Up until the age of about 20 or so, asked my favorite food, and I would respond: coconut. Beyond this one word, I could never decide how I liked it best, whether sweetened and shredded or nibbled fresh from the hull. So I've been looking forward to
Jayne's pick this week even though shortbread is not my favorite.
I ran into a few bumps. Believe it or not, the grocery store had zero macadamia nuts. I had no coriander, and only unsweetened coconut in the house (and again, none at the store. I guess this is what I get for trying to shop for baking goodies at a health food store.) So I decided to use slivered almonds, unsweetened coconut, and lots of lime zest.
The cookies were very crumbly, both before and after baking. I wasn't able to prick them with a fork before baking. Any and all attempts to softly press down resulted in a huge crevice and many unsightly cracks and crumbs. I was even caught "cleaning" up these crumbs as I chatted on the phone with a "What are you eating?" Oopsy. My cookies didn't turn out to be that attractive, but they did taste good. I think my mom, who loves shortbread, would be able to appreciate them much more than I can, even with the coconut.
These little squares disappeared way too quickly. I nibbled away all night thinking of lime in da coconut pie. And the boy who isn't here, but at his home many 100s of miles away. So the cookies, and all the crumbs, were put to very good use.
I imagine this pie is the kinda thing all little Lemon Ice Box Pies aspire to. It's what they dream of being if only someone would have given them the whole lemon. Using a whole lemon for a recipe was a first for me, and it turned out great. I love that idea. Partly because using the whole of something is more eco-friendly, and partly because it's less prep and clean-up work for me. 
I used regular organic lemons, whatever kind Wild Oats had in singles. I saw some people used Meyer's lemons, which probably made theirs less tart. I love sour stuff - those awful Tear Jerkers, the fluorescent gummy worms - and this reminded me of a sweet kick of sour candy. I used Dorie's sweet nutty tart dough, adding a handful of coarsely chopped walnuts for texture. The crust was tasty, though it turned out crumbly and wanted to break apart coming out of the pan. Hmm, I wonder what I did wrong with the dough. The lemon filling was great, smooth and tart and not too jelly-like. 
My tart was tart...so much so that I moaned myself to sleep with a bellyache after eating a whole piece. But it was almost worth it because this is really delish. Thanks to Babette of Babette Feasts for choosing something citrusy and different! 
With all the creme and bananas, my 
I decided to make muffins and filled 12 muffin tins almost to the top. There was still batter left over so I filled two ramekins. I really should have left more room for the muffins. They poofed and went flat on top instead of doming like regular muffins. The crumble didn't want to stay on very well and looks spotty. It seemed to be trying to escape the muffins. Both problems would have been solved if they had room to rise just to the top of the tin. Despite looking like a bunch of mutts, they taste delicious. The ramekins fared much better looks-wise and taste pretty much the same - yum!
When Napoleon was in excile on the island of St. Helena, I'm sure he made this cake. It's a traditional French yogurt cake island-style - baked with banana mango yogurt, ground mixed nuts, fresh mango and strawberries, and topped with a sweet layer of caramel coconut. 
I've been wanting to make a French yogurt cake for the better part of a year after seeing some of Clotilde's on 
Instead of butter, this cake has oil. Combined with the ground nuts (walnuts, almonds, pistachios, and cashews) and yogurt, this cake turned out incredibly moist, which translates to magically disappearing in my kitchen. After putting about a fourth of the batter in the pan, I layered fresh strawberry and mango slices, and then covered with the remaining batter. The coconut topping was inspired by one my Granny sometimes adds to banana bread. 
For this week, LyB of 
I actually omitted the alcohol, and just added the steaped prunes. I also added a couple of handfuls of roughly chopped pecans to the flour and ground pecan mixture. This cake is quite dense and fudgey so the added crunch and texture was nice. 
When Stephanie at 
The icing was an adventure since I discovered in the middle of making it that I didn't have any cream of tartar. Now I know you can't substitute corn starch...but I did anyway, just to see. It turned out runny so I put it in a pan and cooked it until it got bubbly and just a little singed on the bottom, like a slightly roasted marshmellow. I loved it on the cupcakes! The cake is amazingly brownie-like and scrumptious with a lovely deep dark chocolate color. The weird icing made it very s'more like which I loved. It turned out to be a very good mess-up. 
