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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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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I normally write up a big long description, especially for foraging posts so that folks who are new to foraging will feel confident to give it a try. But when I posted pictures of this tart on a wild edibles Facebook page, I had so many requests for the recipe I decided to just get the recipe part up and circle back to fancy pictures and a detailed explanation later. Hope you give this a try, I’ve gotten rave reviews from my family and neighbors!
Continue reading “Mulberry Matcha Tart”
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 frosting. I love cupcakes with lots of frosting and cakes covered in big frosting rosettes. But sometimes a cake is just so delicious, you want the frosting to simply complement, not dominate. This raspberry almond cake gets that balance just right. The cake is rich and perfectly textured and the raspberry buttercream frosting adds a bright flavor and color. It’s loaded with real raspberries and topped with tender candied blood oranges, giving just a bit of bitterness to balance the sweet. All of the three components are delicious on their own. But together, they’re magic. Continue reading “Raspberry Almond Cake with Candied Blood Oranges”
This is my basic roll-out sugar cookie recipe. There are a lot of recipes out there for roll-outs. Some can be baked without chilling. Some have the soft texture of grocery store sugar cookies. Some don’t spread even an iota. But none of those recipes hold a candle to these buttery sugar cookies. The reason is two-fold: Flavor and texture.
Continue reading “Buttery Sugar Cookies-Perfect for Rolling Out and Decorating”
I’m a little obsessive about baking. You may have noticed. I’m also a little obsessed with woodgrain. You can’t throw a rock at my Pinterest page without hitting something woodgrain. And I think I finally baked up something deserving of my two loves. Look, I made a diagram:
I am a sucker for mid-century Christmas crap. I love the fake trees, gilded barware, and felty stockings. This year, instead of trying another version of a traditional Christmas tree cookie, I decided to recreate my favorite holiday tree. The big fake white tinsel tree with giant ball ornaments. The lack of fullness and the awkward placement of the ornaments just really makes my socks go up and down.
I am always looking for new ways to use lemon curd. If it were socially acceptable, I would put it on my breakfast cereal. These Lemon-Rosemary Linzer Cookies were a bit of late night inspiration but will now be a standard in my rotation. The rosemary is a just-barely-there flavor note that compliments the lemon and brings out the hint of salt. They’re addictive.
