Almond Lemon-Lime Slice

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About a month ago, a representative of the Donsuemor Bakery, located in Alameda, California, contacted me about wanting to send me some samples of their baking products and see what I could come up with using them and ingredients in a dessert.

First I was all up and anxious about this.  I will be the first to tell you that when it comes to developing a savory recipe I’m all for it.  But, developing a sweet recipe - I’m a total coward.  Baking for me is the holy grail of step-by-step cooking and I rarely venture off the instructions.

But, I figure it was going to give me a challenge and I never back away from a challenge.

That is why Tom and I are having an all out war with the angry birds game in our house.

He is up by one game.

I plan on whooping his butt this weekend.

But, back to the point

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ABC: Zebra Cookies

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We are back to our monthly ABC choice.  This time it was cookies.  Out of all the desserts out there cookies are not high on my list of likes (not like fruit desserts), unlike Tom and the little man that love them.

Since we been eating cake for the past months, this was a change of pace, and was looking forward to them.  Plus as soon as I said cookies were in the baking list over the weekend, the house erupted in cheers.

Me thinks there was an itsy-bitsy hint in there somewhere…

Once more I wish that this book would have more pictures with it’s recipes, it’s hard to “visualize” the end product and while Flo’s instructions are super detail, sometimes it’s just too much and I get lost in translation with them.

I had to read the steps more than a couple of times before I fully comprehended how to set the dough up in order to have them come out with the perfect zebra stripes.

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Salted Butter Break-ups [my version]

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After cooking for more than thirty years, I’m still amazed how some of the most simple and unpretentious ingredients can come together and yield something amazing.

Case in point…

Tomatoes, Basil, Garlic plus Olive Oil = the best tomato sauce for a plate of pasta. Or replace cooking all of the above and add some burrata mozzarella and you got the best Caprese salad this side of Italy. Dough, tomatoes, basil, olive oil – Hello pizza!

I can go on and on…

So it was no surprise that this weeks choice for our French Fridays with Dorie was one of those recipes that with something as simple as combining butter, flour, water, sugar and salt you get one the most addictive cookie we have eaten in our house to date.

How addictive?

Well, the first time I made it was Monday.  Since then, I have made it a total of six times – SIX, in less than FOUR days.  If you do the math, it will tell you how popular that cookie was around these parts.

We cannot keep it around long enough to make it pass the day it was made!

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