The Art of Creaming Butter

I love to bake and when I first started was often frustrated by flat cakes and sunken cookies.
The trick to achieving Martha-worthy results lies in how successfully you cream your butter and sugar.

This post I hope will help you all become Masters in the Art of Creaming Butter.

Often recipes start with the infamous words "cream your butter and sugar".
Well...what does that even mean and how do I do it while still behaving like the lady Martha expects me to be?

Firstly - the success of your creaming ventures does rely on the temperature of your butter.
You can not cream frozen, hard or recently refrigerated butter. If it too cold, it will not whip up.
If it is too warm, it does not retain air. Air creates bubbles. Bubbles are very important for expansion in your baking. Expansion creates fluffy, airy, lovely textured baked goods.
Your butter must be the temperature of the room you are baking in (let's hope this room is not a deep freeze or a sauna).

Secondly - I don't know how you will successfully participate in the act of creaming without a mix master or a hand held mixer of some sort. (This often leaves me wondering how our great grandmothers mother's made cakes successfully, pre-electricity!).

Thirdly - how long is long enough?
You want to beat your butter and sugar together until the mixture is lighter in colour (almost pale looking) and texture. It visually looks softer, fluffier.
The beating aerates the butter, adding in those valuable bubbles that expand when baked - making cookies lighter, cakes fluffier and more tender.

When you master this you will notice your cakes seem more delicate, your cookies and muffins brag-worthy.

Good luck with your Mastery and in the words of Devo - "Whip it real good"!

Almond Flour, Sugar-Free, Chocolate Sprinkle Cookies

Inspired by the incredible chef, Elana Amsterdam, of the amazing Elena's Pantry blog, I wanted to try a wheat-flourless take on the classic chocolate chip cookie that would also be sugar-free. So I made up the below...and it worked out!

This almond-flour, xylitol-based chocolate 'chip' cookie recipe is a protein packed way to go wheat-free, sugar-free, and guilt-free.

What You'll Need:

• 1 1/2 cups of almond flour
• 1/4 cup xylitol sweetner (I use Ideal)
• 1/4 unsalted, room temperature butter (I would love to learn of some low fat alternatives from you!)
• 1 egg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup of Dutch chocolate-flavoured hagelslag (or 'sprinkles'...because they are more fun, and less calories than traditional chocolate chips).

* If you are feeling like the wild and crazy type, swap the sprinkles for your favourite chopped nut, dried cranberries, chopped dried cherry pieces, or sugar-free chips. In Holland you can get strawberry-flavoured sprinkles...a delight!

What You’ll Do:

Preheat your oven to 375F or 190C (my oven runs hot, like me, so I put it to 180C).

Cream the un-salted butter and powdered xylitol together until fluffy and smooth looking. 

Mix in the egg – I like to crack the egg open into a separate container first, to check its not a ‘bag egg’, this way you don’t potentially ruin your butter and sugar mixture with a foul fowl.

Pour in your vanilla.

Next, in a separate bowl, combine the almond flour, salt, and baking soda. Mix until totally incorporated. 

Slowly pour the powdery mixture into your egg, butter, vanilla and sugar and mix/beat until combined. 

Pour in your chocolate sprinkles and mix until combined thoroughly. Ensure the batter is quite thick. If it is thin, shake in more almond-flour until you reach a dense consistency.

Line your baking tray with parchment paper. 

Scoop then roll the batter into small portions, spacing them evenly onto the covered baking try. Try to make them equal - about the size of a round 2 Euro coin. These cookies don’t spread too much, so, depending on the size of your tray, you might be able to fit all the cookie balls onto one tray.

Yields – 12 cookies (if you don’t sample any dough in the process;)

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until goldeny brown. Remove from oven and let cool, or don’t and shove them straight into your grinning, open mouth.

Super delicious. And filling. 

STEWART SCORE:

Appearance: 1 (Not the sexiest cookie on the block. To make them more glamorous (and less guilt-free), try dipping half in melted dark chocolate...ooh la!)

Taste: 2

Ease:  2