Dorie Greenspan | Around My French Table | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010 | Makes 4 servings

My friend Alice Vasseur has a most expressive face. Her smiles and frowns are oversized, and when she’s excited, her eyes widen and her brows look like they’re going to take off. And so there we were, having tea in my Paris kitchen on a chilly winter afternoon, when all of a sudden her face lit up and she exclaimed, “I forgot to tell you what I made last night—it’s so easy and so good, and my friends loved it: chicken with speculoos!”

Speculoos are thin, buttery cinnamon and spice cookies that, although crunchy, melt in your mouth like shortbread. They’re a specialty of northern France, Belgium, and Holland, most popular at Christmastime, but available year-round, even in American supermarkets (look for LU Cinnamon Sugar Spice Biscuits or LU Bastogne). They are paired most often—when they’re not served alongside tea or coffee (they’re great dunkers)—with foie gras or something gamy. Using the cookies with chicken was a leap and Alice’s little stroke of brilliance.

This dish has only three main ingredients, chicken breasts, crème fraîche, and speculoos, and it takes just 10 minutes to prepare. It’s not only unusual and delicious, it’s also a recipe that perfectly represents French home cooking today: it makes supermarket ingredients look stylish and taste haute.

Crème fraîche is really what you should use here, as much for its tang as for its heatability. If you must, you can substitute heavy cream, but not sour cream, which will curdle and break over heat. And, while I love homemade speculoos, this recipe is best with store-bought.–Dorie Greenspan

LC Cookie Swap Note: Although we do find this quirky creation to be quite lovely, let’s be clear about one thing: Chicken and Christmas cookies crumbs in cream isn’t exactly everyone’s idea of an ideal dinner. Although if the notion of fancying up plain chicken breasts with a lightly spiced sauce with a rich, velvety texture, a hint of sweetness, and a naughty sense of dessert before dinner, by all means, you really shouldn’t let another season pass before trying this. The result draws much of its personality from the cookies you use. Speculoos, should you have them available to you, are perfect in this recipe, although gingersnaps will also do nicely, whether store-bought or made from scratch.

Active time: 20 minutes | Total time: 30 minutes.

Cinnamon Crunch Chicken Recipe

Directions

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Dorie Greenspan | Around My French Table | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010 | Makes 2 servings

This flounder recipe is an inventive crossbreeding of two classic dishes: sole amandine, in which the fish is finished with sautéed sliced almonds, and sole meunière, in which the fish, often whole, is sautéed in browned butter. In my version, I use baby flounder (easier to find in the market here than true sole) [LC Interjection: And far less expensive!], lightly coat the fillets with ground almonds, sauté them in browned butter, and serve them with toasted almonds and a sprinkling of parsley (borrowed from the meunière). It’s a marriage of equal partners, and one that I think would easily win familial approval on both sides of the aisle.

A word on quantity. Since I usually make this for my husband and myself, I’ve given you a recipe that serves two, but of course the recipe can be multiplied. If you have to prepare the fillets in batches, though, it’s best to lightly cover the sautéed fillets and keep them in a 300°F oven while you fry the remaining fish, using a little extra butter for each subsequent batch.–Dorie Greenspan

LC Floundering for Flounder Note: As Dorie notes, baby flounder is easier to find than true sole—and far, far less expensive. Although it’s not always labeled as “baby.” Go by the size of the fillets rather than the label, and if you have to use only a single slightly larger fillet per serving, so be it. Simply add a minute or three to the final cooking time.

Almond Flounder Recipe

Directions

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1. Whisk the ground almonds, flour, and zest together and season with salt and pepper.

2. Pat the fish fillets dry. Set up the fish, the egg yolk, and the ground almonds assembly line fashion.

3. Using a pastry brush, lightly coat one side of each fillet with a little of the beaten egg yolk. (I coat the side that would have had skin.) Dip the coated side of each fillet into the nut mixture.

4. Place a large nonstick skillet over medium heat. Add 1 tablespoon of the butter and a small pinch of salt, if your butter isn’t salted, and cook the butter until it turns light brown, about 3 minutes. Slip the fillets into the skillet, nut side down, without crowding the skillet. Reduce the heat and cook until the coating is golden and the fish is cooked halfway through, 3 minutes or so. Season the exposed side of each fillet with salt and pepper, add another 1/2 tablespoon cold butter to the pan, and very gently turn the fillets. Cook, spooning some of the browned butter over the fillets once or twice, until the fish is opaque throughout, about 2 minutes more. If it looks like the pan is dry, add a little more butter.

