Dorie Greenspan's Beurre & Sel Jammers

On my list of destinations next time I visit NYC: Beurre et Sel. It's a cookie store, created by award-winning cookbook author and chef Dorie Greenspan. And if this recipe is an indication of the cookie quality at this store, then I'm sold.

I will sit on a blanket in Central Park, drink a perfect latte and eat buttery cookies with just-the-right-amount-of-salt. There will be tickets to a musical tucked into my guide book, and a bike lying on the grass beside my picnic blanket. Manhattan, it's been too long!

Around this time of year, I start looking through my cupboard, taking stock of what jams, jellies and preserves have made it through the long winter. It's time to make room for this spring and summer's new jars - and what better way to get rid of jam then to dollop it in a buttery, crispy cookie, and surround it with streusel! Don't be put off by the recipe's instructions to make the cookies in muffin tins. I too was skeptical, but was won over by the perfect shape and texture of the cookie. This is not a simple drop cookie you can churn out in 10 minutes, but the extra time and preparation makes for an out-of-this-world cookie. I might go as far as to say this is the best cookie I've ever baked.

(here they are - filled with blueberry jam and pear-ginger-orange conserve)

Beurre et Sel Jammers
Makes about 34 cookies. From this recipe in Bon Appetit magazine. I used local/organic k2 Milling's Red Tail Flour, which is a mix of spelt, oat and wheat flour. However, if you can't find that, I would use all-purpose flour or whole wheat pastry flour. There's lots of steps to these cookies - if you want, you can make the dough and streusel 1 or 2 days ahead of time, leaving them in the fridge/freezer.

cookie dough:
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup icing sugar
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
2 large egg yolks
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour (see note)

streusel and assembly:
3/4 cup flour (see note)
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
5 1/2 tbsp cold butter, cut into pieces
1/4 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup thick jam of your choice

things you need:
2 inch cookie cutter
3 standard 12-cup muffin tins

make the dough:
Beat butter in an electric mixer at medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add sugars and salt, beat 1 more minute. Change speed to low, and mix in egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour, and mix until just combined.

Divide the dough (very soft and sticky) into two balls. Roll out between two sheets of parchment paper, one at a time, flattening the dough until it's 1/4 inch thick. Stack the two large, thin circles of dough (still sandwiched in the parchment) onto a cookie sheet or large plate that fits in your freezer. Freeze until very firm, at least 2 hours.

make streusel:
Mix together flour, sugar and salt in a bowl. Using your fingers, rub in the cold butter and vanilla, until the streusel looks like crumbs, and holds together when you squeeze it. Put it in the fridge to stay cold.

assemble the cookies:
Preheat oven to 350. Using the cookie cutter, cut out circles from frozen dough. Gather scraps and repeat, until you have around 34 cookies. Press the cookie rounds into the muffin tins, then put them back in the freezer for another 30 minutes.

Finally, remove the cookies from the freezer. Spoon 1 teaspoon of jam into the centre of each, then use a small spoon to sprinkle about 1 tbsp of streusel around the jam. Bake cookies for 20-22 minutes, until streusel and cookie is golden. Let cool for 15 minutes in muffin tins, then remove by running a knife around the edge of each cookie. Cool the cookies the rest of the way on a wire rack. Cookies will keep for 3 or 4 days in an airtight container at room temperature.

(dreaming of New York City today.)

onion brown sugar jam

Make this! It will take you minutes of actual work (then a few hours of sitting back and waiting), and your friends will be like 'why is this so delicious? I love this! I'm going to eat it straight from the jar!' What can you do with these delicious onions? Stir them into mac and cheese, spread them on a grilled cheese sandwich, serve them on a cheese plate, put them on pizza, or throw them into a salad. (My lovely friend Jessica served me a tasty salad with these onions, walnuts and goat cheese - yum!)

