Simple, right? It seemed so to me, but looking back, my problems may have begun at the grocery store, where I couldn't find almond meal (also called almond flour, which consists of finely ground almonds), so I picked up some all-purpose gluten-free flour from Bob's Red Mill. An innocent substitution, I suppose, but the chemistry of this particular gluten-free flour mix might have had an inadvertent effect on my cookies...

When I set about mixing together the dough, it was far too dry--so much so that I added an extra egg white. Misstep No. 2? Maybe.

Next time I make these--and there will be a next time, because I'd like to get them right--I'm going to follow the original recipe exactly, and hopefully they will turn out better. I think it will take a bit more practice (and a few more minor errors) to get a handle on the basics of gluten-free baking. Time for some research...

Today's treat comes from Heidi Swanson's simple recipe for maple syrup scones on her blog 101 Cookbooks. I chose it because I've been trying to use mostly all-natural ingredients (nothing artificial, nothing heavily processed, no preservatives) as well as whole wheat and whole grain products in my baking. This requires a bit of extra work as far as gathering the right brands and adjusting recipes to the idiosyncrasies of all-natural baking. Here's where Swanson comes in. She literally wrote the book on this--her 2007 cookbook Super Natural Cooking, which I hope to buy at some point this summer.

Luckily, I already have my pantry stocked with some of the basic all-natural baking supplies, including unbleached finely ground whole wheat flour (I also love working with whole wheat pastry flour, available at your local Whole Foods, but I didn't have any on hand.), almond meal, flax meal, raw sugar, real maple syrup, organic molasses, organic honey and so on. It may be a bit more expensive to buy these particular ingredients, but if you look closely and compare brands and learn to shop around a bit, the difference will be negligible, and the payoff worth it.

Ever since I bought my two pints of strawberries on Saturday, I had been mulling over what to make. First, I wanted to put together a strawberry banana split muffin. I would take my basic banana chocolate chip muffin, add a cup or two of strawberries and top it off with a vanilla-almond icing. I decided against that when I came across a recipe for strawberry whole wheat scones on A Dash of Sass, but instead of listing her recipe the author posted a link to Heidi Swanson's blog. So that was my journey to the present recipe.

Maple syrup scones with strawberries

You'll need 1/4 cup real maple syrup, 6 tablespoons cream or milk (I prefer to use heavy cream, but I only had 2% milk on hand.), 2 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour, 1/2 cup quinoa flakes or rolled oats (I had neither so I substituted 1/4 cup of flax meal for good measure.), 1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder, 1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt or table salt, 11 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into cubes, 1 egg, beaten, 1 cup diced strawberries and raw sugar (I like the Sugar in the Raw brand.) for sprinkling atop the scones for added texture and subtle sweetness.

In a medium-sized bowl, stir together all your dry ingredients. Then, using your fingers, a pastry cutter, two knives or a food processor, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until it looks like there are little pebbles among the finer grains. You don't want it to be pulverized, because the small pieces of butter make it flaky. Add the strawberries in and mix until they are fully coated with the dry ingredients. In a small cup, whisk together your cream or milk and the maple syrup and then put pour it all in with the dry ingredients.

The key to getting scones right involves the next few steps: Stir until a soft dough forms. You'll want a dough that sticks together and doesn't have too much of the dry ingredients still sitting around it. In order to get it right, you'll need to add an extra tablespoon or two of cream or milk as you see fit while you are softly turning the dough in the bowl using your hands. After this, knead the dough a few times on a surface dusted with flour. Then shape the dough into a 1" thick square or rectangle, making sure to shape the sides. Don't leave them crumbly, just trim the edges if you need to. Cut the dough into nine blocks roughly equal in size. Place them 1/2" apart on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper or greased with butter. Last, swipe a generous amount of the egg wash on the scones and top each with about a teaspoon of raw sugar. Bake them for 20 to 25 minutes at 400 degrees.

While these are baking, the sweet aroma of butter and maple syrup will waft through the house, potentially drawing your roommates out of their rooms to ask what's baking and whether they can have some. At least that's what mine did.

The results

To be honest, I was pleased with the scones but I wouldn't rush to my friends gushing about my latest baking masterpiece. In other words, I'd make a few adjustments to the recipe next time to perfect them.

The strawberries cooked down so much that they didn't retain their flavor in the scones, which really disappointed me. I'm torn as to how to fix this. I could make the strawberries a bit larger or I suppose I could just eliminate the strawberries altogether in favor of my old standbys--dried fruits.

The scones also ended up being denser than they should have been. I didn't really get the degree of flakiness that one would expect of scones--indeed, the flakiness that makes a scone a scone. This would be something a bit trickier to fix. My guess is that the problem lies in my use of regular whole wheat flour rather than whole wheat pastry flour. While I'm not familiar with the differences in chemistry, I know that whole wheat flour, when used in full rather than in part, can make your baked goods much heaver than they should be. Two solutions: Try making them with the aforementioned whole wheat pastry flour or unbleached white flour.

