De Baking Psychopath

Our Costco has stocked these lovely tea cookies in three-sleeve packs for a long time now. After years of glancing wistfully at them, I finally lacked enough self-restraint one day last year to buy a box and try them. Bad idea. Imagine crisp mild-flavored gingersnaps with a lemony icing filling. Yeah, the perfect thing to go with a cup of tea. Then, as always happens with me when I discover a new food love, our local Costco stopped stocking this cookie. (enter sad violin music) It was probably good for my waistline/hips, but alas I mourned the loss and have only purchased it at much greater cost for single-sleeve packs at fine imported foods stores. Until yesterday! It has come back to our local Costco. If you are so fortunate to find this cookie on your food store's shelves, don't waste time! Life is short! and will be made better by eating these cookies with your tea! If you can't find it in person, they sell it on Amazon, in all di...

The hubby has a new job! And right after he started, Boss Appreciation Day rolled around and everyone at work chipped in to throw a little dessert party in honor of the supervisors. He did all the hands-on work for this recipe, with just a few guiding tips from me, who stood in the background sneezing up a storm (in a direction away from the cookie-making area). They were a big hit, and the cayenne really gives a boost to the warm fall spicy flavors in this cookie. We made them too big to be crunchy, but the sturdy chewiness was very satisfying so we didn't really mind anyway. The browned butter is just barely noticeable as a nutty aftertaste in the cookie, and it really gives it more depth of flavor. Aren't these just picture-perfect with the crackly tops? Good job, spousal unit! Brown Butter Gingersnaps (adapted from Cookie Madness ) Ingredients: 12 tablespoons unsalted butter 2 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour 2 teaspoons baking soda 1/2 ...

It seems a bit late to say happy new year on January 9, but better late than never! So here's my toast to 2011, may it be a happy and prosperous year for everyone. In the spirit of cutting back on indulgences after holiday-binging, here are these *healthy* green tea (matcha) and crystallized ginger biscotti. Green tea and ginger have been eaten for millennia for their health-promoting and medicinal qualities, and I substituted out all the sugar for Splenda as well as half of the flour for whole-wheat pastry flour. Add some sliced almonds for protein, and you've got yourself a lower-carb tasty treat to go with your afternoon tea or coffee! Matcha and Ginger Light Biscotti (adapted from Leite's Culinaria ) Ingredients : 2 & 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used half AP, half whole wheat pastry flour) 1 cup granulated sugar (I used all Splenda) 1 teaspoon baking powder 2 tablespoons matcha 1/4 teaspoon salt 3 large eggs 4 tablespoons (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, melted 1 tea...

These gingerbread biscotti were a last-minute addition to my Christmas cookie baking. They are a quick way to get all that gingerbread cookie deliciousness in many servings without all the chilling and dough rolling and cookie-cutter mess. In fact, I might just prefer this nut and ginger-studded biscotti over the relatively one-dimensional traditional gingerbread cookie recipe on any given day. The gingerbread flavor is strong, rich, and satisfyingly crunchy. The recipe comes from Fine Cooking and can be found here . The only change I made was to use about 1/3 cup of chopped crystallized ginger rather than the dried apricots. Whichever dried fruit you prefer or have on hand would probably be yummy.

Sugar Cookies from Baking: From my home to yours "Toffee" cookie bars from Pioneer Woman More sugar cookies... Single-headed gingerbread men Cranberry Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies Milk chocolate-dipped anise biscotti, Jess's mum's recipe Only edible gifts from me this year...

THEY HAVE ARRIVED! How are these NOT the coolest gingerbread cookies you've ever seen?! C'mon. Admit it. If nothing else, the cookies made by this cookie cutter are GIGANTIC--pretty much the size of your face! And you'll be glad for such a large serving too because this cookie recipe is a keeper! It was a well-received cookie at the party. This recipe differs from other gingerbread cookie recipes with the addition of a bit of coffee liqueur to complement the spices. The cookies are crisp on the edges and just a tiny bit chewy in the center. The fragrant warm spices are balanced with just the right amount of sweetness. Add a pinch of black pepper to bring out even more spiciness! Gingerbread Cookies (adapted from BHG Biggest Book of Cookies , pg. 233) Ingredients : 1/3 cup butter (5 & 1/3 tablespoons), softened 1/3 cup shortening 1 cup granulated sugar 1/2 cup packed brown sugar 1 teaspoon baking soda 1 teaspoon ground ginger 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon 1/2 teaspoon gr...

