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 #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.)