beurre & sel jammers

Despite my all-around crafty hobbies, and even though on a call I once explained my passion for handmade by saying I’d churn my own butter if I could (that is a lie: I have no desire to ever churn my own butter), one thing I know a lot about but never do is can. I haven’t (yet) spent a day boiling sugary substances and sterilizing jars and then listening to the telltale ping of a seal. See, I know the lingo and the theories both from reading Twitter and from having proofread some canning cookbooks, notably Canning for a New Generation. But while I haven’t done it myself, I have plenty of friends who are masters at it—and they share the fruits of their labors (heh) with me.

Our pantry is actually bursting with filled jars of jams, jellies, cordials, and sauces that my friends have made. Some jars are finished immediately: Give me a jar of dilly beans and they’re gone within an hour. Introduce me to Cowboy Candy, and I’ll eat so many in one sitting that I end up curled up in a ball with the worst heartburn I’ve ever experienced. But the truth is, we rarely put jam on things. We almost never have bread in the house, and though there are times when I make biscuits, they are few and far between. Even though I rarely eat them, I will not refuse them or part with them—I consider them some of the most special foods we own! I realized that baking them into cookies would be the perfect way to finally enjoy them.

Enter Dorie Greenspan’s Beurre & Sel Jammers, which were featured in Bon Appetit’s Christmas cookie issue from last year. What a fussy recipe—right up my alley, I suppose. You make a sugar cookie dough that is rolled out, frozen, and cut to shape from the hard discs. Then you make a separate streusel. Assembly is actually easy once all the parts are prepped: Drop a disc in a muffin tin, dollop with jam, sprinkle with the streusel. I did learn some things about making these cookies as I went: Make a lot more streusel because you’ll run out (I had to make more twice!), and add more jam right before baking because it’s tastier with more jam. Oh, and maybe you like to fuss with making streusel by using your fingertips but I believe in better living through technology so I use the food processor.

The taste? Like a delicate, light shortbread with a morsel of sweet jam. I used 4 different flavors of jams: cherry, lemon, lime, mint marmalade from JulieFrick, nectarine also from JulieFrick, mango-lime jam from Nova, and then strawberry-raspberry from a storebought jar (we wanted a 4th complementary flavor that was also pretty, and it seemed the right fit). The recipe recommends a firm jam, but I didn’t mind a little spreading under the streusel.

Beurre & Sel Jammers, adapted from Bon Appetit
Dough
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 large egg yolks, room temperature
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour

Streusel and Assembly
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
10 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
various jams, about 1 cup total

Special equipment
A 2-inch cookie cutter; 3 standard 12-cup muffin tins

Preparation
Cookie Dough
Beat butter in a large bowl in a mixer on medium speed until smooth and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add both sugars and salt; beat until well blended, about 1 minute. Reduce speed to low; beat in egg yolks and vanilla. Add flour and mix just to combine. Dough will be soft and slightly sticky.

Divide dough in half. Place each half between sheets of parchment paper. Flatten dough into disks. Working with 1 disk at a time, roll out dough, occasionally lifting paper on both sides for easy rolling, until 1/4 inch thick. Freeze dough in paper until firm, at least 2 hours. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and keep frozen.)

Streusel
Mix flour, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor. Pulse the butter and vanilla into the dry ingredients until the mixture is sandy. Cover and chill. (Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.)

Assembly
Arrange a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 350°. Using cookie cutter, cut out rounds of frozen dough from freezer. Place rounds in bottom of muffin cups. Gather scraps and repeat process of rolling out, freezing, and cutting. I found it made well more than the recipe-specified 34 rounds—I got something like 40. Spoon about 1 teaspoon jam into the center of each round of dough. Using your fingers or a small spoon, sprinkle 1 to 1 1/2 tablespoons streusel around edges of each cookie, trying not to get any in the jam. Top off the dollop of jam with more jam to cover an errant bits of streusel.

Bake cookies, in batches if needed, until sides and streusel are golden, 20-22 minutes. Let the area around the jam be pale. Let cool in tins for 15 minutes. Run a small knife or offset spatula around edges of muffin cups; gently remove cookies (it’ll pop right up) and let cool completely on a wire rack.