“The chocolate chip cookie is more American than apple pie.” – Wally Amos

What better way to wrap up Cookie Week than with the story of one of the most famous cookie bakers? Wally Amos is known for inventing Famous Amos cookies, but do you know his story? Read on and find out.

Wally Amos is famous for his cookies, but his real claim to fame was promotion. Wally was raised in Tallahassee Florida but moved at age twelve to New York City to live with his Aunt Della, who made the best chocolate chip cookies he had ever tasted. Wally told me he’s not sure what recipe she used, but suspects it was the Toll House recipe, and, as he says, “all chocolate cookies trace back to the mother recipe.” Wally started out attending a food science high school. He later joined the Air Force and went to school on the GI bill, working at the Saks stock room to stay afloat. From there, he made the jump to working in the William Morris Agency mailroom and eventually worked his way up to becoming their first black agent. He signed Simon and Garfunkel and worked with the Supremes and Marvin Gaye. Wally became a big shot in the world of show business. He eventually left William Morris and opened his own agency.

Wally’s trademark had long been chocolate chip cookies. He made his own, similar to his Aunt Della’s and brought them to people as gifts. I asked Wally how his cookies were different than Della’s. “I used more chocolate and more nuts and pure vanilla extract.” Wally had often thought of selling his cookies, when an investment by Marvin Gaye and Helen Reddy made it possible.

The Celebrity Cookie

Wally didn’t just open a cookie shop, though. Wally took on the cookie as a celebrity client and promoted it as such. He wrote a biography for it and had a head shot taken. As far as Wally was concerned, the cookie deserved celebrity status. It’s no surprise that on March 10, 1975 when Wally opened The Famous Amos Chocolate Chip Cookie Store on Sunset Boulevard and Formosa Avenue in LA that it was a big hit. Wally had hosted an opening party the night before for 2500 guests, many of them celebrities. The business earned $300,000 that year and had $12 million in revenue by 1982.

Wally worked hard to get gigs for the cookie. When he met with Bloomingdale’s to discuss having them carry the cookies, he showed up in a jump suit with a giant cookie on the back. Bloomingdale’s signed on and the press conference announcing the deal included a Famous Amos cookie placed on a satin pillow (like a precious jewel) in front of the Bloomie’s boardroom. The cookie later was carried by Neiman-Marcus – when that deal happened, Wally drove in on an armored truck with the cookies.

Wally adopted a Panama hat and gauze embroidered shirt as his official uniform and it appeared on the cookie packaging. In 1980, the Smithsonian accepted the hat and shirt into its American History collection.

 

The Cookie Philosophy

Wally told me that the secret to making a good cookie “is that there is no secret.” Everyone has their own secret he believes. Wally did reveal to me what the most important part of the cookie making process is. “I talk to my cookies. I tell them they have a great responsibility. They need to taste good. I tell ‘em I love ‘em.” He feels that talking to cookies improves their taste in the same way that talking to plants helps them grow better.

 

Tough Times

Wally’s initial success was short-lived. By 1985, revenue was down and the company lost money.  He lost his home. The company was sold to the Shansby Group and Wally remained as spokesperson for a year. After several sales, the company is now owned by Kellogg.

Wally tried to continue selling cookies as Wally Amos Presents, but Keebler sued, so he used the name Uncle NoName. He filed for bankruptcy in 1997. Soon after though, Keebler hired him to be the spokesperson for the brand again and cut a deal that allowed him to sell muffins on his own. Famous Amos is now owned by Kellogg’s and Wally is honest about his feelings about the cookies they sell under his name. “Kellogg’s is selling a brand. They’re selling a bag. You cannot eat the bag. What’s inside the bag is what matters and what they sell is not my cookie. What Kellogg’s is selling is not a cookie. It is a disgrace to cookies.”

