Congo Bars with Sea Salt a/k/a Unspeakable Badness

My new goal is that I'm allowing myself once per week to eat some unspeakable badness called dessert. I'm not going overboard here, but I'm gonna eat what I want, just once per week. It still follows the Dukan Diet, 1-2 celebration meals per week. And I'm going to try to stick to that, but once a week?

Unspeakable badness.

Girls' Night Chocolate Chip Cookies

Why are these called Girls' Night Chocolate Chip Cookies?

Because we made them on a girls' night.

Duh.

Biscotti, Two Ways

This past weekend, I got tons of baking done. Tons and tons.

And.

I'm.

Done.

Lessons in Shortbread

Ok, so not every recipe comes out as expected.

This was the first time I have tried a real shortbread. It has 3 easy ingredients. Took me about 10 minutes to mix up and 10 minutes to rollout, cut and bake.

Easy recipe, but I complicated things a bit.

I'm like that.

Decorating the Christmas Cookies

Decorating is always fun, it's also always messy.

I don't do a fancy, piped decorated cookie. I find these cookies are so good, they only need a light glazing of icing and a little colored sugar and sprinkles for decoration. Thick icing and piped in decorations would totally overwhelm these soft pillows of happiness.

Christmas Cut-Out Cookies

These cookies are THE CHRISTMAS COOKIE in my family. The golden goose of Christmas cookies. Every year, my mom made them. We would schedule it on the calendar. Cookie Day. We all knew what it meant. My dad would be off work and we would all take part of the cookie making process. My dad manned the ovens, making sure that the cookies didn't overbake.

My mom only brought out a small amount of dough at a time, because you have to cut them out while they are cold or they go all melty on you.

My sister and I stood around the workspace with aprons on, armed with floured cookie cutters. Flour was everywhere and when Mom said, "Go!" we furiously cut out cookies and got them on cookie trays before the dough got warm.

Sugar Cookies

These are my absolutely favorite sugar cookie.

There are tons of sugar cookies. Some are soft, some are hard and crunchy, some have spices, some are chewy.

These cookies are chock full of vanilla flavor, they are rolled in sugar and are light and sweet on the tongue. They are have a crunchy tooth, but are tender, think of a crumbly cookie.  I think it's due to the oil/butter mixture of fats.

They are also

German Sugar Twists

Sugar cookies are so wonderful, but there are tons of kinds of sugar cookies. This week, I will have a recipe for a different sugar cookie each day. They will be each very different from each other, but the highlight of the recipe will all be sugar. And butter.

These cookies are a German recipe from my grandma. She made them for my dad when he was little. I'm sure there are many variations of this recipe, but this was hers.

There is yeast in this recipe. A cookie recipe. Weird.

Weird, but wonderful.

Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ok, so if you all recall my last foray into baking the chocolate chip cookie goodness did not turn out into goodness. It was kinda badness. Chocolate chip cookie badness is very, very sad.

My loving mom brought me these if you remember.

I'm pretending that she was being wonderful and helpful. Not teasing me in my inability to cook the perfect chocolate chip cookie.