Cookie #8 Soetkoekies (South Africa)

This recipe was recommended by a South African friend of mine. I can't lie, I had doubts when I saw lard in the ingredients but these cookies are very tasty and don't taste like pig. ;-) So WARNING: NOT SUITABLE FOR VEGETARIANS. It's a pretty forgiving recipe and I would say don't be afraid to cook them until they are a nice golden brown as they get a bit more crunch in them. These cookies are quite like gingerbread but without the kick that you would get from the ginger and molasses in the gingerbread.

I had some fun with the shapes on these and got to finally use the unicorn cookie cutter from a friend and the dinosaur cutter my sister gave me years ago. The dinosaurs and unicorns have been a great hit with the kids. These cookies hold their shape really well so are good for fancy shapes. This recipe makes a LOT of cookies but they keep very well, just have a good airtight container handy.

 

You can view the recipe link here. The recipe seems like it has a lot of salt in it but I put in the recommended amount and they tasted totally fine.

INGREDIENTS:

Yield 80-90 cookies

5 cups cake flour
2 cups brown sugar or 2 cups yellow sugar, if available
1 teaspoon baking soda
1⁄2 teaspoon cream of tartar
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 teaspoons salt
113g butter, soft
113g pork fat (You can render your own or most supermarkets carry it or use Crisco as a substitute)
1⁄2 cup semi-sweet sherry
2 large eggs, whisked well
   
METHOD:

In a large container mix very well: the flour, brown sugar, baking soda, cream of tartar, salt and all the spices.
Rub in the butter and pork fat with your fingers and palms until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. (See not below.)
Whisk the eggs, add just 1/2 cup sweet wine to the eggs, then stir into the dry mixture.
Stir this in well, and if still too dry to form a dough, add more of the sweet wine to form a fairly stiff dough.
The dough is easy to handle and can be kneaded at this stage to mix well and to form a dough you can roll out.
Roll out thinly, in batches, on a floured surface. Keep gathering up the unused dough, press together, and roll out again.
Make sure your oven grid is in the centre of the oven, as cookies burn easily on the bottom, especially if you use dark tins.
Press out large round cookies, carefully place on the greased tins, and bake in batches in the preheated oven.
Check cookies after 5 minutes; don't let them burn. Cooking time depends on your oven and size of cookies, but is generally about 7 minutes.
Remove with an egg-lifter, and let them cool and harden on wire racks. Store in airtight tins.

NOTE: A handy hint I learned from a friend’s mum years ago for rubbing butter into flour- grate it in. Make sure your butter (and pig fat) and super cold- a brief stint in the freezer can help this. Make sure it’s as much in one solid chunk as possible. Coat it in the flour in the bowl, sit the flour over flour in the bowl, rub some flour over it and then grate the butter. This makes it nice and small and evenly sized and gets rubbed into breadcrumb consistency much faster.

Best eaten: these are nice with a cup of tea (but then what isn’t? ;-) )




Cookie #7 Lebkuchen (Germany)

I’ve never made lebkuchen before but I will definitely think about adding them to the Christmas cookie list. The recipe I used came from here.

It states in the recipe on their site that the cookies should be allowed to “mellow”.  This lets the flavour improve and also changes the consistency of the cookie and it’s totally true. You might be tempted to eat these cookies immediately but they were SOOOOOOO much better several days later. At first I was worried they were really dry but after a couple of days they were softer and definitely had more flavour. To let them “mellow”, store them in an airtight container. Don’t let moisture get in or they’ll get mouldy and then everyone will cry.

I made these on Valentine's Day weekend so used some leftover chocolate to make hearts.

Lebkuchen Recipe

Ingredients:
250g / 9oz / 1¾ cups plus 1tbsp  plain flour
85g / 3oz / ¾ cup ground almonds
spice mix - ¼tsp ground cloves, ½tsp allspice powder, ½tsp nutmeg powder, 1¼tsp cinnamon
1tsp baking powder
½tsp baking soda
175ml / ¾ cup clear honey (or golden syrup)
85g / 3oz softened unsalted butter
½tbsp lemon juice (this is lemon from ½ lemon)
½ lemon, finely grated zest (or combine to 1 lemon zested)
½ orange, finely grated zest
For the icing:
100g / 4oz / 1 cup icing sugar (confectioners’ sugar)
1 egg white, beaten

Method:
Sieve the dry ingredients into a large bowl.

