Earl Grey Tea Cookies

Aaand, we're back to more savory, weirder kinds of cookies. Which is fine by me. I like the more 'interesting' cookies, and apparently Martha does, too.



You've got to respect a cookie recipe that begins with making a sweetened orange-zest filled compound butter. I thought about stopping the recipe at this point and just eating the sugar-zest-butter mixture on some toast. But I didn't, deciding that I should actually pretend to make a food item, and not just apply butter directly to my thighs.



Also, I had spent money on Earl Grey Tea, so I felt like I was obliged to use it. I have a confession. I love tea, and drink at least two cups of it every day. But, I'm super picky about my tea. I almost exclusively drink PG Tips with milk and a little sugar. Sometimes, if I'm feeling festive, I'll break out some chai, or if I'm a little under the weather, I'll brew up a pot of Sleepytime with honey. But, really, that's it. And I never drink Earl Grey. It's too floral for me, and too orange-y. Ick.



So why would I make Earl Grey Tea Cookies? Because I said I would make all the cookies. Also, I like the idea of putting tea in baked goods. My mom made chai tea cookies years ago that were all kinds of awesome, and I think they had tea in them.



So, these cookies turned out surprisingly well. Giving my dislike of Earl Grey, I didn't expect much. But, these are yummy. The cookies are a simple shortbread, doctored up with lots of orange zest and tea. The dough was wrapped up in parchment and chilled in the freezer until firm, then sliced and baked. The result is tender, slightly crunchy cookies with a very nice orange-y flavor, with little of the floral-ness that I dislike in Earl Grey. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, they go really well with a cup of tea.



Next week: Hazelnut Cookies, p. 37

Raspberry Almond Blondies

Oh, be still my beating heart. Berries. Raspberries. *Swoon.* I love raspberries so hard, it's not even funny. If I could only eat one kind of fruit for ever and ever, I would pick raspberries. Hands down, no competition (assuming I could get fresh raspberries year round).



When I was a kid, there was a semi-abandoned lot near our house. (At least, I thought it was abandoned, but it might just have had a lot of trees on it. We lived in West Virginia at the time, and everything was covered in trees and creepers). On this lot, there was the biggest, most magnificent raspberry bush you have ever seen (although, I was 8, so it's possible my memory is skewed). In the summer, our babysitter would take my brother and I over to the raspberry bush and pick buckets of raspberries so that we could make raspberry syrup for ice cream. I would eat about half the berries before we even got home. But my brother made up for me since he was a super picky eater, and I don't think he ever ate any berries. I'm sure I had had raspberries before we started picking those berries, but that's my first real memory of being really really excited about raspberries. And, thus a raspberry fiend was born.



I suppose you want to hear about the Raspberry Almond Blondies, since that's why we're all here. Well, I have to say I wasn't too impressed, which is very sad. They're a basic brown-sugar blondie, with some almond slices mixed in, and topped with fresh raspberries and more almonds. They sound really good, don't they? And they are, I suppose. My problem with them is that the moisture from all the fresh berries leaves the top of the blondies kind of moist, and not in the good 'devil's food cake' kind of way, more in the 'ooh, I've had these in the oven for more than 15 minutes more than the recipe calls for, but I'm still not sure if they're really baked through' way. I would almost recommend that if you make these, leave the raspberries out, and just eat the Almond Blondies with the fresh raspberries on the side. (And no matter what you decide to do, make sure to get at least two extra containers of berries, and give one to me.)



Next Week: Earl Grey Tea Cookies, p. 231

Cocoa Shortbread Diamonds

The other day I was flipping channels, and I saw that the Martha Stewart Show was on. I thought to myself, "Man, I've been watching too many crime dramas, and I have this Martha Stewart blog thing, so I should probably watch her show once in a while." (I really do watch too many crime dramas... Law & Order, Criminal Minds, Bones... I love them all, and since we have cable, I can basically watch them 24/7.) It just so happened that that day was her ever-exciting 'Citrus Show'. I kid you not, an entire episode based on citrus. The bit I watched was Martha going through her green houses (plural) showing off her favorite types (also plural) of lemons. She has a serious thing for lemons. Like, an A&E Intervention-style thing for lemons. By the time she got to her fifth favorite type of lemon I decided I had enough and went back to watching The Closer. Then I decided that I had to make chocolate cookies this week. Because I'm contrary like that.



