Lime curd

I had two limes that had been sitting in our hanging basket a bit too long, and knew it was time to do something with them. Lime curd. No idea where the idea came from, but once I thought it I knew I had to have it, because lemon curd is one of my favorite foods, so lime curd isn't that far off. I couldn't remember goes into curd, so a little googling later, I came up with this. The reason for the funky egg/egg yolk thing is a compromise between some recipes calling for whole eggs, some recipes calling for egg yolks, and me having very small eggs on hand.

It was delicious. I took a picture of the curd spread on bread, but don't let that fool you. I mostly have been eating this stuff with a spoon out of the jar.

I would double the recipe if you have enough limes. Since I only had two, I made a very small batch. Considering the spoon situation I mentioned above, this is probably for the best.

1 egg

1 egg yolk

2/3C sugar

1/4C lime juice (this was a little short using just the lime juice, so I topped it off with bottled lemon juice I had in the fridge)

Zest of both limes

2tbs butter, in pieces

In a metal bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, juice, and zest. Place the bowl over a pot of boiling water to create a double boiler. You could do this straight on the stove top, but then you risk adding too much heat at once and scrambling your eggs. You want to just slowly bring them up to heat, stirring continuously. If they start to scramble, immediately pull the mixture off the heat and continue to stir.

After 5-10 minutes, the curd should be thickened, and pull away from the edge of the bowl. At this point, lower the heat even more, and stir in the butter, one little piece at a time, melting it slowly into the curd.

Then lick every appliance you used to create the curd. Pack a jar or a tupperware, or use immediately. This stuff is so versatile. You can use it as a layer between cakes, you can fill linzertorte-style cookies, you can swirl into cheesecake, you can spread on bread, you can stir into oatmeal, you can top ice cream, you can fill cupcakes, you can spread onto shortbread, you can bake into a glorious lemon tart, or you can eat it with a spoon. 

Chocolate snickerdoodles

I had a real chocolate craving the other day, and I don't have any chocolate hanging around. For sort of the same reasons I don't have any ice cream sitting around. That stuff disappears too quickly; I have no idea where it goes to. So I just don't buy it. But, what to do when you really want chocolate??!? Turned out I did have cocoa powder, so I looked up a recipe for chocolate crinkle cookies, and I was all set to make them, when I realized that I didn't have any powdered sugar to roll them in. But then I came up with an even better idea! Roll them in cinnamon and sugar! I don't know if this is the only definition of a snickerdoodle, but it seemed like a damn good idea to me.

They got a pretty high Ed-rating, too, so clearly, the idea wasn't completely whacko.

Chocolate Snickerdoodles
Made 26 cookies

1 stick of butter (1/2C), room temperature
3/4C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1-2/3C flour
1/2C unsweetened cocoa powder
1-1/2tsp baking powder
1/2tsp salt

2 tbs cinnamon
1/4C sugar

Cream the butter and the sugar. Once it's soft and homogenous, add the eggs, one at a time, and beat until the mixture is smooth between each one. Then add the vanilla. Then dump all the dry stuff (except the cinnamon and sugar) on top of the batter, mix together the dry stuff lightly, and then stir it into the batter. It may feel a little dry, that's ok, just get it all incorporated.

Preheat your oven to 325F. Grease two cookie sheets. Roll the cookie dough into small, bite-sized balls, using your hands.

In a small bowl, mix together the sugar and cinnamon. Roll each cookie in the cinnamon mixture, and place on the greased cookie sheet. Bake for 10-15min, until the tops of the cookies are a little cracked. Don't overbake the cookies! Chewy cookies > crunchy cookies, always.




(Rolling the cookies in cinnamon and sugar)

Chocolate mint brownies

I wanted to bring Neil something baked and delicious as a thank you for all the work he put into setting team trials, mostly single handedly, but it is supposed to be five gazillion degrees this weekend, and humid. That is not good weather for wanting to eat baked goods. But I wanted something rich and chocolatey (hey, a cook's gotta taste stuff...), so I settled on mint chocolate chip brownies. Because mint always tastes cool, and brownies go down well any time. There are a lot of recipes out there for chocolate mint brownies, but I ended up mostly using this one. With lots of modifications, mostly due to what I did or didn't have in my kitchen. The end result was delicious, but I've only eaten them frozen so far. They're so good that way, I don't think I'll bother thawing them, although they'll probably thaw by the time I get them to Neil.

