Recently, I was offered the chance to try out an embossed rolling pin from embossedco.com. Jessica, one of the founders of Embossed Company offered to send me one in exchange for blogging about it-something I generally do not do. However, I have been looking at them on the internet for so long and have always hesitated ordering one because they were shipping from Eastern Europe and I just couldn’t do it. Luckily for me, Embossed Company makes their pins here in the US and they ship from the west coast.
A quick switch to 3/16 inch dowels and to the embossing pin, I started at the surface closest to me and pressed down while rolling away from me.
The pin leaves a nice impression of the design, this one is called Paisley.
Almond Spekulatius Cookies
MAKES 4-6 DOZEN COOKIES DEPENDING ON THE SIZE OF YOUR CUTTERS
7 ounces unsalted butter, softened (14 tablespoons, 199g)
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed in the cup (210 g)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 whole egg, large size
2 tablespoons spekulatius spice blend, homemade or purchased*
1/2 cup almond flour (60g)*
1 cup white whole wheat flour (154g)*
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour (140g)
In a mixing bowl, cream the butter with the brown sugar, vanilla and salt until fluffy. Scrape the bowl as you go to insure it is completely mixed. Add the egg, mix it in completely. By hand, fold in the remaining ingredients and form a thick disk with the dough. Wrap the dough in plastic and refrigerate for several hours and up to several days, you can also freeze it for a month.
When ready to make the cookies, allow the dough to come to room temperature, it should be pliable but not sticky. Preheat the oven to 350. Using the method described in the photos above, roll and cut out the cookies. Place them on sheet pans lined with parchment or silpats and bake until golden around the edges, about 12-14 minutes. Allow them to cool on the tray for a few minutes and then move them to a cooling rack to finish cooling. Store them in an air tight container.
Some notes on the ingredients:
Spekulatius spice is fairly common in Germany, we have friends there that sent us some over the holidays but you can easily make it or purchase some.
Almond flour gives a nice crunch to the dough, you can substitute with any finely ground nut that you prefer. For those with nut allergies, substitute an additional 1/2 cup of all purpose flour.
White whole wheat flour is just another way of adding texture to the dough along with a little extra flour. Feel free to experiment with other whole grain flours but start by measuring out a cup, they all have different weights!
It has been a while since I have had the time to join in with the 
But enough about me, let’s talk about these cookies! What I love most about the book Dorie’s Cookies is the size of the recipes. It may sound like an odd thing to say but large recipes are really inconvenient in my kitchen. My oven is so small that I cannot put anything larger than 15 inches in it; 15 inches wide or 15 inches deep. This means that most standard sized cookie sheets will not fit and that leaves me with few options. What does fit is quarter sized sheet pans and then, only 2 at a time with about a dozen cookies on each pan. If I make a large number of cookies, I can spend an hour or more just baking them. This book eliminates that problem since most of the recipes are so small that I find I can usually get them baked in only two batches.
The bottom line, buy the book and make the cookies, seriously, you won’t regret it. And if you are wondering, we never publish the recipes out of respect for the author, so you will need to buy or borrow 
Long story short, I am staying with mom while she recovers from a fall. While out in the yard, she fell, broke her leg and had to have a rod inserted to support the bone. Thankfully, she is well on her way to returning to normal but it will take some time and for the next few weeks, I will be here doing all of the things she cannot do and some of the things she does not care to do, like baking cookies.
Leaving my garden for a month was rough. We had really just begun to get the summer crops in and there is still much to do to eradicate the bermuda grass. Here in PA, spring is still in the air and the trees have only recently leafed out. In case you haven’t visited this blog before, I have posted photos of 
Moss grows all over the yard because it is shady and moist. This little cherub spends his time watching the yard but if he knows what the gnomes are up to, he isn’t telling anyone. He sits and stares in disbelief as raccoons and squirrels come to the basin to drink water.
This little guy seems to be guarding the front door. We throw peanuts to him from the deck but he usually lets the squirrels eat them.
The yard is so lush and green right now that the only color that pops out is red.
All over the yard are these tiny blue blossoms, wish I had my wildflower book with me!
When you walk the yard, you really need to watch where you are going, it is easy to step on the residents. This moon face greets all that visit the pond.
