Never let it be said that I passed up trying yet another chocolate chip cookie recipe. And yes, this one is slightly different than most – it uses melted butter in the batter.

There still isn’t all that much cooking going on around my kitchen. This journey of grief just gets in my way. It’s a journey I have to take, though, and I have to learn new routines, learn how to avoid my tough times (evenings mostly – after dark, and weekends in general). I want to find joy in my days, and I do sometimes. I’m so grateful for my friends, who have been very attentive to me, inviting me to go to lunch, to come to their homes for dinner. They’ve all been so understanding. Yesterday I was with some couple friends and I was able to get through the evening without crying even though I did talk about Dave some. We toasted a glass of wine to him. I took a bottle of Cabernet – a really good bottle and shared it with these dear friends. I need to do that as the wine cellar has a LOT of wine in it.

The wine cellar in this house has its own A/C system. A small, little A/C that just cools the 8×10 room that houses the underground cellared wine collection. Dave was the wine connoisseur in our relationship. I enjoyed wine, and liked investigating the nuances of different varietals, and sniffing the glass to pull out the “nose.” But in the last few years I’ve just about stopped drinking wine. No particular reason – I never drank more than about one glass anyway. Dave drank mostly Zinfandel (his favorite), which is a wine that I don’t like much – it’s too zingy, too tart and acidic for me. Only if it was a soft Zin would I share a bottle with him. And when we went out to dinner I’d share wine with him.

In the last couple of months, when I’ve had houseguests or dinner guests I’ve gone down into the cellar to bring out a bottle or two of wine to share. But days go by and I don’t even think about wine. Last month we had a really bad heat wave. Oh my goodness, did we have a heat wave. Temps in the range of 102-105° for 3 days running. And temps in the 90s before and after. It was about a week of really awful heat. On the 2nd day of the over 100° temps, I paused at the stairway that goes down to the wine cellar and thought, “hmmm, I haven’t heard the A/C system running; maybe I’d better check it.” Sure enough, I went into the wine cellar and the temp was 80°. Oh my. Bad news.

The A/C system regulates the temp at 58°. I had no idea how long it hadn’t been working. It had been over a week since I’d been down in the cellar myself to bring up a bottle of wine. Immediately I phoned the guy who has done all the repairs to that wine cellar system. He’s a one-man-band, though. He didn’t call me back. Oh-oh. I phoned him again the next morning. No response. Well, cut to the chase here. He finally answered my call that night, told me that he had received over 100 phone calls from wine cellar customers (because of the heat wave), and the soonest he could come to look at mine was about 5 days off. Not good news, but I really didn’t want to try finding somebody else. Dave trusted this fellow and under normal circumstances he’s able to come within a day. All that wine – there must be 800 or so bottles of wine in the cellar – sitting at 80°. What that does is prematurely age the wine. And it means that I couldn’t possibly sell the contents of the wine cellar because they’re now “damaged goods.” So I’m going to have to seek out the older bottles and drink them – take them to friends – take them along when I join friends for dinner, etc.

At first I beat myself up because I knew how upset Dave would have been about this. I berated myself for not checking the wine cellar more frequently. I tried asking myself, “what would Dave do?” He’d have been frantic. Not just moderately frantic, but major(ly) frantic. Angry. Annoyed because the repair guy wouldn’t call back. But once I had the date set for repair, I just had to accept what had happened. I couldn’t do anything about it. I put a vertical fan down there, left the door open and ran that fan 24/7. I don’t really know that it did much good (the temp in the cellar was 78° once the heat wave abated) but I let it run consistently for the remaining days.

Even when the guy came, he discovered it was the starter on the A/C (not the coolant, which is what I’d suspected). And, of course, he didn’t have one. He came the following day and installed it. At that point it took nearly 48 more hours for the wine cellar to get back down to 58°.

All that said, I’m just finding it difficult to take care of everything. I live in a big house and have no plans to move in the near future, but houses (especially 30+ year old ones) have problems and need repairs. Some days I feel a bit overwhelmed with it all.

