Miraculous Confections

[soc_puppet]

Cookies inspired by the Main Five (plus the main supervillains):

Ladybug: Strawberry chocolate chip; replace some of the eggs with strawberry puree, maybe add in some food coloring and/or extra strawberry flavor

Cat Noir: Chocolate mint chip; replace some flour with black cocoa (no activated charcoal, we don't actually want to destroy anyone) and use green mint chips; possibly add some extra mint flavor to the dough

Rena Rouge: Orange spice cookies; orange flavoring and coloring, possibly orange zest and orange juice for extra orangey-ness; possibly a pumpkin pie spice blend for the spices? Should have cinnamon and cloves, at the very least, but should not be pumpkin (orange is a livelier flavor and not necessarily season-bound)

Carapace: Matcha flavor; possibly with a white chocolate coating on one side, or some sort of dried fruit (pear???) mixed in? Matcha alone feels incomplete with a lemon-lime or just lime flat icing drizzle (thank you, norakwami!)

Queen Bee: Honey-lemon shortbread; not sure whether to do anything for stripes; possibly some powdered or crystalized ginger for just a touch of spice, but I don't know how well that would do with the other flavors Lemon-ginger shortbread dipped in crystalized honey or with a honey glaze on top (thanks you, redsixwing!)

Hawkmoth: Lavender shortbread, possibly lavender-cardamom; finally, you, too can emulate Ladybug in Stoneheart's reappearance and bite a supervillain's head off!

Mayura: Blueberry thumbprints with a (tart) red fruit tart rhubarb jam in the middle, per chanter1944; can't decide whether to include extra spices, or what sort they would be if so (I need to go sniff-testing herbs; my brain suggests thyme or rosemary, but I don't usually work with a lot of spice-and-fruit combos in the bakery) norakwami says a touch of thyme has good potential, so going with that! Thank you!


Backup Options:

ghostlyhamburger suggested an alternate Cat Noir option for folks who don't like mint, so I figured I'd give one to him and to Ladybug, just for the folks who still want to support the big two but might not be interested in the main flavors for whatever reason.

Cat Noir backup: Black cocoa with pistachio; no mint (thank you, ghostlyhamburger!)

Ladybug backup: Adzuki cookies? I want something for the spots, and I'd also prefer not cherry flavor (I'm worried that they'd outsell the "main" strawberry chocolate chip cookies).

Miraculous Cookie: Something vegan and gluten-free* for anyone who's allergic to or intolerant of any of the ingredients in the main LB and CN cookies and the typical backup versions; as few of the Big Eight as possible, hopefully none. No idea about flavor or design.

* Either they'd be only as gluten-free as the Dupain-Cheng Bakery can make them (I assume they're a wheat flour bakery, which means pretty much everything is going to have at least trace amounts of gluten), or they'll have a partnership going with a local GF bakery to get these made.

Comments

[alexseanchai]

hi I would like five dozen Cat Noir and one dozen Hawkmoth please

[soc_puppet]

LOL! I kinda want to make all of these anyway 😅😘 (For Hawkmoth: For the flavor, or the marketing? I gotta know.)

They'd be an overnight sensation at the Dupain-Cheng bakery, no doubt. Ladybug and Cat Noir make sure to very publicly "happen by" and get caught eating them, and sales go through the roof; Tom and Sabine hire on me extra help. They also get a great name going for themselves, giving one Ladybug and Cat Noir cookie each to anyone who gets stuck in their bakery during an akuma attack (with some sort of vegan, gluten-free-ish general Miraculous Cookie option I haven't given a lot of thought to for folks with allergies/sensitivities and stuff)*. They eventually add similarly flavored macarons to their lineup, as well. Adrien is constantly trying to sneak as many Ladybug cookies home as possible, and even Plagg admits the cookies aren't bad (though would it kill them to make some cheese-flavored cookies?). Ladybug also makes sure that the other superheroes get to try their respective flavors, including Chloe.

