…which are basically the shortbread fingers or squares (if you wish to cut them like so) with a caramel-sort-of layer in the middle. According to Nick Malgieri, the cookies are very popular in New Zealand. I’ve never been there and can’t confirm this fact, but, in our family they were well received. The recipe is my adaptation of the Malgieri’s recipe from “A baker’s tour”. I added some salt to the filling, I think it’s necessary (the cookies were sweet enough even with this addition). I’ve also let myself to question his idea of spreading the steaming-hot filling (cooked on a stove shortly before) over the uncooked shortbread crust. I cooled the filling, stirring often, before spreading it over the chilled crust. It worked well.

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I had this idea in my head for a while. I wanted to combine the chocolate and blackberries with a spice beneficial mostly for pork and poultry – juniper berries. For me, it seemed like a nice match, especially with earthy blackberries. I picked the last berries from the bushes in the backyard and put this strange idea of mine to life in the form of the chocolate financiers. The taste was quite interesting, in a good way :) Simply put, the financiers were not just edible but also enjoyable.

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These yeast-risen cookies are a cross between a bread stick and a caramelized puff pastry palmier. The cookies are crunchy – you can easily tell this by their look. But they are not that hard so deciduous wiggly teeth of your precious little ones (and mine too :) couldn’t manage. These torcettini are not tiny, each about 3 inches long; but how naïve I was assuming that two cookies per kid would be enough (we were taking them to a play date into a large group of youngsters). The cookies were in such demand, every kid wanted the third, and fourth… so there was not enough to satisfy everyone’s appetite.

The recipe is from Nick Malgieri’s “A Baker’s Tour”. And if the kids opinion doesn’t always count (let’s be honest :), the one of the Queen of Italy, I believe, does. Queen Margherita liked the cookies in one pastry shop so much that she knighted the owner on the spot. A certificate attesting to this still hangs in the pastry shop in Saint Vincent.

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These poor things were baked to be crushed into biscotti crumbs needed for executing another dessert (getting ahead of the story: which is delicious and being posted later :). But I liked the outcome enough to give them their own life, they do deserve it. The biscotti are better the next day (yes, I don’t like this fact as, probably, most of you, but it is what it is…). The flavor ripens and becomes more interesting, anise gets more pronounced.

Adapted from Sherry Yard

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These are the cookies I served with the Café Glacé. They are also nice with ice creams, or mousses, basically - anything creamy, for adding the texture contrast. If you are really seeking the crispiness in the cookies, don’t make them in advance (I mean – well in advance, like a day before). No matter how tight is your container where you’re storing them, the cookies will lose at least some of their crunch, or even worse – they will acquire unpleasant rubbery chewiness. I recommend baking them a couple of hours before the serving time; the process is not complicated at all.

The recipe is from the “Desserts by the Yard”.

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…by François Payard. I love French chefs’ approach to traditional American desserts. They usually transform them into something quite stylish. I made these rice crispy balls to take to my son’s kindergarten year-end picnic. I wanted something relatively weather-resistant and this recipe seemed appropriate. Besides, haven’t you ever experienced a painful disappointment from bringing a stunning dessert to the youngsters’ class, and later taking it back almost intact because someone brought the lollypops preferred by everyone, and the teeth-rotting candies occupied the kids’ mouths the whole party. I’ve smarten up over time. Now I make things to suit the sophisticated palates of regular kids, who’ve grown on store-bought cupcakes generously covered with fluorescent frosting screaming: “I’m so artificial!”. The balls were very popular, none had been left. Though, it was not because they resembled these cupcakes mentioned above. They were simple and looked familiar: that’s what had caused the success.

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