Florida {Lemon + Coconut} Pie

Being a Florida girl (you can read a post of my memories of Miami as a child here), Florida pie is Key lime pie. I am a true Key lime snob (I won't bore you with another Key lime rant). I'm fresh out of limes (our little tree wasn't very productive this year) but I did have a ton of Meyer lemons, so I used the last of them on this pie, which is a cross between coconut cream and lime (or lemon in my case).

I haven't been a huge fan of the other combination pies in Baking from My Home to Yours, so I was hoping this one would be different. The coconut cream (a combination of heavy cream and shredded coconut that is boiled until it reduces by half) looked and smelled heavenly.

The finished pie is good, though because I used lemon (and low acidity lemons at that), it wasn't quite tart enough for my taste. I liked the coconut layer, but I would chop the coconut next time rather than using it out of the bag. I think it would make it less stringy to eat that way. The recipe calls for a meringue topping, but I skipped it. I thought the pie would appeal to my tasters (and us) without it, and it did.

And speaking of tasters, I had every intention taking this one to work, but it kept getting whittled away until it was obvious it wasn't going anywhere. Since it's stored in the freezer, it's an excellent keeper. If you'd like to give it a try, you can find the recipe here.

Cran-Apple Crisps

It's Tuesday and I'm still making up recipes from Baking From My Home to Yours like my life depends on it. At the beginning of the year, I had 78 recipes to make up. I'm not sure how many are left, but it's lots less than 78.

This recipe is perfection as a do ahead, and even if you're making it from start to finish, it's still very doable on a weeknight. I made some changes:

• We have tons of desserts around so I made 1/4 of the recipe, yielding 2 crisps.
• I didn't have dried cranberries, so I substituted chopped walnuts.
• I considered adding cardamom to the crisp topping but didn't. I think it would be awesome so if you try it please let me know how you liked it.
• You can use practically any fruit with this one. Really, grapefruit, pears, berries, stone fruit, you can use them all.
• Dorie's crisp topping is quite unusual in that it has oats and coconut, but it works beautifully, and is easy to throw together as it's made in the food processor.

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here.

German Chocolate Ice Cream

What do you get when you combine toasted coconut and pecans, deep, dark chocolate, cream and eggs?

German chocolate ice cream. Not the ooey gooey confection that sits on the eponymous cake, but an irresistible bowl of crunchy, chewy, chocolaty goodness.

My friend Margaret of Tea and Scones talked me into making this ice cream with her. The original recipe called for German chocolate, which I don't have because it's just too sweet for me, so I substituted semisweet. Margaret suggested toasting the coconut (she didn't but thought it would enhance the coconut's flavor). I was hesitant to use whole eggs in a "custard" but since you strain and process the custard in the blender, the risk of cooked egg bits was close to zero. I might try making this with all egg yolks next time to get an even more luscious ice cream.

Because of the straining, blending and multiple bowls and appliances required for this one, it isn't a low maintenance dessert but I think you'll agree it's worth it.

German Chocolate Ice Cream - adapted from Blue Ridge Mountain Ice cream Maker Store
Printer-friendly recipe
4 ounces semisweet chocolate
1 cup heavy cream
1 cup milk
1/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ cup sweetened flaked coconut, toasted
½ cup toasted chopped pecans

Make an ice bath: fill a large mixing bowl with ice water and place a 2 quart bowl on top, resting in the ice bath. Set aside.

Melt the chocolate in the microwave on medium, stirring every ten seconds or so, or in the top of a double boiler. In a medium saucepan over low heat, combine the cream, milk and sugar. Cook until bubbles form around the edge and mixture is warm to the touch. 

Whisk the eggs in a small bowl and slowly whisk in several spoonfuls of the hot milk mixture to the eggs to gradually warm them, then slowly add the rest of the hot milk, whisking constantly. Add the mixture to the same saucepan and continue to cook over low heat, whisking constantly. Mixture will thicken slightly and reach a temperature of 160 degrees on a candy thermometer. Stir in the warm melted chocolate and vanilla. 

Pour the mixture into the bowl in the ice bath to cool the mixture. When cool, pour the mixture through a strainer into a 1 quart measuring cup and then into the container of a blender, cover and process until well combined. Chill in the refrigerator until ready to freeze. 

Pour into the ice cream maker and follow the manufacturer's instructions for freezing. Just before the ice cream is completely frozen, stir in the 3 coconut and pecans and stir to combine ingredients. Transfer to a container and freeze until ready to serve.