Warm the honey and butter in a pan over a low heat until the butter melts, then pour these into the flour mixture.  Add the lemon juice and lemon & orange zest.  Mix well with a hand held whisk until the dough is throughly combined.  Cover and leave to cool overnight, or for at least 2 hours. to let the flavours meld together and work that festive magic.

Heat oven to 180˚C.

Roll the lebkuchen dough in your hands into around 25 balls, each 3cm wide (1 inch wide), then flatten each one slightly into a disc.  Into the centre of the discs, place an almond flake.

Divide the lebkuchen mixture between 3 baking trays lined with baking parchment, or ideally with an edible baking paper, with a decent amount of room for them to expand into.

Bake for 13 – 15 mins, or until when touched lightly no imprint remains, then cool on a wire rack. While still warm, glaze the lebkuchen with the icing glaze, made as below.

Brush the lebkuchen with glaze icing.

While the cookies are baking, make your glazing icing: mix together the icing sugar and egg white to form a smooth, runny icing.

Brush the top of each biscuit with the glazing icing.  I placed them on top of a drying rack and put a board underneath to catch any dripped icing. Leave to dry out.

I then went crazy on a couple, melted some chocolate and dunked the bottoms of some of the cookies in them so they got chocolate bottoms. They don’t need it but what isn’t better with a bit of chocolate? :-)

Cookie #6 Speculaas (The Netherlands)

These biscuits have been a favourite of my father’s for years. I actually ended up trying two recipes. One I have had for years from a friend’s mum but it uses too much butter for a Queensland summer and although I put the pastry in the fridge to firm up, it didn’t hold the impressions of the cookie stamps. They still taste amazing which is why I’m posting the recipe but would be better suited to a biscuit that didn’t have a patterns stamped on top.

"Normal" cookie cutters? Pfft, nah, not in this kitchen!

These cookie cutters were bought a couple of years ago to make cookies for my dad.

Mexican wrestling mask cookie stamps courtesy of my co-worker's wife.

The second round of biscuits I made that had less butter in them and held the stamp better came from joyofbaking.com, a favourite baking site of mine and the link to the recipe is here.

Speculaas recipe

Ingredients
225g plain flour
1/2 t baking soda
170g butter
140g brown sugar
3/4 t cinnamon
1/4 t of each ground nutmeg, cloves and allspice
1 1/2 t milk
pinch of salt
finely grated lemon rind from 1 lemon

Method:
Sift dry ingredients, rub in butter and add brown sugar.
Add milk to make a good kneading consistency (I didn’t need this in Queensland summer heat)
(Optional middle step necessary for me in the heat: wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 mins)
Roll out and cut into shapes. Bake at 180˚C for  20 mins.
Best eaten: With a cup of tea but they are lovely by themselves too.

Cookie #5 Beer Cakes (Serbia)

This recipe comes from the mother of a friend at work. Apparently this recipe is used when the Serbian orthodox are fasting for Lent. Eggs and dairy products are on the no-go list so the oil and beer act as rising and binding agents. When the cookies are fresh out of the oven they are soaked in a sugar syrup which sweetness them and adds some moisture as well. I’ve never made cookies like this and it was pretty fun and they’re also pretty delicious.

INGREDIENTS

400g flour
200ml oil
100ml beer
1 level teaspoon baking powder

SUGAR SYRUP
200g sugar
100ml water

METHOD
Mix together the flour, oil, beer and baking powder , wrap in clingfilm and leave in the refrigerator for 1/2 hour.
Make the sugar syrup and leave to cool.
Tearing off small amounts about a teaspoon in size (mine were about 15g each) roll into small balls.
Roll into cylinders and then shape in to crescents.
Place on a tray lined with baking paper and bake in a pre heated oven at 180 deg for 20 minutes or until a very light golden brown.
The cookies need to be dipped in the sugar syrup for about 40 seconds while they are still piping hot.
Roll soaked cookies in desiccated coconut.

