For August 27

Back from Hawaii! Andrew and I were gone for 10 days on vacation. Now back. Sigh. A very hard landing on return. Anyway, amid the 100-degree heat, I was in the kitchen baking last night, and here are the items I made:

Cranberry Oatmeal Bars, from Nick Malgieri
Macademia Shortbread Brownies, from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet

Both bar-type cookies this week - I didn't get home until 8 p.m. last night, and we still haven't unpacked from our trip, which called for relatively simple recipes this week. The cranberry oatmeal bars are what they sound like - lots of oats, with some cranberries and pecans. The sweetness comes from a combination of dark brown sugar and unsweetened applesauce. Not much fat in these at all. While it is in the high 90s here today, these are clearing the way out for fall to arrive (please!).

The brownie recipe is rather interesting. First, you make a shortbread layer at the bottom of your pan, and add nuts to it - in this case, macadamia nuts, in a nod to the recent trip to Hawaii. After that bakes, you add pour a brownie batter on top, and then bake it again. So it ends up being a brownie on top of a thin macadamia shortbread crust. I made this recipe some time ago, except I used hazelnuts instead of macadamia nuts. There are also two different brownie recipes you can use for the brownie layer; I used the "Best Cocoa Brownies" recipe, which I made recently and was well received. This is a nice contrast of the intense, fudgy brownie atop the shortbread crust, with the macadamia adding an almost ethereal element to the mix.

Next week, the Center is on recess, so we will be taking the week off. However, I just received two dessert cookbooks from Flo Braker in the mail yesterday, so I will use the time off to peruse and plan...

Oh, and I have been doing the "blog" thing now for a year!!! Wow! Happy Birthday to me!

For August 13

Two interesting recipes this week, both involving almonds:

Lemony Almond Bars, from The King Arthur Flour Cookie Companion

Chocolate Spice Quickies, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours

This is the second week in a row I am doing a chocolate cookie recipe from Dorie Greenspan. In terms of technique, these are rather similar to the World Peace Cookies that I did last week, but they are also quite different in result. Here, the cookies are a bit softer, and have a slightly elusive quality. They have both allspice and ground almonds in them, which is probably why. Dorie calls them quickies, and they are and aren't - they are because this is a fairly quick dough to make, and they aren't because the dough then needs to be refrigerated for at least 4 hours before slicing and baking. I like these a lot, and I think they are a bit more complex than the World Peace Cookies (I just asked Andrew, who says it is a close call but thinks the World Peace Cookies edge these out; so much for world peace).

The lemony almond bars are unusual. They won't win any awards for looks, but they are really good. Lemon and almond are not a natural flavor combination, but here it works nicely. These bars involve three steps. First, you make a crust layer, which you bake. While it is baking, you make a topping layer, which is basically eggs, brown sugar and almonds. Put the topping on, bake for 20 minutes. While that is baking, you make a glaze, which involves fresh lemon juice, lemon zest and powdered sugar; when the bars come out of the oven, while still hot you pour the glaze over them, and the glaze is absorbed into the bars. As I said, these are very plain bars, but that makes the big lemon flavor a real surprise. These are a really nice, interesting bar. As far as I know, I haven't made either of these recipes before, and both are good, solid recipes.

Andrew and I leave on vacation on Saturday, so no cookies from us next week - we will be playing in Hawaii for 10 days. But we'll be back for the 27th!

Dharma-Joy

For August 6

I was in San Diego today, so Andrew took care of the cookies. So now I turn it over to our guest blogger, Andrew!

World Peace Cookies, from Dorie Greenspan, Baking: From My Home To Yours

OK, Tom actually made these Wednesday night. They are the kind of cookies that you roll into logs and refrigerate, so all I had to do was slice them up and bake them. I am always a little worried about sizing cookies according to the recipe, so I confess that I actually pulled out the tape measure to be sure I was slicing in 1/2-inch segments. Yes, I know it's a little crazy. It was definitely worth it - these are really really good cookies - chocolatey and rich with an almost-melt-in-your-mouth texture. Quintessential cookies that should definitely bring about global harmony!

Blondies, adapted from Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything

Tom called on his way home from San Diego and jokingly suggested I shop for and bake the second cookie, and he said that he thought maybe brownies would be good but that he didn't want two chocolate cookies. I thought blondies sounded good, so I did some googling (why bother using the 40 million cookbooks we have when I can just google?) and came up with this recipe. It is really simple and has the advantage of having an ingredient list consisting of stuff we already had in the house. I did change it slightly based on other recipes and comments by other bakers by creaming the butter and sugar rather than melting the butter. I also added toasted walnuts and some chocolate chips. I am sending them into the world untested, so you will have to let me know how they turned out. The best part was that they were all done by the time Tom got home, so we had takeout for dinner and got to bed before midnight - hurray!