Berry-Sage Thumbprints

Yesterday, along with my regular baking, I baked two extra sweet treats for a women’s event for 45.

I made Dried Cherry Scones with chocolate chips and white chips. After mixing the dough, I made a rectangular log and made cuts in it straight across. Then I cut three mini scones from each of the cuts. I ended up with 54 mini scones.

I placed the scones on a cookie sheet and sprinkled each with sanding sugar. I placed the sheet trays in the Walk In refrigerator to get firm. I pulled them out and baked them. When the scones cooled down, I made vanilla icing, thinned it out, and I drizzled each scone with it. I’ll be honest, I was starving and grabbed one of the scones and sampled it. They were so good that I decided next week I would make full sized ones for the Erin's Deli.

I checked that job off and went to my next one. I needed to make 6 dozen Berry-Sage Thumbprint Cookies.  I tripled the recipe, mixed everything, and used the small ice cream scooper. I place a dozen of the dough balls on each cookie sheet. My next step was to use my knuckle to make an indent and then I put the blackberry preserves in a pastry bag, and filled each indent.

I placed the sheets in the Walk In and when I was ready, I baked them for 10 minutes and let them cool on the racks.

Unfortunately, one of the cookies had the preserves running over the indent.

Fortunately for me, I had to sample it. Yep, it was awesome from the tasty blackberry preserves, to the crunchiness of the cornmeal, and the freshness of the savory sage.

This recipe is easy to make and it is a keeper. The blackberry preserves, cornmeal and fresh savory are the secrets in the recipe!

Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies

My daughter’s downtown Deli has been open for almost five years. When Cinco de Mayo occurs she has an idea as how to celebrate both the day and her five year mark. Last year, I found two good recipes to use; Double Feature Cupcakes with Mexican Chocolate Frosting, and the other was Aaron Sanchez Mexican Brownies. The Mexican Brownies were a big hit and usually are available all year long at the Deli.

This year, I looked for another recipe for something special for Cinco de Mayo and found a delicious cookie recipe…Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies. I tried it out at home and made a double recipe of these cookies. Wow…they were delicious. I asked my friend, who is a cookie connoisseur to sample one of the cookies. She tasted it and said that it was the best cookie that she had ever tasted. Coming from her, I knew it was good. My daughter, the chef also tried it and decided that it was delicious and is going to use the recipe.

The recipe itself uses bittersweet chocolate, flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, salt, black pepper, chili powder, sugar, butter egg, vanilla extract, and honey. The secret to the cookies softness is adding a few chocolate chips to the center of the dough and rolling it into a ball, placing it on the cookie sheet, and baking.

The cookies need to bake at 350 degrees for 10 minutes, or until the appearance of the cookies change and the surface appears crackled. Remove from the oven and cool.

Powder sugar can be sprinkled on the top after the cookies cool. For the sample cookies, I used a gold sanding sugar. Instead, when I make the cookies for the Deli, I am going to use sanding sugar and sprinkling it on the cookies before I bake them.

These cookies are soft and chewy and the chocolate chips in the center of the cookie make it taste even better.

If you are around Erin’s Deli on Cinco de Mayo, stop in for a free Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookie…it’s on the house!