The Bitten Word

Happy Holidays

 

No matter where you're spending the holidays or who you're spending it with, we hope it's filled with delicious food, lots of laughs, and good thoughts of what's to come in 2015. 

Enjoy every moment of it.

~ Zach & Clay

Wrapping Up Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

 

 

 

First, we hope you'll join us in congratulating all of our bakers who made the Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies Project such an amazing success. More than 500 bakers signed up to make 25 cookie recipes. That, friends, is a lot of cookies. 

You can explore all the cookies by clicking the photos above (or the links below), but before you do that, let's give a few Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies Project Awards. 

THE GOOD

All the bakers. Seriously -- we didn't give you a lot of time to complete this challenge, and hundreds of you rose to the occasion. Thank you so much for participating! We loved seeing how your cookies turned out. 

Bakers who bought special equipment. This is above and beyond. A number of bakers shared that they purchased cookie presses and other equipment in order to make their assigned recipes. That is some serious dedication.

A winning cookie? We'd love to name a sure-fire hit among this crop of cookies. There's a lot to love -- and many bakers loved their cookies, but there doesn't seem to be a resounding hit with all the bakers. Can you pick a winner? 

 

THE BAD AND THE UGLY

We made some mistakes! First, we sent the wrong Lebkuchen recipe to the bakers who were making that cookie.Then we realized late in the game that the cookie we assigned from Saveur -- Sarah Bernhardt Cookies -- was in fact the wrong cookie and not in their December issue. Instead, we should have assigned these Icelandic Chocolate Cornflake Cookies. Maybe they're the hit cookie we've all been waiting for....

The Worst Recipe: We're going with Food & Wine's Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies. The accidental omission of 3 cups of flour in the online recipe gave our bakes big batches of goo. But hey, mistakes happen (see above). And it turns out that if you make them with the flour, they're a hit. 

The Runner-Up Worst Cookie: We're going with Orange-Almond Florentines with Cardamom, as bakers unanimously complained about how oily the finished product turned out. 

Thanks again -- and please join us in congratulating the bakers by leaving a comment on their posts.  

Explore the cookies, and find something delicious to bake this holiday season. And if none of these strikes your fancy, please share your favorite cookie recipes in the comments below.

Happy Baking!

~ Zach and Clay

THE FULL COOKIE LIST:

Chewy Salted Oatmeal Cookies (Food & Wine)
Chocolate-Hazelnut Shortbread Squares (Martha Stewart Living) 

Cinnamon Almond Stars (Martha Stewart Living) 
Cocoa Snickerdoodles (Food Network Magazine)
Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies (Food & Wine)
Gluten-Free Chocolate-Almond Thumbprint Cookies (Food & Wine)
Lavender Shortbread with Fruits, Flowers and Herbs (Bon Appetit)
Lebkuchen (Food & Wine)
Lime Icebox Cookies (Food Network Magazine)
Matcha-White Chocolate Sugar Cookies (Bon Appetit)
Milk Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Sandies (Food & Wine)
Noel Balls (Food & Wine)
Oat-and-Pecan Caramel Sandwiches (Martha Stewart Living) 
Orange-Almond Florentines with Cardamom (Vegetarian Times)
Peanut Butter-Chocolate Tassies (Food Network Magazine)
Peppermint-Candy Sugar Cookies (Martha Stewart Living)
Pignoli Cookies (Food Network Magazine)
Pink Grapefruit Shortbread (Food Network Magazine)
Pistachio Spritz Pinwheels (Martha Stewart Living) 
Raspberry Rugelach (Food & Wine)
Raspberry-Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies (Vegetarian Times)
Red Velvet Crackle Cookies (Food Network Magazine) 
Sarah Bernhardt Cookies (Saveur)
Thai Peanut Butter Cookies (Vegetarian Times)
Triple Chocolate-Cherry Cookies (Vegetarian Times)

 

Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies: Day 5

Taylor Swift, Kristin Stewart and former Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown walk into a cookie shop...

Okay, we don't know what the punchline is. But here's the point: When we prompted readers to join us in this Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookie Project, we challenged you to be creative. To tell us about your cookie in just a couple sentences, but feel free to have fun with it. What might you eat with this cookie, we wondered? If your cookie were a celebrity, who would it be?

