Alone in the fridge there sat a roll of freshly made chocolate chip cookie dough. It meant to join us for the weekend as the husband and I were enjoying a quiet weekend away, otherwise known as our babymoon. For those of you unfamiliar with this odd term let me explain – it’s a last chance getaway before the life-altering, sleep depriving, miracle of a baby arrives. We still have several weeks before baby appears (early September) but this was our last unbooked weekend of the Summer – my husband is a wedding photographer which makes this season very busy.

My dear friend and cooking class partner, Julie, insisted on us taking a babymoon. We needed very little convincing. Husband and I spent the last few days steps away from the ocean, surrounded by books, food and the ability to do whatever we wanted, when we wanted. For me this meant plenty of long naps, a few brief walks – or shall I say “waddles” – and quiet moments just staring at the ocean.

We read, we talked, we watched movies and we enjoyed the silence.

Now we are home. Back to our reality that is void of silence, filled with the happy cheers of two very energetic young boys. And back to that cookie dough that is all well rested as I am.

These cookies were baked just after the dough was made – they’re delicious. But if you let the dough rest a bit the flavors with become more pronounced- you will get a cookie with more toffee flavors and deep, rich color. They also don’t *puff* quite as much once they’ve rested.  I used chocolate chips for this because I didn’t have couverture on hand and needed a cookie…. NOW.

I have been meaning to re-post my chocolate chip cookies for some time. First of all because the pictures are horrible and secondly because I left out a few key tricks in the mixing directions. I did not do this intentionally – I would never do that to you but since that post I have made thousands more cookies and have learned a few things a long the way.

Dana from Dana Treat recently took a baking class from me where we made my favorite chocolate chip cookies. She went ahead and did my job for me by writing an incredible post honoring these chocolate-laden morsels. Her post on my cookies was so perfectly written and her cookies are flawless, so I’m just going to direct you to her instead.

Thanks Dana for such a lovely post!

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It was Monday afternoon and I was pacing my living room. My dear friend and cooking class partner, Julie, arrived to watch our boys while my husband and I headed off to the 20 week ultrasound. Those of you who have been down this road before know that this is probably the best appointment there is during pregnancy. And for us it was especially important because, most likely this is our last little bundle and I was bursting at the seams to find out the sex. Really, I’ve been quite a bear to live with.

I checked in for my appointment and continued to pace. My nerves were being passed on to my husband as he knew how badly I have been hoping for a little girl. Of course I adore little boys with their dirt covered hands and daily wrestling matches but I so longed for a bit more pink in my life. If you’ve been reading my blog this comes as no surprise.

Well, dear blog readers, I am so completely thrilled to say, “BRING ON THE PINK!! It’s a girl!!!” And a rather adorable one too. Most importantly the ultrasound showed she is healthy and growing bigger everyday.

I had the technician repeat this news and every time she referred to my baby as she or her I shrieked with joy.  I immediately called my Mom and ten minutes later she was the car, determined to buy some pink for her new granddaughter. Friends, let’s just say that my little girl is ready to hit the beach in her plaid bathing suit and cupcake cover-up.
So in honor of this special occasion I made something sweet. And my goodness I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of this before – maybe it’s because I didn’t have a little girl in my belly inspiring pink creations.

Rhubarb ice cream with oatmeal shortbread. Oh dear is it ever delightful. Of course you all know how much I adore Rhubarb but let me just say that I think I’ve found my favorite way to enjoy it – in ice cream form. It’s sweet and tart, creamy and smooth and reminiscent of a Rhubarb crumble with the addition of the shortbread.

The Rhubarb is first braised in vanilla bean and butter. That luscious mixture infuses with cream and whole milk and gets a splash of Spring essence in the form of Cherry Blossom extract (thanks to my dear friend Helen from Tartelette who sent me a bottle).
So please celebrate pink with me and the arrival of Spring by whipping up this delightful dessert.

Rhubarb Ice Cream with Oatmeal Shortbread

Ice Cream

3- 3 1/2 cups Rhubarb chopped in 1/2″ chunks
2 oz. (1/2 stick) butter
1 Vanilla bean, seeds removed
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup brown sugar, not packed
1/4 tsp salt
2 cups heavy cream
1 cup milk

7-10 drops cherry blossom extract (optional) – Rose water would be lovely as well

Combine the Rhubarb, butter, vanilla bean and seeds, vanilla extract, sugar and salt in a medium sauce pan. Cover and place on medium-low heat. Simmer until Rhubarb is soft. This should take about 15 minutes.
Remove the lid and break up the Rhubarb with a wooden spoon. In a medium bowl combine the cream and milk then add the braised Rhubarb. Add the cherry blossom extract if you are lucky enough to have some. Let chill completely.
Churn in your ice cream machine according to manufacturer’s instructions.

