Almond Sable Roule

Some of my favorite cookies are made at a local bakery called Chez Hareg, I actually blogged about them last MoFo here! If you look at that page, the cookies at the bottom are these beautiful little circles with their edges rolled in sparkly sugar. That my friends is a sable roule. It's a wonderful shortbread cookie. Chez Hareg switches theirs up a little bit with some almond flavoring. I think it might have almond meal in it, I'm not entirely sure. I tried to replicate their cookie, but I didn't even come close. What I ended up with was something much more along the lines of an almond flavored pecan sandie. Other people liked the cookies so I considered sharing the recipe, but I just don't think it's quite up to my standards. Maybe I will work on it more after MoFo and see if I can come up with something better first.
So there we have it. I'm call this one the first miss of the month. I didn't love the cherry cornmeal cookies, but they were by no means bad. 9/10 is still an A in most university classes, so I don't feel too shabby about my performance thus far. Tomorrow's cookies are definitely top notch, so there's also that to look forward to!

Molasses Cookies

Growing up the cookies that I always wanted from the grocery store were the old fashioned molasses cookies. I can't remember the brand. I think they had a red wrapper with a windmill on it. The cookies were so soft you could bend them into a U without them breaking. They were sickeningly sweet. I ate them on the porch with a glass of iced tea. I don't know why they popped into my head recently, but I knew I had to make them. These are probably as close as I can come to those store bought cookies I grew up with.


Molasses Cookies
makes 22 cookies

3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup Earth Balance
1/2 cup unsulphured blackstrap molasses
1 Ener-G egg
2 cup flour
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ginger
extra sugar for rolling cookies in

Heat oven to 350. Cream sugar and Earth Balance. Add molasses and Ener-G and beat for another minute. Add dry ingredients and mix until thick dough forms. Scoop cookie dough into balls, roll each ball in sugar and place on a cookie sheet at least 2" apart. Bake for 12 minutes. These cookies spread a lot. They won't look like they are spreading until the last few minutes of baking when they start to crack. They will also look puffy when you pull them out of the oven, but will flatten as they cool too.


Not only do I like molasses cookies, but apparently so do mosquitos. Maybe it's just me, or the combination of me covered in extra sugar & the cookies. But I received at least six bug bites in the process of baking & photographing these cookies. There was one mosquito in the house who kept buzzing by my ear when I was using the mixer. Then while I was rolling the cookies in sugar, it would land on my arm as soon as my hands were sticky. Once the cookies were cooled, I went outside to photograph them in the remaining daylight and I was instantly swarmed with mosquitos. I was legitimately disappointed that I was not able to capture the image of a single mosquito buzzing around the cookies. It would have made tolerating all the bugs a little easier. Not that the cookies weren't worth a few bug bites. They are definitely some of my new old favorites.

Cherry Cornmeal Cookies

This week's theme is cookies! Cookies of all sorts. I bookmarked a Martha Stewart recipe for cornmeal-cherry cookies at least two years ago. I have made a lot of cookies since then, but I've somehow never made it to that recipe. Now is the time! I'm going through my bookmarks and deleting all the things I hated and reminding myself of all the things I've never made. So cherry cornmeal cookies it was. There's also ribbon in these photos because I was also cleaning out my craft drawer & noticed it matched the cookies. Fall cleaning is totally a thing right? Once a spring isn't quite enough for me.


Cherry Cornmeal Cookies
adapted from Martha Stewart

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
6 tbl Earth Balance
1/4 cup sugar
1 Ener-G egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2-3 drops natural orange extract
1/4 cup dried tart cherries, finely chopped

In a bowl whisk together all dry ingredients. In a mixer beat the Earth Balance and sugar until creamy. Beat in ener-g egg and extracts. Add flour, and allow to beat until thick dough forms. Fold in cherries. On a piece of parchment, shape dough into a rectangle about 2" tall and 3-4" wide. Twist ends of parchment and chill dough for one to two hours. Preheat oven to 350. Cut dough into 1/3" thick slices and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden and firm to the touch. Let cool.


