Cookie monster

I made three kinds of dessert today. Please, dear reader, stave off your disgust. All three recipes are of my own invention, so by making three types of baked good, I'm not being overindulgent. I'm taste-testing! These goods are destined to be fed to a ravenous husband and a coterie of hopefully ravenous quizbowlers, further allowing me to suppress the little voice in my head saying, "Wow, you manatee-sized glutton!" and listen to the one clapping its hands in glee at the prospect of low-grade* culinary innovation.

Here we go:

1. Lemon-basil cookies with Mast Brothers chocolate, inspired by this recipe
3/4 cup sugar
zest of 1 lemon
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1/2 cup softened butter
1 large egg, room temperature
1 3/8 cups flour
1/8 tsp salt
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
8 large leaves basil, chopped
1/2 bar Mast Brothers Madagascar chocolate

Cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the egg, then add the lemon juice, lemon zest, and basil. Add the dry ingredients just until blended. Refrigerate the dough for at least an hour. Preheat the oven to 350 F. To make grin-inducingly huge cookies, use two tablespoons of dough per cookie; to make delicate and elegant cookies, use two teaspoons. Roll dough into balls and flatten them with the bottom of a glass. Bake the large cookies for 12 to 14 minutes and the small ones 8 to 10. Let the cookies cool on the cookie sheet for at least 5 minutes before moving them to a cooling rack. When they're cool, gently melt the chocolate and drizzle it on the cookies. Let the chocolate harden slowly at room temperature.

2. "Breakfast blondies" with cinnamon and maple syrup in the batter and a crunchy cornflake and soy bacon topping

1/2 cup browned butter
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup maple syrup (this is more than my original portion; it wasn't as maple-y as I wanted)
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 strip soy (or other) bacon, cooked and crumbled
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup flour
1/2 cup cornflakes, crushed somewhat

Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and lightly flour an 8x8 pan. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the maple syrup, butter, and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla extract and whisk thoroughly. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt and mix until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly. Sprinkle the crushed cornflakes and crumbled bacon on top and press them in lightly. Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. (I overbaked these just a bit because the forthcoming batch of blondies took longer than I thought they would, so I assumed these would, too. Foolish, foolish Hannah. I'm abashed.) Let cool before cutting.

3. Pistachio saffron blondies

1/2 cup olive oil
1 cup brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp ground saffron (I added more than this, and I think the saffron flavor in the blondies is too intense. Ah, well. It's not embarrassingly bad, at least. I plead beta testing.)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup chopped pistachios
1 cup flour


Preheat oven to 350 F. Butter and lightly flour an 8x8 pan. In a medium-sized bowl, whisk together the olive oil, saffron, and sugar. Add the egg and vanilla extract and whisk thoroughly. Add pistachios, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and mix until just combined. Pour into prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool before cutting.


*It has rare mitotic figures and non-pleomorphic nuclei.