NOTE: The cookies must be put in the syrup while they are piping hot. If they are too cool they won’t absorb the syrup properly. If you don’t soak them for long enough they will be too dry and for too long and they’re fall apart. That said, I tested mine and soaked them for anything between 20-50 seconds and they were all delicious and fine. I turned the oven off and left most of the cookies in it to stay hot and soaked them in batches of about 5. They cool down quite quickly so if you leave them out, by the time you get towards the end of the cookies, they’ll be too cool.

Best eaten: with a cup of tea. These cookies improve over a few days.

Cookie #4 Turtle Cookies AKA The Official Red Deer Cookie (Canada)

For my cookie from Canada I chose the Turtle Cookie or Caramel Surprise Cookies. Apparently they’re the official cookie of Red Deer, Canada. (Who knew?) I came across them on this blog.

The official Red Deer page is here.

“The search for an official Red Deer cookie was initiated in 1994 by Mr. Alain Favre, a local potter/former chef. Mr. Favre was a member of a network of Red Deer Artists called the P'Artisan Society, which hosted an annual …The five judges agreed unanimously that the winner was Darlene Blair of Trochu, Alberta with her family recipe for Caramel Surprises. Darlene Blair says her tasty, chewy Caramel Surprises are representative of Red Deer as "Biting into this cookie is like visiting Red Deer - You'll get a pleasant surprise." One judge was noted to comment, "It fits Red Deer's motto: A Delight to Discover."

Essentially these are chocolate cookies with a Rolo in the middle of them. Main problem in Australia today? It seems they don’t sell Rolo rolls anymore, you can only buy Nestle slabs of the stuff. So I did that and chopped it up. Personally, I’d like to try these with a jersey caramel or something similar in the middle of them (more caramel, less chocolate) but these are a tasty cookie and they went to down very well. The cookie has an almost brownie-like consistency.

You can bake these cookies as a ball on a sheet or you can put them in muffin cups which helps to stop them spreading which I would highly recommend.

Muffin cups = nice shaped cookies, balls on a sheet = what happened on the right. ;-)

INGREDIENTS
1cup butter creamed
1cup white sugar
1cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon soda
2½ cups flour
¾ cup cocoa
1 cup pecans, toasted and finely chopped
40 rolo chocolates
40 whole pecans
caster sugar (optional)

INSTRUCTIONS
1.    Toast your pecans, first
2.    Cream white butter and sugar together until fluffy; add brown sugar, and continue to cream until fluffy
3.    Add two eggs, one at a time; continue to beat
4.    Add vanilla
5.    Sift together dry ingredients over wet ingredients, add finely chopped toasted nuts; combine well
6.    Roll a ball of dough around each rolo chocolate or preferably around some homemade caramel; roll each ball in caster sugar.
7.    Place in mini tart pan, push a pecan on top and bake for 10-12 minutes at 180˚C
8.    Sit on cooling rack, still in pan for 7 minutes, losses edges gently, and flip pan to release cookies (They will be very soft, so wait 10 to 15 minutes to move them.

Best eaten: by themselves. These are chocolatey and rich and don't need a cup of tea of coffee with them.

Cookie #3 green tea cookies (Japan)

So. Green tea cookies. I have to be honest, I’m not the hugest fan of green tea. I have a pretty open-minded taste palette but I also don’t expect to like every cookie that I make on this journey around the world.

For me, the cookies tasted good at the start but I didn’t like the aftertaste which was rather, for lack of a better word, plant-like. They have a great texture though and not everyone had my reaction.

This recipe came from a friend of a Japanese friend I knew from fencing way back in the day. Thank you Chie and thank you Chie's friend! :-)

Ingredients
(makes about about 25 cookies)
40g butter
40g vegetable oil
50g castor sugar
150g plain flour
10g matcha powder*
1/3t Vanilla essence
40g dark chocolate ships

Pre-heat the oven to 160℃.

Method
1. Put butter, oil, sugar, and vanilla oil into a bowl. Stir them until it gets smooth and white in colour.
2. Sift four and matcha powder with a sieve. Stir them into the butter mix.
4. Add chocolate chips and mix them roughly.
5. Place on an oven tray into circles roughly 3cm in diameter.
6. Place cookies in the oven and bake them for about 25mins at 160℃.
Note: Press a centre of a cookie to check. If it’s firm, it mean the cookies are done!
7. Remove from the oven, and cool them completely on a wire rack. The cookies are still fragile when they are warm, so be careful when you place them on a wire rack.

