Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies / Ravel's "Petit Poucet"

The charming simplicity of thumbprint cookies has always appealed to me. But after tasting one, I would inevitably find myself disappointed by a crumbly, dry, and flavorless cookie.

This recipe, however, yielded moist, buttery cookies coated in prettily sparkling raw sugar -- with just the right dose of silky, rich, melts-in-your-mouth dark chocolate.

{this recipe calls for raw sugar, also known as "demerara" or "turbinado" sugar}

{we had a lot of fun molding the dough into balls and making the indentations}

{the thumbprint can be as deep or as wide as you like depending on how much chocolate you'd like to fill it with}

{ganache over the double boiler}

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

Adapted from Sunset Magazine

For the cookie dough:

1 cup (1/2 pound) butter, at room temperature

1/2  cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 heaping teaspoon salt

About 1/3 scant cup raw (such as turbinado or demerara) sugar

For the ganache:

6 ounces bitersweet chocolate

2 tablespoons whipping cream

1 tablespoon dark corn syrup

1 tablespoon butter

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the butter and sugars on high speed until smooth. Add in the egg yolks and vanilla and beat until blended, scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. 

In another bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, and salt by hand until blended. Reduce the speed of the electric mixer to low and gradually incorporate the flour mixture into the butter mixture until well blended. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and chill until the dough is firm but still pliable, about 30 minutes. While waiting, preheat your oven to 325 degrees.

Place about 1/3 cup of the raw sugar on a plate. Shape the dough into 1-inch balls and roll them in the sugar until evenly coated. Place the cookies one inch apart on a buttered or parchment-lined cookie sheet. Make the indentations by pressing your thumb into the center of each cookie. The indentations should be about 1/2 an inch deep. 

Bake the cookies for 10 to 12 minutes. If you're baking more than one pan, rotate them halfway through baking. If the indentations you made have puffed back up, you can reshape them while they are still warm on the cookie sheet. (Do not do this on your cooling rack as you will effectively be pushing the still-pliable dough through the grating of your cooling rack, resulting in unevenly shaped bottoms.) Transfer to a rack to cool. 

Meanwhile, prepare the ganache. In a double boiler, combine all the ganache ingredients over barely simmering water until blended. Remove from the stove and let cool about 15 minutes, until thick but not hardened. 

Fill each indentation with about 1 teaspoon of the ganache. Let the filled cookies stand until the ganache is firm, about 1 hour.

{these keep well with no dry-out for several days in an airtight container}

For a musical pairing, enjoy Ravel's musical retelling of the "Tom Thumb" fairytale. The French version of the pint-sized boy is far less macabre than the English-language version -- in which Tom gets eaten and regurgitated by various creatures before meeting his untimely death via spider bite.  In the French version, entitled "Le Petit Poucet" (and painted so sweetly and innocently by Ravel in this piece), Tom steals a pair of magical boots, and presumably lives happily ever after. 

Wishing you an equally magical year ahead!

Salted Pistachio Dark Chocolate Macarons / Ravel Piano Concerto

Last week, I received an incredibly sweet birthday present from a good friend and colleague at Pacific Symphony: a cookbook entitled "Mad About Macarons." On opening the gift, I was touched that my friend had thoughtfully indulged my obsession with decadent baking. But the more I learned about macarons - and even about the author of the cookbook, who is a musician herself - the more special the gift became.
 

{at various stages of preparation}

Having never made macarons before, I was unaware of just how much time they require to achieve the most perfect results. First, the egg whites age in the fridge for 4 to 5 days before being beaten. Once the shell batter has been prepared and carefully piped onto baking sheets, it rests on the counter to set for about an hour before baking. Finally, the fully baked and assembled macarons themselves taste best after spending at least 24 hours in the fridge.

But the end result was well worth the wait(s). Despite my wondering if I was doing everything right (because there is just so much that can go wrong: cracked/bubbly/hollow shells, the dreaded lack of "feet"...), it all worked out in the end - thanks to graceful aging. What a fitting birthday metaphor... especially reassuring since this year's my 30th.

{cooling off below the book that made the process relatively foolproof}

I made very few changes to the recipe outlined in the book. My most substantial addition was a sprinkling of Maldon salt to enhance the flavors of both the ground pistachios and the dark chocolate. And for color, I added a few grams of cocoa powder to the shell batter.

{Sadly, no chocolate for Poochini!}

Musical pairing: the first movement of Ravel's Piano Concerto in G major. It is a joyful explosion of flavors and colors; sophisticated, but with a palatable sense of whimsy and fun; and exquisitely French in a very modern way. Enjoy!

Rose Panna Cotta with Raspberry and Lychee / Mother Goose Suite

Being married to a chocoholic can be surprisingly hard on a recreational chef with as indiscriminating a sweet tooth as myself.  If only I could turn my husband away from the chocolatey-dark side; far enough, at least, that he would actually enjoy a slice of lemon meringue pie! I would die a happy woman, confident that the dessert-making force was with me. To be fair, though, he's come a very far way already - thanks to ridiculously exquisite (and foolproof) recipes like this one.

{cream + sugar + mascarpone + rosewater + cute ramekin = panna cotta}

Martha Stewart's light and delicately floral Rosewater Panna Cotta seemed just right for a dinner party in the garden earlier this week. The original recipe calls for fresh raspberries and chopped canned lychees, with the accompanying clear syrup reserved as a sauce. But when I spotted fresh lychees at Trader Joe's, I imagined a simple coulis made out of fresh lychees and raspberries instead.

{Coulis is just Fancy for "fruit sauce"}

After pureeing a pint of raspberries with 10 peeled, pitted lychees and 2 tablespoons of powdered  sugar, I pushed the liquid through a sieve to remove seeds. The resulting sauce was heavenly: sweet, floral, and ever so slightly tart. (If you don't have access to fresh lychees, canned would work just as well; just skip the sugar.)
                      
I served the panna cotta with this ginger shortbread.

Lastly, a word to the wise: don't be in a hurry to remove the panna cotta from its container. I may or may not have shattered a plate in my haste to shake a particularly stubborn one free. Loosen the bottoms first by placing them in a baking dish filled with half an inch of very hot water for several minutes.

{chocolate who?}

Musical pairing: "Laideronette, Empress of the Pagodas" from Ravel's Mother Goose Suite. It's silken, snowy, and boasts an elegantly eastern flavor - not entirely unlike this dessert. Enjoy!