Beetle Bakery is in Business - Part 1

So I got my first baking commission a few weeks ago! EXCITEMENT!! Given the fact that it's mother's day, and mother's day is generally associated not just with flowers but with cookies and general sweeties, I was engaged (that sounds so Victorian doesn't it? I love it.) to bake Mother's Day cookies.

SO LET THE BAKE-FEST BEGIN. 

I will say that I'm having one of those moments that I did when I worked at Rosie's Bakery in Boston during college, when after a day of inhaling sugar and chocolate, all I craved (and I mean REALLY craved) was salt and veggies. I remember ringing up one rather snooty lady and her asking me with only barely disguised hatred "How can you be so skinny working here I would eat everything." First, I was training for the Boston Marathon so really all I had to do was LOOK at food and I would burn it off, and second, it's amazing how unappetizing cookies seem when you have stared at them, smelt them, and shaped them on baking sheets all day long.

Mind you, I still thoroughly enjoyed the first moments of washing my hair this morning, when the combined smells of Finnish Housewife cookies, Peanut Butter cookies (SEE I TOLD YOU!), and Oatmeal Raisin cookies steamed up around me. It was delightful.

So tonight I'm considering having raw spinach leaves and a salt lick.

KIDDING.

But it's going to be something resembling that.

Now I know you all just want me to get to the cookies and the photos. So, dear reader, because I love you, here goes.

BEETLE BAKERY DAY 1
Finnish Housewife Cookies
Peanut Butter Cookies
Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

Finnish Housewife Cookies. Seriously don't you just want to jump  on a reindeer and ride  to the Arctic Circle? 

PROPER Peanut Butter Cookies. NOTE THE CROSSHATCH. THE COOKIES ARE CROSSHATCHED. 

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies. Duh. Process of elimination, and, you're not blind. 

NOW TO THE RECIPES

FINNISH HOUSEWIFE COOKIES (Kaneli Kardamomikkakut) 
This is from Beatrice Ojakangas and therefore amazing and should be made all the time. 

You will notice that the official name for these is above, and as it's in Finnish it is what a friend of mine refers to as "Elfish Forrest Tongue." It translates into " Cinnamon Cardamom Nuggets" but I call them Finnish Housewife cookies because there's a note in the cookbook that says "a true Finnish housewife always has a tin of these on hand in case company comes unexpectedly." Hence, Finnish housewife cookies. Plus, I just feel rustic and awesome and ready for anything when I make them. 

THIS is what the dough looks like. For serious.
Once you add the spices it's almost black.
And then you have to stop yourself shoving your head
in the mixing bowl.

INGREDIENTS
2 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
4 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp cardamom
2 1/2 sticks butter

Mix butter and sugar together. Sift together flour, cinnamon, and cardamom, and add to the wet ingredients. You may not need all the flour, if you want REALLY firm nuggets then go ahead and dump it in, otherwise, stop a bit before hand. 
Either form nuggets by hand or drop by spoonfuls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. They don't spread at all so you can squish them nice and close. 

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 minutes, more if you've made larger nuggets. 

Allow to cool completely before dusting in powdered sugar. I recommend 24 hours. If they are still warm when you coat them in powdered sugar it will just absorb and you'll be left with sticky cookies that just need to be re-dusted. Not that that's a bad thing, mind you, just a friendly note. 
Beatrice includes this crazy dough roll out thing where you pinch off 2-inch "nuggets" and my head started hurting when I read it the first time, so I just shape them by hand. And nobody seems to mind. 

When I left New York I had a stress baking week, and I decided on the spur of the moment that I was going to make cookie bags for everyone that came to my going away party. There were a lot of people. Guys, I made 300 cookies. 300 FINNISH HOUSEWIFE COOKIES. And then I wrapped them in two alternating layers of tissue paper and tied them with silver curling ribbon. 

What can I say. It's how I cope. 

Anyway, everyone loved them. And I sent many a recipe email the following days. This one is GOLDEN you guys. And so unusual that you always score bonus points. I won the cookie baking competition at my old job with these, and that thing was a BLOODBATH. 

Anyway, those are Finnish Housewife Cookies. 

More photos to follow once they are dusted. 

PEANUT BUTTER COOKIES
The recipe is the same one I used for the cookies-that-shall-remain-nameless except THIS TIME I used butter LIKE YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO DO and needless to say they're amazing. LESSON LEARNED YOU GUYS. 

BEETLE NOTES, THOUGH

This is what the dough looks like. I wasn't kidding. 

I made these, of course, with natural peanut butter. I will never ever EVER use commercial peanut butter because it's . . . how shall I put this . . . not peanut butter. It's partially hydrogenated vegetable oil with artificial peanut flavour. However, when you use natural peanut butter, the dough is not held together super stickily by the aforementioned oil. Therefore, it's REALLY crumbly. And the cookies that it makes are REALLY FLAKY. Again, not a bad thing. Just a note. 

Also, when you crosshatch them, be prepared that they might flake apart. If you are the kind of person who likes their cookies shortbready and crunchy and flaky, keep going. If you want a sticky, chewy peanut butter cookie, stop and look for something else. This ain't for you. 

I feel redeemed. LOOK AT THAT CROSSHATCHING. 

OATMEAL RAISIN COOKIES
From the Joy Of Cooking cookbook, linked to on food.com.

I always wish I could send smell over the internet.
I mean, give it a year Google will have figured it out,
but the smell of this dough is seriously one of the best things ever.

I made these because after I made the Peanut Butter ones. I realised that whilst my PB are delicious and perfect, they, by token of being flaky and awesome, do not ship well. These cookies are going to be mailed. And although I know several people who would be super happy to get a box of peanut butter crumbs that they then licked off parchment paper, that's not really the first impression I'm going for. So I tried to think what would ship well. Why, Oatmeal Raisin of course!

There aren't really any Beetle Notes here, it's a Joy of Cooking recipe which means it works a dream. And everyone likes Oatmeal Raisin. PLUS they ship without disintegrating. Triple threat.

SO dear reader, that was DAY 1. IT WAS EPIC AND I LOVED IT.

I made a plate of burnt/ugly ones for her to taste and she obligingly tested them all. Bless her. I put her through so much.

She also fully supported my idea of not sending the Peanut Butter.

I suspect that her motives are not entirely altruistic.

BEHOLD.

AND BEHOLD AGAIN.

COMING UP TOMORROW. 
BEETLE BAKERY DAY 2
Butter Cutout Cookies
Triple Chocolate Mudslide Cookies

Side note for posterity to end this: if you read my DRAMA post of a few days ago about the cat rescue, you will appreciate it when I say that due to the palm of my left hand being temporarily incapacitated, all of these were made almost one-handed. Or at the most one-and-a-half-handed.

Yeah. Warrior Beetle. That's me.