Let's just take a moment to appreciate the beauty of sweet potatoes. They are one of my favourite edible things in this whole wonderful world. They can be sweet OR savoury AND they are even good for you!! So if we make cookies with them... the cookies have gotta be good for you too right!? You're welcome. These cookies are a very recent discovery for me. They are naturally gluten free, made with sweet potato, egg whites, coconut and ground almonds... resembling the familiar coconut macaroon cookie. Dry on the outside, but soft and chewy in the centres. The most important part though, is that they are very delicious. Apparently they originate from Spain... specifically speaking, they are a Catalonian cookie which is all the more thrilling as I have just returned from a trip to BARCELONA. However, I had never heard of "Pannelet" cookies until just a few days ago. The truth is, I had half a cooked sweet potato sitting in my fridge that I was just about to eat, but suddenly I had that burning desire (that I get quite often) which is "MUST BAKE COOKIES". Feeling adventurous I hit up my good friend google and found a recipe for these little mounds of orange chewiness. The recipe is from Alice Medrich, a name to which I trust all my baking qualms, so I knew it was gonna be good. I was right. Make these! Share them with the gluten intolerant people in your life! Or save them for yourself because they are just yummy regardless. Pannelet CookiesRecipe slightly adapted from Alice Medrich see original here: ingredients:
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The following is inspired by a recent and rather fabulous trip to ITALY where I met up with my dear mother and father. Here is a small tale of our travels, and of course, a recipe to follow. Once thing I love about Italy is how food is so regional, and specific ingredients, dishes, and recipes come from very specific parts of the country. This also includes COOKIES. I discovered that almost every city and even small towns, had a signature cookie! As a self-proclaimed Traveling Cookie Monster, this is very exciting news to hear. I was a very happy gal after I visited the ever so charming island of Burano, and then discovered about it’s very own signature cookie, the Buranello! Tell me more! Other than Buranello cookies, Burano is mostly known for two things: colourful buildings, and lace. This makes it a very aesthetically pleasing and photographic little island to visit. It is difficult NOT to take a photo of each and every street, from all angles, multiple times. We had read about this island from a newspaper article, the houses so bright and vibrant against the sunny blue skies pictured in the article’s photos. Unfortunately for us, our chosen day to visit this charming island had correctly forecasted RAIN. But that was not about to stop us! We donned our raincoats, hoods up, (mom and dad had matching ones which just added to the cuteness) and boarded a boat to Burano. Due to the less than desirable weather conditions, our photos were not quite like the ones from the newspaper article... However, we still found the little island to be incredibly magical and it was definitely a highlight of our Italy experience! I still like the photos we managed to capture of rainy-day-Burano. (It also probably helped to minimize the dreaded crowds of other tourists) I love all these cute little houses! What a dreamy place :) Later, back on the boot-shaped main island of Venice, I read in a cookbook about Buranello cookies, and how they hailed from the region of Burano. Hey I was just there! And even later that evening, I had a chance to sample one! Cookie dreams coming true!!! HAPPY DAYS. There are two varieties of Buranello cookies: Bussola and Essie. Bussola are traditionally formed into O shapes, by rolling out a log and connecting the two ends. Essie are formed from the log into S shapes - easy to remember by the name. You can see these little treats EVERYWHERE in Venice, most often commercially produced and packaged into large bags. Both are made from the same dough recipe (as far as I am aware), and both are meant to be served with a sweet dessert wine after a lovely Italian meal. They are meant to be somewhat firm and dry, so that you dip them into the wine and enjoy the two together. They are a simple and humble cookie, and for that, I am a fan. Also, anything that I am encouraged to dunk into wine sounds like a great idea to me. Buranello Cookiesrecipe from "Venice and Food" by Sally Spector *note: the original recipe gave weight measurements in ounces only. While these measurements will provide the most accurate results, I have done my best calculations to give approximate metric and volume conversions to accommodate all kitchens and bakers.
