Posts Tagged ‘cookies’

This past weekend was a whirlwind of activity, much of which required favors being received and thank yous being doled out in spades. Buying a couch, borrowing a friend’s truck, asking a neighbor to help move said couch, etc, all warranted more than just a verbal acknowledgment, so I of course baked some delicious treats as an extra thank-you.

Snickerdoodles (which by the way, is the most fun cookie name ever) are one of those easy, but special things to make and eat. You don’t see them often enough at bakeries or coffee shops, despite the fact they’re delicious, simple, and can last for days if properly stored. I had been craving them the past few weeks and then suddenly they popped up in my Martha Stewart Cookie-a-Day newsletter. C’est parfait!

These are insanely good eaten warm so I recommend either eating them fresh from the oven (which believe me, I did… in great quantities) or microwaving the cookies for 15 seconds before devouring. Don’t worry, the amount of fat in the dough prevents them from drying out. It’s a good thing.

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I love Valentine’s Day. As my friend Beth put it the other day, “I don’t care what my romantic situation ever looks like, I will forever get 4th-grade decorate-a-shoebox-for-your-valentines excited for Valentines Day,” and I have to agree. Cards and flowers and chocolate and everything in special boxes and packaging… to me, Valentine’s Day is about love – not romance. It’s a day set aside to appreciate those you love most, regardless if they’re your best friend, spouse, significant other, relative, etc. It’s just an opportunity to show you care, if you want to.

I send cards to those closest to me, give out flowers, and of course, make special treats. Originally I wanted to attempt strawberry macarons for this holiday, but since I’m moving at the end of the month (full oven! fridge! dishwasher in my new place! – HOORAY!) with a better oven in the future, I decided to postpone. These popped up in my daily cookie newsletter from Martha Stewart and sounded delish. Plus I had an entire container of malt powder sans one tablespoon begging to be used.

I had fun renaming these with a little  dry humor knowing a lot of my friends and peers roll their eyes at Valentine’s Day and the entire stigma of it, but it really does fit. The cookies are rich and dark, with such a great added pungent flavor from the malt, and the filling is just so divine. Like drinking a chocolate malt, only in frosting form. How can you eat that and not feel the love?

<3

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Confession time. Although my blog is filled with homemade sweets and treats, and I fully support baking from scratch 99% of the time, I will confess I have a few boxes of brownie and cake mix sitting in my pantry. Sometimes you get a sweet tooth that is impatient, or you forget a coworker’s birthday, or you’re just plain lazy – but regardless, box mixes can be handy. There are cooks and books out there completely devoted to box mixes and the wonders they can do, but most of the time, I try to start from scratch.

Unless there’s the possibility of $5,000 on the line.

Betty Crocker is hosting a recipe contest right now which requires one of their pre-bagged cookie mixes and no more than 9 additional ingredients. I love a challenge, especially one with parameters, so I went at the contest with gusto. And a serious craving for wintry banana-raisin oatmeal for breakfast.

These are almost cake-like bars, but sweet and tender with the special addition of banana chip “sprinkles” as I came to call them. A perfect way to use up bananas on the cusp of being thrown away, the flavors and nature of these bars make them the perfect dessert, snack, or even breakfast. What? Oh come on, I’m not the only one who has cookie bars for breakfast.

… right?

B-A-N-A-N-A-S.

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Here it is. The ultimate. The #1. The quintessential dish that is pure Christmas to me. Chruscikis.

Traditional Polish fried cookies which resemble either a bow-tie or angel’s wings (depending on your heritage/what your grandma says…) which seem simple on the surface, but in the end are some of the messiest, and somewhat labor intensive cookies ever.  Yet they’re worth every drop of splattered oil and puff of powdered sugar that ends up on the floor.

This is probably the oldest recipe we have in our family, which we know goes back to my great-grandma Jean who immigrated to the US when she was about 7 in the late 1800’s, and it probably goes back even farther than that. The ingredients are dead simple (eat your heart out, Martha) and the dough comes together very easily, it’s just all about rolling the dough incredibly thin and working very quickly once you get to the frying part. But they’re just so good warm, I cannot begin to describe it. I mean yes, they are basically fried dough, but come on – we all know how awesome that is.

So Wesolych Swiat! to my fellow Poles, and I hope you all enjoy the  most cherished part of my Polish culinary heritage!

Mommie Dearest on the hunt for the recipe…

Found!

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Get ready folks, I’m about to all Martha Stewart on you.

I’m a huge fan of giving gifts. I’ve always been the type who gets so excited about the presents I’ve picked out, I sometimes forget about the receiving part. And although this year I’m still the same, it’s slightly different. Like a broken record of everyone else I know, money is crazy tight this year and my ability to buy presents has been, well, somewhat hindered. But that doesn’t stop me, oh no.

Baking cookies and goods for people and packaging them yourself is one of the cheapest, easiest, and still thoughtful things to do around the holidays, especially if you have a rather large list of people you’d like to treat. It takes time, effort, and thought – 3 things that can be more meaningful than the ability to swipe your credit card. And come on, who doesn’t love to get a bag of homemade goodies? Especially when they’re cranberry-pistachio biscotti.

I chose these cookies not only for their festive colors and flavors (red cranberries, green pistachios), but also because biscotti are one of the best things to package and hold up for a very long time, which makes them the ideal thing to mail. Plus they’re the perfect thing to accompany coffee or tea, which almost everyone I know enjoys.

So happy (economical) holidays and I hope you all enjoy!

One of my least favorite ingredients in the world, but a necessity for biscotti.

Zest + microplane (one of my all-time favorite tools).

Mmmm, dried cranberries.

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