Category: Food

• Irish ducks and royal icing: There will be aSt. Patrick’s Day cookie decorating class at LaBelle Winery Amherst (345 Route 101, Amherst, 672-9898, labellewinery.com) Thursday, March 26, from 10 a.m. to noon. This is a beginner-level, hands-on class led by instructor Kelli Wright. She will guide you through the process of creating fun St. Patrick’s Day-themed cookie designs with a “lucky duck” theme. After class you’ll leave with a set of four decorated cookies and the knowledge to re-create your designs at home. Tickets start at $59. Visit labellewinery.com/public-winery-events.

• Shamrock dinner: On Friday, March 20, from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. this month’s Clover & Candlelight Supper Club at the Rose and Rye Diner in Concord’s Arts Alley (20 S. Main St., Concord, 406-5666, artsalleyconcordnh.com) will be an Irish-themed dinner. The four-course dinner will include an Irish whiskey sour, Irish soda bread, potato and cheddar bisque, corned beef and cabbage, and a Baileys chocolate pot de creme.Tickets for this 21+ event are $97. Visit artsalleyconcordnh.com/event.

• Knives, forks and battle axes: There will be aViking Feast on Tuesday, March 24, at 377 S. Willow St., in Manchester, beginning at 6 p.m. Get ready to dive into a wild Viking celebration courtesy of Harper’s Eden Catering (35 Manchester Road, Derry, 416-0509, harperseden.com), with epic food, mead and roaring good times. Dive into the world of Vikings with delicious food, hearty drinks and axe throwing. It’s the perfect chance to hang with friends, enjoy tasty dishes and throw some axes. Tickets for this event are $71.21 through eventbrite.com.

• The sweet taste of sourness: Learn to make your own limoncello Saturday, March 21, at the Tuscan Market (Tuscan Village, 9 Via Toscana, Salem, 912-5467, tuscanbrands.com) from 6 to 8 p.m. Learn the process behind Italian limoncello and enjoy tastings of house-made versions. Craft your own limoncello to take home. The cost is $64.74. Visit tuscanbrands.com/cooking-classes.

This recipe is adapted from one in a recipe booklet put out by Robin Hood Flour in 1931. It makes about two dozen cookies.

Wet ingredients

• ½ cup (1 stick) butter – The team at Robin Hood called for shortening, because it was the Great Depression, but my philosophy is that if you can use butter, why wouldn’t you? (That’s a rhetorical question. I understand that there actually are reasons, but I’m making a point here.)
• 1 cup (198 g) sugar – It dissolves into liquids so well that it is often classified as a wet ingredient.
• The zested rind of two lemons – The Robin Hood team suggested the zest from a large orange.
• 2 eggs – This is a good idea. No notes.
• 2 Tablespoons fresh squeezed lemon juice – The original recipe called for orange juice.

Dry ingredients

• 2 cups (240 g) all-purpose flour – Needless to say, this recipe specified Robin Hood flour.
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons dehydrated lemon juice powder (Optional. I realize that most bakers don’t have any of this on hand, but you should really consider picking some up. It helps bump the lemony flavor without throwing off a recipe’s dry-to-wet ratio. It makes a super-lemony cake frosting.)

Delicate prima donna ingredient

• 1 cup (180 g) dried blueberries – The 1931 recipe called for raisins, but lemon and blueberries are a classic pairing.

With your stand or hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar together, then beat in the eggs, one at a time. Then mix in the lemon zest and lemon juice.

In a medium-sized bowl, whisk the dry ingredients together, then add the dry mixture to the wet one at slow speed. Carefully mix the dried blueberries into the dough.

Cover the dough with a piece of waxed paper, and chill it in your refrigerator for about 45 minutes. While it’s chilling, preheat your oven to 375°F.

After reading a couple chapters of a good book, scoop the dough onto parchment paper or a silicone mat, one Tablespoon at a time. (I have a miniature ice cream scoop that does a lovely job of this.) Flatten the blobs with a wet fork, the way you would with peanut butter cookies.

Bake for about 12 minutes — all ovens are a little different — until the edges have browned slightly. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet.

These are not fancy cookies, but they are gently sweet, and lemony, with tiny bursts of blueberry flavor. These are a good gift for a friend who’s having a hard time, without making a big deal about it.

Featured photo: 1931 Fruit Cookies. Photo by John Fladd.

A taste of the finicky world of French macarons

Ashley Savoy is the owner of Savvy Sweets and Treats in Bow (387-0241, savvysweetsandtreats.com), a home bakery specializing in sweet baked goods. She sells cakes, cupcakes and cookies, but has developed a following for her French-style macarons.

Savoy said a common misconception new customers make is confusing macarons — meringue-based cookies that sandwich a sweet filling — with macaroons, the chewy coconut cookies popular around Passover.