One last criticism. I was expecting that the real maple syrup would add a noticeable depth and complexity to the scones. Put bluntly, not so. One way of adding dimension and body to the flavor of the scones would be a simple addition of 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract or 1/2 teaspoon pure almond extract. The difference between the two? In my experience, almond extract is significantly more potent than vanilla. Now that I think about it, these would be fantastic with whole fresh cherries and the 1/2 teaspoon almond extract. I love that cherry-almond combination.

However, this time I'll most likely top my scones off with a simple icing to help counter the dryness and the thickness of the scone. Hopefully next time, I'll end up with a lighter, flakier, more flavorful scone.

As with most cookies, the first step involves creaming together the butter and sugar with your mixer on medium-high in a large bowl. Then drop in your egg and mix until it is fully incorporated. Last, add in the vanilla and almond extracts and set aside. In a medium-sized bowl, stir together all your dry ingredients except the chocolate chips and the craisins. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients; after all the dry ingredients have been fully incorporated, fold in the chocolate chips and craisins.

Drop the dough (2-3 tablespoon portions) onto a greased cookie sheet 2-3" apart and bake at 325 degrees for 25-30 minutes. Make sure you follow the cooking time, as these cookies won't be turning golden-brown.

As my batch of cookies was cooling, I decided to whip up a light vanilla icing (powdered sugar, water or milk, and vanilla extract) to top them off, and much to my surprise, it ended up being the perfect final touch. It doesn't take all that much time, and the results are amazing.

Some variations you might want to try out

I've worked with a number of different dried fruits in this recipe. One simple substitute involves using chopped dried dates in place of craisins. Dates have a more neutral flavor and are a bit more chewy than craisins. One other option would be to omit the cinnamon and throw in 1/2 cup chopped dried apricots that have been tossed in flour (so they don't clump together); with this recipe, you'll want to use dark chocolate or white chocolate chips, rather than just semisweet morsels. These dark chocolate offers a nice contrast to the sweet apricots, while the white chocolate would make for a sweeter, richer cookie for those of you who dislike the bitterness of dark chocolate.

Simma's cheesecake is much lighter than most cheesecakes I've come across. Quite frankly, I'm turned off by the ones that sit in your stomach like a tank. With Simma's cheesecake squares, you get a perfectly portioned dessert with just the right amount of the whipped yet creamy cheesecake base, as well as a bit of variety with the sweet raspberry confit and the chocolate ganache. I would add that these squares taste best when they are slightly chilled. When cooled, the flavors are a bit sharper and the dessert takes on a refreshing quality.

Black bottom cupcakes are a marriage made in heaven of chocolate cupcakes and chocolate chip cheesecake. The cheesecake is nestled in the chocolate cupcake base and covered in chocolate ganache. There's no wrong way to eat this masterpiece, but I prefer to take a huge bite so I get a bit of everything in one fell swoop--but maybe that's just the greedy little child in me.

Last, but certainly not least, is the fruit tart. I relished in this simple dessert with its shortbread-like pastry crust, cool custard and fresh, flavorful fruit--clementines, kiwis, pineapple, strawberries and a single blueberry to finish it off.

The pricing at Simma's is reasonable for the single-serving desserts. The cheesecake squares are $2.25. I splurged on a decorated black-bottom cupcake at $2.75, while the regular black-bottom cupcakes are just $1.75. The fruit tart costs $2.95. Most of the other treats are between $1 and $2, including the peanut butter bars at $1.60, the fudge balls at $1.50, the turtle danishes at $1.95 and the honey buns at $1.95 as well.

If you have a chance to come to Milwaukee for a day trip or a longer stay, be sure to visit this Milwaukee-area legend so you can find out for yourself what all the buzz is about.

Enticing, right? I thought so.

But no. Thirty dollars and two and a half hours later, all I had to show for myself were the paper-thin almond cookies pictured above. They looked like pathetic, somewhat misshapen Pringles, and I tried to salvage them by making them into sandwich cookies with the failed filling-turned-frosting.

How did that work for me? Well, they were edible, and I might even go so far as to say they were... tasty, but they certainly weren't great. Or as great as I wanted them to be.

So, demoralized by failure, frustrated by my unnecessary expenditures, and hungry for answers, I turned to Google Search, typed in the cookies-that-shall-not-be-named, and came up with an amusing and, thankfully, reassuring post by the New York-based food blogger Jon-Marc McDonald of bake it til you make it.

McDonald is equal parts humorist and baker--he's smart, snarky, sassy and downright hilarious. But what I appreciate most about him is that he's a seriously good baker who takes himself and his trade lightly--i.e. someone I might do well to learn from.

Will I follow after McDonald and attempt to bake it 'til I make it tonight? In a word, no.