To be totally honest, I didn't love these cookies. The cornmeal added more of a graininess, than the crumbly-ness I was promised. I almost backed out when I was making the dough and added corn flour instead. I really wish I had, because I think the texture would be much more appealing. Between the tiny bit of sugar in the dough and the unsweetened tart cherries, I could have used a little more sweetness too. Greg must have really liked these cookies, because I think the only two he didn't eat were the ones I nibbled on while I was taking the photos.

Sweet & Salty Rice Crispy Treats

You know that thing that your mother tells you countless times (especially if you have siblings that are close to your age so you're more prone to bickering and harassing each other like children do)? If you don't have something nice to say then don't say anything at all. While I feel like that is generally a good rule of thumb, it's not helping me out right now. I have plenty of nice things to say about these rice crispy treats, I just don't have any words to pair with it. Cat's got my tongue? Maybe it's like the Buffy episode Hush, except that instead of being unable to speak, I can't type my thoughts? These rice crispy treats are delicious. They are adorable. There's all sorts of layers of crunch and texture and just enough salt. I feel like that's all you need to know? Maybe it's true that a picture is worth a thousand words, because I definitely have several of those?!


Sweet & Salty Rice Crispy Treats
makes one 9x13" pan

6 cups rice cereal (Erewhon is always GF & there's a new Rice Krispie GF version too)
1 1/2 oz (or a large single serving bag) potato chips of choice
1 cup sprinkles*
1 1/2 tsp coarse sea salt
one 10oz bag Dandies
5 oz (half a tub) Ricemellow
2 tbl Earth Balance

In a large mixing bowl combine cereal, crumbled potato chips, sprinkles, and sea salt. Mix until combined. In a medium sauce pan melt Dandies with Earth Balance and Ricemellow on low heat, stirring consistently. This will take several minutes, just be patient. Once totally melted scrape marshmallow mixture into mixing bowl and press into the cereal. Don't be afraid to use your hands. Press into a parchment lined 9x13" pan, then press additional sprinkles and sea salt into the top if you want a prettier, brighter appearance. Let cool in fridge for 2 hours before cutting with a sharp knife into squares.
*I have had luck finding confectioner's glaze free rainbow sprinkles at bakery supply stores. You just have to be patient. If you can't find any, then use the tried and true Let's Do… sprinkelz or make your own using this recipe!


I suppose I'm just getting a little sleepy. Trying to do too many things at once. Last week I fell asleep with an open but uneaten ice cream bar in bed. And today I left the pint of ice cream I bought at work. When you start losing track of your ice cream, you know things are getting rough.

Maple Bacon Donuts

I have heard every sort of argument for whether the baked good above is spelled doughnut or donut. I've been told that fried versions are spelled doughnut, and baked cake versions are spelled donut. I've heard that artisanal shops are the ones who can use doughnut, but fast food chains need to use the abbreviated spelling. This is a subject I have thought long and hard about. I generally use "donut" because it's less letters to type, and if I am anything, it is concise.
A few weekends ago while I was driving home TED radio hour came on. When I heard the topic was big data & culturomics I almost turned the program off. Luckily I refrained because it answered some of my questions about the usage of "doughnut". These two scientists, Erez Lieberman Aiden and Jean Baptiste Michel, teamed up with Google to create something called Ngram Viewer. It's basically a highly addictive program that allows you to look at the use over words over extended periods of time. What this all boils down to is that while Teddy Roosevelt suggested changing the spelling to donut in the early 1900s in an effort to abbreviate the English language to make it easier to learn, it didn't pick up any momentum. And the spelling "donut" wasn't really used until 1950 when Dunkin Donuts opened in Boston! Ta-da. Here's your cultural lesson of the day. Apparently there's still a lot of heated debate between the Oxford English Dictionary and Garner's Modern American Usage about which spellings can be used in which contexts, but who really cares about the nitty gritty. Let's get to the sweets!


