Hazelnut Molasses Sandwich Cookies with Chocolate Filling

This has been a pretty righteous month y’all. In spite of losing face, wallet, and phone, I’ve been having an absolutely necessary and excellent time freelancing and visiting buddies in DC. The city seems more vibrant than ever, thanks in no small part of course to the many exceptional folks who are organizing events and giving small businesses space to thrive. (Check out this baby recap of Emily Hilliard’s Pi[e] Day festivities for one such example!) And maybe you saw this on Facebook already, but DC’s city council just proposed an allowance that would give bakers and other food creators the ability to sell homemade goods to the public—if it passes, that’d be reason enough to move back.

At the moment, I’m still figuring out what’s next, but with a definite scheduled stop in Maine to help deliver baby goats and to hike that big ol’ mountain. And currently I’m resting my head in Philly, home to a few pretty sweet art exhibits and some of the best beer around (plus PRETZELS). But the wandering and the hubbub demand a return to basics—or well, deliciousness posing as basics—and this cookie recipe is more of a cathartic get-‘er-done thing than a big ol’ kitchen exertion; these felt good to make. Fairly fast and dead simple with a huge flavorful payoff, these cookies offered an eye in the storm of my roving. Slice, bake, fill, stack: a relieving and totally tasty way to chill out.

Hazelnut Molasses Sandwich Cookies
Adapted from Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy by Alice Medrich

Medrich says this recipe makes 100 cookies and 50 sandwich cookies, but I preferred the thicker ones and, with that in mind, would say it's more like 75 cookies and 32 sandwich cookies. Depends on how thin you slice your dough!

1/2 cup raw hazelnuts, skins on
1 2/3 all-purpose cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
Scant 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon orange zest
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped, for filling

1.  Place the nuts, flour, and baking soda in a food processor and run until the nuts are finely ground. Set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine the butter, sugar, salt, vanilla, and zest, and beat with a handheld or KitchenAid mixer until fluffy. On low speed, beat in half the flour mixture, followed by all of the molasses. Beat in the remaining flour until just blended.

2.  Shape the dough into a cylinder about 14 inches long and 1 3/4 inches in diameter. (I rolled mine along a stainless steel counter, but you can use a longer sheet of wax paper to aid you instead.) Wrap the dough tightly in wax paper or plastic for two to three hours, or until it's firm enough to slice.

3.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Position racks in the upper and lower thirds of oven. Slice dough log into quarter-inch rounds (Medrich recommends eighth-inch, but thicker was better for us), and place 1 1/2 inches apart on lined cookie sheets. Bake for seven to ten minutes (Medrich says ten to 12, but ours were done by eight), rotating pans halfway through. The cookies will puff up then settle down before they are done. Set the liners on a cooling rack, and cool all the way before stacking or storing.

4.  To fill, melt the chocolate in a heatproof bowl set over simmering water. Spoon about one or two teaspoons of chocolate onto the underside of a cookie, then top with a same-sized cookie. Allow chocolate to set for about 15 minutes. Sandwich cookies will keep for one week in an airtight container.

Peanut Butter Honeycomb Pie and Pi(e) Day!

The first time I celebrated Pi(e) Day was as a sophomore at Berkeley in a hippie co-op full of math magicians and culinary geniuses—all pie, all day, and for some of the following day too. It was the most supreme and comforting display of nerdery, revived again in my recent life at the hands of DC's resident pie enthusiast. Every year—from her previous homes to here—Emily organizes a Pi(e) Day event, and the one she put together yesterday was a smorgasbord of sweet and savory, all heralding math, pie, and a fantastic local farm and education center that benefited from the cover cost. And boy was it ever delicious.

Spaghetti pie, chocolate hazelnut tarts, salty caramel chocolate pie, hot 'n' spicy chili pie, butterscotch meringue: I arrived totally starving and left completely wired and with a head full of ideas for new recipes and collaborations. The gals from The Runcible Spoon were there sharing a sweet craft and their latest beautiful zine (breakfast themed!), and Emily and Elizabeth's lovely pie book had a li'l cameo too. Most of my conversations with strangers ended up being about people's personal pursuits, and it was so nice to spend one of these last few days in DC hearing about—and eating!—all the creative projects that folks are working on. 

I ended up bringing four offerings to the event, three tried-and-true classics and one new recipe: labneh tart with sesame brittle, Floriole's chocolate ganache meringue tart, super tangy lemon tart, and this big ol' beastly peanut butter honeycomb pie. I only had the chance to run a piece of honeycomb through the smears of filling and crust left on the pie plate, but that was enough to know that I'll definitely be making this again. Creamy and rich, this pie hails from one of my very favorite pastry chefs who has never done me wrong. Kim Boyce knows what's up, and this ode to insanity brings out the very best in sweet, salty, crunchy, and creamy contrasts. Just don't wait until Pi(e) Day next year to make it. And, of course, a big thanks goes out to all the people who worked so hard to make DC's Pi(e) Day such a stellar and inspiring event—y'all keep this city alive!

Peanut Butter Honeycomb Pie

Adapted from Kim Boyce for Bon Appétit

I only made a few tweaks to this: upped the nutmeg, swapped the powdered sugar for cornstarch because I was concerned about it setting, omitted the salted peanuts she calls for in the end. It was a big hit at Pi(e) Day and not nearly as annoying to make as it seems! You need to allot two or three hours to set the custard, but all the individual pieces come together in about a half hour or so.