5. Give each flounder fillet a squirt of lemon juice, then scatter over some toasted almonds and parsley. Have more lemon wedges at the table so you can give the fish another squeeze or two if needed.

Dorie Greenspan | Around My French Table | Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010 | Makes 10 side servings

If the French celebrated Thanksgiving, I’m sure they’d find a place at the table for this cauliflower gratin recipe. Simply made, appealingly rustic, and very tasty, it can sit alongside a main course or, with a little salad (and maybe even some cranberry sauce), take the stage alone for brunch, lunch, or supper. The recipe was given to me more than twenty-five years ago, and after making it the first time, I wrote in the margin that it was a little like a quiche (it’s really only the addition of flour that sets it apart from a quiche filling) and in some ways like a pudding, in that it’s rich, soft, and creamy. It’s a classic—it was popular when it was first passed along to me, and it’s a recipe that’s still treasured today. Serve it alongside anything roasted—it’s nice with something a little rich like a roast—or have it with a salad and call it supper.–Dorie Greenspan

LC A Cauliflower Scorned Note: If you know of anyone who can’t bear cauliflower, you may coax them into trying Dorie Greenspan’s spectacularly indulgent cauliflower gratin recipe, which envelopes the potentially offensive little florets in a luxurious and really quite forgiving blanket of cream, egg, Gruyère, and bacon. And if that still doesn’t do the trick, well, you did what you could. It just means there’s more for you.

Cauliflower Gratin Recipe

Directions

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1. Adjust the oven rack to the center position and preheat the oven to 425° F (232°C). Generously butter a 2 1/2-quart ovenproof dish and place it on a rimmed baking sheet lined with a Silpat or parchment paper. (It’s not elegant and it’s a tad too big, but a 9-by-13-inch baking dish works fine.)

2. Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cut florets from the cauliflower, leaving about an inch or so of stem. Drop the florets into the boiling water and cook until fork-tender, anywhere from 4 to 10 minutes, depending on the size of the florets. (Alternatively, you can steam the florets over salted water.) Drain and rinse the cauliflower florets under cold running water to cool them and pat them completely dry.

3. While the cauliflower is cooking, toss the bacon strips into a heavy skillet, place the skillet over medium heat, and cook just until the bacon is browned but not crisp. Drain and pat dry.

4. Spread the cauliflower in the buttered pan and scatter the bacon over the top.

5. Place the flour in a bowl and gradually whisk in the eggs until blended. Slowly whisk in the cream and milk. Season the mixture with the salt, pepper, and nutmeg and stir in about 2/3 of the cheese. Pour the mixture over the cauliflower and bacon, shaking the pan a little so that the liquid settles between the florets. Scatter the remaining cheese over the top.

6. Bake the cauliflower-bacon gratin for about 25 minutes, or until puffed and golden and a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. If the top isn’t as brown as you’d like, run the gratin under the broiler for a couple of minutes.

7. The gratin is best just from the oven or warm, although it can be enjoyed at room temperature, just like a quiche. You really should eat the cauliflower-bacon gratin the day it’s made, but if you’ve got leftovers, cover and refrigerate them, then let them come to room temperature or warm briefly and gently in the oven.

Here’s the thing about Paris: It’s as wonderful as you imagine it to be. It’s even as wonderful as the glossy travel brochures promise it will be. People really do bicycle down the street with baguettes poking out of their backpacks and their baskets filled with brightly colored greens and truly ripe fruit. The Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, and the Louvre are as inspiring as they’re meant to be. The cafes are as charming, the bistros as cozy, and the bars as friendly as you’d hope them to be. And, yes, there are couples kissing on just about every street corner at just about every hour.

So, when people tell me they’re heading for Paris and ask what they should do to make their trip romantic, I’m at a loss for what to tell them, because the way I see it, there’s nothing more romantic than just being in Paris, even if all you do is stroll the enchanting streets.

