Ghibli Week 6: The Borrower Arrietty's Peanut Butter and Jam Thumbprint Cookies

This post we shrink down in size and visit The Secret World of Arrietty (借りぐらしのアリエッティ). Based on the novel, ‘The Borrowers’ by Mary Norton, it follows a young boy’s discovery of the hidden world of the Borrowers, tiny people who live within the walls of his mother’s childhood home. Accompanied by a gorgeous soundtrack by French musician Cecile Corbel, you can listen to the theme song here.

(source) 

Now astute readers may be going 'Hey, wait a minute, you never said anything about doing Arrietty in your Ghibli Week run down', but after giving it some thought, I couldn't go past this movie especially since I adore the soundtrack. So without further ado, let's get to the recipe!

Blink and you'll miss the cookies in this scene.

It's peanut butter jelly time, peanut butter jelly time!

Thumbprint cookies or jam drops, I know these as 'those cookies with a bit of jam in the middle'. As you can tell, I'm probably not the most creative at naming things. I decided to make the cookie peanut butter flavoured because winning combination right there. To those with peanut allergies, please accept my apologies but these would be equally as good if you used shortbread instead. Hmm, that gives me an idea for a future post...This recipe's super simple as well and can easily be whipped up for afternoon snacks. Make a cup of your preferred tea or coffee and enjoy!

Vanilla bean paste or vanilla extract - whatever's on hand

Whipped until light and fluffy

Eventually you end up with this - it's quite soft and it's kind of got the consistency of icecream

Nut balls *snickers*

Flatten them slightly and...

Boop! Thumbprint cookies.

Wham, bam, there's the jam.

Doh! Nuts!

If you've been living under a rock for the past few days, you probably haven't heard the news that a Krispy Kreme's opened in Perth; donut lovers everywhere rejoiced. Apparently Perth broke the record for most donuts sold on an opening day; not sure if that's something to be proud of, but hey, take what victories you can!

Perth wasn't without quality donuts before Krispy Kreme came (try saying that ten times fast), my favourite donut could be found in a humble stall in Freo Markets. It's called Levi's Donuts and they do some of the best donuts I've ever had. They offer one of three choices: traditional, blackberry and dark chocolate; and man, there's nothing sweeter than sinking your teeth in a steaming hot, fluffy donut. Definitely worth checking out if you're in the markets.

Now when the craving for donuts struck, my solution was simple: make my own. But why go to all that effort of making the dough then frying it when you could've easily just driven to the store, I hear you ask, and I'll answer 'because I can' and honestly, home made trumps store bought. Plus there's something very satisfying about making something that and I quote sloth dad, 'are good as the store ones!'.

awwwww yeeeeeeeeeaahhhh

Cinnamon and sugar: classic combo

Icing sugar and mulberry jam: winning

Jammy innards

 Now this recipe hails from Masterchef Australia (I'm beginning to sense a pattern emerging) from Gary Mehigan (one of the judges if you're unfamiliar with the show). His recipe called for lavender sugar and while I have lavender outside in the garden, I'm not sure it's suitable for human consumption. I also decided to halve the original recipe, but you still make a decent amount depending on how big you intend the donuts to be (mmm mega donut). I also decided to try and be 'health conscious' and substitute margarine for the butter but I mean, you're basically deep frying dough then rolling it in sugar. So. Up to you.

The dough that this recipe makes is quite soft, so I tried to pipe the donuts into the oil. For me, at least, not a good idea although I would've probably had more success if I had used an actual pastry bag and wiped the knife clean between each separation of dough from the bag (hindsight's always 20/20) but I found two spoons do the job well enough. Plus you've got more of a chance of making round ones and not...well, I'll let the picture speak for itself. 

I really should invest in actual piping bags.

A vague quenelle shape

I've affectionately named the long one Bristol Stool 4

The two spoon method is definitely prettier.

This recipe is a bit time consuming so make sure that you set aside some time for it, especially the proving of the yeast and the frying. If you don't have a deep fryer, you can also use a saucepan or (my personal favourite) a wok. Just be mindful of heating the oil to the right temperature; a handy hint is to test it with a chunk of bread. If the bread fries to a golden brown in roughly thirty seconds to a minute, your oil's ready. Alternatively, you can look for a 'shimmer' (it's a bit hard to explain without pictures, but the surface of the oil seems to shimmer as if there's a mirage?) or if you have a bamboo chopstick; when you stick the tip in the oil, bubbles should form around the chopstick (again, hard to explain without pictures). Also between batches, wait for the oil to reheat: the longer they soak in the oil, the more oil they'll absorb. 

Everything you need: try to make sure the yeast is as fresh as possible!

I used a microwave to heat up the milk, sugar and margarine; make sure it's body temperature (you can test it by dropping a bit of milk on your wrist like you'd check a baby's bottle)

If the milk's not hot or too hot, the yeast won't work as well (tricky buggeryboo)

The yeasty, eggy, milky mixture

Looks like absolute rubbish but keep mixing it until...

It should be thick enough to form a ribbon when you lift the whisk

Use the 45 minutes - 1 hour to pamper yourself, you deserve it

The batter pretty much doubles in size, but be careful..

I dropped it on the counter and it deflated a bit

Golden brown and slighty round, don't overcrowd the fryer!

It's all Greek to me!

Has anyone ever done the thing where you make a cup of tea, leave it somewhere fully intending to drink it, but then you just...forget? Then two hours later, you come back to an ice-cold cup of disappointment and sadness? This is unfortunately a regular part of my life, unless I put the tea directly in front of me as if to say ‘hey, don’t forget me like you did the last seventeen times.’ Point is, tea is amazing and it never fails to cheer me up. With my final (as in final ever undergraduate) exams looming, I’ve been doing a lot of tea drinking lately. I’m particularly fond of oolong tea, what kind of tea do you like? 

