I don’t know about you but I am sweeping the remains of this January out! Cold, snowy, disease ridden, oh-my-god-will-covid-never-be done-with-us-January is history. And in celebration I went through my cupboard and made some cookies out of every remnant I could find of the previous month. They started with my Murray cookie recipe and ended up somewhere in the next stratosphere. I dumped January into a bowl and sweetened it up. Two fats: butter for flavor and Crisco (vegetable shortening) for texture. Two sugars: brown sugar gives depth and cane sugar gives a little extra ...
Cookies
FRENCH 84’s: ALMOND, STRAWBERRY AND TOFFEE COOKIES
Inspired by a walk through the markets of Paris in the Spring of 1984, these thin cookies snap when bitten revealing an interior filled with the flavors of almond, strawberry and toffee. Thanksgiving 2021 was very special at my house. All three of my daughters were present, each with a lovely baby boy born this year. And as if that weren’t special enough, we were also joined by my middle daughter’s British in-laws who were seeing them for the first time since 2019. Gratitude was definitely on the table! It was such a treat to be able to feed all of them and host them at my ...
PUMPKIN BISCOTTI WITH GINGER AND CRANBERRY
And all the lives we ever lived and all the lives to be are full of trees and changing leaves. –Virginia Woolf Autumn is a time of reflection. As the light softens and changes; as the mornings darken and the evening comes earlier; as rain drops drearily, dragging reluctant leaves from their hold on branches, my coffee break demands a little more. It asks for biscotti. Crisp on the outside, soft on the inside, flavored with warm spices, candied ginger, cranberries and fragrant pumpkin, my biscotti reminds me of the past and future combined in each season. Spring, summer, fall and winter, ...
PUMPKIN SPICE ICE CREAM SANDWICHES
Sometime in late August or early September, Starbucks and other retailers pull the trigger on Autumn, and Pumpkin Spice Everything appears in stores throughout the country. This feels premature to me. Pumpkin Spice calls for sweaters, chilly evenings, and brilliantly colored leaves. I don’t know where you live but that is not how my September rolls. Where I live it’s still pretty hot. How to satisfy that yen for the cool days of Autumn on a sweltering 85-degree day? Ice cream sandwiches of course-- specifically yummy vanilla ice cream sandwiched between pumpkin spice cookies ...
LEMON ROSEMARY SHORTBREAD COOKIES (THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN CHOCOLATE CHIP)
I read a lot about pie this weekend : about how it’s fast becoming a lost tradition because Americans don’t want to spend time making a pie crust and about how, without putting in the time to make pastry over and over again, you will never really get it right. In the opinion of some, store-bought ready-to-roll pie crust is crap. (Full disclaimer: I am not entirely in that camp. I will use a pre-made crust and enjoy my pie all the same when I don’t have time to make a crust.) I thought about that as I set about making these little bites of Rosemary and Lemon deliciousness baked in a ...
A WALK IN PARIS—AMERICAN STYLE
An easy-to-make Almond, Toffee and Cherry Cookie Last week I took you to Paris in 1982 and gave you a recipe for a cookie which, while admittedly delicious, contained a number of steps and processes which made it more than a simple walk in the park to make. This week, I am going to take you on a walk in the USA in 2021. Where a cookie is a special treat but relatively easy to make. It is something Moms make for their children, friends bring to friends and it is the cornerstone of the American Bake Sale. I am doing this because I want my blog to be about making baking easy for people, ...
A WALK IN PARIS COOKIE
A walk through the streets of Paris is the inspiration for this Strawberry and Almond Brittle Studded Cookie. I took a break from my blog and I went for a walk in Paris. I was 28 years old and lived on the Avenue Du President Kennedy where I could see the Eiffel Tower from my apartment window. In the evening the lights of the Bateau Mouche, the tourist boats, on the Seine raced across the ceiling of my bedroom. It was a morning in June and I had just taken a dance class at a nearby studio. As I walked home I stopped in a small boulangerie at the entrance to a market street. In the ...
PFEFFERNUESSE: A GERMAN CHRISTMAS COOKIE
“Pfeffernuesse”, it’s almost as much fun to say it (feff er noose) as it is to eat it! It is not a gingerbread cookie although it is filled with spices: anise, cinnamon, nutmeg and pepper. It is a soft cookie and, like so many traditional cookies of the season, it doesn’t look like much, even after being covered in icing sugar. But it delivers a punch of flavor!, Pfeffernuesse has been around for ages, more than 200 years so there are a lot of recipes out there. I am not laying claim to the recipe or reinventing the wheel. My recipe comes from Zingerman’s Deli in Ann Arbor Michigan. ...
GINGERBREAD (TO EAT AND TO SCUPLT)
How does this always happen to me? December starts and it seems like I have so much time to get ready, and then I add one or two new baking projects to all the other baked goods I usually make, and before I know it I am baking at 7AM and again at 7PM! It’s a good thing I enjoy it. Years ago, when my girls were little, I had the bright idea of keeping them entertained in the lead-up to Christmas by giving each of them a small gingerbread house to decorate. The recipe was one I found in a magazine back in 1971. It was a clunky recipe which made a hard gingerbread which was not great for ...
TAKING IT A DAY AT A TIME WITH SPICED APPLE OATMEAL COOKIES
Fresh apples and butterscotch chips take these spiced oatmeal cookies to another level! Has time ever been so surreal? The days seem to drag on forever and yet it’s already mid-October. This year has been a tough ride but it almost over. Except what if it isn’t? My newest fear is: What if it’s not just 2020? What if this chaos and discord continues? When I think of that, I turn off everything, go for walk and come home and bake cookies. Then I go for another walk and drop the cookies off at a friend’s house. By the time I do all that I feel better and the day has passed. Did I ...
