shanbrite2's Profile

I'm sure it's a case (as with everything baby-related) of something working for some families and not others. We are still about a month out from our little one's arrival, but we have used our Craigslist glider & ottoman every single day, just for us. We practically have a race to see who can get there first. Now we just have to see if baby will like it too!

Seconding the tour in Boulder. It's worth a visit to the gift shop, if nothing else. I can always find all of the hard-to-find teas mentioned here (as well as the tins!), and for less than in the stores. It's where we do our Christmas shopping! The tour is really fun too.

Definitely More with Less and Extending the Table (already recommended). These are books written by Mennonites, who seem to go on many mission trips to various countries with little access to appliances, etc. They also have recipes for condiments and other "basic foods," like crackers, that people in the States usually just buy. Many of the recipes also have the traditional instructions for how the food was originally cooked (like cooking rice by wrapping the pot in a blanket after the initial heating on the fire and leaving it for several hours). Have an amazing time!

I would bet my Joy of Cooking that the difference was the altitude. I highly doubt anything else contributed as much as that fact. Having baked in Reno and in Denver, I can say that I can almost never make a cookie recipe straight from the page. They ALWAYS flatten out too much (just like you describe). I haven't tried snickerdoodle balls, but in general, I usually cut the sugar and butter (sometimes I just short it a little, but butter I will leave out several tablespoons) and increase the flour. There are many other tricks, but those are my go-to starters.

Most good baking books at least have a section on high-altitude baking. The altitude and the dryness definitely take a toll on cookies, so reading a little bit about how to counter their effects can give you some ideas. Unfortunately, there is no fool-proof way to adjust!

Very delicious! I had to make more extensive changes than most, baking at high altitude (5400 ft). Like many others, I used AP flour (a bit more of it for the altitude), a bit less butter, sugar and leavening, and hand chopped bittersweet chocolate (Trader Joe's Pound Plus). As a result, mine were a tiny bit puffier than most of the pictures I've seen, but that was welcome in the land of flat, hard cookies.

They were a phenomenal hit at a foodie party, so they must have worked. The chopped chocolate made for some incredible pockets of molten chocolate, combined with chocolate dust elsewhere in the dough, making them messy and oh-so-delicious. I definitely recommend that route if you are willing to put in a little more work, but how much work should a cookie be?

By virtue of timing, we ended up having a last batch to make after about 48 hours, and those were even better than the ones that waited 24 hours. But who can wait that long unless you have other cookies to eat in the meantime? I think this recipe is a keeper for the days I have enough patience or forethought.

Lee Valley. The website isn't the easiest to navigate (especially if you don't know the name of the type of doo-hickey you want), but their catalog is great eye candy. Decent prices, from what I remember.

Sweet potato