So, this particular day I was feeling kind of sorry for myself (not an uncommon grief emotion), so I baked cookies and took some to the dinner with friends. And I went into the wine cellar and brought up a $45 bottle of Cab and took that along too, to their  home to enjoy. And I had a glass – it was gosh darned good, I will say. Full of fruit notes and had a beautiful nose.

This cookie recipe started with one of my cookbooks from America’s Test Kitchen. I made one addition (walnuts added to the batter because I like them). As I mentioned at the top, this recipe is different in that it called for melted butter (melted, then cooled before using it). It makes a different kind of consistency – I stood at the kitchen counter looking at the batter and tried to come up with some way to describe it – it’s more shiny (from the butter) and it looks and feels greasy. That’s not a bad thing – don’t misunderstand – that’s just how I’m describing the batter. Made no never-mind with the results whether it looked greasy or not!

These cookies didn’t turn out as thin as I’d thought they’d be – I doubled the recipe – and I didn’t measure the corn syrup – I just eyeballed it – perhaps I didn’t add as much as I should have. I also guessed at the milk. Actually, I didn’t have any milk, just cream. But that wouldn’t have made any difference. I used my handy-dandy cookie scoop for them – you bake these cookies on parchment paper. It took awhile as the recipe says to bake them just one sheet at a time. I did make some of them without walnuts, then added in the nuts for the second half of the batter. Either way they’re good.

What’s GOOD: I like the texture – they’re definitely crispy. I like that – I prefer crispy anyway. I’ve only eaten one so far, but with that, I liked them just fine. I used Ghiradelli 60% cocoa chips, which provide good, solid dark chocolate flavor. Would I make them again? Maybe. Perhaps the next batch I’ll go back to the one from Silver Moon. Look them up on my index. They’re my favorites, I think.
What’s NOT: nothing really. Liked them just fine.

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What can I tell ya’? These are just delicious. So lemony and very tender. Yet they’re almost like a pound cake (cookie) but with lemon and then the tangy lemon glaze. All good. And easy.

At most of Phillis Carey’s cooking classes she serves dessert. Even though the class may be about fish (like this one) or chicken, she knows her audience – we always like a bite of sweet before we leave. We weren’t disappointed in these really good cookie/cake bars.

They’re pretty simple – you mix up the cake batter, pour it into an 8-inch square pan, bake and cool it completely. That’s important. No pouring of the glaze on hot or even warm bars. Cool the cake fully. Meanwhile, you mix up the glaze (powdered sugar, lemon juice and lemon zest) and when the bars are ready, you pour it on and ideally, use an offset spatula to spread it out to all the edges. The glaze is not thick at all, so you do need to work at working it out to those far corners. But worth it, and it’s not hard – just take the extra few seconds to spread it quickly.

What’s GOOD: loved the lemony flavor. Loved the texture of the cake/bars. Loved the lemon zest. Loved it all. Worth making for sure.

What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of.

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Just guessing here, but I suppose nearly every well known chef, especially those who are bakers, need to have their own chocolate chip cookie recipe. One that’s just slightly different than others. One that’s either a little more crispy or soft. A little more light colored or dark. Or with caramel, or sea salt. Maybe different nuts. These aren’t that much different than lots of others.

Chocolate chip cookies are mostly a staple around our house. Normally I have a stash of them in the freezer. My DH knows where they hang out and when his blood sugar goes really low, he’s been known to go grab one. But I haven’t had any in the freezer for months. Instead of making one of the usual ones (my favorites – see them highlighted down below), I thought I’d try a new one. This one I got from the Amateur Gourmet blog, but it is Nancy Silverton’s recipe.

What’s different in these? (1) they have more butter in proportion than most; (2) they use bittersweet chocolate rather than semisweet; (3) they require refrigeration before baking; and (4) they’re baked at a lower temperature than most.

As for the taste – you’ll notice the bittersweet flavor – which I like, actually. But even with that, I thought these cookies were too sweet. At least they’re too sweet for me. If I made them again (but I probably won’t) I’d reduce the white sugar. On the rare occasions when I buy or am offered a high-end bakery chocolate chip cookie I notice – almost always – they’re sweeter than even the Tollhouse recipe. Regular (more low-end, like grocery store) bakeries use more sugar to compensate for using inferior or low-end butter, shortening or margarine. Somehow I think they rationalize that if the cookies are sweeter we won’t notice the inferior taste. That’s not the case here, as these use more butter than usual.

