Bready or Not: Shimmering Maple Crisps: a Clockwork Dagger recipe
These shimmering maple crisps are featured in WINGS OF SORROW AND BONE: A Clockwork Dagger Novella. This unique recipe creates cookies that are like maple-flavored snack crackers! They keep well for over a week.
Course: Dessert, Snack
Keyword: maple, yeast bread
Author: Beth Cato
Ingredients
1 1/2cupsall-purpose flourplus more to smooth dough
1/2cup+ 1 Tablespoon milkor almond milk
1teaspoonmaple flavor
1teaspooninstant yeast
1/4teaspoonsalt
1/2cupunsalted butter1 stick, room temperature
1/2cupmaple sugar or turbinado or decorating sugar, more or less as needed
Instructions
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the 1 1/2 cup flour, milk, maple flavoring, yeast, and salt. Add the softened butter split into several chunks, mixing well each time before adding the next. Dough will likely be sticky and shaggy.
Switch to a bread hook and slowly add more flour, a few tablespoons at a time, and mix. Pause to scrape the sides of the bowl and add more flour. Keep this up until it becomes smooth, elastic, and less sticky.
Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and stash it in the fridge at least overnight.
When it's time to bake, preheat the oven to 275-degrees. Place parchment paper on a large cookie sheet or two smaller sheets. Divide the dough if necessary, keeping the second in the fridge until you work with it.
Sprinkle maple sugar on the parchment paper; you're using this instead of flour to create your nonstick surface. Sprinkle more sugar on top. Roll out the dough, adding more sugar beneath and on top, until you're able to get the dough out into a rough rectangle about the height of a cracker. You will have sugar embedded throughout the dough.
Use a pizza wheel to slice the dough into 1 to 2 inch squares.
Bake for 50 to 70 minutes, until the sugars have caramelized and the cookies have achieved desired crispness. Follow the old lines the slice the cookies again, then lift up the parchment paper to a rack to cool completely.
Store in an airtight, room temperature container for a week or more. Use wax paper between the layers of cookies to prevent any sticking. The texture will change some as the days pass--depending on humidity--but they remain delicious.