Chocolate Mint Brownies
Made one 9x13" pan... cut into however many pieces you want.

Brownie base:
3/4C flour
2 tbs dutch process cocoa powder
1 tsp espresso powder
1/2tsp salt
~1C chocolate (in this case, a mix of 100% dark ghiradelli, some chocolate chips, and the last of my KAF burgundy bites)
1 stick butter, cut into chunks
1C brown sugar (I don't have any white sugar right now)
3 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract

Mint layer:
1/2 stick butter
1C confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp mint extract
1 tsp water

Chocolate topping:
~1C chocolate (chocolate chips would do... I was scrounging for anything chocolate, and found something labeled "ooey gooey chocolate sauce (2009)" in my fridge, and it was hard, like chocolate should be, so I mostly used that. I am now out of chocolate. This is a situation that really should be remedied).
1 tbs butter

For the brownies, melt the butter and chocolate in a double boiler. Remove from heat and add the sugar, whisk to combine. Add the vanilla, and then the eggs. For the eggs, first beat them together (not a lot of beating, just enough so that they're not separate whites and yolks) in a separate bowl, then temper them with the hot chocolate, or let the chocolate cool to room temp before you add the eggs. Then sift all the dry stuff on top, and fold to combine. Don't beat or whisk, as that'll cause the eggs to work magic and turn your brownies into chocolate cake.


Preheat the oven to 325, and bake for 12-15 min, in a greased 9x13" pan. I had to cook mine for the full 15 min. Cool the brownies. I put mine on a piece of parchment paper (greased both sides), and that let me pull them out of the pan and onto another pan, for faster cooling.


For the filling, beat the sugar and butter and flavor together, until it makes frosting. Spread on the cooled brownies, and then put in the freezer so it can set up before you put on the chocolate layer. Green food coloring is optional at this point.




In the microwave, melt the chocolate and butter for the topping. Be very careful not to burn the chocolate. Use a flexible spatula to spread the chocolate on top of the green frosting. Put the brownies back in the freezer to set up before you cut them.


Cut them into squares, and eat immediately, or keep them in the freezer and eat them one at a time. They're pretty yummy.

Coconut date balls

A long time ago, I made some energy bar things with dates and coconut and almonds. They were delicious, but somewhat complicated, involving eggs and baking and stuff. I wanted to make something portable and delicious and full of calories for the weekend, and figured I'd make the coconut date balls again, but this time, without bothering to bake them. I think these turned out even better (and certainly passed the Ed-rating), and they were super easy to make. Took about 10 minutes, and most of that was wandering around the kitchen trying to find various ingredients.

Coconut date balls
Made 25 balls
1C sweetened shredded coconut
1C fresh dates (with or without pits)
1C almonds
~1tbs lemon juice
1/2tsp salt
~1/4C cocoa

Equipment: food processor.

Start with the almonds - put them in the food processor and grind them up as finely as you can, but before they turn into almond butter. Dump them in a big bowl. Dump in a cup of coconut. Take the pits out of the dates, and mash those up in the food processor, too. They should make a pretty smooth paste pretty quickly.

whole date.

Mashed dates.

Put the dates in the bowl. Add the lemon juice and salt, and then use your hands to squish everything together until it's nicely mixed. Lick your fingers afterward, because the mixture is delicious.

mmmmm.

Roll the mixture into bite-sized balls. I got 25 out of this recipe. Put about a quarter cup of baking cocoa in a shallow bowl, and roll each ball in the cocoa. Really this is just to keep them from sticking too badly to each other, I think, but it has the added benefit of making them taste like chocolate. Once they're rolled, you're good to go - you can just put them in a tupperware and they'll last for a long time (weeks? months? you be the guinea pig...), or just start eating them. I prefer them on day 2, because more of the cocoa has sunk in, so it's less powdery.



And since these are basically energy bars, I figured I should calculate out the macronutrients - each ball (if you make 25) is 65 calories, with 2.9g fat, 8.7g carbs, and 1.2g protein (40%, 53%, 7%).

