Double Caramel Cookies

Happy 4th Advent! Today we light the fourth candle and counting down to the big holiday!
Christmas means good things to me and one good thing I really craving for during this time of year is caramel cookies. I remember this type of cookie from my grandmother on my fathers side who baked them around Christmas. Unfortunately I can't find the original recipe that she used but I made the conclusion that she probably used a shortcrust pastry and a classic caramel cream. So I took a chance and I think I nailed it! I almost always search in my "Sju sorters kakor" recipe book to (translated "Seven cakes and cookies" - a classic Swedish home baking book). Here you can find the Swedish version at Adlibris online book store. I also found on Adlibris homepage the English version Here
I used the shortcrust pastry ingredients from "Chess-cookies" from an earlier post :)

 

Double Caramel Cookies (approximately 70 cookies)

Shortcrust pastry
1 deciliter sugar
200 grams butter/margarine
4 1/2 - 5 deciliter flour
2 teaspoon vanilla powder

Caramel cream
2 1/2 deciliter cream
1 deciliter sugar
1/2 deciliter syrup
50 grams butter/magarine
1 teaspoon cocoa

Put the oven to 175 Celcius if you have a convection oven and 200 Celcius if you use an ordinary oven.
Mix all the ingredients for the shortcrust pastry and work fast with your hands and fingers to make a pastry that hold together but is not sticky.
Divide the pastry into four parts and roll each part into a roll with a diameter of 2 cm.
Lay the rolls on a plate and let them get cool in the refrigerator while you prepare the oven plates and cover them with baking paper.
Cut each roll in about 0,8 cm slices and lay them on the baking paper. The cookies will not flow out so much when you bake them so you can position them with a 2 cm distance. 
Bake the cookies in the middle of the oven for about 8 minutes, but since all ovens are different the time can differ but I would say that you should not wait longer than 10 minutes.

Now to the caramel cream. Mix all the ingredients in a heavy saucepan (strain the cocoa in a sieve to avoid lumps) and let the mixture reach the boiling temperature.
Lower the temperature and let the mixture simmer for 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. Do the "caramel-test" by let a drop of caramel fall into a glass of cold water - if the caramel drop gets hard and doesn't dissolve in the water the caramel is ready.

Let the caramel cool down and then use a snall spoon to spread little caramel on the downside of a cookie. Then put an other cookie on top and push the cookies together so the caramel squeezes out to the sides. 

Tip: When the cookies are cooled down and ready, restore them in the fridge. When it is time to serve, just put them out in room temperature for 10-15 minutes and they are ready to eat.


Happy baking!

Chess Pattern Cookies

Chess is a difficult boardgame. I have always wanted to be good at it but I haven't really given it a good try, and I know I don't have the patience for it. Well, maybe chess is one of those things I just should let be undone and focus on other things I know I am good at :) Baking for example...!
This time I baked chess pattern cookies, and even though I can't understand the chess game, I understand these little darlings and their lovely taste.
I usually prefer to drink tea instead of coffee, but this time I tried coffee with these cookies and I must say the flavors of the two fit together nicely. Yum yum!

Chess Pattern Cookies (50 pieces)

4 1/2 deciliter flour
1 deciliter white sugar
200 grams margarine or butter
2 teaspoons vanilla sugar
2 tablespoons cocoa

Warm the oven to 200 Celcius.
Mix flour, sugar and margarine in a bowl with your fingertips and form a dough.
Divide the dough in two.
Mix one part with vanilla sugar and the other one with cocoa in two different bowls.
Divide each part in two so now you have two pices vanilla dough and two pieces cocoa dough.
Make all four parts to four rolls, about 20 centimeters long.
Lay one cocoa roll next to one vanilla roll and use your fingers to lightly pull them together.
Put the next two rolls on top of the two first rolls, so now when you look from the short side of the roll package you will see them forming chess squares.
Cut into 4 mm thick slices and put them on oven plates covered with baking paper.
Bake in the middle of the oven for about 10 minutes.