This is my second cookie box sale. They were made for Valentine. The cookie sale idea was inspired by the Japanese pastry chef Tsuda Yoko's French pastry recipe book. She is famous for her flore cake rolls and tarts.
So far, I have tried all the cookie recipes in her book with some adjustment. Each one turned out to be amazing. Some of my friends and Taichi friends may have tried all of them. The first batch was made for my taichi Sifu and friends as a New Year presents. There are galette pecan, almond cookies, cheese stick and chocolate sablé (recipe from Jacque Génin). For the Lunar new year cookie box, I kept the cheese stick and chocolate sablé. I added almond tile and orange marmalade cookies. Both turned out to be many people's favorites.
Then Yan was asking me about vegetarian cookie which is a cookie with no egg. That’s how I found and made truffle. Later, I used vanilla bean instead of vanilla extract and fleur de sel to improve the taste and just coated with very little icing sugar. It is the first new item for Valentin cookies. I continue to explore the black sesame cookies and marble cookies. Black sesame cookie has 2 millimeter thickness, which makes it extra crispy and melty. You may get some 3 millimeters and 1 millimeter. It takes practice to cut each piece thin and evenly. I used concentrate milk and Valrhona chocolate for marble cookies.
My neighbor Paul gave me a bottle of Mount Gay back barrel rum because I was asking him for rum advice and he sells liquor. So the rum was used in the new cheese stick. It is much more aromatic than Bacarti rum I used before. I imagine how it plays in baba au rhum, king cake and other pastries with rum…
For all cookies, I used organic dairy, pasture raised eggs and cut the sugar amount to half or 60% according to taste. Health with low sugar intake is my top concern when making pastries. Then it should taste good and look good. I had my kid taste all the cookies. If he likes it, it turned out that everyone else likes it. That's the cookie you can give to you kids because I give it to mine and I care about him.
Black sesame
Marble
Truffle
Cheese stick
Rum