"Happiness is Baking Cookies"

The title of this post is a quote from Maida Heatter in her cookbook Maida Heatter's Cookies, which I recently purchased used from an Amazon.com vendor. I got the 1997 edition, which has a glowing foreword by Wolfgang Puck. (As an aside, I'm not sure how I feel about Chef Puck since I see him so frequently on QVC as I channel surf, hocking his latest cookware or gadget. I suppose it's great that he is making money and perhaps encouraging people to cook more. I guess I am prejudiced against any of the home shopping networks because there is just so much junk on them, even though there are good things too.)

Anyhoo, back to the book. Flipping through the book, there seem to be several potentially excellent cookie recipes, which I'm eager to try. The first one I attempted is a bar cookie, Cinnamon Almond Cookies. According to Maida they are "rather thin, buttery, crisp cinnamon cookies with a lemon glaze."

One of the problems I always have when beginning to bake from a new book is determining the weight to use for flour. It seems Maida likes to sift her flour before measuring, so I've taken a light hand with the weights. I used 3.75 ounces of flour per cup for this recipe but I might need to bump it up to 4 ounces because the dough seemed a tad sticky and the resulting cookies a bit greasy.

As I thought, the lemon flavor is weak since there is just a tablespoon of lemon juice in the glaze. Next time I might add either lemon extract or zest to boost the flavor a little. I also added nutmeg (the recipe only called for cinnamon, but I almost always add either nutmeg or cardamom to anything cinnamon, since I like both of those flavors better than cinnamon alone.)

All in all, a pretty good cookie, but not one that really knocked my socks off. They did go over quite well with friends, and I will probably try them again, with a bit more flour.

Even though these cookies didn't wow me, I still agree with Maida's quote. I might even stencil it on my kitchen soffit, if I ever get around to painting in there as I promised myself I would do immediately when we moved in...eight months ago. Other half-finished projects must be completed first, however. My husband has forbidden me from starting any new projects until I finish the old ones, and I suppose he's right (did you read that, honey? Good, because I'm not saying it again).

Maida's quote reminded me of the line that Julie Powell's character in Julie and Julia said about baking as she made a chocolate cream pie. To paraphrase, no matter how hectic, horrible or chaotic your work day has been, it's good to know that you can mix together chocolate, eggs and cream and it's going to become thick and delicious.

I am going to end this post with a request. If anyone has any recommendations from Maida's cookie book, please share them here. I'd love to know if there are any great recipes that I might miss because the description doesn't do them justice.