What do you get when you combine a brownie and a cookie? Well, you get this cool love-child of a thing called a Brookie. If you make them as bars (vs in cookie shape), you get Brookie Bars. And what happens if you happen to throw in a bag of cinnamon chips? Well, you get these absolutely delicious Cinnamon Chip Brookie Bars! As you can see, the “January Health Kick” didn’t last very long. LOL
Here we are at the end of 2018, and I am baking again. The change of one year to the next always makes me think of “Lucky Foods” to ring in the new year. The US South has black eyed peas, Eastern Europeans have pickled herring. In Italy and I believe Spain, you eat 12 grapes at the stroke of midnight. In Germany, there are lots of traditions as well, but I am going with something that implies luck, though not necessarily New Year’s. You see, in English, we have the expression “Lucky Devil” (as in, “You’re such a luck devil for winning the lottery!”). In German, a similar expression is to be a “Glücksschwein” (lucky pig) or “Glückspilz” (lucky mushroom). I had found these cute little cookie cutters at the Christmas Markets in Munich a few weeks ago, so decided to make Glückspilz Spitzbuben (Lucky Mushroom Linzer Cookies) — mainly because I thought that words Glückspilz and Spitzbuben would be funny to say (can’t you tell that I am a linguist by profession?). Filled with apricot and raspberry jam, and sure to bring luck in 2019!
OK, time to get your creepy on. As I have mentioned most past years, Halloween isn’t really my thing — nor is Valentine’s Day or Arbor Day — but it is an excuse to make some treats, so here we go! This year, it’s these Mexican Chocolate Day of the Dead Sandwich Cookies. I made sort of similar ones last year, but this year, changed out the flavor profile to add cinnamon and some spice to the chocolate, hence the reason I am calling them Mexican chocolate. They actually turned out super yummy and when I had a friend try one today, prefacing it with “it’s sort of like an oreo”, the response was “that is a million times better than just an oreo!” 🙂
Pumpkin Spice isn’t really my favorite. I mean, it’s ok, but I am not gah gah over it, the way that some people are. That said, I do try to make a new pumpkin recipe every few years … even if I try to “hide” it by calling them “autumn spice” in this case. 🙂 I think they look a little like giraffe pattern too. Either which way, they turned out well for an experiment. Lighter and fluffier than I expected too.