SMiLes by Meg

Tag: cookies

Lavender Honey Shortbread

I don’t know why I one day saw dried culinary lavender in the grocery store and thought “THAT is something I need in my life,” but I did, and here we are, about a year later, finally using it. I move in a month, and can’t really bring all of my food with me, so am trying to make recipes that use up as much of it as possible in an effort not to waste it. When I was in the pantry yesterday, I came across the lavender, and remembered a fun cookie book I had that I could have …

Madelyn’s Snickerdoodles

Happy Fourth! When I heard my cousins would be coming over for a socially distant picnic, I realized this weekend would be the perfect opportunity to get to bake with my cousin Madelyn, who has been sending me very delicious-sounding recipes for weeks, and who is recently breaking into the baking business herself. The first recipe she sent me was for snickerdoodles. My mom had all of the ingredients on hand and I’m a firm believer that cookies are the best cookout dessert, so that’s what we decided to go with. Madelyn did all of the hard work here – …

Lime Curd Bars

Happy Father’s Day! My dad likes lemon meringue pie, but I’ve made that before, so I decided to try to make something in the same family. Boston is in a heat wave (it is so hot out), and I initially wanted to make something no bake. However, when I found these, they seemed perfect – quick to make, didn’t have to buy many ingredients, and in the general family of lemon squares (but lime!). Start by making the graham cracker crust. In a medium bowl, toss together the melted butter, graham cracker crumbs and sugar until the texture of wet …

Double Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Hi friends! I know your social media feeds might be slowing down on the #blacklivesmatter posts, but I hope you also know that doesn’t at all mean that the work is done. After this week, though I may not include a little blurb at the beginning of my blogs, I hope you’ll join me in continuing your impact and fighting for real change however you are able. If you’re looking for something sweet and you’re in the city of Boston, I highly recommend you check out Petsi Pies, a black-owned bakery in Somerville that I used to frequent while in …

Cowboy Cookies

Happy Mother’s Day! Some years I would be spending this whole weekend down in Duxbury, helping my mom get her garden going and baking all the coconut things. This year, though, social distancing is making that unwise, so we’re making do. I am still making coconut treats, though! Liz Bone messaged me a couple weeks ago asking if I could make some cookies for her clients for Mother’s Day. I thought the best way to do this would be one chunky drop cookie (with coconut) and one pretty spring sugar cookie. For the sugar cookie, you’ve seen my recipe before, …

Bourbon-Vanilla Ice Cream Sandwiches

I don’t think I’m patient enough to make ice cream sandwiches. I can make cookies – those are quick. I can make ice cream – at least then I can throw it in the freezer and let it finish making itself. But I’m not good at the make-ice-cream-then-wait-long-enough-but-not-too-long-to-fill-the-cookies part of things. This time, I ended up with too melty ice cream when I wanted to fill the sandwiches. Sometimes I end up with rock hard ice cream that doesn’t sandwich well. Someday I’ll find the right balance. Either way, These are filled in my freezer right now, and I think …

Brown Butter Blondies

Week 2 of quarantine baking and I still haven’t come up with a good word for it. “Quaranbaking”? “Sugar isolation”? Those are both so bad. If someone has already figured this out, let me know. I’m also quickly realizing that baking treats when you don’t have a kitchen to offload them into is a different experience. This week, a friend in the building requested blondies, so that’s what I made, and now they aren’t in my kitchen! If you live in the Boston area and are looking for something sweet, PLEASE let me know – I will happily make it …

Candy Cookies

I’m calling these Candy Cookies because I’ve made M&M cookies before, and these are different enough that they needed their own post. Plus, you could put any kind of candy into these and get a good result – the original recipe from Weeknight Baking actually included sno-caps, too, but sno-caps were inexplicably sold out out every store I checked. They must be good quarantine snacks or something. Regardless, I decided to just double the amount of M&Ms to make up for it, and no one ever complains about double the M&Ms. Start by melting the butter. Just chop it up …

Cherry Pistachio Oatmeal Cookies

This was one of those weekends where the only way I was going to have time to bake was if I pulled out Weeknight Baking. And made drop cookies, which are, besides bar cookies, the least time intensive baked good I can make. In looking at cookies, I decided to go with an oatmeal base, because I like the chewiness that comes with that. However, I am a firm anti-raisin baker, so I needed something else to go in them. Fortunately, Weeknight Baking had a solution: cherries and pistachios. Dried cherries are actually my favorite dried fruit. They’re a bit …

Sunflower Oat Cookies

I’m currently sitting in an airport in Seattle, on a layover heading back to Boston after an absolutely perfect week with Erik in Alaska. We skied on two lakes, spent a night in a dry cabin in -20°F weather, ate a lot of pizza, went climbing, and played a lot of board games. But mostly, we got a lot of much-needed hangout time, which is what I miss the most when we’re apart. Because I’m feeling sentimental, here’s a gratuitous picture of us doing fun things: One day this week, we had two of Erik’s friends over for dinner (Jake …