The original recipe makes a cookie that is really large – the recipe below was written to serve 24 cookies. I made the cookies smaller (more normal sized) just because when I grab a cookie, I don’t want to eat a ginormous cookie. So I got about 45 cookies, or so.

What’s GOOD: well, they were just okay. I did like the bittersweet chocolate in them, but that’s really about all I liked about them. I’d still go back to my favorite CC cookie recipes (why didn’t I this time, I wonder?), the Chocolate Chip Cookie from Silver Moon Bakery, or the One Bowl Thin Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe. The former is a higher mounded cookie, and the 2nd one is quite thin. Both have my preferred proportion of butter to brown and white sugar in them. Both are more reminiscent of Tollhouse, I think, but I prefer them both to the Tollhouse recipe. This cookie has less brown sugar, yet they’re still too sweet, so they’re more like a white batter CC cookie, which isn’t my preferred type, for sure.

What’s NOT: read above.

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For a few days I considered not posting this recipe, just cuz this brownie dessert is super-sweet and cuz marshmallows aren’t one of my favorite things. But some people really like sweet-sweet desserts (or brownies) and some people (children?) think marshmallows are the cat’s meow.

The first disclaimer here: I didn’t make these myself. It was from a Phillis Carey cooking class, and that picture above was my serving at the class. But what got me to thinking about them was the little square I took home (of this). I waited 2 days, and had it with a mid-afternoon cup of coffee, so the over-the-top sweet wasn’t quite so over-the-top. With that, I decided I’d post it anyway, but with just one tweak (a little less sugar).

First you need to line the 9×13 pan with foil – including long flaps on at least 2 sides so you can lift these out of the pan after baking. Then you line up inside the pan the graham crackers, slightly overlapping them. A few are kept aside for crumbling on top. Then you melt the chocolate and butter together, add sugar and egg, then vanilla and flour. That mixture is poured over the prepped graham crackers and baked – actually it’s slightly under-baked because you bake these a 2nd time with the topping.

On top of the hot brownies you sprinkle chocolate chips and marshmallows and bake again for 3-5 minutes. If you have a kitchen torch, you can also lightly brown the marshmallows. Then while that’s hot, you press the remaining graham cracker chunks on the top of the sticky, melting marshmallows. You cool these, remove from the pan and cut into servings. The recipe indicates it’ll serve 15. I think it would easily serve 18 – because – as I said – these suckers are sweet.

What’s GOOD: the chocolaty flavor, for sure – I think my favorite part was the brownies themselves. If you’re a fan of marshmallows, well, you’ll love these. If you like graham crackers, and the whole s’mores thing, you’ll be in nirvana. I’d think children would be enchanted with this recipe. Throw a few M&Ms on top of the sticky marshmallows and they might be in heaven. I wouldn’t do that, but that’s cuz I don’t love overly sweet desserts.

What’s NOT: nothing at all, unless you’re averse to marshmallows or grahams.

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Every year when my wheat-allergic cousin comes to visit I try to find a few new recipes to try. Things that he’d like while he’s here, but also a couple that he might enjoy making at home. And if I were to tell you these cookies are every bit as good as peanut butter chocolate chip cookies made WITH flour, would you believe me? Well, you should, because I’m going to be making these just for myself cuz they’re that good!

After making them (actually Gary made them while I sort-of supervised) I took one to try. Oh my goodness. They were absolutely fantastic. And I mean really fantastic! They have a very light crumb – as you’ll see from the recipe below – they have nothing but smooth peanut butter, brown sugar, soda, salt, an egg and vanilla. Oh, and the chocolate chips. How easy can that be? The recipe makes a very short texture – I mean buttery, crumbly (and there isn’t any butter in it except the smooth peanut butter) cookie. Rich, though. And with such great flavor.

