In my totally unbiased opinion, a custom signed copy of one of my cookbooks is a pretty awesome gift. I work with The Strand bookstore to make this happen and this year the holiday ordering deadline is 12pm EST this Wednesday, 12/12 to order an inscribed-as-you-wish copy of Smitten Kitchen Every Day or The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook.
Cookies are one of my favorite things to bake: they're small, keep well, and are infinitely share-able in a way that a cake with a slice or two removed is never going to be. Over the years, I've found ways to make them even easier, which if it leads to more cookies in our lives, is the best December news I've heard. Plus, 9 favorite cookies, a few dinner ideas, and a show-stealing caramel tart.
Cheers,
Deb
FRESH AND NEW
chocolate caramel tart A stunning, show-stealing salted caramel tart with a chocolate shell underneath chocolate and chocolate ganache on top. It's like a Rolo candy, but a thousand times better.
COOKIES, COOKIES, COOKIES
confetti cookies Do rainbow sprinkled vanilla-butter-sugar cookies taste better than cookies without rainbow sprinkles? What kind of question is this, even. These, with a bit of vanilla bean and cream cheese, are my favorite yet: soft-centered, crisp-edged and they make your apartment smell like birthday cake, too.
pull-apart rugelach Bummed that my favorite cookie was so tedious to make, I set out to simplify the process and ended up creating our new easy favorite holiday thing: pull-apart rugelach, or you can make them the classic way too. But you should definitely make them.
seven-layer cookies An airtight, no-fail recipe for this Italian-American bakery standard that are, for once, as delicious as they look.
eggnog florentines Buttery, lacy, light and crisp pecan-cinnamon florentines are sandwiched with an insanely rich egg yolk-butter-spice-rum filling that tastes uncannily like eggnog. They're featherweight and rich and spiced and so, so, so very December. Don't even fight it.
spicy gingerbread cookies Dark and spiced with an appropriately heavy hand, these are as pretty in winter shapes as they are forming the walls of your gingerbread dream house/apartment. [Mine has two whole kitchen counters!]
cashew butter balls Deeply toasted cashews. Vanilla. Sea salt. A lot of butter. And a roll in the (powdered sugar) deep before being cooled and redistributed to family and friends. If you're feeling generous and stuff.
cigarettes russes You honestly will not believe how easy it is to make these show-offs. One-bowl batter. Ingredients you almost definitely already have at home. (I know you keep butter around; this is why we're friends.) Six minutes of baking time and then a dip in melted chocolate and a roll in the oldest sprinkles known to man (optional). The un-PC name is a plus in my eyes.
chocolate hazelnut linzer hearts In need of a new cookie recipe, I did something totally old-fashioned: I considered what my husband would love above all else. Not surprisingly, it involved Nutella. The resulting cookies (a deeply toasted hazelnut butter cookie base, chocolate-hazelnut filling) are so cute, borderline twee, they should come with a warning. Instead, they just taunt: You know you wanna.
crescent jam and cheese cookies One of my favorite cookies I've ever made, these use a crazy simple dough to make pillowy flaky cookie layers wound around a pocket of jam into adorable little moon-like crescents with a starry dusting of powdered sugar on top.
DINNER THIS WEEK
skillet-baked pasta with five cheeses From a Rhode Island Italian restaurant via a Brooklyn pizzeria, a skillet-baked pink pasta that maximizes the essential charred edges and crispy lid.
kale and quinoa salad with ricotta salata I consider this a perfect lunch salad: hearty greens, a grain-like bulk from quinoa, tart dried fruit, deeply toasted almonds and a scattering of salty crumbly cheese. A mild honey-Dijon vinaigrette brings it together, and it's so wholesome, it makes my day feel far more triumphant than -- let's be honest -- it may actually be.
buttermilk roast chicken Sure, the best part of fried chicken is the battered, seasoned, golden crisp exterior. The next best part? The buttermilk-brined impeccably tender meat within. This is that, no cauldron of deep-fry oil required.