 

Rebirth of Wally

Wally went on to own Chip & Cookie, a two-location cookie store in Hawaii, which sold a variety of chocolate chip cookies as well as their signature cookie dolls, but subsequently closed. Wally has a line of books and does motivational speaking and had a cameo on the TV show, The Office in 2012, as himself. Wally is just as passionate about his cookies today as he was when he first began selling them. “All of my cookies are made by hand. A human being touching a cookie makes a big difference.” His Chip & Cookie cookies were made with his original recipe, the one that made him famous, which he proudly told me was 33% chocolate. “To make a good cookie, you need the best ingredients and lots of them.”

Wally has many stories to tell – of people who tasted his cookies twenty-five years ago in Hawaii and who upon their return made his shop their first stop. He also proudly talks of people who came into his shop as children and then brought their own children in. “I am part of the cookie and the cookie is part of me,” he says. “I really love what I do.” The day I talked to him he had just gone for out-patient cataract surgery that morning. When he went to the surgery building, he brought bags of cookies for everyone who was working there that day.

Although Famous Amos cookies are now just another brand on the store shelves, Wally’s legacy remains. “You can’t name anyone more associated with chocolate chip cookies than me,” he points out. He was the one of the first true food personalities (only Colonel Sanders and Julia Child predate him) – to be followed by people like Emeril and Rachel Ray. Wally’s success with cookies may have paved the way for Mrs. Fields as well. Wally believes that Ruth Wakefield is famous because of him. He says that until he became famous, Nestle never credited her. It was only after Wally became a household name that Nestle made Ruth Wakefield a prominent part of their history. Wally regrets never having a chance to meet her. “It would have been like going to Mecca.”

If you enjoyed this tidbit, there are plenty more stories of famous cookie bakers (Ruth Wakefield who invented the Tollhouse Cookie, Margaret Rudkin the woman behind Pepperidge Farms cookies, and Debbie Fields who created the Mrs. Fields empire (and lost her husband in the process) in Cookie: A Love Story.

“The chocolate chip cookie is more American than apple pie.” – Wally Amos What better way to wrap up Cookie Week than with the story of one of the most famous cookie bakers? Wally Amos is known for inventing Famous Amos cookies, but do you know his story? Read on and find out. Wally Amos … Read more →

This is day four in my week long series sharing some of the fun and intriguing info in my book Cookie: A Love Story. Today we’re talking about state cookies!

Your state has a state flower, state bird, state motto, state flag, state song, state poet, state fruit, state vegetable, and even in some states, a state meat pie and a state jelly, so why not a state cookie? Only two states have actually legislated an official state cookie, though:

Massachusetts: Chocolate Chip, adopted in 1997 (despite state Rep. Kay Khan who said “The tollhouse is a crummy alternative to the Fig Newton.”)

New Mexico: Biscochito (an anise flavored shortbread), adopted in 1989

Other states have tried to enact official cookies, but legislation has hit some snafus. It can be hard to agree as to which cookie really represents an entire state, not to mention the fact that taxpayers may believe there are more important issues to legislate. Some of the legislation has been initiated because school children proposed it as part of school projects focusing on government process.

There was a bill in Pennsylvania in 2003 seeking to name the chocolate chip cookie as its state cookie, but some legislators felt the Nazareth sugar cookie (a local specialty) was the right choice.

Michigan had a bill pending in 2004 naming the Michigan Treasure Cookie (a chocolate cookie with chocolate chips and dried cherries – the cherry is the state fruit) as its state cookie. That also did not pass. Maryland tried to pass a bill naming the apple-oatmeal cookie as their state cookie with no success. A 2006 Connecticut state movement to name the oatmeal chocolate drop cookie made with nutmeg (Connecticut is “the Nutmeg State”), conceived by an elementary class, petered out and was not placed before the legislature for a vote. Wyoming had a bill introduced in 2003 to name a state cookie – the chocolate chip cookie. The bill actually included the recipe for the state chocolate chip cookie. It did not pass because legislators could not agree and some felt that adding another state symbol simply diluted Wyoming’s image.