This is going to be the last post for awhile, due to a conglomerate of circumstances. The next eight weeks are going to be a flurry of activity: scrambling to write a grant proposal due in early August (and all the references, protocols, documentations, and hassle that come with it), in the middle of which taking a 2-week international trip back to the ROC in mid-late July for my grandmother's 80th B-day bash, closely followed by two conferences/retreats in mid-August that run right into each other (so that I have to leave the first one early and hightail it back just in time for the second one)... ...just wake me up when it's all over. I'm going to so need a vacation after all of that. A good friend of mine from high school was in town this weekend, and I wanted to have an edible gift for her to take home. Not only that, I wanted something that would travel well for a long road trip home and would go well with a good cup of tea, as my friend is a fiend for tea. So I wh...

This is the second of three muffin recipes I made last week (yes, three). I like having muffins in the freezer at work to eat for random hunger attacks. Beats eating a candy bar. This recipe comes from Nigella, who is one of my culinary heroines, and true to her other recipes that I've tried so far, these are easy, yummy, and flavorful. The pears can get quite molten hot, so if you decide to eat these warm, be just a tad careful. The sweet fruit and warm ginger flavor go very well together, and the muffins turned out moist and tender. Pear and Ginger Muffins (adapted from Nigella Express ) Ingredients : 1 & 3/4 cups flour (I used 1 cup AP flour, 3/4 cup whole wheat pastry flour) 3/4 cups granulated sugar 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar 2 teaspoons baking powder 1 teaspoon ground ginger 2/3 cup sour cream 1/2 cup vegetable oil 1 tablespoon honey 2 eggs 1 & 1/2 cups peeled and chopped pears (about 1/4 inch dice; I used canned pears) Instructions : Preheat oven to 400 d...

There are many reasons why this pie came into existence: 1) Two gigantic cans of pumpkin puree kept whispering to me every time I opened my baking cabinet (they had been hastily stockpiled back in the Fall when I'd heard about the Great Pumpkin Shortage, not realizing that it did not affect my area...) as well as two graham cracker crusts, 2) there was not one single from-scratch cookie or muffin left in the house and it was starting to drive me insane, and 3) when given the choice between pumpkin muffins and pie, Michael chose pie. (I might make muffins anyway, shhh!) The cheesecake layer was...inspired. I was going to divide my pumpkin pie filling between the two graham cracker crusts, and I somehow intuitively knew (by my super ninja mental calculation skillz, of course) that there would be a little extra volume to spare in each crust, so I figured, why not add a mini cheesecake layer?? And because pumpkin swirl cheesecake is SO yesterday, I decided to keep the chee...

Six months have passed since my Comprehensive Examination ; the deadline for reassembling my committee for my thesis proposal and first official committee meeting had come. I had been considering different recipes for this committee meeting for a long time before the appointed day, way before I even started preparations for the presentation itself. (Certainly you can see my priorities are in order.) I am glad to announce that my committee meeting occurred this past Friday, and it went well by all accounts and in all aspects: we finished in a timely manner without sacrificing thoroughness (very important due to the time constraints of the professors in my committee), my preliminary data were generally convincing, and the proposed experiments and overall aims of my thesis proposal were accepted with only few minor changes (big thanks to my mentor who helped me make the aims statements much more elegant-sounding). So now I can officially change my status to a "PhD candidate" w...

Love during war? Through sickness? Lost love, found again after surviving trials and tribulations across sea and land? Not quite so dramatic, but a tale of two high school sweethearts who went to different colleges....and biscotti. I went to the College of the Big Buff Bird, and he went to the College of Corn Fields. The two colleges were hundreds and hundreds of miles apart. We ended up only seeing each other at most every half year, usually involving him making multi-legged plane trips to see me. In between those few-and-far-between visits, I wanted to send care packages to the boyfriend at the College of Corn Fields, something that would survive the shipping process and not go stale. Biscotti sounded like a good idea. I'd always liked the (expensive) ones in the coffee shops, so I figured it'd be good to see if I could make good ones at home. And they were dry and hard to begin with, so they could withstand some battering in the mail. I've been collecting (mostly ba...