Cooks and Bakers 本周新尝试

There is an interesting article in this week's Dining In section of NY Times about the difference between cooks and bakers. I can't agree less with the author. It looks to me cooks just "invent" meals from whatever they have on hands, while to be a successful baker, you have to follow recipes. No invention or impromptu allowed, not until you have done a lot of baking.

I consider myself a cook. I can cook delicious dishes. One of my dishes won me an award. Seriously. And I have only once participated in any cooking competition in my whole life, ever. On the contrary, I'm not much a baker at all. So when I received a 2kg Trader Joe's chocolate as a Christmas gift at one Yankee swap, I decided to venture into baking. I searched all the cooking books that I couldn't resist from buying and found a recipe for brownies. I always think that American desserts are too sweet. So I cut back on sugar. I cut back on butter and shortening (gotta be healthy!). So my first brownies came out as a fudge. I tried again. Now it was somewhere between fudge and brownie. The consequence of these attempts is, I still have more than 1kg chocolate left to consume.

After reading that article, I realized that baking doesn't give a baker that much leeway as cooking do a cook. So I wanted to experiment again. This time I would follow the recipe exactly. I found a recipe from my favorite cooking site and I made these sesame seed cookies. They were putting on a trial at my friend's party last night and turned out to be a success!


Here is Allegro-tested recipe:

1 pound all-purpose flour (3 1/2 cups)
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 pound vegetable shortening
1/4 pound butter
1 large egg
3/4 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 cup water
1/2 cup sesame seeds

In a large bowl or pan, mix together the flour, sugar and baking powder.

Microwave to melt butter. Add along with the shortening to the flour mix and work it in with your hands until well mixed.

Add the eggs and vanilla, and 1/4 cup of water, and work in well. The dough should hold together but not be sticky. If needed, work in a little more water, 1 teaspoon at a time.

Place the seeds in a shallow baking pan.

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Pinch off a small amount of dough, about the size of a small fist, and cover the remaining dough with a damp dish towel. Roll the dough out into a long rope, about 1-inch in diameter. Cut the dough into 2-inch pieces.

Roll the dough in the seeds, pressing slightly to make them adhere. Place the seeded dough onto a large ungreased baking sheet. Repeat with the remaining dough.

Bake on the bottom rack of the oven until the bottoms are golden brown, about 10 minutes. Turn the cakes over and place the baking sheet on the top rack of the oven to bake for an additional 10 minutes. Remove from the oven and cool on cooling racks.

Serve at room temperature.

Yield: 40 cookies
Prep Time: 40 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes



Chinese Chive Pot Pie

这个呢，是本周早些时候第一次做的韭菜盒子。完全是cook风格，用完了所有的粉丝和鸡蛋。经四人数次品尝，评为优秀。“比四川小馆还好！”－－Pearl语。