Also because I'm contrary, I made these into circles, not diamonds like she asked for. So there!

Actually, these are really yummy, really simple cookies. They are a basic shortbread with a generous addition of cocoa and some white chocolate melted on top. There's not much going on with them, but that means there's not much to mess up. I thought they were super tasty. And, they make a pretty small batch (I ended up with only a dozen), so they're good if you're going through cookie-overload (like we are... so many cookies...).



Next week: Raspberry Almond Blondies, p. 199

Rocky Ledge Bars

So, after a spate of cookies with cornmeal, sesame seeds, and thyme, my husband requested that I make some more -ahem- traditional cookies. I think really he just wanted something that really satisfied his sweet tooth. I may have gone too far in the other direction. These are basically diabetes and a root canal in bar form. Oh... but they're so good.



So far, these look pretty normal, right? Only blondies, with maybe some chocolate chips in there. Nothing too crazy. Just wait. Here it comes:



Bam! (I kind of hate myself right now. Emeril drives me nuts. I can't watch his show.) Here's what goes on top (clockwise from the top left... since there are so many) chopped caramels, mini marshmallows, walnuts (Martha wanted butterscotch chips, but they're gross, so I opted for nuts instead), white chocolate chips, and dark chocolate chips. Half go into the batter and half go on top.

And. Oh. My. God. Seriously. I'm about going into a sugar coma just thinking about them. These are really really really yummy. Luckily I gave away about half of them before I ate too many. I kind of made these as a knee-jerk reaction to my husband's comment that I hadn't made any sweet cookies in a while, and I didn't really expect to love them. But, dang, they are fantastic. You should make them. You could even switch out all the toppings for things you like, because the batter itself is really good. Dried fruit? Coconut? Nuts? Too many options!



Next week: Cocoa Shortbread Diamonds p. 155

Sesame Cookies

Apparently I'm on a savory-ish cookie streak. I guess that makes sense, since those are really the cookies that I like best, especially if they have unique flavors (not just chocolate or vanilla or cinnamon). Not that more classic cookies don't have their place, it's just that at 3:00, when I have my afternoon cup of tea, I like something a little more interesting.



Can I tell you three things I discovered about sesame seeds? Doesn't matter, I'll tell you anyway.
Thing 1: Sesame seeds are crazy-overpriced in the regular grocery store. This recipe calls for 1 1/4 cups of sesame seeds (but you could probably get away with just 1 cup). I found a little spice-jar of sesame seeds at Safeway for Five Dollars, not even a quarter cup. I don't think so. So, I went to the local health-food store, and got a whole pound of sesame seeds from the bulk bins for less than three dollars. So, the take-home point: Get your sesame seeds in bulk.
Thing 2: When you toast sesame seeds on the stove, they pop like teeny tiny popcorn. I don't know if I was supposed to let them do this, but it happened.
Thing 3: 1 1/4 cups of freshly toasted sesame seeds smells amazing! Seriously. They smell warm and kind of interesting, and apparently hard to describe. So, yeah. Go toast some sesame seeds and you'll understand.



The cookies themselves are just basic butter cookies, but filled with lots of ground-up sesame seeds, and whole seeds on top. They are nice and soft, and the sesame seeds add an interesting something. If you had these cookies without the seeds on top, and someone said 'Guess what's in this cookie', you probably wouldn't be able to say 'Sesame seeds', since they're kind of subtle. But they are really good. It's tempting to just sit down with a pot of coffee and eat all of them. But that would be unhealthy.



Next week: Rocky Ledge Bars, p. 166