Hufflepuffs

Hufflepuffs are the name that James has given to the little almond puff -pastry pastries that I made on Friday night. They are lovely and addictive and very versatile - you can make them with roasted almond slivers, chocolate, dried cherries, even jam - and they are so easy that I'm not going to even post the recipe. All you do, is this:

1. Decide whether or not you feel like making puff-pastry dough from scratch or if you want to you frozen. If you want to make it from scratch, I really recommend Julia Child's recipe or the one tested by America's Test Kitchen. If you want to use frozen, go with Pepperidge Farm's - it's really good, especially in a pinch. Whichever you decide, roll out the dough to a thickness of about 1/8 of an inch and cut it into 1 in. x 2 in. rectangles.

2. Wash the top of your rectangles in egg white and sprinkle with sugar. Then put your almond slivers or dried fruit or chocolate chips / chunks on top.

3. Pop them onto a baking sheet and put them in the oven at 400 degrees for eight minutes. After eight minutes, turn off the oven and open the door slightly. Let them hang out in there for another five minutes to dry them out a bit (it'll prevent sogginess), then pull them out and let them cool on a rack.

Stored in an airtight container, the Hufflepuffs will stay fresh for a day or two. If they start to get a little stale or spongy, pop them back into the oven at 400 for 3-5 minutes. Then let them hang out with the oven off and the door ajar for another 3-5 minutes.

There's lots of room to play around with variations. The pound of puff pastry dough used makes *a lot* of them, so they make an awesome last minute dessert too. They all do great in a pinch when you just absolutely must have a lovely, homemade treat Right Now. :-)