Funny story about teas, the tea in the cupboard is stored in tins (most of what I have is loose leaf) and one day I happen upon this mysterious tin which is marked ‘one leaf’. So I open it and it’s this black stick of something, and it smells okay to me, so I decide to brew it up (I’m definitely going to get poisoned one day, I bet). I let it steep, and the stick unfurls to become this branch with leaves, so I’m like yeah awesome, fancy stuff, let’s see what it tastes like. I took a mouthful, let it sit in my mouth for about five seconds, and it was one of the more horrible experiences I’ve ever had. Turns out it’s this Chinese herbal tea that has all these amazing health benefits like relieving headaches; no thanks, I’ll stick with paracetamol.

To say that this tea is an acquired taste is putting it lightly

This isn’t to say I don’t believe in the healing properties of tea, but it could taste a bit nicer. Take yogurt for example, full of probiotics and calcium. I’ve always liked yogurt and one of my fondest memories involves yogurt (it’s a very long story) so just recently I was talking to cousin sloths about this amazing flatbread they made that had only three ingredients; Greek yogurt, self-raising flour and salt. Needless to say, my curiousity was piqued and I requested the recipe. However, if you buy one of those big tubs of Greek yogurt (like I did), you end up having a lot left over and I was at a bit of a loss as what to do with it before it expired. Should I eat it? Freeze it? Pretend it never existed until it inevitably stank up the fridge? Luckily for me (and the fridge) I had a tiny brainwave of inspiration and made scones with the remainder and used up the tub. Money saving tip right there.

I was scared they'd merged to form the ultimate scone, but no

Everyone should try mulberry jam once, unless you're allergic which in that case feel free to stay far, far away

So bread. Much flatness.

Although the recipes share similar ingredients, it’s all about technique which will really make a difference. With the scones, you want minimal handling to produce the least amount of gluten (the protein in flour) in order to get light, fluffy bundles of joy whereas the flatbread requires a bit more kneading, which activates the gluten and encourages it’s development.

Scones utilise what I’ve been taught is the ‘rubbing in’ or ‘fingertip’ method, where the butter is rubbed in with the fingertips until the mixture looks like breadcrumbs-ish. Honestly though, I’ve yet to see breadcrumbs that look like that mixture so maybe I’m just buying the wrong breadcrumbs. I like to think I get better results if I leave bigger chunks of butter because as the butter melts, the steam produced (butter has a high water content) will provide you with a flaky, buttery pastry. This is kind of the principle behind oil-and-water pastry but I’ll probably cover that in a later blog post. If I don’t, someone remind me, okay? Thank you!

I'm bowled away with how easy this recipe is

Rubik's cube, more like butter cubes

Rub in with the fingertips. I suggest taking off any jewellery 'cause it can get quite messy. 

"breadcrumbs"

Well, well, well.

Dummy that I am, I forgot to take a picture of the Greek yogurt mix, whoops

Ah, so pretty. Be gentle with it!

I should've moisturised my hands before this.

Shaping the scone so it doesn't look like a pile of dough.

The operation was a success, maybe?

What'cha gonna do with all these lumps? Notice they're touching slightly, which will help them rise a bit better.

Egg wash, you can also get the same effect with milk, but the colour's less intense

This flatbread recipe is Matt Preston's of Masterchef Australia judge fame. If you've been living under a rock these past few years, he's the one with the cravat. I actually really like his recipes, he seems really down-to-earth and enjoys food, which is something I can always get behind! This one is absolutely no frills, and simple as. The most complicated thing is probably the process of kneading, but with a bit of practice, you can whip these out in a jiffy, and there's so much potential! You could smear a blob of cream cheese on top and throw on some smoked salmon and dill for a fancy dinner party hors d'oeuvres; or sandwich some tender, marinated falling-apart-at-the-touch-of-a-fork pulled pork and tart, sweet and crunchy coleslaw between two pieces for a filling lunch that'll make heads turn; or my favourite, whip up some hummus and eat it with the flatbread, mmmm. 

So kneading can be complicated if you’ve never made any kind of bread dough before, but I follow this as a kind of guideline:

1. Push the dough with the heel of your palm outwards (I push to the left because I’m right handed)
2. Fold the dough over on itself, like you’d fold a piece of paper in half.
3. Rotate the folded dough a quarter turn (90 degrees) with the other hand.
4. Push dough back out and repeat. Every few times you push the dough out, flip the dough over to ensure it doesn’t stick to the surface.

I love one-bowl recipes

Tip everything out onto a floured surface.

Kind of try to combine everything together, ready for kneading

Ugh, I really should've moisturised my hands. Anyway, push it away from you so the dough stretches

Fold it over like you'd fold clothes (assuming you fold your clothes)

Press it flat and repeat until...

My potato of a camera doesn't show it too well but it's formed a soft, sticky dough. Keep kneading until...

Soft and smooth like a baby's bottom

Also you can do something like this, which is pretty cool I guess

 Don’t worry if you don’t get it the first time, practice makes perfect; plus this kneading technique can be applied to stuff like pasta and dumpling skins! Keep in mind that sometimes your dough will appear very sticky, which will make you want to add more flour. However, give it a bit of time and a bit of hard elbow grease love with the kneading and it’ll slowly come together and form a nice, smooth dough. That being said though: If you’ve been kneading for like, half an hour with no improvement and it’s still sticky, then yeah, you probably do need to add more flour. When you cook it, you're waiting for bubbles to appear (kind of like a pancake) before flipping it; they also burn pretty easily (as I discovered) so low to moderate heat is best.

Circles are so overrated, it's all about the wonky ellipse now

You can see it's getting puffed up, guess you could say it's full of hot air