To start with, I decided to halve the recipe. Here's why: the recipe calls for 1 pound and 9 ounces of almond paste and 1 1/2 POUNDS of pine nuts. Now, almond paste isn't really easy to find and it's not cheap. And pine nuts are really not cheap. And remember, I'm a broke grad student. As it was, making 24 cookies instead of 48 was stretching my wallet. I don't say this to complain. It's just a caution to those who want to follow in my footsteps and make these cookies. The ingredient cost is high.
That all said, halving the recipe was not without its hurdles. The almond paste part went fine (think of it as a substitute for butter in cookies). The powdered sugar, vanilla, and cinnamon halved just fine. But the recipe called for 1 1/4 cups sugar. I don't have a 1/8 cup measure. So I eyeballed it. What else was I supposed to do? Convert 1/8 cup to tablespoons? Not happening. Similarly, the recipe called for 1 tablespoon of honey and I don't have a 1/2 tablespoon measure. Do they even make those? In any case, I eyeballed that too. Don't look at me like that! I'm lazy, remember?
After adding all of that (in one single step), I had to "paddle until smooth with no lumps remaining". No lumps, you say? How is that even possible? There's nothing wet except 1/2 tsp vanilla and 1/2 tbsp honey! I paddled much longer than specified (in fact, I probably over-mixed the ingredients) and eventually, there were very small, equal-sized lumps. It was basically a crumbly dough so I don't know how else it should have looked. Anyway, the last thing to add was the egg whites. The recipe called for 5 extra-large egg whites. So halve that. Hmm. Half an egg white? Really? That one you actually do have to eyeball and there's definitely nothing I could have done about that. Dividing by two is stressful.
Now comes my favorite part: a pastry bag. Who here remembers the last time I had to deal with a pastry bag and how stressful it was? I do! As a result, I took this whole step as slowly and as carefully as possible. First, I cut two pieces of parchment paper on which I had to pipe the cookies. They kept rolling up in an obnoxious manner so I had to weigh the corners down with various kitchen knickknacks (including, but not limited to, a steak knife). Then, I had to fit my pastry bag with a #6 plain tip. Fun story about my pastry bag. It's a lovely canvas bag and it came in a little kit with a bunch of decorating tips and for the first 3 months that I had it, I couldn't figure out how to properly affix the tips. I tried a lot and the directions didn't make any sense to me. My mommy had to show me how and then I felt stupid. Dark times.
Aside over, back to the #6 plain tip. Looking for the #6, looking for the #6, why, oh why, don't I have a #6? I have a dozen decorating tips. I have #2 and #4 plain tips. I have fancy flower tips. I have no #6 plain tips. Perfect. Deducing that the hole for the #6 was probably larger than that of the #4, I picked a shaped tip that had what I considered to be a large enough hole to squeeze the dough out of. I ended up going with the #96 tip. Who knew that a person could ramble for a whole paragraph about decorating tips?
After stressing out over decorating tips, I filled the pastry bag (which was surprisingly not the worst) and was instructed to pipe the dough into circles 2 inches in diameter and 1 1/2 inches high. I had some trouble making circles at first. They turned out kind of squiggly. Then I realized that I had to a) take it slow and b) not hold the pastry bag so high. But the 1 1/2 inch height made me nervous. My cookies definitely looked too thin. So I ended up piping a second layer on top of my cookies. Piping is a pain. It hurts my hands. In the end though, it didn't end up being so bad. I was one cookie short of my intended goal of 24 cookies but that's still much closer than usual for me.
Wow, long blog post, so many steps. For those of you paying attention, you'll realize that we still need to add some pine nuts! I was instructed to spread the pine nuts out on a baking sheet and then pick up the cookie-covered parchment paper and invert it over the nuts. Press down into the nuts and lift up and put aside. I really wish I had another pair of hands helping me. I was very afraid that the cookies would fall off the parchment paper and it was hard to control where the cookies went on the pan. And, in fact, I should have spread out the pine nuts better because on the second flip, some of the cookies landed on the pan instead of on the pine nuts. As a result, I made a mess (as usual) and ended up pressing several pine nuts into cookies by hand.
Let rest overnight. Whew.
I baked the cookies and they had a really interesting aroma. Not as good as the oatmeal applesauce cookies but definitely interesting. It was probably the cinnamon and pine nuts. They looked nice, they smelled nice but sadly, I don't like them. I tried one and I practically spat it out. Maybe it's just me though. So the jury's still out on the Pignoli cookies. Here's a picture:
Oh, and by the way, I'm not the only one who can't divide by two. At the end of the recipe, there's a note that says that since you won't use all the pine nuts, you could use half as much and press the nuts in by hand. So, instead of using the 5 cups (about 1 1/2 lbs), you could use 2.5 cups (about 1 1/4 lbs). Yup. 1 1/4 is obviously half of 1 1/2. If the baker and an editor can't divide by two, I shouldn't be expected to either. So there.
A Disney Moment: Robin Hood
I LOVE Robin Hood! 1/5! Possibly first out of all so far! Well, more like it's a three-way tie between Dumbo, Lady and the Tramp, and Robin Hood at this point. Still, what an awesome movie! I suppose I should at least explain why I love this movie so much. First off, the opening credits. It's hamster dance, people! The song is great, seeing all of the characters during the credits is great, and the whole thing is just a fun way to set the tone. I especially love the minstrel rooster as the narrator.
The whole movie has good pace. We establish the characters early and quickly. The driving conflict is obvious and we even get a love story that doesn't completely halt the progress of the plot and instead incorporates the love story as part of the conflict (i.e. using Maid Marian as bait to catch Robin Hood).
The animation throughout is pretty solid. Not quite the works of art that say, Pinocchio and Sleeping Beauty were but definitely solid. I especially love the effect of the waterfall during the love song. And speaking of songs, I loved all of them. From the humorous "Phony King of England" to the lazy but jaunty "Oo-de-lally" to the sweet but thankfully brief "Love" to the absolutely heartbreaking "Not in Nottingham" it's just perfection. Honestly, as a kid, I remember getting restless during Not in Nottingham but as an adult, it almost made me cry Pixar-style. It was just a really heart wrenching scene that I hadn't paid much attention to before.
Aside from all that, there are small things that really put the movie over the top like Richard the Lionheart being a lion. The snide remarks by Hiss, the snake. Archery! (I love archery.) I honestly loved every second of the movie and really want to watch it again right now. A+ to Robin Hood.
I am making these cookies soon also... Did you rest yours at room temp over night like the recipe said? I am pretty confused because I thought they might go bad if I don't refridgerate it.
ReplyDeleteThanks for reading! Yes, I rested them overnight and they turned out just fine. I think if you were to refrigerate them overnight, they might dry out so go with room temperature!
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