When it comes to cooking, and baking in particular, I do everything like I’m killing snakes. It’s hard to bake just one thing when there are so many things I’ve never made, or made well. So I’ll have these days where that is all I do: bake a pie, bake bread, bake three different kinds of cookies, bake some kind of gooey, delicious, candy-bar… and so on. Fortunately, I managed to get in one last hurrah before Luke took an unexpected gluten-free turn towards good health.
And what did I bake??
The pie was the best, by leaps and bounds. Seriously. No competition. I really surprised myself with this one.
The bread was, eh. Ok. Actually it was quite a success but I just don’t like challah bread that much.
The cookies were good as long as we’re not talking about the snickerdoodles. The others though were fantastic. I got all three recipes from the Back in the Day Cookbook by Cheryl & Griffith Day, who I adore. On the left hand side of the platter is a batch of their ‘chocolate dreams’, the snickerdoodles are on the right, and in the upper right-hand corner are some of the ‘mexican hot chocolate shortbread’ cookies. Oh the mexican shortbreads! They are dangerously wonderful! The chocolate dreams were exactly as described – soft in the middle, slightly crisp on the edges, and very, very rich chocolatey. For me, too chocolatey. But I already know I’m weird in not being a huge chocolate fan.
The PB&J bars were also inspired from Back in the Day. They were okay. Luke and I both felt there was too much jam in the center though. Secretly, I though they were going to be the best but life is always full of surprises.
*And did I mention I’m the best boss ever because who do you think got to enjoy the other 8 dozen cookies not photographed above?? Yeah, I don’t know how to put this but I’m kind of a big deal. People know me.
Boom Goes the Dynamite 