Oatmeal Raisin with Honey

I haven't made cookies in ages. I think summer is too hot for them. In fact, these oatmeal raisins were so soft and gooey and the weather has been equally soft and gooey that the mass of them just melted together to form one giant cookie. To eat them, you had to pull off little chunks of goodness bit by bit.

I actually made them for a friend who tuned up my bike (before I ran it over). Then that friend got hit by a drunken driver whilst on his bike, so the cookies served a dual purpose: thank you and get well soon. I don't know how much he appreciates baked goods, but I think time has told that nothing can heal broken bones, broken hearts or broken spirits much like a homemade baked good, especially those dunked in cold milk.

Oatmeal Raisin Cookies: from Martha Stewart's Baking Handbook

1 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

2 sticks softened butter

1 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup honey (Martha suggested syrup)

1 egg

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup raisins

Preheat oven to 325. In a medium bowl, mix flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt. In the large bowl of an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar on medium until light and fluffy. Add the honey and blend again. Add the egg and vanilla, beat until combined. Add the flour mixture to the wet mixture in two batches and beat until just combined. Add the oats and raisins and mix briefly until combined. Arrange on baking sheets and bake for 15 to 20 minutes.

Marathon of Baking

After my mom had so much fun with the tortellini fest, she decided to dedicate an entire day to baking Christmas cookies. She feigned reluctance, swearing that she would never be able to last as long as me in our culinary half-marathon (hello, everything I make is pan fried in olive oil--it takes less than 30 minutes because I get hungry and bored easily). I was right. When it came time to rolling out the lemon sandwich cookies and there were still two cakes to be made for weekend parties, I slumped over and nearly petered out, while my mom, Megan and Emily carried on without me.

We made quite a mess (my favorite part of baking) and ended up with four varities of cookies, one chocolate bar and two orange yogurt cakes. Exhausting and exhilarating.

The favorite were the succharinis. I believe the Italian wedding cookies were the inspiration for the day. My mom was convinced they were difficult because my aunt Jean said they were. But Jean also left the paper in between slices of mozzarella cheese when making lasagna for her boyfriend 20 or 30 years ago. Just saying.

My mom said the cookies tasted old, not like the too-sweet and heavily frosted sugar cookies you can get at the store. Their texture was a bit drier than you're typical cookie--dry in a good way--nearer in quality to a biscuit but a bit sweeter. They're flavored with anise and whiskey (Scotch in this case. My dad came up from the basement and said, "You're using my Scotch?!" "Only a tablespoon, dad.").

My mom rolled out the dough, just like she remembers her grandmother doing, and twisted the ropes into a knot. Once baked, we dipped the knots in a Scotch-flavored glaze and let them set. Before I left that evening I could hear her on the phone with one of her sisters, "They really taste just like Noni's. I can't believe it." I fear we're unraveling the mysteries of yore to reveal that old fashioned tortellini- and cookie-making was never the feat we thought it was and that there really is no excuse for us not folding thin sheets of pasta in on itself or twisting ropes of dough into hearty cookies in the company of friends and family.

Emily was in charge of making those icebox sugar cookies. We were implementing all sorts of old timey techniques. First rolling out the dough, then shoveling dough into those "guns" circa 1973. Even one of the standing mixers we used was incredibly retro (see top photo).

Megan was quite pleased with her output as well. She took on making a three-step-plus peppermint-chocolate cookie. The process involved baking the cookies and adding peppermint icing and chocolate drizzle, with crushed peppermints to top it off.

Succharinis:
5 cups flour
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons baking powder
6 eggs
3/4 cup butter
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 1/2 tablespoons anise seeds
1 generous tablespoon whiskey

For glaze:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1 teaspoon whiskey

Preheat oven to 350. For the cookies, blend all the ingredients together using a mixer (being careful not to break your spatula (see below)). Divide into handfuls and turn out on a well-floured surface. Roll into a rope and tie rope into a square knot. Bake for 15 minutes or until golden. Let cool.

For the glaze, bring the water and sugar to a soft boil on the stovetop. Add the whiskey. Continue until it forms a thicker syrup. Remove front heat and let cool for 5 to 10 minutes. Drop each biscuit into the glaze and remove with tongs. Let dry.

Fruit Pizza

I confess I have been so distracted lately. I've been recording my experiments in the kitchen for nearly a year now, and I haven't been this preoccupied with things other than food in a long time. First I've gotten some more responsibilities at work. It's been good to be busy copy editing and proofreading--keeps me busy. (For those of you who may be AAA members in Oklahoma, South Dakota and Minneapolis, please be kind when you receive your next mag.) And then there's this boy ... and that's all I'm going to say about it.