There is a petition in progress to seek to make the chocolate chunk cookie the state cookie of Delaware. So far there has been no legislative action. Would you like to have a state cookie? What would you choose for your state?

Michigan’s Unofficial State Treasure Cookie

Makes about three dozen cookies

– 1 ¾ cups of all purpose flour

– 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa

– ½ teaspoon baking powder

– ½ teaspoon Diamond Crystal brand kosher salt

– 1 cup softened butter or margarine

– 1 cup Pioneer brand granulated sugar

– ½ cup packed Pioneer brand brown sugar

– 1 egg

– 1 teaspoon vanilla

– 1 ½ cups semi-sweet chocolate chunks

– 1 ½ cups Graceland Fruit brand dried cherries

– Additional granulated sugar

Preheat oven to 350° Fahrenheit

Combine flour, cocoa, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl; set aside. Beat butter, 1 cup granulated sugar, and brown sugar in a large bowl at medium speed of electric mixer until light and fluffy (about two minutes). Beat in egg and vanilla until well blended.  On low speed of mixer, gradually beat in 1/3 of flour mixture at a time, until all is used.  Scrape sides of bowl between additions of flour mixture.  Stir in chocolate chunks and cherries.  Refrigerate covered dough for at least one hour.

Roll chilled dough into golf-ball-sized balls.  Roll the balls in the additional granulated sugar.  Space three inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.  Gently press with bottom of glass to flatten.  Return remaining dough to the refrigerator until ready to use.

Bake 13 to 15 minutes or until cookies are set.  Cool cookies about five minutes on cookie sheets; transfer to wire racks.  Cool completely.

Variations:

– Substitute 1 ½ cups of Graceland Fruit brand dried blueberries instead of dried cherries.

– Add ½ cup chopped Michigan walnuts

Did you know there is an entire calendar of official days dedicated to different types of cookies? You can find that and much more in Cookie: A Love Story.

This is day four in my week long series sharing some of the fun and intriguing info in my book Cookie: A Love Story. Today we’re talking about state cookies! Your state has a state flower, state bird, state motto, state flag, state song, state poet, state fruit, state vegetable, and even in some states, … Read more →

Who doesn’t love Girl Scout cookies? Did you know the Girl Scouts have been selling these cookies for almost 100 years? Did you ever wonder how it started?

Girl Scouts have been selling cookies as a fundraiser since 1917, when the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma baked and sold cookies in its high school cafeteria as a service project.

Scout cooking was a hot topic at the time – the 1918 book Camp Cookery: A Cookery and Equipment Handbook for Boy Scouts and Other Campers by Ava B. Milan, A. Grace Johnson, and Ruth McNary Smith contained a recipe for rolled oat cookies which were to be baked on a grill over an open fire. In 1922, The American Girl magazine (then published by the Girl Scout national headquarters) included a cookie recipe which estimated the cost of ingredients to be 26 to 36 cents for six or seven dozen cookies. It also suggested the cookies could be sold for 25 to 30 cents per dozen. Cookies sales became traditional for many troops in the 1920s and 30s with Girl Scouts baking sugar cookies at home and selling them door to door.

Published in 1922, this is the original recipe Girl Scouts used to make cookies at home for their sales:

Original Girl Scout Cookies

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar plus additional amount for topping (optional)
2 eggs
2 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder

Cream butter and the cup of sugar; add well-beaten eggs, then milk, vanilla, flour, salt, and baking powder. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour. Roll dough, cut into trefoil shapes, and sprinkle sugar on top, if desired. Bake in a quick oven (375°) for approximately 8 to 10 minutes or until the edges begin to brown. Makes six- to seven-dozen cookies.

There’s a lot more about the history and culture of Girl Scout cookies (and some neat photos the Girl Scouts gave me permission to use) in Cookie: A Love Story!

