I have been very impatient for spring this year. It’s been exceptionally cold in Chicago and everything has just been talking for-ev-er to come up. So when I saw the first bursts of yellow dotting the yards of the lazy I got super excited! I could almost hear Oprah announcing her next guest. Please welcome, Spriiiiinnnnnggg! Continue reading “Dandelion Lemon Bars”
Glazing your gingerbread cookies is a deceptively simple way to create delicate and impressive patterns on your gingerbread cookies. The textured dough, once baked, gets brushed with a simple powdered sugar glaze and allowed to dry and crystallize.
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Every year, my dad’s side of the family celebrates Swedish Christmas, with blood sausage and meatballs and headcheese and all sorts of things I’m not likely to eat any other time of the year. I’ve baked lots of things with nordic flavors like cinnamon, cardamom and white pepper. But this year I wanted to bake up a cookie that really says SWEDISH CHRISTMAS*. I saw some cute peanut butter heart cookies on Pinterest and their criss-crossed fork marks reminded me of the paper heart baskets we made as kids (and I still sometimes make for grown-up time). So I decided to try my hand at a Scandinavian twist on the classic checkerboard cookie. This was the result! To say I’m pleased would be an understatement. I just adore these cookies.
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These are the perfect peanut butter cookie. Malted milk powder to deepen the peanut flavor and temper the sweetness, oatmeal for chew, and the perfect texture (slightly crispy edges and a soft chewy center). Looking for a peanut butter cookie with big peanut flavor that’s not too crumbly, doughy, or sweet? You’re in the right place. These Malted Peanut Butter Oatmeal Cookies were the result of a lot of experimentation, five batches worth, and this final batch was so yummy my family ate them all up in one day.
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Crisp at the edges and chewy orange-gingerbread cookies with orange extract and white pepper. These store and ship well, so they’re perfect for gifting!
Sometimes I really want gingerbread but I don’t feel like roll-out cookies or cake. I was pondering this (super serious) problem and decided to try adapting my classic chewy molasses cookies. After all, they both have ginger, molasses, cinnamon and cloves. In fact the only big difference is the nutmeg. I also use orange extract and white pepper in my gingerbread, so I threw that in there too. The result are these chewy orange gingerbread cookies and they are THE BOMB.
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What is better than a melt-in-your-mouth square of shortbread? So simple and indulgent. Answer: These Chocolate Rye Shortbread. All the amazing texture and buttery flavor of traditional shortbread, plus nutty whole-grain and deep chocolate. These are the complex and interesting cousin of regular shortbread who moved away from home right after high school and came back all cool and worldly.
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I’ve heard through the grapevine that when you’re looking for a recipe, it’s aggravating to have to read through an entire epic description and wade through umpteen photos. Because there’s a pandemic and I don’t want to further irritate you, I am presenting this Cabin Fever Brownies recipe without much commentary. Also, I am homeschooling, working, wife-ing and generally losing my mind so I don’t have time to inspire you with the fancy words.
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Click here for directions on making the chocolate maple leaves. I’ll be circling back with baking directions soon!
Continue reading “Maple Apple Cake with White Chocolate Leaves”
I wasted about a week making a string of disastrous sheet cakes. A vanilla rhubarb cake that was tough and spongey with weeping, semi-curdled frosting. An earl grey-lemon one that was simultaneously bitter and bland. The last bright idea I had was a lemon-thyme cake with a goat cheese frosting. But I just couldn’t face another failure so I skipped it. But I had already bought the goat cheese. So I gave it a hard think and in the spirit of Reckless Experimentation decided to make a Chocolate Brownie with a Chocolate Goat Cheese Frosting and Candied Walnuts. Continue reading “Chocolate Brownie with Chocolate Goat Cheese Frosting and Candied Walnuts”
I love the vibrant flavor and tartness of strawberry and rhubarb. A strawberry rhubarb pie is one of the best things about spring. That and the end of another soul-crushing Chicago winter of course. I wanted to see if I could pack all that spring flavor into a tart resembling a lemon meringue pie, using rhubarb as the filling and adding strawberries to the classic Italian meringue topping. This Strawberry Rhubarb Tart does it all. It’s bursting with juicy flavor, rich and tart, and topped with pillowy swirls of strawberry meringue. Continue reading “Strawberry Rhubarb Tart”
