Vanilla Bean and Thyme Madeleines

Madeleines are one of my favorite ways to have cake: they're shaped like cookies, which makes them like a portable version of a cake, and they're so toothsome and fluffy, all at once. I realized recently to my surprise that I have never actually posted a madeleine recipe publicly before, even though I've been making them for years and years! So, for my Anthology Magazine Blog post this month, I decided that this situation must be remedied.

I've made madeleines in so many different flavors before--saffron, berry, pumpkin, etc. etc.--but for my first public post, I wanted to go with something much more classic. Because sometimes, you don't have to mess with a good thing. So here they are: vanilla bean and thyme madeleines. My base recipe also uses a bit of coconut oil, for just a hint of floral aroma from the coconut underlying the cake. You can find the recipe on the Anthology Blog here. (All blog posts that have Anthology recipes will be updated one month after the initial posting with the recipe here on desserts for breakfast.)

My favorite moment with these madeleines is when I took a box of them into work, and offered one to a particularly prominent scientist in my department. While most people focus on the pretty, scalloped side of madeleines (versus the humpy backside -- which reminds me, this would be my totally non-classy theme song for madeleines :P), my colleague took a madeleine and flipped it scalloped side down. Holding it sideways, he looked at me with a smile and said, "Look! it's like a little boat! Toot toot!" while scooting the madeleine over imaginary waves. When I grow up, I want to maintain that sort of child-like playfulness in creativity and imagination!

Also, I picked these "wild" roses from my backyard. I sort of love how delicately imperfect they were, so fragrant but at the same time, completely fleeting in their beauty.

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In a few weeks, I'm headed to Hawai'i (Oahu and Kauai), ostensibly for a work-related conference! I am. so. excited. If you have any recommendations for places to see or eat on those islands, please leave them in the comments below! Thank you!

Rye and Marmalade Pinwheel Cookies (aka: Joulutorttu)

A month or so ago, I was performing my biennial Organize ALL the Cupboards ritual when I discovered that I have managed to hoard enough jam and marmalade that all of it no longer fits on one shelf of my pantry. Um.... yes... My name is Stephanie, and I am a preservers hoarder.

Since realizing my er... problem...., every dessert that has been coming out of my kitchen recently has involved jam or marmalade in some form or another. It's been a lot of fun experimenting with the versatility that a really good jar of preserves affords you. So when it came time to develop a recipe for my monthly post over at Anthology, I was so excited to stumble upon a pinwheel cookie cutter at Sur La Table (don't worry--a cookie cutter, I later learned, is unnecessary for making these cookies. It just makes things faster). Finnish pinwheel cookies--known as joulutorttu--are these delightfully shaped pastry puffs filled in the centers with marmalade (or traditionally, prune jam). I found the precious shapes to be a super fun and playful change from the typical thumbprint cookies I usually turn to when looking for small, baked vessels with which to deliver jam from jar to mouth. :) I made these even more "Finnish" by making the base a rye puff pastry, and then sprinkling the tops with spicy caraway seeds. For filling, I used a variety of marmalades--any thick jam or marmalade will do.

For the recipe and more photos, click on over to the Anthology website!

Since this is a blog and all, I also feel compelled to include a small update about my life. I won't at all be offended if you skip to the cookies if this part is boring. :)

Teaching at Berkeley this semester has been utterly exhausting (I live in fear of a sudden onset heart attack or something, given the stress), but at the same time, it's been so, so rewarding that I wouldn't trade anything for this experience. If you'd asked me two, three years ago--or maybe even last year--whether I thought I'd be here, I would have laughed in your face, probably complete with some good slow-mo water-spitting action. Grad school really puts you through the ringer. It makes you military-crawl, on your belly, through morasses of sh*t. It tears you down and then sucker-kicks you when you're down for good measure. Or at least, large parts of my experience did. But on the other side now, I'm sort of grateful for all that sh*t I crawled through. Not that I would wish it on anyone else, but I feel as though I'm way stronger and far more capable now than I ever could have been without those life lessons. Everyone learns in their own way, and maybe I just needed the hard knock life route.

For the past few years, after I decided to just go full-steam ahead in chasing my goals, I've lived and breathed by this Barbara Kingsolver quote:

"The very least you can do in your life is figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it under its roof." -- Barbara Kingsolver

Every time I look at it, that quote has reminded me and continually encouraged me to just. keep. gonig. Keep grasping for those dreams. Of course, I'm definitely not there yet--I've just climbed the foothills, but there's still the entire mountain range yet to come.

Then, a few weeks ago, I came across a new quote. It's one that I felt really resonated with the attitude I've been trying to take on in a new chapter of life. Since emerging from the cave that was grad school, I've felt like--okay, you've proved it to those four people on your committee; now it's time to convince the world. And to do that, requires more risk, more openness, more hard work, more vulnerability, and more bravery:

"In order to move others deeply, we must deliberately allow ourselves to be carried away beyond the bounds of our normal sensibility.... And surely this is no great sin." -- J. Conrad, A Familiar Preface

And the payoff could be beyond our wildest dreams.

More news soon. Stay tuned!