{"id":1812,"date":"2018-12-28T15:32:31","date_gmt":"2018-12-28T20:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/?p=1812"},"modified":"2018-12-28T16:40:51","modified_gmt":"2018-12-28T21:40:51","slug":"embossed-cookie-roller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/?p=1812","title":{"rendered":"Embossed Cookie Roller"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m a catalog window shopper. It started when I was little; my grandmother received a variety of catalogs but for some reason, I gravitated to Swiss Colony and (get this) Carolina Biological Supply. Yes, that’s right, my childhood reading included a heaping mix of attractively packaged sweets (the petit-fours in particular) and pickled frogs. It’s true.<\/p>\n

But anyway, that’s just the amusing beginnings of my habit of browsing catalogs. I get one from King Arthur Flour. I’m a reasonably intermediate baker, so I mostly skim it in search of inspiration, but the one thing I’ve always admired are the springerle cookies. Their crisp detail elevates them to miniature artworks – the best kind, because you can eat them.<\/p>\n

Now, until recently I had yet to conquer properly molded shortbread (I’m nearly there now, though.) And then these wonderful rolling pins arrived under my Christmas tree:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Hedgehog. Rolling. Pin.<\/p>\n

I also received foxes and owls, but everyone knows the hedgies score highest in the “Woo!” factor. Also, penguins.<\/p>\n

Anyway, I looked up a springerle recipe from KAF and proceeded. Using one of these pins requires arriving at the intersection of the following conditions:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Properly prepped pins. I sprayed mine with oil and then dusted lightly with flour. After the moon cake fiasco, I know better than to trust an untreated wooden mold.<\/li>\n
  2. Properly chilled dough. Too warm and it sticks. Too cold and it will be too stiff to roll.<\/li>\n
  3. Proper baking directions (more on that in a second.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n
  4. So I made the dough to spec and proceeded with baking. Round one:<\/li>\n
    \"Embossed
    Embossed Rolling Pin cookie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
  5. <\/li>\n
  6. Burned after 12 minutes, and not a good impression. Recipe baking time said 10-12 min, and I usually use the longer time on the first batch. Alterations: return dough to fridge to chill firmer, press harder on the roller next time, reduce baking time to 10 min.<\/li>\n
  7. Round 2:<\/li>\n
    \"Embossed
    Embossed Rolling Pin cookie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
  8. <\/li>\n
  9. Thinner cookies, a much better impression, but still burned at 10 minutes. Chill dough further, and reduce baking time again.<\/li>\n
  10. Round 3:<\/li>\n
    \"Embossed
    Embossed Rolling Pin cookie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
  11. <\/li>\n
  12. Success! Reduced baking time to 5 minutes (these are probably thinner than the KAF recipe intends) but they baked beautifully, and the dough took quite a good impression.<\/li>\n
  13. Here are the owls:<\/li>\n
    \"Embossed
    Embossed Rolling Pin cookie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
  14. <\/li>\n
  15. (Because they’re from Poland, they say Hoo! Hoo!)<\/li>\n
  16. And the foxes:<\/li>\n
    \"Embossed
    Embossed Rolling Pin cookie.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
  17. <\/li>\n
  18. I love this tool because I can press out a ton of impressively cute cookies with a minimum of effort. I may have to start collecting.<\/li>\n
  19. The recipe as written produces an okay cookie. It’s mechanically sound (bakes well once you get the conditions right), but I’d personally prefer something a little more like a speculoos cookie – crisper, a little sweeter, more spices. I’ll be monkeying with the recipe to see if I can achieve such a thing but presumably I don’t need to reinvent the wheel. But – woo! Or should I say, Hoo!<\/li>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    I’m a catalog window shopper. It started when I was little; my grandmother received a variety of catalogs but for<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wprm-recipe-roundup-name":"","wprm-recipe-roundup-description":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1812"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1831,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1812\/revisions\/1831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/practicalbits.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}