Makes about 1 quart

*******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. I will be responding to comments but not keeping up with my Google Reader or visiting bloggers other than those who leave comments. I'll be back around August 31st with a spirit refreshed by this blessed month of fasting and prayer. Peace.

Carrot Spice Muffins/Cocoa Meringues

The Tuesdays with Dorie bakers have been exploring Baking From My Home to Yours one recipe at a time since January 2008. With the majority of the recipes in the cookbook chosen up to this point, one would expect the remainder to be the less desirable ones.

Not so. Last week, we had a light, easy cocoa meringue cookie made with almond meal and peppered with chocolate chips. It was knock-your-socks-off delicious, too good to eat just one, wildly popular with everyone who had one. Mike of Ugly Food For an Ugly Dude chose this one and I am forever grateful. I probably never would have made this one on my own even though there is a photo in the book and I love chocolate. These were fantastic and I'll definitely make them again.

This week, my buddy Nancy of The Dogs Eat the Crumbs picked the carrot spice muffins, an erstwhile morning glory that I made with carrots, pecans, coconut and dried cherries. I was excited to make these and made them the day after the recipes for this month were announced. Muffins are usually easy to put together as they require minimal mixing, but these were a little labor intensive. I shredded the carrots in my food processor, and toasted the coconut and nuts in the oven while I measured the wet and dry ingredients.

I normally double most recipes since I take most everything in to work but this time I made the recipe as written. When I make muffins from this book, I always get a higher yield than Dorie specifies in the recipe. With this recipe, I forced myself to pile all the batter into 12 muffin cups and was rewarded with 12 large, perfectly baked muffins. They were crunchy on the outside and moist and flavorful inside, all elements of a perfect muffin in my book. And they were great the following day, and the day after that. Definitely a repeater around here. Nancy has the recipe for you here.

*******PLEASE NOTE: Lethally Delicious is on hiatus for the month of Ramadan. I will be responding to comments but not keeping up with my Google Reader or visiting bloggers other than those who leave comments. I'll be back around August 31st with a spirit refreshed by this blessed month of fasting and prayer. Peace.

Chocolate Pecan Tart

Chocolate pecan tart. What could be better (well, other than the photo)? My buddy Susan at Baking with Susan picked this yummy treat from Chocolate Epiphany by Francois Payard for last month's Chocolate with Francois selection. I used a frozen tart shell which had seen better days, but the stellar filling more than made up for the textural challenges of an old crust. I used feves for the chocolate as the tart in the book appeared to have been made with chocolate disks. Next time I think I'll chop the chocolate, and go with a higher percentage chocolate (I used 60%, but I think 70% would make the tart less sweet). Great pick, Susan! Check out Susan's amazing tart, and the recipe, here.

Because my wrist is taking FOREVER to heal, I never posted these chocolate coconut rochers, which I made in November. Joanne at Apple Crumbles selected these treats, and they were amazing. Mine didn't look like the pyramids in the book, but they were gobbled up in no time at all. They were so easy, and I don't think I've ever tasted a macaroon I liked more. Even people who don't like coconut liked these. Two thumbs way up for these cookies, which were easy to boot.

Now I'm all caught up on my baking for Chocolate with Francois. And it's a good thing, because I get to pick the recipe this month.

Chewy, Chunky Blondies

There are so many bad blondie recipes that I automatically assume that all blondie recipes are bad. In general, they're dry and not as yummy as their cousin the brownie. I've made Martha's brown butter blondies before to great acclaim but that's been the exception for me. Until Dorie's blondies. They were so delicious with their additions of chocolate chips, coconut, walnuts and chopped toffee (I used Skor) that I made them twice in three days. The first time I made them I was tweeting with my friend Kayte and I had a blast making them. Kayte managed to eat around the chocolate and she loved them, too. I didn't give enough of them away and M. and I ate too many both times.

I lined the pan with parchment to eliminate sticking and ease cleanup. Because who wants to lose a bit of this beauty?

This wonderful recipe comes from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Tuesdays with Dorie is baking its way through this super book. Our host this week and the  person who chose this recipe) was Nicole of Cookies on Friday. Nicole, we loved your pick and I know I'll be making it again and again.

If you'd like to have the recipe, you can buy the book, or Nicole will have it for you here. And you can see what the other TWD bakers thought of it here.

