Baked Sunday Mornings: Black & White Cookies

This week’s Baked Sunday Mornings selection is Black and White Cookies.  I had made black and white cookies one time before; I think it was from a David Lebovitz recipe.  My husband remembered that I had made them before and sounded a little surprised that I was attempting them again.  You see, last time the cookies were very delicious, but I got very frustrated with frosting - it was super-runny and the colors blobbed together.   Very disappointing.  Anyway, this time I was careful to make sure the frosting did not get too drippy and took the excellent tip in the book to use a piping bag to make them look nice and neat.

Although the cookies did not turn out quite as perfect as ones that you see in a bakery (and I totally did not notice the instruction to frost the flat side of the cookie), they are about a million times more aesthetically pleasing than my first batch.  And once again, very delicious.  Since it was several years ago, I don’t remember exactly what they tasted like, but I think this recipe is a bit cakier and I like it!  You can find the recipe here and view the other bakers’ links here.

I also made last week’s Sunrise Key Lime Tarts, then somehow my Sunday slipped away from me and I didn’t get around to posting them.  I have made key lime pie many times (it happens to be one of Josh’s more requested treats) and thanks to Cook’s Illustrated, I make a pretty good one.  I was happy to try the Baked version and we loved the pretzel crust – I am plotting more dessert ideas to make with it.  You can find the recipe here.

Baked Sunday Mornings: Aunt Sassy Cake

Did anyone watch Lisa Kudrow’s post “Friends” show, “The Comeback?” I’m assuming not too many people did since it was on HBO and only lasted one season. It was definitely not a binge-watching type of comedy, as it is slightly uncomfortable to watch (I feel the same way about “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “It’s always Sunny in Philadelphia”), but I thought it was pretty funny. Anyway, the premise is a reality show about Lisa Kudrow playing a D-List actress making a comeback on a new televisions series (show within show within show) and her character on that show is the constantly humiliated Aunt Sassy.  I thought of the show when I saw the name of this week’s Baked Sunday Mornings selection, Aunt Sassy Cake.

This lovely white cake is enriched with finely ground pistachios (plus a few chunks) in the batter and frosted with a honey vanilla buttercream. The recipe notes point out that this is not a simple throw-together cake, and I have to say, it did produce an impressive number of dirty dishes (I think any time you have to get the food processor out, the dishwashing time increases). We like big fluffy cakes, though, so it’s well worth it. I have made the “Baked” buttercream a number of times and for some reason, this particular batch was not too impressive in terms of texture. I am not exactly sure where I went wrong, but it was a bit gloppy. Chilling it did help and it tasted great.

Please stop by the Baked Sunday Mornings site to check out the recipe and to see how the rest of the group fared.

Oh, and I haven't posted for several weeks (so I guess this is my comeback) because I hadn't made the selected recipes, but I did make a couple of Baked treats in celebration of Josh's birthday.

I made him Monkey Bubble Bread, which is quite possibly his favorite Baked recipe of all time.

I didn't make him a cake until the following week since we celebrated with his family and his mom made him a chocolate cake, plus there was leftover cake from his office celebration, but when I did it was the Lemon Drop Cake from the first book.   I found a link to the recipe, which has not yet been made by the group.