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Jar: Half-Empty or Half Full?
My refrigerator always seems to have an assortment of jars of jam that were opened, started with enthusiasm, but then forgotten. I like jam on pancakes and scones, but those are special morning breakfasts. My usual breakfast is toast with sliced cheese, no jam. Consequently, these jars tend to languish at the back of shelf.
Jam, once opened, lasts a really long time, but, eventually, something needs to be done with it. If pancakes and scones aren’t on the immediate horizon, what can be done?
The solution presented itself. I volunteered to bring refreshments to my monthly garden club meeting. The Lexington Field & Garden Club, founded in 1876, is the oldest federated garden club in the country. They offer monthly programs about various aspects of horticulture, flower arranging (not my thing), and garden history. This month’s program, the one annual evening meeting, was about pruning trees. I learned quite a bit about the proper way to prune young and mature trees, and how not to. Mostly, I was convinced that pruning trees is best left to professionals.
So, as I said, I volunteered to bring a few dozen cookies, and had half-empty, or is it half-full, jam jars on my mind. I am partial to bar cookies because they don’t involve a lot of fussing. You fill up the pan with sugary goodness, and, once baked, assuming the cookie slab slides out of the pan, all you have to do is cut it into bars. Jam Bars seemed to be the perfect thing.
You mix up a simple dough, and divide it, about one third, two thirds. The larger portion is pressed into the bottom of the pan. Then you spread the dough with jam. I used two different flavors, apricot-ginger on one side and rhubarb-raspberry on the other side. Finally, you mix some oatmeal into the remaining dough and crumble it over the top. Into the oven it goes, and out come the jewel-toned bars!
The plate was empty before the meeting started, and there are two less jars in my fridge! I’d consider this a success.
Jam Bars
½ cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
½ cup powdered sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 large egg
1½ cups flour
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp cinnamon (or another spice to match your jam flavor)
¼ tsp salt
¾ to 1 cup jam or preserves, any flavor (or use multiple flavors)
¾ cup old-fashioned rolled oats
Preheat the oven to 350F.
In the food processor, cream the butter with both sugars until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and egg, and process until smooth. Add flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt, and process again until smooth.
Divide the dough, taking about ¾ cup (about one third of the dough) and setting it aside. Press the remaining dough into an 11×7-inch baking pan. Spread jam over the dough. Now, mix the oats into the reserved dough. With your fingers, crumble it over the top of the jam-spread dough. Bake for 35-40 minutes, or until the crumble is lightly browned. Let it cool. Turn slab out of the pan onto a cutting board and cut into squares. I cut mine into just less than 2-inch squares, yielding 2 dozen bars.
french fridays with dorie: cocoa sablés
One of my favorite cookies is Dorie Greenspan’s World Peace Cookies from her Baking cookbook.
When I saw Cocoa Sablés on this week’s French Fridays schedule, I assumed that we were making World Peace cookies. I’ve made them many times before and adore them. The AMFT version weren’t exactly a renamed version of the old favorite. They were more like a fraternal twin, and they did not disappoint.
I absolutely love the convenience of homemade slice-and-bake cookies. Stash them in the freezer, and you can have an instant snack on a whim.
This shortbread-like cookie comes together in the stand mixer easily. I accidentally rolled my logs much skinnier than Dorie did. They were a little over an inch, instead of a little under two inches. Honestly, this wasn’t deliberate. The type in the book is small, and even though it said 1¾ inch, I read 1¼. These cookies are rich, so my little coins (they were about the size of quarters) were the perfect size.
My book group came over this week, so I made these cookies as refreshments. The book we read, The Known World by Edward P. Jones, won the 2004 winner of the Pulitzer Prize in fiction. This beautifully-written novel about a black family of slave owners in antebellum Virginia told a wonderful, if disturbing, story. As always, we had a lively discussion, some of it related to the book, most of it not. The cookies got positive reviews. So did this lemony artichoke dip.
My yield was nothing like Dorie’s. She said the recipe would make 36 cookies. Granted, my rolls were skinnier. I shaped my dough into more than two rolls, not just because they were thinner, but because I find shorter rolls easier to handle. I baked about half the dough and got over 60 cookies. I plan to put the other rolls in the freezer for later.
I was short on time, so I didn’t coat the logs with egg and roll in sugar as suggested. I’ll have to try that variation when I bake the rolls from the freezer. I can imagine the effect will be pretty.
One thing that always trips me up when I make rolls of icebox cookies is how to store them while chilling or handle them while slicing so that one side doesn’t become flat. Hopefully, I’ll learn a new trick from one of the other participating bloggers’ posts. If you have some thoughts, please share!
To read about the other FFwD bloggers chocolatey experiences, check out their posts at French Fridays with Dorie. We don’t post the recipes, but you should treat yourself to this book. There are so many winning recipes, it’s worth it.
A Plateful of Happiness 