For June 11

Luxury Brownies, from the blog Chocolateandzucchini.com

Benne Wafers, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Via David Lebovitz' blog, I found this brownie recipe at Chocolate & Zucchini, a cooking/baking blog written by Clotilde Dusoulier; she in turn had found it on the blog of a woman who sells baked goods at a market in East London. The chocolate in this is very intense - the recipe calls for both melted bittersweet chocolate and cocoa powder (in my case, that would be Scharffen Berger chocolate and Valrhona cocoa powder, making these about equal to gold on an ounce for ounce basis - I now know why these are called "luxury" brownies); Clotilde also tinkered with the original recipe by reducing the amount of sugar (and I reduced it a tad more) and by replacing some of the butter with almond butter (like peanut butter but, well, with almonds). Oh, and a lot of nuts. I like the result, but, well, I am not in love with it - a bit more cakey than my favorite style of brownie. On the other hand, the pan that is going to the Zen Center is a bit thicker than the pan I was, er, testing from, so it may be a bit less cooked and less cakey. We'll see how it develops as it cools and sets.

Andrew and I spent four days at Tassajara for a poetry workshop this week. At Tassajara the guest lunch generally is soup, home made bread, salad and cookies. While we were there, one of the cookies was a sesame cookie. Now, a strong sesame flavor is for some people an acquired taste, but I am a big sesame fan, and I had made a sesame cookie some time ago, and this cookie reminded me of that one. So I decided to make it again this week to see, and if they are not the same recipe, they are certainly close! Apparently "benne" was a West African term for sesame and in the "low country" of South Carolina, as a result of slavery, sesame cookies are referred to as benne cookies. This is not a cookie for everyone, but I am fairly pleased with the result. It is a very simple cookie to make, and gives you a very interesting and fun result.