I used BabyCake's cake donut recipe from BabyCakes Covers the Classics for the base. I am not partial to bean flours, but the quarter cup of vanilla extract goes a fair way in covering up that flavor. It had a nice consistency, and I will definitely make the donuts again. The glaze is simply powdered sugar, maple syrup, and a bit of Frontier maple flavor. I don't know how to properly measure things for glaze, because I tend to just mix things until I get both the right flavor & consistency. I also sprinkled on Phoney Baloney coconut bacon because we had a bit in the cabinet, but I highly suggest making your own! It's so easy. My favorite recipe is from Cupcakes & Kale, but most of them are fairly similar. Just go easy on the liquid smoke or your house will smell like a campfire for weeks.

Rice Pudding

Two of the books that I read last month were focused on Southern desserts. I already mentioned Desserts from the Famous Loveless Cafe this week, but the second was DamGoodSweet, a New Orleans-centric cookbook. It's interesting looking at the two books back to back, and realizing all the similarities and differences between the two parts of the south. There are a few things quintessentially Southern that you will find in any "Southern" book. We're talking red velvet cake (on the covers of both books!), coconut cream pie, and any sort of cobbler, crumble, crisp you can think of. Because if the South has anything, it's fresh fruit everywhere in the never-ending heat of summer. Something that probably doesn't come to mind as a top Southern dessert is rice pudding.
Rice is a huge crop in the South, especially in the Arkansas/Louisiana area. Mahatma is one of the most recognizable brands, generally associated with Cajun & Creole food. But when you have a lot of a crop in one area, you find as many ways as possible to use it. I haven't seen a rice fritter in quite a while, but I haven't hard a warm bowl of rice pudding in several years. There's a few things you have to decide when you're making rice pudding. If you don't like Mahatma or other normal white rice, you could switch it up and use basmati like Loveless. I prefer my pudding made with cinnamon, but some people just top it with cane syrup. Whatever you do, don't you dare put raisins in my rice pudding! I just don't get it.


Rice Pudding
inspired by DamGoodSweet

2 1/2 cup canned coconut milk
1 cup almond milk
1 cup long grain white rice (I prefer Mahatma)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla bean paste
1/2 tsp cinnamon
sprinkle of sea salt

Combine all ingredients in a sauce pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Once boiling reduce heat to low, cover, and cook for 20 minutes, stirring every 3-5 minutes to keep rice from sticking to bottom of pan. Because coconut and almond milk both get pretty frothy, you might not be able to keep the cover on your pan. It will take a little longer, but just keep cooking until the rice is done. Remove from heat, stir, and leave covered for ten minutes. Portion into 4-6 small cups. Serve immediately with an additional sprinkle of cinnamon.
If you need to make this ahead of time, you can reheat the pudding but you will need to add additional milk to bring it back to the proper consistency.

Garam Masala Snickerdoodles

One of my friends recently had a birthday potluck. I always view potlucks as a challenge to make something interesting, and she helped me along with her theme:  Tim Curry! All dishes must contain some sort of curry & everyone voted on their favorite Tim Curry film to watch after eating. When challenged to come up with a curry flavored dessert I was a little overwhelmed initially. A quick google search revealed a lot of curry infused truffles, but I knew I wanted to bake something. In bumbling about our spice cabinet looking for curry powders, I found the garam masala jar. As soon as I opened it, I knew it would work perfectly for spicing up some snickerdoodles.


While not quite a recipe from one of the cookbooks I read (Great Gluten-Free Vegan Eats), it's only the tiniest of modifications from Allyson Kramer's snickerdoodles. Aside from adding two teaspoons of garam masala to the cookie dough, I didn't have any millet flour on hand, so I replaced it with a mixture of brown rice flour & almond meal that worked out well. I rolled the cookies in a mixture of sugar, garam masala powder, and cinnamon. The garam masala blend I used was from McCormick (coriander, black pepper, cumin, cardamom, & cinnamon) but I feel like the mix from Penzey's would be even better if I made these again (coriander, black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, kalonji, caraway, cloves, ginger & nutmeg). 
Have you made anything a little out of the ordinary recently? The only bizarre ingredient I can't get behind in my desserts is beets. They just taste like dirt to me no matter what I do to them. Beans, throw it in! Potatoes, we can definitely work with that. Spinach? I'm sure we can sneak a little puree in somewhere. Beets, get the frak out! If you get the reference, we should totally be friends.