Category: Food

Cinnamon Butter Cookies

I picked up my first wooden cookie mold at a flea market. After a little online research I discovered that in Germany and Scandinavia, and in most of the Middle East, cookies made from hand-carved wooden molds are very traditional. You can find hand-carved wooden cookie molds in specialty shops or online. Etsy is a good resource for finding cool ones. A lot of cookie doughs made for molds need to be thoroughly chilled, but this one works straight out of the mixer.

Cinnamon Butter Cookies

  • 1 cup (2 sticks) cold butter
  • 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
  • 1 large egg, cold
  • 1 glug (probably 1 to 2 teaspoons) vanilla
  • 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon coarse salt
  • 3 cups (400 g) all-purpose flour
  • Vegetable oil and powdered sugar to coat the cookie molds

Preheat your oven to 350°F.

Whisk the cinnamon, baking powder and flour together in a medium mixing bowl, and set aside.

In your stand mixer or with a hand-held electric mixer, beat the butter until it is reasonably fluffy. Add the sugar, and beat the mixture until it is even fluffier.

Mix in the egg, then the vanilla.

Turn the mixer down to its slowest speed, then spoon the flour mixture in, a bit at a time, so you don’t get covered with flour.

Use a small paint brush — preferably one you haven’t actually painted with – to completely coat the inside of your wooden cookie mold with oil, then use another brush to cover the inside surface of the mold with powdered sugar. You will not have to re-oil the mold, but you need to powder it Every. Single. Time you use it.

Pinch off a chunk of dough — you’ll have to play around to see how much fills your mold, but start with a piece about the size of a ping-pong ball — and press it into the mold, making sure you get dough into all the corners and crevices.

Turn the mold over and smack it sharply into the heel of your hand, over a silicone or parchment-lined baking sheet. You might have to smack your hand several times before the cookie falls free. The more sore your hand gets, the more diligent you will be about thoroughly powdering the mold.

These cookies won’t spread, so feel free to arrange as many on the baking sheet as you wish. Bake for approximately 10 minutes, then remove from the oven and cool completely on the baking sheet, before removing the cookies to a plate for serving.

With the holidays approaching, these cookies are good ones to start your pre-season cookie training with. They are buttery, almost like shortbread, and mildly cinnamon-y. They are delicious warm with ice cream, or ice cold from the freezer, with a small glass of sherry.

Featured photo: Dehli Cooler. Photo by John Fladd.

What wine pairs with a brownie?

Clyde’s Dessert and Wine Bar saves the best for first

One of Clyde Bullen’s biggest hurdles to opening his wine and dessert bar, Clyde’s Dessert and Wine Bar in Manchester, was finding a way to classify it.

“We had to go through a couple of bells and whistles with the state,” he said, “because we’re one of the first dessert bars that just specializes in desserts and wine. A year ago we wouldn’t have been allowed to open. The state had to make some changes, because back in the day, to keep people from just opening up a motorcycle club or something, you had to serve entrees to get a liquor license. In the 30 days we’ve been open people have been stoked that they could come in and try our pairings of wines with our desserts.”

Bullen’s new brick and mortar dessert bar marks a change from his successful food trucks.

“We just finished up our 16th year,” Bullen said, “and we have a total of four food trucks that run up and down New England. We specialize in desserts; we call it a mobile dessert bakery. One of the nice features we do on our trucks is you get to choose one of our 13 brownies to make your own brownie sundae. We care more about the brownies than we do the ice cream.”

Bullen said the inspiration for the new physical location for Clyde’s Cupcakes is a particular type of customer.

“Especially dessert lovers who like desserts more than they do the entree or the meal themselves,” he said. “You know, those people who start with desserts first and work their way backward through a meal. And with the brick and mortar, it gives us the opportunity to provide more than we could do in a truck. We couldn’t do crème brûlées or gelatos. This is a chance to serve unique dessert offerings with our wines.”

Bullen used dark chocolate as an example. Extremely dark chocolate has fruity notes, he said, which pair with the fruitiness of wine.