Best eaten: with a cup of tea. They're a drier biscuit and a cup of tea might help with any aftertaste issues as well :-)

*Use real matcha powder, not green tea powder. Also, for my personal tastes this was a bit much matcha so I would reduce this, maybe to half. I don’t think it would change the consistency.

Cookie #2 Afghans (NZ)

Cookie #2
Afghans (new Zealand)

These were my cookies of choice from NZ because they’ve always been a favourite of mine and seem unique to NZ. They’re a dry crunchy cookie with great texture because of the cornflakes which is balanced out by the icing on top. All in all, a delightful experience.

As for the origin of the naming of the cookie, I have no idea and there doesn’t seem to be much information available. There are some claims that "the name has nothing to do with Afghanistan but it more related to the dark colour of the biscuits" which I find a bit bothersome so let's ignore origins of the name and concentrate on the fact this this is one delicious cookie.

I ended up making 2 versions of these cookies because I have some gluten and dairy intolerant friends and wanted to see how I could adapt this recipe to suit. The first recipe is my traditional go-to recipe and was was recommended to me years ago by a friend and is from Ladies A Plate. The second recipe is from chelsea.co.nz and I subbed dairy free margarine for the butter and gluten free flour for normal flour. For both recipes I used gluten free cornflakes.

The gluten and dairy free version still tasted good but was much lighter and less crunchy and dense- not as dry as I know afghans to be. Whether this was due to the different recipes of the gluten free flour I don’t know.

Recipe #1

INGREDIENTS
Biscuits
    170 g butter
    100 g brown sugar
    180 g flour
    3 tbsp cocoa
    ½ tsp baking powder
    60 g cornflakes
Icing
    3 tbsp water
    45 g caster sugar
    45 g butter
    190 g icing sugar
    3 tbsp cocoa
    24–30 walnut halves (I make less cookies so need less than this)

METHOD
Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C and line two baking trays with baking paper, or grease them lightly with butter. Break up the cornflakes with your hands and soften the butter.

1. Cream the butter and sugar until the mixture is pale and fluffy. Add the sifted dry ingredients, then knead in the cornflakes

2. Put in teaspoonfuls on the trays, leaving a little space around each biscuit. Flatten them slightly with a fork and bake for 12–14 minutes.

3. Cool on a rack.

For the icing:
1. Gently heat the water, caster sugar and butter until the butter melts and simmer for one minute to form a syrup.

2. Beating all the time, pour about ¾ of the syrup onto the sifted icing sugar and cocoa. Add the remaining syrup if necessary to make a smooth, fudgy icing. Add a little hot water if it’s still too thick.

3. Put a teaspoonful of warm icing on each biscuit, plant a walnut half on the top of each, sinking it into the icing, and leave to set firmly.

4. Store in an airtight tin. They’ll stay fresh for 3–4 days. Makes 24–30 smallish biscuits. (Note from me- I must make my biscuits huge because I usually only get 12 cookies out of this recipe. :-) )

Best eaten: these can easily be eaten by themselves because the icing balances out the dryness of them cookie but they're also very nice with a good cup of tea.


Recipe 2- gluten and dairy free

INGREDIENTS
    200g Butter (softened)

    ½ cup caster sugar
    1 tsp vanilla essence

    1 ¼ cups of gluten free flour
    ¼ cup cocoa

    1 ½ cups gluten free cornflakes

METHOD
Preheat your oven to 180°C. Grease or line a baking tray with baking paper.

In a large bowl beat butter, sugar and vanilla until light and fluffy.
Sift in flour and cocoa, stir thoroughly with the butter mixture until combined before stirring in the cornflakes.

Place heaped teaspoonfuls onto a baking tray, squeeze mixture together gently if necessary then press lightly with a fork.

Bake for 15-20 minutes. Cool on a wire rack before icing. (I used the same recipe as the first recipe but subbed margarine for butter.)