Cranberry-Pistachio Biscotti

Day 2 of holiday baking brought biscotti studded with cranberries and pistachios.  I used my favorite biscotti recipe from Dorie Greenspan--it's crunchy with cornmeal but doesn't risk your teeth--and added the dried fruit and nuts.  Around here, some people prefer what we called unoscotti--the softer cookies after only one round of baking--but they didn't get the final touches, which included dipping the ends in white chocolate and then red and green sprinkles.

Lime Mexican Wedding Cookies

Yesterday was Day 1 of my holiday baking fest.  First up were Mexican wedding cookies with lime, a nice twist on the traditional version of the cookies.  These include lime zest and coconut, which help to cut the richness of the butter and nuts (not that there's anything wrong with that ...)  The last step of these cookies -- rolling them in confectioner's sugar twice -- is messy, but it's so worth it.  I made a double batch, as these are small and disappear quickly.

Peanut Butter S'mores Bars

By now I think it's clear that I love chocolate and peanut butter. So it's probably no surprise that, while making s'mores bars, a layer of peanut butter somehow ended up in there. I put in a graham cracker layer, chocolate, peanut butter, and then realized as I was spreading the marshmallow fluff that peanut butter wasn't actually in the recipe. There are worse things, right? These disappeared very quickly.

Peanut Butter S'mores Bars

1/2 c butter, room temp.
1/4 c brown sugar
1/3 c white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/4 c flour
3/4 c + cracker crumbs (I crushed up one of the three sleeves in package and used all of it)
1 tsp baking powder
4 Hershey bars (milk choc. is trad, but use whatever kind of choc. you like best)
7 oz marshmallow fluff (one container)
2-4 oz peanut butter (optional)

Line an 8x8 pan with foil and grease with butter or cooking spray. Preheat the oven to 350.

Cream together the butter and two sugars. Then add the egg and vanilla.

In a separate bowl, mix together the flour, graham cracker crumbs, and baking power. Then slowly add them to the butter-sugar mixture.

Divide the dough in half and put haf in the bottom of the greased pan. Press down to fill any gaps, but don't pack it in.

Then cover the dough with a single layer of chocolate* (and peanut butter, if using, as below). Four bars should be plenty, though you might have to break them to make them fit.  *If you're using peanut butter, it's easier to spread it on the chocolate bars before you put them in the pan, than to try to spread it on them once they're already in.

Then spread on the marshmallow fluff evenly, and cover with the remaining half of the dough. I crumbled it on so it would be sandier in texture at the end.

Bake for 25-30 min., til lightly brown on top. Cool briefly and enjoy. :)

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Almond Joy Macaroons

This post is a little late, but I did make these macaroons during Passover. This is just a little twist on a simple coconut macaroon recipe. I added sliced almonds into the mixture and then a chocolate kiss on top, after I took the macaroons from the oven. The almonds add a nice crunch, and the kisses mean no dipping in chocolate, which can be messy (and dangerous, when some of the cookies fall into the chocolate and you have to eat the less pretty ones).  Almond Joy Macaroons(based on Mark Bittman's Minimalist Macaroons) 

2/3 c sugar (I used vanilla sugar and skipped the vanilla below)

2 c unsweetened coconut

2/3 c sliced almonds

2 egg whites

1 tsp vanilla extract

pinch of salt

approx. 24 chocolate kisses (optional but good)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Mix the sugar, coconut, almonds, egg whites, vanilla, and salt together in a bowl.  Using a 1/8 c measuring cup (or spoons, or your fingers), scoop out the coconut mixture onto a parchment-lined cookie sheet.  Bake for 15 min., or til lightly browned.  Remove from the oven and place an upside down kiss on top of each macaroon.  Let cool completely.

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Vanilla Bean Sablés

Sablés are rich, buttery cookies that really let their simple ingredients shine. In these, the seeds from two vanilla beans are mixed with a little sugar, and then that mixture is combined with butter, sea salt, an egg yolk and flour. The dough is chilled and then rolled in sparkling sugar, which adds crunch and a bit of sweetness.


See the little flecks of vanilla bean in these cookies? Vanilla beans aren't cheap, but they are so well worth the price. The whole house smelled like vanilla, and the flavor is amazing--worlds away from some "natural flavors" that are passed off as vanilla-like. The recipe is from Dorie Greenspan. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Christmasy Cookies

Every year I say the same thing--that I'm not going to go overboard--and every year I end up making a ton of cookies. It's not that I don't like baking cookies--clearly--but there's only so many hours in a day, nor is there a need for bazillions of cookies and candies.  This year my list kept growing and growing, but I was finally able to narrow it down to a mere 10 items.  After I baked the first eight all in one day, and I had trouble locating not-uncommon ingredients for the last two, I decided it was a sign and called it a day.  Starting at the bottom of this picture, there are triple peanut cookies with peanut m&ms, salty caramel oat caramelitas, chocolate-dipped toasted coconut macaroons, coal cookies with white chocolate chips, chewy ginger spice cookies (hiding at the very top), almond buttercrunch, and avalanche bars.  Not pictured are the peanut butter-oat dog biscuits I made, but the dog has tested them and declared them very tasty.  She didn't even bother trying to hide these--as is her usual with a treat--and just ate them right up.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cookies

The combination of chocolate and peanut butter is one of my favorite things. These cookies have both chocolate and peanut butter in the dough and then again in the chips, in the form of the tiniest pb cups ever, from King Arthur Flour. Though micro-mini pb cups are hard to find and you might be tempted to use pb chips and chocolate chips instead, I can say from experience that the cookies will not taste the same, nor half as good. These pb cups don't melt into the dough, and they actually taste like peanut butter, which is not always the case. The recipe, also from KAF, can be found here.