You cannot use high-end peanut butter in these – we bought regular plain-old JIF, the smooth version. Apparently folks at King Arthur Flour have tried this with the Laura Scudder’s, for instance, and it just doesn’t work (too dry and crumbly for some reason). So do seek out JIF (not low fat, not low sugar, and not crunchy). The dough is very easy to mix up and the chocolate chips added in at the last. The recipe below makes just 18 cookies. When I make them I’m going to double the recipe. Gary took all the cookies home with him (he and I each ate 2, so he took home 14). Therefore, I’m going to need to make them sometime soon.

What’s GOOD: they’re fabulous. As long as you like peanut butter; and chocolate chips, then you’ll love these cookies. The fact that they’re GF is nearly beside the point.

What’s NOT: not a thing that I can think of.

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Ever made Mexican Wedding Cookies? Or Russian Tea Cakes. They’re one in the same. If you’re interested in the history of this powdered-sugar-puff cookie, read below.

My friends Jackie and Cherrie were at my house a good part of the day recently. Baking cookies. We’ve been doing this for several Decembers – we each bring some stuff, and I often make the batter for one or two cookies before the big day. This year we made cardamom cookies, chocolate almond saltine bars, cranberry noels, and these, the Mexican Tea Cookies (or Cakes), a new recipe for our Christmas repertoire. Cherrie arrived with a printout in hand –from this recipe at TLC (Discovery Channel). These are SUCH a simple cookie to make. Here’s a bit of history about the cookie (from ehow.com):

The term “Mexican wedding cookie/cake” did not appear in the American vocabulary until the early 1950s, after which the term appeared in virtually every basic baking cookbook. At the same time, recipes for “Russian teacakes” began disappearing from the same books. Russian teacakes and Mexican wedding cookies are virtually the same thing in ingredients, method and final product. Many historians speculate that the term Mexican wedding cookie/cake was used to replace the term Russian teacake due to the strained U.S. relationship with Russia at the time (the Cold War).

Aside from Mexican wedding cookies, biscochitos and Russian teacake, the crunchy buttery ball also goes by the name polvorones in Spain, butterballs, Swedish teacakes, moldy mice, pecan sandies, Danish almond cookies, Finnish butter strips, Napoleon hats and melting moments. The same cookies (same ingredients and method but with different shapes) go by different names [in] various regions around the world, and it is impossible to state who was the first to pioneer the recipe.

In that write-up above, I particularly like that these cookies are called “moldy mice.” I read online at one website that many believe it was Russian nuns who went to Mexico and began making the cookies every Christmas season or for a special occasion like a wedding. Hence they were transformed into Mexican Wedding Cakes.

What they are, are easy to make. You mix up butter, powdered sugar, finely minced pecans and some flour, and that’s about it. The dough is chilled a bit to make it easier to roll into balls. With 2 of us working at it, that didn’t take all that long. The cookies are baked for 20 minutes, then rolled over and over and over and ever-so gently in powdered sugar.

In the photo above are the cookies right out of the oven. The pecans gives the cookies a little color plus the butter too. Some recipes call for shortening, but we wanted to use a butter one since we think they taste better.

After baking, the hot little cookies are put into a bowl of powdered sugar and delicately – and I do mean gently –  rolled around in the sugar, lightly pressing the sugar into the cookies. They must be allowed to cool in the sugar, periodically rolling them. That’s why Jackie and Cherrie have sugar-coated hands in the photo at top.

After cooling completely they were gently laid onto sheets of foil. I put mine (since I was at home) in a sealing Tupperware container. They’ll keep that way for a couple of weeks, I think.

What’s GOOD: there’s nothing quite like the extra light and crumbly texture of Mexican Wedding Cookies, and I always try to eat them over a sink or a large napkin, as it’s so very hard to eat these without getting powdered sugar all over everything you’re wearing. These cookies are no different. Hence it’s a good idea to make SMALL cookies – that way the entire cookie can go into your mouth without biting it in half. Easy to make – the only tedious part is the gently rolling in the powdered sugar. That takes some patience.
What’s NOT: nothing at all – these are delicious. The only intrinsic problem is the fragile nature of these cookies – it’s hard not to crumble them in the sugar-rolling process. I broke 2 cookies while I was helping with the first batch of these (we made 2). Only solution was to eat them 🙂  !

