LunaCafe’s Burnt Caramel & Lemon Chevre Brownies

LunaCafe's Caramel & Lemon Chevre Brownies

Folks sometimes ask what inspires my recipes. Such a hard question. Anything and everything is my truthful response. I am almost always thinking about food.

This brownie recipe, for instance, was inspired by the following nearly concurrent events:

•Sampling goat’s milk cajita in a Mexican grocery store in Portland.
•Making cajita myself.
•The All Chocolate! All Month! celebration at LunaCafe.
•Plan to work cajita into a brownie recipe for the celebration.
•A Brownie Throw Down on The Food Network, which the Vermont Brownie Company won with their chevre brownie.

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February 6, 2010 By 23 Comments

LunaCafe OtherWorldly Silky Fudgy Brownies

LunaCafe OtherWorldly Silky Brownies Stacked

What I really love about baking is that even if you don’t get the exact result you are going for, you sometimes get a nonetheless marvelous different result. That’s what happened with these brownies, which I intended to be the epitome of chewy chocolate YUM.

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February 2, 2010 By 14 Comments

Cornmeal, Black Pepper & Rosemary Butter Cookies

Cornmeal, Black Pepper & Rosemary Cookies in Cookie Tin

After several weeks of nearly non-stop, high-intensity cookie baking, I present you with the final cookie of this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies: Starry Night bake-a-thon. TA DA!

In the kick off post, I set the stage for this completely new collection of cookies, most of which break rather dramatically from the traditional holiday cookies of my childhood. I really wanted to push my understanding of what makes a remarkable and thus memorable Christmas cookie. I wanted to try new and exciting flavor and texture combinations. I wanted to stretch myself as a baker. As I say in the Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies: Starry Night kick off post, I intended to throw tradition to the proverbial wind this holiday season.

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December 13, 2009 By 18 Comments

Brown Butter, Toasted Almond & Toffee Shortbread

Bron Butter, Toasted Almond & Toffee Shortbread

Well, folks, we are almost to the end of LunaCafe’s second annual Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies: Starry Night bake-a-thon. After this post, only one more cookie, and then it’s time to put away all the cutters, stencils, sprinkles, and other holiday cookie baking paraphernalia; plus wipe the flour from every surface in the OtherWorldly Kitchen. And then carefully and lovingly repackage the many large tins of cookies for their final destinations.

But please be assured that I have saved the absolute BEST two cookies for last. We will end this adventure creating the most memorable holiday cookies ever with a bang.

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December 12, 2009 By 8 Comments

Garam Masala & Candied Ginger Cookies

Group 3

If you have been following along on this year’s Twelve Days of Christmas Cookies: Starry Night bake-a-thon, you know this is my year for putting tradition aside and pushing the holiday cookie flavor envelope. Perhaps this particular cookie pushes the envelope to its most extreme so far. I don’t imagine that these cookies will ring everyone’s Christmas bells, but I must tell you I am already nearly addicted to them. If you’re like me, on the first bite you might think, “What the @#$%^$!” Then on the second bite, the thought shifts to, “Wait a minute, this is Interesting.” Then by the third bite, you are full on IN LOVE. Actually this also describes my first encounters with MauiJim, but I digress. :-)

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December 10, 2009 By 9 Comments

Trim the Christmas Tree & Eat It Too Cookies

Douglas Fir & Orange Blossom Butter Cookies

That’s right! You can eat the tree! Over the past year, I encountered a fair number of Northwest restaurant dishes and cocktails featuring Clear Creek Distillery’s Douglas Fir Eau de Vie. This pale green brandy is an infusion of hand-picked spring buds of the Douglas fir tree. This intriguing liqueur got me thinking about incorporating Douglas fir buds in my own dishes–especially since I live much of the time in the Cascade foothills surrounded by these incredibly fragrant trees.

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December 9, 2009 By 30 Comments

Heavenly Brown Butter, Lavender & Lime Cookies

Box of Heavenly Brown Butter, Lavender & Lime Cookies

If you have been reading this blog over the 15 months of its existence, you probably know by know that I am very fond of two flavors to an inordinate degree: lavender and lime. You may even remember the Blueberry Lavender Limeade I created this past summer. That inspired flavor combination still lingers in my mind.

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December 8, 2009 By 2 Comments

Cranberry, Pistachio & Candied Ginger Shortbread

Cranberry, Pistachio & Candied Ginger Cookies in a Stack

If there is one cookie in this year’s Starry Night collection that positively shouts CHRISTMAS, it has to be this one. If you don’t overbrown the cookies, the sparkling red cranberries, green pistachios, and yellow lemon zest and candied ginger will glow like little jewels. To enhance this jewel-like effect, I like to keep the surface embellishment to just a light dusting of fine, clear sanding sugar, which lends sparkle but doesn’t detract from the colorful bits studding each cookie.

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December 7, 2009 By 15 Comments
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