/rambling


* Yes, I'm using something like this in Damage Control, the All the Names I Know You By side-story; Tom and Sabine give out macarons to anyone stuck in the bakery, but may switch to these cookies after their daughter's identity is revealed, and slowly add more flavors as other heroes appear.

[alexseanchai]

flavor (lavender, anyway, dunno about the cardamom)

(the marketing doesn't hurt though)

😸

[soc_puppet]

🤣

[redsixwing]

Can vouch for crystallized ginger in shortbread. Alternately, fill sandwiches with ginger jam, or roll a barely sweet cookie in ginger honey crystals. (Hi, I like ginger.)

[soc_puppet]

Ah, excellent! But how would it do with honey and/or lemon flavor as well, do you think? I know ginger does very well with cookies in general (hello gingerbread), but I can't always tell if my imagined flavor combos work.

[redsixwing]

Ginger with lemon is very bright and tasty.

Ginger with honey and lemon is something I use to treat sore throats in tisane form, because it tastes SO good and also it works.

I do not have a reliable method of getting baked goods to taste like honey, so that's where I stall out. Maybe if you put a shedload of actual honey in, like this version of Beorn's honey cake, but those are SO incredibly sweet that I'm not sure the end result would taste recognizably like shortbread.

[soc_puppet]

Excellent! So, maybe ginger-lemon shortbread cookies dipped in crystallized honey? That might work to preserve the honey flavor. Or some kind of honey glaze over the top.

[redsixwing]

That sounds amazing. (And now I want cookies.)

[redrikki]

Recipes please? Or possibly just send the real thing via the internets. You've made me so hungry now.

[soc_puppet]

Sorry! 😅 I'm afraid I don't actually have any recipes for these. I may see if I can dig something up online sometime, though, and if I find anything promising, I'll be sure to share it!

[redrikki]

Cool! Thanks.

[alexseanchai]

I've made lavender shortbread. (probably this recipe seeing as I emailed my sister the link the other year.)

[soc_puppet]

Makes me wish I liked shortbread at all! Or, well, as more than a vehicle for fruit tarts, anyway.

If you decide to experiment with cardamom, a little bit goes a long way; I probably wouldn't add more than a quarter teaspoon to that recipe to start, maybe an eighth. (We made cardamom ice cream a while back by adding some of the spice to our vanilla recipe. It was basically a teaspoon of cardamom to just over a gallon of ice cream base. It's powerful stuff!)

[chanter1944]

Oooooh!

Re Mayura: Thyme sounds lovely with blueberry. Subtle but distinctive. I'm almost wondering if the jam for the thumbprint aspect could be either a variety of tart pale cherry or rhubarb, with a touch less sugar than rhubarb is usually loaded with when baking. Bluebarb i.e. blueberry rhubarb combination in bakery is indeed a thing locally, but I know rhubarb is usually bright red rather than dark pink-red, so hmm... I may be projecting a little again, ahem!

For Viperion, I suggest the following, and take or not as you will: Honey pistachio cookies, more the latter flavor than the former, possibly with a hint of cocoa mixed into the dough. Subtle rather than overpowering.

[soc_puppet]

I was thinking perhaps redcurrant for the jam, but I'm liking the sound of a nice, tart rhubarb! Accepted 👍

Vipereon has most of us stumped, lol; I was thinking maybe pear and blueberry, ghostlyhamburger's husband suggested lime and blueberry, norakwami said maybe matcha again and cornflower petals (kinda grassy taste), and then ghostlyhamburger linked me to something called Honeyberries (which are kinda oblong, but otherwise pretty much the same blue as blueberries) as another blue food item. Subtle is definitely a good idea for Vipereon stuff, though, IMO; if there's something blue and-or green that's particularly associated with music, I might lean towards that.

[chanter1944]

Re rhubarb acceptance: Squee! :D I haven't got an opinion on red currants because I've never yet tasted one. I need to remedy this.

