For April 2

Cheesecake Brownies, from David Lebovitz
Tea and Spice Bars, from the King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

I am going to be out of town for work this week, so I had to do my cooking early. I am continuing to browse through the recipes on David Lebovitz' excellent blog, this time with a cheesecake brownie. Yum. These are rich, so cut small pieces if you make the recipe!

Two weeks ago, I made a fruit and nut bar recipe that was very well received, so I am doing a different variation on that theme again this week. The tea and spice bars have a lot more dried fruit in them than they have either tea or spice, but they don't get credit in the title - chalk it up to a bad agent, I guess. Anyway, in this bar, the dried fruits (I used raisins, apricots, sour cherries and cranberries) are steeped in tea, and then pureed before being added to the mixture. So the bars don't have the identifiable fruit in them that the last ones did. Many similar ingredients, very different result. These look more like cakey bars, with a very simple glaze on top.

Enjoy!

For March 19

Chocolate Hazelnut Biscotti

Friendship Bars

both from David Lebovitz

David Lebovitz was a pastry chef at Chez Panisse for over 12 years.  He now lives in Paris (brat).  He has a wonderful, inspiring blog.  Anyway, this week I am making two recipes from the recipe list in his blog.  The chocolate hazelnut biscotti is an adaptation of his chocolate biscotti recipe - he calls for almonds, but I have had some hazelnuts in the house for a couple of weeks now, intending to use them in a recipe, so I have substituted hazelnut extract and hazelnuts instead of almonds in his recipe.

The Friendship Bars are a type of dried fruit and nut bar.  He calls for dates and apricots.  I have used a mixture of those, but with fewer dates and an addition of dried sour cherries and cranberries to add some additional flavors.

Astonishingly - and completely unintentionally on my part, I assure you - neither recipe calls for any added fat (butter, etc.)  So they are obviously healthy - yeah, that's it, healthy.

For March 12

Oatmeal Raisin Almond Cookies, from the Magnolia Bakery Cookbook

BLD Fudge Brownies, from the Los Angeles Times and BLD Restaurant

BLD is a wonderful restaurant on 3d Street here in Los Angeles.  It is the more casual sister to Grace.  Today's Los Angeles Times published the recipe for BLD's fudge brownie sundae; this is the fudge brownie part of the recipe.  It has to refrigerate overnight, so I haven't tried it yet, but the recipe is, uh, rather rich and intense.  Not a recipe for the chocolate lightweight!

The Magnolia Bakery is a famous bakery in NY.  This is an interesting twist on the usual oatmeal cookie recipe - it adds almond extract and toasted almonds to the dough.  Somehow it gives it a lighter flavor profile than the usual oatmeal raisin cookie.

For March 5

It is an act of pure faith that I am writing this now, before noon, on March 4. I made my batter and dough last night - both had to chill before baking - so, if everything goes right, and my oven complies (it has a malfunctioning control board that we are in the process of replacing, but it is not yet completed), here is the plan for tomorrow:

Madeleines (both plain and chocolate) from American Boulangerie by Rigo Pascal
Chocolate Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies from Spago Desserts by Mary Bergin

I am continuing my search for a madeleine recipe I am happy with. (Everyone else has seemed happy with the recipes so far, but I have been unhappy, except with the one from Sherry Yard's Secrets of Baking.) Pascal's recipe has all the same basic ingredients as the others, but uses a very different technique in making the batter, so I am very interested to see how it turns out. One of his variations called for taking a portion of the basic batter out and combining it with some cocoa (oh, and just a teeny more butter), giving you some chocolate and some plain madeleines as a result. Needless to say, I have opted for this approach. I may add some hazelnuts to the plain ones, we will have to see how I am feeling by the time we get to the baking. This recipe also uses European-style (organic) butter rather than American-style butter, so it will be interesting to see if the extra $3 was worth it.

Mary Bergin's cookbook, from her days as the pastry chef at Spago in Hollywood (before she left to become the chef at Spago in Las Vegas and Sherry Yard took over as pastry chef at Spago) has a series of wonderful cookie recipes. Her peanut butter cookie recipe is our hand's-down favorite. Unfortunately, for almost all of her cookie recipes, she calls for the dough to chill for several hours or overnight before baking, and my schedule does not really allow me to do this usually. (This week, a cancellation gave me a free Tuesday night I otherwise wouldn't have.) As a general rule, from what I have been reading recently, allowing a cookie dough to sit overnight results in much better cookies. It allows the fat in the butter to emulsify with the flour more thoroughly (or something like that). Anyway, bottom line, her recipes are great, I wish I could make them more often. This week, we've got one with three types of chocolate (cocoa powder, melted bittersweet chocolate in the batter, and then dark chocolate chips) and two types of peanuts (peanut butter in the batter plus 2 cups of roasted peanuts). Luckily for us, this cookbook has no nutritional information.

My copy of Mary Bergin's Spago Desserts is signed. It was given to me in December 1994 by a dear friend, Chris Kennedy, who was a partner at Irell & Manella, and the person who recruited me out of law school and managed to charm me into coming to LA when it was not on my radar. Chris died around 18 months ago, at only 57. I was thinking fondly of him while I was making the dough last night.