Cookie Project part 2 (yeah!)

Today's recipe was taken from the December 2009 issue of Bon Appetit. The recipe: Lemon Cranberry Florentines. At the risk of sounding like an idiot, I will admit that I didn't have any idea what a Florentine was. Thanks to Wikipedia for enlightening me on this one. "A Florentine biscuit (or, simply, a Florentine) is a confection made from setting nuts and candied cherries into a caramel disc, which is then coated on the bottom with dark chocolate". However, the picture that accompanied the entry did not resemble a cookie, or, for that matter, even a 'biscuit'. At most, it looked like a charred English muffin that got stuck in a commercial restaurant toaster (I know this from experience). My outlook was grim for this project.

However, my hopes for the recipe were somewhat bolstered by the really cute picture that was in the magazine spread (yeah!):

Well, you know what happens when you follow a recipe to a T? How it's usually supposed to work out? (yeah!) Well, it didn't this time. I did write a rather scathing review on Epicurious, but for some reason, it has magically disappeared. Now I'm going to air my grievances.

A) I had the same problem here as I did with the last recipe with the quantity that can be produced by this recipe. It's duly noted that the same person penned both recipes. This, once again, is apparently supposed to make close to 40 cookies. Once again, I got 2 dozen.

B) The baking information is WAYYYYYY off. If you bake these things at 350F for 16 minutes, you know what you're going to have? (yeah!) Not cookies! You're going to have lumps of black crap and a house that smells like carbon.

C) Please note that a combination of A+B left only 12 cookies that may have been viable for eating, but the cookies didn't flatten into discs really. Take a look at the picture above, and then take a look at what these things come out looking like:

I didn't even bother putting the chocolate drizzle on them. I ate one. It was mediocre and I didn't care to eat another one. My roommate decided to try one, and I could tell there was some sort of deep internal struggle taking place for him not to spit it out into the waste can.

This is a big old fail. The combination of cranberry, lemon, and almond was good, just not here....perhaps in an oatmeal cookie? (yeah!)

You might be wondering why this post is flecked with 'yeah!' all over...and I shall tell you. Because of the 1983 epic Christmas-time movie "Trading Places" with Eddie Murphy, Dan Akroyd, and Jamie Lee Curtis. The jail scene? Surely it's coming back to you now. And now, for Christmas-time funs, here's a selected excerpt that I shall leave you with for the evening:

My first savory cupcake...and one other

A couple weeks ago, my roommate and I hosted this like beauty/facial thingy party at our house. I don't know. Whatever. BUT! as all parties in our house go, we have good food and drinks.

I contributed cupcakes to this bonanza. I did lemon-raspberry to test out what I was doing for the wedding last weekend. And then I brainstormed in my little mind and came up with something truly amazing. I picked up some Asian pears on my last trip to H-mart; and I knew I wanted to roast them. Also, everyone (I think) knows that walnuts go well with pears. I didn't want to do a regular old cake for them, so I went with a brown sugar pound cake. My original idea was to do a goat cheese and honey frosting, but I thought the goat cheese might throw some people off, and I stuck with a cream cheese and honey frosting that was pretty amazing. These suckers went like hotcakes. Do people still say that anymore??? I think this one is definitely going on the list of fall seasonal cakes, which I've been working on getting completed.

Also, I have a friend from work that has been throwing some ideas for savory-type cakes at me. I'm really not into these so much. I'm cool with scones and muffins and whatnot, but not quite savory cakes. This weekend, after the wedding cake was delivered and I had time to recuperate from that little bit of stress, I busted one of his ideas out. This is a dill cake with smoked salmon cream cheese...I hesitate to say frosting, because it's lacking the key components of butter and sugar, although I did whip some heavy cream into it to make it a bit fluffier.

I really enjoyed the cake part of it, the fresh dill flavor was pretty nice. BUT, I am NOT a fan of smoked salmon, so the combination was a little bit lost on me. The recipient of said cakes did enjoy them though. Will I make them again? Likely not.