Caramelized onions are the simplest thing on earth to make, yet like most delicious things, they take quite a bit of time. Time where you just have to sit back and let the onions do the work, while you go and catch up on Jamie Oliver's new television show.

onion and brown sugar jam
This is really just a fancy name for caramelized onions, a recipe I found in Food and Drink, entitled 'brown sugar and onion marmelade.' I refuse to call it marmelade - marmalade is for citrus, period. I'll stick with the jam title though, because surprise (!), you can process them in jars and make them shelf stable.

1 tbsp olive oil
6 lbs onions
1/2 cup cider vinegar
1 cup brown sugar
pinch of salt

Cut your peeled onions in half, then in slices, around 1/2 inch thick. Don't be too careful - it's all going to cook down into a large, delicious mess. Heat the olive oil in a heavy-bottomed pot, add the onions and stir for a minute. Add the brown sugar and vinegar, and stir to distribute. Leave on low heat, covered, for about 1 1/2 hours, stirring every 15 minutes or so. The onions will collapse and cook down a lot. Finally, turn the heat up to medium high, and cook off most of the liquid, stirring often, for about 5 minutes.

You can freeze this, or keep it in the fridge for 3 or 4 weeks. Alternately, you can can them in half pint jars, using these instructions, processing for 30 minutes.

a peanut butter and jam sandwich... cookie.

It's not a sandwich, it's a sandwich cookie. And it's vegan. And it passed the test of a garage full of hungry mechanics at my boyfriend's work (I told him not to talk about the vegan part).

This recipe makes a great, crisp-chewy peanut butter cookie, and you could stop right there and have a perfectly good dessert. But I think you should go the extra step and throw some jam in the centre. Use any kind of jam you like; a classic grape jelly, a tangy raspberry jam, or an apple butter. I like to make the little sandwiches about an hour before I serve them - the jam sinks into the cookie and makes it get soft and gooey. But a day later, and you'll have a soggy cookie mess (which is still delicious, but kind of falls apart as you eat it). 

Want another flavour of sandwich cookie? Try a gingered sugar cookie with apple butter I made a few months ago. Or, Martha Stewart's zucchini nut bread cookie sandwiches. It's a mouthful. Martha's also got this cute peanut butter and jelly cookie cake- they look like tiny sandwich triangles! Now I can't stop - what about this brownie cookie with salted caramel filling? So many cookie sandwiches, so little time.

peanut butter and jam sandwich cookies

Cookie part adapted from peanut ginger sesame cookies from the Veganomicon cookbook. Makes 24 sandwich cookies. 

2 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour (or all-purpose)
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegan shortening (or butter)
1/2 cup peanut butter
1/4 cup brown rice syrup (or honey)
1 1/4 cup white sugar
1/2 cup soy milk (or regular milk)
1 tsp vanilla

1-2 cups jam of your choice

Pre-heat oven to 350. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In another bowl, beat shortening with an electric mixer until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add peanut butter, brown rice syrup, sugar, soy milk, and vanilla and beat another 3 minutes. Stir in the flour. Keep stirring another 3 or 4 minutes. The dough will become hard to stir - keep going! Scoop out two inch balls onto a parchment paper-lined cookie sheet, leaving quite a bit of space between each. The cookies will spread and double in size. Bake for 15 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes on cookie sheet before moving to a rack to cool.

When cookies are completely cool, and about an hour before you plan to eat/serve them, spread jam on one cookie and top with a second cookie. 

cheesy egg bake + oatmeal brown sugar scones

I love breakfast - almost as much as this blog I just discovered - xo breakfast. Let me count the ways... maple syrup, fruit, oatmeal, pyjamas, mimosas, coffee, sunshine, radio, sleeping in, warm baked goods, old episodes of the colbert report, orange juice, waffles, jam, butter. I could go on. It's my favorite meal of the day, hands down.

cheesy egg bake
You can switch up the vegetables and cheese for whatever you have available. Serves two, increase for more people.

olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1 cup mixed peppers, large dice
handful of kale, stemmed and torn into chunks
handful of mixed herbs, chopped (I used lemon thyme, parsley and oregano)
2 eggs
1/2 cup shredded mozzarella

Heat a swirl of olive oil in a pan. Preheat the oven to 400. Cook onions and garlic in olive oil, until translucent. Add peppers and kale, and cook another 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper, and stir in chopped herbs. Turn off heat. Grease two large ramekins with olive oil (the 2-cup kind is best). Divide the vegetables between the two ramekins, and make an indentation for the egg. Crack the egg into the indent, and top with grated cheese. Bake for around 10 minutes, until the egg is cooked to your liking.

Alternately, you could make this in a cast iron frying pan - just cook the veg in the pan on the stovetop, make indentations for eggs, then transfer the whole thing to the oven. (I just love the individual ramekins for purely aesthetic reasons.)

oatmeal and brown sugar scones
From this post on xo breakfast. Makes 6 scones.


3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/2 c cup + 2 tbsp rolled oats
1/4 cup brown sugar plus extra for sprinkling
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
4 tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces
1/3 cup milk

Preheat oven to 425ºF. Line cookie sheet with parchment paper. In a large bowl, mix the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, and salt together. Use your fingertips to rub in the butter until the mixture looks like large crumbs. Stir in the milk. Turn the dough out onto the pan and pat it into a rectangle. Cut in six and spread them out about 2 inches apart. Sprinkle with brown sugar. Bake until golden, about 20 minutes.

I ate mine with Blueberry Ginger Jam from Food in Jars, and Ginger Butter (crystalized ginger + butter pulsed in the food processor).

taking the plunge... into canning!

I went to Chinatown, bought a 20 litre stainless steel pot, and took the plunge into jam making. (The pot was for water-processing the jars, a method that seals the jars so you can store them on the shelf indefinitely, instead of filling up your freezer or fridge).

This year's jam recipes:

Peach Butter
Strawberry Rhubarb Jam
Peach-Raspberry Jam
Raspberry Curd
Blueberry Freezer Jam

I would recommend Food in Jars for all things canning related. My favourite recipes of the bunch were both from this website - a slow cooked Peach Butter, and a perfect Strawberry-rhubarb jam that was not too sweet, with just enough sugar to balance the tartness of the rhubarb. You can also get good information at the Certo and Bernardin websites (brands of pectin), however, most of their recipes have lots and lots of sugar.

Benefits of making your own jam: imagine opening a jar of strawberry-rhubarb jam, the taste of summer in the dead of winter, the adorable little jars lined up on your shelf. Also, as soon as you start canning, everyone else you know who cans will trade with you! I've already acquired pickles and peach spice jam.

This year I conquered jam, next year, pickles and tomatoes. Also, next year, when I have a larger canning budget, I will definitely invest in some tongs for lifting jars out of the boiling water. I would not recommend trying to lift large, boiling hot mason jars out of a giant vat of bubbling water with spatulas and oven mitts. It can be done! But tongs would have made it easier.

making jam

There's only one thing to do in the late summer when there's an abundance of fruits: make jam! If you're scared by the idea of canning, with the sterilizing, and the jars and the equipment you need, then try freezer jam. All you need is fruit, sugar, lemon juice and liquid pectin. Look for recipes online, or on the instructions that come with the liquid pectin.

(also in the picture - spiced apple pear jam)

Blueberry Freezer Jam
4 1/2 cups crushed blueberries
4 cups sugar
2 pouches of liquid pectin
2 tbsp lemon juice

Crush the berries with a potato masher, in a food processor, or with your hands. Add the sugar, stir, and let sit for 10 minutes. Add pectin and lemon juice, stir, and let sit for 3 minutes. Fill containers with jam (glass canning jars can be put in the freezer). Put lids on, and leave containers for 24 hours at room temperature to set. The jam will keep in the freezer for up to a year, or thawed in the fridge for a month.