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Chocolate Chip Cookie Fest

It's late June and I have a freezer-full of cookies. We've had some sudden breaks in the high heat, and I feel almost compelled to bake--if only because I can without heating up the whole house. Cookies are always good, and they store well too. The cookies above are toffee-oatmeal-chocolate-chip, based on the recipe in Diane Mott Davidson's "Crunch Time". The cookies below were perhaps a cry for more caffeine: chewy coffee chip cookies (like coffee chip ice cream, not with coffee-flavored chips) and thin, crispy mocha-cocoa chip cookies.







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Valentine's Macarons

Happy Valentine's Day! This year I decided to tackle a project I've been talking about for over a year, possibly two. Macarons are sweet, almond and meringuey cookies that are filled with any number of good things. I made two kinds: one pale pink filled with raspberry preserves and one creamy white filled with dark chocolate ganache. The thing about macarons is that they are a process to make and, with the almond flour, not cheap either. I knew this going in--and they lived up to that. I think I used every mixing bowl around as well as every surface. Also, the cookies are delicate, and breakage will occur. While I don't plan to make these again immediately, I still came away with plenty of cookies and even just the unfilled broken shells are good to munch on.

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Don't Forget the Hound

Peanut butter-oatmeal treats for dogs, using a recipe from King Arthur Flour. Easy to make, no scary ingredients , and they are a HUGE hit.

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Snowy Day Treats

Today was a snow day, and while I did work from home, I found some time later to bake up a few things. The brownies above are chocolate fudge with a peanut butter swirl. I also played around with a favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe, adding oatmeal and switching around the sugars and flour. The result is a very tasty chocolate chip-oatmeal-pecan cookie that is soft and chewy and buttery and nutty. And chocolatey too, of course.



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Christmas Cookies 2010

The holidays are here, and I am done with my baking! Well, at least the immediate baking -- I've been told I missed a few key kinds of cookies and that we're at risk of running out. Not likely. This year I made, triple peanut butter cookies, gingersnaps, chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons, pecan divines, and almond buttercrunch, which is pictured above.

                                                                    Spicy gingersnaps


                                                           Chewy, nutty pecan divines


                                                    Chocolate-dipped coconut macaroons


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Cranberry Streusel Shortbread

Thanksgiving is tomorrow, and I have several desserts in the works, but today I present one of my new favorite treats. I made this recipe for a dinner party last night, and the sweet and tangy combination of the shortbread and cranberries was delicious.

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Rugelach with All the Right Things

The last time I made rugelach, I wasn't so impressed with the results. This time, however, I'm much happier. Growing up, I was never a big fan of rugelach, as they were usually pretty dry and filled some raisiny/figgy/apricoty mixture. The chocolate ones were good, but rare. This recipe uses raspberry jam, pecans, dried cranberries AND dark chocolate--a fairly perfect combination, I think, though of course you can switch it around for what like, too.

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Thousand Dollar Goodness

This recipe is essentially for Twix bars--very rich ones, at that. Despite the layers, the recipe is fairly simple: shortbread, caramel, chocolate, and patience while it all sets up. And as you can see, I clearly skipped the last step--as demonstrated with my drippy, but homemade, caramel. The final bars are good, but I can't imagine dipping them in chocolate too, as suggested. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

The Best Peanut Butter Cookies Ever

Yesterday I turned on the oven for the first time in ages. The occasion? Nice weather! The prolonged heat and humidity had sapped me of any desire to cook. However, the suddenly almost-cool temps found me wandering the aisles of the grocery store, trying to figure out how much I could and what I should, make before the thermometer skyrockets again this weekend. Keeping it simple, I decided on Dorie Greenspan's peanut butter cookies, which are among my favorites. They're packed full of crunchy peanut butter and peanuts (I used unsalted), but they're surprisingly light and will disappear very fast. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Thin and Crispy

I have a few favorite chocolate chip cookie recipes--and this recipe, from Dorie Greenspan, is one of them. The buttery dough is full of dark chocolate shards, in this case cut from a hunk of Callebaut. You can use chips, but the big and little slivers fill the cookie more completely and add texture -- my favorite chocolate chip ice cream is the same way. If you want variety, you can substitute unsweetened cocoa for some of the flour to make thin and crispy chocolate chocolate chip cookies, or add espresso powder for a little more jolt to your cookie. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Almond Clouds

Anyone who likes the sweet flavor of almonds will like these quick, and somewhat addictive, cookies. They use neither flour nor butter and only an egg white to bind, but the trio of almonds--paste, extract and oil--makes it all come together. My cookies nothing like the ones in the picture on the KA site, but I have absolutely no complaints. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Oatmeal Day

Monday was cool and rainy, a good day for oatmeal. I made chewy oatmeal cookies with toasted pecans and two loaves of maple-oatmeal bread, one of which mostly disappeared soon after it left the oven.

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Save Your Teeth Biscotti

Biscotti are often used to dunk in coffee or tea, so their extra-hardness makes sense. However, if you're one of those people who likes to eat a cookie without breaking her teeth, or who doesn't care for the sodden, lumpy mess a dunked cookie can turn into, these are the cookies to make. Both recipes are from Dorie Greenspan's Baking at Home. The plain almond biscotti--which are anything but "plain"--have a strong almond flavor from both sliced almonds and almond extract. The recipe also calls for cornmeal, which adds flavor and texture. The chocolate biscotti feature unsweetened cocoa, chopped bittersweet chocolate, and chopped blanched almonds. Like all biscotti, the cookies are baked as logs for 15-20 min., allowed to cool, and then sliced and baked for 10-20 min. more. The second baking toasts the cookies on all sides, but they aren't rocklike--certainly if you want them harder, leave them in the oven a bit longer.