Leena’s Finnish Slice Cookies

It’s been an emotional time for me at work, as my close friend and colleague is retiring. We have worked together almost since I started at the college, so we have known each other for a long time. I understand that it’s time to retire, and she talks of all the things that she hopes to do now that she’ll have time, but I will still miss her!

Part of her heritage is a connection to Finland, and when I saw these Finnish Slice Cookies, I knew that they would be perfect. It’s not often that you find a Finnish recipe, and this one described Leena making these cookies, which was lovely. Leena would make these and serve them with afternoon coffee, which sounded fantastic.

These are a form of butter cookie but have two uncommon ingredients. The first is vanilla sugar, which isn’t hard to find if you keep your eyes open. You could also use vanilla extract. The other the Tumma Siirappi, which translates to “dark syrup.” It isn’t dark corn syrup, and I couldn’t find this in a store. The recipe said it tasted like a combination of honey, molasses, and Golden Syrup, and I had all of those so that is what I used. You bake these in a log like biscotti and then slice them, but they remain soft since they are only baked once. These cookies are very buttery, and the flavors mingle from day to day. I will miss you Paula, but I hope you have some great adventures!

Leena’s Finnish Slice Cookies
1 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla sugar (or extract)
1 egg yolk
2 Tablespoons Tumma Siirappi*
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
½ teaspoon salt

In a large mixer bowl, beat the butter, sugar and vanilla sugar on medium until light. Add the egg yolk and Tumma Siirappi and stir to combine. With the mixer running on low, gradually add the flour, baking soda, and salt. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and chill about 20 minutes, until easy to handle.

Heat the oven to 375 degrees. Line 2 baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

Divide the dough into 6 equal parts. Roll each part into a log about 9” long and 2” wide. Place the logs in the prepared baking sheets, placing three logs per sheet. The cookies spread so make sure they have room.

Bake for about 12 minutes, until golden brown. Remove from the oven and reshape if needed. I used a small metal spatula to separate the logs after baking. Allow to cool for 5 minutes.

Once the cookies are slightly cooled, cut into diagonal slices with a sharp knife. Transfer the cookies slices to a wire rack to cool completely.

*Tumma Siirappi is a dark syrup from Finland. It can also be called Mörk Sirap or Mørk Syrap. You can find this online or in a specialty store. It tastes like a combination of honey, molasses, and Golden Syrup, which is what I used.

Recipe from The Culinary Cellar

Butterbeer Cookies

These cookies come from the Harry Potter books, and that’s such a fun world! As a librarian, I love anything that will get people to read, and I think that the Harry Potter series has done so much to get kids reading again. My husband and I have visited Universal Studios in Florida and California where they have a replica of the world of Harry Potter, and it’s such a fantastic world. We also visited the studios outside of London where the films were made, and that was so very cool. So yeah, I guess I am a fan.

I had the frozen butterbeer when I was visiting Universal, which was really tasty. It’s kind of a butterscotch flavor, with clear vanilla and toffee notes. The frozen butterbeer has vanilla ice cream, and I was in Florida, which was extra nice. I have seen several recipes for butterbeer cookies and this one looked nice and simple, and I figured it would be good since we are nearing Halloween.

These cookies use a butter-flavor cake mix for the base. It would be hard to replicate that flavor, so I went ahead and used the cake mix rather than starting from scratch. It’s ok to use a shortcut once in a while! These use butterscotch chips and toffee bits to recreate the butterbeer flavor, and vanilla coffee creamer for the vanilla notes. This dough is very soft, but they bake up into a nice cakey cookie. Don’t fret that they are pale when they come out of the oven. These are so tasty and I love how all the flavors come together.

Butterbeer Cookies

1 butter-flavor cake mix

2 eggs

1/2 cup oil

2 tablespoons water

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup butterscotch chips

1/2 cup toffee bits

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla

2 tablespoons French vanilla coffee creamer

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line two baking sheets with silicone baking mats.

In a large mixer bowl, combine the cake mix, eggs, oil, water, cinnamon, butterscotch chips and toffee bits. Mix on low until the dough comes together and is shiny. The dough will be very soft. Scoop the dough onto the prepared baking sheets using a 1 tablespoon scoop.

Bake for 10-11 minutes, until set. The cookies will be soft and pale but will firm up as they cool. Cool on the baking sheets for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.

Once the cookies are cool, make the glaze. In a medium bowl whisk together the powdered sugar, vanilla and coffee creamer. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled cookies.

                                        

Recipe from Just a Pinch

Brown Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is for Browned Butter and Vanilla Bean Weekend Cake. That’s really a long title for what is a fairly simple cake. I had looked at making this cake a couple of weeks ago, when I realized that it requires ingredients that I already had on hand. I ended up making it over the weekend (how appropriate!) and I took it to work to help celebrate January birthdays at work. You can check out how the other Tuesdays with Dorie bakers fared with this week’s recipe by visiting the Tuesdays with Dorie site. 

This cake is a simple butter cake, where you brown the butter before adding to the batter. I’ve browned butter a couple of times and it’s true, it is just a matter of seconds between browned butter and burnt butter. I learned the hard way before, so now I am very careful when browning butter. I did use a vanilla bean since I had one on hand. Somehow scraping the seeds out of a vanilla bean looks a lot easier on tv than it is in real life. 

This cake baked up very nicely, although it was just a touch under baked in the very center. It looked lovely. You almost got to see a picture of the lovely cake in the pan, because I just couldn’t get the cake out of the pan! I had buttered and floured the pan, but I guess not enough because it was thoroughly stuck to the bottom. I ended up cutting the cake in half, removing half of the cake and then I was able to get half of the cake out of the pan cleaning. Not a total loss. The flavors in this cake aren't extravagant, but I really like the cake. Next time, I will line the cake pan with parchment.

Recipe from Baking Chez Moi by Dorie Greenspan, page 6

Vanilla Pound Cake

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe is Vanilla Pound Cake. I was thrilled then this recipe was selected as pound cakes were one of the first cakes that I ever made, and I’ve had good luck with them from the very beginning. I almost didn’t make this cake as it’s been so warm and my house is so hot that I haven’t really felt like baking. When it is 81 degrees in the house at 9 am, I don’t really want to turn on the oven! I got home about noon on Monday and looked at the recipe. I really wanted to make this and I had all the ingredients, so I decided I would bake it. The house didn’t seem quite so hot at the time, which helped.

This cake is very classic and you can find the recipe with a quick Google search. It doesn’t use any unusual ingredients; just staples like butter, flour, sugar, and vanilla. I had some vanilla-infused sugar that I had planned to use, but I forgot to grab that rather than the regular sugar. I did use the tube pan as the recipe recommended; I don’t use it very often so it was nice to use something different. Mine baked up very nicely and came out of the pan beautifully.

I really like this cake. The crumb texture is very delicate, so the cake is nice and light. Even though the cake doesn’t have a lot of fancy ingredients, it’s still wonderful. A piece of the cake by itself was delicious, but I also will use the cake as the base for strawberry shortcake. This cake lends itself to variations, so make sure you check out the Tuesdays with Dorie site to see what the other TWD bakers did with this recipe.

Recipe from Baking with Julia by Dorie Greenspan, pages 251-252