Oatmeal Shortbread

1 1/2 sticks butter, softenend
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 Tb. white sugar
1 yolk
1 tsp salt
1 Tb. vanilla extract
3/4 cup ground oatmeal (this can be done in a blender or food processor)
1 cup flour

Cream the butter and the sugars until light. Add the yolk and salt. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Stir in the vanilla. Add the ground oatmeal and flour. Stir just to combine.
Roll into a 2″ log then wrap with parchment and chill.
Preheat oven to 350*.
Slice chilled log into 1/4″ discs – if you want them to look perfect use a 1 1/2″ round cutter. Sprinkle the tops with oatmeal then bake for 15 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.
Let cool on a wire rack then serve with your ice cream.

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This has been a big year for our little family. In March we decided to pack our belongings, put it in storage and cross our fingers that our first home would sell in the less-than-stellar market.
You see, we left our hearts in Seattle. We met here, fell in love here, ate incredibly perfect food here and found our church here. We had been gone for 5 years and decided this was the year to return.
In September we sat in our new home in Seattle. It was empty. Devoid of the family photos that now hang in the hall, free from the paintings that have been placed on many walls since their creation. There was no couch to eat popcorn and watch movies on and no sugar in the pantry to bake cookies with. Yet it felt like home.
When the daring bakers challenged us to make a gingerbread house, I wanted to celebrate this year and our new change by constructing a gingerbread “townhouse”. Our townhouse.
You see we live in a vertical rectangle. Three petite floors and beautiful floor to ceiling windows that allow what little light we have this time of year to pour in.
This is our actual townhouse.

And here is our townhouse made of gingerbread, royal icing and candy.

While I love that our actual townhouse doesn’t melt in the rain I do think it would be quite fun to live in the cookie version of our house. I have no doubts that the boys agree with me.

Our original townhouse is constructed from wood and nails. My townhouse is constructed from gingerbread dough, royal icing, peppermint pillows, chocolate covered sunflower seeds, dragees, nonpareils and sanding sugar.

This will probably be the last time I talk to you before Christmas so let me just first of all thank you. This blogged has changed drastically this year and has become something entirely different for me. Where it was once a place to show and market my dessert catering and wedding cake business it has now become a place of creativity and sanctity. A place where I am free to create, share and commune with all of you.

Thank you for welcoming these changes and supporting me. I feel so incredibly blessed to have found an encouraging community during a time in my life where there has been much change and little sleep.

Secondly I want to wish you a joyous holiday filled with much love and sugar. May you be abundantly blessed in this season with hearts and bellies full.

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I realize that it has been weeks and quite possibly longer  since I’ve posted something savory. ‘Tis the Season! But don’t worry mom, I have been eating my vegetables  – it’s just so fun to talk about sugar.

That changes today. Sort of. There is still sugar in the recipe but there is also an ingredient that you may be unfamiliar with – fennel pollen.

Thanks to the lovely Jennifer Perillo from “In Jennie’s Kitchen”, I was gifted a generous supply of this sweet spice.

Peggy Knickbocker wrote, in an article for Saveur, “If angels sprinkled a spice from their wings, this would be it.” I couldn’t agree more. Anything that resembles fennel in its sweet anise flavor is a winner in my book but fennel pollen goes above and beyond anise. It’s as if it takes all that is good with that subtley sweet licorice essence and makes it a thousand times better. The aroma is floral and intoxicating.  One smell and I suddenly wish I was a bee so I could cover myself in it. I guess I don’t have to be a bee to do that but it would be quite expensive as fennel pollen is nearly as costly as saffron.

The recipe for these fennel pollen cookies is nearly the same as yesterday’s chocolate chip shortbread with a touch more salt and minus the vanilla. I served them with a tart and sweet onion jam and a smokey blue cheese from Rogue River Creamery and let me just tell you the angels were singing. In one bite I tasted sweet, salty, smokey and a soft vinegar bite. The finishing taste was the fennel pollen as it lingered on my tongue, hanging there for a bit – I begged it not to go but once it did I popped another one in my mouth.

If time allows I hope to give all those I love dearly a little jar of onion jam and package of the fennel pollen shortbread. They will be happy.

Continue along for the recipes.