“One of our unique pairings right now is a sauvignon blanc wine paired with a cupcake that we’ve made for 16 years and has a cult following, Chocolate Overdose. It’s a chocolate cupcake filled with chocolate fluff and chocolate buttercream, with a Lindt chocolate brownie on top, chocolate-covered jimmies, and a Ghirardelli chocolate ganache on top. It’s a real moist, decadent cake that pairs really nice with a cabernet sauvignon blanc. Eighty percent of our wines are sweet; some of the best wines are well known for [pairing] with chocolate or chocolate and strawberry. You have your pinot noirs, cabernets, your ports, the ones that have nice robust flavors with them.”

Bullen said it has been important to set a relaxed tone in the new space.

“We’re trying to provide a nice, relaxed atmosphere,” he said. “We are playing records here. We have dominoes. So we’re not asking you to just place your order and bounce. We’ve set it up to make it a cozy spot so that, you know, you can come talk, conversate, and just try different desserts and different pairings. People are enjoying our record collection. Everyone’s just shocked at how cozy and comfortable the place is inside.”

The dessert bar is located in the new Queen City Center on Canal Street in Manchester, next door to Harpoon Brewery.

“Right now we’re following the same hours as Harpoon,” Bullen said. “So we’re open Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays, and we’re following Harpoon’s hours 1 to 9 [p.m.].

The combination of wine and desserts gives Bullen and his staff a chance to be creative and experiment, he said.

“This weekend we did a nice white wine flight that we paired wonderfully with a lemon trifecta, which was a lemon cupcake, a lemon bar and then lemon gelato.”

Clyde’s Dessert and Wine Bar
Where: 215 Canal St., Manchester
Hours: Wednesday through Sunday, 1 to 9 p.m.
Find them on Instagram @clydescupcakes

Featured photo: Photo courtesy of Clyde’s Cupcakes.

Pie showdown

In Goffstown, a crusty grudge match

Goffstown’s annual Once Upon a Pie baking competition and social event is not just a tasty fundraiser for the Goffstown Public Library but also the setting for a showdown between town government departments. According to Evelyn Redmond, one of the event’s organizers, for the past several years there has been an ongoing rivalry between the Town’s Parks and Recreation Department, and the Police.

“We take pies submitted by anybody who wants to participate,” she said, “and categorize them as far as ingredients. We have, I think, 13 different categories, plus we have an inter-department contest. So anyone who works for the town at one of the town departments can submit pies in that category. But this past year we’ve had Public Works in the mix, so this is going to be an interesting competition.”

The Once Upon a Pie competition is held every year on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Redmond said, and is a major fundraiser for the Goffstown Public Library Foundation, which helps fund library programs outside its official budget, such as supplying museum passes for patrons. “We have probably 200 people that attend the event,” she said, referring to Once Upon a Pie. “And it is our second major fundraiser of the year. The first one that we do is we participate in New Hampshire Gives in June. But we’re acquiring more supporters every year, just trying to keep the library capital needs taken care of. That’s our mission.”

The pie event raises money in three ways. Bakers pay to submit pies for a judged competition, pie-lovers from the community pay to eat pie, and prize-winning pies are auctioned off.

Every year, there are dark-horse competitors who surprise everyone, Redmond said.

“We have a kids’ category, which is [open to] anyone up to the age of 18. Actually, two years ago the top winning pies were made by the teenagers. It was a Key lime pie, and they actually had just gotten together because they wanted to bake, and they did a beautiful job. It was very nice-looking and the judges gave it fabulous marks for tasting wonderful.”

On the day of the competition, pies need to be submitted by 11:30 a.m., Redmond said, so the judges have time to taste all of them. Having to taste many, many pies sounds like a good problem to have, but she said that it can actually be pretty gruelling.

“Last year we received 88 separate pies to be judged, and it was a burden on our three teams of judges, so they each had to taste almost 30 different pies. So this year we’ve added an additional team of judges. So hopefully we can get that number down and go a little bit easier on their stomachs. But yeah, because even if it’s only a tablespoon, 30 tablespoons is a lot of pie.”