Chocolate Coconut Ice Cream Pie

The amazing Spike of Spike Bakes chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Banana Coconut Ice Cream Pie (she has the recipe for you here). In continuing the trend of insanity that I was struck with for last week's bread pudding (for which I made brioche), I made Dorie's chocolate ganache ice cream instead of buying ice cream. It's the very best chocolate ice cream, period. If I brought some inferior store-bought chocolate ice cream into this house, M. would go on strike and I'd have to carry the garbage out myself. No siree. Not on my watch.

I came *this close* (gesturing, fingers almost together) to adding bananas. I bought them. I thought about them. I monitored their ripeness with the pie in mind.

Then, I read the part of the recipe where Dorie instructs us to puree the bananas in the food processor before adding the chocolate ice cream. I heard brakes screeching, train whistles, sirens and all manner of DANGER! STOP! DON'T DO IT! warnings. I put down the bananas, took a deep breath, and went on without them. Paired with Dorie's chocolate ganache ice cream, this pie didn't need bananas competing with its sublime flavor.

This pie has an interesting crust that was fun to make. You saute coconut in melted butter until browned and then add crushed shortbread cookies. It made a delicious pie crust. I pressed it in a buttered pie plate and froze it while we went to San Francisco for a fun midweek play day.

When we came home, relaxed but exhausted, I put the ice cream in the crust while M. jumped on a conference call. And then we each had a slice for dinner. I quizzed M. relentlessly: Do you think it would have been good with the pureed bananas (wish I had a photo of the "Are you kidding me" look he gave me). Do you think the chocolate ice cream dominates the crust ("Isn't that the point of a filling?"). What do you think of it with the pecans? ("Really good.") How could it be better? ("It can't. It's perfect.")

With that, I sat back and savored every bite, in complete agreement with his assessment. He is a great, appreciative audience for my baking, but he's also a very thoughtful and helpful taster.

I hope you have someone special to share this with, someone who appreciates everything you do but gives you feedback in a positive, supportive way. That, my friends, is even sweeter than pie.

Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies for National Chocolate Chip Day

National Chocolate Chip Day. Now that's a holiday I can get behind!

I've been wanting to try these chocolate chip cookies ever since I did my chocolate chip cookie tasting (if you missed it, you can read about it here). They were a runner up when I picked the three chocolate chip cookie recipes I would make for the tasting but I omitted them because they contain coconut, which is a polarizing ingredient. Sure enough, when I announced earlier this week that I would be bringing coconut chocolate chip cookies for our pot luck, many people were thrilled but a few were repulsed. A great reminder that taste is indeed subjective.

The recipe for these cookies comes from Pichet Ong and the technique is a little different. The recipe has you cream the butter, sugars and toasted coconut together instead of adding the coconut at the end. So the coconut didn't give flavor as much as it did a chewy texture in a cookie that might have been thin and crispy without it.

I'm sorry to say that although these were good, I didn't think they were great. It wasn't just me--they didn't garner the reverential feedback I usually get when I bring chocolate chip cookies to work. If I make them again, I'll definitely add more chocolate and maybe some pecans.

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it here.

TWD - Coconut Tea Cake

We're definitely ready for spring at Tuesdays with Dorie. This is our second coconut dessert this month, and it definitely put me in the mood for some tropical weather.

Carmen of the eponymous Carmen Cooks selected this one for us and I found it very easy to make. I love it when a recipe doesn't call for room temperature butter because that means I can make it on a whim. Yes, I know I can soften the butter in the microwave, but more often than not I end up with a buttery puddle rather than softened butter.

One of Dorie's playing around suggestions was the addition of lime zest and lime juice, and I went with that one. I doubled up on the zest, and it still wasn't enough--the lime was a faint background flavor rather than the tart foil to the sweetness of the coconut that I was looking for.

Beating the eggs with the sugar for several minutes gave the cake a nice light structure. This one was a little sweet for me, yet I think it would be lovely with a tart lime curd to balance the sweetness.

If you'd like the recipe, you can find it on Carmen's blog. Or better yet, buy the book we're baking from, Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. It's a wonderful collection of creative recipes that will impress your family and friends without stressing you out.

TWD - Coconut-Cream Pie

Beryl of Cinemon Girl chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, coconut-cream tart. This one was a scramble for me to finish today. I left off the cream because we aren't whipped cream fans, and it was still absolutely delicious.

