devilishly good

Folks, autumn is upon us and Halloween will be here in less than two weeks.  Why not take a leisurly stroll over to The Year of Halloween and check out my guest post, 5 Spooky Treats for Halloween?  From Living Lucurto’s sweet brains in a jar to Martha Stewart’s shattered glass cupcakes, these are some of the spookiest, ooiest, devilishly decadent Halloween treats around.

Image & Recipe via Living Locurto

chocolate cookie love

Lately I’ve been experimenting with chocolate cookie recipes.

the savory & the sweet

The September issue of Bon Appetit magazine has a feature on desserts made with salt or pepper, like Pink Peppercorn Panna Cotta with Macerated Cherries or this Devils Food Cake with Boiled Black Pepper Icing.

As you can probably guess from previous posts, I am a huge fan of salty and sweet desserts.   Also amazing are spicy and sweet, like San Diego local Chuao Chocolatier’s Spicy Maya, with dark chocolate, Pasilla chile, cayenne pepper and cinnamon.  Readers, how do you like your desserts: savory and sweet, or straight sugary goodness?

absinthe cookies

This weekend, I whipped up a batch of spectacular Absinthe Cookies using Lucid Absinthe for my cocktail buddy over at Boy Drinks World.    

Absinthe is a high-proof herbal spirit featuring fennel, green anise, and grande wormwood, as well as flavors of nutmeg, hyssop, coriander, juniper, and star anise.  Typically louched with water to reduce the proof and open up the flavor, the drink features a distinctive cloudy, pale green color and heady aroma of licorice.  Extremely popular among bohemians at the end of the 1800’s, absinthe was banned in the early 1900’s due to exaggerated beliefs of its hallucinogenic properties and other ill effects.  After chemical analysis and vigorous campaigning, the spirit was reintroduced and has had a growing availability over the last two decades.

This recipe gives you a very delicate, not too sweet anise cookie topped with a luscious, soft green glaze, redolent of the herbal character of absinthe.  Because absinthe has a very high alcohol content and is not sweetened, this cookie packs an intense herbaceous punch, so is only for true lovers of anise and (of course) la fée verte.

Click below for the recipe!