Who doesn’t love Girl Scout cookies? Did you know the Girl Scouts have been selling these cookies for almost 100 years? Did you ever wonder how it started? Girl Scouts have been selling cookies as a fundraiser since 1917, when the Mistletoe Troop in Muskogee, Oklahoma baked and sold cookies in its high school cafeteria … Read more →

If you love to bake (and eat!) cookies, you’re probably always looking for tips on how to make them better. Here are a few suggestions to improve your cookie baking skills.

The Pastry Chef:

Chef and Professor Dieter Schorner of the Culinary Institute of America says that one of the biggest mistakes Americans make in baking cookies is overworking the dough (“fold it together,” he recommends, instead of mixing). Another comment he has is that Americans use too many flavors in one cookie. “The simplest is the best tasting,” Schorner suggests, “If there are too many ingredients, you can’t figure out what it is. Keep it flavorful and keep it simple.” Schorner believes American cookies tend to be underbaked. “A cookie,” he says, “should be crunchy, not chewy. Americans think if it is crunchy it is stale.” And lastly, he says, “The cookie is too grown up in this country. Everything is Texas sized. That’s a meal, not a cookie. I want to taste a little cookie.”

The TollHouse Secret:

If you’ve made chocolate chip cookies before, you might be surprised to see that this recipe dissolves the baking soda in hot water, chills the dough overnight and has the baker form the cookies by hand. This was all actually part of Wakefield’s original recipe but was not included by Nestle when it used her recipe. In her 1948 book, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, Wakefield says, ”At Toll House, we chill dough overnight.” Chilling the dough is actually a crucial step that improves the texture of the cookie. This time lapse allows the eggs to absorb the dry ingredients more fully, creating a drier and firmer cookie. This method has recently regained popularity, as demonstrated by a recent New York Times article, “Perfection? Hint: It’s Warm and Has a Secret” by David Leite (July 9, 2008). In the article, Leite interviews Maury Rubin, owner of City Bakery in New York City. Rubin discloses that not only does he chill his dough for 36 hours, but he makes his cookies six inches in diameter because this creates three distinct textures – a crispy outer ring, a chewy second ring and a soft center ring.

An important factor in the quality of a chocolate chip cookie rests on the quality of the chocolate itself. Most professional bakers use chocolate that is at least 60 percent cacao. Jacque Torres, owner of Jacques Torres Chocolate in New York City relies on couverture chocolate for his cookies – thin disks of coating chocolate which melt during the baking process and create layers of cookie and chocolate.

If you enjoyed these tidbits, you’ll find cookie recipes and techniques and more in Cookie: A Love Story.

If you love to bake (and eat!) cookies, you’re probably always looking for tips on how to make them better. Here are a few suggestions to improve your cookie baking skills. The Pastry Chef: Chef and Professor Dieter Schorner of the Culinary Institute of America says that one of the biggest mistakes Americans make in … Read more →

It’s cookie week here at Putting It All on the Table. Each day I’m going to share great cookie tidbits with you from my book Cookie: A Love Story. Today’s post showcases a cookie most of us enjoyed as kids – animal crackers! You probably played with the box and cookies just as I did as a kid, but did you ever wonder about their origin?

“Do vegetarians eat animal crackers?” – unknown

Animal crackers are a favorite of children and a grocery store staple. Animal crackers did not, however, begin as an American cookie. In the late 1800s crackers called animals were imported from England. They were very popular among children and American bakers soon began to bake them here – the Dozier-Weyl Cracker Company and the Holmes and Coutts Company, both predecessors of the National Biscuit Company (which became Nabisco) and Stauffer Biscuit, which began making the cookie in 1871. The American made versions were called animals or circus crackers. Like today’s animal crackers, they were slightly sweet, crunchy cookies in the shape of animals. Philadelphia’s Centennial Exposition in 1876 included animal shaped cookies called ‘zoologicals,’ which were made by baker Walter G. Wilson. Popularity of the crackers increased in England after P.T. Barnum’s circus appeared there in 1889, although his name was not applied to them yet.