Before all that, Megan and I spent a free Saturday bustling around the kitchen. I made the granola, and she made this great fruit pizza. I'm not sure where her inspiration came in, but everyone doubted her. Her mom said that fruit pizza was very difficult to make. And I don't know what Eric said, but he likes to tease her about her cooking. She had a small, insignificant mishap when the cookie dough melted over the sides of the baking tray and burned onto the bottom of the stove. But, as you can see in the top photo, it turned out beautifully. And it only took us two-and-a-half days to finish eating it.

Megan's Fruit Pizza:
For pizza:
1 can of sugar cookie dough

For icing:
1 8-ounce package cream cheese
1/3 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

For topping:
handful bluberries
handful sliced strawberries
1 mango, peeled and diced
1 kiwi, peeled and sliced
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Roll out sugar cookie dough on a baking sheet. Bake for 16 to 20 minutes or until cookie is light, golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool.

In a medium mixing bowl, combine cream cheese, sugar and vanilla and blend with electric mixer until smooth. Once cookie has cooled spread frosting on the pizza. Decorate with fruit. Voila, pretty easy and irresistable.

Half-moon Cookies, aka Mezzalunas

Ahhhh, sigh of relief. I've just turned in a big story, one that I put a lot of pressure on myself to make good (lord, I hope no copyeditors read this blog or at least that sentence). I spent hours driving all over Omaha, interviewing people and pulling my hair out when the right words wouldn't come. And now I'm taking a break, for a moment, and writing the blog. Then it's back to work. Someday this week I'll finish that story that is already a week past deadline ... But right now, I want to think about rolling out dough on my kitchen counter and folding jelly-filled pastries into cute little pockets of sweetness. And don't forget, sprinkled with almonds. I'm relaxed already. Cue the Jose Gonzalez "Heartbeats."

I didn't break anything or injure myself in the process of making these pastries, which is saying a lot considering the past week. Though I did carelessly roll the dough too thin. I thought it wouldn't be a big deal, but the jelly melted in the oven and burned. The crust was still light and flaky, but the pastries with jelly still inside them were so much more delicious. This really was such a nice dessert to make, not too sweet. And rolling is so therapeutic. Time and again I come back to Italian recipes. They're always the best. Maybe it's my palate, but there's got to be a reason why we all love spaghetti.

To cut out the dough in circles, you're supposed to use a biscuit cutter. I don't own one of those, so I used the jar of jelly as a guide. Not to toot my own horn, but I am so good at improvising, not so great on the details. Someday I'll tell you the story of how I escaped from my stairwell later. This post is about mezzaluna cookies filled with strawberry jam.

Mezzaluna Cookies: adapted from Food and Wine

1 1/2 cup flour 2 tablespoons granulated sugar 12 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 1/2 tablespoons vanilla extract 1 egg white strawberry jam 1/2 cup blanched almonds, pulsed in food processor powdered sugar for dusting To blanch almonds, boil a cup or so of water on the stove. Drop in almonds for about 1 minute. Drain water and let almonds cool. The skins will sort of slip off if you squeeze the almonds. It's kind of fun, but be careful not to drop them on the floor.

Preheat oven to 350. For the dough, mix flour and sugar. Cut in butter and blend with a pastry blender. Add vanilla 1 tablespoon at a time. Food and Wine only recommended 1 tablespoon of vanilla. This was absolutley not enough for me, so I added more, kneading the dough until it all stuck together. Wrap dough in Saran and refrigerate for an hour. Cut off 1/4 of the dough and lie on flat, well-floured work surface. If you're nervous about the dough, follow the directions on this blog. Amazing. Roll until the dough is 1/8-inch thickness. Use biscuit cutter or large mug to cut out 4-inch circles from the dough. Repeat, recycling the dough until it's all cut out.

Arrange dough on baking sheet. Using a pastry brush (or barbecue brush, whatever), brush egg white on the circumfrance of the dough rounds. Spoon a teaspoon of jam onto the middle of the dough. Close and pinch shut with your fingers or with the edge of a fork. Arrange the pastries about two inches apart on the sheet. Once your finished spooning, brush the tops of the pastries with egg white, sprinkle with powdered sugar and almonds. Refrigerate the pastries for 10 minutes before baking. Bake until golden brown, about 40 minutes for 4-inch pastries.