But because it’s Valentine’s Day, and Paris can be pretty chilly this time of year, here are a baker’s dozen of other things to do in the City of Love, each of which I find romantic in its own special way:

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• Go to a crowded bistro and pretend you’re the only people there. You can try this out at two of my favorite places, Fish La Boissonerie and Le Bistrot Paul-Bert.
• Take time to have tea. Have a grand tea complete with piano music and stunning flowers at the Hotel George V; tea made from first-rate tea at Mariage Freres (they import and blend it themselves); or tea with a little pastry upstairs in the blue velvet and silk room at Laduree on rue Bonaparte.
• Walk around the Luxembourg Gardens, magnificent at any time of year (the circuit is only about a mile, so it’s doable no matter the weather), and finish by stopping into a cafe for a vin chaud, mulled wine. (I like to stop at either Au Petit Suisse, across from the park and the Odeon Theatre, or Cafe Tournon on near the Senat.)
• Have a big plate of oysters at the tiny Huitrerie Regis (where they only serve oysters), or splurge on a towering seafood platter at Le Dome. Eat with your fingers, slurp the liquor from the oyster and drink Chablis, Sancerre, Muscadet or lots of Champagne with your feast.
• Watch the sun set from the Pont des Arts.
• Have a leisurely lunch. Lunch is such a luxury, especially if you’re a tourist with a long to-do list, but there’s nothing lovelier than stopping in the middle of the day for something sybaritic. The two most romantic splurges for lunch are the Jules Verne, Alain Ducasse’s restaurant in the Eiffel Tower, and Le Grand Vefour in the gorgeous gardens of the Palais Royale. Le Grand Vefour is the oldest continuously operating restaurant in Paris and it’s beautiful, the service is perfect and every seat is named for a patron of the past. Once I was seated at the Empress Eugenie’s place (which meant my husband would have been Napoleon III) and another time I was in Colette’s seat (be still my heart). A stroll down the garden’s tree-lined allees is the perfect way to cap lunch. For a far, far less extravagant lunch, my favorite place is Le Comptoir. but it doesn’t take reservations — aarrgh.
• Buy chocolate-covered marshmallows at Pierre Marcolini or something with praline at Patrick Roger, two of the city’s best chocolatiers.
• Drink hot chocolate every chance you get. The richest chocolat chaud is at Angelina’s.
• Have anything–oh, if only you could have everything–at Pierre Herme, hands-down the best and most exciting patissier in Paris and no, I’m not impartial. If you’ve never had the Ispahan macaron–rose, raspberry and litchi–you must.
• Have a glass of Champagne for no other reason than because you can.
• Buy a bag of (the absolutely fabulous) chocolate-covered Sauternes-soaked raisins from Da Rosa and eat them in bed.
• Visit Sartre and de Beauvoir’s tombs at the Montparnasse Cemetery, which is a fascinating place, or go see Proust at Pere Lachaise Cemetery, another beautiful place (but much larger, so you might want to wait until the weather’s a bit warmer).
• Set off without a map, get thoroughly lost and celebrate your freedom at the closest cafe.

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And whether or not you can get to Paris to do any or all of these things, you can celebrate the holiday by making Pierre Herme’s Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit Truffles.

Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit Truffles
From Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme
Written by Dorie Greenspan
Makes about 50 truffles

Everything about this truffle is unusual, starting with the passion fruit. Passion fruit is an exotic fruit with a tang that’s only slightly soft around the edges. It has a startlingly bright and fresh flavor, not one you’d readily think to pair with chocolate. But Pierre makes the passion fruit-chocolate match easily and perfectly by bringing in another unusual ingredient, milk chocolate. Beloved in America, milk chocolate is not frequently found in French recipes. Yet here it is the ideal chocolate because it is mild, slightly sweet and amenable–it will soften the passion fruit and, in turn, allow the passion fruit puree to give it a little pucker. To make both the contrasts and complements more notable, the truffles are smoothed with a touch of honey, studded with tiny pieces of sweet-tart dried apricots and rolled in confectioner’s sugar.

Ingredients
14 3/4 ounces milk chocolate, preferably Valrhona Jivara, finely chopped
8 moist, plump dried apricots, cut into tiny dice
2 tablespoons water
Scant 2/3 cup passion fruit puree
1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream
1 tablespoon honey
4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature and cut into 4 pieces
Confectioner’s sugar, for dusting

Method
1. Put the chocolate in a heatproof bowl that is large enough to hold all of the recipe’s ingredients; set aside.

2. Stir the apricots and water together in a small saucepan and place the pan over gentle heat for a few minutes, until the apricots are moist. Pull the pan from the heat, drain the apricots, if necessary, and pat them dry between a double thickness of paper towels.

