Shortbread cookies

Thanks to the Grand Central Bakery Baking Book I received for Christmas, I decided to try these chocolate shortbread cookies. I've never made roll cookies before. Drop cookies, sugar cookies, slice and bake Tollhouses, but never authentic shortbread cookies.

Basically, sugar + butter + chocolate + refrigeration. They turned out alright, but I think I'm more of a soft/chewy cookie guy. These are more crumbly, though the chocolate flavor was amazingly rich.

Before: (insert obvious joke here)



After:

Christmas time is here

Ginger molasses cookies with orange zest. Very tasty. I was too lazy to take an "after" picture, but the "before" picture looks like space boulders or something. Credit goes to my sister for helping to tackle this cookie job.

Carrot cake

Alton Brown's carrot cake needed no extra vibration. It was good, but make sure you bake it long enough. Mine was a little too squishy in the middle. And for the love of all things sweet, please use cream cheese frosting.

Guest star: Liz

Was invited to a tasting last month for my friend who is in pastry school. She made this smashing pistachio creme brulee with chocolate cookies. The doily was a little girlie for my tastes, though.

Check out Liz's adventures at http://bakedbyliz.blogspot.com/

Banana ice cream topping

This one was completely off the cuff. Some bananas browned in butter, tossed with sugar, rum and vanilla extract. Turned out pretty decent, but I think next time I'll use higher heat to begin with, because the bananas got kind of mushy. And honestly, who likes a mushy banana?

Cream puffs

My mom's favorite dessert, prepared with some help from my top-pastry-chef friends.

Applesauce

This was for a healthy eating project for the free pediatric clinic at Cooper. The empire apples were generously donated by a friend, Tom, whose family owns a fruit and veggie farm in South Jersey.

Applesauce is ridiculously easy to make. The hardest part is peeling and chopping the apples (30 apples later and my left hand started to cramp).


The rest of the work is done by mother nature, as the apples don't need much dressing up other than some lemon juice, salt, and cinnamon. Let it simmer with a couple splashes of water for 30 minutes. Add a couple spoonfuls of brown sugar if the apples are too sour.

I made two versions, one with sugar and one without. Both were great, but the one with sugar was more like pie-filling (not complaining).