Check out what the other TWD bakers did...you can find them all here. I've peeked at a few of them and theirs look fantastic!

Barefoot Bloggers - Coconut Cupcakes

Why, Ina? Why? I really didn't want to fall in love with another one of your recipes that involves unwrapping multiple sticks of butter, blocks of cream cheese or measures sugar by the pound. But like my first flirtation with dark chocolate, there is no going back now that I've tried your luscious coconut cupcakes.

This one will be short as it's late and I'm trying to get this one posted on time. These were easy to put together (other than the pain of unwrapping six sticks of butter), and as I mentioned, they were deee-licious. Ina says this recipe makes 18-20 cupcakes. I don't know what kind of muffin tins she's using but I got 24 regular cupcakes and 24 minis. And I had a lot of leftover frosting.

If you'd like to make these delightful cupcakes, you can find the recipe here. Many thanks to Jamie from Jamie's Green Kitchen for hosting Barefoot Bloggers this week.

TWD - Caramel Swirl and Coconut Macadamia Ice Creams

Lynne of Cafe LynnyLu chose this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, vanilla ice cream. When the recipes were announced, I thought the bookends of the month, the first and last recipes, were a natural together. I planned to make the Tribute to Katharine Hepburn Brownies and serve them with scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Then peer pressure took over.

I started thinking, what will my fellow TWD-ers do with this recipe? It's practically a blank canvas, and Dorie's playing around suggestions encourage us to take off in many directions, including mix ins and swirl ins. I could have done one of those, but I had to do something different so that maybe you would stop here and go "Wow! Look what Leslie did with this! I never thought of making it with sriracha."

OK, maybe not that different. So I decided to make my caramel sauce (recipe to come), which is ridiculously easy, and swirl it in after the ice cream chilled some.

I made this ice cream on the same day I made the brownies. The high that day was 102, we don't have air conditioning, and I appreciated this one didn't require turning the oven on.

Until I decided toasted macadamias and toasted coconut would be perfect compliments to the rich vanilla base. The oven went back on.

The custard base was super simple. The star players were heavy cream and whole milk with a vanilla bean (its vanilla caviar, as Gail Gand would say, stripped out and added to the mixture). Egg yolks added richness and stabilized the mixture; the custard was cooked until it thickened slightly. Once cooled, the custard is churned in an ice cream maker.

As I poured the churned mixture, still soft and bursting with flecks of vanilla, into two separate containers, I put aside the dasher to taste once the ice cream was safely in the freezer.

Oh. My. I wanted to climb in the freezer and be with it, it was that good. Better, yes indeed, than the Bouchon vanilla ice cream I made a few years ago. So good, I didn't want to serve it with the brownies. Or add anything that would take away from its pure vanilla flavor. But I did.

The caramel was swirled in after the ice cream froze for a half hour. I may have been a little heavy handed with the caramel, but I knew the vanilla base could stand up to the aggressive bite of the bitter caramel sauce.

Then I chopped the toasted macadamias and added them and the toasted coconut to the other half of the base. Mix lightly and back in the freezer for both flavors.

Then wait. Waiting is hard.

Sneak a bite...

After tasting the caramel swirl, I knew the coconut macadamia could never live up to it. The caramel was rich and almost bitter from being taken practically to the edge of burning before the cream was added. No namby pamby sweet caramel for me. It lends a complexity that the vanilla plays up without competing with it. This ice cream is some of the best I have ever eaten.

Sneak a bite of the other flavor...

Impossible. The saltiness of the macadamias (which I accidentally left in the oven a bit too long, until they were brown) and the sweet toasted coconut with the rich vanilla backdrop made a flavor as subtle and complex as the caramel was in-your-face.

Not to overstate it, but this recipe blew me away. As written, it's the very best vanilla ice cream you could ever hope to eat or make. But when you let your imagination carry you away, it's transformed from the star to a supporting role. Your flavors can shine because the foundation is solid.

I never thought I could make great ice cream, but Dorie has taught me I can make a lot of great things. All it takes is the right teacher, and letting your mind wander until you find the flavors that speak to you.

If you'd like the recipe, check out Lynne's blog. Or better yet, buy the book. We're cooking from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. It's filled with amazing, fun and even some challenging recipes that will increase your baking repertoire.

