Tillie's Chocolate Bit Cookies

Holiday baking is upon us. I tend to associate Chanukah with two cookies: snowballs and rugelach. Both are cookies my Nana Tillie made, and later my mom and I. But there's one more cookie from Tillie that I hadn't thought about in years--chocolate bit cookies, a layered treat with a cookie base, topped by chocolate chips, then brown sugar merengue, and finally chopped walnuts. One bite gives you a crisp cookie popping with sweet chocolate, then comes the snap of the merengue and savory warm crunch of the nuts. It's heavenly. When I came across the recipe on a couple of index cards clipped into in a denim cookbook she made for me decades ago it caused a reflexive smile.

And then I realized I had to make it.

Tillie used to send me these Chocolate Bit cookies wrapped in wax paper, along with the snow balls and her other legendary sweet, mandelbread, all packed tightly in a shoe box--mailed first class all the way from Arcadia, Calif. to Manhattan, NYC, where I was living and working after college. They would arrive at the mailroom at The William Morris Agency, where I worked, the box wrapped in a brown paper grocery bag. If I was lucky, by the time the mailboy (yes, then always a guy) delivered the box to me the tape and twine were still intact and the cookies still cookies, not crushed into crumbs. But I never got many home. Once I opened that box, it would be a free for all among my friends and co-workers. That box's arrival always was bittersweet. I loved the treats inside but it would make me weepy with homesickness.

My Nana passed away many years later, after I returned to L.A. and I got her to make me that little cookbook. The chocolate bit cookie seemed to have died with her. My mom and I annually make the snowballs and mandelbread. I still love making rugelach. But for some reason the chocolate bit cookies hadn't stayed in play.

But they're back now!

I actually have two versions of the recipe--one handwritten by Tillie and the other in the calligraphy my mom was focused on back in the '80s. They were slightly different. Tillie used Crisco, Mom used butter. The number of eggs was a little different. And so on. I figured the best way to tackle it was to have Mom come over and make them with me.

That's what we did last Sunday afternoon. For my mom, reading recipes isn't good enough. It's all about the feel. She's very insistent that you have to internalize the texture when making these and other cookies. And these cookies have a special meaning to her. Tillie made them for her when she was a child.

For this cookie, the layers can seem a bit intimidating if you haven't made them. Tillie even acknowledged this on her index card, at the end of the recipe.

"This may sound like a difficult cookie--but it is not," she wrote. "Enjoy--enjoy. Nana"

She's right. It's not. We fiddled a little, compromised a little. Instead of all Crisco or all butter, we used a 3-to-1 ratio to get the butter's richness and flavor and the crispness you get from shortening. We added an extra egg white to have more merengue, doubled the amount of walnuts, and tried a slightly longer baking time. I think we ended up with a cookie Nana would enjoy. Mom certainly did!

Tillie's Chocolate Bit Cookies
(printable recipe)
Yield: About 30 squares, depending on how you cut them

Ingredients
12 tablespoons butter
4 tablespoons shortening, like Crisco
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups AP flour
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
12 ounces chocolate chips
3 egg whites
1 cup brown sugar, sifted
2 cups walnuts, toasted and roughly chopped

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 350°.

Cream together butter, shortening, and sugars. Slowly add the egg yolks, water, and vanilla.

Sift together flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add to butter mixture. Mix well.

Pat cookie Fill a small bowl with water and wet your fingers. Then use your fingers to press mixture into a 10 X 15-inch cookie sheet. The water will keep the dough from sticking to your fingers. Spread chocolate chips evenly over the dough and lightly press in.

Beat egg whites and slowly add brown sugar. Beat until the whites form soft peaks.

Dot merengue mixture on top of chocolate chips and cookie dough, then smooth evenly with an offset spatula.


Sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of merengue.

Bake 25 to 30 minutes. Cool and cut into squares.

Note: These cookies are freezable, but the merengue texture won't be as great after defrosting. Also, my mom tells me that if you are eating them a day or so after baking, heat them very briefly--like 7 seconds--in the microwave to freshen them.

Happy Chanukah!


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Noodle Kugel

Come September and it's soon time for the high holidays. Yes, there may (inevitably) be a heat wave in Southern California, but Rosh Hashanah and breaking the fast of Yom Kippur call for traditional Jewish comfort food--and in my family that always includes a sweet noodle kugel--or lokshen kugel if you want to go all the way with the Yiddish.

Noodle kugel (there's also potato kugel for Passover)--basically a noodle pudding--is dish usually made with wide egg noodles, sour cream, cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and butter. Made well, it's a sweet, fluffy, cheesy dish. When I was growing up, my grandparents would often show up at our house for Friday night dinner, almost always bearing three things--her Hawaiian chicken, a Pyrex dish bubbling with a warm kugel, and mandelbread. Because kugel is such a cholesterol nightmare it's no longer something I eat much of, but if I get half the chance I'm all over it. Plus, it holds up well as a leftover or frozen and reheated.

I've had many versions of noodle kugel over the years and tend to avoid it at most Jewish delis because at least our local ones don't do a great job with it. A lousy kugel is kind of flat and dense and unpleasantly chewy. Whether it includes raisins or other dried fruit, pineapple chunks, or peaches (as one friend prepared it), it should be a bite of rich creaminess under a crisp top. In looking at other recipes over the years I've found a key difference between my nana's and these others. Nana always separated the egg yolks from the whites and beat the whites until stiff. You can't miss with that technique--even if you use cottage cheese (yet another ingredient option).

This recipe below is about as traditional as you can get. But you can change it up with extra ingredients you enjoy, like reconstituted dried or fresh or canned fruit, and different toppings. I added a little brown sugar to my most recent kugel and enjoyed the deeper flavor it created.

Nana's Noodle Kugel

(printable recipe)
Yield: 12 servings, depending on how you slice it

Ingredients
1 pound dried wide egg noodles, cooked and well drained
1 cup raisins or other dried fruit (optional), soaked in hot water for 20 minutes, then drained
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 pound unsalted butter, melted
1/2 pound cream cheese, softened and cut into 1-inch pieces
1 pint sour cream
6 eggs, separated

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

Beat egg yolks with sugar and add to cooked noodles.

Beat egg whites until stiff.

Add butter, cream cheese, and sour cream to noodles. Gently fold in egg whites.Yes, it will be loose. Don't worry. It will come together while cooking.

Pour mixture into buttered 13-inch by 9-inch baking pan. If you want you can make a topping with brown sugar, cinnamon, and granulated sugar (and/or breadcrumbs, crumbled graham crackers, streusel, or crushed cornflakes).

Bake for about an hour until the center is set and the noodles are light brown on top.

Let the kugel rest for 15 to 20 minutes before slicing.

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