I was in San Luis Obispo recently and my friends Barkev and Tzolig gave me a package of Tahini Bread to try. It was delicious! Of course, this carbaholic loves anything bread so it was almost a slam dunk but the fact that the bread had both a familiar taste and feel and yet was mysteriously unlike any bread I had ever tasted made it all the better. Mia said it kinda reminded her of Rugelach and I thought it reminded me of Palmiers but I think that was only because they loosely resembled them. A cross between the flaky Palmier and the chewiness of the Rugelach and add tahina and we are close. A delicate bread wrapped around a rich, nutty filling would be great but the texture of this treat was of a laminated pastry and for me all the better.
I decided to hit the net and found several entries for tahini bread from the middle east, some Turkish and others Armenian. The recipes resembled one another but the manner in which the bread were finished varied somewhat. For example the Turkish bread used almost the same ingredients as the Armenian bread but the Turkish resembled more of a roll than the “cookie like” flat bread I had eaten. [...]
A couple of years ago I purchase Tortas de Aceite from an online purveyor of Spanish Food and they were wonderful! I thought the tortas would arrive stale and dry as they were imported from Spain. I was wonderfully surprised by the and unique and delicious crump and the combination of savory and sweet. Sterling was immediately enamored of these wonderful treats.
Tortas de Aceite or Oil Cakes are from Spain or more closely Seville. Because tortas are made with Olive Oil instead of other types of fats they are a very healthy, light alternative dessert; the ingredients are simply flour, water, yeast, olive oil and the crispy cakes are finished with sugar and a variety of seeds or herbs. I like a sweet and salty combination that wraps its way around the tongue in a complex way that a singular flavor set could not.
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It’s Lent and I wanted to bake some cookies. Honestly, I wanted something with chocolate but one of the people I would share with doesn’t eat chocolate during Lent so I decided, while it was still Winter, I would bake a Raisin and Walnut Bar Cookie.
After thinking it through I remembered she doesn’t like raisins and is allergic to walnuts. Sifting through dozens of recipes I realized most of my cookies are chocolaty or contained an ingredient I did not have in the pantry. I did find a new package of dried cranberries and my raisin bar recipe just became Cranberry Bars. [...]
Polvorones, or Mexican Wedding Cakes, are popular in Mexico, and
the Southwest of the United States. Delicious, ethereal cookies, wrapped in confectioner’s sugar and cinnamon. A delightful and easy Mexican cookie. [...]
Sterling called and said he would be coming to town for the evening so he could attend a friend’s Halloween party. I got busy and made his very favorite cookie – Snickerdoodles!
For me I choose anything chocolate but this cookie has always been his fav. I think it always bothered him that I consider this an Autumn cookie and never made it in the the rest of the year; maybe that’s why I wasn’t into them, because of my silly rule.
This was the recipe my Grama Rosie used for Snickerdoodles. The only thing I have changed is that I use butter and she used margarine. I also had to adjust the flour to accommodate the extra moisture in butter that is not in shortening and margarine.
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