3. Bring the passion fruit puree, cream and honey to a full boil in a saucepan or microwave oven, then pour it into the center of the chocolate. Working with a spatula, gently stir the cream into the chocolate in ever-widening concentric circles until the ganache is homogeneous and smooth.

4. Allow the ganache to rest on the counter about 3 minutes before adding the butter. When all the butter is blended into the mixture, fold in the apricot pieces and pour the ganache into a baking pan or bowl. Put the pan in the refrigerator and, when the ganache is cool, cover it with plastic wrap. The ganache should chill for at least 4 hours, although it can stay in the refrigerator overnight, if that’s more convenient for you.

5. When you are ready to shape the truffles, have a parchment-lined baking sheet close at hand. Remove the truffle mixture from the refrigerator and scoop up a scant tablespoonful of ganache for each truffle; put the dollops of ganache on the paper-lined pan then, one by one, roll the dollops between the palms of your hands to form a ball. Don’t worry about making them even–they’re supposed to be lumpy. As you shape each truffle, drop it into the bowl of confectioner’s sugar. Toss each truffle in the sugar so that it is well coated, then very gingerly toss the truffles between your hands to shake off the excess. Alternatively, you can roll the truffles around in a sieve to encourage them to shake off their extra sugar. As each truffle is finished, return it to the parchment-lined pan.

Keeping: The truffles can be served as soon as they are coated or they can be stored in the refrigerator, shielded from foods with strong odors.

——
DORIE GREESPAN is the author of the James Beard Award-winning cookbook Baking: From My Home to Yours. She’s also the author of Baking with Julia, which won both a James Beard Award and an International Association of Culinary Professionals (IACP) Award; Desserts by Pierre Herme, which was named IACP Cookbook of the Year; and Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Herme, which won the Gourmand World Cookbook Award for best foreign-language cookbook. Currently she’s a special correspondent for Bon Appetit magazine and is hard at work on a book about simple French cooking titled Around the French Table.

Dorie Greenspan | Baking: From My Home to Yours | Houghton Mifflin, 2006 | Serves 8

For anyone who comes from Alsace, the northeastern region of France, kugelhopf, as plain as it is, is a dream food. Part bread, part cake, Kugelhopf is made very much like brioche. In fact, it is almost a brioche, but not a rich one. You won’t miss the bit of butter that’s left out of the dough, though, because once it’s baked, the cake is soaked with melted butter and sprinkled with sugar, so it develops a fine crust. While, in a pinch, you could make a kugelhopf in a Bundt pan, it’s a treat to make it in the pan designed especially for it. Sometimes called a Turk’s head or “turban,” a kugelhopf pan is fairly slender and has graceful curves (which do, in fact, resemble the wrap of a turban). If you want to be completely authentic, you can look for a heavy pottery kugelhopf mold from Alsace — you might even find one with painted flowers. Or you can use a silicone turban pan, as I do. It gives me particular pleasure to bake a centuries-old recipe in something so modern. Like brioche, this dough is best made using a heavy-duty mixer; however, you can succeed in mixing it in a large bowl with a wooden spoon.—Dorie Greenspan

convert Ingredients
For the cake
1/3 cup moist, plump raisins
Scant 1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1/3 cup just-warm-to-the-touch whole milk
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
3 tablespoons sugar
8 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

For the soak
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
Sugar, for dusting

Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting

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Directions
Make the cake
1. Bring a little water to a boil in a small saucepan and toss in the raisins. Turn off the heat and let steep for 2 minutes, then drain the raisins and pat them dry.

2. Put the yeast and milk in the bowl of a stand mixer and, using a wooden spoon, stir until the yeast is dissolved. Add the flour and salt and stir just to moisten the flour—don’t be concerned, the mixture will be shaggy and there may be dry patches.

3. In a small bowl, beat the eggs and yolk together lightly with a fork. Fit the mixer with the dough hook, if you have one, and, working on low speed, pour in the beaten eggs, mixing until they are incorporated. Add the sugar, increase the mixer speed to medium-high, and beat until the dough comes together and smoothes out a little, about 5 minutes. Reduce the mixer speed to medium and add the butter in 4 to 6 additions, squeezing each piece to soften it before adding it and beating until each one is almost fully incorporated before adding the next.

