Sweeter Than Fiction
By: Erin Huang-Schaffer
There's a wonderful, underrated movie called Stranger Than Fiction (2006). It's a film that reminds you how important it is to love your life, and exercise control over how it's run.
It's about Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), a boring, average IRS agent with a mathematically repetitive life. He starts hearing a voice (Emma Thompson), who narrates his life as if he were a fictional character.
The supporting cast features Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. The entire cast holds the screen with charisma and wit, and this film features Will Ferrell's greatest acting. He delivers a likably humble performance in this rare dramatic role.
I am amazed by how small the recognition was for the writing, acting, and cinematography. This film deserves a lot more attention than it got. Putting my die-hard frustration aside, there's a scene with a "Bavarian sugar cookie". It is a thin, heart-shaped cookie topped with a creamy layer of white icing that is so soft the actor only needed to slowly bend the cookie in half to taunt its delicious appeal.
So I looked it up online, only to find that it was a fictional cookie. I found a few recipes invented by fans of the movie, and some sugar cookie recipes, and have combined inspiration from that plus my own touches to make the perfect "Bavarian" sugar cookies. Here is the recipe.
It's about Harold Crick (Will Ferrell), a boring, average IRS agent with a mathematically repetitive life. He starts hearing a voice (Emma Thompson), who narrates his life as if he were a fictional character.
The supporting cast features Maggie Gyllenhaal, Dustin Hoffman, and Queen Latifah. The entire cast holds the screen with charisma and wit, and this film features Will Ferrell's greatest acting. He delivers a likably humble performance in this rare dramatic role.
I am amazed by how small the recognition was for the writing, acting, and cinematography. This film deserves a lot more attention than it got. Putting my die-hard frustration aside, there's a scene with a "Bavarian sugar cookie". It is a thin, heart-shaped cookie topped with a creamy layer of white icing that is so soft the actor only needed to slowly bend the cookie in half to taunt its delicious appeal.
So I looked it up online, only to find that it was a fictional cookie. I found a few recipes invented by fans of the movie, and some sugar cookie recipes, and have combined inspiration from that plus my own touches to make the perfect "Bavarian" sugar cookies. Here is the recipe.
Cookie Ingredients:
• 2 cups of flour (and some extra later for shaping the dough) • ½ teaspoon of baking powder • ¼ teaspoon of salt • 1 stick of unsalted butter, room temperature • 1 cup of white sugar • 1 egg • 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract Icing Ingredients: • 1 ½ cups of powdered sugar • 3 tablespoons of lemon juice/water/milk (I used lemon juice because I wanted a "zesty icing" – also a reference to the film) Materials & Tools: • 2 large bowls, 1 small bowl • Whisk, electric mixer • Cookie trays (and tin foil to cover them) • Plastic wrap • Rolling pin • Heart-shaped cookie cutter (or any other shape) • Spatula Yield: 30-60, depending on the size and thickness of the cookies (I ended up making 63) |
Directions:
1. Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in a large bowl. Set to the side for now. 2. Add butter and sugar to the second large bowl, and cream with an electric mixer until fluffy as a cloud. 3. Mix in the egg and vanilla. 4. Slowly add the flour mixture into the current bowl you're working with, keeping the mixer on low. Mix until it widely resembles cookie dough. 5. Put plastic wrap over the bowl of cookie dough (and maybe move it to a smaller bowl for the next part), and leave it in the freezer for 20 minutes. 6. Take the dough out of the freezer, then preheat the oven to 325º F. Take out the cookie trays and just put them to the side. 7. Here comes the semi-fun part (the real fun part is eating the cookies). Spread a generous amount of flour on a wide, clean surface (like a wooden or marble table or a very large cutting board). Place the dough on the surface and gently roll it out. You want these cookies to come out as thin and delicate as possible, so make sure there's a huge amount of flour under the dough to keep its thin frame from sticking to the surface. 8. Once the dough is all spread out, take your cookie cutter and start making hearts, using as much of the dough as possible. Any extra pieces of dough can be rolled up again to make more cookies. 9. Cover your spatula in flour and gently lift the cookies off of the surface and onto a cookie tray. No worries; they break all the time. Keep doing these last two steps until all the dough is used up. 10. Put the cookies in the oven for 8-10 minutes. The ones that I had initially thought to have taken out too early (the totally white, non-golden-brown ones) ended up tasting the best after cooling off and hardening. Check on them every so often, then take them out to cool. 11. Here's how to make icing: a. Sift powdered sugar into the small bowl b. Add lemon juice (or water or milk), whisking it in after each tablespoon that you add c. Take a round spoon and see how well the icing sticks to the back of it. Add more powder or liquid if it seems too watery or too thick, respectively. 12. Use the back of the spoon to spread the icing on your cookies. Let the icing dry, then sprinkle the tops with white sugar. And you're done! |
Aftermath: I felt like my icing came out more like a glaze, as opposed to the icing in the movie, which seemed more white and creamy. I'll probably try a different icing the next time, despite its gooey, sugary goodness.