If you enjoyed this small taste of cookie history, there’s lots more to be found in Cookie: A Love Story, where I trace the history of the cookie from its origins on hot rocks next to prehistoric fires to today’s highly processed and packaged versions.

An early recipe for the crackers appeared in Secrets of the Bakers and Confectioners’ Trade, a commercial cooking book written by J. D. Hounihan in 1883:

Animals or Menagerie
1 bbl flour, 40 lbs sugar, 16 lard, 12 oz soda, 8 ozs ammonia, 6 3/4 gals milk.

No instructions were included.

In 1902 the National Biscuit Company began selling the cookies nationally. The famous circus box was released for Christmas, 1902, at a price of 5 cents per box, and was designed to hang on a Christmas tree by the string handle (this design is still used today, although you can buy the cookies in zipper bags and tins as well).

The name Barnum’s Animal Crackers was first used in 1948. The cookie was named after the famous circus owner, P.T. Barnum, although he never was paid for the use of his name. Since the first box, there have been 53 different animals included at different times. Current boxes contain a variety of 22 different animals, including the koala which was voted in by consumers in 2002 for the 100^th anniversary of the cookie (beating out the penguin, cobra and walrus). Each box has 260 calories.

Today the cookies remain very much the same as they always have been. The ingredients remain the same. The manufacturing methods have slightly changed. Until 1958, the cookies were made in a sheet of dough and stamped out by a cutter. After that date, rotary dies, which are still used today, were implemented.  The cookies take only four minutes to bake. Over 40 million packages are sold per year.

Animal crackers are also sold by Austin (a division of Keebler) and Stauffer Biscuit (which uses some spices in their cookies). Cadbury’s makes chocolate covered animal crackers. Borden also made animal crackers until the 1970s. Two by Two Animal Biscuits are made by Artisan Biscuits in Derbyshire, England in the shape of animals from fables, such as the tortoise and the hare.

Animal crackers have spurred some artistic creativity. In 1971, Christopher Morley’s book The Philosopher Poet  included this poem:

“Animal crackers and cocoa to drink,

That is the finest of suppers I think;

When I am grown up and can have what I please’

I think I shall always insist upon these.”

The cookies have also inspired a song sung by Shirley Temple, “Animal Crackers in My Soup,” in the 1938 movie “Curly Top.”

If you enjoyed learning about animal crackers, there is an entire chapter in Cookie: A Love Story that tells the stories of different types of cookies.

It’s cookie week here at Putting It All on the Table. Each day I’m going to share great cookie tidbits with you from my book Cookie: A Love Story. Today’s post showcases a cookie most of us enjoyed as kids – animal crackers! You probably played with the box and cookies just as I did … Read more →

I’m so happy to tell you about my new ebook, a project that is close to my heart. It’s called Cookie: A Love Story: Fun Facts, Delicious Stories, Fascinating History, Tasty Recipes, and More. It’s just been released and it comes after years of work, but is a true labor of love.

Who doesn’t love cookies? They are the treat we grow up loving and are such a huge part of our lives. Cookies are how we celebrate and console and reward ourselves. I wanted to know where cookies came from and when I realized there was no book about it, I wrote my own. The ebook includes so many fun things:

– Why we are physically and psychologically programmed to love cookies

– How cookies were invented and how they evolved

– How history has affected the development of cookies (the Industrial Revolution, colonization of America, world wars, and our changing dietary needs have all affected the cookie and been affected by it – an amazing interplay!)

– State cookies, official cookie days, the world’s biggest cookie, cookie stacking contests and other fun

– Heartwarming and thought provoking stories from real people about how cookies have had meaning in their lives

– The history of Girl Scout cookies, fortune cookies, Oreos, Fig Newtons, and more of your favorites

– Special recipes allow you to not only experience the changes cookies have undergone over time, but also to replicate some your store-bought favorites at home

– Bright and fun and photos

– Stories about the cookie characters who have made cookies a national past time, such as the inventor of the chocolate chip cookie, Wally Amos, the woman behind Pepperidge Farms, and Betty Crocker

There’s so much more to be found in this ebook. You can either sit down and read it from cover to cover or skip around, reading tidbits are they grab you.

