101
based on a recipe found on the King Arthur Flour website

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup whole-wheat flour
1 packet instant yeast
1 ¼ teaspoons salt
3 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) butter at room temperature, cut into small pieces
¼ cup nonfat dry milk
1/3 cup potato flakes
1 1/8 cup lukewarm water (we needed 1 1/2 cups or more)

Combine all ingredients and mix and knead them together…by hand, mixer, or bread machine…until you’ve made a soft, smooth dough. Cover and let the dough rise for 1 hour, until it’s puffy (though not necessarily doubled in bulk).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and divide into 16 pieces. (We used a scale and tried to keep the pieces of dough close in weight.)

Choose the shapes you want to create. For snails, roll each piece in a long snake,

then roll into a spiral shape, tucking the end under when finished.

For cloverleaf rolls, butter a muffin tin and for each roll take one of the dough pieces, divide it into three balls and place those three balls together

in the muffin cup
.
After shaping, let the rolls rise until puffy and almost doubled in size. We covered them with a piece of plastic wrap that we oiled on the side that touches the rolls. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes, until golden brown with an internal temperature of 190 degrees F.

NOTE: Risen unbaked rolls can be brushed with an egg white or egg wash (egg white beaten with some water, or egg beaten with some water) and sprinkled with seeds or sea salt. We used poppy seeds on some and sea salt on some. Both were yummy!

Finished rolls can be brushed with butter for a soft crust, but these are pretty buttery without that.

Joy and Love In Action

This month has been most unusual. It started with a Convention. That might sound like fun. In some ways it was, because I met some amazing women. On the other hand, I was a delegate, so, as Calvin used to say, the days were packed. The theme was Love and Joy in Action and there was a lot of smiling going on.

Blogging is one of my enthusiasms. So is food, photography, and writing. Check out that dessert photo. It was from the first day's lunch. I want to try making that marbled chocolate base for the sorbet.

Another one of my enthusiasms is raising money for scholarships for women, especially women who are returning to school both to improve themselves and to help out their families. I indulge this enthusiasm through an organization that has been around since the 1860's. The fund raising and fun is done through local chapters composed of women from many walks in life. In California there are over 500 chapters. This year the Convention had a delegate from almost all of those chapters, plus some past presidents and other dignitaries. There were also another 500 or so non-delegate chapter members. Image a huge meeting room packed with over 1,000 women! Since I like small groups of people, being a delegate was a challenge. Here is a photo of me being a delegate. Sorry about the quality, but it was taken by a sweet volunteer who didn't understand my camera. I look more relaxed than I felt.

The organization is P.E.O., a philanthropic educational organization. One philanthropy, for example, the International Peace Scholarship Fund, has given $20,495,763 providing 5,522 scholarships to women from 167 countries from 1949 to 2006. There are other projects with similar funding, plus California state scholarships, and local scholarships. Our chapter provides over $4,500 in local scholarship money each year. Last year our six scholars also received two international and two state scholarships.

So now you know why I was away from the computer at the beginning of June. As a past school board member, I still have a passion for education and assisting those who are eager to learn. This is a great way to feed that enthusiasm (although I'm hoping that someone else will go to Convention next year...too many people!)