I wondered if maybe billberries, as opposed to blueberries, might fly for Viperion? Trying to pin down grey-green ingredients that work in baking is not an easy challenge! XD I'm liking Norakwami's idea, but wondering if there could be something added as a... well... bass note to that combination... Oh, this is tricky!

[soc_puppet]

Red and black currants are pretty popular in Europe, I'm given to understand. Rhubarb is delightful, though!

I had to look up billberries, and they are intriguing! Adding them to the pile of Blue Fruit Options. (I think cassowary fruit is probably my favorite conceptually of the ones I know about, but I don't anticipate getting to taste it any time soon.) I also kinda think of Vipereon as a bit more of a blue-ish green/teal than gray-green? IDK.

[krait]

Matcha with lime, honey-ginger shortbread, lavender shortbread, and rhubarb thumbprints all sound fabulous!

...Now I may have to go make some lavender shortbread, actually, because I just realised I have all the ingredients. :D

[chanter1944]

I may have to dig up a recipe for thumbprint cookies! Ah crud, rhubarb and blueberry are both waaaaay out of season here, and I prefer local jam if I can get it anyway.

The last time I tried to make lavender shortbread, I screwed it up horribly! :/ I may need to try again. I find shortbread is finicky. The honey ginger lemon idea sounds *amazing* though.

[krait]

I would definitely want locally-or-homemade rhubarb jam; too many people seem to think rhubarb requires a bucketload of added sugar, which is the exact opposite of the point of my eating it. (I like tart things, okay! Please, world, stop adding a pound of sugar to everything even slightly acidic?) Someone else in the comments suggested redcurrant, and that would be excellent, too; they have excellent tartness and a beautiful colour!

I have never had an issue with shortbread recipes being tricky, but then, I use the most basic recipe in the world, and just adapt it as needed. (I must admit, I laughed hard at the recipe someone linked above; "easy" is not a descriptor I'd use for a recipe that requires a stand mixer, rolling out while chilled, and not one but two refrigeration stages!) The only time I've ever screwed up my shortbread was the first time I tried to make a chocolate version using cocoa; the darker dough made it hard to judge doneness and it got burnt around the edges before I pulled it out.

...Now I need to figure out a honey-ginger version, don't I. This will be tricky!

[chanter1944]

You haven't got a link to the shortbread recipe you use, have you? I'm not sure the one I used during previous attempts was all that marvelous.

I also understood currants to be much more common in Europe than in North America, or at least the States. Not sure about the rest of the world. I should find and try some someday; I've clearly missed out.

[krait]

I have no link, because I memorised it long ago, but here you are:

1.25 c | 150g All-purpose flour
.25 c | 48 g Granulated sugar
3 tbsp | 24g cornstarch
1 stick/8 tbsp | 112 g unsalted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix dry ingredients together thoroughly. Add butter and work into dough. Press dough into shortbread mould or pan, and prick several times with a fork. Bake 30-50 min until golden. Remove from oven. Gently insert knife between shortbread and pan edge, set a wooden cutting board on top of the pan, and invert swiftly to remove shortbread from pan. Use a very sharp knife to cut into servings before fully cool, to prevent cracking.

Once you've built some familiarity, it's easy to come up with variations; you can start with simpler ones, like tossing pieces of fresh raspberries into the dough (do this after mixing, right before it goes into the pan, or your berries will turn to mush), and work up to more complex ones (like substituting .25c flour for cocoa and slightly increasing the sugar, to make chocolate shortbread).

Honestly, I make most of my variations 'by feel;' having made them for so many years, I know what the dough should feel like, so I don't really measure things so much as just, uh, do what I can tell needs to be done to make it the right texture/consistency.

If you like tart flavours, you should definitely try redcurrants! I found redcurrants in the northern US; they grow there, so there are some local sources. They do seem scarcer outside that area, but you can still sometimes find jam or juice in stores (check import markets, though regular grocers may have it in their higher-end jam selections, or 'health-food' juice offerings).

