Cadbury Cream Eggs reimagined as COOKIES

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I recently saw a Pin for homemade Cadbury Cream Eggs that had me tempted to give it a try. The photo looked so cute; the process looked so interesting. The only thing that stopped me cold was the fact that I HATE gooey cream candies.  I don’t like the texture; I don’t like the way it oozes around my mouth. Yes, I know I’m weird, but the aversion has something to do with a childhood incident where my older brother convinced me that my half eaten box of chocolate covered cherries actually contained chocolate covered tadpoles. Gotta love those older brothers…

So instead of homemade Cadbury Cream Eggs, I wondered if I could make the eggs out of cookies??? I could make a yellow “yolk” cookie center, a white cookie layer, and a chocolate shell. Sounds good to me. Here is the end result. I call them: Mock Cadbury Cream Egg Cookies…

Be honest, how do they look?  Would you have thought, "that looks like an egg" if I hadn't put the suggestion in your head?

The first step on this cookie adventure was deciding what kind of cookie recipe to use: sugar cookie, spritz cookie, sand tarts, sandies? I needed a cookie that would hold it shape during baking; something that wouldn’t spread. I finally decided on a Mexican Wedding Cookie recipe (aka Sand Tarts) minus the chopped pecans.

I quickly mixed up a batch of the dough, but it looked a little strange without the pecans to help bind the mix.  It came out pretty sticky - almost paste-like, but I just added a little more flour and kept on going. Next I tinted about 1/3+ cup of the dough using Wilton’s Buttercup Yellow food gel, and I got this bright, almost neon concoctions.  Looks like baby food doesn't it?

The rest of the dough didn’t looked “white” enough to represent the white of the egg, so I tried using some of Americolor’s Bright White gel. I used about 25 drops and while the dough looked a little paler, it wasn’t really white.

Next I made little balls from the yellow dough (about 3/4 teaspoon each) and froze them. Freezing the yellow balls keeps them from getting smooched out of shape as you pack the white dough around it.

I flattened about 1 Tablespoon of the white dough into an oval shape, and then wrapped it around a frozen ball of yellow dough.

Make sure to squish the white dough firmly against the frozen yellow ball to remove any air pockets. All the air pockets must be removed or the surface of the cookie will collapse during baking.

As a final step, mold the white dough into an egg shape where one end is rounder and fatter than the other end.  Now the baking. Because I used a Mexican Wedding Cookie recipe, I baked the cookies slow and low. 45 minutes at 270 degrees F.    Here they are just out of the oven, and notice that on some (most) of the cookies I didn't get all the air pockets out, so the white part of the cookie kind of collapsed around the yellow part.  Bummer.

After they are completely cool, I dipped them in chocolate ganache. (My ganache was a little too thick, so I did more “frosting” then “dipping”.)

And finally, a little bit of piped on decorations.

So how do you thing they turn out?  I think they kind-of, sort-of look like a cookie version of a Cadbury Cream Egg, but what do you think?

Happy Baking,
Carol

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Mock Cadbury Cream Egg Cookies 
(yield 15 cookies)

Ingredients:

1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup Powdered Sugar
1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
2-1/3 cups All Purpose Flour

Dark Chocolate Ganache

Directions:

1. Cream the butter and powdered sugar together, add the vanilla and mix until incorporated.
2. Slowly add the flour to the butter mixture and mix until incorporated.
3. Remove about 1/3 cup of the dough and tint a bright yellow color.  Using about 1 teaspoon of dough form 15 small yellow balls.  Place in freezer until they are firm to the touch.
4. With the remaining dough, flatten about 1 tablespoon of dough into a flat disk shape.
5. Place one frozen ball of yellow dough in the center of the disk, and then fold the white dough up and around the yellow ball.  Squeeze and roll the white dough firmly around the frozen yellow ball to make sure there are no air pockets.  Mold the dough into a egg shape.  
6. Place the formed cookies on an un-greased, parchment lined cookie sheet.
7. Bake in a preheated oven for 45 minutes at 270 degrees F until the bottom are just turning brown.
8. Allow the cookies to cool completely before dipping them in chocolate ganache.
9. Decorate as desired.

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OEOO Stop #1 - Argentinian Alfajores

I was getting a little tired of baking the same stuff over and over again, so I decided to add a little international flare to my baking repertoire.  I'm calling my series "One Earth, One Oven - A World-Wide Baking Adventure", and ultimately I would like to bake a famous dessert from each of the countries on Earth.

