Recipes & Tips Blog

Moving right along in this month of cookie baking, Buttery Jam Cookies are on the menu for the 350 + baking bloggers that make up  Tuesdsays with Dorie. I actually got more pleasure from the title of these cookies than the cookies themselves. It’s not that they weren’t good; they just weren’t what my imagination generated when I read “Buttery Jam Cookies.” Expectations can be so tricky.

photo by David Peterman

I bet you have had a guilt-inducing ingredient lingering in your refrigerator at some point or another. In my refrigerator last week it was the pint of beautiful raspberry puree that I had thawed and used only a cup. Why I froze it all in a single large container baffles me, so now I needed to do something with it. Happily it occurred to me to make a nice jam by adding some cranberries, allspice, ginger, and pectin. With a fresh batch of raspberry cranberry jam now on hand, I knew what was going in the Buttery Jam Cookies, but a little voice in my head did wonder what sort of odd pink the cookies might become with this jam choice.

Much to my relief the dough was a very pretty pink once mixed, but unfortunately once baked, turned a subtle, but rather unfortunate purple-grey. I suspect this is due to the anthocyanin pigments in the raspberries which is the same pigment found in blueberries. Blueberries will turn pancake and muffin batter green if the batter is too alkaline, from too much baking soda, for example. These cookies use baking powder, which does contain baking soda,  but generally baking powder is the solution for preventing the green effect with blueberries, so there could have well been some other factor at work. Either way the cookies weren’t so pretty.

photo by David Peterman

With a texture very much like a slightly sweet biscuit, these cookies were just calling to be slathered in jam. Not only did the jam make them taste like a lovely breakfast biscuit, but it conveniently covered most of the dough. The jam topping separated a bit during baking, but a quick redistributing swipe with a knife once they came out of the oven fixed them right up. A dusting of powdered sugar was the final act of camouflage. They looked very holiday-appropriate by the time I finished.

I am not overly enthused by the end result, they tasted good, but I think having to do so much corrective work sort of spoiled it for me. The next time I have some apricot jam on hand I may just give these another try. Thank you to Heather of Randomosity and the Girl for selecting this week’s recipe; it inspired me to turn that raspberry puree into a lovely jam. You can find the cookie recipe on Heather’s post, or of course in Dorie Greenspan’s wonderful book Baking: From My Home to Yours.

I would share the jam recipe, but there isn’t one, I just sort of winged-it. If you keep reading I do have my Chewy and Slightly Gooey Chocolate Chunk Cookies posted below. I have been working on my dream chocolate chunk cookie for a long time and I have finally stopped tinkering with the recipe. I love these cookies. Go on, scroll down and take a look!