Homemade Cronuts - Happy Chanuka!

Unless you've been living under a rock this past year, you'll know that the biggest craze in pastry these past few months has been the "cronut." The what? A cross between a croissant and a doughnut, it all started at a bakery in New York and has since inspired a million copycats, an underground market but sadly, very few Halloween costumes. Now, a food this indulgent isn't something I can really justify eating, except for once a year: Chanuka (aka Hanukkah, Chanukah and Hanukka) - the festival of lights (and fried foods).

I did it. I made schmaltz cookies!

Well this place sure looks familiar. I know, I know, I used to be around here alot more often, but, well, time got away from me. And while I can't make any promises for the future, I certainly do miss blogging and will do my best to be a more regular presence. But anyway - back to the topic at hand. I made schmaltz cookies. Schmaltz oatmeal cookies, to be precise. Now pick your jaw up off the floor and keep reading. 

Banana Chocolate Muffins

I have no problem with bananas. Fresh bananas, that is. But turn them into ice cream, muffins, bread, cake or cookies and I won't go near them. The problem is, that in my exceptionally warm apartment, any fresh bananas I buy turn from ripe to way past ripe in less than 24 hours. And when faced with overripe bananas... well baking is usually the way to go. So I thought, how do I mask the bananas as much as possible? With chocolate!

Five-ingredient peanut butter and chocolate cookies

Sometimes I come across a recipe so simple and so easy that I can't understand why I haven't made it before. This is the case with these cookies. Five ingredients, naturally gluten free, no special techniques or tools needed, and totally delicious and cute looking. What was I waiting for?

What I've been cooking

It's hard to deny that posting has been a little sparse around my corner of the Internet these days. I've been cooking and baking - and I've even been blogging, just over at The Nosh Pit, my weekly column for The Jewish Week.
It's a bit hard to maintain two food blogs at one time (plus a full-time job), and paid wins out over unpaid anyday. But check out what I've been cooking and baking for the past few months. Here are some of my favorites recently - and I hope to be back with some original baking and mistakings soon.

1. Buttery Garlic Knots

2. French Pear-Almond Tart

  3. Crispy Baked Zucchini Fries

 

 4. Homemade Potato Gnocchi

And so much more!

Almond Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies

I don't know about you, but I only seem to have time to breath once Passover has already begun. Before hand is a whirlwhind of cleaning and shopping (and for most people cooking and for me a wedding, a bar mitzva and a new baby in the family). But once the holiday starts, most people have more time to think about trying out new recipes, or, you know, blogging.

Hamantaschen galore!

Hey bakers and mistakers! Long time no blog. But never fear, I've still been making tons of messes in the kitchen. Before I get back into the real swing of things, I'm here to share with you some weird and exciting varieties of the hamantaschen cookie for the Jewish holiday of Purim (which is on Sunday!)

This year I set my sights on creating a delicious caramel apple hamantaschen - and succeeded!

 Check out that recipe over at my other blog, The Nosh Pit!

From years past, I made these awesome chocolate, coconut raspberry hamantaschen...

These cool lemon-lime hamantaschen... 

And of course the ultimate classic pairing - chocolate and peanut butter hamantaschen.

And in case you missed it, which should have been hard with my bragging, Buzzfeed picked up not one but two of my hamantaschen in their feature: 32 crazy hamantaschen flavors for Purim! I'm famous!
Have a happy holiday!

Chocolate Dinosaur Brownie Cookies

OK, yours don't have to be dinosaur shaped. But that's what really made them for me. It's been a long time since I've made roll and cut cookies, probably because they're more work than drop cookies and I'm lazy. But they're also more fun than drop or bar cookies, and when my roommate brought me a set of dinosaur and farm animal cookie cutters, and then I came across this recipe for brownie roll out cookies in my new Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, I knew it was meant to be.