“There’s a difference between the two,” she said. “Sometimes people use the two words interchangeably. However, if you went to Europe and you said a macaron, most people would know exactly what you were talking about and not think of the coconut cookie at all.”

Macarons have a reputation among home bakers for being temperamental and difficult to consistently get right. Savoy said she only learned to make them as part of the courting process when she started seeing her now-husband.

“I started because macarons were one of my husband’s favorite cookies when we first started dating. And I thought, ‘I can definitely do this. I bake all the time.’ I had no idea what I was getting myself into.” She taught herself the basics of macarons, but, she said, “they’re like a dysfunctional baking cookie because once you figure it out and you get it and you know how to cook them they’re not that bad, but getting there can be really quite a love-hate relationship.”

Now she feels like she has a handle on macaron-making.

“When I go to an event, I bring probably a maximum of nine flavors,” she said, “but I would say that I make well over 200 different flavor combinations at this point.” She has a core stable of the chewy meringue cookies, but the variety of fillings is enormous. “You can flavor your cookie, which adds an extra level of flavor to it. But [for] the filling on the inside there’s just like a slew of things that you can do with that. You can use a ganache; you could do a buttercream, you can do an ermine frosting — that’s a frosting that is a little bit less sweet and it’s made with flour.”

One of the hallmarks of good Parisian-style macarons is their vivid colors. For Savoy, the colors serve an additional purpose.

“A lot of times,” she said, “ I do salted caramel and I [make it with] a blue shell, which is mostly just for my own sanity and to remember what it is. Some use more natural food coloring, but almost all macarons have some sort of food coloring and that’s how you get that vibrant coloring. Sometimes people bite into one of my blue macarons, and then their whole mouth turns blue and they’re like, ‘Oh my goodness!’”

The key to a good macaron, Savoy said, is mastering meringue.

“I think meringues are much friendlier than they get a rep for,” she said. “It’s easy to break a meringue, but I would say that there are a couple of things that you can do to ensure that your meringue is going to be the best it can be. The first thing is wiping all of your equipment down with either lemon juice or some vinegar — something acidic. That’s going to remove any fat residue that might be left there. Sometimes even soap residue can affect [the egg whites in your meringue]. The other trick to meringue is that you need to whip them for far longer than you think you’re going to. It’s better to over-whip your meringue than it is to under-whip it. The stiffer meringue is a little bit more forgiving than the loose meringue, which might lose all structure altogether. And then that’s when you get those like flat, weird-looking brown ones.”

Macarons
Ashley Savoy sells her baked goods, including macarons, at Concord’s Winter Market (downtownconcordwinterfarmersmarket.com), at selected events, and through Savvy Sweets and Treats’ website at savvysweetsandtreats.com.

Featured photo: Courtesy photo.

• Cutting edge learning: LaBelle Winery Derry (14 Route 111, Derry, 672-9898, labellewinery.com/labelle-winery-derry) will host a cooking class focusing on knife skills Thursday, March 12, from 6 to 7 p.m. Led by LaBelle chefs, this class will guide you through knife techniques, maintenance and safety, according to the website where you can purchase tickets.

• What does ice do in a drink? CodeX B.A.R. (29 Main St., Nashua) will hold a home bartending workshop Sunday, March 15, beginning at 4 p.m. The topic will be “The Art of Dilution.” Learn why some drinks are stirred while others are shaken, and how ice, temperature and motion affect the texture and flavor of a drink. The cost is $34.99, which includes two cocktails to enjoy during the class.

• Dinner with a pot of gold: There will be a St. Patrick’s Mystery Wine Dinner at Averill House Vineyard (21 Averill Road, Brookline, 244-3165, averillhousevineyard.com) Tuesday, March 17, from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m. The Leprechaun’s Secret is a wine dinner and mystery experience combining gourmet dining, interactive storytelling and paired wines. Tickets are $59 per person through the vineyard’s website.

• Espresso martinis: In celebration of National Espresso Martini Day, the Rose and Rye Diner will hold a Tini Tasting Friday, March 13, from 6 to 8 p.m in the Arts Alley complex (20 S. Main St., Concord, 406-5666, artsalleyconcordnh.com). Three espresso martinis will be paired with desserts. The cost for this 21+ event is $71.21 through eventbrite.com.

• Irish cookie decorating: There will be a Luck of the Icing cookie-decorating class Wednesday, March 18, from 6 to 8 p.m. at Smitty’s Cinema & GameLAB Tilton (630 W. Main St., Tilton, 286-3275, smittyscinema.com/movie-theater/tilton) with Kate from Confections by Kate (723-5187, confectionsbykatenh.com). Tickets start at $32.50 through eventbrite.com.

• Spanish or French wines? Wine on Main (9 N. Main St., Concord, 897-5828, wineonmainnh.com) will host a tasting event called “Spain vs. The Loire” on Wednesday March 18, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Taste selections from the Loire Valley and Spain. Tickets are $40 per person through Wine on Main’s website.