I picked a ton of fresh strawberries this weekend. Well, two gallons to be exact. Which, naturally, means there will be a deluge of strawberry-related baking in the next few days (before I get buried in a mountain of final projects to grade).
Continue reading “Strawberry Oatmeal Cookies (with white chocolate & coconut, too)”
I love so many things about these cookies (given that they’re absolutely addicting), but what I think I love most is that it only took me 45 minutes from deciding to make them to having them out of the oven with the dishes done. Boom. Continue reading “Dark Chocolate Coconut Macaroons”
Almost nothing in the dessert world beats good home made ice cream. And home made ice cream beats anything I’ve ever had from the freezer section of any grocery store. Mass production is generally the death of creaminess – in part because it usually means they leave out the eggs. The egg custard is what really makes home made ice cream (or small batch ice cream) amazingly creamy and delicious. Continue reading “White Chocolate Cardamom Ice Cream”
Last week’s hankering to bake a cake really started with this beautiful bundt, but, obviously, I had to wait until the pan arrived. Even Amazon Prime can’t work miracles (yet).
We were amping up for spring break last week, and I had a ton of grading to do, so naturally I baked a cake and made these delicious blondies over the weekend. Fortunately, I had an event at work I could bring them to, so I didn’t consume half the pan myself. Continue reading “Chewy Butterscotch Blondies”
Sometimes I just get a hankering to bake a cake. Unlike cookies, though, I feel like a cake requires at least some sort of occasion to justify it, so I’ve had this recipe in my “to-bake” stash for quite some time. And oh my goodness, am I glad I finally made it.
Continue reading “Dessert for Breakfast: Coffee Cake (literally)”
I had a relatively frustrating afternoon of bureaucracy and am walking into a weekend’s worth of grading – so naturally, I spent a fair bit of my afternoon looking for a cookie recipe to experiment with. One must fortify one’s spirits, after all.
For some reason (probably a combination of sale prices and over enthusiasm), I have three bags of coconut in my pantry. So I wanted to make a dent in that but also wanted to try something that wasn’t just coconut. I stumbled upon this recipes for Coconut-Peanut Cookies but didn’t have any peanuts and didn’t want to go to the store. So. I experimented.
Cashews are awesome, and I figured that would yield a more subtle flavor. I think I was right, though I may have gone awry in my experimenting. Usually it’s better practice to follow the dang recipe and only experiment with one thing at a time. But since I had to melt the butter anyway, I figured why not brown it?! I mean, brown butter is awesome.
I upped the butter by a tablespoon to compensate for any evaporation (or whatever), but it’s possible that some other chemistry was involved that went wonky, ’cause the dough really didn’t want to come together very well. When it was time to get it onto the pan, I had to shape the balls by hand, and even then they were a bit crumbly. Oh well.
The resulting cookies were decent but not great. The texture was crispy on the edges but a a bit dry/crumbly. Flavor-wise, they’re nicely buttery and the cashews pair well with the coconut.
Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
In a medium bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt together in a medium bowl.
Melt the butter in medium saucepan over low heat and cook until it begins to turn brown. Remove the pan from the heat and let it cool a bit. Stir in the brown sugar with a wooden spoon. (The sugar will get soft and saucy, but there may still be a layer of butter on top; don’t worry, the mixture comes together as you add the rest of the ingredients.) Stir in the egg, then the flour mixture, taking care not to over mix.
Stir in the coconut, oats and nuts to make a textured cookie dough.
Using a tablespoon scoop balls of the dough and use your hands to roll them into onto more cohesive balls. Place them onto the prepared pans, arranging them about 2 inches apart. Bake until the cookies are golden brown with toasted edges, about 12 minutes.
Cool cookies in the pans for a couple minutes. Then transfer with a spatula to racks to cool.
