Monday, May 08, 2006

Mondays with Maida - Wienerstube Cookies


Page 128 in the old book / page 166 in the new book

Zarah and Martin left Friday morning and are now somewhere between here and San Francisco. We had a really wonderful visit capped by a meet-up with several illustrious food bloggers in NYC: Julie, Jen and Luisa. More about all that later - I promise - but first I have a very belated Mondays with Maida post to see to...

These rather plain looking cookies are quite good. They are made with cocoa, lots of butter, and a number of spices: cinnamon, allspice, black pepper, and a pinch of cayenne. With all that spice, I expected them to be spicy hot, but instead found they had a pleasant warmth which complemented the chocolate nicely.

I sliced them slightly too thick - reducing the number of cookies in the batch, but also affecting their texture. I think they should have been crunchy through and through, but instead they were crunchy on the edges only. Even so, I had no complaints about the texture, nor did anyone else.

As Terri suggests, these would be very good with ice cream... in fact I was thinking they would make nice little ice cream sandwiches (maybe strawberry?) Herman is filling in for Suzanne this week in his cookie review debut...

Herman: "...rich, chocolaty... 4/5 only because I like nuts!! Rating - 4.0"

Denny: "Very nice. Chocolaty and not too much spice. I heard the spice before I tasted them and I thought they might be strange, but they are very good. Rating - 4.0"

Laura: "Moist and chocolaty, with just a hint of spice. Very nice! Rating - 4.0"

Terri: "These chocolate "spice" cookies are delicious and light. Not too chocolaty and not too spicy! These would be delicious with vanilla ice cream. (That's OK Cathy, we don't expect that too!) Rating - 3.5"

Overall rating by the panel - 3.9

Next week - Maxines

Nutrition Facts

4 comments:

Nupur said...

Those look so nice and chocolatey! I love the idea of making tiny ice-cream sandwiches with them...how cute would that be?

Cathy said...

Hi Nupur! I agree - with their diminutive size and squarish shape, they would be very cute!

Rosa said...

Your pictures are always so pretty, doesn't really matter how they taste! Oh and ice cream sand, marvelous idea!
How's the weaving? Been thinking about that dish towel!!

Cathy said...

Hi Rose! Oh you're so sweet to say that! I try hard with the photos, but I I'm starting to run out of ideas (and props), so you will probably begin seeing some familiar-looking photos!

Not much weaving or cooking happening here I'm afraid! I hope to change that very soon. It's just been so busy - first Zarah and Martin's visit, then Bob and Chuck and my neice's first communion, then a work project. Next Monday I'm getting windows replaced, so there'll be some chaos associated with that. But in the following couple of weekends I'm looking forward to weaving, cooking, reading, and relaxing... at least that's the plan!