De Baking Psychopath

On my recent trip to San Francisco, I visited the Biscoff Coffee Corner to score a gigantic tin full of the addictive cookies, which I first encountered on Delta Airline flights. Biscoff cookies are just the product name that the European company Lotus gave to their version of the popular Belgian and Dutch cookies, speculoos.  Speculoos are thin crispy shortbread-like cookies that are lightly spiced with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and other spices. Traditionally they are molded and are served for St. Nicholas's feast, but they are now popular and available year-round. They are not readily found in the US, but ironically, a cookie-based spread (think somewhere between Nutella and peanut butter in consistency) has exploded onto specialty supermarket shelves recently and taken the blogging world by storm. As is my m.o. these days, when I become addicted to something, I try to find a suitable copycat recipe so I will never run out of the precious delicacy. And so this is ...

One of my great loves in dessert is tiramisu. I've made it a few times over the years, and this recipe has always been my go-to because it is one of the most straightforward recipes out there and it is so classical in taste. No fancy egg foam ( zabaglione), so it's just a matter of mixing the cream layer and assembling. Now I actually have never used ladyfingers to make tiramisu, mostly because it's out of my way to get the stuff, and it's usually kinda pricey and I don't know what I'd do with the leftovers. So I use pound cake. I always can find a use for extra pound cake! When I have the time, I'll make my own, but I am heartily in favor of using whatever pound cake you can get your hands on. In fact, on this occasion it had been my intent to buy pound cake; however I was foiled by Costco's assorted seasonal pound cakes (e.g. pumpkin streusel) replacing their normal plain pound cake 3-packs. So I came home and baked a pound cake from Dor...

These soft, tasty rolls were part of a dinner party we threw ages ago, and sadly they got lost in the mix of holiday baking. But they deserve their own spotlight as they were exceedingly delicious. These are the epitome of how plush and fragrant dinner rolls can be! I added a couple tablespoons of dried herbs (mostly parsley I think) and when I shaped the rolls, I made them into knots, which is easily done by rolling the pre-portioned balls of dough into long strips and making a simple knot. You can do whatever fancy knot you know how to do. I got the recipe for these rolls from the excellent blog My Kitchen Addiction, and since they are a family recipe, I think it is best to link back to her post so you can get the full story and wonderful recipe . Make them this week to go with your pot of soul-warming soup!

I first encountered Liege waffles on TV, on a travel show that was talking about a waffle stand that is only accessible to customers by skiing. It is located at the bottom of a ski slope somewhere in Europe, and the little waffle stand is run by a cute couple who specialize in these wonderful treats. Skiers waddle up to the stand and order their waffles, which is eaten plain by hand, wrapped in some paper, as they waddle off to the ski lift for another trip down the slopes. These waffles are not your normal Belgian waffles that you encounter in the US. They are made with a butter-and-egg-rich yeasted dough (close cousin to a Brioche dough) that is studded with large grain pearl sugar, which caramelizes in little pockets on the surface of the crisp, fluffy waffle. They are common to find in Belgium at street vendors for an on-the-go snack, apparently, but haven't really found a foothold here in the US as far as I can tell. I mistakenly tried "yeasted waffle" r...

Alright, a break from yeast! First I wanted to highlight a new function on my blog, the Printer-Friendly button down at the bottom of each post. Thanks to the folks at printfriendly.com , you can pick and choose what to print from any website or blog, change the font size, and even save as a pdf. I hope this makes my blog even more user-friendly for my dear readers! Awhile back I made a couple different gluten-free chocolate chip cookies that were both pretty tasty. I got these recipes from some blog browsing a long time ago, but never got around to trying them until recently. So if you have a gluten-sensitive friend or just want to cut a bit of carbs out of your diet, here are a couple of recipes for consideration. Nutty Oatmeal Cookies (Adapted from Cookies for Breakfast by Michael H. Perlman ) Ingredients :  8 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature 1/2 cup packed dark brown sugar 3/4 cup sugar 1 large egg 1/2 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanil...

" Would you like a crumpet? " It almost sounds like a line from a BBC miniseries, or it may remind you (at least it did for me) of Mrs. Judson's famous cheese crumpets in The Great Mouse Detective ! I was absolutely delighted to find that making crumpet batter is easier to put together than pancake batter when one has excess sourdough starter to play with! (And don't worry, you can make them even without starter! See below recipe for the link.) What do they taste like? They're like a cross between a pancake and a nice chewy, pillowy, yeasty flatbread. Definitely more of the savory category by themselves but were superb with sweet toppings too! We've enjoyed them with a fried egg on top, or with lovely marmalade, and of course Michael had to spread one with Nutella. It was a novel and exciting way to change up our weekend brunch routine, and the best thing is they're so easy to make and easily stockpiled in the freezer for weekday breakfast...