The Jar of Cookies

A few months ago when brainstorming ideas for our second issue, we came across the topic of food in jars, one of the latest hot food fads floating about the internet. We wanted to explore a way that having food in a jar would be actually pragmatic, and this is one of our favorite ideas: gifting jars of cookie ingredients! Just collect the dry ingredients of the recipe into one or two jars, print out the instructions, wrap with a bow, and you're good to go. Below are three recipes from our "The Jar of Cookies" feature for your last minute Christmas presents. Finally, hoarding all those jars in my kitchen throughout the year has paid off. :)

Happy Holidays to you and yours from the sated team!

x, Stephanie

Speculaas
makes about 3½ dozen cookies

½ cup (48 g) almond meal or ground blanched almonds
1½ cups (188 g) all-purpose flour
½ tspn baking soda
1½ tspn cinnamon
½ tspn ground ginger
¼ tspn ground cardamom
¼ tspn ground nutmeg
⅛ tspn ground cloves
¼ tspn salt
½ cup (113 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
½ cup (110 g) light brown sugar
½ cup (100 g) sugar
1 large egg

Combine almond meal, flour, baking soda, spices, and salt in a bowl and set aside. Cream butter and sugars together in a stand mixer with the paddle attachment on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add egg and beat until combined. Reduce mixer speed to low, add in the flour mixture and mix until just combined. Flatten the dough into a disk, wrap with plastic, and refrigerate at least two hours, or overnight.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a few cookie sheets with parchment paper. Roll out dough to about ¼-inch thick on a lightly floured surface. Cut out cookies and place on sheets about 1 inch apart. You can also press the dough into a springerle mold if you want molded cookies instead.

Bake for 10 to 12 minutes, rotating sheets halfway through, until firm and lightly golden around the edges. Cool sheets on wire racks for a couple minutes before transferring cookies directly onto wire racks with a spatula to finish cooling.

Gran's Scottish Shortbread (with rice flour)
recipe by Jennifer Altman
makes about 6 dozen 1 x 2-inch bars

3½ cups (450 g) all-purpose flour
½ cup (70 g) rice flour
2 cups (450 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup (115 g) confectioners’ sugar
sugar, for sprinkling

Preheat oven to 300°F. Line a 15 x 10-inch sheet pan or two 9-inch square pans with parchment paper.

Sift the flours together. Set aside. Beat the butter until smooth and cream in the sugar. Mix in the flours until everything is well blended. Do not overmix. The mixture may look dry, which is okay. Press evenly into the prepared pans. Prick all over with a fork and bake for about 45 minutes, depending on the thickness. To ensure a crispy cookie that stores well, they should be baked all the way through to the middle. Remove from oven and immediately sprinkle lightly with granulated sugar and cut into 1"x 2" biscuits while still soft and warm.

(Note: the rice flour makes these rich, buttery cookies nice and crisp.)

Hazelnut brown butter thumbprints
makes about 2 dozen cookies

1 cup (226 g) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups (250 g) all-purpose flour
½ tspn salt
½ cup (100 g) sugar
2 large egg yolks
1 tspn vanilla extract
½ cup (58 g) hazelnuts, skinned, toasted, and finely chopped
½ cup (130 g) Nutella

Melt butter in a small saucepan over medium heat until it begins to brown and smell nutty. Pour butter into a small bowl and refrigerate until butter resolidifies.

Preheat oven to 350°F. Line several baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour and salt. Using a stand mixer, cream the browned butter at medium speed until light and creamy. Add sugar and beat until the mixture is light and fluffy. Add egg yolks and vanilla and mix until just incorporated. Reduce speed to low and gradually add the flour and salt, mixing just until combined.

Roll the dough into ¾-inch balls. Roll in the hazelnuts. Press your thumb into the center of each, making a depression large enough to fit 1 teaspoon of filling. Place the cookies on baking sheets and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating halfway through.

Remove cookies from oven and let cool on wire rack. Drop rounded teaspoonfuls of Nutella into the center of each cookie.

(Note: these hazelnut brown butter cookies--whether filled with Nutella or jam--are one of my absolute favorite baked goods that Anita makes! They're so incredibly nutty and melt-in-your-mouth powdery. I was immediately infatuated with them when I had one at a Christmas cookie exchange two years ago, and I still beg Anita to make them all the time. Suffice it to say, I'm thrilled she's finally sharing the recipe with the world via sated.)

(recipes by Anita Chu, unless otherwise specified; photos by Stephanie Shih)

Melon madness

One amusing question that I'm often asked about the first issue of sated is "What's the easiest recipe inside?" When developing the magazine, Anita and I talked extensively about making sure that we included a good range of recipes, from easy, super-simple dishes to more sophisticated, complex affairs. We wanted sated to be the kind of magazine that would inspire you to jump into the kitchen quickly and grow with over time. While the dark chocolate issue involves several more involved recipes--including Anita's multi-layered mocha praline opera cake masterpiece, its simplest recipes are truly incredibly simple (to the point of being nearly effortless) but also quite delicious. The easiest? Melon with roasted cacao nib, from our chocolate-filled breakfast in bed spread.

Melon with Roasted Cacao Nibs

1 - 2 Tbspn raw cacao nibs

1 cantaloupe or other orange-flesh melon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spread the cacao nibs on a baking sheet. Roast the nibs for 5 minutes. Remove from oven and crush the nibs. Slice the melon and sprinkle with the crushed roasted cacao nibs.

(from sated, v0.1: the dark chocolate issue) 

The initial inspiration for this recipe comes from a summertime treat that my family eats in Taiwan: thick, juicy slices of ice-cold watermelon sprinkled with dried plum powder. The dried plum powder is salty and sour, which makes the watermelon taste even sweeter and more refreshing. Roasted cacao nibs with melon is a chocolate spin on this idea, with the cacao nibs adding crunchy texture and a deep, rich nuttiness to the sweet, supple melon flesh. I like the cacao nibs best with orange-flesh melons that the markets are bursting with right now: cantaloupes, charentais, ambrosia... and the list goes on with all the heirloom varieties that are popping up these days.

Experimenting with the cacao nibs has opened up a whole new world of toppings-on-melons possibilities for me. In lieu of roasted cacao nibs, shards of shaved dark chocolate are also an excellent option, adding a touch of decadence to fruit so that you could serve this as the sweet end to a late summer/early fall dinner. For watermelon (red or yellow), a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt captures the salty allure of the Taiwanese dried plum powder--smoked sea salt is another interesting twist. When I don't have plum powder around, I've also taken to adding a pinch of cayenne pepper (with or without salt) on top of watermelon slices, for a surprising bit of spicy kick. And, if you want to try the original inspiration, dried plum powder should be available at Asian supermarkets (not to mention it also goes fabulously with cherry tomatoes!).

As for sated news, during the summer, we were featured in two interviews all about the creation of sated--catch up on them here and here. Right now, we are deep in the midst of working on our second issue, which will be packed full of awesome autumn and winter recipes and stories. Stay tuned for more news in the coming weeks, and don't forget to follow us on facebook and twitter to get of-the-moment updates!

x, Stephanie

(photos by Stephanie Shih)