Hello all!
This past Friday we started our Learn to Cook program here in the kitchen and all 8 of our students showed up ready to cook!
For the first class we started with a chat about kitchen safety and sanitation while we took a tour of our rather large instutitional style kitchen.
One of my little catch phrases when talking about kitchen safety is… “Always be mindful of your surroundings and assume that EVERYTHING in the kitchen is either Hot, Sharp or Slippery.”
If we conduct ourselves in a careful manner… and are aware of the possible dangers… we can reduce the risk of being burned by mindlessly touching something that may be hot… cut by blindly reaching in to a drawer or sink of soapy water that may contain a knife… or slipping and falling by not paying attention to where we are going and how we are moving.
Reducing the risk of hurting yourself in what can be a somewhat dangerous environment is a big part of the recpie for success when working in any kitchen… even at home. With that lesson, in time, you will develop a level of comfort moving and working in the kitchen by simply being alert and aware of the dangers… and you will form very healthy and safe kitchen habits.
We also covered hand washing and its importance as well as keeping our equipment and worspaces clean and sanitized at all times.
Then we moved on to the fun stuff! COOKIES!!
Here is one recipe that we tackled that turned out absolutely fantastic…
Linzer Cookies
- 1 cup unsalted butter
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup confectioners’ or glazing sugar
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract or 2 drops creamy hazelnut, bitter almond oil, or vanilla butternut flavor
- 1 cup almond flour or 1 cup hazelnut flour, toasted or plain; or 1 cup pecan meal
- 2 1/4 cups Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup seedless raspberry jam or apricot jam
- confectioners’ or glazing sugar, for dusting
Directions:
1) To make the cookies: Beat together the butter, sugars, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and flavor.
2) Mix in the nut flour, flour, and egg.
3) Divide the dough in half, wrap, and refrigerate for 60 minutes, for easiest rolling. Towards the end of the chilling time, preheat the oven to 375°F.
4) Roll the dough 1/8″ thick. Cut the dough into shapes with large circle linzer cutters (or any cutter shape you desire). Use small cutters to cut a design out of the center of half the cookies.
5) Transfer the cookies to an ungreased or parchment-lined baking sheet.
6) Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until lightly browned on the edges. Remove from the oven, and cool on a rack. While the cookies are cooling, make the filling.
7) Lightly dust the cookies with cutout centers with confectioners’ sugar. Spread the solid cookies with 3/4 teaspoon jam. Place a cutout cookie on top of each filled cookie. Let stand for several hours, until the filling is set.
This recpie should make approximately 5 dozen cookies (depending on the size of your cutter).
On next weeks agenda… Homemade Meatballs!!
Thanks for reading… and be good…
Chef Jason