I have a love-hate relationship with Valentine’s Day. Hate because it’s a silly, made up, consumerism “holiday”. Love because it is really just another excuse to have a theme in my baking for a few weeks (chocolates, cookies, sweets, desserts…). At any rate, we’re getting closer to the Big V Day, so it was a good excuse to use one of my cookie stamps, and to make these Maple Cashew Butter Cookies. Very addictive and my flat smells amazing. Also, these cookies are a great alternative for those people with a peanut allergy. Cashew butter could also be substituted with creamy Almond Butter.
sweets
These are Lemon Bars. Well, to be more precise, they are Olive Oil Sea Salt Meyer Lemon Bars with Rosemary. In my infinite search to “do something different” (I think that they call that “intensify the depth of flavor” in the recipe development biz), I decided to add some fruity and bright olive oil to the curd, finely chop some fresh rosemary and put it in the shortbread and then add just a touch of sea salt to the sprinkle on top (with the powdered sugar). Result: the most intense and flavorful lemon bars you’ll ever taste. Seriously.
Every week I make something that can be eaten “out of hand” (i.e. cookies, brownies, etc), but this week was a bit of an uninspired week, and somehow I wasn’t ready to bake something this afternoon, so just ended up making something with ingredients that I had in the house. Ended up being these Apricot White Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies, with Toasted Pine Nuts. Still good for a snack on on a cold January.
I am given unique ingredients as presents and this Christmas was no different as I was gifted a tin of Bourbon Smoked Sea Salt. It is great as a finishing salt on meats and such, but in my constant search for adding more depth of flavor to my baking, I decided to add some to these cookies. They didn’t turn out particularly “smokey” or “boozy” or even “salty”, but they did add a nice flavor.