Onion Jam

adapted from Food & Wine

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

2 medium sweet onions, julienned 

1/2 cup sugar

1/3 cup dry red wine

1/3 cup red wine vinegar

1/3 cup grenadine

Salt

Melt the butter in a medium skillet. Add the onions and cook over moderate heat, stirring, until soft and just translucent, about 8 minutes. Add the sugar, wine, vinegar, grenadine and a pinch of salt. Cook over low heat, stirring, until the liquid thickens and coats the back of a spoon, about 35 minutes. Transfer the onion jam to a bowl and let cool.

Note: I doubled the recipe and it worked beautifully. The cooking time was 45 minutes to 1hour.

Fennel Pollen Shortbread
Wild Fennel Pollen can be ordered online. Besides shortbread, fennel pollen, makes an incredible rub on lamb and pork. Sprinkle on salads or roasted vegetables to give an intriguing floral-anise flavor.

adapted from Ina Garten

Ingredients

3/4 pound butter, softened

1 cup sugar

3 1/2 cups flour

1 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

1/2 teaspoon fennel pollen, plus more for rolling

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the fennel pollen. In a medium bowl, sift together, with a whisk, flour and salt; then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Roll into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Sprinkle a generous amount of fennel pollen to cover the the log. Cover in wax paper or parchment. Chill until firm.

Carefully slice the log into 1/4″ cookies. Place the cookies on an sheet pan covered with parchment. Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.

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I had a craving the other night. It was a very specific craving that, not surprisingly, involved chocolate and I wanted it in cookie form. I knew that I wanted it to be buttery with a texture that crumbles in your mouth as sand would except not as repulsive as the idea of eating sand. Not chewy or crispy nor too complex rather it must be soft and sweet and as fragile as the Christmas ornaments that my 1 1/2 year keeps on shattering.

My craving ceased as I bit into a *store bought* (?!?!! – sometimes I like it when someone else does the baking for me). The texture was perfect and the mini chocolate chips studded throughout provided a depth and rich sweetness that brought me much delight. The peppermint ice cream that I used to wash down the cookie also added to my enjoyment.

It was a shortbread cookie. Traditionally shortbread is made from one part sugar, two parts butter and three parts flour. Classically the flour was oatmeal flour but today it is more common to use white flour. Some people go real crazy and throw in ground rice or cornflour to give the cookie an interesting texture.

The high amount of fat (in this case, butter) gives these cookies their soft and crumbly texture. The butter generously coats the flour limiting gluten formation. The resulting cookie is unbelievably tender and simply melts in your mouth.

The next day the craving returned. My husband kindly sought out the mini chocolate chips from the grocery store while I began to mix.

The recipe I used is an adaptation from Ina Garten. She doesn’t shy away from butter and I LOVE her for that. With this recipe’s high amount of butter and lack of eggs I knew that it would provide the texture I was craving. I wasn’t disappointed.

This dough can be made in advance then rolled into a log. Wrap in wax paper or parchment paper then slice and bake when the craving strikes.

Chocolate Chip Shortbread

adapted from Ina Garten

Ingredients

3/4 pound butter, softened

1 cup sugar, plus extra for sprinkling

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 1/2 cups flour

3/4 teaspoon kosher salt

12 ounces mini chocolate chips

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer with the paddle attachment, cream together the butter and 1 cup of sugar until they are just combined. Add the vanilla. In a medium bowl, sift together, with a whisk, flour and salt; then add them to the butter-and-sugar mixture. Mix on low speed until the dough starts to come together. Add the chocolate chips until just mixed in. Roll into a log about 2 inches in diameter. Cover in wax paper or parchment. Chill until firm.

Carefully slice the log into 1/4″ cookies. Place the cookies on an sheet pan covered with parchment. Bake for 11-13 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Note: The edges of the shortbread are ever so slightly sharper if you chill the cookies before baking them.

Stay tuned for a slighty savory application of this same recipe. In the meantime start softening some butter and get mixing.

Also, these cookies make for a great addition to your holiday cookie plates. They travel well and pack nicely as a little gift.

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As a little girl I wanted to be Martha Stewart.

My best friend and I took it upon ourselves to create a publication for young girls, such as ourselves, who dreamed of being the crafter, cook and exceptional decorator that Martha is. Our magazine was called, Mini Martha Living.

It ran for one issue.

Oh but what an issue it was. We included recipes and how-to’s. There were sewing, beading and origami projects with hand-drawn illustrations to aid in the learning.

