Lemony Goodness.

Since she is my culinary hero and everything, I thought it was about time I included a review of an Ina Garten: Barefoot Contessa recipe. Honestly, every one of her recipes I've tried has turned out amazing, just like she promises on her show. There's nothing worse than watching someone prepare a recipe or seeing photos of some yummy food, and then attempting it yourself and finding out that you would have been better off with a $1 hamburger from Wendy's or a bowl of cold cereal. So when I want to make something delicious, I turn to Ina. Consistency is so important, don't you think?

Here's just one example of her greatness, her fabulous Lemon Bars.


I don't have her team of handsome gents on hand to make my presentation look flawless, but you get the idea. Every once in a while I get a craving for something lemony and buttery and this is the perfect antidote. I cut the recipe in half and bake it in an 8" x 8" pan, and it works just fine. Try it, you won't be disappointed.

What's Black and White and good all over?

When I was 5 years old my grandmother came for a visit. She came all the way from Pennsylvania and she wore a bun in her hair. She must have been close to 80 years old, but she still loved to cook. I distinctly remember her letting me help her make chocolate chip cookies, and I've been baking (mostly cookies) ever since.

Having said that, I will admit this: while I consider myself an experienced baker, the idea of baking Black and White cookies scared the bananas out of me. I was born and raised in California, but I have a fascination with all things New York, so clearly these infamous cookies caught my attention the first time I saw them in a picture. Pretty soon they were all I could think about, and they've haunted me ever since. Recently I felt brave. I scoured my cookbooks, the internet, magazines. I weeded out recipes until I found this one from Smitten Kitchen. It took me a while until I finally worked up the nerve to dive in, but dive in I did.

Allow me to introduce you to my cookie sheet. It's battle-scarred and well-loved. Notice how the batter is mounded up in the middle? That's because on the first round the cookies spread all over. I put the bowl of batter into the fridge for about an hour, and then heaped them up a bit on the pan. It worked like a charm.


Here are some cookies baking. See how they spread out? These are cookies #157-#263. This recipe makes a lot of cookies.

Ooo la la! I did it! The frosting is honestly the only part of these that I'm iffy about. I did add extra unsweetened cocoa (as suggested)to darken the chocolate frosting, but my dark chocolate tasted almost burnt, while the white side was pretty much tasteless. Overall the flavor wasn't awful, but it definitely could have been better, in my opinion. Other recipes call for dark/white chocolate ganache, and next time I may try a little bit for comparison.


So there you have it. I conquered the Black and Whites. And it was totally worth it. They were soft and scrumptious. They were kid pleasers and crowd wowers. They were even better the next day.

4 stars... (Repeatable! See star scale to the left...)