Espresso white chocolate macadamia nut cookies

I love these cookies. The espresso powder was a last minute thing, but I'd been scheming to make white chocolate macadamia nut cookies for a while, I had the macadamia nuts, I just needed to acquire a tasty enough white chocolate. The Ghiradelli chips I have don't taste quite right, I can't figure out what it is about them, but I'm not a huge fan. Anyway, Ed's mom came through in a big way for Christmas, and gave me some sort of chocolate-lover's pack from King Arthur Flour, it had fancy cocoa powder, mini chocolate chips, fancy chocolate chunks, espresso powder, and fancy white chocolate chunks. Perfect. Paired with the jar of macadamia nuts from my mom, I was all set.

The espresso powder made the cookies a bit darker than they'd normally look, but its tasty - adds a bit of a kick. I got the idea after eating one of Sam's truffles that she gave us for Christmas that was white chocolate and espresso. Not necessary, but worth it if you have it.

I found the recipe for these guys online, and decided to halve it, since I'm one person. It seems to have worked, so I'm posting my halved recipe.

Espresso white chocolate macadamia nut cookies
Made 12 big cookies

1C flour
1/4tsp baking soda
1/4tsp salt
6 tbs butter
1/4C brown sugar
1/4C white sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp espresso powder
3/4C white chocolate chunks
1/2C macadamia nuts

Preheat your oven to 325F.


Cream the butter and sugar together.

Once the butter is light and fluffy, add the egg and the vanilla. Then stir in all the dry stuff on top.


Once you've mixed together your dough, dump in the nuts and chocolate - it was about equal parts dough and chunky things.

Spoon the cookies into 12 equal-sized piles on the baking sheet.

Bake for 10-14 minutes, and take them out before there is any goldenness around the edges - you want them to be soft and chewy.

These ones rose a lot, and I think I want them flatter. I'm going to try less baking soda next time, although I'm almost out of nuts, so there might not be a next time. Or I could flatten them a bit more. Either way, they are delicious.

Chocolate chewy everything cookies

A while ago, I made some chocolate chewy cookies, I think following the epicurious recipe. I had mentioned back that that you could also follow the King Arthur Flour recipe, which is basically the same thing, so I tried that one today. Except, I added toasted walnuts, craisins, and white chocolate chips. Which really made things even more delicious. These were the cookies that took three egg whites (from the biscuits that I made with three egg yolks). The only downside, is that I only had the "special dark" cocoa powder, and it made things a bit too chocolately, if that is even possible. Maybe I'll use less cocoa next time. Anyway, these cookies were, as promised, chewy and delicious. The shininess is a bit off-putting at first, but then you taste the cookie, and it doesn't matter anymore that they're shiny.

Chocolate chewy everything cookies
Made 11 giant cookies

2-1/4C confectioners sugar
1C special dark cocoa powder
1/4tsp salt
3 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla
~1/2C white chocolate chips
~1C toasted walnuts
~1/2C craisins

Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix everything together. This made a pretty thick paste for me. Grease the cookie sheet, and plop down some cookies. They spread a little in the oven, but nothing horrible, not like last time when they turned into brownies.

Bake the cookies for 8-13 minutes, until they're crackly on top. Mine took 13 minutes. Don't overcook these cookies, or they won't be chewy, and that is the whole point.

Jan Hagel cookies

I probably spelled that wrong, but its from Anna's Betty Crocker cookie cookbook. They are delicious, although Ed was being grouchy and didn't like them because they're not "cookie shaped". Fine, more for me. We changed the recipe a bit in that we only had pecans, not walnuts, to put on top, but that didn't change the deliciousness. Anna also had some Fiori Di Sicilia flavoring, basically a citrus/vanilla flavor, that made them very good. If you don't have any of that, I'd suggest adding some vanilla and some lemon zest or something, because they were delicious.

1C butter
1C sugar
1 egg, divided
1 tbs water
2C flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4tsp Fiori Di Sicilia
~1/2C walnuts or pecans (we needed more than 1/2C), finely chopped

Preheat your oven to 350F.