Between the pie judging and the public part of the event, Once Upon a Pie Day is a long one. “we start at nine o’ clock in the morning,” Redmond said, “and we usually don’t leave the building until nine o’ clock at night. Last year a lot of people came in at the very last minute with a lot of pies. So that pushed our whole schedule back and some of us never even got a break during that 12-hour period last year. So this year we’ve built in a break time.”

For Redmond, the biggest surprise of last year’s event was the winning pie.

“The biggest surprise was the top-winning pie was just a regular pumpkin pie,” she said. The event’s website (gplnhfoundation.org/once-upon-a-pie) has photos of last year’s winning pies and a description of the overall winner that says, “What a pumpkin pie should be.”

Redmond said Once Upon a Pie is a tradition that has become part of Goffstown’s culture. People from all walks of life, political persuasions and social circles all come together, bound by their love of pie.

“It’s almost like this is a metaphor,” she said. “The pie competition is all about the community, in the same way that the Library provides value to the community.”

Once Upon a Pie
Where: Goffstown High School, 27 Wallace Road, Goffstown, 497-4841.
When: Saturday, Nov. 22. Pie drop-off for entrants is from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Ticket sales for the public pie appreciation event that is open to the public begin at 6:15 p.m. Slices of pie are $3 each, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. Pie registration forms are available on the event’s website at gplnhfoundation.org/once-upon-a-pie.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

The Weekly Dish 25/11/13

• Poker hand pub crawl: Following up on last year’s success, the United Way of Greater Nashua is hosting a Poker Hand Pub Crawl on Saturday, Nov. 15. Participants will visit five downtown venues, collecting playing cards with drink purchases at each stop. The player with the best poker hand wins a cash prize, and all proceeds support United Way’s programs. Registration is $25, which includes event entry, a free drink, a map of participating locations, and chances to win raffle prizes. Visit tinyurl.com/uwpubcrawl25.

• Murphy’s Taproom closes: In an Oct. 25 announcement on its Facebook page, Murphy’s Taproom’s announced the closing of its Manchester location at 494 Elm St. at the end of October. “As hard as it is to walk away from Elm Street, I have reluctantly concluded that it is in the best interests of the business, its employees, and most importantly my family to concentrate our efforts at the beautiful Bedford facility … We were glad for many years. Thanks for the memories, Manchester,” the announcement read. Murphy’s Taproom and Carriage House at 393 Route 101 in Bedford remains open; see murphystaproom.com.

• The beers of New England: The Bedford Village Inn (2 Olde Bedford Way, Bedford, 472-2001, bedfordvillageinn.com) will host a four-course dinner featuring beer pairings from New England breweries in the Inn’s Great Hall on Friday, Nov. 14, at 6 p.m. The evening will begin with a casual cocktail hour featuring two craft beers and passed canapés before moving on to a four-course seated dinner, each course paired with a beer from one of New England’s local breweries. Tickets for this 21+ event must be purchased in advance, which you can do via the website.

• Corks and Queens: Corks and Queens, a drag brunch hosted by Sasha Stone, will take place on Sunday, Nov. 16, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m., at Unwined Wine Bar (1 Nashua St. in Milford). A cast of iconic queens and kings will dance and sing the day away, with hits from Broadway throughout the years, according to the event description on eventbrite.com, where you can purchase tickets for $28.52 plus fees.

Delhi Cooler

  • 2 ounces London dry gin
  • ¾ ounces pineapple juice
  • ¾ ounces fresh squeezed lime juice
  • ¾ ounces curry syrup (see below)

Combine all ingredients over ice in a cocktail shaker and shake thoroughly, until the ice starts to break up. Strain over fresh ice in a small Collins glass.

The ingredients in this drink all get along, but they all maintain their own identities. The result is less like the mosh pit at a concert and more like a collegial workplace. Each ingredient stands out. If you concentrate, the lime seems to be the dominant flavor, or the pineapple, or maybe the gin. If you were a little nervous about the curry syrup — and admit it, you probably were — you can relax. The garam masala lends a gentle spiciness to this whole operation, with the tiniest bit of heat on the very tail end of each sip.