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Well, I can truly say the Christmas cookie baking has begun. I’ve started with a list of the cookies I want to make this year (there are some regulars, of course), but I always like to try something new too. I hunted through my cookbooks and eventually settled on this cookie found online.

And what a winner this one is! It’s from King Arthur Flour. I’ve mentioned it here before that they have a great blog, called Baking Banter. They have a big test kitchen, and numerous bakers who enjoy writing up their interesting baking journeys. These cookies are just one.

When you think of gingerbread cookies you might just think of the flat, hard variety you’d find for decorating gingerbread men. Or making gingerbread houses. These cookies are nothing like those. This is a thicker cookie – just full of spicy aromas – and also some chocolate (both cocoa and some mini-chocolate chips). They’re soft and tender cookies, although by tender I don’t mean like shortbread, either. No, these are soft. Not exactly cake-like, though. Not brownie-like. More like pumpkin cookies – moist but bursting with the spices that flavor this cookie (ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves). You also notice the molasses (there’s a LOT of molasses in these). That’s what gives the dark-dark color, not the cocoa. Once the cookies are all mixed up, you add in the mini chocolate chips, then they’re rolled into balls (or scooped with a cookie scoop in 1-tablespoon sizes) and dipped into the pearl sugar, placed on parchment-lined baking sheets and baked 10-12 minutes.

Now, I have to mention . . . I was baking these cookies to take to a cookie exchange, so I decorated them according to the recipe. It calls for (Swedish) pearl sugar. I found it at my local grocery store. I’m not a fan of those kinds of toppings particularly – they distract me from the cookie flavor (when you crunch down on them). To me those crunchy sugar things are just a waste of calories – they don’t have any taste to speak of – they’re just sugar-sugar-sugar. The cookie has all you’ll need. But, they look cute with the topping.

The dough is very easy to mix up. You scoop a small tablespoon of dough into a round shape and dip just half of the cookie into the pearl sugar. If I did them with the topping again I would use fewer of the pearl sugar thingies – the ones that got close to the hot pan melted and don’t look very attractive. The others buried slightly into each cookie top looked fine.

There, above, you can see them rolled into balls (those are the raw cookies) and dipped, ready for baking. The cookies, once baked, need to cool a bit on the baking sheets, so I just went ahead and formed all the remaining dough into cookie shapes so it was easy to put in the next batch. Don’t put the cookies that close together on the baking sheet or they’d all melt into one another – this was just my “staging sheet.”

If you bake these without the pearl sugar, you might put clear sugar crystals on top – that would be better than the pearl shape, I think. But the cookies truly don’t need any embellishment. They are very dark colored – most people would mistake these for chocolate cookies, so I’d be sure to put a little sign out saying what they are. I’m going to make a sign when I go to the cookie exchange. In this group, each person brings 6 little bags of 6 cookies each, and you pick and choose to take home 6 bags from other people. Supposedly only one bag per person, so you can’t choose to take all 6 bags of spritz or divinity from someone else. So that’s why it would be good to have a sign on these since the look would lead most people to think they’re all chocolate.

What’s GOOD: loved the flavor of these. Very, very spicy indeed (not hot spicy, just warm pumpkin pie kind of spices). Or gingerbread – which of course, these ARE. They have a little tiny bit of the cake-like quality of gingerbread, but they’re definitely a cookie. Next time I won’t bother with the white pearl sugar, but that’s just me. Your kids will likely love dipping the balls into the topping. Just don’t let them overdo it.

What’s NOT: the only thing I’d do differently next time is do without the pearl sugar. Not because it made the cookies wrong or anything. I just don’t care for the crunch. Although, once baked the pearl sugar isn’t so crunchy.

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Before I tell you about these cookies, let me just say I didn’t name them – Maida Heatter did. And she certainly is the doyenne of all things baking, desserts and chocolate!