Cream the butter with the sugar, add the egg yolk and Fiori Di Sicilia or vanilla and lemon. Add the flour and salt on top, mix the salt into the flour, and combine flour with butter stuff. Grease a 9x15" pan (I think? Can't remember...), and press the cookie dough into the pan. Sprinkle with the cinnamon, and then brush with the egg white-water mixture. Sprinkle the nuts on top. Bake for 20 minutes, or until the edges are lightly browned. Cut into bar shapes immediately, and cool on a cooling rack.

Thumbprint cookies

These are definitely some of my favorite holiday cookies - shortbread and jam is just such a good combination! We used some salted pistachios with some unsalted pecans for the nuts around the outside, and I liked that combination.


Thumbprint cookies
1/2C butter
1/4C brown sugar
1 egg, separated
1/2tsp vanilla
1C flour
1/4tsp salt
3/4C nuts, ground up
jam

Cream the butter and sugar together. Add the egg yolk and the vanilla. Add in the flour and salt, and mix that in. Form the dough into little balls, and press your thumb in the middle to make a hole, and set those aside.

Whip the egg white until its frothy, and put that in a shallow bowl. Put the ground nuts in another shallow bowl. Roll the cookies in the egg white and then in the nuts, and place on a greased cookie sheet. Once all the cookies are nutted, put a bit of jam in the hole of each cookie.

Bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes.

Cut-out cookies

This is a week of cookie recipes. Friday night Anna and I got together to bake some cookies, and I have about half the recipes on hand, so they'll get posted. Our list was: minty brownies, gingerbread in cute little muffin tins that totally didn't work, cut-out cookies, chocolate crinkles, thumbprint cookies, and pecan tassies. Quite a busy night! The brownies weren't cool enough to cut when I left, so no pictures of those, and the pecan tassies I don't have the recipe for, but the cut-outs, crinkles, and thumbprints are coming right up!

These weren't the best cut-out cookies I've ever made, but they certainly filled the niche. Plus, icing helps with any cookie. I'm sure I'll be making more cutout cookies this holiday season, not sure what recipe we use at home but it tastes pretty good. These ones are kind of chewy after baking, which works, its just a little different.

Cut-out cookies
Made 4 cookie-sheets'-worth - big cookie sheets
1/3C butter
1/3C sugar
1 egg
2/3C honey
1 tsp lemon peel
2.75C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt

Cream the butter and sugar together, then add the honey, egg, and lemon peel. Mix together the dry ingredients, and then add that to the wet stuff. Chill if the dough is too soft, and then roll it out to ~1/8" thick. Cut out in fanciful shapes, and bake at 350F for 10-12 minutes.

Chewy ginger cookies

A while back, Melissa (one of my coworkers) made a molasses ginger cookie and brought it in, and it was delicious - chewy, soft, gingery. I decided that those were perfect holiday cookies, and I had her recipe, so I attempted to make them on my own. Unfortunately, I only had a small dribble of molasses left, so I just replaced it with honey. Close enough, and the cookies are chewy, so life is good. They aren't as dark as hers, but thats not really an issue.



Chewy ginger cookies
Made 67 cookies

3/4C butter
1C white sugar
1/4C honey
2-1/2C flour
1/3C water
1-1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
1C candied ginger, chopped

Cream the butter and sugar. Stir in the honey and water. Mix together the dry ingredients, add to the wet. Stir in the candied ginger. The recipe says the dough might be very soft, in which case you should refrigerate it, but my dough was quite stiff. Because the air was dry, maybe?

Roll into little balls and flatten slightly, roll in granulated sugar and put on the baking sheet.

Bake at 300F for 8 minutes on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Note: these could be vegan cookies (I think they started out that way) if you used margarine instead of butter. Not for me, but maybe if you have vegan friends?

Pumpkin chip cookies

Jess and I are in West Yellowstone, MT, living in a motel room, but it has an adjacent kitchenette, which makes me infinitely happier. Most people probably use motel kitchenettes to warm up leftovers or at most make some mac 'n cheese, but, we got a little more creative than that. Curry the first night, then a squash soup, then some chicken and green beans, we're living pretty well. And of course, dessert - we made some pumpkin chocolate chip cookies. With walnuts.

