Saura Madani, executive pastry chef for Kevin Taylor Restaurant Group in Denver, doesn’t leave her love of sweets at the door when she exits the restaurant. Instead, she perpetuates that spark by sharing her simple, go-to recipes on Sweet Saura, her personal baking blog that she began in January of 2017.
“It’s true that a lot of chefs don’t want to cook when they get home, but when I started doing it again it reignited a passion for a different style of pastry than I was used to,” explains Madani.
As we roll from fall to winter Madani waves goodbye to pie season and welcomes cookies touting that they “are perfect because you can get your sweet tooth a fix and you don’t have to commit to too much dessert.”
Through Sweet Saura, Madani publishes “recipes that are favorites of mine that you can recreate. December is the season of cookies and I’m just trying to share as many as I can.”
On her most recent post, Madani recalls fond memories of “making plates of cookies with my mom to pass out to all our neighbors” and that peanut butter blossoms, plus a trip down the Christmas candy aisle, inspires her approachable and seasonal variation.
“This cookie is chewy, chocolatey, with that subtle mint flavor – you’re not gonna be able to eat just one,” says Madani.
For those baking at higher elevations she suggests throwing in a little more flour to ensure the dough reaches the right texture and tells readers to “just have fun with it. If you don’t like mint you can find some other flavor that would go just as well.”
Peppermint Blossoms
Yield 30
- ¾ cup (6 oz.) butter, softened
- 1 cup sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- ½ tsp salt
- 1 ¼ cup flour
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp cornstarch
- 30 mint kisses
Coating
- 1 cup sugar
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar together. In a separate bowl, combine salt, flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and cornstarch. Add egg and vanilla to creamed butter. Add flour mixture little by little until thoroughly incorporated.
On a cookie tray fitted with parchment paper, scoop 1 T size balls, roll them in sugar, and place on cookie sheet. Space them out 2 inches apart. Bake for 6 minutes, immediately remove and place a Hershey kiss in the center of each cookie. Let cool completely as kisses will melt – you may speed this along just by cooling it in the fridge.
Enjoy!
*All images and recipe courtesy of Sweet Saura
