Fruit Sweet and Sugar Free by Janice Feuer 1993 Royal Teton Ranch
Cookies ******* Everybody loves cookies. With a crunchy or chewy
texture and a burst of flavour in every bite, cookies are great,
whether as a snack, as a dessert, or as a gift from home. And best of
all cookies are absolutely simple to prepare and require a minimum of
equipment and work space. They are a great way to introduce children
to the joys of the kitchen.
Butter-rich or cholesterol free, here are the cookie recipes for
everyone and for every occasion. There are recipes for cookies from
Valentine’s Day to Christmas and almost every day in between, as well
as cookies to meet every dietary requirement from gluten-free to
dairy-free to egg-free. There are recipes for cookies in a variety of
colourful shapes and sizes to brighten tea trays or gift boxes or
even Christmas trees.
Here are a few pointers for success wil cookies at any time of the
year:
~ Be sure to preheat your oven before you begin and have all of
your ingredients at room temperature. – Form perfectly shaped cookies
with a #24 or #12 ice cream scoop. Scoops can be purchased in
restaurant supply or kitchenware shops. – Whatever method is used for
forming the cookies, for them to bake and brown evenly they must be
uniform in thickness and size on each baking sheet. – When cutting
out cookie shapes with cookie cutters, be careful to cut them very
close to one another, to have as few scraps as possible. If you are
careful not to use too much flour when rolling out the dough, you can
reroll and cut more cookies from the scraps. However, each time you
do this, the cookies will become tougher in texture. – For east in
clean-up, line baking pans with baking paper. It is not necessary to
grease either the pan or the paper. And when making a large batch of
cookies, you can reuse the baking paper a number of times. – Place
cookies 1-2 inches apart, depending upon how much the cookies will
spread. – Depending upon how evenly your oven bakes, you may find it
helpful to bake cookies on one pan inside another pan (referred to as
“double pan” in the recipes) to keep the bottoms of the cookies from
browning too quickly. This may also increase the baking time a minute
or tow, depending upon your oven. Many stores sell insulated cookie
sheets which are comparable to double pans. – Also depending upon
your oven (its size and efficiency) it is best to place only one
double pan in the oven at a time. This limit ensures good heat
circulation so that the cookies cook and brown evenly from top to
bottom. – Bake according to the recipe’s directions, but keep a close
watch during the baking of the first batch. The actual baking time
will vary with the size of the cookies, the thickness of the dough,
the quality of the ingredients, and the efficiency of the oven. – As
cookies are usually quite fragile when they are hot from the oven,
minimize breakage by letting them cool before removing them from the
baking sheets to a wire rack. – To keep cookies crisp, store them in
a container with a loose cover. – To keep cookies soft, store them in
a container with an air-tight cover. – Frozen cookies keep
beautifully for 2-3 months. They require just a few minutes to thaw.
(Some people prefer them while still frozen!).
Yields
1 servings
