Cigarettes Russes

Yesterday was a pretty slow day. More reading and research than writing, coupled with the still hot and smoky weather produced a cranky Heather. By the time Josh got home from his weekly Thursday night drinks with his coworkers, I was sitting on the sofa in full-on pout mode.

Matters were not helped, of course, by the fact that I chose last night to try a recipe I correctly anticipated that I would not be able to execute. We had some fish around that absolutely had to be cooked last night, so it was a dessert item or naught, and I went for a dessert item. Cigarettes Russes, to be exact.

You know those lovely little cookie-wafer-cylinder things you sometimes get with ice cream or sorbet at fancy restaurants? Like giant, delightful, tube-like fortune cookies almost? Well, it seems those are properly called Cigarettes Russes, according to the recipe given to us by Josh's Aunt Nancy & Uncle David. And it also seems that they are hard little bastards to make.

A quick skim of the recipe told me that this would likely not go smoothly. First off, there are tons of directions. Not usually a good sign. Second, when you read the directions, they clearly involve a level of skill that I lack.

It starts off okay - mixing things. I can do that. I can even separate eggs to only get the whites. The trouble comes when you hit the 'spread single tablespoons of mixture into 4x3" rectangles on prepared baking sheet' part of the instructions. Would someone explain to me how I'm supposed to make a liquid hold itself in a rectangle? I mean, isn't the whole thing with being a liquid that you blob out however you want? Hello? I can do a lot of things; defy the laws of physics is not one of them.

Then you are supposed to bake it the perfect amount, 5-6 minutes, maybe more, maybe less, maybe more butter, maybe more flour, all depending - on what, I can't figure out - until it is right. Then you get it out, get it off the baking sheet with a 'sharp knife', flop it onto the table, and somehow roll it around a pencil into a cigarette shape. All of this you have to do rather quickly so the rectangular cookie bits (ha) don't cool too much.

Let's just say this involves way more skill than I have. First, half the time they were overcooked and wouldn't roll. The other half of the time they were undercooked and smurged up with the knife/scraper I used to get them off. Which should be good - Nancy & David included a note that said 'underdone is better than overdone.' But evidently I took that way too much to heart because when they cooled off they never hardened and are now just smurgey blobs of doughy squidge. Yes I am making up words to describe this; unlike making them, that is something I CAN do.

Furthermore, the underdone-ness started to get goo stuck to the pencil (also, isn't it kind of gross to be using a pencil for this?), which started to make it hard to get the 'cigarettes' off--if I even got them on. Of course, this could have been remedied by washing off the pencil, but my soul was already crushed so I didn't care.

Josh came home to find me pouting on the sofa, a hot, smoky day made worse by my latest cooking failure. He of course promptly ate the 'cigarettes', which were more like cookie dough blobs and was like, 'These are okay. Kind of doughy. Wait. They're GREAT. I take that back!' which is insane because as I said they are smurgey squidges. That's fine, let him eat them. I'm going to go into restaurants with a renewed appreciation whenever I get one of these. They are delicious when done properly, but the likelihood of my ever successfully doing that is roughly zero percent.

Creative photography to make them look not that bad
provided graciously by Josh

Nancy & David's Self-Esteem-Destroying Cigarettes Russes

2 egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 1/2 tbsp flour
1/2 tsp vanilla

Makes 24 cigarettes

Method
Grease and flour a baking sheet and set oven at moderate (350F). Realize later that you should grease and flour two of these if you are really going to make 24 of them. How big is this recipe's baking sheet?

With a fork, beat egg whites until frothy in a bowl. Debate very seriously about using the mixer, but don't. Use fork, damn it. Add sugar and beat until smooth, using stupid hand egg beater instead of mixer. Stupid stupid grumble.

Melt the butter and stir into mixture with the flour. Add the vanilla. Excellent. Looking good.

Spread single tablespoons of mixture into 4x3" rectangles on prepared baking sheet. Oh God.

Bake for 5-6 minutes in heated oven.

Watchpoint: It is a good idea to test the mixture by baking only one cookie at first. Yes, that might have been a good idea. Oh well.

If difficult to roll up, add 1 tsp flour, or if too firm and hard add 2 tsps of melted butter to the mixture. I would have been in the 1 tsp flour area.

Take the cookies from the oven, cool 1-2 seconds and remove from baking sheet with a sharp knife, placing them upside down on the table. Panic. How are you going to execute this so quickly, especially with all the spurging and squidging?

Quickly roll each one tightly around a wooden spoon handle, skewer, or pencil, holding it firmly in the hand. Remove cookie at once from spoon and cool on a wire rack. Or start to give up with the too-doughy bits and just plop the squidges onto the rack without doing the pencil step.

If cookies become too hard to roll, put them back in the oven for 1-2 minutes to soften. I wish.

Store in an airtight tin. Until you can't stand it and throw them away.