Chewy Buttercrunch Squares

OK, so I tried two recipes from Baking by Flavor this week. This bar cookie is a chewy blondie that has been richly flavored with toasted almonds, sweetened coconut, almond extract, and my candy bar downfall, chocolate covered toffee bars, a.k.a. Heath bars. Actually, in this case, I used D'aim bars, which I just happened to pick up at a recent trip to Ikea. Yum. Ms. Yockelson's book is a must for anyone who enjoys baking. She's divided the chapters by flavor such as lemon, spice, vanilla and buttercrunch, depending on the type of sweets you're in the mood for, and every recipe I've tried so far has been fabulous.

Oatmeal, dried fruit, and coconut spice cookies

This week's experiment was a cookie from Lisa Yockelson's Baking by Flavor. With a combination of cinnamon, fresh nutmeg, and ground cloves, plus almost two cups of dried cranberries, apricots, and cherries, sweetened coconut, and walnuts, I couldn't have asked for anymore good things in one cookie. The cookie was densely chewy from the fruit and coconut with the walnuts contributing a nice toasty crunch. For a girl who loves her sweets to be fruity and spicy, this cookie was a real treat.

Quaker Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

I have a couple of oatmeal cookie recipes that have been my standby forever. One in a dense button cookie that you can pop in your mouth by the handful. The other is a chewy jumbo cookie that is no fewer than 5 inches across and contains a laundry list of ingredients like two types of brown sugar, two types of raisins, two types of oats, and coconut. I've talked about both cookies in earlier blog entries.

So, today, when I was in the market for a new oatmeal raisin cookie, I wasn't sure where to look. And wouldn't you know that I found one right on the top of the Quaker Oatmeal Box. Quaker calls them "Vanishing Oatmeal Cookies," and they weren't kidding. The final product is like a combination of all the things that I love about both standby cookies. It is a thin cookie, about 2 1/2 inches across, slightly crisp on the outside with a caramelized chewiness at the center, and just a hint of cinnamon.