CRANBERRY VIENNESE SANDWICH CREAMS

CRANBERRY VIENNESE SANDWICH CREAMS

The crochet side-pate is from Dishes Only.

THEY ARE THE COOKIE-VERSION OF A FEEL-GOOD MOVIE, EMOTIONALLY EQUIVALENT TO A BOX OF GOLDEN TWIN-PUPPIES EACH HUGGING A HAPPY GIGGLE.

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This is what I’ve been busy with for the past 7 days, recreating Mark & Spencer’s Viennese raspberry sandwich creams.  What does that say about me, spending 84 hours scrutinizing a processed junk-food from a super chainstore, I don’t know.  But I had to make it.

If you ever had childhood experience of reaching into a tin-box, and sneaking one of those buttery nuggets of vanilla cookies into your mouth as your first memory of pure foodgasm, then I guess, you can sort of understand.  But this, this is better, upgraded.  You can either go to your nearest M&S to see for yourself, or you can stay here and do it at home.  But how I got here, however unexpectedly long it took, was no vanilla road.  Checking out all the trusted recipes that were already out there, which, affirmingly, were all very similar to one another, let’s just say that I thought it was gonna be easy.  If they all agreed on it, it must work fine, right?  Humppphhh…

I made my first batch last weekend.  Well, it did work fine… how do I put it… wonderfully just okay I guess.  Wonderful in the sense that, flavor-wise, it was exactly what Viennese cookies are supposed to taste like, fireworks of buttery crumbs exploding in a vanilla sky.  No doubt about that.  But just okay because, and maybe I was being obsessively anal about it but still, I had a major textural issue with them.  It was one thing to have cookies with so much butter that they “melt in my mouth”, but it was something else entirely when they could barely hold themselves together even under the slightest pressure of a finger.  Like, I was scared to touch them… like literally, they eroded on my fingers.  I mean, if that sounds like a “dat a problem?” to you, then great, but I might add that they also had a paste-like and almost glue-ish texture in the mouth that… I just couldn’t quite get over.

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But the struggle didn’t stop there.  Can we also talk about my unhealthy fixation on that pinkish raspberry filling, too?  First I tried mixing raspberry jam with powdered sugar…  NOPE, unless a gloppy syrup without a trace of raspberry flavour is what you like.  Then I tried the good-old boring white frosting with a layer of raspberry jam, as how it was mostly accomplished by the norm but…  Still NOPE, because, obviously, duh, that was just cheating.  I want it all-in-one!  I want that vibrant pink!  I want that berry-flavour!  But how do I induce a prominent amount of berry-ness into a butter frosting without compromising its texture?

So, I tested again (and then again… and possibly again), slightly reducing the butter-ratio in the cookies and adding just a small, but significant, tablespoon of creme fraiche to act as a textural scaffold.  As for the frostings, I realised that the answer so conveniently corresponding with the season approaching was, all along, finely ground dried cranberries. Or dried raspberries if you can find them but you know, I’m going to cut myself some slack.  It makes for the most gorgeously thick, pink-hued frosting with a glossy sheen.  OH right, and then salt, yes salt, in the cookies and also sprinkled on top and in the frosting as well.  For the life of me I couldn’t understand why a lot of the other recipes didn’t include it.  Major difference.

And there, I have it.  Fifty-plus whirls of tiny vanilla heaven with delicate and buttery crumbs, sandwiching an oozy layer of tart and sweet frosting smiling with a blush.  They are the cookie-version of a feel-good movie, emotionally equivalent to a box of golden twin-puppies each hugging a big giggle.  I would almost sell you on the whole, perfect-holiday-season-gift-that-will-forever-put-you-on-the-guest-list potential of it, but I’m not gonna.  Because truth is, you probably wouldn’t want to part with them.  You’ll probably feel a bit attached.  It’s OK.  If anybody could, I understand, as I’m trying to fish out the crumbs that are now falling in between my keyboard.

I should probably stop.  Talking to you that is.

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