This week, ZCLA was engaged in the annual autumn sesshin or meditation retreat. So there were no cookies on Thursday night. However, on Saturday night we had a ceremony in the Zendo called Honsaku Gyocha, for which I made these cookies. The sesshin marks the end of a year of training for the Head Trainee at the Center. For the final six months of her training period, she works on a koan, and on the final day of the retreat she presents the koan, gives a talk on it, and then challenges those present to test her understanding in a ritual called Dharma Combat. Very dramatic and beautiful. That all occurred on Sunday morning, but on Saturday night, the night before, we have Honsaku Gyocha, which is a ceremony where the koan is presented, the abbot gives a few remarks, and then everyone has tea and a cookie. I was asked to make the cookies. In the end, since I was doing the sesshin, it proved a bit of a challenge time-wise, but Andrew jumped in and helped immeasurably by making the cookie dough on Friday afternoon. I baked the cookies late Friday night, was back in the Zendo at 6 a.m. Saturday morning, and iced them later on Saturday. Because the kitchen was full of people prepping for the lunch and dinner for the retreat participants, I iced in the library. The cookies and icing had a very intense maple flavor, and it lingered on long afterwards!
Anyway, this is a wonderful autumn cookie. It incarnates maple. There is a large amount of maple sugar and maple flavor in the cookie itself, and then they are iced with an icing that involves both maple syrup and maple flavor (and, of course, cream). Quite sweet, but wonderful. The cookies have a slightly crisp exterior, but a soft, almost cakey interior. The icing is not necessary, but really reinforces the maple flavor - these are a cookie where the flavors in the cooked cookie are significantly toned down from the uncooked dough, so the maple icing has a real function. Without the icing, they reminded me of a kind of maple snickerdoodle. King Arthur Flour is located in Vermont, and they know how to make a maple cookie! Kudos!
Anyway, this is a wonderful autumn cookie. It incarnates maple. There is a large amount of maple sugar and maple flavor in the cookie itself, and then they are iced with an icing that involves both maple syrup and maple flavor (and, of course, cream). Quite sweet, but wonderful. The cookies have a slightly crisp exterior, but a soft, almost cakey interior. The icing is not necessary, but really reinforces the maple flavor - these are a cookie where the flavors in the cooked cookie are significantly toned down from the uncooked dough, so the maple icing has a real function. Without the icing, they reminded me of a kind of maple snickerdoodle. King Arthur Flour is located in Vermont, and they know how to make a maple cookie! Kudos!
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