We studied the grownup version of the magazine with precision and mimicked the layout right down to the fonts that vary in size in boldness adorning the cover.

We were so proud of our magazine and quickly learned that publication is a tough business.

That childhood dream has followed me into adulthood.

I get goosebumps at the site of her crafting closet filled with neatly labeled boxes and spindle after spindle of delicate ribbons. Her potting shed makes me weak in the knees as I dream of spending hours out there starting seeds and arranging beautiful cut flowers freshly plucked from my garden.

A perfect afternoon is me with a cup of good coffee completely immersed in a pile of past issues eager to crease the corner of the page that will soon be my next project.

As I’ve grown up I have come to realize that I will never rise to the status of Martha Stewart. I am okay with this. I will never find the need to iron my sheets. And I’m pretty sure – as hard as I try – it is impossible to fold a fitted sheet as concisely as she seems to be able to.

But what I have recently realized is that I can decorate gingerbread cookies. Now they aren’t as perfect as hers but again she irons her sheets – I do not. In fact I call it an accomplishment if I manage to make my bed (sorry mom).

I take it one project at a time, ever increasing my Martha Stewart-ness. Today I start with cookies.

These gingerbread cookies are as lovely on the inside as they are on the outside. Soft and spicy. Sweet and complex. A beautiful and rich mahogany color with an dark molasses flavor.

Gingerbread Cookies

I love the heat of these cookies. I increased the amount of pepper but if you don’t like that much warmth feel free to keep the pepper to 1 teaspoon.Some other delightful additions may be orange zest, lemon zest or finely chopped candied ginger.

6 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature

1 cup dark-brown sugar, packed

4 teaspoons ground ginger

4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoons nutmeg

1 1/2 teaspoon finely ground black pepper

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

2 large eggs

1 cup unsulfured molasses

In a large bowl, sift together flour, baking soda, and baking powder. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Mix in spices and salt, then eggs and molasses. Add flour mixture; combine on low speed. Divide dough in thirds, and wrap in plastic. Chill for at least 1 hour.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper. Set aside. On a lightly floured work surface, roll dough 1/8-inch thick. Cut into shapes then transfer to prepared baking sheets.

Freeze for 10 minutes before baking (or refrigerate for 15 minutes) Bake for 9-12 minutes. If you like a crisper cookie you can bake longer. I like them soft so I took them out at 9 or 10 minutes. Let cookies cool on wire racks.

Decorate with royal icing.

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So now that everyone has their lard rendered let’s make some shortbread.

Wait. What?! You haven’t rendered your lard yet?

I understand. Some people are less than thrilled to be fondling pig fat. If you haven’t gotten around to producing your own batch of the white gold then do yourself a favor – make some bacon.

Enjoy said bacon. Maybe even make some bacon caramels. Or a BLT since there is no better time to bite into a tomato so sweet it’s as if the sun itself has been feeding the ruby orbes spoonfuls of sugar.

But whatever you do do not throw out your bacon fat. Nothing goes to waste – especially not the salty, smoky and creamy drippings that come from cooking bacon. Use the fat to cook your eggs, butter your toast with it, grab and spoon and eat it – well, not really – that’s gross.

Make shortbread with it.

The other night I had a vision – covered in sugar. Inspiration for a new dessert hit and I listened then immediately set out to make my dreams a reality.

Before all my crazy lard rendering experiments I thought about the possibility of baking with bacon fat. I imagined the slightly salty and savory flavor would be an intriguing complement to caramel, maple, molasses and cream.

What manifested from that thought was a slight modification of David Lebovitz’s Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream and tender shortbread infused with bacon fat. A grown up ice cream sandwich.

And even though they are messier than my 1 year old at meal times the taste was as exciting as the dream that inspired its birth.

The bacon flavor was subtle – just enough to let you know something was unique about these cookies. Enough to make the complexity of the ice cream scream even louder and enough to calm the sweetness so that eating multiple ice cream sandwiches is highly possible.

On their own these cookies are fantastic. Yielding a tenderness only possible with ample fat.

The secret ingredient will have your tasters questioning your sanity but one bite later they’ll be eating their words – and all of your cookies so watch out for that.

In these penny pinching times do your part – don’t waste anything – including your bacon fat. Make cookies with it.

Bacon Fat Shortbread Cookies

adapted from epicurious.com

3/4 cup butter, room temperature

3/4 cup bacon fat, room temperature (if you did render lard you can also use that – and good for you!)

