SC - OOP: Yule loot and goodies

[Gerekr at aol.com]

Got Scully Viandier and Vivendier in one package; the new Bridget Henisch 
book in another (Medieval Calendar year). 

Christmas day was standard Turkey-&-etc.  Not much fancy cooking this 
year:  Found my "good" peanut brittle recipe, again, and made a batch for 
my husband.  

Our "Christmas food indulgences" are simple -- a tray of nuts in shell, 
pretzels, fortune cookies that we try to make last thru the 25th, 8-).  
Dried fruit and chocolate in stockings.  The dried sweetened cranberries 
are really nice; got one of those orange-flavored chocolate "oranges" 
this year -- stores here (Oregon) had the dark chocolate versions of 
orange and both milk and dark chocolate with raspberry flavoring this 
year.  The dark choc. orange was very nice.

Tried a new cookie from the local-cook-profile column in the paper:  the 
"cookie-queen" lady emigrated at 14 with her family from Fallin, 
Stirlingshire, Scotland and "learned to bake from her mother".  The 
"Gypsy Cremes" were described as one of her most traditional recipes ; no 
idea what the actual vintage of this is ; they're quite rich, but not 
overly sweet.  British style, several of the measures are by weight.

Gypsy Cremes

For the cookies:
6 ounces margarine*,**
4 ounces granulated sugar
2 TBS maple syrup
2 TBS powdered cocoa
8 ounces all-purpose flour***
4 ounces oatmeal****
1 tsp baking soda
2 TBS hot water

For the filling:
1 package (8 oz.) cream cheese
1 cup (approx.) powdered sugar
1/4 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 tsp vanilla

*original British recipe calls for 3 ounces margarine and 3 ounces lard
**I used butter, regular salted style 
***the original recipe calls for self-rising flour, which the cook in the 
article does not use; to make self-rising flour, the local extension 
agent says add 3 tsp baking powder and 1 tsp salt to 2 cups all-purpose 
flour.
****anybody got any ideas what I could substitue for this?  except not 
chopped nuts.  my picky 8-yr old was furious when he found out there was 
oatmeal spoiling a perfectly good chocolate cookie, 8-).

To make cookies, cream together margarine and sugar.  Add maple syrup.  
Sift in cocoa and flour.  Mix in oats.  Dissolve baking soda in hot water 
and add to mixture.

Flour your hands and use them to roll spoonfuls of dough into half-dollar 
size balls.  Place balls on cookie sheet and flatten into rounds. 
[Chimene here... I've only done one batch, but! -- I think the flattened 
rounds should be the size of half-dollars, not the balls!  Balls the 
circumference of a half-dollar make a flattened round almost 2 inches 
across... MUCH too big for such a rich item, IMHO.  (Explains why there 
seemed to be so much filling, too, if I came out with fewer, larger 
cookies)  Also, experiment with flattening -- a finished thickness of 
about 1/4 inch would be optimum, much of my first batch was thicker.  If 
I could find something the right size to cut with, I might even consider 
rolling this dough out and cutting rounds...]

Bake 15 minutes at 350 degrees.  Remove and place cookies on wire rack to 
cool.  [I don't know how long I cooked these til done.  With my oven I 
usually start at 8 or 9 minutes, and extend 2 minutes at a time.  They're 
crispy when done.]

To make the filling, mix together the cream cheese, sugar, butter and 
vanilla.

Sandwich the filling between two cookies and dust the top of each filled 
cookie with powdered sugar.

[The cookies soften up after an overnight with the filling in.  In their 
just-baked-crispy stage, they crumble all over the place with a bite!  
They kept at least a week quite nicely in a tin.]

The text of the whole article and several other recipes (Empire biscuits, 
Scottish shortbread, Walnut frosties, Foolproof chocolate fudge) can be 
found at the newspaper's website at 
www.registerguard.com/refers/recipes.html -- I don't know for how long.

Enjoy and have a safe New Year,
Chimene in AnTir