The Witchery

So, I had a bunch or rapidly browning bananas and a pint of blueberries that were getting near the point of no return. Do I freeze them? Of course not...

( Blueberry Banana Muffins )

Another friend(s), another birthday(s) = one big party = I'm baking again. One of said friends likes white chocolate, so I slightly modified a recipe I used this Christmas. Yum.

( Red, White, and Blue Cinnamon Oatmeal Cookies )

Mom was heading off to vacation yesterday when she asked if I wanted some over-ripe bananas she was about the throw out. "Nah.... I don't really need.... er.... OK", realizing that today was supposed to be pretty damp and dark and perfect for baking. So of course the sun is bright and shining. But I still committed baking.

( Chocolate Chip Banana Nut Muffins )

So, two weeks into the new job and so far so good. Having a steady paycheck again is wonderful. It just about counteracts the horror of the hour plus commute each way.

To celebrate, I decided to make pancakes for Sunday breakfast this morning. This recipe combines my weakness for arcane ingredients and my love for all things carb. It's also gluten free for those who care.

( Chestnut Flour Pancakes )

Another very good source of cookie recipes is the Williams-Sonoma Cookies cookbook. Lots of very fancy, yet remarkably easy recipes can be found here. This one caught my eye because anything with macadamia nuts, coconut, and chocolate will probably turn out wonderful. Any they did.

( Coconut-Macadamia Triangles )

This year's Cook's Illustrated Holiday Baking issue had a lot of really interesting recipes. This one caught my eye, and came out really, really good.

( Chocolate Toffee Butter Cookies )

Truth be told, I'm not a real big white chocolate fan. You couldn't pay me to eat it straight. But every now and again, when mixed in with other things, it works. It really works in this recipe, as it blends seamlessly with the cranberries and cinnamon.

( White Chocolate Chip Cranberry Oatmeal Cookies )

Once again, I hauled out the cookie sheets, bought stuff in bulk at Costco, and began the 2008 12 Cookies of Christmas bake-athon. Not even my furnace dying this afternoon slowed me down (had two different guys come to fix it - first guy was here for two hours and told me he had to order a part to fix it - the second guy showed up three hours later, didn't know the first guy had been here, and ended up fixing the problem by replacing my thermostats - I gave him some cookies).

One of my friends requested old fashion sugar cookies. I, of course, had to make things a tad more complicated.

( Old Fashion Triple Vanilla Sugar Cookies )

Please note: I LOVE eggnog with a fiery passion of ten thousand suns. My mom is a dainty eggnog sipper - I chug the stuff. There's a place in the city that has an eggnog gelato that can turn me into a happy puddle of goo every time. So when a friend asked me to make "something Christmasy" for a holiday party, I immediately thought of an eggnog cheesecake. Damn the caloric intake and full speed ahead.

( Eggnog Cheesecake )

My neighbor with the gluten intolerance was having a gathering tonight so I offered to bake her one of my favorite recipes out of Nigella Lawson's excellent book How to Be a Domestic Goddess. You would never believe in a million years that this cake has no flour in it.

( Chocolate Mousse Cake )