Snow Day Treat

Now that I'm long out of high school, days on which it snows something like a mountain of snow are no longer exciting. That is, until last Friday, when it snowed, oh I'd say about 10 inches between 9 a.m. and noon. The HR person at work sent out an email that we would be able to leave work at 3:30 p.m. (whoopie) and that they were ordering pizza. So they didn't want us to drive in the snow, but the Valentino's delivery guy ... no big deal. We were actually excused from work around 2:30, though it did take me an hour to get home. But I spent the rest of Friday vegging out with a book and watching chick flicks. It was more fantastic than a barbecue in July ... well, maybe not. But I love how illness and weather conditions are always the perfect excuses to not do anything. Oh and I baked some winter-appropriate gingersnaps.

Nothing says winter like molasses. Here's the batter, mid-drip: And voila. Perfectly soft, chewy and fat-free gingersnaps basking in the sun. Yes that's right, I said fat free. I used David Lebovitz's recipe which substitutes the butter with applesauce and uses egg whites only. So healthy one would think I am preparing for spring break in Panama City, Fla., not true. I'll be spending three days in St. Louis in March, hoping it doesn't rain. Almost as good, right?

Nonfat Gingersnaps: 1 cup brown sugar 1/4 cup applesauce 1/3 cup molasses 2 large egg whites at room temp (if you're conserving, use your yolks for hollandaise or aioli) 2 1/4 cup flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves (you should have seen me grinding these fresh with a pepper mill, the only cloves I could find were whole in a container of mulling spices) 1/2 teaspoon black pepper (fortunately we have two pepper mills) 1/4 teaspoon salt In a mixing bowl, add brown sugar, applesauce and molasses and mix with mixer until its mixed (3-5 minutes). Add egg yolks to mixture and mix again for 3-5 minutes. Sift together flour, baking soda and spices (all the rest of the ingredients). Add to sugar/molasses mixture and blend until batter has uniform consistency. Chill in fridge while you stare out the window at the freshly fallen snow. Remove batter from fridge. In a separate, smaller bowl toss in about 1/2 a cup of granulated sugar and a sprinkling of cinnamon. With a spoon and washed hands, roll a large teaspoon of batter in the cinnamon-sugar. Throw it on a baking tray. The oven should have already been pre-heated to 350 degrees (you shoud have known this through blog osmosis--I am in such an obnoxious mood today). Bake those cookies for 13 minutes. Let cool and stuff your face--they are fat free.

Macaroons Are Overrated

The other night, I did the cliche food blogger thing: I made French macaroons. I've seen loads of pictures of them, and they look so cute. (Google-image them here). Seriously, every food blogger has got this cookie up their sleeve, as if that makes them legit. But it's totally not worth the effort.

And in fact, it took a bit of effort (at least more than your basic chocolate chip cookies). The macroon is sort of meringy, so whipped egg whites, which I (of course) messed up the first go-around and ended up with a soupy mess that look a lot like Pepto Bimol. I tried again and coaxed out some nice, fluffy white peaks. I decided to dye them pink, because I think it looks the cutest and thought it would go nicely with my lemon icing.

According to David Lebowitz's instructions, I filled my piping bag (aka giant Ziploc) using this glass as an assistant. And piped what turned into a runny liquid onto my baking sheet (Can you see the specs of almond flour in the batter? Appears to look tasty, but we all know looks can be deceiving). I was pessimistic, but one tray came out of the oven looking like macaroons. The other tray somehow got burnt and stuck unforgivingly to the baking sheet.

Megan suggested crushing them (see below). We both decided that the macaroon crumbs would be a great ice cream topping. There's this mother-daughter pair that sells cake crumbs at a downtown farmer's market in the summer to go on ice cream. They pass out samples. It's a good idea. But also a huge rip off. They sell these plastic containers of crumbs for like $5 a pop. I bet they use the boxed cake mixes. Unfortunately, we only got about two tablespoons of crunchy, macaroon crumbs.

For Your Viewing Pleasure

Just to put you in the holiday spirit, I'll let you gaze longingly at these beautiful chocolate chip and reeses chip cookies. Look how golden brown they are, and yet I can assure you that they were soft and chewy in the middle. Megan made these for our party. Thankfully there were a few leftover. I believe she followed the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag--in this case she actually followed all the dirctions and didn't miss any ingredients--thus they turned out perfectly.

At one point whilst making these Megan asked, "Do you think I put too many chocolate chips in them?" (She is hilarious.) "Megan, I don't think it's possible to put too much chocolate in anything."

