I made toffee on the weekend. I had my former team out for snacks and games on Saturday night, and figured this would make a good contribution to the snack stash. I was not wrong.
Continue reading “Luxury Chocolate Buttercrunch Toffee”
Today’s theme is: things that are other things. A couple of weeks ago, I made pretzel breads, from the Bread Bible, as this month’s selection from the bread baking group I’m participating in. This weekend, Jay requested a repeat of the pretzels, so they must have been good. I also made mini gateaux breton cookies this weekend. Yup, that’s mini cake cookies. Pretzel breads and cake cookies.
I rarely look far enough ahead in the Rose’s Alpha Bakers schedule to know what’s coming up the next week, but this week was different, because some of the group baked pumpkin pecan pie last week, and some of them baked these spritz butter cookies. When I saw that this was next, I knew Jay would be happy. Spritz cookies are one of his favourites. He was surprised that they’d be included in a cookbook like this one, because as he claims, he’s been making spritz cookies since he was 6 or 7. Quite possibly with this same cookie press set.
I have no idea how to pronounce “Kourambiethes.” I’m going with “almond shortbread-y cookie things,” instead. My husband recently started a new job at a start-up, so we won’t be taking any significant vacation time, this summer. Instead, to use up my vacation time, I’m taking Fridays off until the end of September. This past Friday was really rainy and Jay needed to get ahead on some work this weekend, so I amused myself in the kitchen. I actually caught up/got a bit ahead in my “alpha baking” for both The Baking Bible and The Bread Bible. Blog posts to come, but I made both the Prosciutto Ring (The Bread Bible) and the Elderberry/blueberry pie (The Baking Bible), as well as a strawberry-rhubarb pie, and these cookies. Oh, and a batch of regular bread. 🙂
I *think* I spelled that right.
This week, we’re going German, for Passover. I’m not sure how to say dattelkonfekkt, but it apparently translates (not terribly surprisingly) into “date confection”. I made a half-hearted attempt to learn a bit of German last fall, before meeting some German customers, but recently I’ve been pulled into more and more conversations with Chinese customers, so I’m questioning which language is more likely to be useful. Probably stick with German, since Duolingo doesn’t support Mandarin, yet.
On Saturday afternoon, when I pulled the first batch of this week’s Baking Bible recipe out of the oven, I thought, “That can’t be right.” While the first batch cooled, so that I could shape the next batch, out of habit, I grabbed my phone to browse Facebook, while I waited. Oh, look! Somebody’s posted in the “Rose’s Alpha Bakers” FB group. I tap it, read the post, and think, “Huh, at least I’m not alone!” The cookies, according to the recipe, are supposed to be light, crisp, and airy. Mine were… crisp, flat, and full of holes.
It turns out I’m bad at remembering to post, until I go to get myself a snack and think “Oh, right, I’m supposed to blog about these.” I don’t remember what I thought about these cookies the first time around, but I do remember baking them as part of testing recipes for The Baking Bible. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lekvar (apricot puree, more or less) that I have in the fridge is from when I was testing recipes. This week, the “alpha” bakers were working on The Ischler. Apparently, this is a cookie that is normally dipped in chocolate, but Rose’s take has an equal amount of chocolate in every bite. You can find the recipe on the blog that Rose has linked to, here.
I decided to make mine star-shaped, for more Christmassyness (yes, that’s a word, now).
Just a quick note to give my fellow heavenly cake bakers the link to my Swedish pear and almond cream cake, from last fall. I skipped baking this weekend, since there’s a free choice coming up, and I spent much of the weekend up a ladder or on a roof, working on finishing up the main components of our shed. I did my first roofing job!
This week is another free choice week for the heavenly cake bakers group. Last time we had ‘free choice’, I made the no bake whipped cream cheesecake. This week, I gave the list of cakes to my husband, and asked him to pick. I told him to pick something that didn’t have a date next to it, but had a link for the recipe title. It took him about 30 seconds. “Golden Lemon Almond Cake.”
