This week's Tuesday's with Dorie recipe is Cafe Volcano Cookies. These cookies were chosen by MacDuff and you can find the recipe by going to her blog, The Lonely Sidecar.
What is a Cafe Volcano Cookie? Well, that is a really good question. I guess it is a nut mixture/meringue, although when I was making these I really believed they would not turn into anything edible.
This is the easiest cookie ever.
You toast some nuts. I used sliced almonds and chopped pecans.
Once those are toasted you combine them in a saucepan with egg whites and sugar. And in my case cinnamon, because I don't drink or use coffee and so there is no espresso powder in my house and there never will be.
You let the ingredients get warm and then you drop that syrupy/nutty/sugary mixture onto a baking sheet covered with parchment.
At this point, I figured I had done something wrong because it looked like I was just dropping blobs of wet nuts on my baking sheet. Which is what I was doing.
But, I had followed the recipe, so I popped them in the oven and waited for some miracle.
They did puff a little and turned into a cookie shape, so I figured that must be what they were supposed to look like.
I tried a piece of one and they tasted like spiced nuts.
I sent these along with the other Christmas goodies I made in the mail to my family members in different states.
One of my sisters said these were one of the best cookies of the bunch.
Go check out the TWD Blogroll to see what other bakers thought of this weeks recipe!
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
TWD- Cafe Volcano Cookies
Posted by Mary Ann at 8:34 AM
Labels: almonds, cinnamon, Dorie Greenspan, egg whites, meringue, nuts, pecans, Tuesdays with Dorie
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13 comments:
We loved them, too! Next time I am going to try the almonds and pecans version as that sounds even better, and these were plenty good. Matt thought they tasted like Kettle Corn that you get in those big bags at the fair...they did sort of! Happy to see ours looked alike as I was a little worried.
Mine went completely awry but still turned into something tasty. One day I'll make the cookies.
Yours look beautiful. Love the festive plate!
These look perfect for Holiday baskets!
Yours look so perfect on their holiday plate!
I am baking a second round of these today and using cocoa powder instead of the espresso powder. Can't wait till they come out of the oven! Yours look great!
Wow, the best of the bunch, that's high praise. I had the same reaction as you did when I was mounding the nut mixture on my cookie sheets.
Ooh...a cinnamon version sounds wonderful. They were a big hit here.
Plate is too cute for words. So are those cookies! YUM!
And so glad you liked these. I ended up making ginger cookies instead.
Wow, great that your sister enjoyed them so much. I didn't love them, but I did think they were really fun to make. It did seem so improbable that the lump of wet nuts could be transformed into something cookie-like. I love baking.
These weren't a big hit here but I am glad I tried them just to experiment with such an interesting recipe. It sounds like your family loved them! Love your plate - so festive over here on your blog :)
what a cute picture--love the plate! these were surprisingly good little nut puffs!!
I like the description of them as "nut puffs" - totally true! Crispy spiced nuts, and totally delicious.
I love the Christmas tree platter. =) I'm definitely going to have to try these cookies at some point.
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