cookies for a birthday boy

So you may have read how the NBF has his fortieth birthday today. 40, JEPH, 40!

:-)

I'm evil, and he will get me back when I turn 40 YEARS from now.

Anyway.... Sunday I was in the kitchen a bunch after getting work done that I'd brought home. Cookies were the order of business. Over the course of the afternoon I managed to get dough put into the freezer and batches of three other cookies made.

These are the ones I'm most happy with: Martha's bourbon raisin recipe. In fact, no bourbon in these but Irish Whiskey instead. No one will know the difference, will they? I loved the flavour of the dough, and it was soft and easy to work with. One drawback: cut out cookies with currants in them? The bits of currant stick out and make for raggedy cookies. Ah well.


I love to make biscotti, though I've come to wonder if ANYONE likes eating them. Perhaps. This is a simple recipe from a biscotti cookbook: Biscotti Toscani. Never made them before, but they had a nice light flavour from blood orange zest, almond extract, and nutmeg. They're the cookies in back.



The others (triangle shaped) were a simple recipe I spotted in a book of Swedish baking. I'd been meaning to explore it since Karen gave it to me, and this was a nice opportunity to try it. In the end, I'm not sure the recipe is great. Not bad, but not great. A bunch of dough wasted by the process of cutting out the cookies from a solid sheet of baked dough. A too-subtle flavour. I'll think on whether I want to try that one again.