GRANDMA'S WALNUT HORNS
Source of Recipe
2009 1st ChgoTrib
Recipe Introduction
"This dough must be prepared at least six hours in advance of
baking," Grabowski said. "I usually make it the night before." She said doubling the recipe works fine and the cookies hold up well for a couple of weeks if frozen.
Recipe Link: http://articles.chicagotribune. com/2009- 12-02/entertainment/0911300154_1_holiday-cookie-contest-baking-pastry" List of Ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter -- (1 cup) softened
2 cups flour
3/4 cup sour cream
1 egg yolk -- beaten
1 cup each: light brown sugar -- ground walnuts
1 teaspoon cinnamon Confectioners' sugar -- optionalRecipe
1. Mix butter with flour in medium bowl by hand or with electric
mixer. Add sour cream to egg yolk; mix. Add to flour mixture; beat
until sticky dough forms. Divide dough into four sections; wrap
individually in plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least 6 hours.
2. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Mix brown sugar, walnuts and cinnamon in
a bowl. Take one section of dough from the refrigerator; sprinkle
flour on both sides of the dough. Roll the dough out on a lightly
floured surface to about 1/8 -inch thick. Spread a thin layer of
filling on the dough, almost to the edges. Cut the dough with a pizza
cutter into quarters; cut into 3 to 4 wedges per quarter.
3. Starting at the widest end, gently roll up each wedge like a
crescent roll. Place on greased, light-colored cookie sheets with the
tail end of the dough tucked under; bake 13-18 minutes per batch.
Cool; sprinkle with confectioners' sugar. Makes 64 cookies.
The magic of any holiday cookie, it seems, comes well before the bite.
It's the whirl of memory and story that fills the kitchen, fills your
heart, as soon as the creaky lid of the old, banged-up recipe box is
lifted. As soon as you scribble your grocery list, with all those
once-a-year ingredients. As soon as the first cloud of cookie-baking
heaven comes rising from the oven.
And so it was that the stories of more than 100 holiday cookies, all
entries in the Chicago Tribune 2009 Holiday Cookie Contest, enticed
us well before we got near the kitchen. We whittled down that often
heart-grabbing lot to a mere 12 finalists, not even a baker's dozen.
And on a crisp November day, the dozens of cookies poured into the
Tribune's test kitchen. We nibbled. We chewed. We pondered. We picked.
Oh, it's tough toil plucking cookies off of platters.
"I judged in terms of what you'd want to keep going back to," said
pastry chef Tyler MacAvoy, who works in the kitchen of Rick Bayless
and his triumvirate of Chicago restaurants, and who was invited as an
expert judge to put her educated palate to the task.
"Some were very good. I'd take one for Christmas and go back, and back."
In the end, the cookie we would go back to, time and again, was
Grandma's walnut horns, baked by Beth Grabowski of Arlington Heights.
Her secret weapon, she said with a laugh when we called to pop the
news, is her great-grandma' s rolling pin, carried over to America from Russia.
Grabowski, a retired lawyer who had never entered a baking contest,
said, "I have all these women standing behind me; I guess that's my
real secret."
In her prize-winning essay, she wrote: "Whenever I bake, I reminisce
about my grandmas. Their patience when teaching me ... and the faith
they had in me."
In our book, every last cookie is a winner. As long as it stirs a
story in your heart.
Nutrition information per cookie:
70 calories, 57% of calories from fat, 5 g fat, 2 g saturated fat,
12 mg cholesterol, 7 g carbohydrates, 1 g protein, 3 mg sodium, 0 g fiber
"1st Place: Beth Grabowski, Arlington Heights"
"http://articles.chicagotribune. com/2009- 12-02/entertainment/0911300154_1_holiday-cookie-contest- baking-pastry"
Copyright: "Chicago Tribune 2009 Holiday Cookie Contest * December 02, 2009 By Barbara Mahany"
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