These coffee cookies are truly the best! They are crispy on the edges, chewy in the middle, and flavored with a hint of cinnamon, cardamom, and vanilla. If you’re a coffee person, you need to make these ASAP!
Chewy Coffee Cookies
Tag: baking
Eggnog Cookies with Boozy Glaze
Tender, buttery shortbread eggnog cookies with a boozy eggnog glaze. Simple and gorgeous, these cookies are one of my new holiday favorites!
Apple Cider Whoopie Pies with Salted Caramel Frosting
Spiced apple cider whoopie pies with cinnamon, brown sugar, vanilla, and a creamy salted caramel frosting. The only treat you need for sweater-wearing, leaf-falling, chilly autumn days.
Birthday Cake Donuts with Vanilla Glaze
Baked birthday cake donuts with vanilla, sprinkles, and a simple glaze! Perfectly rich, delicious, and simple to make, these donuts are a unique twist on the traditional birthday cake. 🎉
Blueberry Galette with Hazelnut Frangipane
A summery blueberry galette with a tender, buttery crust, lemony blueberry filling, and homemade hazelnut frangipane. This is one of my favorite ways to use up fresh, gorgeous berries!
Chocolate Stout Cake + Irish Cream Cheese Frosting
A rich and fudge-y one-bowl chocolate stout cake topped with an Irish cream cheese frosting. This cake is super chocolatey and a little boozy thanks to the beer and Irish cream!
Apple Butter Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Butter Frosting
Apple butter cinnamon rolls are doughy, simple to make, and topped with the most perfect brown butter frosting! These are one of my all-time favorite desserts for autumn.
Norwegian Lefse
I originally posted a recipe for lefse in 2015, but I decided to update my post this year with my great-grandma’s recipe! It’s 100% the best Norwegian lefse I have ever had. Also, you may notice some older pictures mixed in with the new ones. On one hand, I really wanted some new, pretty pictures of my lefse. but on the other hand, I love the old photos of my brother and I making it together. Enjoy the rare blonde-college-era Sara pics 😉
Vanilla + Cardamom Scones with Strawberry Curd
Yesterday, we had a rare March day with wonderful weather, and it was also the first day in three weeks that I haven’t felt like utter garbage. I am currently in the midst of the longest sinus infection of my life, but even so, it could not ruin my spirits prompted by warm weather. And by warm, I mean 45* F. But, still… the sun was out for a change! I had planned on spending the day cleaning my house after looking around and realizing that it looks like my closet threw up my entire shoe collection and I have a very impressive herd of dust bunnies breeding in my hallway. But life is short, and sunny, windless Sundays are rare in March, so I forced myself to put on pants and get out of the house. I got a coffee and took Bell to run around the dog park, and it wasn’t even muddy! It was freezing, but every once in a while, the clouds would clear for a minute, and the sun would warm everything up. The air smelled so good. I always forget how lovely early spring is until it comes back around again.
Other than toughing it through the freezing-warm weather for as long as I possibly could, I spent the whole day cooking up some new recipes. I love all the produce that’s out right now, and I’m taking advantage of it for as long as I can. It inspired me to make some roast chicken with lots of potatoes and fresh herbs and then watch Julie & Julia, because what else would you watch when food is inspiring you?
Another one of my spring favorites in the produce section is all of the fresh strawberries! Strawberry shortcake has always been a very Easter-y dessert in my family. We make our strawberry shortcake with biscuits instead of angel food cake, and I am convinced it’s the only way to even eat strawberry shortcake. Also, you have to absolutely drench it in whipped cream, it’s a rule.
Like I was talking about last week, I’m trying to take advantage of my very short weekends by getting up earlier and brunching more. Without some sort of goal, I have the tendency to sleep in and then lay in bed on my phone scrolling through embroidery instagrams for three hours. SO, instead of scrolling, I’m sconing. And eggs-benedicting. And waffling. If it’s brunchy, I want something to do with it.
But I digress. This is about scones. And strawberries. And mixing it all together to create some sort of strawberry-shortcake inspired scone. And also adding cardamom, because cardamom + strawberries = lalalala one of the best combos ever!! Why didn’t I do this earlier, it’s such a good idea? Cardamom is fairly expensive, but a tiny bit goes a long way, so you’ll definitely notice a little hint of it in these scones. The strawberry curd is a little extra step, but if you don’t want to go that far, you could always just serve these with jam or chop up some fresh strawberries to throw on top! These are perfect for Easter brunch, especially because they can be made a day in advance! Aaaaand they are best served with lots of fresh coffee, obviously.
Vanilla + Cardamom Scones with Strawberry Curd
Serves 8-16
Ingredients
3 c. flour
1/3 c. sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. ground cardamom
1 1/2 sticks butter, cut in 1/2 in. cubes
1 egg, whisked
3/4 c. buttermilk
1/2 c. whipping cream + more for brushing
2 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract, divided
1/4 c. powdered sugar
1 Tbs. milk or cream
Preheat oven to 375* F. In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cardamom. Toss very cold butter in the flour. Using your hands, work quickly to break the butter into the flour until it is pea-sized. You may have some larger, flatter pieces.
Make a well in the center. Add the egg, buttermilk, cream, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla. Mix until just incorporated. The dough will be sticky.
Turn dough onto a floured surface. Press into a 1-inch disk. Cut into 8 sections. Alternatively, for smaller scones, you could press it into two 1/2 in. disks and cut each of those into 8 sections. Space on a baking sheet 2 inches apart. Brush each scone with cream. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, or until lightly browned. Remove from oven and let cool.