Links to buy as a Kindle, Nook, or PDF are here. Because it makes a great gift, we are offering gift certificates as well. You buy the gift certificate here and get a printable certificate with a unique gift code you can give. Your recipient redeems the code to download the ebook in any version.

This book is close to my heart and I hope you will enjoy it!

I’m so happy to tell you about my new ebook, a project that is close to my heart. It’s called Cookie: A Love Story: Fun Facts, Delicious Stories, Fascinating History, Tasty Recipes, and More. It’s just been released and it comes after years of work, but is a true labor of love. Who doesn’t love cookies? … Read more →

Thanks to Pru at Perfecting Pru for choosing Iced Thumbprint Cookies for today’s project. Pru, I was thinking of you while I was making this because you said you chose this because you tried to make some other thumbprint cookies and they ended up in the trash. I was hoping that would not happen with mine or yours this time!

Mine did not go spectacularly well, I have to admit! First of all, the dough was just crumbs. I tried to make it into a disk and it just wouldn’t. I refrigerated it and tried again. I gave up on that and then tried to make the balls. I had some success. But when I pushed in the middle with my thumb, some of them just fell apart. Yikes. I put them in the oven and then pushed the spoon handle in them and that went ok.

These are iced with just milk and powdered sugar (and food coloring). I’ve never had thumbprints that didn’t have jelly/jam or a cherry in the middle, so this was sort of weird. Everyone agreed they were pretty, but we missed the center filling we’re used to. I liked the taste of the cookie itself, so if I made these again, I would put jelly in the middle – probably strawberry.

Thank you Pru for getting me started on my holiday baking. I have so much to do and only 2 weekends left before Christmas. Yikes! I will be baking chocolate chip, sugar cookie cut-outs, gingerbread men, Russian teacakes (which most people call Mexican wedding cakes), fruitcake (there is a secret family recipe for this and I make one to give to my in-laws and one for us), and I need to make and freeze our Christmas morning donuts. I’ve got a giant index to get done before Christmas and I haven’t wrapped a thing. The shopping is mostly done though at least! How are you doing with your holiday baking and preparations?

Thanks to Pru at Perfecting Pru for choosing Iced Thumbprint Cookies for today’s project. Pru, I was thinking of you while I was making this because you said you chose this because you tried to make some other thumbprint cookies and they ended up in the trash. I was hoping that would not happen with … Read more →

In celebration of the two year mark for this blog, I’ve gone back through every recipe of Martha’s I’ve cooked and put together a list of the best of the best (with links!). It was quite an eye opening experience. Apparently, I am a fan of dips! I also didn’t realize quite how many Martha recipes I’ve cooked. Over 600. That’s pretty amazing. So I guess you could say I’ve really become a de facto expert. Of those 600, there were some that were simply awful. The most memorable of those for me would be that awful chocolate pudding made with avocado and the no bake brownies. Truly disgusting. A lot of things fall into the ok, but not memorable category. Some were good, but not great. What I’ve tried to do here is list the things that I think were fantastic.

I expected that the list might be more diverse than it is. The most exotic and hardest to make thing on the list is the Croquembouche. The things that were most memorable for me were the Thanksgiving turkey, perfect roast chicken, spatchcocked chicken, stuffed cabbage, rolled omelet, Baked Alaska, and rice pudding. I’d forgotten about many of these recipes until I went back through the blog, but once I saw the posts, it all came back to me.

I was struck by the fact that most of these things are homey, traditional foods. There’s not a lot here that would make people gasp at a dinner party (until they tasted it and realized how good these recipes are). I don’t know if that means Martha is best when she sticks to the basics or if I’m boring and just like traditional foods (I don’t think that’s the case  though- I love to try new things). Some of the recipes are not true Martha (well, as true Martha as something can be when she employees tens of thousands of people to do everything for her), some are from Lucinda Scala Quinn and one is from Emeril, but they all appeared in Martha’s magazines or on her show, so I’ve included them.

