SMiLes by Meg

What's Cooking

Ciambelli

This week’s recipe was very much a learning experience. Some important lessons: Whole Foods doesn’t sell regular shortening. So I had to get some weird coconut and palm oil variety. Pro: it was yellow. You can melt shortening. As a former science teacher, this shouldn’t have been as surprising to me as it was. Orange zest has a tendency to stick to the attachment of your stand mixer like hair instead of incorporating into the batter. Even if you fully submerge and douse a cookie in powdered sugar, after it bakes it will still look like you did no such …

S’mores Bars

Last week, I told you all about my baking marathon. This weekend, I give you the second installment: s’mores bars. These showed up at Pickett Christmas (my mom’s side of the family Christmas Party) this year by way of my cousin Sharon, and I was addicted. They’re gooey. They’re chocolatey. They’re cookie-y. And if you eat them warm (difficult, but worth it), they capture everything you want out of a s’more.

Cookie Dough Bites

Friday night was a baking marathon. After a week of birthdays and J-term festivities, I really needed a night where I didn’t have to leave my apartment. Lucky for me, I have friends that felt the same, and were willing to trek to my apartment for a quieter night in.

Corn Muffins

J-term is Harvard’s gift to 1Ls after the insanity of final exams. After finishing last semester, I had been looking forward to a couple weeks at home to rest and recoup. But breaks usually aren’t actually all that much of a break when you think about it. You have to run all of the errands you ignored for the month you spent in the library. You have lots of family and friends to go see and spend time with. You realize that you haven’t thought about applying to jobs yet and that’s going to sneak up on you faster than …

Crispy Peanut Butter Bars

As much as I love baking, the real cooking accomplishment today was learning how to poach an egg. Since England last summer, where every breakfast seemed to include a poached egg and avocado, I’ve been meaning to learn. Then, when I was in Utah a couple weekends ago, my friend Jeremy made us poached eggs every morning. I was inspired, and finally took the time to learn this morning.

Mocha Truffle Cookies

Christmas with the Muncey’s was a marathon this year. I got home from skiing in Utah on Tuesday, and then had a party every day through yesterday. That’s four separate Christmas parties. A night-before-the-night-before party, a Christmas eve party, Christmas, and Pickett Christmas. Like I said, a marathon.

Gluten Free Gingerbread Men

Last weekend I mentioned that I had had time to make two types of cookies – I’m cheating this weekend and posting the second instead of making something new. That’s not to say I’m not baking. Yesterday I arrived in Utah to ski with a group of friends that comes out here every year. This is my first year participating, but apparently they take their food plans very seriously.

Eggnog Cookies

This is usually the time of year when I make my cookie tins – five new types of cookies and two full days of baking. However, right now I am on my 10th straight day spending countless hours in the library and subsisting largely on free candy and caffeine. In other words, I haven’t yet had time to dedicate to my usual Christmas festivities.

Best Banana Bread

I’m pretty sure my roommate buys bananas exclusively so that I’ll turn them into banana bread. They sit in our fruit bowl, largely untouched, until there are only three left and they’re all brown. At which point I don’t really have a choice in the matter, since my banana bread recipe just happens to call for exactly three overripe bananas.

Salted Caramel Mini Cheesecakes

OK, now it’s Christmas season. I went Black Friday shopping for the first time in recent memory. I’ve been listening to Straight No Chaser’s Christmas albums on repeat for two days. I have a full box of decorations ready to be set up around my apartment. I’m planning my finals studying strategically to allow plenty of time for Christmas shopping.