Beurre & Sel Jammers

This was the first year in a very long time that I didn't make decorated sugar cookies for the holidays.  For some reason all of the colored royal icing and intricate piping seemed a bit too daunting.  So I made Dorie Greenspan's jammers instead.  I'm a huge fan of Dorie, and so excited about her tiny new cookie shop, Beurre & Sel.  So I was very excited to discover the holiday spread in the December issue of Bon Apétit, featuring these cookies.  They consist of a shortbread base with streusel and a bit of blackberry preserves on top.  Festive and delicious, yet simple.  These may just be my new holiday cookie tradition.

Beurre & Sel Blackberry Jammers
makes about 30
minimally adapted from this recipe

cookie base:
8 oz unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 tsp kosher salt
2 egg yolks, at room temperature
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour

topping:
3/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1/4 tsp kosher salt
3 oz unsalted cold butter, cubed
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup blackberry preserves

for the cookie dough:
In a stand mixer, or in a large bowl using a hand mixer, beat the butter and sugars on medium speed until creamy or about 3-5 minutes.  Add the salt and beat until incorporated.  Reduce speed to low and mix in the egg yolks and vanilla.  Turn off the mixer, add the flour and mix on low until just combined.  Be sure not to over mix.

Divide dough in half.  Place each mound of dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll to 1/4 inch thick discs.  Leave dough in parchment, stack rolled discs on a baking sheet and freeze until very firm or at least 2 hours and up to a few days.

for the struesel topping:
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar and salt.  Add the cold cubed butter and rub butter into the flour mixture with your fingertips until it is the consistency of sand.  Cover and chill in the refrigerator.

to assemble cookies:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Using a 2 inch round cookie cutter, cut out circles from the frozen sheets of dough.  Transfer rounds to ungreased muffin tins.  Re-roll scraps and cut more circles until you have approximately 30 cookies.  Place muffin tins back in the freezer for about 20 minutes to firm up the dough.  Just before baking, remove tins from the freezer and spoon a teaspoon of preserves onto the center of each cookie dough round.  Remove streusel from refrigerator and sprinkle approximately 2 Tbsp around each drop of preserves.

Bake cookies until the streusel is golden, approximately 22-25 minutes.  (If you don't have multiple muffin tins, assemble and bake the cookies in batches).  When done, allow cookies to cool for 15 minutes in the tins.  After 15 minutes, run a sharp knife around the edge of the cookies and remove them to a baking sheet to cool fully.

Dorie, her cookies and a group of lovely ladies.  

Thick preserves work best.  Use whatever flavor you like.

Cut circles of buttery dough.

Preserves in the center.

Streusel around the edges.

Perfect for the holidays.

Basic Country Bread + Thank You Kirsten

I don't know Kirsten all that well.  Not personally, anyway.  She writes a food blog that I check religiously for it's witty writing and totally aspirational weekend menu posts. I especially appreciate her writing on bread baking, and went out and bought Tartine Bread after her post on homemade English muffins.  Kirsten and I have never hung out.  We only know each other because we have a mutual friend and because we once worked together for a bit.  Despite this, she gave me some of her starter. To be more specific, she gave me some of the Tartine Bread recipe starter.   To clarify even further, she drove to my house and hand-delivered to me a container of this precious starter.  Amazing.  To make a starter, you mix flour and water into a culture and allow it to ferment naturally using only the wild yeasts found mainly in the air.  This gives bread flavor and rise.  It takes quite a few days for the starter to ferment and scratch made starter is the ideal beginning to any great bread.  Needless to say, I was thrilled with Kirsten's gift.  It gave me the motivation I needed to make my first foray into the somewhat intimidating pages that make up Tartine Bread.  To ease into the process slowly, I decided to begin with the basic country bread recipe.  This recipe yields fantastic results and will quell any misguided beliefs that one cannot make a great loaf of crusty bread in a home oven. The process takes a lot of time, but the results are well worth the work. You will produce loaves that are thickly crusty on the outside, yet lightly tender and subtly sour on the inside.  Really delicious bread, made at home.  I owe it all to Kirsten.

To find Tartine's basic country bread recipe, buy the beautiful book or click here.

The starter that (ahem) started it all.

All of the kneading is done by hand in a bowl or plastic tub.

Rounds of dough resting before the final rise.

Crackly crusted and delicious.