I got the recipe from here, it looked the most like a version I'd made in the past, but I couldn't remember the recipe - just that it had oil in it. I thought it was King Arthur Flour, but they use butter. So, this worked. We didn't want to have to buy butter AND oil - the goal is to have no leftovers by the end of the week, although I did buy baking powder, just because I'm out of it at home so figure I can pack back the rest of it... Anyway, I reprinted the recipe below, with my changes (we didn't have any spices).

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies
Made 21 medium-to-large cookies

1C canned pumpkin
1 egg
6 tbs oil
1C sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2C flour
1C chocolate chips
1C walnuts (optional)

Preheat the oven to 375F. Combine the oil, egg, pumpkin, and sugar in a big bowl. Add in the salt and baking powder. Then add the flour, mix until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips and walnuts. Scoop onto a greased cookie sheet and bake 15-20 minutes. The cookies don't spread at all, so they can be pretty close together. My cookies were probably 1/4C of batter to each one.

Eggless chocolate chip cookies

Yesterday was Ed's birthday. We didn't have any eggs or milk, so I couldn't make him a cake, so he asked for chocolate chip cookies. And then I remembered I didn't have any eggs. I browsed around for a chocolate chip cookie recipe without eggs, but the only ones I thought had a chance were ones that replaced eggs with some sort of strange vegan product or with a mixture of flaxseeds and water which had been soaked overnight. I needed to make these cookies now. Not the next day. So, I went out on a limb. I took a regular chocolate chip cookie recipe and just didn't add the eggs. I did add some water (for the correct texture) and some honey (hoping for chewiness), and I didn't bake them long. In fact, they might have been very underbaked, but there were no eggs, so its ok.

I never actually ate any of these cookies. Ed wanted big cookies, so I made him big cookies, but that meant that I could only fit four on the baking sheet. I took the rest of the cookie dough to work with me =) (about two big cookie's worth, if you plan on repeating this recipe and want to know the numbers - 6 big cookies). I felt that I should probably leave Ed all four of the baked cookies. But boy did they look good! And the cookie dough is delicious - and you don't have to worry about raw eggs.

Eggless chocolate chip cookies
1 stick butter
1/4C white sugar
1/4C brown sugar
2 tbs honey
2 tbs water
1C flour
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1C chocolate chips

Cream the butter with the brown and white sugars. Add the water, honey, and vanilla, and stir until its a uniform texture. Dump the flour, soda, and salt on top, and stir that around to mix it up. Then incorporate that dry stuff into the wet. Once it looks uniformly mixed, add the chocolate chips.

You can either save the cookie dough in the freezer for munching, or bake at 325F for 10-15 minutes (depending on the size of the cookie). Be sure to take them out before they get too brown around the edges, nobody wants crunchy cookies.

Pinwheel cookies

I made pinwheel cookies the other day. I don't know what inspired me to do this, but, they were a real pain in the neck. Sticking to drop cookies from now on. The main annoying bits were the multiple steps and refrigerations, which I knew were coming, but still, it just seemed like too much work. I wanted a mint chocolate cookie, so I guess that is why I decided on pinwheel cookies. They're pretty, anyway.

I found a recipe here, but I'm re-pasting it below because I changed things around to make mine mint and chocolate. I also made two separate batches of dough. Seemed easiest.

Chocolate half:
1.5C flour
1/4tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
1 stick butter
2/3C sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
6 tbs cocoa powder
2 tbs oil

Mint half:
1.5C flour
1/4tsp baking powder
1/4tsp salt
1 stick butter
2/3C sugar
1 egg
1/4tsp mint extract
Green food coloring

You can use one bowl for this, but start with the mint, because you don't want chocolate color mixing with your green.

In a large bowl, cream the butter with your sugar. Add the egg and flavor extract. Add green food coloring one drop at a time until the dough is as green as you want it (you can skip this if you don't want green cookies). Mix together the dry stuff, and add it to the wet stuff, mix to combine. Roll up the dough into a roughly rectangular shape, and refrigerate for 30min.

Do the same thing for the chocolate, but add the oil with the wet and the cocoa with the dry.

