Those Sound Sweet! Cracker Cookies

A few weeks ago I was contacted by the great people over at Solo Foods to enter their Sweetest 16 Baking Recipe Contest. They sent me a box chock full of almond paste and several of their pastry and pie fillings and asked me to come up with an original recipe. I pondered over this for a while before I began to bake. I wanted to make something different and not the typical macaroon or almond cake. I almost entered my recipe for The King of Cakes: Baumkuchen but decided to think a bit outside of the box.

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The King of Cakes: Baumkuchen

Several years ago, back before I started this blog, I used to work at a small software company in Seattle. When I first started there it was a definitely a startup environment: we worked a lot of long hours and didn't have a lot of money to spend on morale events. However, that changed when I volunteered to make a surprise cake for one of my coworkers on their birthday. Everyone liked it so much, I found myself volunteering to bake every time I had the opportunity.

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From Hellas with Love: Baklava

Ever since I was in kindergarten, I wished I was Greek. My mom, my sister, and my sister's boyfriend all worked at the same Greek restaurant and they made the BEST Greek food. The owners had a daughter my age and we were best friends. I spent a lot of time over her house and loved being surrounded by her Greek culture. Her Yaya (grandma) lived directly behind her and she was the sweetest woman! She made the most delicious avgolemeno soup I have ever had. I wanted a Yaya of my own so badly that one of my mom's good friends let me call her Yaya -- and I still do, a good 25 years later!

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Almond Joy Brownies

Traci's birthday falls on a Friday the 13th this year, but the only thing scary about it is the amount of calories I managed to fit into her dessert! She said she would like something that resembled an Almond Joy candy bar and it didn't matter what it was. She just wanted it to have coconut, chocolate and almonds as part of its ingredients.

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