I Want My Cheesy Poofs!!

Obviously that was probably not the picture that popped into your mind when you read the words cheesy poofs.  Well, I have something so much better than those bright orange, artificially flavored, crunchy cheese snacks.  My cheesy poofs are little, two bite hors d’oeuvres.  Their texture is somewhere between a muffin and a biscuit and they’re loaded with smoked sausage, green onion, and tons of cheddar cheese.  Seriously, look up at that picture again.  Haven’t seen many things more drool worthy than that, have you?  And best of all, they’re simple to make!

Here’s what you’ll need:     

1 ¼ cup flour
1 cup light cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon coarse pepper
¼ teaspoon garlic powder
1 ½ cups grated cheese
½ cup green onion
1 cup diced smoked sausage

I used 10 of the little Beeler’s smoked sausages.  If you can’t find that brand, I’m sure you can use one of the others.  Take each little sausage and cut it into quarters lengthwise. 

Then cut those strips into little pieces. 

Throw them into a pan over medium heat and cook them just long enough to cook off a little of their liquid and brown them slightly.  Then just set them aside to cool while you work on the other stuff.  Go ahead and grate your cheese, I used a combo of extra sharp and medium cheddar, and chop your green onions.  I think I used 7 or 8. 

If you grind your own black pepper, turn it just about as coarse as it will go, and crack about ½ teaspoon. 

Throw all your dry ingredients into a mixing bowl and whisk them together.

In a separate container, whisk together the cream and egg.

Add the cheese, onion, and cooled sausage to the flour mixture. 

Stir until everything is evenly distributed and coated, then pour over the cream. 

Stir just until the liquid is incorporated.  It’ll be a fairly thick mixture, more like a dough than a batter. 

Spoon the mixture into a mini muffin tin.  My pan is coated with silicone so things won’t stick, but if you’re pan isn’t, you might want to spray it or butter it. 

Fill each up to the top, pressing the mixture down to level it out and fill the corner of the cup. 

Place the pan into the freezer for 30 minutes.  This step helps to chill the fat and relax the gluten, which in turn makes them tender and well… poofy!  After 15 minutes, preheat your oven to 375°.  When the 30 minutes are up, pull the pan out of the freezer and pop it into the oven for 22 – 27 minutes.  During that time, glorious things are going to happen. 

They should be just starting to brown on top, and will probably have brown cheese extracurriculars (as I like to call them) around the edges.  Don’t worry about those… they are crispy and delicious. 

Remove them from the pan and allow them to cool for just a few minutes before devouring.  Pile them onto a plate for your guests… or yourself. 

Ok, I might not recommend eating that many in one sitting, but you might not be able to stop yourself.  I mean, just look at that sausagey, oniony, cheesy goodness. 

If can pretty much guarantee you’ll be singing this song after your first bite.    

Amaretti

Not to be confused with amore.

Amaro means bitter. So unless you're planning on some kind of bittersweet romance (bitter almonds contain hydrogen cyanide) I recommend not confusing love and poison.

Amaretti cookies are named for the almond flavouring in them. Amaretto liqueur works well for this, but if you don't have any around you can easily replace it with a bit of almond extract. Amaretto is made from almonds and the pits of apricots (if you've never tasted them, I recommend it, the flavour is very reminiscent of an almond but has a very bitter note to it) and has a slight amount of bitterness under all that sugar, hence the name. But for the most part, it's a sticky sweet liqueur that works very well as a cough supressant.

Pardon me while I deal with the lingering cough I've had for the last few weeks:

It even tastes like most cherry flavoured cough syrups because "cherry" seems to have been conflated with "maraschino" which is a liqueur made from cherry pits and has same bitter sweet flavour that the apricot pits and almonds do.

I will now stop geeking on food research and start telling you how to make cookies.

Amaretti Cookies

What you need:

• 1 c almond butter
• 1 c sugar
• 1 tsp amaretto liqueur or almond extract
• another 1 c sugar
• 2 egg whites

What you gotta do:

Most amaretti recipes call for something called "almond paste". It's basically ground almonds with sugar added to it. Yes, they're usually blanched almonds and so the colour is quite pale, but if you don't have almond paste, and couldn't be bothered to blanch almonds, a good quality almond butter works just fine.

You will have to stir it though.

The first thing we're going to do is make our version of an almond paste. Put the almond butter and 1 cup of sugar into the food processor. 

I can't really think of any other way to do this than in a food processor. Besides, everything else just gets added to it. This is all the dishes you'll have to wash.

You will end up with something crumbly and pasty and lush with beautiful almond oil. I love almond oil and use it on my skin and hair in the shower when I need extra moisturizing.

You should end up with just over a cup of almond paste.

Back into the food processor it goes, along with the amaretto, the rest of the sugar and the egg whites.

If you've never separated eggs before, you can check out my three-way method to separate eggs. It's pretty foolproof. Even I can manage it.

And the food processor goes back on high until you have a lovely smooth goo. Give it at least 3 minutes, but as many as 5.

Now, those of you who are familiar with beating egg whites are thinking I'm insane. Yes, oil of any kind will kill the beating of egg whites and they won't get all nice and fluffy.

Nice and fluffy is not what we're going for here. This is a bittersweet romance, remember?

And so when you spoon your cookie batter (about a teaspoon at a time) onto a parchment lined cookie sheet...

Fuck. Preheat the oven. 375 degrees. (one of these days I'll learn)

...The blobs will spread quite a bit, but they will reach their maximum and you'll have a sheet full of flat, glossy puddles.

But after about 15 minutes in the oven....

poof!

The puddles rise and crack and lose their glossy sheen.

Give them some time to rest on the cookie sheet before you try removing them, or you'll lose the bottoms. I'm impatient; cookies laff at me. 

These have a lovely bit of crunch on the outside and a gooey, chewy, marshmallowy inside. They're a nice light snacky cookie, but they also lend themselves well to being served on the side of other desserts (like grilled or roasted fruits) or as ingredients in other things (cheesecake crust, or a chocolate terrine).

 What's your favourite bittersweet romance story?