4. When the butter is blended in, the dough will be very soft. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and beat, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl as needed, until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl and climbs up the hook, about 10 minutes. Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the raisins. Scrape the dough into a clean bowl, cover with plastic wrap, and let rise in a warm place until nearly doubled in size, about 1 1/2 hours. (The length of time will depend on the warmth of your room.)

5. Deflate the dough by lifting it up around the edges and letting it fall back with a slap into the bowl. Cover the bowl again and put it in the refrigerator. Slap the dough down in the bowl every 30 minutes until it stops rising, about 2 hours. Then, if you have the time, let the dough rest in the refrigerator overnight. (The dough can be wrapped tightly and refrigerated for up to 2 days.)

6. Generously butter a 9-inch kugelhopf mold (8-to-9-cup capacity) and put the chilled dough in the pan. Cover the pan lightly with buttered parchment or wax paper and let the dough rise in a warm place until it comes almost to the top of the mold, 2 to 3 hours.

7. When the dough has almost fully risen, center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 375°F (190°C).

8. Remove the paper and bake the kugelhopf for 10 minutes. Cover the pan loosely with a foil tent and bake for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the kugelhopf is golden brown and has risen to the top — or, more likely, over the top — of the pan. Meanwhile, line a baking sheet with foil and place a rack over it. Remove the kugelhopf from the oven and unmold it on the rack.

Soak the cake
1. Melt the butter and gently brush the hot cake with it, allowing the butter to soak into the cake. Sprinkle the hot cake lightly with sugar and cool it to room temperature.

2. Right before serving, dust the Kugelhopf with confectioners’ sugar.

Note: If you are not going to serve the cake as soon as it cools, because it stales quickly, wrap it in plastic without sprinkling it with confectioners’ sugar. Then sprinkle it with the sugar before serving. Luckily, stale kugelhopf is delicious cut into thick slices, toasted, and spread with butter and marmalade.

Kugelhopf recipe © 2006 by Dorie Greenspan. Photo © 2006 Alan Richardson. All rights reserved.

Dorie Greenspan Baking: From My Home to Yours | Houghton Mifflin, 2006 | Serves 8

Can something you’d be happy to serve at the end of a fancy dinner party also be something you’d be happy to make when you’re hassled? This is the kind of culinary conundrum I’d like to come up against more often. Thanks to its ample amount of fine chocolate, this pudding transcends its homey origins and belies the fact that all you have to do to prepare it is heat some milk and cream, beat some eggs, soak some bread, and slide the pan into the oven. I like to use a pan large enough to create a pudding that’s only about an inch high. Cut into generous squares and topped with crème anglaise, chocolate sauce, or snowy whipped cream, it looks classy.

If you’d like a deeper pudding, you can make the pudding in a 7-by-11-inch baking pan or in something deeper, like a soufflé mold. Alternatively, you can make individual puddings — depending on the size of the cups you use, you’ll need 8 to 10. Of course, with any change of pan, you’ll have to change the baking time, which is not difficult since, as you’ll see, it is easy to tell when the pudding is properly baked.—Dorie Greenspan

convert Ingredients
12 ounces bread (brioche, challah, or white), preferably stale
1/2 cup moist, plump raisins (dark or golden) or dried cherries (optional)
3 cups whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
3 large eggs
4 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped

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Directions
1. Have a 9-by-13-inch baking pan at hand (a Pyrex pan is perfect here), as well as a roasting pan big enough to hold the baking pan in hot water. Line the roasting pan with a double thickness of paper towels.

2. Cut the bread into 1-inch cubes. If the bread is stale, put it and the raisins or cherries, if you are using them, into the baking pan. If it is not stale, spread it out on a baking sheet lined with parchment or a silicone mat and bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven to “stale” it for 10 minutes, then toss into the pan (with the fruit).

3. Bring the milk and cream just to a boil.

4. Fill a teakettle with water and put it on to boil; when the water boils, turn off the heat. Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, yolks, and sugar together in a bowl. Still whisking, slowly drizzle in about one quarter of the hot milk mixture — this will temper, or warm, the eggs so they don’t curdle. Whisking all the while, slowly pour in the rest of the hot milk. Add the chocolate and whisk it in gently until it is melted and the custard is smooth. Rap the bowl against the counter to pop any bubbles that might have formed, then pour the custard over the bread and press the bread gently with the back of a spoon to help cover it with liquid. Leave the pan on the counter, giving the bread the back-of-the-spoon treatment now and then, for 30 minutes.

5. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

6. Put the baking dish holding the unbaked pudding into the roasting pan, and then slide the pan setup into the oven and very carefully pour enough hot water into the roasting pan to come halfway up the sides of the pudding pan. Bake for 35 to 45 minutes, or until the pudding is uniformly puffed, the top is dull and dry and a thin knife inserted deep into the center comes out clean. Transfer the baking pan to a rack and cool to room temperature.

7. You could serve this pudding warm, but it is better at cool room temperature or even chilled — it also cuts better when it is cold. Serve the pudding simply with a dusting of confectioners’ sugar or less simply with vanilla (or rum or Grand Marnier or brandy) crème anglaise, chocolate sauce, or whipped cream, or crème fraîche.

Recipe © 2006 Dorie Greenspan. Photo © 2006 Alan Richardson. All rights reserved.

Dorie Greenspan | Baking: From My Home to Yours | Houghton Mifflin, 2006 | Makes 32 cookies

Sometime during the first year of my marriage, I visited my mother-in-law in her kitchen. There she was, listening to the radio, whistling (she is a formidable whistler), and rolling cream-cheese dough around raisins and nuts to form the crescent-shaped cookies known as rugelach. I was spellbound — I’d had no idea that rugelach could be made at home. As far as I knew, rugelach, like ketchup or ships-in-bottles, were made only in laboratories. But here was my mother-in-law shaping the cookies with ease. And a short time later, there I was, eating them with ease. These cookies weren’t like the rugelach my mother bought every week at the local German bakery — they were much better. I was so excited I asked for the recipe.

My mother-in-law wrote it out in her precise hand on a 3-by-5 index card. And, as she wrote, she told me that this recipe was not exactly the same as the one her mother used, that it had come from Mrs. Strauss, her next-door neighbor, and that she was sure I’d have no problem making the cookies as long as I didn’t overmix the dough. She was right. I was a newcomer to the world of baking, but I had no problem with the dough, the only potentially tricky part of the process.

Since then, I’ve made rugelach countless times, but nowadays my dough is even more foolproof because I make it in a food processor. I’ve also made a few other changes to the recipe. While my mother-in-law’s rugelach were filled with cinnamon-sugared nuts, mine also include a slick of jam, some currants, and a handful of chopped chocolate. This is a very old recipe, and I have no doubt that everyone who has made it has added or subtracted a little bit to make it her own — and my mom-in-law, Mrs. Strauss, and I expect you to do the same. —Dorie Greenspan

Rugelach Recipe

Directions

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1. Let the cream cheese and butter rest on the counter for 10 minutes — you want them to be slightly softened but still cool. Put the flour and salt in a food processor, scatter over the chunks of cream cheese and butter, and pulse the machine 6 to 10 times. Then process, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, just until the dough forms large curds — don’t work it so long that it forms a ball on the blade.

2. Turn the dough out, gather it into a ball, and divide it in half. Shape each half into a disk, wrap the disks in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or up to 1 day. (Wrapped airtight, the dough can be frozen for up to 2 months.)

1. Heat the jam in a saucepan over low heat, or do this in a microwave, until it liquefies. Mix the sugar and cinnamon together.

2. Line two baking sheets with parchment or silicone mats. (Silicone baking mats are great for rugelach.)

1. Pull one packet of dough from the refrigerator. If it is too firm to roll easily, either leave it on the counter for about 10 minutes or give it a few bashes with your rolling pin.

2. On a lightly floured surface, roll the dough into an 11-to-12-inch circle. Spoon (or brush) a thin gloss of jam over the dough and sprinkle with half of the cinnamon sugar. Scatter half of the nuts, half of the currants, and half of the chopped chocolate over the dough. Cover the filling with a piece of wax paper and gently press the filling into the dough, then remove the paper and save it for the next batch.

3. Using a pizza wheel or a sharp knife, cut the dough into 16 wedges, or triangles. (The easiest way to do this is to cut the dough into quarters, then to cut each quarter into 4 triangles.) Starting at the base of each triangle, roll the dough up so that each cookie becomes a little crescent. Arrange the roll-ups on one baking sheet, making sure the points are tucked under the cookies, and refrigerate. Repeat with the second packet of dough, and refrigerate the cookies for at least 30 minutes before baking. (The cookies can be covered and refrigerated overnight or frozen for up to 2 months; don’t defrost before baking, just add a couple of minutes to the baking time.)

