15 avril 2007
Warning: durian inside!
They're as cute as can be, round, golden, endearing and apparently trustworthy. Well, handle them with care — they're loaded. These innocent-looking little cakes are potential bombs. They are filled, yes sir, with DURIAN! The little scales on the surface are supposed to make them look like a durian; like the sea-urchin's needles, like the rose's thorns, they are a natural code which means WATCH OUT, IT HURTS. Indeed, either you like durian, and in that case you like it a lot, or you don't like it, and that means you loathe it. So it's better to approach these sweet little things fully informed. You've been warned.
I found the recipe in a small book about Malay and Indonesian
pastries that I bought at Hong Kong airport. It looked challenging, so
I tried. Result: very good, a bit filling, with a soft crumbly buttery
pastry. Serve with lots of tea. Now I can say the recipe is really easy
as long as you don't make the durian paste at home. You have to use
sweet durian paste, which doesn't quite have the offensive flavor of
fresh durian, but retains much of its unmistakable, shall I say,
stench. Once a durian, always a durian.
Want to try?
Start by getting a tube of Thai durian paste
at any well-stocked Asian food market. A 200-gram tube will yield 18 to
20 small cakes. Open the tube and roll teaspoonfuls of the paste
between your palms in order to get about 20 small balls. Put them on a
plate, within hand's reach.
You will also need:
- To preheat your oven to 350 °F,
- To cover a cookie sheet with parchment paper,
- To put 100 g of softened butter and 2 tablespoons of icing sugar in a bowl. Beat them, using hand beater, until light and fluffy.
- Add the yolk of 1 large egg and keep beating like mad until you get a mayonnaise-like substance. Turn off beater.
- Using a spatula, add 150 g flour. When you have a smooth, yellow dough, you may refrigerate it for 15 minutes but I don't think that's really necessary.
Now you're ready to shape your cookies.
Take
a tablespoonful of cookie dough in your hand, roll it between your
palms into a round ball, then flatten it on your palm into a 6-7 cm
disk. Place a durian ball in the middle, then gather the edges of the
dough over the durian paste, covering it completely. Make a ball, roll
it between your palms and give it a slightly oval shape. Place it on
cookie sheet. Repeat the process with remaining ingredients.
Now
comes the fun part, the trickiest too: using the tip of fine scissors,
make little snips on the surface of cookies, making sure you don't
pierce the dough. The idea is to get small scale-like slits that will
make your cookies look like baby durians
and cute enough to make you feel like slapping them in the face or
covering them with big smooches, depending on your mood. But please
don't do that, they're fragile. Rather, brush them with beaten egg yolk
(with a few drops of cold water added) and bake them for 16 minutes
(that's my oven. In yours, it may be 15, or 17 minutes. You know those
tricks ovens like to play.) Cookies should be golden on top.
Let them sit outside of the oven for 5 minutes, then cool on racks.