Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Cream butter, tahini, and sugars.
2. Add eggs and vanilla. Beat until well combined.
3. In a separate bowl, stir together flours, baking soda and salt.
4. Gather your garnishes—chocolate chips, raisins, coconut, seeds or nuts, and millet—in yet another bowl.
5. Stir flour mixture into butter mixture. Don’t overdo it.
6. Now add chocolate chips and all of the other fun stuff. Stir until evenly distributed.
7. Wrap dough in plastic and refrigerate at least one hour. Can be frozen for longer-term storage.
8. Preheat oven to 350ºF. Place rack in the upper-middle position. I prefer to bake cookies one sheet at a time—that’s just what works best in my oven.
9. Form dough into just-larger-than-tablespoon spheres.
10. Bake until golden all over. Cool five to ten minutes on wire rack before munching.

Ingredients:

Procedure:

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF.
2. In a standing electric mixer using the paddle attachment, whip oil and sugar together.
3. Gradually add eggs and extract. Beat well.
4. Combine cocoa powder, flour, salt, and baking powder and stir into wet mixture.
5. Divide dough and place onto prepared baking sheet.
6. With wet hands, form into log shapes about 2 inches wide and nearly as long as the pan.
7. Bake until golden, about 35 minutes. The color of the biscotti makes “golden” a bit difficult to determine, so look for firm edges and a split top.
8. Remove from oven and allow to cool.
9. Preheat oven to 250ºF.
10. Slice on a bias, about 1½ inches thick.
11. Lay the cookies flat on baking sheet and return to oven.
12. Bake for 40 minutes, turn oven off, and let cookies cool inside the falling oven.
13. Store in air-tight container.

Happy Dunking!

I can’t take much credit for this one. For starters, the whole thing was the Squeeze’s idea. I found the cookie recipe at The Joy of Baking and didn’t change it a bit, and the ice cream is a simple adaptation of my friend Bob Hopkins’ vanilla ice cream formula. When you make them, however, I suggest that you keep all the glory for yourself.

You’ll want to start on the ice cream three days ahead of when you plan on eating these beauties.

Mint Ice Cream

1. Scald milk and add mint leaves. Let steep five minutes.
2. Add half of the cream.
3. Bring mixture to a simmer. Do not allow to boil.
4. In a separate bowl, beat sugar into egg yolks until mixture is very smooth and light yellow in color.
5. Slowly whisk simmering milk mixture into egg mixture.
6. Return to heat and cook until thickened.
7. Remove from heat, add remaining cream, and pass through a strainer to remove mint leaves and any cooked bits of egg.
8. Chill overnight.
9. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.
10. Freeze churned ice cream over night again before making sandwiches.

Chocolate Sandwich Cookies

1. Preheat oven to 350ºF and prepare two baking pans.
2. Cream butter and sugars until fluffy and light.
3. Beat in vanilla and egg. Scrape down beater and sides of the bowl.
4. In a separate bowl, whisk together cocoa powder, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
5. Stir in dry ingredients and mix until thoroughly combined.
6. Fold in chocolate chips.
7. Drop teaspoonsful of batter onto prepared baking sheets.
8. Bake on center oven rack 8 – 10 minutes, or until the centers of the cookies are still soft, but the edges are well set.
9. Cool on the baking sheet for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to finish cooling.

Assembling Sandwiches

1. Scoop out an ice cream puck roughly the same diameter as your cookies, and as thick as you please.
2. Place ice cream puck between cookie bottoms and smush the sandwich gently between your palms.
3. Return sandwiches to the freezer for a minimum of 20 minutes before serving.
4. If making well in advance, wrap individual sandwiches in plastic wrap before re-freezing.

    
Inspired by a certain shortbread cookie at a certain local bakery, I have been adding peanuts to just about everything lately. Behold, a very simple, chocolatey brownie, dressed up with the unlikely but delicious peanut. Above, mine are looking a tad underdone, but no less tasty.

Make the cashew milk:

• Soak (overnight) 1 cup of toasted, salted cashews in 1 quart of water.
• Blend nuts and water and strain through cheesecloth.
• Consider adding honey, sugar, and/or salt.

Then:

• Buy Dagoba’s Xocolatl drinking chocolate. Inspired by the Aztec’s hot chocolate recipe, it boasts not only a fine chocolate flavor, but cinnamon and chilies as well.
• Mix according to instructions or your own good sense. Making hot cocoa from a powder is pretty hard to mess up, eh?

I will make the following suggestion, however:
Mix the powder and the milk before heating it – add just a tiny bit of milk at first: it’s easier to avoid lumps and chunks that way – and then slowly bring it to a simmer on the stove. Let the cocoa reduce for a few minutes (that’s evaporating some of the water out of the cashew milk). This makes for a thicker drink with more concentrated flavor.

Spirits, I imagine, would be a tasty addition as well.

Cheers!