Whenever I write up a post about a famous chef or cook (or baker in this case) – like Maida Heatter – I go online to read a bit more about the person’s background. Apparently Craig Claiborne helped her career, early on, after she’d gotten a degree in fashion design. In time she became one of the finest experts in baking, and authored many cookbooks. I own two –  chocolate desserts and one about cookies. Here’s a quote I found online:

“Happiness is baking cookies. Happiness is giving them away. And serving them, and eating them, talking about them, reading and writing about them, thinking about them, and sharing them with you.” . . . Maida Heatter

Don’t you just love that? This recipe came from Heatter’s chocolate cookbook – Maida Heatter’s Book of Great Chocolate Desserts. And I decided to make these simply because of the cookie title. Who, unless she was very confident about her skills, would name a cookie “Positively- the-Absolute-Best Chocolate Chip Cookie?” I figured I should pay attention and try these. The recipe takes up 3 full pages in the book – much more than usual – because of all the history involved with chocolate chip cookies.

You know most of it, probably, about Ruth Wakefield, who with her husband bought an old staging station that was a toll house – they remodeled it as an inn and restaurant, and called it Toll House. Apparently there was a popular cookie at the time called a Butter Drop-Do. What a name. A drop-do? I’m LOLing here. How could anyone in her right mind call a cookie a drop-do? (I went online and did a search, just for curiosity – nothing.) Anyway, Wakefield decided to add chocolate bits to it and called them Toll House cookies. A legend was born.

The main ingredients are the same as what you see on the back of the Toll House chocolate chip bag, but there are a few differences: (1) the baking soda is dissolved in hot water and added to the wet batter (which is something Ruth Wakefield did, but later revised the recipe and eliminated that step); (2) 2 cups of chopped walnuts are added (instead of 1 cup); and (3) in the newer edition, apparently, Heatter changed the vanilla portion to 2 tsp rather than 1. There are also a few differences in the way it’s mixed – you whip up the butter alone (without sugar) until it’s light and fluffy, then you add the eggs and vanilla and whip that a bit. Then you add the sugars. Meanwhile you mix the baking soda and water, and add half the flour, the soda, then the balance of flour. You mix it just until incorporated, then you stir in the chips and nuts.

Heatter also uses a slightly different technique for the baking – she recommends refrigerating the dough first (which is what Wakefield used to do) – and found that the cookies held their shape better. She would create little mounds of dough and would roll them in damp hands, then once on the baking sheet she’d flatten them slightly. I didn’t refrigerate the dough – but I did use my cookie scoop to create the mound and slightly pressed the flat of my fingers on top to flatten each one slightly. That made a more evenly baked (browned) cookie. The first batch I made (and I didn’t take that extra step) had fairly extra-brown edges. Not a problem, really, other than appearance.

So, if you bothered to read all of the above – Heatter uses the basic recipe, but makes a few changes. She adds more nuts and the texture of these cookies is slightly different. Some years ago I began adding a tablespoon or 2 of extra flour to the old Toll House recipe because my cookies were always too thin. I sure didn’t have that trouble here – so perhaps it was the soda dissolving that made a difference. I don’t know. But these cookies sat right up and stayed there through the baking.

What’s GOOD: easy, good texture, reliable flavor. This is a softer cookie (I actually prefer a crisp cookie if I have a choice). Even eaten from a frozen state, they have a soft texture. Only another brand of chocolate chip could make much of a taste difference (I now buy Kirkland brand – I think they’re almost as good as Nestle’s). I don’t know that I’d go so far as to say these are the absolute best CC cookies out there – to me it almost always comes down to a texture thing – if they’re soft, I’m not much of a fan. But if that floats your boat, try this version – you might find them superior.
What’s NOT: nothing that I can think of.

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Light cookies – they’re fairly low in sugar, but brightened up with the sweetness from the golden raisins, and given some crunch with the addition of some finely ground polenta. These are the usual kind of refrigerator cookies (meaning there’s no leavening in them) so they’re a slice and bake. Can be made 2 days ahead and baked fresh at the last minute.

We’re hosting a Bible study group at our home for the next 7-8 weeks, and the instructions suggested it would be nice if the hostess served something to eat (not a meal, but a snack or dessert depending on what time of day the group meets). Ours is from 7-8:30 pm, so dessert was the order of the day. Last week I made a pound cake. Guess I should post that one, although I’m going to make another one that will, hopefully be even better, so I wasn’t positive I’d even post this one. However, now that it’s all gone, I will say it was very, very good.

