Wow! I can't believe it has already been one year of my #CookTheBooks challenge and six months of my newsletter! What started as a personal challenge to – say it with me – actually open the cookbooks I have been stacking in my room for years, turned out to be a fun hobby that led me to create this newsletter and cultivate a small following. (It is mostly friends and family, but I do consider them to be fans first and foremost.)
As intended, I tried a lot of recipes in 2021 that I would not have reached for in the past. Like, grilled salmon with peach curry or seared steaks with basil béarnaise. Not all recipes were a success – cough, apple pie, cough - but I learned something new with each failure. (Okkkaaay inspirational poster vibes.) Thank you to everyone who followed along this year! Stay tuned for more in 2022. 🍎✨
After reflecting on all the 200+ recipes I made this year, I made the difficult choice to pick my top ten favorites of the entire year. There were many favorites each month, but these are the recipes I know I’ll reach for over and over again.
My Favorite Recipes of 2021:
Seedy Maple Muffins from Dessert Person
Coffee Coffee Cake from Dessert Person
Cauliflower Gratin from Nothing Fancy
B-Fast Tacos from Cook This Book
B’day Layer Cake from Momofuku Milk Bar
Chocolate and Nut Butter Tart from Everyone’s Table
Twice-Baked Cheese Soufflé from Dinner in French
Kale and Ricotta Bread Pudding from Violet Bakery
Mocha Hazelnut Biscotti from That Sounds So Good
Olive Oil Cookies from 100 Cookies
December Cookbook: 100 Cookies: The Baking Book for Every Kitchen by Sarah Kieffer
I love any and all lemon-flavored desserts, so it’s no surprise that these olive oil sugar cookies with lemon poppy seed glaze (pg. 114) were one of my favorites of the month! The olive oil cookie could be eaten on its own as a little not-so-sweet treat, but the citrus kick is a nice punch-up.
You know I had to end my first year of Cook the Books with a bang! For my last recipe of the month – and year! – I tried making macarons for the first time. It wasn’t until this book that I realized there were different methods to making macarons, the two popular being the French and Italian. Sarah’s chocolate macarons (pg. 197) use the Italian method, which she says yields more consistent results. (And famed chef, Thomas Keller, uses this method so it must be legit.) I’ve watched tons of videos on macaron making, but none of them required a candy thermometer…
Macarons are known to be difficult to master, so I wasn’t expecting perfection. (Which is hard as a perfectionist.) As you can tell from the photos below, they did not end up picture-perfect but were not bad for my first attempt. I was very excited when I pulled these out of the oven and found that each cookie developed the correct “feet” (the little ruffles that form on the bottom of the cookies).
The buttercream was also a different method than I was accustomed to. Ermine buttercream (pg. 287) is made by boiling flour and sugar with milk to make a sweet paste, then whipping it into soft butter until light and fluffy. It sounded crazy at first, but I loved how it was less sweet and resembled whipped cream more than traditional frostings. I added a dash of espresso powder and vanilla extract for flavor.
Thanks for reading, sweeties! 🍎