Boy, did you guys deliver!  We have loved all your creative and pithy writeups about the cookies you made. 

Today -- the fifth and final day of our weeklong Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookie Project -- is no exception. The writeups for these five cookies include the aforementioned comparisons to Taylor, Kristin and Sen. Brown, along with cookies likened to "a Bollywood movie," "a French diva," and "a Nordic noir thriller."

We could not possibly have said it any better ourselves.

 

 

Raspberry-Hazelnut Thumbprint Cookies
Vegetarian Times

(This photo submitted by Karen & Liz)

 

Red Velvet Crackle Cookies
Food Network Magazine

(This photo submitted by Kristine)

 

Sarah Bernhardt Cookies
Saveur

(This photo submitted by Valerie)

 

Thai Peanut Butter Cookies
Vegetarian Times

(This photo submitted by John Heath)

 

Triple Chocolate-Cherry Cookies
Vegetarian Times

(This photo submitted by Stephanie W.)

 

 

Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies: Day 4

Earlier this week, one of our commentors referred to herself and her friends -- and all the other folks involved in this Cover-to-Cover cookie project -- as the "Bitten Bakers."

How great is that?! We love the idea of a whole army of Bitten Bakers out there, making cookies and reporting back.

Well the Bitten Bakers were in full force for this, Day 4 of our weeklong cookie event. Today we've got some surprising peppermints, spendy pignolis, middle-of-the-road shortbread, rage-inducing pinwheels and a rugelach that is just ... well, you'll have to read for yourself.

Onward, Bitten Bakers!

 

Peppermint-Candy Sugar Cookies
Martha Stewart Living

(This photo submitted by Ellen)

 

Pignoli Cookies
Food Network Magazine

(This photo submitted by Judy@ImBored-LetsGo)

 

Pink Grapefruit Shortbread
Food Network Magazine

(This photo submitted by Erin G.)

 

Pistachio Spritz Pinwheels
Martha Stewart Living

(This photo submitted by Peggy M. Mauldin)

 

Raspberry Rugelach
Food & Wine

(This photo submitted by David)

 

 

Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies: Day 3

Sometimes a cookies is a cookie.

But today -- Day 3 of our Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookie Project -- we've got a group of tasty treats without the word "cookie" in sight.

We've got sandies and tassies aplenty.

We've got sandwiches and florentines galore.

You want noel balls? We've got plenty.

But who cares? No big deal.

We want mooooooorrrreee...

Okay, sorry for that brief interlude.

Anyway, today's crop of cookies-by-another-name includes some hits, some misses, and one recipe that turned into a greasy, messy disaster for everyone who tried it. (More than one reader used the words "disaster" and "nightmare.")

 

Milk Chocolate-Dipped Hazelnut Sandies
Food & Wine

(This photo submitted by Laura Osborne)

 

Noel Balls
Food & Wine

(This photo submitted by Aviva Wittenberg)

 

 

Oat-and-Pecan Caramel Sandwiches
Martha Stewart Living

(This photo submitted by Sara Wiskerchen)

 

Orange-Almond Florentines with Cardamom
Vegetarian Times

(This photo submitted by Chris H.)

 

Peanut Butter-Chocolate Tassies
Food Network Magazine

(This photo submitted by CMCooks)

Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies: Day 2

Adventures in gluten-free baking...

A "CoverGirl Centerfold Cookie"...

Cookies that pair well with tequila...

The one with a crazy name...

And a cookie that looks like the Grinch...

Day 2 of Cover to Cover: Holiday Cookies has something for everyone. If you missed Day 1, start there. If not, dig in to today's recipes below.

 

Gluten-Free Chocolate-Almond Thumbprint Cookies
Food & Wine

(This photo submitted by Malia)

 

Lavender Shortbread with Fruits, Flowers and Herbs
Bon Appétit

(This photo submitted by Elizabeth J.)
 

Lebkuchen
Food & Wine

(This photo submitted by Linda Wreford)

 

Lime Icebox Cookies
Food Network Magazine

(This photo submitted by Wendy B.)
 

Matcha-White Chocolate Sugar Cookies
Bon Appétit

(This photo submitted by Gillian)

Cover-to-Cover Holiday Cookies: Day 1

The third-annual Bitten Word Cover-to-Cover Challenge is here!!