Enjoy Martha’s greatest hits!

Soups

Cream of Broccoli Soup This is a go-to recipe for me that I’ve made over and over. It’s simple, tasty and my kids love it.

Corn and Shrimp Chowder Simple and delicious.

Roasted Fall Vegetable Soup This one is recent, but I liked it so much I’ll do it again.

Dips

Artichoke Dip with Fontina I love dip. And cheese. And artichoke.

Bean Dip I really love dip.

Caramelized Onion Dip with Fingerling Potatoes Dip plus potatoes is as good as it gets!

Seafood

Shrimp and Zucchini Tostadas I love the ease of this recipe and it’s very adaptable to whatever you have in the fridge.

Golden Crab and Papaya Salad The flavors in this were amazing and it was beautiful to serve.

Seafood Bake This one surprised me with how good it was and how much it was to make.

Mr. Jim’s Shrimp To die for! The best shrimp ever.

Poultry

Perfect Roast Chicken This is a recipe everyone needs!

Thanksgiving Turkey I’ll be using Martha’s recipe again this year, although it seems she is no longer selling turkeys.

Spatchcocked Chicken Thank you Lucinda for the amazing sauce that goes with this.

Chicken, Spinach Casserole This one is recent, but memorable. Simple and much more fab than it sounds.

Tortilla Pie with Chicken Delicious! Great flavors.

Other Entrees

Mrs. Kostyra’s Meatloaf Who knew meatloaf could be so much fun?

Emeril’s Meatloaf Apparently Emeril knew meatloaf could be fun because his is fantastic too! This is actually a turkey meatloaf.

Lamb Chops with Citrus Sauce This one is an elegant dish.

Marinated Steak Thank you Lucinda. Easy and delicious way to make inexpensive cuts of meat taste great.

Sides

Spanish Rice I need to make this again.

Green Bean Casserole Surprisingly great! But very rich!

Baked Onion Rings I forgot about this and will be making it again soon!

Tomato Hand Pies Another one I forgot about, but something to remember when I have some wonderful tomatoes to use.

Warm Potato Salad with Goat Cheese Incredible! Not a combo I expected to like, but I really did.

Potato Gratin A basic, but simply amazing.

Rolled Omelet So easy and so delicious! I was hooked on this one for weeks after I first made, making it in the toaster oven!

Irish Soda Bread I like my version a lot, but Martha’s is quite good too!

Stuffed Cabbage Something I never thought I would like!

Desserts

Double Chocolate Brownies Ah, brownies….

Croquembouche Impressive! Boy was I proud of this one.

Icebox Cake Surprisingly delish! And tres retro.

Soft Baked Chocolate Chip Cookies Dude Martha’s fave!

Mrs. Kostyra’s Spice Cake Close to my wedding cake but not quite, but still excellent!

Baked Alaska A friend of Teen Martha’s still talks about how good this was.

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes I need to make these again – amazing.

Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies I’m going to make these for Christmas again.

Genoise Something I never thought I’d try and it was great.

Rice Pudding This is now a staple in my house and I make it often.

Now it’s your turn. What are your favorite Martha recipes that you go back to time and time again? Have you made any of the ones I’ve listed? Do these appeal to you?

In celebration of the two year mark for this blog, I’ve gone back through every recipe of Martha’s I’ve cooked and put together a list of the best of the best (with links!). It was quite an eye opening experience. Apparently, I am a fan of dips! I also didn’t realize quite how many Martha … Read more →

Yesterday I made the batter for the Meyer Lemon Lace Tuiles (page 32 of December Living). It was easy – lemon and orange juice, butter, flour, sugar, and lemon and orange zest (the recipe calls for Meyer lemon juice and zest – not attainable in my neck of the woods, so I just used regular). The recipe says to refrigerate overnight. Check.