Anyway, I thought I’d vary what I served. The group likes coffee. I think these cookies will go well with a cup of coffee at this week’s meeting.

Of course, there’s a story attached to this. I got the recipe from a blog many years ago. When I went to that blog the other day, I was re-directed to a different blog, and I couldn’t find the recipe at all. But when I input the exact URL of the old blog, it did come up. However, only AFTER I mixed up the dough did I realize there was something wrong . . . since it’s been some years since I put this recipe in MasterCook, I have no recollection about it. Generally I read the comments about a recipe, if there are any, and whether I mis-typed something, or if I researched and decided to change the quantity of flour, I don’t know. The flour quantity was 2 3/4 cups. And now the recipe says 1 1/2 cups. Not the kind of typo one would usually make since it involved altogether different numbers. But once I mixed up the dough, it was so dry and crumbly I couldn’t even hold it together. As this crumbly mixture sat in the stand mixer, I began researching the recipe, and found that the flour quantity had been changed. I wasn’t about to throw away a perfectly good bowl of crumbly dough, so I improvised. I added a whole egg and a half a cube of butter and whiz-bang, it all came together easily. I did not increase the sugar – I tasted it and didn’t think it needed it. I left everything else as it was.

There are the raw, sliced cookies. Anyway, the recipe has been changed from the original. I don’t even want to give credit to the original since I’ve changed it all around. (She might be very annoyed with someone who tinkered with her recipe!). So suffice to say, the cookie was a nice change of pace from chocolate chip or brownies, or oatmeal or peanut butter. These are more subtle. Crunchy for sure because of the polenta grain in them. Very nice with a cup of tea or coffee.

What’s GOOD: That they’re not so sweet (you could make them sweeter by adding more sugar, but I liked them this way). They’re different – a subtle flavor, yet the lemon shines through. Very nice. Easy also.

What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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Of the 3 recipes I prepared for a recent event, this one was far and away the most popular. The plate of these were gobbled up in no time, with nothing but crumbs remaining. Perfect with a cup of coffee or tea.

The recipe comes from a cookbook I don’t own, Nuts in the Kitchen: More Than 100 Recipes for Every Taste and Occasion by Susan Herrmann Loomis. Susan is a Francophile, although she is/was an American first, finally settling in northern France and some years ago she opened a cooking school in her home. A decade or so ago I attended a cooking class with her (about her cookbook On Rue Tatin: Living and Cooking in a French Town). She’s actually written many books, the one at top the most recent one.

Reading about this recipe (on David Lebovitz’s blog, as he and Susan are friends, since they live not too far away from one another and both have careers in the food biz) I knew I’d have to try it. The only decision being when and which nut. The when was soon and the which nut was almonds (recipe calls for pecans first, almonds second). The fresh rosemary – such a lovely addition to a sweet bar – is in the base crust. All of it is easy enough to make, although it does require stages. The base must be chilled for at least 30 minutes before baking and the apricot filling must be cooked, pureed, then allowed to cool before proceeding with the recipe. And the base needs to cool to room temp before the bars are put together and finally baked together. So although none of it is difficult, it took several hours to make these and have them ready for cutting and serving – just so you know . . .

One of the requirements for this bar is the use of California apricots. There is a difference between those and the Turkish apricots you more often see. The California ones have a more tart, and bright taste. Turkish apricots for whatever reason, are sweeter. So if you substitute Turkish, reduce the sugar in the filling (probably 1/2 cup down to 1/3 cup). One of the best parts of these is the somewhat piquant taste. At first I thought they were too sweet, but I was baking on/off all day and tasted several cookies, so my palate was jaded when I got to these bars. Two days later they tasted just marvelous with a cup of tea or coffee, and definitely not too sweet.

What’s GOOD: gosh, just loved these. The subtle rosemary is part of what “makes” them, although the apricot puree is thick and tart – good. Would be great for Christmas cookies. I’m sure they’d freeze well, too.
What’s NOT: nothing at all.

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