Obsession

Completely not posted for ages, but there was this little thing called my brother's wedding. Anyway, despite completing the Cookie Carnival, I forgot to send it in. They were lemon ricotta cookies as below. In addition, other baking things involved foccacia with red onion, mushroom and mozarella: some buttermilk cupcakes with vanilla buttercream.

Here we go. Early as usual, but these few weeks are manic and since I had to be home to sort out my expenses and the state of my room, why not bake at the same time? Here in lies Martha Stewart's rendition of Strawberries and Cream in cookie form. The recipe is remarkably easy, just make a crumble and add cream to it and then the fruit. In essence it's not bad, but makes it feel more fattening because you're tipping in a load of cream to boot. The recipe is here , but I made a few changes. One, I added a tablespoon of lemon juice because I didn't read it before I chucked it in (and I cba to drain it off either). Two, there's no sanding sugar because I don't own any. Three, I added a slug of vanilla to the mix because I could. All in all, a very nice cookie, especially fresh from the oven. But after that I think it lacks a certain punch, even with the lemon juice. Maybe I should have considered adding black pepper or balsamic? Those tend to add some tang to the m...

I made these insanely early, but here is my schedule: 4th May the Cookie Carnival email came out from Kate, this weekend I made them, next weekend I'm in Scotland, that gives me two weekends left. Yeah, looking at that, now I have no idea why I thought I HAD to make them this weekend (10th) :S I'll figure out what I HAVE to do in May soon. Probably some hen-do or wedding for someone I've forgotten. Ouch. I've always struggled with macaroons. I've made them... twice. Once using the Roux brother's book, once from the wonderful Tartlette blog (see right). Both failed miserably. The first one was edible. It probably wasn't a good idea to try and use teaspoons which they SAID was okay, the second time I tried to risk it with greaseproof and naturally everything stuck everywhere. They also make scarily little so by the time you've peeled them off the tray, you've eaten most of them. This recipe made a shed-load. There's pictures of the macaroons on eve...

My first Cookie Carnival project. Many thanks to the organiser and this month's host for letting me join in. Lemon bars from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book by Melissa Murphy. I have no idea who Melissa is but I'm not a fan of her lemon bars. Hmm, I sense I'm already at odds with the cheery Cookie club mentality, but to thy own self be true. (Lord, I'm quoting Clueless again...) The recipe looks close to Lemon Meringue bars, but with less yolk and a touch of flour. And missing all important meringue. Now here’s the thing. This is the UK . We don’t HAVE Lemon Bars. I’ve just done a quick search on Google Images and it appears they have a very standard appearance. Adding meringue would definitely be cheating, as would my first thoughts of drizzling these babies with dark chocolate. These babies are rectangular, they are dusted in icing sugar and they better be made with lemon. I made a few changes but not enough as far as I'm concerned. More yolks would have made the ...