4. Position the racks to divide the oven into thirds and preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

1. Stir the egg and water together, and brush a bit of this glaze over each rugelach. Sprinkle the cookies with the sugar.

2. Bake the cookies for 20 to 25 minutes, rotating the sheets from top to bottom and front to back at the midway point, until they are puffed and golden. Transfer the cookies to racks to cool to just warm or to room temperature.

These easy-to-make, easy-to-eat, easy-to-love chocolate-chocolate chip cookies are from Pierre Hermé, the man Vogue magazine called “The Picasso of Pastry.” They are cocoa dark, not very sweet, chock-full of chocolate bits, melt-on-your-tongue buttery, just crumbly enough to be true sablés, or sand cookies, and just salty enough to catch you off guard. In fact, the combination of chocolate and salt (Pierre uses the somewhat exotic fleur de sel, sea salt from the Guérande) makes these cookies fatally appealing. I don’t trust myself not to finish the batch in a sitting, and I’ll bet you’ll find yourself in the same spot — a warning to make these when you’re certain not to be alone. Indeed, these are the easiest cookies to make for company because, despite their très French flavor, they are essentially American slice-and-bake icebox cookies. The dough is mixed in a flash, rolled into logs, and chilled, then cut into rounds and baked in minutes.

About the name: Korova was the name of the milk bar in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film A Clockwork Orange. It was also the name of a restaurant off the Champs-Élysées for which Pierre Hermé created these cookies. The restaurant is gone, but the cookies are still a specialty at Pierre’s patisserie as well as the house cookies at my house.—Dorie Greenspan

convert Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
8 tablespoons plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup packed light brown sugar
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel, or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
5 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped into small bits

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Directions
1 . Sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together and keep close at hand. Put the butter in the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium speed until the butter is soft and creamy. (Alternatively, you can do this and all subsequent steps by hand, working with a sturdy rubber spatula.) Add both sugars, the salt, and vanilla extract and beat for another minute or two. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the sifted dry ingredients. Mix only until the dry ingredients are incorporated — the dough will look crumbly, and that’s just right. For the best texture, you want to work the dough as little as possible once the flour is added. Toss in the chocolate pieces and mix only to incorporate.

2. Turn the dough out onto a smooth work surface and squeeze it so that it sticks together in large clumps. Gather the dough into a ball, divide it in half, and working with one half at a time, shape the dough into logs that are 1 1/2 inches (4 cm) in diameter. (Cookie-dough logs have a way of ending up with hollow centers, so as you’re shaping each log, flatten it once or twice and roll it up from one long side to the other, just to make certain you haven’t got an air channel.) Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and chill them for at least 1 hour. (Wrapped airtight, the logs can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for I month.)

3. Center a rack in the oven and preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and keep them close at hand.

4. Working with a sharp thin-bladed knife, slice the logs into rounds that are 1/2 inch (1.5 cm) thick. (Don’t be upset if the rounds break; just squeeze the broken-off bit back onto the cookie.) Place the cookies on the parchment-lined sheets, leaving about 1 inch (2.5 cm) spread space between them.

5. Bake only one sheet of cookies at a time, and bake each sheet for 12 minutes. The cookies will not look done, nor will they be firm, but that’s just the way they should be. Transfer the baking sheet to a cooling rack and let the cookies stand until they are only just warm or until they reach room temperature — it’s your call. Repeat with the second sheet of cookies.

Note: The dough can be made ahead and chilled or frozen. If you’ve frozen the dough, you needn’t defrost it before baking — just slice the logs and bake the cookies 1 minute longer. Packed airtight, baked cookies will keep at room temperature for up to 3 days; they can be frozen for up to 1 month.

An American in Paris: In moments of over-the-topness, I’ve added chopped toasted pecans, plumped currants, and a pinch of cinnamon to the dough and loved it. And, I’ve been known to cheat on the chocolate bits. On the sad (but fortunately seldom) occasions when my cupboard is bare of Valrhona Guanaja (Pierre’s choice for these cookies, and one of my favorite chocolates), I’ve even used store-bought chocolate chips.

Recipe © 2002 Dorie Greenspan. All rights reserved.