Pear Frangipane Stuffed Cookies
Cookie Week on The Great Canadian Bakeoff but Vegan
It’s week two of my possibly ill-advised commitment to baking along with the Signature challenge each week of The Great Canadian Baking Show this season. The jist of the challenge: the show airs on Sundays and I give myself until the following Sunday to come up with my concept, test, and deliver to my fearless judges, Sam and Shannon (my upstairs neighbours) who incredibly kindly fill out my lightly deranged feedback form. Then I put it all here for you, dearest reader, complete with some form of recipe. Here’s last week’s in case you missed it:
This week in the tent my kitchen was Cookie Week, and the Signature challenge was to make ten stuffed cookies — any kind of cookie with a dreamy filling. Pretty open-ended. I also had a trip planned for Friday and Saturday, so there was more of a time crunch than usual. Never the less, I went in filthy confident because it was cookies. I thought whatever, I know cookies. And yet.
If you’ve been reading this thing for a bit, you may have noticed that I have a tendency to get hyperfocused on things for periods of time, and obviously it’s currently the Bake Off franchise. While I’m baking along with the Canadian version as it airs, this past week I was also watching no less than three seasons of the British one as I baked and did mountains of dishes — the current season (15), as well as highly lauded seasons 6 and 12. I thought I’d use some moments from the Bake Off haze I lived in all week to illustrate my Cookie Week journey because I’m very normal.
Phase 1: Stoned Ideation
Because the brief was so open-ended, I decided to get down to it Sunday night by smoking a huge jay and generating a list of 16 half-baked ideas, lol. As is often the case with being pretty high, it all felt brilliant and inspired and productive in the moment, but in the cold light of the morning, agonizing decisions had to be made. I returned to confidence when I settled on riffing on the the classic French pear frangipane tart, because a) I love it, b) beautiful pears are in season, and c) that tart was one of the first vegan bakes I ever made that really impressed both me and others back in the early aughts (thanks to Isa Chandra Moskovitz’s recipe which I still love and referred to heavily as I developed my cookie).
Phase 2: Over-confidence
My over-confidence continued as I developed my approach: a whipped shortbread cookie stuffed with wine-poached pears and frangipane. When I started thinking about how a traditional frangipane tart is glazed with apricot jam, said confidence vaulted to delusional heights, propelling me to poach the pears in an orange wine from local hipster winery, Paradise Grapevine, that purported to have notes of “fuzzy peach slices.” Riffing further, I added dried apricots to the poaching liquid, then dried them out a little and tossed them in a mixture of sugar and citric acid for a sort of apricot sour candy garnish. I was on fire! They would be amazing and beautiful and clever! I would have everything done and delivered by Tuesday! Until…
Phase 3: Abject Failure
…disaster! The freeze-dried pear glaze I’d envisioned to add colour and hold the candied apricots in place looked like mucus. But worse than that, my cookie had no discernible filling. You could barely taste the pears. Had the brief been to make a soft and chewy almond sugar cookie with a hint of pear and a snot-coloured glaze, I would have nailed it. My partner David happily scarfed several and was like, “What’s your problem, babe, these are great.” But when I demanded he tell me if they read as stuffed cookies, my face likely exuding similar desperation to George’s above, he had to admit, “No, not really I guess.” Fuck.
Because I am an incorrigible perfectionist and hopeless at spending my time in ways that contribute to any kind of monetary success, I spent the next three days when I wasn’t working on my novel or at my day job running cookie tests — spontaneously adding an apricot-orange-wine jam to the mix; experimenting with various iterations of “pear sugar;” reading dozens of frangipane recipes (did you know there’s actually no frangipane in the classic tart, it’s “almond cream,” which only becomes frangipane when you mix in creme pat?? Neither did I!) I finally settled on just a hint of almond cream in the filling and a lot more pears than I’d originally thought prudent, plus a healthy whack of almond cream on top. I changed the glaze to apricot and rubbed green sanding sugar with freeze-dried pears for a pop of colour. Because I was leaving for my trip Friday morning, I promised Sam and Shannon I’d get the cookies to them Thursday afternoon. That day I ran out of pears, miscalculated my glaze, and only turned out six decent-looking cookies in the nick of time to photograph them in the fading sun, but I did it.
Phase 4: Boastful Triumph
Reader, according to my lovely judges, the cookies were, in the end, a bit of a triumph (read more below). Yes, I had to devote last week’s entire therapy session to putting better boundaries around this project so as to not shirk more important responsibilities such as sleeping, haha. But at the end of the day this was an entirely engaging week of baking for me, I learned a ton, I had a lot of weird fun, I did so many dishes, and the cookies were very yummy if I do say so myself.
Pear Frangipane Stuffed Cookies with an Apricot Assist
Should make about 12 cookies, but after all my trial and error I admit I’m not 100% sure on ratios of fillings to cookies. When I test again, I’ll adjust. But if you have more dough than fillings, just roll into balls for regular shortbread. If you have more fillings than dough, eat them, or save for another use.
Whipped Shortbread:
(based on @torontotoniagara’s recipe that she shared a few Christmases ago)
45 g vegan yogurt
182 g coconut oil, solid but fairly soft
OR 227 g of good vegan butter such as Miyoko’s instead of oil and yogurt
80 g powdered sugar
223 g flour
43 g cornstarch
1/2 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Pear Filling:
(Might make more than you need, a chef’s treat!)