1 cup sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

2 tsp. salt

3 egg yolks

2 tbl. vanilla extract

3 3/4 cup All-Purpose flour

*This recipe makes a LOT of cookies. Feel free to cut the recipe in half or wrap some of the dough very well and freeze. Should last at least 1 month.

In a medium bowl combine the butter, bacon fat, sugars and salt and cream until well blended or about 2 minutes. Add the egg yolks one at a time, making sure each yolk is well incorporated before moving on to the next. Stir in the vanilla. Add the flour and mix until just combined.

Roll the dough into a log (or multiple logs as this makes a hefty amount of dough) on wax or parchment paper. Refrigerate until firm. If you plan to use the dough for ice cream sandwiches make sure the log is big enough to produce cookies large enough to hold plenty of ice cream. My cookies were about 3-4 inches wide.

When ready to bake pre-heat your oven to 325*. Carefully slice the cookies 1/4-inch thick. Arrange on a parchment lined sheet tray and bake for 10-15 minutes or until the edges are golden.

*If you can find some or have it on hand try replacing some of the sugar with Maple sugar. I’m sure it would be completely fantastic.

David Lebovitz’s Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream

* I added replaced half of the sugar with brown sugar in the ice cream custard.

* I added 2 tbl. Maple Syrup to the Caramel Praline mix-in.

This ice cream is incredibly rich. The best homemade ice cream I have ever made – and I’ve made more than one should be allowed in a lifetime.

The key to its rich and unique flavor is to get a deep dark color when carmelizing the sugar.

David Lebovitz is a sugar genius. His instructions and photos hold your hand every step of the way.

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In actuality everyone’s definition of the perfect chocolate chip cookie is different. Asking 20 people what qualities define their perfect cookie and I am sure you are going to get as many different responses. I will say however that I have converted many followers to my recipe. In fact, just recently I was told that I had ruined someone from ever eating another cookie that wasn’t this one. And for that I am not sorry and I am not surprised.

My perfect cookie is varied in texture. The exterior rim, the color of golden brown sugar, is perfectly crisp. Beyond the crunch there lies varying levels of chewy gooey-ness. I remove the cookies from the oven just when the edges start to brown. People think I’m crazy and question my timing as the cookies appear under baked. But I assure them that I am a professional I have done this thousands of times. The cookies continue to bake on the tray and as they cool the gooey center transforms to a perfectly chewy interior. Cookie eaters question no longer.

The dough, although perfectly flavored with salt and a high proportion of brown sugar, exists to hold the chunks of chocolate in place. That’s right I said chunks and not chips. The funny, (more sad than funny) thing about chocolate chips is that they are filled with substance similar to wax. I don’t know about you but I don’t really enjoy eating wax. The reason for the wax in the chips is so that they do not melt – they hold their shape, which is quite cute but I’ll take taste over cuteness any day. Using couverture (fancy name for quality chocolate that is used for coating truffles and such) allows the chocolate to melt and pool. If you were to break these cookies in half you would see layers of chocolate and dough – similar to the layers in puff pastry, and you all know how crazy I am about those layers.

Look how much Roman loves cookies (actually he wasn’t eating the cookies he just always looks that happy)

I use large chunks of bittersweet chocolate, lots of brown sugar, a touch of Turbinado sugar, and sprinkle of pink salt on top – making these this the last chocolate chip cookie recipe you will ever need.

THE Chocolate Chip Cookie

8 oz.         2 sticks butter

2 oz          1/4 cup white sugar

2 oz          1/4 cup Turbinado sugar

12 oz        1 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed

2  eggs

1/4 oz       2 tsp vanilla

1 lb.          3 1/2 cup All Purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp Baking soda

3/4 tsp salt

1 lb. chocolate (use the best quality chocolate you can afford. With a serrated knife cut chocolate chunks roughly 1/2 inch)

Cream the butter and the sugars until light. Scrape down the side of the bowl. Continue mixing while adding the eggs one at time. Make sure each egg is incorporated before adding the next. Add the vanilla. Scrape down the bowl with a spatula. Combine the flour, soda and salt in another bowl. With a whisk, stir to combine. With the machine on low, slowly add the flour. Mix until just combined, taking care not to over mix. With a spatula fold in the chocolate.

If you so choose, and I do recommend that you do, sprinkle a very fine dusting of good quality sea salt. Fleur de Sel or Murray River Pink Salt are my recommendations.

Bake at 360* for 12 minutes. They should be lightly golden on the outside but still look gooey on the inside.

