I clearly have this thing for Chocolate Chip cookies, and I seem to be on this never-ending quest to see what combinations I can manage to put in chocolate chips cookies. I also have this affinity for cardamom (favorite spice by far), so this week, I tried the combination of cardamom, coconut (the unsweetened kind) and dried figs. Oh, and oatmeal, to make them “healthy”. Turned out ok, but if I were to make them again, I think I’d add even more cardamom.
Time for Blueberry Thyme Pie. I’ve had a few sleepless nights in the last few days. Lots of worries on my the brain and emotions are running high. This does not bode well for my already light sleep, so I tossed and turned until 1 AM, stared mindlessness through the extra innings of a West Coast Red Sox game and then managed a few hours of actual sleep from 2-4. Then I decided to make pie. Baking always makes me feel better and the bonus of insomnibaking is that one gets to eat pie for breakfast. The herbiness of the thyme balances nicely in this. If you have lemon thyme, that would be even better.
All of a sudden, it seems to be spring. After this winter here in Boston, I never thought that we’d be saying “Gosh, it’s hot!” again, but here we are on May 7 … and it’s downright hot. So, in celebration thereof, I made this here cake. I actually have a bit of a philosophy that I have broken with this cake — which is that I think that a cake should look like a cake, not like something else — but eh, rules are meant to be broken sometimes and I ended up with this cutsie little cake. It’s just a chocolate cake with raspberry filling, chocolate butter cream frosting and lots of mini-M&Ms.
And now for something completely different in the cookie department … a complete departure from my usual chocolate or caramel or what-have-you (but not a departure from Linzer Cookie style cookies, which I seem to make fairly often), this week we something involving saffron and passion fruit, which go together quite nicely, I found out. Also, the smell of saffron when baking, because it is intensified, is just lovely.
And now, these aren’t Christmas Cookies … the cut out parts are meant to be flowers, even though they turned out more like stars. Although, I would make Christmas Cookies in May.