wabi wabi

I must to confess to a crisis of nomenclature: “biscuit” or “cookie”?

As an Australian, I feel deeply traitorous to my British roots every time I utter the word “cookie” instead of our more traditional “biscuit” for any of those small, sweet baked confections. My inner linguist wonders why we so particularly resent our language being colonised by Americanisms when we readily accept designations from almost any other tongue, but I do find myself innately resistant to Zs instead of Ss and the use of, say, “diaper” when good, old (quaint) “nappy” will do any day.

But “cookie” is such a nice word. Cookie is evocative of warm kitchens and glasses of milk and little hands shaping rounds of sticky, spicy dough.

I draw an admittedly idiosyncratic line in my head to discern between cookies and what can only be called biscuits. I reason that any recipe appearing in a copy of a Country Women’s Association cookbook — or anything manufactured by Arnott’s — should indeed be called a biscuit. An Anzac biscuit must always be a biscuit. The same goes for a Tim Tam or an Iced Vovo.

But anything else? Fair game.

These brownie roll-out cookies — one of Deb Perelman’s family recipes — can easily be admitted into the canon of cookies. They are a delightful contrivance: neither crisp nor chewy like most other plain biscuits or cookies, but tender, pillowy, and intensely chocolate-y. As Deb herself notes “the cocoa is not an afterthought”: there’s a whole 3/4-cup-measure of the stuff in the dough, which is, now that we mention it, lovely to work with on a lightly floured bench top and rolling pin.

Heidi and I followed the original recipe more or less exactly, just substituting xylitol for the sugar — and a half-cup less at that. (These are toothsome enough, I feel, with a scant cup of sweetener.)

We produced more than 24 cookies with a large, fluted cutter. Some were eaten still warm from the oven; others were left overnight to eat with ice cream the next day: they were wonderful either way. I say “were” because they are tragically all gone.

If at all possible, I am even more excited to tell you about the little batch of coffee liqueur ice cream that we made with cookie sandwiches in mind. I consider it slightly fortuitous for me that Heidi — despite enjoying the aroma of coffee — doesn’t like to drink or eat coffee: I didn’t feel obliged to share more than a spoonful of this gorgeous frozen affair.

On Saturday, having been engrossed midway through Stehpanie’s Journal, I was also somewhat beset by the idea of a coffee ice cream after reading about a signature semifreddo on page 186 with crushed amaretti and lashings of caramel. Aside from the wonderful images of dusky-coloured cream that the recipe conjured, it was the note about the custard never setting very hard that piqued me most, and I decided to try to make a small quantity of ice cream based on the technique and using a similar ratio of ingredients.

Stupidly, I was concerned once it had churned that the ice cream machine had only succeeded in thickening the cooled custard to a “half-melted soft-serve” consistency; however, several hours in the deep-freeze firmed it to perfection. I am no cook, chef, or food technician, so I am unsure if it’s the addition of eggs or liqueur or something else entirely that guarantees the silken texture, but I will be making another batch very soon. I caught my mother on several occasions sneaking spoonfuls from the freezer. She even smooshed a tablespoon of the stuff onto hot fruit toast at brunch on Sunday, claiming it to be some sort of gourmet waffle. It’s beautiful on its own; squeezed between two chocolate brownie cookies, it’s also quite, quite edible.

coffee liqueur ice cream with salutations to stephanie’s

The ingredients below yield approximately half a litre of ice cream. This is a good thing if you are worried about getting carried away and eating the lot of it in the space of a day, but it’s disappointing when the empty tub arrives so soon in the kitchen sink. I think that you could easily double the mixture if your ice cream machine could handle that amount. Alternatively, you may not need to churn it at all. Perhaps I shall try this next time.

3 large egg yolks
1 t pure vanilla extract
60 mL full cream milk (3 metric tablespoons; 4 American tablespoons)
60 mL strongly brewed coffee
40 mL Irish Cream or other coffee liqueur
1/3 cup sugar (we used xyitol — it goes without saying these days)
300 mL pure cream, cold from the refrigerator

In a large mixing bowl, use electric beaters to beat the yolks and vanilla extract until pale, thick, and tripled in volume.

Then, in a small heavy-bottomed saucepan, combine the milk, coffee, liqueur, and sugar. Place over a medium flame and whisk gently and constantly until the mixture simmers. Working quickly, run the electric beaters in the egg yolks and tip in the hot milk mixture in a constant, small trickle. Do not worry about the eggs curdling: trust Stephanie Alexander and continue to beat this frothy custard until cool — about five or so minutes. Pour in the cream and beat again until thick and thoroughly combined.

Now, we poured this custard into a ready-and-rearing ice-cream machine. Once it had churned, we transferred it to a plastic container with lid and froze it for a further three hours. This worked really well.

In her recipe for the semifreddo, Stephanie does not include instructions for churning the custard in a machine. Next time I make it, I will try this method to compare textures and report back.

Makes approx 500 mL.