food.deletia

My Gemaw (that’s grandmother to you) makes these. When I was in college, she sent them to me in care packages, and my dorm neighbors would annihilate them. Friends who spotted me carrying a just-so sized box across campus would follow me home. Gemaw’s Lemon Whippersnappers are very lemony, very sweet, and have a lovely chewy texture. They’re also a gorgeous texture. I called her for the recipe, to use as one of the cookies I brought to a cookie exchange.

Now, if you head out to the wonderful world of the internet, you’re going to find other cookies called Lemon Whippersnappers that use Cool-Whip and cake mix. Those are not the Gemaw cookies. The right recipe includes two crucial changes, plus some essential advice.
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This is my second batch of caramel nut bars. The first was destined for a cookie exchange, but proved so dangerously addictive that I had to take them to work. I only did this round after getting some friends to agree to store them for the week between now and the exchange. They freeze beautifully.

The recipe may seem a little long and fiddly, especially since few people bother with their own caramel. Don’t bother buying premade caramels, making the candy center is simple and satisfying. With a very few pedestrian ingredients, you end up with something divine. The recipe calls for a lot of butter–2 and a half sticks. You might notice my use of fat-free sweetened condensed milk. In light of all of the butter, this may seem like the calorie management equivalent of tilting at windmills. In reality, it’s just what I had in the back of my cabinet.

Mine are based on the Sara Perry recipe, with just a few changes in addition to that accidental condensed milk substitution. I used more than 35 saltines as the base. I just basically kept going until the pan was filled wall to wall. I went ahead and just crushed and crumbled broken crackers along the two sides where there were large gaps. Breaking saltines into precise halves wasn’t worth the trouble.

My third change was using hazelnuts instead of cashews. Basically, if there’s a nut you like, it will work with this recipe.
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Just over a year ago, Mark Bittman published the recipe for Sullivan Street bread in the New York Times. It’s basic, slow rise white bread made from a messy, unkneaded dough, though it’s easy enough to vary. I haven’t made any other basic bread since, just brief forays into pizza, naan, and non-yeasted breads. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve memorized the proportions, though I do check on them every now and then, just to keep myself honest.

I made four loaves this weekend. This bread the lynchpin of my Thanksgiving plans this year: dressing, bread pudding, and table bread.

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I’ve been baking a lot of bread lately, but all of it has been 50%-100% whole-wheat bread, using the famous Sullivan NYT recipe. Preparing this naan from a Madhur Jaffrey recipe reminded me of the fun of working dough by hand–and the decadence of white bread prepared with dairy.

I baked my naan on the bottom of an upside-down cast iron skillet, and many of my naan featured the Lodge logo as a result. It occured to me well after the fact that I ran the risk of singing myself directly on my oven broiler. Luckily, I didn’t.

It will be a while before I do this again. The steps and attention to each bread were well worthwhile, but I scarfed all six naan within 2 days by myself. Next time round, though, I shall try dividing the dough into eight or twelve pieces and rolling it slightly thinner.

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You are looking at one of my favorite breakfasts. It’s also a favorite cozy evening in with a good pal item. It’s an oven pancake. I call them Dutch babies. Other folks may call them German pancakes, puffy pancakes, or pannekoeken.

They’re relatively fast, require little attention, and can be made from staples: milk, butter or oil, flour, and egg. I rarely have fresh milk in the house, which works to my advantage in this case, because they come together quite well with nonfat dry milk.

Folks claim that you can dress them savory, but I’m in a rut of sweet.The traditional topping is a squeeze of lemon juice and a sprinkle of powdered sugar. I eat mine with a smear of lemon curd and some berries (thawed from frozen) if I have them.

My preparation is below. Contrary to standard baking advice, I’m a sloppy measurer; my babies end up just fine.

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