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My Great Aunt Abe loves to play Uno and evidently she loves to bake as well. Recently I went through some of my Aunt Abe’s things that were gathered from her home as she is now moving to assisted living.

In the box of miscellaneous items I chose a set of hand stitched pillowcases that belonged to my Great Grandmother, a little cleaver (I have no idea what she was doing with a mini cleaver but I plan on using it for cheese platters as it will be easily able to hack through hard cheeses), and a book filled with her hand written recipes.

Hand written recipes are so precious to me. Someones personal collection of favorite recipes is more intimate than a journal and more revealing than dirty laundry. I long to find the cook’s notes in beautifully written script on the edge of a yellowed page in a used cookbook.

I just really love old recipes. Today we are bombarded by the precision required in baking. I can not dispute the fact that baking is a science but recipes given to me by those in my grandparent’s generation focus on the art and feel of it rather than the technicality required.

In the few but precious moments of baking instruction given to me by my grandmother she did not recite a recipe accurate down to the 1/8 teaspoon. Rather she taught me what to look for and what it should feel like. Similarly as I skim through this newly acquired treasury of retro recipes, the notes on the method are simple and brief. There are no sweat inducing introductions to the recipe that demand that every ingredient be 97.2 degrees. They are simple, delicious and memory-evoking dishes.

When I saw, “Crunchy Chocolate Cookies” in her collection I just knew I had to try them. With corn flakes as an ingredient I was intrigued. And with two sticks of butter and one cup of vegetable oil I knew they couldn’t be that bad. It turns out my intuition was correct. These cookies are truly delicious. One bite and I was flooded with memories of snagging these cookies off the potluck table in the basement of my Grandmother’s church.

They are as the recipe suggests, “crunchy”. But it is not the kind of crunchiness you taste from and over baked cookie. It is the addition of the oil that gives it a tender crispness that shatters in your mouth. The oats in the recipe give the cookie some bulk and chew, which I find very enjoyable. Although the cornflakes are not very easy to detect in the finished product, every once and a while you get a slightly salt crunch that reminds of you scarfing down a bowl of the flakes in the morning before jetting off to first period.

Don’t be to scared of the amount of fat in the recipe. This batch makes a very large quantity. However it is still early in the evening and I have already eaten six.

I hope you enjoy them as much as my Aunt Abe and I do.

Crunchy Chocolate Cookies

Bake at 350* for 12 min.

3 1/2 cups All-purpose flour

3 tsp. Baking Soda

1 tsp. Salt

1 cup butter

1 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

1 cup granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tablespoon milk

2 tsp. vanilla

1 cup vegetable oil

1 cup corn flakes

1 cup quick oats

1 (12 oz) pkg. chocolate chips

Sift the flour, salt and soda onto wax paper. Beat butter and sugars until well creamed. Combine egg, vanilla and oil in a small bowl. Alternately add the oil mixture and the flour mixture to the creamed sugars. Mix until just combined. Stir in the corn flakes, oats and chocolate. Drop by heaping teaspoons onto cookie sheets, 2 inches apart. Bake until golden.

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I enjoyed countless cups of cocoa adorned with the sweet heavenly marshmallows… so many in fact that I had to go on a cocoa sabbatical so I can once again truly enjoy it’s chocolaty pleasures come December (true cocoa season).

So no more cocoa and marshmallows for me. Then what to do with the remaining marshmallows? Not really a hard question at all. Melt them, add butter then stir in a little snap, crackle & pop.

Rice Krispie Treats!

These sophisticated snacks made us smile. The process to make them was almost as much fun as it was to eat them. Just ask Baron who thoroughly enjoyed licking the spoon and then consequently his fingers.

Check out Cooking for Engineers for an in depth study (including pictures) of how to make these cereal treats.

Rice Cereal Bars

Ingredients:

• 4 Tbsp. butter
• 10 oz. homemade marshmallows
• 6 cups crispy rice cereal
• 1/4 tsp salt

Preparation:

1. Spray a 9 x 9 pan and a rubber spatula with cooking spray.Optional: Line the pan with parchment paper or waxed paper for easy removal of the treats.
2. In a saucepan, heat butter and marshmallows over medium heat until melted.
3. Remove from heat, and immediately stir in the cereal, using the prepared spatula.
4. Spread into the prepared pan. Flatten gently with the spatula. Let cool and harden completely. Cut into squares or any fun shape.
5. While waiting for treats to harden lick the spoon and the bowl until thoroughly cleaned. Then wash your hands and face to remove inevitable stickiness.

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