After both rectangles of dough have sat in the refrigerator for 30min, take them out and cut them into 2-4 pieces (I cut four pieces, I recommend 2). Roll them flat, until they're ~1/4" thick. I rolled mine too thin, which made for very small cookies. I found the dough warmed up too quickly which made rolling a real pain, but a well-floured table did the trick for me eventually. As I said, I rolled mine too thin, which also contributed to my rolling problems.

Lay one sheet of cookie dough on top of the other, and cut the edges so that it makes a square. Roll it up like a cigar, and return it to the fridge for at least 30 minutes. Repeat this with the other pieces of cookie dough.

Once they've been refrigerated, take them out, slice them, and place on a baking sheet. Bake at 325 for 6-8 minutes (probably more if you made bigger cookies). They don't spread out at all, so you can crowd them a little.





The end pieces don't look so pretty... but they still taste good!

Chewy Chocolate Walnut Cookies

I had some leftover egg whites from when I made the lemon curd tart, and I remembered seeing these flourless cookies in Epicurious a while back and being intrigued, so I looked them up and tried them out. I have to say, although they weren't the prettiest thing ever, since they didn't hold cookie-shapes, they were DAMN good. Although Ed would have liked fewer walnuts. I just smoothed them out into a big brownie since they weren't acting like cookies. Turns out, King Arthur has a recipe for a similar cookie, and they say to chill the batter first, which might help with my cookie-spreading problem. They're light and chewy at the same time, and they taste like toasted walnuts and chocolate, which is one of my favorite combos.



I didn't follow the recipe exactly, since some of the recipe reviews said they thought there was too much sugar, so the recipe I used is below.

Chewy Chocolate Walnut Cookies
Made ~3/4 of a small cookie sheet's worth of brownies - I imagine a 9x9" pyrex pan would be perfect for brownies, or chill them and make drop cookies

1.25C walnuts
1C confectioner sugar
2 egg whites
2 tbs cocoa (It was all I had left... I'd recommend using at least 1/4C)
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 tsp espresso powder
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/4C chocolate chips

Toast the walnuts - chop them up, spread them on a cookie sheet and bake for 5-10min. Make sure to watch them carefully, because they go from perfect to browned in like fifteen seconds.

Mix together all the dry stuff, and then add the egg whites and vanilla. Stir it together for a while (you don't have to worry about over mixing since there is no flour), and then dump it all in a brownie pan. Or, chill it and make drop cookies.

Bake at 350F for 15 minutes, until the tops are cracked and shiny.

Then do your best to not eat the entire pan at once!

Dream Bars

Sharon and I decided that it would be an excellent idea if we sent each other care packages each month, and so I browsed around the King Arthur site to see what I wanted to test out on Sharon. I ended up choosing the spicy cheese straws and the Dream Bars. Naturally I went and changed some things, but Dream bars seem like a pretty forgiving recipe. I replaced half the walnuts with chocolate chips, and the problem with this was that the chips just melted and turned the batter brown. Oops. Next time, I'll keep the same number of walnuts and put the chips on top at the end, so they melt just enough to stick to the topping. I thought the crust was a little too sweet, but I like my shortbread crusts to be not too sweet. Overall, these were ooey, gooey, and delicious!



Since I didn't change the recipe, you can go get it over at King Arthur. Next time I'll probably make the crust less sweet, add more walnuts, and sprinkle the chocoolate chips on top after it comes out of the oven.

Pignoli Cookies

A couple weeks ago, I went up to the North End and had some awesome pine-nut-cookies from an Italian bakery up there. They were pretty great, but I figured I'd never make them. Then I got some almond extract for Christmas, and found a recipe online from King Arthur Flour, and figured, why not. The one problem with these cookies is that they are pretty expensive to make; you have to buy marzipan, pine nuts, almond flour, none of the generic cheap stuff that normally goes into cookies. I couldn't remember if I needed marzipan or almond paste, so I got some of both, and it seems that the difference is that almond paste is way more almond-y, a little too much for my liking. Despite the expensiveness, though, they were delicious!