Today I got it out and put the batter on the baking sheets as directed – 3 inch circles, 2 inches apart. No problem. I was really excited

about this recipe. You bake the batter then you take each cookie and wrap it around the handle of a spoon to make a tube shape. They looked crunchy and wonderful in the photos.

This recipe seemed really simple and I wasn’t worried about it turning out at all.

Silly me. Here is what I took out of the oven:

A total unmitigated disaster. There is nothing here that is usable.  It all ran into each other and did not maintain any shape at all. I threw it all in the trash.

What makes me even more upset is that this is the second batch of lemon cookies I’ve made this year that are worthless. The first ones were from a recipe I ripped out of a magazine in a Land o’ Lakes butter add for Lemon Meltaways. There was clearly a mistake in that recipe because the batter tasted like cornstarch and it cooked into piles of crumbs.

So I am 0 for 2 on my lemon cookie attempt this year. Really, this is why you should just stick with your tried and true family recipes. And from now I will.

Thumbs down on this Martha, very, very disappointing.

Yesterday I made the batter for the Meyer Lemon Lace Tuiles (page 32 of December Living). It was easy – lemon and orange juice, butter, flour, sugar, and lemon and orange zest (the recipe calls for Meyer lemon juice and zest – not attainable in my neck of the woods, so I just used regular). … Read more →

Martha had Paula Abdul on (in all her non-coherent glory) and made Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies during cookie week (why isn’t every week cookie week in my life?) This recipe is also in December Living. I have to say, I passed right by the recipe in the magazine. It didn’t strike me as anything great. But then I saw it on-air and I knew it was something I had to make.

As complicated as Martha can sometimes make things, this cookie was actually pretty easy. First you make the cookie dough which is nothing difficult at all. It’s a basic dough with lots of cocoa powder (I used Hershey’s special dark). The dough did not firm up into a ball for me – it was a bowl of crumbs, pretty much. When I smushed it though, it stuck, so I was able to roll out the balls. You roll them in sugar then put them on the baking sheet.

On the show, Martha suggested using the end of a wooden spoon to make the indentations in the cookies. As you can see, this didn’t work very well. The cookies ended up splitting down the sides. I used my thumb instead and it was much more successful.

Baking them should have been simple, except I chose to attempt this on a weekday afternoon. I got them halfway done, and a child needed a ride, so out they came. I got home and put them in again and another child needed a ride. Out came the cookies again. It went on and on this way. It is truly a miracle they turned out at all.

Once these are baked, you make the chocolate and vanilla ganache to fill them. This part of the recipe was unnecessarily complicated. Martha wants you to cook honey and cream and scrape a vanilla bean and cook it with the scrapings and the whole pod. I did not have a whole vanilla bean and my grocery store did not sell any. I just dumped in about a teaspoon of vanilla extract instead.

Martha then wants you to cool this and strain it and then pour it over the bittersweet chocolate in a food processor. My food processor which  has served me well for 20 years) just died – actually the bowl broke. So until the replacement bowl gets here, I’m without one. Instead I just dumped the chocolate into the pot and warmed it up until the chocolate melted. No straining or mess. Very easy. Once it cooled, I spooned it into the cookies and let them rest. I needed to refrigerate them to get the ganache to really set up so I could pack them away.

The verdict? This is absolutely delicious. A good thing.  The cookie tastes very much like a very dense brownie. The ganache is tasty too. One point of contention – the recipe says it makes 90. 90! No way. Given, the recipe says to make each cookie 2 teaspoons, but on the air Martha was using a small little ice cream scooper/melon baller thing, so I used that too. This recipe made maybe 25 cookies for me. They weren’t huge either  -they were just about the right size. If you want more, you’ll need to double the recipe.

Happy birthday to me today!

Martha had Paula Abdul on (in all her non-coherent glory) and made Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies during cookie week (why isn’t every week cookie week in my life?) This recipe is also in December Living. I have to say, I passed right by the recipe in the magazine. It didn’t strike me as anything great. But … Read more →