the owl and the olive tree

These are cookies my mother makes -- actually, I think she got the recipe out of Victoria magazine, many many years ago -- that I love. They are a perfect balance of rich and sweet and nutty, with the added advantage that they're easy to make, hard to mess up, travel well, and store well (and if you want to freeze them, they last half of forever, with no discernible difference in quality). They taste like caramel and nuts and shortbread, sort of like a hybrid between pecan pie and pralines -- quite a bit less gooey and sweet than pecan pie, but softer than pralines -- with the pecan topping layered on a firm but tender buttery crust. (You can also make them with walnuts, if you prefer, or if your budget stretches more easily to walnuts.) They take about an hour to make, including baking time, and require neither special tools nor special skills. I love them. I make them every year, for myself and to give away.

For those of you who work with me, these are the cookies I brought to the office last week. Actually, I got some very flattering comments about them at the time, including 'best cookies ever!', which I appreciated very much. :D

( Gold Bars )

What should I try for my next bread experiment? (Backstory: I auctioned off twelve months of monthly bread for a charity auction last year. Every month, I make a trial loaf of the bread to make sure it'll come out okay, and then I make a loaf and mail it off.)

The 'base' dough is the "Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day" master recipe, which is an ordinary white yeast bread with mild sourdough character. Since I have, like, five loaves' worth of dough quietly aging in the fridge, I'm not looking to create a new master recipe, so no suggestions that would require a new dough (like, "rye bread" or "whole-wheat bread"), please.



(I've already done cheese bread, garlic bread, and herb bread, as well as an 'ordinary' sourdough loaf, and while I may revisit them, I'm not ready to duplicate yet.)

I need a baking icon.