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...

Hi.  I know it's been a little quiet over here. It's not because I am not thinking of this blog, or baking on occasion.  It's just because the last 6 weeks have been an emotional roller coaster that I was not prepared to deal with after my last committee meeting. You see, I am trying to finish up my thesis project by this summer, or at latest this fall, and return back to medical school, and the magnitude of that task has me hyperventilating and my stomach in knots, with very few moments of clarity and peace in between. But most of the time, the near-panic attacks preside. And while I still take time out to relax, it has been more and more of a struggle to keep up my usual baking-blogging routines. So while I stockpile pictures and try to get my act together one of these days to share some of the awesome recipes I am still lucky enough to have time to enjoy making/eating, here are a few peeks into my plate/lunchbox of late. Above, a sandwich made with ...

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!