ingredients
Sometimes you just want a cookie. A scrumptious, chewy, chunky hunk of love to nibble on with your tea or coffee, or to savour with hot cocoa before bed. Sometimes, you just want a piece(or, let's be honest, pieces) of chocolate. A silky, melt-in-your-mouth, decadent hunk of love to nibble on when you need that hit, or to savour after a meal. Sometimes, gosh darn it, you want both. At the SAME TIME. Wish granted! This cookie is two hunks of love delivered to you in one beautiful chunky, chewy package. Oats, a pinch of cinnamon, and milk chocolate go into this cozy cookie which is topped off with that lovely triangle of swiss goodness studded with nougat and almonds. Now you just have to decide, do you pick off the Toblerone and eat it first? Or do you eat the cookie surrounding it, saving Toblerone Island for last? Or do you just munch all the way through in a linear fashion? You may want to try all three methods to find the one that suits you best ;) Chunky Milk Chocolate TOblerone CookiesRecipe adapted from Trey Winkle of R Bar & Grill
It is about time for some serious dark chocolate business around here. ***RANT WARNING***I have posted a shocking amount (okay, 2) of recipes including white chocolate already... shocking because for a long time I have turned my nose up to white chocolate. I think I have done so because white chocolate is a lie in that it is not technically even chocolate. I have (sometimes too passionately) argued this scientific fact with friends. It does not contain any cocoa solids, only the fat that is pressed out of cocoa nibs to make REAL chocolate. However I suppose you do need to use cocoa beans in order to procure white chocolate, and perhaps if we just consider white chocolate a thing on it's own and not compare it to the wonderful deep dark real-deal chocolate, it is okay, and okay to enjoy. There, I had to get that off my chest, and I feel better. But back to my roots and the soul of my very being, which I'm pretty sure is made of dark chocolate. I am a proud chocoholic, lover of all things bittersweet and a true believer that the darker the chocolate, the better. Join me, if you will, on the dark side. These cookies invited one of dark chocolate's best friends over for a play-date and they got up to NO GOOD. Luckily for us it's the delicious kind of no good. That's right, peanut butter. When peanut butter and chocolate get together to play, it's hard for it not to be a good day. Cookies filled with cocoa AND dark chocolate chunks, peanuts AND swirled with peanut butter... HELLO! These cookies will be as good as the ingredients you use to make them. For me that means using the good dark dark chocolate, salted peanuts, and all-natural peanut butter. Amen. Prep your milk glasses for dunkin', folks. Chocolate Peanut Butter CookiesRecipe from Mast Brothers Chocolate
I work at a cafe. But it is no ordinary cafe. I'm not sure I have ever seen a cafe that is quite like Higher Ground. It is big, but never seems to be big enough for the constant line up to the door, constant crowd of people waiting for their drinks, constant running of food from the kitchen, bran muffins always disappearing within the first hours of business... If you mention Higher Ground to any Calgarian, 90% of them will know about it, and 80% of them will have gone on a first date, or had a meeting with someone there. Like most people, I spend most of my waking hours at work. This might sound awful, but it is quite the contrary. I love my job. It is just so darn fun. Here's why.
This, my friends, is Higher Ground. This might also explain why we (the staff) are so silly and giggly all the time. The reason for my rant is this: like I said, we get silly sometimes. This helps the day go by pleasantly. We dance in the kitchen. We tell ridiculous stories. We joke, we invent things. We ask each other questions like, "If you were a cookie, what would you be?" Okay that's actually just me who asks that. But it's something I'd like to know! It really tells a lot about a person. Sometimes, if my brain needs to think about cookies (which is most of the time) and there is no one around to ask, I'll make up cookies. One of my favourite pass times if I'm doing a repetitive job such as polishing glasses and cutlery, or hand-tying tea bags, is to dream up fantastic (sometimes themed) cookies. Working at Higher Ground with its GIANT menu gives one lots of inspiration to work from. We have a whole menu dedicated to Specialty Coffee and Tea drinks. FUN! Drinks that make us, us... and not just any other cafe. They have pretty fun names too, like the SNOW DRAGON and BANANA MAGIC to name a couple. I could seriously go on and on talking about working at Higher Ground, or HG LYFE as I fondly refer to it. But, I am here today to talk about a certain Tea Misto called the WHITE CHOCOLATE CHAI. Oh my. It is steeped chai tea, mixed with white chocolate syrup and steamed milk. It also rhymes with whoopie pie. And if you make a funny voice, and over enunciate each word, "White Chocolate Chai Whoopie Pie" becomes a hilarious thing. A thing that once I invented it in my head, I knew I had to bring it to life!! My co-workers would agree. I do think that white chocolate and chai actually make a fantastic combo. So here is the White Chocolate Chai Whoopie Pie: A chai-spiced, soft, cakey cookie, hugging a sweet, creamy buttercream filling enriched with white chocolate. We don't sell these at Higher Ground, it is just something I invented, inspired from Higher Ground. I brought these into work the other day to share with my friends/co-workers. If anything, it was just an excuse to make everyone hear me say "White Chocolate Chai Whoopie Pie" over and over. The good news is they had rave reviews! One girl even confessed that she just wanted to mix them into milk and eat it like cereal. I like her. Make these, then go to HG to get it's matching Tea Misto, and you'll be living the dream. While you're at it, get a ginger cream to take home. I made those ;) White Chocolate Chai Whoopie PiesFun Fact: these cookies are also great just on their own without the frosting if you so desire. Alternatively, the frosting would taste delicious on cupcakes too.
