Double chocolate peanut butter cookies and being short

Back in my school days, I hated being short – I had all sorts of nicknames, and not many were cute as Smurfette (I believe that was the only one I liked). At 34 I no longer care and funnily enough I have developed a taste for mini food – humans are strange beings, I know. :D

A jar of peanut butter in the cupboard and a Donna Hay magazine with several pb recipes (which had already produced

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Stracciatella snickerdoodles

Last weekend, as I was baking these cookies and their wonderful smell took over my apartment, I thought that they deserved a fun name – I wasn’t a fan of the original (car-co-doodles), plus it would mean nothing to my Brazilian readers. The freckled dough in the bowl looked like the milk chocolate stracciatella ice cream I made a while ago and that was when I decided to call the cookies

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Black forest cookies

Years ago, when I started using American recipes in my kitchen, one thing I really wanted to try making was chocolate chip cookies: they're not part of our food culture and there were two store-bought versions - one was nice, but very expensive, and the more affordable one was on the dry side. Now that I have made my share of chocolate chip cookies with great success - they're infinitely better

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Chocolate chip brownie double-deckers

Being someone who always has trouble choosing what to prepare, these double deckers were the perfect solution to my baking conundrum: two different layers, two delicious baked goods in one. To make things even better, the recipe is easy to put together and yields a lot, being great for sharing – they disappeared from the office quite fast the other day... :)

The recipe comes from a cookbook I

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Really good one-bowl chocolate chip pecan cookies - dead easy to make

I’ve been searching for inspiration for Christmas recipes – my plans are to make a series of recipes like last year’s – and a good place to start is Martha’s website; there are so many wonderful ideas there, everything’s so beautiful that the difficult part of it is choosing what to bake.

Going through some of her cookie recipes for the holidays I remembered that I hadn’t posted these

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Chocolate chip cookie cake + classics, destroyed or revamped

One of my all time favorite songs is New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle”; my reaction to Frente!’s version for the song was sort of like “Stop! Stop! You’re ruining a classic!” – as much as I hate to admit it I can be pretty conservative sometimes. If you’re going to revamp with a classic, do it right, ok? Go ask Fine Young Cannibals for advice or something. :)

Unlike Frente!, Flo Braker has

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Pecan-coconut bread pudding - new things can be really good

I usually choose the movies I watch by director: some I love, others I avoid like the plague. If I know nothing about the director I try to find other good reasons to watch the movie (yes, I am sort of neurotic about my movie choices, bear with me). :)
Take Marc Webb, for instance: I had never heard of him until I saw the trailer for "500 Days Of Summer"; then I thought: the trailer was

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Chocolate chip peanut cookies

When I was a kid my favorite chocolate bar was one studded with peanuts – my dad would bring one from work from time to time and mom would only let me eat it after dinner (of course), when I would sit on the couch and read comic books till bed time.

Biting into one of these cookies made me instantly think of those chocolate bars – the difference was that this time I was reading a graphic novel

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Double chocolate chip cookies - from skinny cooks to skinny cookies

A while ago I was talking to Fezoca (via Twitter) about Gwyneth Paltrow’s cookbook – I have to say I wasn’t (and still am not) all that excited about it. I think she’s a beautiful woman, can sing really well, but would never make it to my list of favorite actresses – I find her really limited as far as acting is concerned. Anyway, that has nothing to do with the cookbook thing – what doesn’t

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Flourless peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies

Flour – an ingredient always present in my pantry, essential for someone who loves baking like I do. But sometimes we can go on perfectly well without it and it’s not necessary at all – like Renée Zellweger in “Cold Mountain”. :)

My peanut butter cookie recipe hunt started with this amazing book, but I was really after a flourless version, which I found on Epicurious.
The cookies turned out

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Cinnamon choc chip swirl bread

After cookies and cakes, Susan and I decided it was time to play around with yeast – we both wanted to bake from John Barricelli’s beautiful book and the cinnamon swirl bread caught our eyes (and our stomachs). :)

The bread is tender and delicious; the dough is easy to work with – not sticky! – but my idea of using chocolate chips instead of raisins turned out to be less than genius: I used

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Chocolate chip bread pudding

My sister made me watch the awful “Season of the Witch” – I have to say that putting up with Nicolas Cage for 1 ½ hours is huge proof of my love for her. :)
When the movie was over and Dominic Sena’s name appeared on the screen it all made sense to me – a bad director could not deliver a good movie. :)

On the other hand, I always expect great recipes from Nigella – and this bread pudding is no

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Christmas cookies

This blog could not have a Christmas series without cookies, right? ;)

These were absolutely delicious and made me feel bad for not liking hazelnuts – the nuts were wonderful combined with the chocolate, the candied orange peel and the spices.



Christmas cookies
from Australian Gourmet Traveller

½ cup (1 stick/113g) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup (175g) brown sugar, packed
¼ teaspoon salt

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Chock-full of chocolate chip cookies

Yes, people, chocolate chips again – the person behind this blog has serious problems trying to control herself sometimes, and that can result in the purchase of a 2.5kg (over 5oz) bag of chocolate chips. So get ready to see loads of chips around here (luckily the chocolate is excellent and I can melt it to make brownies and such). :)

Speaking of control – or the lack of it – buying a huge bag

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