COOKTORIA

snickerdoodle macarons Need a new way to enjoy your favorite cinnamon sugar cookie? These snickerdoodle macarons are IT! You know how during job/residency/medical school/graduate school/college interviews you’re occasionally asked to give an example of a challenge that you overcame? Well, I finally have an answer that doesn’t involve rescuing small adorable animals from trees, saving grandmothers from having to walk across streets unattended, and/or not learning to ride a bike until I was 12 (<– no judging). And  does  involve almond flour that won’t sift, ovens that probably run too hot (not that we would know because we don’t own an oven thermometer), and many many many (many) egg whites. (But really. So many.) “My road to perfect macarons was littered with cracked shells, footless cookies, and broken dreams”, I will say. But the good news is, this story is a comedy. Meaning: happy endings (and cinnamon sugar macs) for all! My peanut butter and jelly macarons, though adorably deli

blueberry macarons with blueberry mascarpone cream Blueberry macarons flavored with freeze-dried blueberry powder and filled with a barely sweet blueberry mascarpone filling. There’s no better time than the afternoon before your daughter’s first birthday party to figure out whether your ELECTRIC (<–GROAN) oven can handle macaron baking. I mean, it’s not like you have an 18-inch sheet cake and a sugar free triple layer smash cake and DINNER still to make, or anything like that. Yeah, about that….. But guys! Good news! My oven makes BEAUTIFUL macarons!!! I’m so happy to have found that out a month before we have to move out and I have to get used to a whole new oven. I have the best timing. Really. See above. Or maybe the oven has nothing to do with it and somehow by  not  making macarons for almost two years, I’ve somehow refined my skillz? Or born-again beginner’s luck? Whatever kind of hocus pocus was in the air that day, hey! I’ll take it. As I’ve mentioned only  ad nauseum  on In

strawberry and blueberry almond dutch baby These strawberry and blueberry almond Dutch baby pancakes are perfect to serve for breakfast-in-bed! No flipping required, just pop the batter into the oven and out the pancake comes with fruit bursting through in every bite. We’ve become a pancake every weekend family and I’m not even sorry about it. This is a huge step for me as a recovering pancake-flip-phobic individual. However, they do say that the best and only way to truly get over an irrational fear is by unapologetic exposure therapy. So, there you go. Alternatively, there’s also just pure avoidance and while most of the pancakes we make have me standing in front of the griddle facing my flip fears over and over (and over x 16), there are days when I’m just not up to the task. And on these occasions, we Dutch baby. I don’t know who invented this glorious no-flip, oven-baked, crispy on the outside, custardy on the inside pancake, but whoever you are – THANK YOU. You have saved my Sund

rhubarb curd shortbread tart with fresh strawberries On the list of produce that my boyfriend “doesn’t believe in”, rhubarb is pretty high up there, along with Meyer lemons, ramps, fiddlehead ferns, persimmons, and pretty much anything that us food bloggers go crazy for but that the population at large can barely even conceive of. I mean, sure, everyone has heard of strawberry rhubarb pie but if asked to choose a stalk out of a lineup or identify it’s flavor in any other context, it would be a pretty scant group of folks who could do it with repeatedly accurate and consistent results. Beginner’s luck notwithstanding. So you can imagine his confusion and disbelief when I told him I was making a rhubarb curd tart to bring to his family’s Easter celebration last weekend. I think, actually, he laughed and said, “No you’re not.” Followed up by a “But really, what are you making?” No, but really I’m making a rhubarb curd tart. Eye roll. “Okay, whatever, just surprise me I guess.” He believed