It must be nice to have the time to lounge in the woods all day.
Mom is not a big fan of chocolate so I made a batch of crispy lemon cookies with a small amount of anise seeds thrown in for fun. Since I do not have my cookbooks here to flip through, I used 
How time flies…We have been so busy here; the garden takes so much of our attention and leaves little time for anything else. The space the garden occupies is the footprint of the garden that was maintained by the man who once lived here but has since passed away. Funny coincidence, he too was a member of the master gardeners and more than one of my fellow members remembers him and stranger still, several of them would come here to help him in the garden. It has been interesting to learn about him and the methods he used here.
The recipe calls for golden syrup, a traditional British and Australian favorite but I used wildflower honey; it tasted awesome in the cookies. Oatmeal and coconut are the other predominant flavors but the surprise is that the cookies contain no eggs!
Crispy and chewy at the same time. These went fast at the potluck and I received many compliments. The verdict; must make these again! May even pick up some golden syrup just to see if it makes a difference.
To see how the other bakers did, check out 
Isn’t it wonderful when several of your favorite things come together? Everyone who visits this blog knows I love to garden and that baking is what I do professionally. But I am betting that not many of you know that I have a thing for hibiscus plants, specifically, Hibiscus sabdariffa. More commonly known as Roselle, this is the variety of hibiscus used to make tea. Just look at that bloom; how could you not love it?
While the flower is pretty, and edible, it is a day flower which means it opens for a day and then dies. As soon as the bloom withers, the plant begins producing seeds in the calyx. To make tea, you must gather them before the pod swells with immature seeds. It takes quite a few to make a pot of tea! Because of this, I generally plant 3 or 4 of them around the garden and yard. They can get quite large if the conditions are right; lots of direct sun, plenty of moisture but not soggy.
If you are looking at this plant and are thinking that it looks like okra, you are right! Hibiscus is also related to cotton and if you spend time in garden centers, you will find that there are lots of perennial and annual varieties of hibiscus. Unfortunately, this variety will not survive a freeze which means you must overwinter it indoors or start over each spring which is what I do. The seeds need heat and will not germinate until the soil is warm. Start them indoors or wait until about May to plant seeds outdoors.
They will begin blooming in late summer and that is when you will have calyxes to collect. Spread them out and dry them completely, I do it in the oven with just the light on. Then when dry, you can store them in a glass jar.
So what does this plant have to do with baking? This week’s recipe from Baking Chez Moi calls for hibiscus tea! This recipe mixed up quickly and easily and when it was all said and done, I sent these, along with the Valentine’s Share-A-Heart cookies to my girls for Valentine’s Day. They loved them!
Devon called hers a little pink pizza and looking at that shot, I can see why. However, they tasted like no pizza I have ever eaten! Crispy and flaky and full of vanilla(I was out of rose water) and with just a hint of tangy, floral notes from the hibiscus tea.
The recipe does not call for much tea so I only used a few calyxes-whizzed them in the spice grinder. My thought is that next time, and there will be a next time, I will use double the amount. After all, summer is coming and I will have more plants in the garden!
Join us sometime! We love the company. Pick up a copy of Baking Chez Moi and bake along with us. To see how the rest of the bakers did, visit
It is so nice to be back to baking with the Tuesdays with Dorie gang! Especially when it means baking cookies, lots of cookies! If you recall my post from earlier this month, Dorie Greenspan recently began a 
Do not be intimidated by the call for rolling out the cookies with parchment paper. Over the years, I have rolled out thousands and thousands of cookies and one issue I have always encountered, the added flour from rolling out the cookies can change the consistency of the dough. If you have read any of my posts on rolling cookies, I have always instructed that you brush off as much of the flour as possible to prevent the dough from changing. Dorie has a brilliant suggestion in her recipe; place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and skip the flour! For small quantities, this is absolutely the way to go and it is definitely a technique I will use again. The parchment paper takes the place of the flour and the consistency of the dough remains the same from start to finish. Keep in mind, repeatedly rolling out the dough will toughen it as the gluten becomes developed but for small quantities like this, you won’t have to worry about that happening.
