For April 1

Last week the Zen Center began a retreat on Thursday night, so there were no cookies. Since we were in the midst of moving my offices, it was quite OK!

This week, we ended up making two different recipes that originated in Paris bakeries. Here they are:

French Butter Cookies/Les Punitions from Lionel Poilane by way of Dorie Greenspan
Pleyels (French Chocolate Almond Cakes) from La Maison du Chocolat by way of Nick Malgieri

I got home late (again) on Wednesday so Bodhi-Heart (aka Andrew) helped me out by making the butter cookies. I don't know why, but cookies that are rolled out and cut just scare me. So he handled these - thanks! Unfortunately, they are not our favorite cookie. They are a very simple butter cookie - two people mistook them for a shortbread, and they are quite close. They are not as tender as I was hoping for, and need just a little pizazz. I have not made many simple butter cookies, and I think I am going to have to pay some attention to finding a recipe I like.

The second recipe went in a completely different direction. It was also a bit experimental. The recipe is for mini chocolate almond cakes. The recipe reminds me quite a bit of the chocolate hazelnut torte that is one of my favorite recipes, and that I made at Tassajara to serve 100 people. Anyway, I ended up making two adjustments to the recipe (aside from doubling it). First, I roasted the slivered almonds before grinding them - the recipe does not call for roasting them, but I am a big believer in roasted nuts as a flavor booster in recipes. Second, the recipe called for using regular cupcake tins to make these, but they would be wildly oversized for my purposes, so I downsized into mini-cupcake tins. (As a result, the recipe that, when doubled, was supposed to make 24 regular cupcakes ended up making 68 mini-cupcakes.) This requires careful monitoring to make sure they didn't overbake, since they are substantially smaller than in the recipe. I ended up serving them topped with a shake of powdered sugar to give some visual contrast between the deep black of the cupcake and the stark white of the sugar. I am a fan of these types of "cakes," and this one was very yummy. I think that the little chocolate cakes I made a couple of weeks ago were probably higher up my list, but those were completely different - those were airy and light, while these have a more substantial texture.