Meanwhile, whisk the powdered sugar, 1 Tbs. of milk, and 1/4 tsp. of vanilla extract until smooth. Drizzle over scones. Serve with curd (recipe below).
Strawberry Curd
1 lb. strawberries, finely chopped
Zest + juice of 1 lemon
1/4 c. sugar
3 eggs
1 Tbs. corn starch + 2 Tbs. water whisked
6 Tbs. butter
Combine strawberries, zest, lemon juice, sugar, and eggs in a saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about 5 minutes, or until bubbling. Add the cornstarch slurry and stir until mixture thickens.
Remove from heat. Whisk in the butter. Cool curd and serve with scones + whipped cream.
xo Sara Lynn
*Song of the day: Let it Happen by Tame Impala
Black Sesame + Blood Orange Pound Cake
I have this new hobby now where I come home on Friday night and immediately start baking. Gone are my college days where Fridays meant getting excited about actually going out in public. Now, I just want to make some brownies, eat Chinese takeout, and try to stay awake until 11 p.m. While I can firmly say I would not trade working full-time for studying until midnight or being the only participant on “team projects” anymore, I also 10/10 understand why adults don’t do things. At best, I can mentally prepare myself to go out on a Saturday night after a proper day of sleeping in and lounging around the house. On the other hand, I have extreme FOMO, so if you offer something really tempting, I’ll probably down a few cups of coffee and make myself socialize. But only if I can bring my dog.
One of the most stressful things of late has been deciding what I actually want to bake on these Friday nights, because if you see my “Recipes to Try” list, it’s as long as the Game of Thrones books. Granted, not all of it is baked goods, some are cocktails which actually would be the perfect for Friday-night recipe developing, and a lot are rando health-foods that are not acceptable for Fridays. But the baked goods list is long and arduous, and when I have to spend three weekends developing a cake, I get sad 🙁 Mostly because it means I have nothing to share for a weekend, but also because it means no cake for that weekend!
For example, this cake took me three fing times to figure out. THREE. And ok, I know that’s typical, if not modest, in recipe development world, but I’ve made cakes similar to this formula literally hundreds of times, so for it to not work three different times was appalling. As a person who considers herself an experienced baker, I was fairly offended about screwing up such a simple cake and felt like I had to prove myself worthy to baked goods. And although my salty-af first attempt inspired me to write a fairly impressive Vday-inspired caption, I also just really wanted this cake to work out some way or another, because black sesame + blood orange = 😍
In a perfect world, this cake would have been ready in time for Vday, because I don’t think it’s a coincidence that blood orange season is right around Valentine’s Day. That’s just way too damn convenient. However, I’m kind of fine that it didn’t end up working out that way, because the first batch of blood oranges I bought for this recipe were so-so, and the last batch I bought were unreeeeaaaaaal. They were the most beautiful color, and their frangrance made my whole kitchen smell like it had just been professionally cleaned, although I can guarantee that wasn’t the case. I think blood oranges are so underappreciated, because like, besides their ruby-red hue, they are so sweet and floral. Maybe we should be adding lavender to this cake instead of sesame?
However, I really liked how the sweetness of the blood oranges meshed with the earthiness of the sesame seeds. This color combo is perfection, and I liked the polka-dot look of the cake itself. I’m putting black sesames on everything from now on thankyouverymuch.
A few notes about this recipe before we get into things:
- Citrus is already somewhat salty, so it’s important to be stingy with the salt. My first two attempts at this cake were soooo salty (for various reasons, but still).
- Whip the butter, sugar, and eggs for much longer than you believe to be necessary.
- Definitely don’t over-bake this cake. Since it’s pound cake, it doesn’t use moisturizers like oil, so it’ll get dry if you wait too long.
- Use aluminum-free baking powder, or the metallic taste will be very present in this recipe.
- Use a higher-quality powdered sugar for the glaze. Since the glaze is almost exclusively powdered sugar, you will notice any chalky tastes and textures found in cheaper versions.
- Oh, and one more thing! These do great baked in mini loaf pans, but make sure to butter the bejeezus out of the pan, or they will come out as little hot messes like mine did (see below). However, if yours do come out that way, trash them up with extra glaze and maybe a little sprinkles, and you’ll be A-ok. I highly recommend this method, because baking mini loaf cakes means extras for the freezer, and they are the best way to eat cake for breakfast in a socially acceptable way!! #science
Black Sesame + Blood Orange Pound Cake
Serves 12
Ingredients for the cake
1 c. butter
1 1/2 c. sugar
4 eggs, room temperature
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp. blood orange zest
3 c. flour, sifted
1/4 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking powder
1 c. milk
2 Tbs. black sesame seeds
In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, and baking powder. Set aside. Heat oven to 350* F.
Meanwhile, cream butter and sugar until it’s very incorporated, about 5 minutes. Add the eggs one at a time, mixing thoroughly until the butter mixture is very light and fluffy, about another 5 minutes. Add the vanilla extract and blood orange zest.
Stir in half of the flour and half of the milk until just mixed. Repeat with remaining flour mixture and milk. Stir in the black sesame seeds.
Pour batter into a buttered and floured bundt cake pan. Bake for about 16-20 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out with a few crumbs attached. Flip it onto a cooling rack and let it cool before glazing.
Ingredients for glaze
2 c. powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 c. blood orange juice
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
Milk, as needed
In a small bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, blood orange juice, and vanilla extract. Mix in milk 1 Tablespoon at a time until you reach your desired consistency. If the glaze gets too thin, add more powdered sugar a couple Tablespoons at a time.
Pour glaze over cake. Sprinkle with black sesame seeds!
xo Sara Lynn
*Song of the day: Become the Warm Jets by Current Joys