If you enjoyed this post, think about baking along with us. Pick up a copy of Dorie’s Cookies and bake cookies to share! Sweeten the world one cookie recipe at a time! To see what the rest of the gang did with their cookies, 
Join the revolution and change the world one cookie at a time. We need more kindness and Dorie Greenspan has decided that baking cookies and sharing them is the way to make the world a sweeter place; I like her thinking and couldn’t agree more! You can read her 
These are the January recipe, Olive Oil and Wine Cookies, and you can find the recipe 
My advice, make these on a day that you have the time and then let them age for three or four days. If you keep them airtight, you will be able to enjoy them for a week after that. They are perfect for sharing and just a perfect for an afternoon cup of tea. Spread the kindness; bake cookies and share them! 
If you are like 99% of the people I know, you are in a hurry and trying to get everything done; baking, cooking, cleaning, shopping, wrapping and more. Even though I am still trying to get my house unpacked from the move, I am also trying to do some holiday baking because it just isn’t Christmas without a small truckload of cookies in the house! The good news is, that I have found one of the quickest and easiest recipes to prepare.
Coconut Spritz Cookies
The fact that I have a sweet tooth is no secret, it should probably be called an unhealthy obsession. Generally, I keep it in control by not buying sweets and not baking them unless I am bringing them to someone else. It’s a good plan, most of the time. But every now and then, I cave. Lately, when that has happened, Darry and I have gone out for ice cream. With the extreme heat we have had lately, how could you blame us? In the evening, as the sun goes down, we like to go to the Village and visit the local ice cream shop and then walk around.
Over the years, I have made oatmeal cookies with any number of added goodies. Dried currants are my favorite choice but dried peaches and figs are really good too. This batch has raisins, dark raisins but when I use raisins, I usually prefer the golden ones. My husband likes them with dried cranberries. While I love nuts, I hardly ever add them and more often than not, I see them with chocolate chips but even though I am a huge chocolate fan, I cannot stand oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips in them.
One of the nice things about oatmeal cookies, it is easy to hide whole grains in them. Besides using whole grain rolled oats, you can also use whole wheat flour and trust me, no one will know! The oats can also be swapped out for other whole/rolled grains. Trader Joe’s sells a mixture of rolled whole grain made from a mixture of oats, wheat, barley and rye and that would work in this cookie too!
A few notes to ponder:
Oatmeal Cookies with Raisins
When I was a child, a really young child, I would spend weekends with my grandmother and great-grandparents. They would indulge me in many ways, especially sweets. My great-grandmother always had a batch of jello in the fridge. For as long as I could remember, my grandmother took great pleasure in telling the story of my “disappearance” while I was visiting one weekend. Apparently, I climbed out of my crib and went on a midnight jello raid and fell asleep on the dining room floor. The three of them frantically searched for me and in their panicked state, they did not see me in the corner of the room. Luckily, they found me before they called the police or worse yet, my parents. Over the years, we shared many laughs with each retelling of this story.
Another story my grandmother loved to tell was how I would sit with my great-grandfather and watch tv with him. According to my grandmother, he had a favorite show-I think it may have been the Jackie Gleason Show but I was too young to remember. What I do recall is that I had a little yellow chair with a cane seat and that I would sit along side of him as he watched the program. He also had a thing for Milano cookies and he would share the with me as we sat together.
Now to the filling…While I may know a lot about baking, I am not an expert on everything but I do know this, boiling chocolate is not the best idea. The filling recipe calls for simmering the ingredients until they “break” and then to blend them back together. The mixture of cream, sugar, unsweetened chocolate and butter being simmered and it thickened as it cooked.
After 45 minutes or so, it finally got real thick and broke. The fat separated out and floated on top. Unfortunately, I do not own an immersion blender and had to rely on a whisk to mix back together. The whisk did not do the job and the filling was a little grainy. More importantly, it did not taste anything like what I remember the filling of a Milano cookie tastes like.
If you look closely, you can see the grainy bits of chocolate in the filling that I mentioned. Despite this, my family members enjoyed them. While I may make these again, most likely will make these again, I will not make the filling again and I think I will probably just make some dark chocolate ganache to fill the cookies.
Over the years, Darry and I have lived in different cities on the East coast, the West coast and in between and some how, I still have this little chair. It is showing its age, well, so am I if you must know.
will garden for cake 