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Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Almond Candy Cap Cookies (Amaretti)

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candy cap mushroom cookies on wood with dried candy cap mushrooms Simple butter cookies are a tried and true recipe for using up those dried candy caps, and David Arora even shares a recipe for them in his excellent book All That the Rain Promises and More (get yourself a copy if you don’t have one, it’s a good, portable reference for when you can’t bring the larger book along). 

These are not the candy cap butter cookies most people will make though.

These are a hybrid of mine that are more along the lines of small tea cookies or amaretti. Don’t be fooled though: they’re just as addictive. Unlike regular butter cookies though, they contain no flour, no leaveners (except a small amount of egg) require no stand mixer, and come together in just a few minutes. They won’t be giant, fluffy cookies like most people are used to, but the bonus is that cutting out some of the other ingredients means that they also have a superior shelf life, and will keep for weeks, although they never last that long when I make them. They’re very durable. 

baking candy cap cookies on a silicone mat

You’ll want a silicone mat or other non-stick baking surface. Cast iron can work too.

Adapting the basic recipe 

Switch up the nut flour 

This is probably the easiest candy cap cookie recipe out there, and you can vary it all kinds of different ways. The basic recipe uses blanched almond flour to keep them white and resemble the classic sugar cookie most candy cap afficionados will be familiar with, but you can use any nut or seed meal here, or another alternative flour along the same lines, such as coconut. Another one of my other favorites to use for this is hazelnut meal. The finer the nut flour, the more the cookies seem to puff from the egg. Nut meals that include pieces of the brown covering on the nut seem to puff a bit less, for what it’s worth. 

baked candy cap cookies on a silicone mat

A finished batch. You’ll probably get about 25 or so.

Get creative with shapes

You’re making teaspoon-sized cookies here, so it’s easy to switch up the shape for different results. One of my favorite variations is to make them into small squares, pressing with my thumbs and middle fingers on the sides. The squares are nice since they should keep more of a chewy center. You can also make simple round cookies by rolling generous teaspoons into balls. The choice is yours. 

Chokecherry-sunflower cookies

Another shape you can make are squares. For these, to make sure they hold the square shape, you’ll want to use more coarsely ground meal like hazelnut, or non-blanched almond meal since it won’t puff as much. These are chokecherry cookies made with sunflower meal. 

Allowing the dough to hydrate and rest 

A pastry chef’s secret. I’ll admit that it doesn’t make as much of a difference as typical flour-based cookies, but it does help. With candy caps, a little extra resting time will help the dough be more manageable and less sticky, and also gives the candy caps a headstart to let their aroma permeate the dough, giving you the most maple-y of maple tasting cookies. 

Almond Candy Cap Cookies Recipe

candy cap mushroom cookies on wood with dried candy cap mushrooms
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Almond Candy Cap Cookies (Amaretti)

Addictive, chewy candy cap cookies made with almond flour or another nut flour of your choice. Yield: ~ 25 cookies with generous teaspoons
Prep Time5 mins
Cook Time20 mins
Dough resting time8 hrs
Course: Dessert, Snack
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Candy Cap Mushrooms, Cookies
Servings: 10

Ingredients

  • 1 large egg whites
  • 1/2 cup organic sugar 80g
  • 1 cup blanched almond meal 100g
  • Pinch of finely ground salt
  • 4 teaspoons ground candy cap mushrooms

Instructions

  • If possible, grind up the sugar in a highspeed blender or spice grinder if using a type that comes in larger flakes/chunks, like most organic kinds do.
  • Mix sugar with the salt and candy caps, then add the almond meal and egg, then stir for a minute or two until a soft dough forms.
  • Roll the dough into 1 inch log and chill overnight, or for at least 30 minutes.
  • To bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 325. Slice the cookies into roughly 1/4 inch rounds, lay onto a baking sheet lined with a silicone mat or other non-stick surface, like cast iron.
  • Press each cookie with the back of a butter knife or off-set spatula to form a cross, then bake for 20 minutes, or until just lightly browned *.
  • Remove the cookies from the oven to cool. You want the cookies to be slightly underdone and chewy. Finished cookies will keep for a week, and can be stored in the fridge or at room temperature. They're very durable.

Notes

*When in doubt, remove the cookies a bit early, or leave them in the oven with the door cracked open—for eating as-is, they’re good if they’re a bit underdone and soft on the inside.
If you want to bake with the cookies as an ingredient as is done in Italy, cook them until cracker dry (25-30 minutes) for grating over squash ravioli, adding to custards before baking, or another purpose.

candy cap mushroom cookies on wood with dried candy cap mushrooms

 

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Alan Bergo
I made vegan fish sauce from ramp juice. You tak I made vegan fish sauce from ramp juice. 

You take the pure juice of the leaves, mix it with salt, Koji rice, and more chopped fresh ramp leaves, then ferment it for a bit. 

After the fermentation you put it into a dehydrator and cook it at 145-150 F for 30 days. 

The slow heat causes a Maillard/browning reaction over time. 

After 30 days you strain the liquid and bottle it. It’s the closest thing to plant-based fish sauce I’ve had yet. 

The potency of ramps is a pretty darn good approximation of the glutamates in meat. But you could prob make something similar with combinations of other alliums. 

The taste is crazy. I get toasted ramp, followed by mellow notes from the fermentation. Potent and delicate at the same time. 

I’ve been using it to make simple Japanese-style dipping sauces for tempura etc. 

Pics: 
2: Ramp juice 
3: Juicy leaf pulp 
4: Squeezing excess juice from the pulp
5: After 5 days at 145F 
6: After 30 days 
7: Straining through Muslin to finish

#ramps #veganfishsauce #experimentalfood #kojibuildscommunity #fermentation #foraging
Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Oeufs de Gaulle is a classic morel recipe Jacques Pepin used to make for French president Charles de Gaulle. 

You bake eggs in a ramekin with shrimp topped with creamy morel sauce and eat with toast points. 

Makes for a really special brunch or breakfast. Recipe’s on my site, but it’s even better to watch Jacques make it on you tube. 

#jacquespepin #morels #shrimp #morilles #brunchtime
Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each instead of the pound. 

Good day today, although my Twin Cities spots seem a full two weeks behind from the late spring. 2 hours south they were almost all mature. 

76 for me and 152 for the group. Check your spots, and good luck! 

#morels #murkels #mollymoochers #drylandfish #spongemushroom #theprecious
The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natu The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natural secretion of water I typically see with plants. 

I understand it as an indicator that the mushrooms are growing rapidly, and a byproduct of their metabolism speeding up. If you have some clarifications, chime in. 

Most people know it from Hydnellum 
peckii-another polypore. I’ve never seen it on pheasant backs before.

Morels are coming soon too. Mine were 1 inch tall yesterday in the Twin Cities. 

#guttation #mushroomhunting #cerioporussquamosus #pheasantback #naturesbeauty
Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a grocery store. 

#groceryshopping #sochan #rudbeckialaciniata #foraging
Italian wild food traditions are some of my favori Italian wild food traditions are some of my favorite. 

Case in point: preboggion, a mixture of wild plants, that, depending on the reference, should be made with 5-23 individual plants. 

Here’s a few mixtures I’ve made this spring, along with a reference from the Oxford companion to Italian food. 

The mixture should include some bitter greens (typically assorted asters) but the most important plant is probably borage. 

Making your own version is a good excercise. Here they’re wilted with garlic and oil, but there’s a bunch of traditional recipes the mixture is used in. 

Can you believe this got cut from my book?!

#preboggion #preboggiun #foraging #traditionalfoods
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