For the Cookies:
Spread the frosting on the flat side of a cooled cookie. Sandwich with another cookie. Pour yourself a mug of tea and enjoy. Whoopie! Time to channel my inner Italian Grandmother. (There is a part of me that wishes I could channel my inner Italian Sexy Woman, however the odds are far more likely that it is "Grandma Status" that I will successfully relate to. One can dream.) However "Grandma Status" to me often means cookies, so really I see nothing wrong here. I am lucky to say that I have had the opportunity to visit the beautiful delicious county that is Italy. It was more than fantastic. I could go on and on about the lemon trees, the old buildings, the gelato, the accents and beautiful people of any and all ages... but for now I just really want to talk about cookies. Is that okay? If you have also been to Italy you would remember how these simple almond biscotti cookies are EVERYWHERE. Grocery stores, gift shops, corner stores, cafes, at restaurants, etc etc. They are everywhere! And yes I totally fell in love with them. I should have eaten more I really should have. Crisp, hard and crunchy, they are not what I normally strive for in the cookie game. However these are an exception. And exceptionally delicious to dip into your cappuccino while you sit outside, sheltered under the awning of a tiny cafe in the Cinque Terre waiting for the rain to pass. Wow can I go back? These also remind me of a certain fancy pants dinner that I had in Italy with my friends. It was a four or five course meal, in a lovely restaurant overlooking the Tuscan country side juuuust outside of Florence. #treatyoself. There was a serious amount of wine (red and white, all at once) and a serious amount of laughter and flirting with the waiter coming from our table. (Sorry to that poor man.) The food was probably some of the best I've ever tasted. Pasta Putanesca that made my tastebuds sing in ways they never had before. I couldn't wait for dessert, typical me. When all they brought out was a basket of biscotti, I thought it was a cop out. What? This is it? But then I ate like 10 of them and took it all back. SO DANG GOOD. I knew I needed to recreate them at home. These, my friends, are it! A biscotti any Nona would be proud of. Almond BiscottiRecipe slightly adapted from Epicurious
Delizioso! Forever I shall remain a fan of the humble chocolate chip cookie. And forever I will be trying all of the variations on said cookie. The chocolate chip cookie: a simple phenomena, yet there are a zillion different variations out there, and everyone claiming that THIS is the BEST, or their ULTIMATE FAVOURITE SUPREME DREAM cookie. Well I apologize, but I love them all. Whenever I see a new recipe for chocolate chip cookies, no matter how awesome the ones I have made previously were, I want to try this new recipe. I want them ALL! And so when I found a recipe for "Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies" which claimed that the use of whole wheat flour had not a thing to do with healthiness, but all the things to do with depth of flavour, I was sold. Think about a slice of bread. There is white bread, which holds a certain nostalgia and blank canvas for other ingredients. However there is also multigrain bread which, in most cases, can add a lot of flavour. Don't think about trying to be healthy, think about flavour. Anyways these cookies are not shy on butter and sugar, so yeah healthy is not the point here. Not the point guys. But it does make me feel better about wanting to eat cookies for breakfast... (a thing that I do quite frequently) As I was daydreaming about how whole wheat flour could change the chocolate chip cookie game, I thought, why not double-deepen the flavour by also using brown butter too? Nutty browned butter + whole wheat flavour ... must equal greatness. Am I right? We have already learned about my love of brown butter in the last post. You knew this was going to happen. Because of the brown butter and the fact that you must chill the dough overnight, these cookies require a small amount of planning ahead. But they are oh so worth it! Also, if one does not plan for anything else, one must always plan for cookies ;) Whole Wheat Brown Butter Chocolate Chip CookiesRecipe slightly adapted from Jessica Fechtor found in her amazing book, Stir
Happy baking :) How does one start? The beginning? Probably, I guess. An ode to a special lady. My love of cookies and baking began in the kitchen of my mothers mother, whom I call Gran. My fondest memories of her take place with her old sunbeam mixer, flour, sugar, and softened butter. We would bake these cookies together, with warm afternoon light spilling in through her kitchen window. It is probably the most meaningful thing a grandmother could ever do. The cookies of course were delicious, but I never knew back then how meaningful that time spent with Gran would be to me later on. The cookies, simply put, are the humble beginning to my love of baking, and the foundation of my passion for homemade, fresh from the oven goodness. Seems like a pretty good place to start to me! I re-discovered her recipe in her old red recipe-card tin. I love seeing her familiar, shaky (but sure) handwriting. When I make these, I am instantly transported back to her kitchen and happy memories of my childhood. ALSO, they are called Ginger Sparklers and is that not the cutest name for a cookie? They are rolled in granulated sugar before they are baked, which gives them their signature sparkly glam to live up to the name. Ginger SparklersRecipe from Anne Marie Barclay (AKA Gran)
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