TWD - Coconut-Roasted Pineapple Dacquoise

I thought about skipping this one. I'm not a huge fan of white "chocolate," and I was afraid it would taste of white "chocolate," but I decided I could always pawn it off on my unsuspecting coworkers. I learned a lot with this dessert:

1. Always unload the dishwasher, then load the dishes in the sink before baking.

2. Shortcuts aren't.

3. Dorie's cookie sheets are larger than mine.

4. Don't separate egg whites into the mixing bowl to save time. It doesn't.

5. Do laundry, or bake. Not both at the same time.

6. Pick a recipe. Make it. Then pick another. Repeat. Don't do them all at the same time.
7. Trust Dorie.

Onward to the dacquoise. If you live in earthquake country as I do, it's important to make this recipe on a day that you plan to be at home for a while. The meringues bake for 3 hours, and in California, it's never a good idea to leave the house while the oven is on. I'm not saying I've never violated this rule, but you've been warned.

I only had extra large eggs since that's what my CSA gave me, so I checked the handy table in the back of The Cake Bible and learned that one large egg white weighs 30 grams, so I started cracking eggs and putting the whites in the mixing bowl (which I placed on the scale-saving time and saving dishes!) Then, on the third egg, I must have whacked it extra hard and the yolk broke, polluting the whites in the mixing bowl, as well as the mixing bowl itself. Pause, unload dishwasher, put dirty dishes in dishwasher, wash mixing bowl and dry it. Oops, the laundry is done and needs to be attended to. Come back, separate the eggs (each into a ramekin - coincidentally no yolk breakage this time.) Draw three 12x6 rectangles using two pieces of parchment paper...err, I don't think so. Fortunately, I was using the back of a sheet pan to do this since parts of my counter top were off limits (stains on my new-guaranteed-not-to-stain-for-10-years granite are being treated), because I could tell right away that two 12x6 rectangles weren't fitting on one of my sheet pans. I use sheet pans instead of cookie sheets, so I just put one rectangle on each of three sheet pans. Are you still with me?

At this point, I was questioning the wisdom of making this recipe. But I had bought unsweetened coconut, white "chocolate," and already sacrificed almost a dozen eggs, so I was committed.

With stencils drawn and sheet pans dried, I prepared the dry ingredients in the food processor, then beat the egg whites and cream of tartar, adding powdered sugar when they reached the soft peak stage. The dry ingredients were gently folded in, and the meringue was divided between the sheet pans. I had to improvise to keep the parchment from rolling up before I got the meringue spread out.

After three hours, the meringues were done and after they cooled, I covered them with parchment, made the white chocolate ganache and went to bed, planning (with my usual mix of optimism and idiocy) to complete the dacquoise the next morning and take it to work for my coworkers to enjoy. This plan wasn't as insane as it sounds, since all I had to do was whip the ganache, cut the pineapple (I bought prepackaged fresh pineapple at Trader Joe's) and broil it. What could go wrong?

M. is on a business trip and he Skyped me from the road thinking I might want to talk to him (which I did, but can't we do it after I finish assembling my cake...?) Needless to say, I halfway paid attention to him while I assembled, frosted, layered the pineapple, etc., pausing occasionally to ask him if he wanted to see it. I'm sure he was asking himself why he left an important meeting to call me if all I was going to do was babble on about my dessert.

It actually didn't look half bad:

I put it in back of the car and headed off to work. Halfway there, I heard the sickening sound of my tote bag (with my lunch, coffee mug, a yogurt, box of crackers, etc.) fall ON TOP OF the dacquoise. I pulled the car over and opened the back of the car and could have cried. My beautiful dessert was a misshapen shadow of its glamorous self. It was largely intact but obviously had cushioned the fall of something heavier.

When I served it at work, you wouldn't believe how many people commented on how it looked, as in, how good it looked. Nobody said "That's a strange shape" or "Why didn't you smooth out the frosting?" They oooed and ahhed and politely waited for a small piece. And then a hush fell over my coworkers, except for the occasional "Mmmm."

The white chocolate that I vilified? It and the cream created a light cloak for the crisp and chewy meringues. The pineapple, lightly charred with the caramelized sugar, flavored the whole dessert. The almonds weren't detectable, but lent a subtle crunch to the meringue.

Once again, I learned lesson #7. Trust Dorie. Trust her palate. Trust her instructions. Trust her sense of the impact a simple but elegant dessert can have over a room of people, holding out their plates expectantly, holding their breath until they take that first bite.

