Recent news, and saltcakes

[ashnistrike]

I'm neck deep in terrifying Deep Roots edits, but wanted to share a couple of posts elsewhere:

I joined Fran Wilde and Aliette de Bodard for the latest episode of Cooking the Books. Also on their site: the long-awaited honeyed saltcake recipe! 

Petra Mayer interviewed me for the NPR Books blog. I may have squeed a little, because NPR.

Comments

[heron61]

The honeyed salt cakes were interesting and odd but good. Of course with my household of numerous food allergies (dairy for me, gluten for one partner, sunflower seeds for the other - at least none of our current set of cats have any), I made one set with standard flour and the other with my usual mixture of 2/3 America's Test Kitchen GF flour blend & 1/3 almond flour.

The gluten containing ones were good (if salty, and when I make them again, I'll omit the salt sprinkled on top), but attempts to make individual cookies failed utterly, and they melded into a somewhat shapeless mass that cut nicely into bar cookies.

The GF ones adhered to the pan moderately firmly, and became a single bar cookie that completely filled their pan.

They were quite easy to make, and I did have much fun bringing a pan of each to my partners with the cry of "Deep One cookies!"

The one downside was the necessity of having to drink a truly impressive amount of water afterwards.

[ashnistrike]

Thank you for the report! I'll have to ask Nora whether she has alternate gluten-free suggestions.

I had one batch out of the last round do the melding thing, though they didn't progress all the way to the bar cookie stage. More experimentation needed to figure out why this happens and whether there's anything to be done about it. Tasty experimentation.

Neko Koto, not nearly as fond of salt as her adoptive sister, recommends teaspoons of salt in the cookies in place of tablespoons for those who share her preferences.

[heron61]

I tried another batch, and found out why my first batch spread out so much - when making them, I microwaved the butter until it was pretty soft and also microwaved the honey until it was warm, so it would pour easier - this time I just barely softened the butter and left the honey alone, and the result was soft cakey cookies that were utterly delicious (I used 1.5 tsp of salt, and spinkled less on top). My partners are a bit less enthused, but now I have a new regular snack.

[eagleoftheninth]

Woooo! Just found this!

I am DEFINITELY gonna make these. Hey, question; Aphra mentioned using a bit of rendered chicken fat. I don't think I could get that, but I can get beef or pork dripping; any ideas on whether those could be incorporated? And if so, how?

[ashnistrike]

I didn't actually try the chicken fat version--Aphra is fonder of cooking with schmaltz than I am, and I have a vegetarian householdmate. But I think you could probably replace part of the butter with any sort of animal fat, cool enough to be about the texture of softened butter. Bacon drippings might be extremely tasty. Let me know how it goes!

[eagleoftheninth]

About the texture of softened butter...Pork dripping would probably work best then. Beef dripping is a good deal harder and doesn't seem to soften well-don't ask me why but it just goes from solid to liquid without reaching 'spreadable goo'.

Also I have to say I think Aphra is probably in the right here, even without trying the recipe. A bit of meat fat makes everything better. :D

[eagleoftheninth]

I finally got around to making these!

I made the proper Deep One version and found that amount of salt very good indeed, though you'd want a drink on the side. I didn't use schmaltz in the end because my co-cook doesn't eat meat.

They turned out slightly burned, but we think that was due to a temperamental aging oven. They were very good regardless if you ate around the burnt bits. For the salt topping I found fleur-de-sel mixed with dried seaweed at a specialist spice retailer's.

The recipe amounts given didn't yield 21 cookies though. I got 12 on my baking sheet plus about one or two cookies' worth more of leftover batter.

[ashnistrike]

Glad to hear they worked out. Seaweed, what a good idea!

[eagleoftheninth]

When I saw the fleur-de-sel-with-seaweed in the shop I was like 'This may not be in the letter of the recipe but I think it is true to the spirit of it.'

I plan on making the other two recipes now they've been released too; for the boiled potatoes I plan to take Neko's suggestion and double the apples but otherwise cleave to the recipe exactly, but I am afraid I am considering amendments to the holiday fish stew. I'd want it spicier, sweeter and less strongly fishy. I hope Aphra will not be too badly offended if I bring (part of) my own heritage into the kitchen and make beelines for garam masala and tamarind paste.