cookies « A Woman Sconed

Cookie of the Month: Flaking the familiar

By rahoward, on October 13th, 2020

I miss a lot of things about the gym. I used to go a few times a week, and now, not only are we unable to go to gyms because of the pandemic, the very gym I spent a number of years sweating in filed for bankruptcy. It wasn’t much, this no-frills gym, . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Flaking the familiar

Cookie of the Month: Marveling at madeleines

By rahoward, on August 21st, 2020

My first bite of madeleine, a yummy little shell-shaped pound cake/cookie, did not release a flood of remembrances, as it did Marcel Proust in his writing about the bakery treat in “In Search of Lost Time” (1913):

“…my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Marveling at madeleines

Going ‘green’ with an invisible ingredient

By rahoward, on August 18th, 2020

I’d read the recipes, been intrigued by the videos and even heard out the positive proclamations by a co-worker, but there was still no real way I could be sure that any avocado, of any kind, could be turned into chocolate pudding.

A chocolate-y paste maybe, but certainly nothing to match the chocolate . . . → Read More: Going ‘green’ with an invisible ingredient

Cookie of the Month: Shooting for the stars

By rahoward, on July 1st, 2020

The Fourth of July has always had even my reclusive nature upended, getting into the spirit of potlucks and family or community gatherings. For the last several years, I’ve trotted out some dessert recipes with Independence Day flair and ventured out of my house for a neighborhood potluck, resplendently held in the beautiful . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Shooting for the stars

Cookie of the Month: Calming up shortbread

By rahoward, on June 13th, 2020

Shortbread is pretty much my favorite cookie. Just a few ingredients (usually a basic blend of butter, sugar flour and salt), it’s easy to make and despite its simplicity, rewards with rich flavor and isn’t too terribly sweet. It’s virtually fail-proof, too. I’d say over-baking is the biggest risk to good shortbread, which . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Calming up shortbread

Cookie of the Month: Dusting up celebratory tradition

By rahoward, on May 4th, 2020

I never needed a wedding (or any special occasion) to enjoy a Mexican wedding cookie. Just eating one of these buttery little orbs, its crumbly texture dusted with the cooling sweetness of confectioner’s sugar, was cause alone for celebration.

Long a fan of this cookie, a tradition in Mexico (and other places) at . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Dusting up celebratory tradition

Cookie of the Month: ‘Testing’ chocolate chip recipes

By rahoward, on April 28th, 2020

I’m pretty sure my baking life began with chocolate chip cookies. They (and their M&M variation) are the first I remember my mom making, my sister and I lying on the kitchen linoleum to take in that distinctive warm, vanilla-toffee aroma as my mother fanned the giant cookie sheet back and forth to . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: ‘Testing’ chocolate chip recipes

Cookie of the Month: Hunting an Irish ‘biscuit’

By rahoward, on March 17th, 2020

I can certainly be accused of “procrastibaking” that “practice” of baking when you should (“should”?) be doing something else (I’m also guilty of its flipside — procrastinating on getting baking projects done). But in that same vein, I also fall under the spell of what I call “escape baking” or “esca-baking” (you heard . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Hunting an Irish ‘biscuit’

Cookie of the Month: Feeling the (red-hot) love via bars

By rahoward, on February 12th, 2020

It probably sounds strange that when it comes to Valentine’s Day, I think of sugar cookies, not chocolate. Maybe I have holiday goodie dissociative disorder, but my Feb. 14 tastes run directly back to childhood, where, along with white embossed cherry suckers and chalky conversation hearts, there are sugar cookies, too, that I . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Feeling the (red-hot) love via bars

Cookie of the Month: Dressing up brownie cookie with ginger

By rahoward, on January 31st, 2020

The holidays are over, and yet I hang onto them. I always reluctantly enter the Christmas season, but by the time it comes then goes, I’m so overtaken and in love with the holidays that I mourn hard when that time is over. I even love the stress of the holidays. It gives . . . → Read More: Cookie of the Month: Dressing up brownie cookie with ginger

“People ask me: "Why do you write about food, and eating, and drinking? Why don't you write about the struggle for power and security, and about love, the way the others do?" . . . The easiest answer is to say that, like most other humans, I am hungry.”
--M.F.K. Fisher

"It was in a yellow limestone church in Stockdale, Kansas, a crossroads town, that I sat dreaming during summer Sunday sermons, not of heaven or hell, but of the good dinner to come."
--Clementine Paddleford