Whoa, 2011 was a pretty great year at Lottie + Doof! I just reviewed the recipes from this past year and impressed even myself. It may have been the best year for recipes yet, what with bagels, savory granola, and crostatas. On top of that, we had a couple of dinners, a cookie sale, a wedding and a honeymoon. It was all pretty terrific. What better way to celebrate than with what is one of the best recipes I discovered in 2011. It snuck in at the end, just in time for our celebrations.

It is hard to believe the 12 Days have come and gone. I hope you had as much fun as I did. Although, I will be honest, I have never been as uninterested in sweets as I am right now. That probably explains my choice for the final cookie.

Some of you might argue that these are not cookies. I’m not very interested in arguing, so I might agree. But I think this “cake” is served best as thin slices, which are a lot like cookies. Also, David Lebovitz, officially classified them as “bars“, which we can all agree get grouped in with cookies. I consider Lebovitz an authority on everything. They are cookie enough for me.

Like many of you, I have been a fan of Lisa Fain (aka the Homesick Texan) for years, so I couldn’t be happier that she is our guest today. Lisa’s blog is one of the first I loved. It is beautifully designed and photographed and her writing endears you to her immediately. I have made many of her recipes over the years and they are always successful.

I was thrilled when I heard that she was publishing a cookbook. We’d become internet buddies over the years and I wanted to help her out in any way I could, so I helped her test recipes. It was fun and  provided me with a little preview of what we all had to look forward to. The finished product is fantastic and receiving lots of well-deserved praise.

I hope you already know my next guest, Nikole Herriott, from her beautiful blog and online shop. Nikole and her dad, Lance, collaborate on an online store filled with lovely handmade things, including the amazing wood objects that Lance carves. I love everything they make so much. We used one of their beautiful bowls to hold our rings at the wedding, it was perfect. Nikole is a multi-talented maker who graciously agreed to share her family recipe for these sweet Jam Thimbles with all of us. They are the perfect cookies for all of my fellow jam-makers to show off their goods and a wonderful addition to this cookie festival.

I didn’t see this one coming. I had no plans to post this recipe, but I was curious about these baby cinnamon rolls from one of my all-time favorites, Alice Medrich. They are so ridiculously good, I could not not include them.

Today, you go on an adventure.

Katie has been my dearest friend for most of my life. She pops up on the blog every once in a while in stories (and sometimes pictures). She is the coolest person ever. She has taught in Chicago Public Schools for the past ten years, which leaves me in awe of both her and her commitment to educating young people. Katie is also one of my favorite writers. Writing comes more naturally to her than to anyone I have ever met. It is a real gift. She recently started an awesome blog which she hasn’t been sharing with anyone. That seems like a shame and so I want to help change that today.

It is called The Fundmentalist, and is her space for trying to figure out the things she doesn’t understand in this world, fundamentals that she somehow missed. The list is diverse and includes things such as sponges, Madeline Albright and the G-spot. Each post brilliantly written and each topic explored through a range of methods—interviews, experiments, musical numbers. As usual, I am totally impressed, my favorite post, so far, is this one.

One of the items on her list was cookies. She had never made cookies, and so she asked for my help. I’ll let her tell you the rest and share a recipe for some very tasty Cherry, Pistachio and Oatmeal cookies that we baked together a couple of weeks ago.

Post and Recipe HERE. See you back here tomorrow! Say hi to Katie for me. ; )

Halfway through! I am keeping the cookie exhaustion at bay, thanks, in part, to cookies like these poppy seed and honey gems. I love these cookies. Bryan doesn’t love them, he just likes them. Take what you will from that. But remember, I’m usually right.

I like them because of the poppy seeds and honey and because they aren’t too sweet. They are delicious with a cup of tea, or even a glass of wine. The recipe can easily be halved if you don’t want 5 dozen cookies. I’ve never actually made the whole recipe, it would be a lot of cookies and I think these are most tasty for the first 24 hours of their life. I will still happily eat them for another couple of days, but their texture becomes less interesting. They soften and no longer have the crunch they had on day one. I’m excited to make these for Hanukkah.

I first had one of Mathew Rice’s desserts at my friend David’s birthday party. The party was in the cozy downstairs of Nightwood, where Mathew is the pastry chef. Everything at Nightwood is always delightful, but this was a particularly fun night. Mathew made a brown butter cake with rhubarb filling and some sort of cream cheese pistachio frosting, or at least that is how I remember it. It was really delicious and it got me excited to try more of his desserts.

The thing that is brilliant about the sweets that Mathew makes is that they are at once familiar and comforting and yet totally original. In my book, that is as good as it gets. And every time I eat at Nightwood I look forward to dessert.

I was thrilled that Mathew agreed to share this recipe for one of my favorites, Gooey Butter Cookies. Mathew came to Chicago from St. Louis, famous for it’s gooey butter cake, and so this is the perfect contribution to our city and to the 12 Days of Cookies.

Who needs another rugelach recipe?

I thought I didn’t.

I did.

We wanted to make rugelach for Dose Market and so I researched recipes looking for the best one. Maybe there was some technique out there that would push mine over the top—I didn’t find much. Then, one lazy Sunday afternoon, I was watching an old episode of Baking with Julia. It featured Nancy Silverton. She wasn’t making rugelach, but I loved what she was wearing. She looked like a french baker from the 1930′s via Berkeley in the 1970s. I was thinking to myself that I had never thought of Nancy Silverton as a style icon, but that (at least in the late 90′s, I haven’t seen her recently) she was pretty rad. While thinking about that, I picked up my copy of the Baking With Julia book and opened it to this recipe.