Mrs. Vogel’s Scherben

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was selected by Teanna of Spork or Foon? She selected Mrs. Vogel’s Scherben, which is a fried cookie. Very different! If you’d like the complete recipe (which is very simple), check out Teanna’s blog. I was very afraid to make this cookie, and didn’t make them exactly as the recipe specified.

The last time I made something that I fried, it turned out to be a big huge mess. I don’t really have the right pan and I just don’t have very much oil in the house. Plus, how do you keep the oil the right temperature? The last thing I made the oil got really hot and then really cold. It was a big fail. I had made rosettes before, which are fried, but that was a long time ago and a very different type of cookie. Those seemed fairly foolproof, but these looked like they were going to be trouble.

I was reading the Q & A for this recipe on the Tuesdays with Dorie site and one blogger said she was going to brush the dough with oil and bake them instead of frying. I thought I would give that a try and it worked out quite well. I rolled the dough as thin as I could and they did get fairly crispy in the oven. I’m sure it wasn’t the same as frying, but I was pleased with the easy of the alternative method. I think I would cut them smaller, as mine seem really big. Maybe they shrink up some when you fry them. I shook them in a bag of powdered sugar when they were warm and they are pretty tasty! They are kind of like baked tortillas or leftover baked pastry. Overall, they were a very different type of cookie and I’m glad that I tried them.

Recipe from Baking from My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, pages 157-159