According to the US Department of State (as of April 16, 2016), there are 205 recognized countries on Earth.  Alphabetically, Afghanistan is the first on the list and Zimbabwe is last; with 203 other places sandwiched in between.  That is a lot of territory to cover, so lets start baking.  I'm not going in an particular order and I just want to bounce around the list as an interesting recipe catches my eye.

First to be baked on my One Earth, One Oven - A World-Wide Baking Adventure is the:

Argentinian Alfajores 

Now what is an Alfajores?  Well, after baking it I can tell you it is something like a very tender, shortbread or sugar cookie that is slathered with dulce de leche and stacked to make a sandwich.  The cookie part of the alfajores is soft and it little bit crumbly.  It is tender and delicate, and simply melts in your mouth.  The recipe I used also included lime zest so the cookie had a mild, citrus-y tang.   And the dulce de leche filling --- Wow.  Dulce de leche is similar in taste to soft caramel and it is pure heaven.  Finally to complete the melody of flavors, the alfajores are rolled in sweetened coconut. 

And the secret to the tender texture of the cookie, and what makes it different from shortbread or sugar or sandies, is a huge amount of cornstarch in the dough. Yep cornstarch.  Now I've used cornstarch by the tablespoon before, but this recipe uses it by the cupful!  The copious amount of cornstarch actually gives the cookie an odd kind of dry taste.  It is not unpleasant, just different.  And if the cookies are allowed to sit overnight, the cookie will start to draw moisture and flavors from the dulce de leche into the cookie itself.

So the cookie dough starts with sugar and soft butter that is cream till it is almost white in color (5-10 minutes), and then egg yolks, vanilla, and lime zest is added.

Next the mixture of flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and baking powder is added all at once.  It will take 5-10 minutes for the ingredients to fully combine, so don't get discouraged and think that something is messed up.  In the end the dough will look a little crumbly, but it will stick together when you roll it out. 

Roll out the dough to 1/4 inch thickness.  I split the dough into thirds and rolled it between two pieces of parchment paper.  If you use the parchment paper you don't need to flour the surface to keep the dough from sticking.  If you look closely at the picture below you will see the little flecks of lime zest.

Bake in a 325 degree oven for 12-14 minutes.  Watch them closely and don't allow them to brown.   The cookies don't spread much, so you can place them close together on the cookie sheet.  Once they are cool, filling with the dulce de leche.  You can make your own dulce de leche by simmering a can of sweetened condensed milk in a water bath for a few hours, but at Wally-World the can of Nestle la Lechera was just 50 cents more than a can of condensed milk so I just took the easy route.

I used a star tip to pipe the filling onto the cookies.  As you can see I was pretty skimpy with the dulce de leche.  Next time I will use LOTS more filling.  The filling really makes the cookie.

And as a final step, the cookie is rolled in coconut. 

I also rolled some in nuts and also dipped some in melted chocolate and then sprinkled with nuts and coconut.  You can make these things as fancy or as plain as you want.

So what do you think of these Argentinian Alfajores??  Pretty sweet, huh?  I think this baking adventure is going to be a lot of fun -- and a little fattening...

Happy Baking,

Carol

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Argentinian Alfajores

(adapted from Cooking with Books)

Ingredients

250 grams All-purpose Flour ( approximately 1-3/4 cups)
250 grams Cornstarch ( approximately 1-3/4 cups)
1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
2 teaspoons Baking Powder
225 grams Unsalted Butter, softened ( 2 sticks)
150 grams granulated sugar (approximately 2/3 cup)
3 Large Egg Yolks
1 tablespoon Vanilla Extract
1 teaspoon Fresh Lime Zest
13 oz can Dulce de leche
1/2 cup Coconut, shredded

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.
2. Sift together flour, cornstarch, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.
3. Cream the softened butter and  sugar until very pale in color (approximately 5 minutes).
4. Add egg yolks, vanilla and line zest, to the butter/sugar and mix until combined.
5. Add the dry ingredients all at once and mix until completely incorporated (5-10 minutes).
6. Divide the dough into thirds, roll dough out to 1/4 inch thick, and then cut out using a circle cookie cutter.
7. Place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  The cookies don't spread very much so you can put them close together.
8. Bake for 12-14 minutes.  Don't let them brown.
9. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before filling.
10. Pipe the dulce de leche on the top of a cookie, and make sure you pipe close to the edge.  Place a second cookie on top of the piped dulce de leche and gently press the two cookies together.  You want the dulce de leche to squeeze slightly from between the cookies so the coconut can stick.
11. Roll the cookie in shredded coconut allowing the coconut to stick to the exposed dulce de leche.
12. Store in an airtight container.

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