50ish grams dried apricots (optional, see apricot notes below)
250 grams of peeled, cored pear chopped into ½ inch slices (about 3 pears, I used bosc)
2 small coins of ginger (next time will try 2 tsp grated, see Judges’ notes)
4.5 tbsp sugar
1 star anise
3 tbsp orange (or white) wine (could replace with a mix of lemon juice and water)
1 tbsp water (would replace with lemon juice next time, see Judges’ notes)
Frangipane / Almond Cream:
(probably makes more than you need, I’m sorry!)
4 tbsp coconut oil, solid but soft
1 tbsp cornstarch
200 grams almond flour, divided
6 tbsp soy milk
150 grams sugar
1/4 tsp fine sea salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp almond extract
1.5 tsp vanilla
Apricot Business:
I really lost track of how many dried apricots I poached and what, precisely, I did with them. To make the candied ones on top of the cookies, I know I poached at least 30 grams of dried apricots along with the pears, fished them out, dried them out on a rack for a few hours, snipped them small with kitchen scissors, rolled them in sugar and a pinch of citric acid, and let them dry overnight.
I also made a sort of apricot butter/jam thing with more poached dried apricots, which I then soaked in orange wine over night, blended up, and cooked down a bit the next day. This was a loose riff on Camilla Wynne’s Apricot Verjus Butter from Jam Bake. I put a little blop of this in my pear filling, and also used this in the glaze at the end: one part jam to six parts icing sugar, then thinned with soy milk and a splash more wine. But I don’t have precise measurements here, sorry! I think you could just use store-bought apricot jam if you wanted, maybe with a bit of lemon juice added for less sweetness. Or just leave it out and make a plain glaze. Or whatever!
Pear Sugar:
Grind up some freeze-dried pears (I found mine at the health food store) and rub this powder with some green sanding sugar and a teeny pinch of citric acid if you have it. I didn’t measure this, sorry!
Method:
Make the pear filling: combine pears, wine, sugar, ginger, apricots (if using), and star anise in a small sauce pan and let them hang out at least 15 minutes (you could make the frangipane while you wait if you want). After they’ve hung out, add the water and bring to a boil over medium high heat, stirring fairly frequently.
Boil fairly vigorously for five minutes. Turn the heat down a little after that so you can see better what’s going on. When the pears are pretty soft and the liquid’s reduced to a nice coating syrup, you’re done. This usually takes another two or three minutes for me. Set aside to cool. Once cool, pick out the apricots with clean fingers if you plan to do any of the apricot business.
Make the frangipane: toast half of the ground almonds in a small pan over medium heat for about five minutes, until they smell toasty and are golden brown. This is optional, but I do think the flavour is better. Vigorously mix all the ingredients including the toasted almond flour in a bowl with a fork or hand mixer until well-combined. Refrigerate while you make your shortbread dough.
Make the whipped shortbread: Preheat oven to 300 F and line a cookie sheet with parchment paper.. In the bowl of a stand mixer or using a hand mixer, cream butter and powdered sugar until light and fluffy, at least 6 minutes, scraping down occasionally as needed.
Add salt, cornstarch, and vanilla and mix until combined. Then add flour in two stages, mixing after each addition until combined.
Stuff your cookies: weigh out 50 gram balls of shortbread dough and smush these into circles about 1/4 inch thick on the baking sheet, smushing the edges a little thinner than the middle. Spread a 1/2 tsp of frangipane on the bottom of the cookie. Top with 1 tbsp of pear filling (and a little dollop of apricot biz if using). Wrap the dough edges around the filling. It’s okay if there’s holes or it looks messy. Cover all of your sins with one tbsp of frangipane spread on the top of each cookie (I find it easiest to spread it out with clean, damp fingers).
Bake on the middle rack at 300 degrees F for 20-22 minutes, rotating once. Then move to the upper rack and broil on the lowest setting for 2-3 minutes checking frequently, just until frangipane is lightly browned. It can burn so watch it! Let cool on the sheet five minutes, then move to a rack to cool completely.
Judges Notes:
We have an exciting guest judge this week: Shannon’s son, Elias, age five!
Sam: I loved the texture—I liked the buttery smoothness of the shortbread and almond paste combined with the crunchy and chewy toppings. Good ratio of filling to cookie…the filling wasn’t seeping out with each bite but was just enough that each bite contained both filling & cookie. Perhaps the filling could use a bit more of a “kick” to it to help contrast with the buttery flavours. Like a little more zing—maybe more ginger or cinnamon? But I would buy these in a bakery!
Shannon: Literally wrote down perfect texture. The stuffing was notable and clearly contrasted from the cookie itself. I normally would never choose a cookie with almond paste as I find the amaretto /almond flavour off putting usually but in these cookies it is subtle and well-balanced.
Elias: Loved the cookie. This was a new flavour for me, and I liked it. It wasn’t overpowering. I liked how it looked with the sprinkles.
I do not know what I did to deserve these amazing judges / neighbours, simply the best! ✌️
Your storytelling was so captivating and relatable that I felt as if I was there, perhaps even taking part (competing) in some small way.
Your frangipane cookies with pear filling sound like a dreamy and delectable treat, excluding the previously discussed bit about using coconut oil.
Great job, and thanks for the entertaining read.
These look amazing Julia! Also "Because I am an incorrigible perfectionist and hopeless at spending my time in ways that contribute to any kind of monetary success" yep 😅