Sunday, November 16, 2008

Black & White Cookies

Yes, I know it's a little odd, but nearly everyone that tried one insisted on calling this type of cookie biracial. But it does bring together two kinds of frosting, creating the New Yorker's Black and White Cookie.
I decided to take pictures to show you how I did it and to make the blog more interesting. I wish I'd done it for the cheesecake (from This Little Piggy-- sans caramel) I made; which, by the way, was very tasty and I don't even LIKE cheesecake. Anyway, the recipe I used was from Smitten Kitchen's website (which is a really sweet website, in more ways than one), and you can find it here.
So, first I mixed the wet stuff together...

Then the dry stuff...

Then all of it together...

Then I baked them...(and switched to my phone camera because the battery on my digital died...these are the duds that I forgot to flatten out but were equally as tasty)

Then I frosted the white side...

Then I frosted the "black" side...

And here is the sort of finished product (I like Smitten Kitchen's photos A LOT better, and hers look so heavenly and perfect!)

Anyway, I made a bunch of them, then the home teachers came over and ate about 5 each, then I took the rest to a party that night and not a single one was left! I only even got to try one, and I thought it was a bit dry, but everybody else loved them. Everyone, that is, except for Justina and Kevin, who felt very cheated at not being able to try a single one and who I made sure had plenty of the next kind of cookie I made (World Peace Cookies-- also from Smitten Kitchen and a thousand times tastier and more fun...you should definitely make them.)
But the Black and White Cookies were a big hit too. They just took about 5 million years to make.

Monday, November 3, 2008

Beware of the Man of One Book

I have commitment issues. I can't just read one book at a time. And I don't mean that I have to have a "normal" book to read as the same time as, say, my scriptures, which I read all the time anyway.
Right now I have a bookmark in:

1. As God Is, We May Become by Steven Colwell
~I haven't actually picked it up since the first chapter, which I read back in April, but the fact that I've made it that far qualifies it for the list.

2. The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
~I made it to chapter seven in this one, but I needed a break from it. I was watching a lot of Law and Order: SVU at the same time and all the crime got a little overwhelming. I guess I should have retreated to As God Is, but instead I picked up...

3. Bella Tuscany by Frances Mayes
~The sequel to Under the Tuscan Sun, which, although is nothing like the movie I simply adore, is a very good book, one that makes me want to own an ancient Tuscan villa. Bella Tuscany is just as good so far. The chapters are rather long, so I'm only on the third or fourth. It's my feel-good book, so I probably won't race through it.

4. All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot
~Did you know James' real last name is Wight? I like Herriot much better. I've read this 5-book series only once, but re-read parts of it a number of times. Since I like it so much and it's so easy to read, I figured this afternoon I'd read the series again. I have yet to start it, but it's open to page one on the couch for me to read right after (or during-- though that would make my mother cringe) dinner.

5. Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle
~I really despise this book. We're reading it in my Greek Lit class right now. It's so painfully boring I got sleepy just reading the table of contents.

By the way, Peter Jackson is making a film version of The Lovely Bones, due out this coming January. It's rated R, but it has Rachel Weisz as the girl's mother. Mark Wahlberg plays the dad. It should be interesting. I'll watch it on TV a few years from now when I finish the book.