Pure Temptation in an 8 x 8 pan

 Well, I’d said I was participating in 12 weeks of Christmas Cookies, but after making my absolute favorite cookie, the hermit, I needed to take a few weeks off baking so I don’t blow up like a startled pufferfish J.

Seeing the first few week entries in the blog hop I was getting concerned. I only have so many favored cookie recipes and they were starting to show up before I baked and blogged about them.  I thought about publishing my list – a sort of blogosphere dibs – neener, neener, neener, I dibbed shortbread on week 5.  But, I decided that was more childish than the person I like to be.  Besides, blogging is about my experience with a recipe and if there are 15 others of the same, so be it.  Once I got past my hissy hurdle I considered a list for me would be useful. I’ll have some plan of which cookies/candies to write about when. For instance, since I’m pawning them off, generously sharing the delicious treats with neighbors, I won’t do Christmas decorated cookies until December.

I dragged out favored cookbooks, bunches of Americas Test Kitchen (they’re by year), Martha, Julia, Jacques and a few specifically for tea time that would be heavy on cookies and browsed through them.  The notes also give me shopping lists, a smart move on my part as might otherwise hit a “rainy great baking day” and not have all the ingredients on hand.

Decided this week’s cookie will be from Boston Tea Parties, recipes from the Fine Arts Museum (side note I started collecting cookbooks when I was in Junior High).  It’s a fun little cookbook – instead of pictures of food you get pictures of museum tea sets, paintings about tea and so forth. It’s copyright ’87. Some of you may have read my food nazi post where I discussed that I was a vegetarian and healthy whole grains only kinda gal for 15 years, during which time my extended family was not enamored of my cooking (understatement).  Some recipes in this cookbook reminded me of those days –I may have a taste for such concoctions as carrot drops (only cooks for 10 minutes so the grated carrot probably still tastes like, well, grated carrot), whole wheat drops (what chocolate loving kid won’t jump for joy when presented with these?) and my favorite, hard boiled egg cookies (yep, cut up some hard boiled yolks and toss them in).  I chortled out loud thinking of the strongly negative reaction I’d get showing up at my brother’s for the holiday with a box of only these. It would be like showing up with stockings of coal and nothing else.

 

But, I LOVE cranberries. Tart homemade cranberry chutney from Julia and Jacques Cooking at Home, cranberry tea bread from the OceanSpray wrapper, cranberries in stuffing, in pies, in scones, dried cranberries – it’s all good.  And, this book had a recipe for Cranberry Spice Squares. Love spice cookies, love cranberries, however I remained cautious in thinking anyone but me may like these cookies given the book’s other inclusions.

 

I’m an Irish soda bread kinda gal – you know, flour, soda – toss it in the oven and if you don’t eat it in the next few hours it makes a great doorstop. My sister referred to it in our Ireland trip as akin to eating sawdust. So, I know baking soda has a rather distinct taste.  These cookies call for soda – I considered substituting it but the references I found said 3 times as much baking powder for baking soda and I knew that would throw the flavor off – I decided to bake them as instructed.

 

The long and short of it?  These things are GOOD! They’re better than good; they’re one of my new favorite spice cake recipes. Took every ounce of my willpower to not devour at least half of it warm from the oven.  Even now, the day after at room temp, I have to carefully allot myself a certain amount and wrap it up out of sight. I could just finish the darn thing for dinner. It calls to me – the marvelous heady spice (I added ¾ tsp allspice to the recipe), the perfectly tender and moist crumb, the delectable cranberries. It’s my ideal tea cake and it’s one I can share with my family – sans disdain and disappointment.

You will notice I’m calling it a tea cake. The book called it squares and listed it as a cookie.  I’d been imaging something much denser and, well, cookie like. This is a scrumptious tea cake cooked in an 8 X 8 pan that can be cut into squares. The book offers a recipe for cream cheese frosting (see recipes above) to go with it; I opted out of that one. For a dinner dessert try it, for a brunch/breakfast cake – skip it.  If you too don’t want to blow up like a pufferfish, be sure to have a few folks on hand to help you devour it. With or without assistance, it won’t be around long.

This post is participating in the following linky parties noted below.

Food Nazi?

