In the immortal words of Alana from Toddlers & Tiaras, “My special juice is gonna help me win!!“.

Like Alana’s secret go-go juice (it involves Mountain Dew), this special juice really will help you win, not child beauty pageants, but the admiration of breakfast or brunch guests. It might also help you win beauty pageants, I just haven’t tried. Yet.

I’m getting off track.

This is my favorite juice blend and something that we make for very special breakfasts. I say “we” because Bryan juices the fruit. We don’t have anything to help juice, he uses a fork and sheer determination and then swears we are never making this stupid juice again, but of course we do. read more+++

You probably weren’t expecting me to return with dessert (although, at this point, maybe you were). I know that everyone else is currently writing about salads and whole grains and cleanses. Screw that, I want some sticky toffee pudding.

I have been wanting to write about sticky toffee pudding ever since I returned from our honeymoon. It is one of my favorite sweets and difficult to find in the US. But it seems to be everywhere in the UK. With good reason— it is amazing!

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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.

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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.

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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. read more+++

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.

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So many people have problems with raisins, I began to think that I didn’t like them. But that’s crazy, I love them.

My love was unexpectedly affirmed shortly before Halloween when Bryan and I stopped by Hoosier Mama (the best pie shop in the world) to buy a pie. They had a sour cream and apple pie that looked amazing and seemed like the obvious choice. But for some reason I told Bryan he could pick. He picked a funeral pie which I found out was an Amish raisin pie (Hoosier Mama’s version had a healthy dose of rum). I spent the rest of the day asking Bryan: What kind of weirdo picks a raisin pie?! Well, you can see where this is going. Pie in my face. The funeral pie was incredible and it got me thinking about raisins. read more+++

I’m back!

October 2011 will go down as one of the greatest months of my life. It was all so good. I’ll share more soon, but for now let’s get right back into baking.

Traveling at the start of Autumn had me in constant awe of the bounty of food at the markets in Europe and happy(ish) to return to my kitchen and actually make something. I missed cooking! I returned to a pile of magazines, many with turkeys on the cover.

As soon as cool air flows into town, I start thinking about Thanksgiving. I use October and November as recipe testing time. Everything I try is an audition for a spot at the Thanksgiving table. Auditions have begun. read more+++

I somehow missed the 3-year anniversary of my blog.

I’m still distracted.

Here’s the thing, I’m planning a wedding—my wedding! Yes, dear reader, Bryan is finally making an honest man out of me (eww, that joke kind of creeped me out). Remember when we went to Massachusetts back in July? Well, we got married on a beautiful summer day under an old tree in Salem. Just the two of us.

But we weren’t content with it being just the two of us. We think these things need to be celebrated and so we’ve been planning a wedding celebration to bring together many of our closest friends and family for a fun weekend.

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In the past, I have publicly expressed my dislike of bread and butter pickles. Honestly, I just don’t love sweet pickles. Usually. But maybe I think I don’t because so many are overly sweet and lacking in flavor. So, it was with a bit of trepidation that I tried this recipe for zucchini pickles from the Zuni Cafe Cookbook. My friend Sandra was the first to recommend the recipe, and she is a very trustworthy source. Judy Rodgers ain’t bad either.

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