For June 30

This is the last day of June.  It is also the last day of baking for me for a month or so.  I have a trial coming up on July 19, as well as an appellate brief due next Thursday, and I need to pull back from various responsibilities for July in order to take care of my clients and their needs.  Lucky for the Zen Center, Bob Gido Fisher has agreed to step in for me for a month while my attention is elsewhere.  You are all very lucky!

The time demands did not just kick in as of July 1, so this was another week with limited baking time.  I was, again, incredibly lucky to have Andrew Bodhi-Heart available to help me with the baking.  The late nights would have been even later, otherwise.

This week:

Almond Rochers, from Tartine
Pecan Cocoa Sables, adapted from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet


The first recipe is a meringue variation that I have made before.  The recipe comes from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco.  It is quite interesting and, like all things that rely on beaten egg whites as a key ingredient, rather scary.  That you have to heat the egg whites over boiling water until a certain temperature and then quickly remove them and whisk them only makes it even scarier!  But it all worked out OK in the end.  The base recipe has so few ingredients, including only two egg whites and a cup of sugar, yet it says it makes 30 cookies.  The magic of egg whites and air is truly amazing.  Anyway, this recipe has you toast sliced almonds and, when they are cooled, you then just crush them up in your hands to get a coarse almond meal.  After making the meringue base, you fold the almonds in and then spoon them out (or use a pastry bag if you want, which I do not) and bake them.  The result in a higgledy-piggledy "cookie" that is crusty on the outside, chewy on the inside, and redolent of almond.  Oh, and these have the advantage of being both fat free (except for the fat in the almonds, so I guess we should say "no added fat") and gluten free.  I love this recipe and when, as was the case this week, I know that someone who can't have cookies with gluten is coming to the Zen Center, I use this as my stand-by gluten-free recipe.  It is a good one to have at hand!

The second recipe is gluten-full to make up for the first.  Again, a sable variation from Alice Medrich.  This one is a variation of my own to two of her recipes.  She has a pecan sable recipe, and then a cocoa-cacao nib sable recipe.  Here, I kept the pecans and then added the cocoa powder to get a chocolate pecan cookie recipe.  These are full of butter and the nice flavor of Valrhona cocoa powder and roasted pecans.  They last a long time and they are easy to make.  A nice way to bow out for a little bit.