Beer and Cookies

Sometimes in life you get lucky and things just work out. This happened to me recently when my homebrewed witbier became ready to consume and Craftbeer.com posted a recipe by We Are Not Martha for fantastic looking white beer cookies. Perfect timing! I couldn’t wait to suit up in my apron and try this recipe out. I thought it would be the prefect way to send out the beer to friends. Who doesn’t want a box full of beer and cookies? Move over milk, we’ve got a new after work snack! Here is my real time account of making the cookies:

I opened and poured 2 of my White Rabbit ales into a pot and added the honey. I am surprised by home much honey you add (5 tablespoons). It seems like a lot, but  I guess the more sugar the better? The stove has been turned on, my beer is reducing, and the house smells great. It was pretty painful pouring 2 bottles of my beautiful White Rabbit into the pot instead of drinking it, but hopefully the end result will be worth it!

I’m pretty impatient, so while the beer’s reducing, I’ve started to make the rest of the batter. First up: creaming the butter and sugar. The beer is at about 1 cup still, so I just turned up the heat a bit. It’s been almost an hour….Road block! I just realized my boyfriend ate the orange I need for the recipe. Looks like someone will be taking the dog on a walk to the grocery store.  I also just noticed we only have almond extract (recipe calls for vanilla), but I think that the almond will actually taste nice, so I’m sticking with it. Guess I should start taking inventory of my kitchen before embarking on baking projects.

Alright, we are back on track! Beer has reduced and Yoshi the dog has returned from the store with my orange. I just blended the wet ingredient mixture into the dry. At first it seems like it’s going to be too dry and I start second guessing myself. Did I forget something??? I am a cook, not a baker, so this is very possible. But, I keep at it and it comes together. The dough is a bit sticky. I am very curious to see how these turn out.

I just dropped the cookies onto the baking sheet (they’re quite soft) and in the oven they go! The timer has been set and cleaning has begun.

The first batch just came out of the oven. They took about 16 minutes. The bottoms look a little darker than I would like, so I move the oven shelf up one notch for the second batch. Overall though, I am really pleased with how they look. They are fluffy and smell amazing. The second batch has just gone in. I had enough batter for exactly 24 cookies. I can already tell that isn’t going to be enough.

I just pulled out the second batch and they look perfect! Now, time to cool and then on to the icing. I am now a little bummed that I don’t have any vanilla extract for the icing. I think that would work better than the almond. Oh well! I made my icing a bit runnier than the recipe recommends, using almost the entire 2 tablespoons of milk/oj mixture. I also added the orange zest directly to the icing. I just slapped it on the cookies and they look great.

Alright, moment of truth. I just tried one of the cookies and they are everything I could have hoped for. They have a crispy edge, but are soft in the middle. Not too sweet and the orange flavor is just right. You can’t taste the beer, which isn’t surprising, but just knowing it’s in there makes them taste that much better. The almond extract is a bit strong in the icing, but doesn’t detract from the cookie enough to worry about it. Success! Beer and cookies are a great combo. Thanks for the lovely recipe We Are Not Martha and Craftbeer.com. I highly recommend it!

Cheers.

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