Crust
9 full-size graham crackers, broken up
1/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/4 teaspoon flaky sea salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg (bumped this up to 1/4 teaspoon)
6 tablespoons butter, melted 

Filling
8 large egg yolks
12 tablespoons sugar, divided
1 1/2 cups whole milk
1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise (or 1 teaspoon vanilla extract)
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup creamy peanut butter (natural is fine!)
1 teaspoon cornstarch, sifted
1/2 teaspoon flaky sea salt

Honeycomb
1 1/2 cups sugar
3 tablespoons corn syrup
1 tablespoon honey
1 tablespoon baking soda, sifted
 
Chocolate Glaze
2 ounces bittersweet chocolate (do not exceed 61% cacao), chopped
2 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter

1. Make the crust:  Preheat oven to 325. Finely grind graham crackers, sugar, salt, and nutmeg in a food processor.Transfer crumb mixture to a medium bowl. Add butter and stir to blend. Use bottom and sides of a measuring cup to pack crumbs onto bottom and up sides of 9-inch pie pan. Bake until golden brown, about 15 minutes. Let cool.

2.  Make the filling: Mix yolks and six tablespoons of sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or you can use a handheld mixer). Beat at high speed until ribbons form, stopping once to scrape down sides of bowl, about two minutes.

3.  Combine milk and remaining six tablespoons sugar in a large saucepan; scrape in seeds from vanilla bean and add bean to pan. Bring to a simmer over medium heat, stirring to dissolve sugar. Remove bean. With mixer running, gradually add hot milk mixture to yolk mixture. Scrape mixture back into pan. Clean bowl. Whisking constantly, bring custard to a boil over medium heat. Remove pan from heat and whisk vigorously for one minute. Return custard to mixing bowl and beat on high speed until cool, about four minutes. Mix in butter, one tablespoon at a time. Add peanut butter, cornstarch, and salt; beat to blend. Scrape filling into cooled crust; smooth top. Chill until set, two to three hours.

4.  Make honeycomb: Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or foil. Combine sugar, corn syrup, honey, and 1/4 cup water in a heavy, deep saucepan. Stir over medium-low heat until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high and bring to a boil. Once boiling, cook without stirring, occasionally swirling pan and brushing down sides with a wet pastry brush, until sugar turns pale amber, about seven or eight minutes. Working quickly, remove pan from heat and add baking soda (mixture will foam up dramatically), and whisk quickly just to combine. Immediately pour candy over prepared sheet (do not spread out). Let stand undisturbed until cool, about 20 minutes. Hit candy in several places with the handle of a knife to crack into pieces

5.  Make glaze and assemble:  Once pie is set and cool, stir chocolate and butter in a small heat-proof bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Drizzle some of the chocolate glaze over the peanut butter filling, then pile pieces of honeycomb on top, then drizzle remaining chocolate glaze over the honeycomb. This pie is a beast to cut with the honeycomb on top, so if you’re worried about slice presentation, just drizzle the chocolate on the pie, and top each slice with honeycomb and more chocolate. Finally, I only used about half the honeycomb. The rest we are dipping in chocolate and snackin’ on!

Lime Bars with Cardamom Shortbread Crust

Are you there, butter? It’s me, Kari. It’s been two days since my last consumption. But fear not, ye fellow unholy butter adherents, these zesty lime bars are just the ticket to redemption, especially if you’re looking for an afterword to last week’s Key lime pie. As with all things bless’ed by the mind of Alice Medrich, these lime bars come together in a snap and taste every skosh as delicious as you’d want them to: zingy and lime-saturated with a cardamom bite to the vanilla shortbread, just for good measure. Fresh grated ginger would also be at home in this recipe, and Apt. 2B Baking Co. whipped up a version last year that does just that. This is the last of the California citrus recipes for sometime, but there’s plenty in the archives to help keep your head above these wintry waters.

Lime Bars with Cardamom Shortbread Crust
Adapted from Alice Medrich, Pure Dessert

I highly recommend using fresh-ground cardamom straight from the pod. It can't be beat!

For the shortbread crust
1 cup all-purpose flour 
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
1/2 to 1 teaspoon ground cardamom, to taste (depends on how fresh your spice is!)
8 tablespoons (one stick) unsalted butter, melted
3/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line the bottom and sides of an 8" x 8" baking pan with foil. Mix the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Drizzle the butter and vanilla over the top and whisk it all together until evenly moistened. I was using cardamom straight from the pods, so a half-teaspoon was a goodly amount; taste, and add more if if your cardamom isn't as pronounced as you want it to be. Press the dough evenly across the bottom of the pan, and bake for 25 to 30 minutes until crust is golden brown. Meanwhile make the filling!

For the filling
1 cup granulated sugar (Medrich adds an additional two tablespoons)
3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons lime zest
1/2 cup strained, fresh-pressed lime juice

2.  Stir together the sugar and flour in a large bowl. Whisk in the eggs, then the zest and lime juice. When the crust is ready, turn down the oven to 300 degrees F. Pour the filling onto the hot crust and bake for 20 to 25 minutes longer until filling no longer jiggles when tapped.

3.  Set on a rack to cool completely in the pan. Once cool, lift up the foil liner and transfer to a cutting board. Cut into nine, 16, or 25 squares (or whatever!), and top with a little powdered sugar for looks if so inclined. Will keep for three days covered in the fridge; taste is still good for longer, but the shortbread softens.