Russe Cigarettes

They look so beautiful in the photo. I had to try them. The prep work is very simple. You make a waffle batter of sorts with a whole lot of confectioners sugar. I have to guess that if you fried this you'd get some kind of hybrid doughnut, funnel cake concoction. As funnel cake is one of my all time favorite foods, I was pretty excited about the consistency of my batter once it had set in the fridge for a couple of hours

Funnel Cookie here I come.

Next step is to spread batter on silipat. Here's where I'd suggest you deviate somewhat from the recipe, and you'll see why later. Were I to make these again (and I probably will tomorrow), I'd use half the amount of batter per cookie as called for by the recipe and spread as wide to give a much thinner crispier cookie.

After baking for just 6 minutes each sheet, you've got to work quick, and try not to mind the hot cookie on your fingertips.

As you can see, these were just a bit to thick to role as tightly as pictured- hence my previous advice.



Once they're cooled a bit, dip in some melted chocolate, and let cool completely or enjoy immediately. Scott did with some milk (the later that is), and so did I. So what if they don't look like the photo in the book ;)

Pistachio Cardamom Crackers

Since I had the cardamom laying around....I made these crackers. Very interesting!

They're called crackers, but this is a sugar cookie recipe. Make the dough, refrigerate for 2 hours, and roll out:

They do have a neat crumble of pistachios and coconut on top which I thought was an awesome flavor combo with the cardamom.

My favorite part was the cutting the edges off before backing with a pizza cutter, and then cracking apart the final product. I love the taste, although I think the title "cracker" is pretty misleading.

Orange Cardamom Madelines

Have to be my favorite so far. I've never used cardamom before. I got a packet of pods at world market a while back, and decided it was time to break them out.

I know you can buy ground cardamom, but I went a head and ground this myself in a mortar and pestle. I hope that the immediate release of the essential oils has a good impact on the flavor. It's strong, but I like it. The silly thing is that this recipe is completely different than the one for the lemon madelines. This entailed no cake flour, just regular flour, and instead of the creaming of butter and sugar, I was instructed to use melted butter and mix with sugar and egg.



After the batter was mixed- it also required a rest of about 30 minutes. Then into the pan for baking.



Once out of the oven, I covered in an orange glaze of juice, rind and confectioners sugar. It was more like a syrup. I think mine could have used more sugar, to thicken, but the end result was actually more like a syrup soaked cake. Very very tasty.

I loved the taste. My only issue was the consistency. It didn't quite hold a shape, and had a bit of a fried waffly taste. I would have liked if they looked a little nicer, but as they tasted that good, I'm willing to overlook :)

Peanut Butter Brownies

Mmmm peanut butter brownies- how could you not love this idea (unless you're allergic to peanuts)?

I'll tell you how- reading the recipe to find that you'll need a stick and half of butter to make an 8x8 in pan of brownies. That's 1.5 tbsp of butter per square inch of brownie.

Ok, so if you're not quite so calorie conscious as I am, you'd thoroughly enjoy this decadent dessert.

Line brownie pan with parchment, thusly:

Mix up your choc (melted), butter, sugar and eggs:

and then make the peanut butter swirl sauce- a combo of vanilla, sugar peanut butter and- you guessed it- even more unsalted butter:

Scott actually helped cook this recipe- normally he's on camera duty, but he got this nice jar shot before he started in on his mixing:

after all this, you add dry ingredients to your chocolate batter

then move to your papered pan, and swirl in the peanut butter sauce- cutting with a knife.

Very heavy, and a bit dry which I couldn't believe based on fat in both batters. All in all a nice taste. I served at our Oscar party, and most folks liked them, but I have to say I was expecting a bit more out of my first homemade brownie recipe.

Madelines

I got a very lovely valentines day gift from Scott- a new cookie tray, and decided to use it immediately as I had all of the essential ingredients for making Madelines. This particular varietal is lemon flavored, so it included along with cake flour, some butter and eggs, a bit of lemon juice and rind.

Can you tell by now that we had a technical flub? In my excitement to try out my new pan, I neglected to notice that my camera battery was out of juice, before mixing the batter, so you guys get no procedural photos, only the end shot. I can tell you that baking these is pretty easy - the only tough part was getting the dough into the pan.

Grease pan liberally, and I'd even grease the spoon. After letting this dough rest for a half hour as per the recipe- it became quite sticky. Oh- and do abide their request to fill only 3/4 full- although that's a little difficult to eyeball due to the odd nature of the pan recessions- the one's that I overfilled definitely bubbled over and kind of lost their pretty shape and golden edges.

Oatmeal Raisin- One of My Favorites

Yah! Finally something more normal for Scott! Oh, but wait- not a big raisin fan- oops. Well I already bought the tub of oatmeal (and we don't eat oatmeal that often) so I'm going ahead with this recipe anyway. Also, kudos to him for this excellent oatmeal action shot.



I may be repeating myself here- but I'm slowly getting the hang of this- cream butter and sugar, mix dry and incorporate!



The more I say it, the quicker I get. I didn't think this experiment would make me actually enjoy baking, but much to my surprise, I think it's growing on me- the routine of it perhaps? I love routines- dance routines, ice skating routines, daily routines- so I suppose I should have know all along....I just hope I'm not addicted- I made 4 batches of cookies this week- so I may have to throttle back.

Back to the recipe, same as the last one I made add in your flavor- raisins and wheat germ in this case, spoon onto baking sheet and throw into the oven.

A lovely batch- halved and still came out with about 24 cookies. Co-workers loved them- who wouldn't they're a staple American lunch dessert. I unfortunately can't say the same for the hubs.

Cornmeal, Thyme Cookies

These were really interesting and surprisingly crisp.



First it was choppin thyme- ahaha, get it...



Then on to creaming butter & sugar, and mixing dry ingredients- including an unusual appearance by cornmeal and currants (dried- I've made the mistake of baking with uncalled for fresh currants before, so I knew better this time around):

Mix em together, drop on a cookie sheet and here we go!

These were very tasty little buggers- although I still can't figure out why when Martha says my cookies should be flat they're poofy, and vice versa. These seemed to be a thyme and current flavored butter cookie of sorts based on the picture, but they came out raised. Still tasted awesome though. I served for dessert after a chicken fajita meal, and the cornmeal really played well with the flavors from dinner. I'll definitely repeat.