Pignoli Cookies
1C (9oz) marzipan
1/4C sugar
1/8th tsp salt
1 tsp almond extract (don't use this if you don't like almond flavor, you could use vanilla instead)
1/4tsp lemon extract, or 1/2 tsp lemon zest
1/2C almond flour*
1 egg white
1-1/2C pine nuts

*I couldn't find almond flour, so I ground up a bunch of almonds in a food processor. They didn't get that ground up, but that didn't seem to affect the texture too much. I would imagine that you could just use regular flour, but I didn't test that.

Grease two cookie pans and preheat your oven to 325F.

Break up the marzipan either using the food processor or with your fingers. Add everything else except the pine nuts and use your fingers to mush it around until it is homogeneous. It will be really sticky and goopy. Roll the dough into little balls, and then roll those balls in the pine nuts. Flatten the cookies into cookie-shapes, and pop them in the oven for 22-24 minutes. Enjoy!



This is the texture of the almond "flour" that I ground up. Still pretty nutty, but the cookies didn't taste like they had nuts in them.


Marzipan vs almond paste?


The almond paste


The marzipan oozes out of a tube

Egg yolk sugar cookies

I made a chocolate truffle cake the other day. Because Ed asked for it. It was so-so, I thought I overcooked it and made it too dry but Ed liked it. Anyway, it used egg whites, so I had two egg yolks left over and remembered a really good egg yolk cookie I'd made a while ago. I decided to make those, but since I only had two egg yolks, I had to do some funky measuring things, and ended up sort of completely changing the recipe. Instead of being pretty moist, it was dry and stiff. Oh no! I was worried that I'd never be able to get these into balls, but, after tasting the batter (a necessary step, especially with cookie dough!), it was too good to not bake. So I rolled it out, which was the perfect thing to do with dry, stiff, cookie dough. This might have just become my go-to recipe for roll-out cookies, because they taste really good. It did make a pretty crunchy cookie, though, once it had cooled. But a yummy crunchy cookie.

Egg-yolk sugar cookies
1C flour
1 tsp baking soda
1C sugar (although if you are going to frost the cookies, I would use 3/4C)
1 stick butter
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp lemon zest (or orange, or lime, or grapefruit... whatever)
2 egg yolks

Cream the butter and sugar until its pretty fluffy. Add the egg yolks one at a time and beat them in. It'll still be pretty dry. Add the vanilla and lemon zest. In a separate bowl, mix the flour, salt, and baking soda. Add this mixture to the butter, and combine until it looks like cookie dough. If its wet enough, you can roll it into balls, or if its dry, you can do what I did and roll it out.

The roll-out cookies took ~10 minutes at 350F. Start checking them after 6 minutes or so, because if you leave them in there a minute too long they go from perfect-slightly-chewy-golden to mildly burned.

This recipe made me 44 stars.

Cake Balls!

That sounds appetizing, doesn't it? I had some leftover margarita frosting from margarita cupcakes, and I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I was so enthralled with the peanut butter balls that I decided to do something along those lines. I made a generic cake, mixed it up with the frosting, rolled it into balls, and dipped it into white chocolate. The end result was sweet-- very sweet. But good! If you eat one. More than that and its too sweet. Anyway, these would have benefitted from a second dip in white chocolate, but I didn't want to waste the chocolate =).


First I made a generic cake. And then crumbled it up. The one I made was this:

1C flour
1C sugar*
1 tsp baking powder
1 egg
2 tbs melted butter
Milk

Add the dry stuff to a bowl. In a two-cup measure, beat the egg and the butter. Top off to a cup of liquid with the milk. Add the wet to the dry, mix until just combined, and cook at 350F for 15-20min in a 4x8" breadpan until its golden on top. Cool before crumbling.


Once you've crumbled up the cake, add a couple globs of frosting. I found a 1:2 ratio of frosting to cake was about right.


Mix it up. I added some (too much) green food coloring, because I wanted green cake balls.


Roll them into balls, put them on a tray, and refrigerate for 30-60 minutes to let them harden up.


Melt some white chocolate (5oz, here) in a double boiler.


Using two forks, dip each ball in the melted chocolate, then place on a cookie sheet (covered with wax paper). Place the dipped balls into the fridge to cool until the chocolate is hardened.

*If you want to make the balls less sweet, use less sugar in the cake.