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“Delicious,” Suzen said. Coming from my wife, on a scale of 1 to 10, that’s an 11. To my shock, she reached for another. Now we are up to a 12, an appropriate number actually for baked goods.

You see, Suzen does not like cookies. At all. If we sat down with a plate of Oreos in front of us, she’d have one, maybe two. The rest would be mine. All mine.

Now you know one of the reasons I married her. In retrospect, I feel guilty. And this Jewish girl from Brooklyn I married is rather adept at teaching me aspects of guilt that the nuns in parochial school never had a clue about.

In short, there are no free cookies.

What can I do to make it all up: to God, to the nuns, and to Suzen?

Find a great cookie that she will like and share it. I’m always looking for something to please her, and by chance I found this simple, elegant and perfect cookie. I do mean perfect. Its secret ingredient is maple syrup. Combined with just cinnamon and ginger, you get a cookie that is sublime. There’s lots of flour here, so the cookie is soft and yields graciously to the first bite. The maple is a background flavor, offering sweetness without flavor domination.

I took home a box of these from our Olive kitchen to our Tribeca cooking school, Cooking by the Book. I set the box out and our staff — along with Suzen — sampled. And sampled again. The first reaction of everyone was “Oh, my” and that’s a testament to the excellence of this recipe.

Where did I find this recipe? It has maple syrup and I said earlier this fall I was in a maple syrup mood. I even tracked down a copy of the Maple Syrup Cookbook by Ken Haedrich, first published in 1989 and republished in 2001. It will be the topic for this week’s Throwback Thursday Cookbook Review.

You may know Ken from his many cookbooks, particularly Pie. He’s an exceptional baker and writer. You might want to sample his other books, his other recipes. But for a delicious starter — and I can quote my wife on that — try these maple gems.


Maple Spice Cookies

Yield: 4 dozen cookies

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup vegetable shortening
  • 1cup firmly packed brown sugar
  • ½ cup granulated sugar
  • ½ cup dark (Grade B) maple syrup
  • 2 eggs
  • 4 cups unbleached or all-purpose flour
  • 2 ½ teaspoons baking soda
  • 2 teaspoons ground ginger
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon teaspoon
  • ¼ salt
  •  Granulated sugar

Preparation:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a baking sheet. Cream the shortening, brown sugar, and granulated sugar in a large bowl until fluffy. Beat in the maple syrup and eggs, one at a time.

Combine the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Add the flour mixture to the shortening mixture, a little at a time, and mix until well blended. The dough will be sticky.

Sprinkle granulated sugar onto a sheet of wax paper. Roll the dough into 1½ – inch balls and dip the tops into the sugar. Place the balls 2 inches apart on the baking sheet.

Bake for 12 to 13 minutes, or until light golden brown and the center is set; do not overbake. Let cool on baking sheet for 1 minute. Transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.

Source: Maple Syrup Cookbook by Ken Haedrich

Photo Information: Canon T2i, 18-55mm Macro Lens, f/5, 1/50th second, ISO-250