I have two choices for folks who periodically pop in – I can let you think that your memory is completely failing (“oh no, not already! *&^%#!) or I can let you in on a secret.  WordPress lets you date posts any day you want.  So, maybe you did stop in yesterday but now something shows posted day before yesterday and the day before that which you simply do not recall.  You’re not nuts, no worries. If you subscribe to the blog you’ll see the new posts without having to pop in every so often or wonder about your memory with a periodic cram of my postings showing up as though spread through time.  Your email will let you know to stop on by.  Cool, huh?   

Nectarine, previous garden

So, today’s topic - you’ll recall from my earlier post Paradoxes, Inconsistencies, Contradictions and Christmas Gifts that I have no intention to try to reconcile each of my purported beliefs with reality. So, yes, like oh so many others out there, I believe I’d like to lose a bit of weight, yet I signed myself up for baking and blogging about cookies every week. I have other fall goodies I want to make, now I’m realizing that I’ll be baking even more.  This is dangerous territory for me. 

Grapes, previous garden

What I haven’t shared yet is that I was a strict vegetarian for 15 years. Healthy whole grains only for me and mine, nothing instant, boxed, packaged or with too much sugar.  My siblings did not subscribe to the same belief.  Their children even less so. I and certain friends may have reveled in a polenta casserole with sautéed squash and onions covered in homemade (and grown – veggie and fruit pictures from my previous garden) tomato sauce, chewy homemade whole grain yeast breads or a marvelous homemade hummus with pita, not so the meat and potatoes siblings. They’d wander summer potluck parties full with tables of wonderful food by me and my friends in search of some unhealthy morsel.  I started to hear things like “we stopped at McDonald’s on the way up” – on the way up to our veritable feast!  I think my brother feared his children might starve themselves if only presented with the lovely veggie rich dishes Aunt Maggie served. The clincher came when I was overloaded with work and setting up for the annual decorating the Christmas tree event at my house.  I’d added fish and chicken to my own diet by then. I was simply too busy to cook, knew they all love all sorts of beef so I ran up the road to get takeout from the barbeque restaurant. When bro and his munchkins arrived I guiltily announced (at the time I would never have considerd having anyone over and not doing the cooking, this was a first) “I’ve been swamped lately and just too busy to cook, so I picked up barbeque” and I showed them the bags of dripping ribs and barbeque chicken. They became positively gleeful, joyful, giddy with happiness.  You know what I mean – you can tell when the exurburence levels climbs by leaps and bounds all at once. Their profound relief and joy was staggering.  I gave up then and there cooking or baking “my style” food for them.  They love Funfetti boxed cake and canned frosting – ok, they get Funfetti boxed cake and frosting.  I’ll save the “from scratch” chocolate pound cake with ganache or whipped cream as frosting” for others who share my tastes.  

 

Not just them, I must admit, there’s now me. Last night I was craving a fluffy white buttery homemade biscuit.  I had the thought – easy to add wheat flour to this, but no. This was a purely indulgent carbohydrate “must have”. I dragged out a cookbook my mom got for her wedding shower from her sister. You know, from the days before butter, eggs or white flour would be the death of us. I indulged in half a recipe of biscuits and made them large with extra butter – a few for dinner with peanut butter and jam (well, one nod to our current concept of health, pure fruit spread), a few for brunch tomorrow, sliced and toasted. Sigh, flaky, buttery heaven.  I can highly recommend the very simple Baking Powder Biscuits from Lily Wallace cookbook made with butter as the shortening and perhaps a tad more of that then the recipe calls for.  Oh, if you haven’t guessed SKINNY veggie me is long gone, replaced by “needs to lose more than a few pounds” with sweet tooth me. J

 Overtime, the skinny veggie me didn’t just add chicken and fish.  I let sugar back in, with a vengeance.  Worse than a salesman with a foot in the door and a quota to meet, sugar slammed into my existence. I started using white flour. Now a plate of goodies from me doesn’t meet the polite, small smile that doesn’t reach the eyes “oh, whole wheat muffins with honey .. thank you” but the rousing stand up and hug from same nieces and nephews, “Thank You! I LOVE the candies and fudge you make us – it’s the BEST!” and very wide truly appreciative grins from neighbors who get cupcakes, cookies and cakes.  I don’t doubt that they’re trying to use positive reinforcement on me so that I never return to that stuff I’d make when they were younger – but it works.  Even last week’s posting of the cake mix cookies engendered a “You better be good or I’m not giving you any of the cookies Maggie made us” from the neighbor munchkin fifth grader to her first grader brother.