Catching Up, Part II - For March 4

OK, still a little catch-up work to do before tonight's baking begins. This week was a cookie week, to wit:

Chocolate Chip Cookies, from Flo Braker, Baking For All Occasions
Oatmeal Currant Cookies, from Alice Waters, The Art Of Simple Food

Flo Braker is another of the main movers and bakers on the scene today. I got this book quite a few months back, but finally took it out this week. This is a very simple chocolate chip cookie recipe. No nuts, no special ingredients. The limited number of ingredients and flavors means that quality matters. These were not my personal favorite chocolate chip cookie, but a lot of people liked them. This was a nice recipe because it has you make logs of dough and refrigerate them, then slice and bake later. Since this was a rare week where I was doing two cookies (no bars, no biscotti, just individual cookies), it was great to be able to at least make the dough ahead of time. So this one is a keeper!

The second cookie was a real favorite. This is a recipe from Alice Waters of Chez Panisse. Her most recent cookbook has very few cookie recipes, but this one is very nice. The first step is to take the oats and grind them quite fine in a food processor - almost to a flour. This gives you the oatmeal flavor, but a much, much more delicate cookie. And using currants simply extends that approach, since the currants (which are briefly cooked in water to plump and soften them) are smaller and more delicate than raisins. This produces a soft, delicate cookie, not a big, hard, crunchy type cookie. The abbot of ZCLA is a big oatmeal raisin cookie fan, and I made these for her; happily, she enjoyed them very much!