So for those of you who aren't sick of holiday cookies yet, just scroll up and down this page and try not to drool.

Lemon Sandwich Cookies (the cutest ever)

These cookies are like that girl you see who is really cute and you think that she couldn't possibly be nice too. And when she does turn out to be deep and interesting and smart, you really can't believe it. I mean look how stinkin' cute these cookies are.

I made them for our party on Friday (which was excellent by the way), and thankfully there were still a few left over.

This cookie was featured in December's Gourmet magazine, and unfortunately I must say, my photos are not quite up to par with theirs (click through to compare). But they were just as good (I think), even though I accidentally added an extra tablespoon of lemon juice to the icing. The other really great thing that happened while making these cookies (aside from the copious amount of Christmas music I was listening to) was that I realized I had used up all the eggs making the latkes earlier in the week. I didn't want to leave the apartment, so I considered running downstairs to borrow from the neighbors, until I realized these cookies require no eggs. Life never seems to work out like that, isn't it great when it does?

Lemon Sandwich Cookies: 1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour 2/3 cup cornstarch 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened 1/2 cup powdered sugar 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest 1 teaspoon vanilla White or colored sanding sugars (for icing): 1 cup powdered sugar 1 tablespoon grated lemon zest 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice 2 tablespoons light corn syrup 1/2 stick unsalted butter, softened

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Whisk together flour and corn starch. In a separate bowl, mix together butter and sugar, beat in lemon peel and vanilla. Gradually add flour mixture to sugar mixture until blended.

Put sugars in separate bowls. Roll a "scant" teaspoon of dough into a ball, drop into sugar and turn to coat. Bake cookies in the oven for 12 to 15 minutes, until the tops are cracked and the bottom is golden.

For filling, combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix until blended. Transfer to a piping bag (or, as in my case, a big Ziploc), snip the corner and apply to flat side of one cookie. Sandwich with a matching cookie. Try not to eat too many before your party. Use a healthy amount of icing to glue the two cookies together--there will be some left over.

The Worst Chocolate Chip Cookies Ever

Back in college, we used to joke that I should host a cooking show called cooking with the clutz. Back then, every time I cooked something I made an enormous mess. There was the time I dropped an entire bottle of olive oil on the kitchen floor. What do you use to clean that? Water? There was the time I left the soup cooking on high and came back from a run to find it burned to the bottom of the pan. And there was the time I made 200 sugar and gingerbread cookies for a Christmas party. We didn't have a rolling pin ... so I used a glass ... that broke while I was rolling ... we still ate the cookies.

Lately though, I thought I had grown out of it. I can brag about my chocolate chip cookies. I only use the recipe on the chocolate chip bag, but I promise they are the best cookies you ever ate. The difference is in two things: butter (not margarine) and Mexican vanilla. Joy of Baking says,

The Mexican vanilla bean is a thicker and darker bean that has a smooth, strong,rich fragrance and flavor.

I don't know about the chemistry and makeup of the Mexican vanilla bean versus hothouse vanilla beans, but I do know that these cookies are usually awesome. It all started out fine with the wet ingredients, but then Eric and Mark came over to watch Obama inspire the nation and it all went out the window.

This is the first batch of cookies I pulled out of the oven, at which point I realized I had only added half the flour. OK, so I added more flour, stirred (a lot) and threw another batch into the oven. I pulled that batch out 8 minutes later. Still not right ... because I hadn't added the salt or the baking soda. Third time's a charm, but these were definitely the (second) worst cookies I have ever made. (There was the time I forgot the flour completely, the cookies melted, ran off the baking sheet and started a sugar fire in the oven). Sorry to Megan, Eric or Mark who may have inadvertently biten into a pocket of salt and/or baking soda. Eric said he liked them and obligingly took some home. Chocolate Chip Cookies: 1 cup softened butter 3/4 cup granulated sugar 3/4 cup brown sugar 2 eggs 1 teaspoon (Mexican) vanilla 2 1/4 cups flour 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon salt 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate morsels Pre-set oven to 375 degrees. Mix butter, sugar and vanilla. Add eggs and beat it (while singing and dancing to Michael Jackson songs). Sift together all of the flour, baking soda and salt. Add gradually to the wet ingredients while mixing. Mix until the consistency is smooth. Add chocolate chips. Place spoonful of cookie mix a couple inches apart on a baking sheet. Bake in oven for 8-10 minutes or until edges are lightly brown. Enjoy. (And don't forget to turn off the oven).