More than 500 Bitten Word readers -- 500! -- signed up for this year's challenge, which focused in on 25 holiday cookie recipes from six different food magazines.

Every day this week, we'll publish five recipes. So if you're looking for some holiday baking inspiration, you're gonna want to stay tuned!

Today we're kicking things off with five cookies that run the gamut.  One of these was a big hit with the cooks who tried it. Another was a boozy surprise.

And one of these recipes was an epic disaster, thanks to a typo in a magazine recipe.

Which one? Read through to find out!

 

Chewy Salted Oatmeal Cookies
Food & Wine

(This photo submitted by Heather Tucker)

 

Chocolate-Hazelnut Shortbread Squares
Martha Stewart Living

(This photo submitted by Catherine)

 

Cinnamon Almond Stars
Martha Stewart Living

(This photo submitted by Juliette)

 

 

Cocoa Snickerdoodles
Food Network Magazine

(This photo submitted by Jennifer Osborn)

 

Gingersnap Sandwich Cookies
Food & Wine

 

Roasted Sunchokes with Brown Butter-Cider Vinaigrette

Food & Wine (December 2014)

 

We have a confession to make: We breathe a little sigh of relief when our six-month CSA season ends every November.

 

Don't get us wrong, we love our CSA and the weekly joy of getting fresh, organic and truly wonderful vegetables. But after six months of pick-ups, we're ready for a break. It's awesome getting armfuls of greens and vegetables every week, but figuring out how to make use of all of it can be overwhelming.

 

Our CSA ended just before Thanksgiving. The shares at the end were predictably wintery: squash, some hearty greens, the remainder of the garlic. You get the picture.

 

But the season also ended with sunchokes. Lots and lots of sunchokes. By the end of the share, we had stowed at least 4 pounds of them in our crisper drawer. 

 

So it was a forgone conclusion that we'd make Food & Wine's Salad of the Month: Roasted Sunchokes with Brown Butter-Cider Vinaigrette. 

Salt-and-Pepper Shrimp

Bon Appétit (December 2014)

Are we late to the Salt-and-Pepper Shrimp party?

We were flipping through the December food magazines when we spotted this version from Bon Appétit. Then a few minutes later, we were in Cook's Illustrated, and there, again, was the same dish, this time called "Crispy Salt and Pepper Shrimp."

This is a totally new dish to us, but not to tons of other folks. Since reading about the dish, we've learned that you can sometimes find it at authentic Chinese restaurants (though we didn't find it after scouring the online menus for our go-to Chinese restaurants in D.C.). Way back in 2011, Mark Bittman profiled Danny Bowien/Mission Chinese Food's take on the dish.

So why would this dish suddenly show up in two different food magazines? We have no idea. (Do you have any theories?) But we're sure glad it did.

 

 

The Thanksgiving Report: Adventures in Fried Turkey

We've received dozens and dozens of notes from readers about your Thanksgiving experiences: what you cooked, what you loved, what'd you make again. It's been the highlight of our past week, as we've read through your menus and notes. 

While it's still somewhat visible in the rearview mirror, we wanted to give our own Thanksgiving report. Initially (and a little shamefully), we hadn't planned to cook anything, having gotten our fill of turkey at Fakesgiving. But as the holiday approached, and our friends Drew and Ralph decided to stay in town, we planned a small Thanksgiving. They hosted and Drew had one requirement: We would all fry a turkey.

We were totally on board. Though we're all four from the South, none of us had ever fried a turkey. Drew ordered a kit online; we picked up a turkey and waited for the big day. 

To go with the turkey, we made a basic, rich gravy (sort of like this one but without the cream); Sweet Potatoes with Bourbon and Maple (a dish we had loved several years ago; yep, we still like it); a warm Brussels sprout salad; and for dessert a chocolate fudge pie.

Drew and Ralph made a frozen cranberry salad (Ralph's grandmother used to always serve them); a stuffing whose base was made of saltine crackers, and much better than the cracker dressing we made this year; and an Atlantic Beach Pie, which we absolutely loved (it's like a sweet-but-also-salty key lime pie). 

Alas, the famed Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes were not on the table, and everyone regretted it later. 

But there was turkey and, like Drew had dreamed, it was fried. Here's how that went down.