More Roses

MORE ROSES

The rose craving continues unabated at Chez Eiderdown; the craving for dark chocolate, too. Today I whipped up a batch of cookies that satisfies both, so here in place of the normal perfume patter is a recipe, which I found on AllRecipes.com.

First let me credit the person who submitted the original recipe, J. Storm, who named these cookies “Egyptian Rose Leaves,” because the instructions call for them to be flattened, cut and shaped into a rose petal. I decided to follow a variation that was mentioned by another user of the site, who decided to scrap the rose-leaf shaping and do a variation with chocolate kisses instead (similar to that favorite standby known as the Peanut Blossom).

My own further tweaking of the recipe involved adding ground cardamom to it. I used an eighth of a teaspoon, but the next time I make them, I think I’ll be a bit more daring and add more.

So, what to call this recipe now that it is has been tweaked by another person and myself? I would love to call it “Nipples of Venus” (remember the movie, Amadeus, and the scene where the insanely jealous composer, Antonio Salieri, tries to draw information from Mozart’s wife, Constanze, by tempting her with a plateful of Nipples of Venus truffles?). But since I can’t co-opt that name, let’s call this variation on “Egyptian Rose Leaves,” umm, “Egyptian Rose Blossoms”? Yeah, that'll work.

Egyptian Rose Blossoms (makes 3 to 4 dozen)

1/3 cup butter, softened pink decorator’s sugar
1 cup white sugar 36-48 dark chocolate kisses
2 eggs
½ teaspoon rose essence*
2-3 drops of red food coloring (optional)
2 cups all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
pinch of ground cardamom

Mix butter, sugar, eggs, and rose essence until fluffy. If desired, add a couple drops of food coloring to tint batter pink. In separate bowl, stir flour, salt, and ground cardamom together, then gradually add to butter mixture. Dough will be soft. Chill for an hour or two. While dough is chilling, you can take time to unwrap the foil from the chocolate kisses.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

Form dough into balls about ¾ inch in diameter and roll each one in the pink decorator’s sugar. Place on cookie tray and press them down slighty (I used the back of a wooden spoon to do this). Bake at 350 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes.. As soon as they come out of the oven, place a chocolate kiss in the middle of each cookie.

(After cookies have cooled, and before storing them, you might want to put them in the refrigerator to chill a bit so that the chocolate kisses don’t get smooshed when you put them in a container.)

*Rose essence, not rosewater, should be used in this recipe, as rosewater is too light. I purchased my rose essence at an ethnic grocery store (it came in a small bottle with Viola as the brand name).

Image: my own photo.

Posted by Suzanne Keller, 2/28/2008.

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