{"id":9643,"date":"2014-12-06T09:52:35","date_gmt":"2014-12-06T14:52:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/?p=9643"},"modified":"2014-12-06T10:13:38","modified_gmt":"2014-12-06T15:13:38","slug":"fooled-by-martha-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/debslunch.com\/debslunchblog\/fooled-by-martha-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Fooled by Martha again"},"content":{"rendered":"

I contend that Martha Stewart booby traps her recipes – it’s usually not in the ingredients. It’s usually in the method – she gives an instruction that\u00a0 causes the recipe to fail, like the recipe for baby artichoke quiches, where she said to mix the wine & cream for the sauce together and heat them – which makes them curdle. Or did for me anyways. This year, the December Martha Stewart Living<\/em> has a recipe for pistachio spritz cookies. Ground pistachios in a vanilla butter spritz cookie with a dash of almond extract – what’s not to like? The hinky instruction is to add water to the dough, after the flour has been mixed in, which in my experience, makes dough sticky and tough. So I decided to use less flour, and leave out the water. OK. But then it came time to press the cookies through my spritz cookie gun. I had ground the pistachios fine in the food processor, with the powdered sugar, until I had what was apparently pistachio flour. I bought a new blade for the food processor this cookie season, too. But when I tried to press the cookies, pieces of pistachio kept clogging the gun. I ended up using the plainest, round disk, and ended up with simple rounds with a ragged edge. If I make these next year – and I think I will, and amp up the almond extract, and salt – I am going to scoop them and press flat with the bottom of a glass. That will give the same shape, more consistently, and more easily. I like the mini-Hershey’s kisses on the top, but they are evil – mini-kisses, already unwrapped, in a bag, from which large handfuls can go directly into mouth …<\/p>\n

I made the pecan bars on Thursday night, along with the pistachio spritz. Last year I got fooled by a pecan bar recipe<\/a> in Food & Wine <\/em>– they had a spread with really nice photography of flat pies, but they came out too squishy, and a little burnt around the edges. This year, I went back to my standard pecan bar recipe, from Silver Palette<\/a>. And I made a lot – two half sheet pans. No problems except I never can cut the bar cookies as evenly as I wish I could – but oh, well, people want big ones and small ones, right?<\/p>\n

Friday I had a funny back and forth day – I went to work, and managed to get through a sizable percentage of email by noon. Mark came to meet me, and we walked home, and I baked the spoon cookies – or most of them anyhow. I had to go back to campus to meet with a candidate for a position, as part of their excruciating academic interview, which include a presentation, and meeting with all kinds of people, and meals. But when I got there, there’d been a room change, of which I was not<\/span> told, and I missed the meeting. It meant a nice 45 minute or so walk for me, so by the time I got home I wasn’t even mad. The oven had barely cooled off, so I baked the last three trays of spoons, while checking in with my classes, and when they were all out of\u00a0 the oven, I recorded a lecture. Mark and I went off to the Madison Symphony Christmas concert<\/a>, which was pretty fun this year. They positioned Irving Berlin’s White Christmas<\/em> next to an original by Madison’s Leotha Stanley, The Spirit of Christmas is Love<\/em>, near the end of the second half, right where I would’ve been ready to say, “OK, enough”.<\/p>\n

Home and jammed the spoon cookies – ended up with 172, (341 little spoonfuls, paired up for the sandwiches) a good number. I didn’t get to bed till about quarter to 1:00 so I’m taking it easy Saturday morning – in bed till 7:20, and drinking coffee in pajamas at the computer. Gonna go for a walk, and then go into baking mode – I am planning 6 kinds today: Chocolate spritz, peanut butter sandwiches<\/a> (made small this year), coconut cookies<\/a>, fig bars, a chocolate peppermint<\/a> I have been eying for years, chocolate toffee bars<\/a> and then maybe<\/em> raspberry almond bars, and make the dough for the boomerangs<\/a>. I’ll let you know how it works out.<\/p>\n