Professor Butter Beard and Vincent’s “Blossoming Chestnut Branches”
“The last canvas of the flowering branches - you will see that it is perhaps the best, the most patient work I have ever done, painted with calm and greater determination.” – Vincent van Gogh, writing Theo in 1890
Cookies were my first bake. To be specific, Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies. You know the bag – the one with the recipe printed on the back. But my baking mentors were from “two households, both alike in dignity.” Gramma Mac was a firm believer in the power of white granulated sugar for a crisp distinguished crunch. The second matriarch, Gramma D, defended her position advocating additional brown sugar to ensure the center remained delectably chewy. ‘Twas a culinary conundrum.
My eight-year-old-self compromised by creating a crisp version within the McClellan castle and a chewy one within the DuBois fortress. But the chocolate chips remained the same – Toll House Semisweet. Until I met white chocolate and Pandora’s box burst open with a gay flame of rainbow fireworks. Suddenly, new combinations sprung into being: white chocolate and peanuts, white chocolate and peppermint extract, white chocolate and fresh basil (that one sent Gramma D out on her canoe!).
But, dear reader, you may ask, what brought us to this conversation today? To be plain, it was a Saturday afternoon’s delicious conversation with my bestie Vincent van Gogh. In fact, the first open Saturday after spending the last eight weeks morphing my soul with a certain insane King and his three daughters. I allowed my most recent Van Gogh exhibition catalogue to fall open, and there it was, Vincent’s spectacular interpretation of a chestnut tree whose branches were in full bloom with puffs of white petals swaying in the summer breeze of his mind.
Nienke Bakker writes, “Auvers-sur-Oise was at its loveliest when Van Gogh arrived there in the final days of May 1890, just hours after his release from the asylum. The fields and gardens were full of flowers and the chestnut trees were in blossom.” Van Gogh took to the village right away. He particularly loved the old thatched roofs. He wrote to his brother vividly describing the homes that were “very jolly, sunny and covered with flowers” and all the “beautiful greenery in abundance.” During his first weeks in Auvers, the artist painted nine floral still lifes, which is more than he had produced in this genre in the whole of the preceding year.
That May, the chestnut trees near the Café de la Mairie, Arthur Ravoux’s inn, where Van Gogh was staying, were in full blossom and he painted them twice during the first days after his arrival. The first, “Blossoming Chestnut Trees,” arose more or less by chance when a surprise viscous spring storm lashed out on May 24th and 25th, knocking down branches heavily ladened with white flowers. The artist collected them in his arms, brought them into his room, and opted for a large canvas format (30” by 36”) in order to capture the complete span of the flowing branches.
If you look closely, you can just discern the vase in which the branches stand and the sloping line of the simple wooden table. There are actually blossoms and leaves of two varieties of horse chestnut tree: large white flowers at the front and smaller pink ones at the back. Bakker continues, “The composition is reminiscent in this regard of Katsushika Hokusai’s close-up prints of flowers, which Van Gogh saw at the exhibition of Japanese prints he had visited in Paris.”
“The astonishing dynamism of the touch – impastoed and rounded for the blossoms, wider and flatter for the leaves, and parallel lines for the table and background – make this one of his best still lifes: a marvelous image of the vitality and energy exuded by nature in spring.”
I couldn’t agree more. It has become one of my favorites of Van Gogh’s still lifes. And, in fact, I am not alone in my appreciation. The painting was one of four missing after a high-profile theft from the Foundation E.G. Bührle gallery in Zürich on February 10, 2008. The work was found nine days later in a parked automobile in Zürich, along with one of the other stolen paintings, and was returned undamaged to the gallery.
Hunger must have surfaced as I further studied the masterwork. Suddenly, the puffs of blonde petals mysteriously transformed into bunches of white chocolate chips and perfectly round Macadamia nuts. The branches and wooden table converted into a pleasantly crisp (and chewy) warm cookie dusted with confection’s sugar and I knew it was time to tie on the apron and fire up the oven.
A new recipe wove its way through my mind, adding nutmeg for mystery and black pepper for warmth and surprise. I have learned that patiently allowing the cookie dough to chill for at least one hour will boost the deep caramel notes from the brown sugar and solidify the melted butter, ensuring a perfect balance of “crisp and chew.”
You have inspired me again, Vincent, to create “perhaps the best, the most patient work I have ever done, painted with calm and greater determination.”
Professor Butter Beard’s White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies
Five Dozen Cookies
1 cup light brown sugar
½ cup granulated sugar
12 Tbps unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs, room temperature
2 tsp vanilla paste
3 cups all-purpose flour
¾ tsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
1 tsp fine sea salt
½ tsp freshly ground nutmeg
½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
1 ½ cups macadamia nuts, coarsely chopped
1 cup white chocolate chips
1) Melt 12 Tbsp unsalted butter and set aside to slightly cool
2) In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg and black pepper. Have at the ready.
3) In a standing mixer, with the paddle attachment, mix together the two sugars until evenly combined with no lumps of brown sugar. Add the melted butter and mix to combine. Add the eggs and vanilla paste and mix to combine.
4) Add the dry mixture and mix on low just until a dough comes together. Add the macadamia nuts and white chocolate chips just until evenly distributed.
5) Line one baking sheet with parchment and using a spring-loaded scoop, portion the dough into 2 Tbsp balls. You should have about 5 dozen. Cover with plastic wrap and chill at least one hour.
6) Preheat your oven to 375 degrees and line two more baking sheets with parchment paper. Place 16 cookies on one sheet and bake on the center rack for 8 minutes. Rotate the pan and bake for 4 more minutes. Let the cookies cool on the pan for 5 minutes and then remove them to a wire rack to cool completely. Continue baking the rest of the cookies in the same manner.
7) Optional – dust the cool cookies with a dusting of confectioner’s sugar.