Calling this a cooler implies that it would be a good conclusion to a hot, dusty afternoon, but in fact it’s a very good way to embrace a rainy November one.

Curry Syrup

  • 1 cup (198 g) granulated sugar
  • 1 cup (227 g) water
  • 1 Tablespoon ground garam masala — Most whole spices should be replaced once a year, but ground spices and spice mixes go stale much more quickly and are really only good for six months or so. This will be a good excuse for you to buy some fresh curry spices. The pre-ground stuff is fine for this application, but if you decide you want to go a step further, buy a bag of whole garam masala spices, toast them in a dry pan when you want them, and grind them yourself.

Heat all three ingredients in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Let the mixture boil for 30 seconds or so, to make certain that the sugar has gone completely into solution, then remove from the heat. Let the mixture steep for 20 to 30 minutes, then strain it, and store it in your refrigerator for a couple of weeks.

Some thoughts on straining:

Swirling this syrup around in its pan will show you that the spice mixture has not dissolved into the syrup. It has flavored it, and largely sunk to the bottom of the pan, but has not completely committed to this operation. Letting the syrup sit for an hour or so to let the curry precipitate out will help, but you’ll probably want to filter the syrup even so.

A fine-meshed strainer will not be fine enough to catch the small curry particles. Yes, you can use a coffee filter, but that might be too fine and will clog up easily. A year or two ago I bought some slightly coarser strainers from a science lab supplier, but if you don’t need to strain things like this very often, go ahead and use the strainer and line it with an old T-shirt. Just wash it first.

Featured photo: Dehli Cooler. Photo by John Fladd.

Gluten free, teen owned

New Boston bakery focuses on sweat treats

New Boston teen Marley Godbois has set up her own gluten-free bakery, The Cupcake ’Porium (facebook.com/GFcupcakesNH).

“It’s a teen-owned cottage bakery,” Godbois said. “It follows the cottage laws in New Hampshire. And it’s gluten-free. It has muffins, cookies, cupcakes, cakes, all that stuff.”

Godbois, who is a junior in high school, sells her baked goods from her family’s home and provides baked goods for The Cure Cafe (8 Mill St., New Boston, 741-5016, curellc.toast.site).

“I usually make about two dozen cookies … and a dozen muffins for the cafe downtown,” she said. “And then, depending on the week, I also make mini cakes, which are just cupcakes but in mini loaf pans.” There are often special orders. “I have a festival this week where I’m baking 150 cookies and 100 mini cakes,” she said.

Shortly after she started baking — “When Covid happened, I was stuck inside all day, with nothing else to do” — Godbois discovered an underserved market for her gluten-free treats.

“My mom kind of has … a gluten allergy and I have a sensitivity to [gluten]. And it’s just really hard to find good gluten-free stuff.” She discovered that many of her peers had an understanding of what gluten is and wanted to buy from her.

For the most part, Godbois said, her customers are looking for rich, indulgent baked goods.

“The most popular things are really anything with chocolate and peanut butter. I have a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and a chocolate peanut butter cake, which is a chocolate cake with peanut butter frosting and then a little half of a peanut butter cup on top. I also have a chai latte cake; I make a spice mix that’s just like all the spices that are in chai, and then it’s just a pumpkin cake with that added in. It’s spicy.”

With the holidays approaching, Godbois has been experimenting and developing new recipes.

“We have like a Thanksgiving menu that we’re going to send out after Halloween is over. It’s the pumpkin chai, but there’s a carrot cake with an orange cream cheese buttercream. There’s the chocolate peanut butter thing, of course, with chocolate cake and peanut butter frosting. And then chocolate Oreos, which is just the same chocolate base with gluten-free Oreos chopped up inside it and a buttercream with Oreo crumbs in it, with a half of an Oreo on top.”

Godbois said that while she sells some of her baked goods in person, a lot of her business involves social media.

“I have a Facebook page,” she said. “I have Instagram. We have a cart out in front of our house every Friday and Saturday, and sometimes Sundays if we have leftover stuff. And then Cafe, obviously. We have an order form on Facebook, and customers can reach out by email or Facebook Messenger.”

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

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