TWD Rewind - Bill's Big Carrot Cake

I have used the same carrot cake recipe for YEARS. It is always well loved but I was ready for a change. Dorie Greenspan has a carrot cake in Baking From My Home to Yours that was chosen before I joined Tuesdays with Dorie, and I figured I'd give it a try. I have heard whispers about how yummy and flat out fantastic it is from reading some of my fellow TWD bloggers' posts, and I wanted to see how it compared to my go-to recipe.

My recipe has an 8 ounce can of crushed pineapple (juice included) and no coconut. That gives it a LLOOONNNGGGG life in the refrigerator, but that isn't always a plus unless you're a "B" diner. Dorie's recipe has just cinnamon, and mine had a mixture of spices (cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, etc.) Dorie's calls for raisins or dried cranberries in addition to the nuts. Otherwise, the two were similar.

The recipe came together quickly and smelled amazing while it was baking. Since I made this a couple of weeks before I needed it, I cooled the layers completely and then triple wrapped them in plastic wrap and double wrapped them in heavy duty foil. My freezer is small and my friend Susan has a humongo freezer, so they had a sleep over at her house. On the day I planned to serve the cake, I let the layers sit out at room temperature (still wrapped) for an hour or two before I assembled the cake.

Dorie's cream cheese frosting recipe uses a pound of confectioner's sugar to 8 ounces of cream cheese, but adds a tablespoon of lemon juice to counteract the sweetness. I didn't have an available lemon, so I cut back on the sugar (to 14 ounces). I left the sides of the cake bare as Dorie did in the picture in the book.

This cake rocked our world. I used Vietnamese cinnamon and it gave the cake a wonderful depth of flavor. Normally, I use about half the amount of Vietnamese cinnamon since it's so assertive, but I really liked the spiciness it gave. We even liked it without any frosting.

My old recipe? It's history. Dorie's recipe? It's the future. A very yummy future, indeed. To make this cake a part of your future, check out the book Baking From My Home to Yours. It is an amazing feast of go-to recipes just as great as this one.

TWD - Coconut Butter Thins

How can you not love a shortbread recipe that has thin in its name? I mean, they say to me "Eat more! We're thin!"

This week's delicious Tuesdays with Dorie pick is an addictive shortbread cookie brought to us by Jayne of The Barefoot Kitchen Witch. I made these at the end of a baking/cooking extravaganza weekend that left my kitchen looking like this:


I know what you're thinking. Did rogue chefs break into my house, trash the kitchen, and run? No, I did this all by myself. As an aside, if you think redoing your kitchen will provide the push you need to keep it tidy all the time, the answer is no. I am still the same person who does three things at a time and completes none of them.

Back to the cookies. That they somehow escaped from this kitchen unscathed is a miracle. That's one good thing about being in TWD. I really have to produce finished products on occasion so I can photograph them and write about them on this blog.

I went for the recipe as written by Dorie the Great. It was, after all, Sunday night, and I was tired after a day of trashing my kitchen cooking and baking. Fortunately I had everything I needed, including the appropriately sized Ziploc bag. Like I said, I was tired so my macadamias (I used salted as encouraged by Dorie) weren't chopped into teeny tiny pieces. I rolled the dough out in the bag to the exact measurements (I hear you guffawing out there...but it was close) put it in the refrigerator, contemplated cleaning the kitchen but went to bed instead.

The next morning, I cut open the bag, and cut 30 cookies of varying sizes. I didn't bother putting the slab of dough on the cutting board, because I figured it would be easier to scrape them off the bag than it would be to scrape them off the cutting board, and it worked pretty well. I hoped they would maintain their blocky shape after baking, but knew from the P&Q that they likely wouldn't.

They were definitely done after 18 minutes. I wished I checked them a minute sooner since I find shortbread is overcooked if it is slightly brown around the edges. I waited a few minutes for them to cool before I sampled one. It was delicate, buttery (but not overly so) and had the slightest hint of lime. Once the cookies cooled, they were chewy and complex. I would have liked more lime flavor so next time (and oh, will there be a next time) I will probably double the lime zest.

Make these. Now. They're lovely and would adapt to a myriad of variations. Try them with pine nuts and rosemary in place of the coconut and macadamias. Or leave in the coconut and macadamia and jazz them up with curry powder. Go for it. After all, they're thin.