The Peace Corps and Florentine cookies

Tags

baking, Blandford Historical Society, Florentine cookies, Peace Corps, postaday2013, presentation, writing

Tonight, the Blandford Historical Society is having a presentation honoring the 50 year anniversary of the founding of the Peace Corps. Several members of the Board of Directors are going to give talks relating to their time overseas serving in the Peace Corps. I decided to make cookies to help out with the refreshment portion of the evening. I decided to make Florentine cookies to change it up from the usual chocolate cookies, oatmeal raisin or sugar cookies.

As you can see from the pictures, I decided to melt chocolate and drizzle it over the just baked cookies. I tried to get the cookies to be somewhat uniform in size and color but they seem to have a mind of their own once they get into the oven. The cookies themselves are relatively simple; almond meal, a tiny bit of flour, orange zest, a pinch of salt, a tad of heavy cream, some sugar, butter and light corn syrup. They get baked like drop cookies; a rounded teaspoon of dough onto the cookie sheet and presto in the oven. The challenging part of baking them is the ratio of sugar to flour makes them very easily burnable.

I hope that they will be happy with the cookies, the baby boy most certainly is, he has had three so far; two with chocolate and one without. He liked both equally. I trust his taste, I only wish the baby girl were here to give her opinion as well. I’m going to keep a few for when my hubby comes home. He never minds tasting my baking projects.

Annual potluck dinner at the Blandford Historical Society

Tags

Blandford Historical Society, creme caramel, dinner, food, postaday2012, potluck

 

Tonight is the annual potluck dinner for the directors of the Blandford Historical Society. As usual I agonized over what to make this year, flip flopping over this recipe and that, driving my hubby crazy. I wanted to make something hot and soothing, but I don’t have the necessary utensils to keep whatever I made hot and the Historical Society kitchen is poorly equipped on that front as well. The other directors bring their own Bunson burners, aluminum pans and crock pots. I used to have a crock pot, I accidentally broke it by not using it properly. I thought that you could use the insert to saute with, you normally can if you have the right brand name. Apparently, I didn’t.

So since it is too cold for cold appetizers and main dishes, I decided to make a dessert. I don’t remember how I settled on the choice of creme caramel but that is what I decided to make. I have never tried making it before. Why do I pick things that are untried and untested you ask? Because I am nuts.

I looked at ten recipes, narrowed it down to two and after comparing the two closely, took a step from one and substituted it with a step from the other one and came up with the creme caramel. I don’t know how it tastes, I haven’t even un-molded it yet. It is still in the refrigerator in its corning ware dish looking really good. It feels right to the touch, firm yet jiggly. It smelled really delicious coming out of the oven last night, a sweet amber smell of cooked sugar, baked cream and a hint of vanilla.

I hope that everyone likes it, what is there not to like. Theoretically it has to be good, I used all the right ingredients in the right proportions and the ingredients themselves when put in almost any combination together always turn out good. Eggs, cream, sugar, whole milk and vanilla.

We shall see later tonight if it is a hit at the Historical Society.