This whole post and thread made me go and eat a can of cranberry sauce, in addition to making shortbread. :D

[chanter1944]

Thank you for the recipe! :D I'll try it and report back the results.

[krait]

You're welcome!

You can use just about any approximately-8-inch-diameter pan for these, if you don't have a shortbread mould; I've even made them in disposable foil baking pans (the round kind meant for rolls). And they are very hard to mess up; the main thing is just not to overknead them after working the butter in, or they'll be kind of tough.

[krait]

Oh, and in case you were curious: the first draft. :D

[soc_puppet]

Count me in on Team Tart! I tend to water down and ice up my cranberry juice to let the tart notes shine out even more~

Here's the shortbread recipe I got when going through the baking program:

Short Dough
(1-2-3 Cookie Dough; Pâte Sucrée)


Yield: 6 pounds, 5.25 ounces (2,873 grams)

Ingredients: U.S. Standard | % | Metric | 18 oz. batch

Sugar, granulated: 1 pound | 15.8 | 454 grams | 2.85 oz

Butter, (unsalted,
room temperature): 2 pounds | 31.6 | 908 grams | 5.75 oz

Eggs, whole: 5.25 ounces (4 ea) | 5.2 | 150 grams | 1 oz

Flour, pastry: 3 pounds | 47.4 | 1,361 grams | 8.5 oz

Total Yield: 6# 5 ¼ oz. | 100 | 2,873 grams | 1# 2oz.


Method of Preparation:
1. Gather all the ingredients and equipment.
2. Scale ingredients.
3. In the bowl of a stationary mixer fitted with a paddle, cream the sugar and butter.
4. Add the eggs gradually. Scrape well.
5. Add the flour and mix on low speed until well blended.
6. Refrigerate before using.


...Oof, that copied out roughly. I may see about separating out the different batch sizes in a fresh comment. Still, it shouldn't take too much math to figure out how much lavender to add to get the same flavor as the one Alex linked, even with the added eggs.



Please share if you figure out the honey-ginger-lemon recipe! I really want to be able to see/taste the results of, well, all of these 😜

[soc_puppet]

If you find or can alter a recipe to flavor thumbprint cookies with blueberry, I'd be very interested in getting a copy!

[chanter1944]

I need to do some sniffing around for that one! If I come up with anything, I'll let you know. Blueberry something in the dough itself was my first thought.

[soc_puppet]

I do know that fruit puree is a popular substitute for eggs, if that helps at all! And since blueberries are so juicy, replacing some of the liquid would be a good idea, IMO.

Best of luck!

[(Anonymous)]

Didn't we learn in Bakerix that the Dupain-Chengs use rice flour?

That was the cause of the split between Tom and his dad?

[soc_puppet]

My impression was that they had started mixing some rice flour in with their wheat flour, but hadn't switched over completely. Speaking as a professional in the industry, it also makes a lot more sense that she even COULD do that at her grandfather's house (though timing-wise I'm still a little perplexed); if she'd switched completely to rice flour and used no wheat flour, the loaf almost certainly wouldn't have passed for "visually identical to wheat bread" and likely wouldn't have held its shape either. One of the main things gluten is responsible for is allowing bread dough to stretch and pull and hold together, and while glutenous rice flour does exist, I'm pretty sure it's not what's used in baking.

There's also the fact that a lot of baking equipment is hella expensive, especially the larger pieces like ovens and duchesses (presses that will automatically cut bread into even portions for things like rolls). If they've so much as touched wheat dough, they're basically contaminated forever, and while it's possible that Sabine and Tom got a lot of money either from a loan or from Sabine's family or Gina to buy all new equipment, or saved up over a long time, it's much more likely that they're using secondhand at least.

I feel like a mix of flour also works better in the show as a metaphor, since Marinette is mixed race, and she's ultimately responsible for reuniting Tom with his father.