But will I be helping myself to a few more spoonfuls of that fudgy filling/frosting? Yes, yes I will. ]]> Allie Demet http://badgerherald.com/blogs/arts/simplysumptuous/2009/05/25/highlights_from_our_.php Watermelon, feta and cilantro salad; peanut butter bon bons; Aztec truffles (of DOOM) 32309@http://badgerherald.com/blogs/arts/simplysumptuous/ salad 2009-05-25T18:00:00-06:00

Watermelon, feta and cilantro salad

Over the last week or so, I came across a number of bloggers who were featuring watermelon salads, whose principle ingredients (aside from the fruit) ended up being some sort of cheese--usually feta, not crumbled but cut from a block--a strong herb, most often mint, cilantro or basil, and some sort of dressing, be it a simple vinaigrette or a more complicated balsamic reduction or glaze.

For my own watermelon salad, I stuck to three ingredients--slices of watermelon layered with slices of feta cheese topped with roughly chopped cilantro and finished off with sea salt and fresh black pepper.

Even though there were a number of fancier (and more time-consuming) options available to me, I was quite content with how the salad turned out. In general, I think there's a lot of potential in these salads that successfully incorporate sweet herbs (think cilantro, basil, rosemary, lavender, tarragon) and cheese into salads whose base ingredient is a more mellow fruit like watermelon, cantaloupe or honeydew melon.

Peanut butter bon bons

These bon bons are the stuff of legend among my closest friends and I. Countless sleepovers were devoted to making these decadent desserts, which were usually consumed by dawn. As such, I would definitely file these under "highly addictive" as well as "highly effective coping mechanism." Make them once and I'll guarantee you'll be making them again. And again. And again. And again.

The original recipe for peanut butter bon bons comes from a book I received on my ninth birthday back in 1996: The Care and Keeping of Friends, which was one of the many fun-and-educational guides to growing up published as part of the American Girl Library. I'll admit I've read the entire thing, but the best part--and the only part I still turn to in times of need--is, of course, the section "How to make buddy bon bons."

You only need six ingredients to make the bon bons: 1 cup creamy peanut butter (I like Smucker's All Natural), 2 sticks unsalted butter, 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar, 1 1/2 cups graham cracker crumbs, 16 ounces semisweet or milk chocolate chips, and 3-4 tablespoons shortening.

Put the peanut butter and the butter into a microwave-safe bowl and microwave on high for two minutes. Stir together the liquids until they have combined. Then, add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until a firm yet pliable dough has formed. Roll the dough into 3/4" to 1" diameter balls, and chill them in the refrigerator for at least an hour. Right before taking the balls of dough out of the fridge, melt the chocolate chips and the shortening together, and stir until it becomes glossy. (The shortening is added to temper the chocolate, so that it forms a hard shell around the dough rather than a soft, easily melted coating.) Cover the bon bons with chocolate--either by immersing them in the bowl of chocolate or drizzling it on top. For the bon bons that I made, I added a drizzle of white chocolate, mostly for decorative purposes.

Aztec truffles (of DOOM)

This afternoon, I got a call from my friend Kelly Petitjean, who promptly told me she had been struck by a sudden urge to make chocolates after watching the movie "Chocolat." Go figure.

So I dropped everything and headed to her house for an afternoon in the kitchen. After I arrived, we spent no less than half an hour browsing the surprisingly extensive truffle section on About.com before we finally decided to make the Aztec truffles, as we were both intrigued by and somewhat suspicious of the infusion of orange zest, cinnamon and cayenne pepper in the ganache.

In the end, the truffles were nothing if not intense. I could taste the fruity, acidic topnotes of orange zest a few seconds after my first bite into the cocoa-dusted truffle. Incidentally, mine had so much cocoa, I accidentally breathed a bit of it in and almost choked. After the ganache had begun to melt in my mouth, the spice of the cinnamon and the heat of the cayenne came on strong and stayed strong--so much so that I downed a glass of milk to temper the burning sensation. After the near-choking experience and the, shall we say, fiery aftertaste, I began to start calling them the Aztec truffles... of DOOM.

If I were to make these truffles again (which I will), I'd lay off the cocoa a bit, and I would significantly decrease the amount of cayenne pepper from 1 teaspoon to 1/2 teaspoon. That way, you only get a slight hint of cayenne, which brings depth to the flavor without overwhelming it. Another variation I thought would be interesting would be to add a few red pepper flakes and 1/4 cup cacao nibs for added texture.

I would definitely say these truffles are for the more adventurous eaters among us. I wouldn't suggest you give them to an unsuspecting relative or friend...

Lisa Crum, owner and baker extraordinaire of C. Adams Bakery, has developed over a hundred different desserts, ranging from decadent butter toffee brownies to coconut cream pie to streusel bars to turnovers and so many more. But when I came across her four different varieties of cake truffles, I knew I exactly what I would be walking away with. I was so taken with these cake truffles because if you'll recall, I featured peanut butter cake truffles here on the blog a few months ago--which were a complete hit among my taste-testers (i.e. my roommates and my Badger Herald colleagues).

There were four different varieties available and I decided, as I am wont to do, to try one of each: the all-American, the red velvet, the Butterfinger, and the S'mores. The all-American was a dense, fudgy, deep dark chocolate (yet not at all bitter) cake covered in milk chocolate and topped off with chocolate sprinkles. This was the first I tried, and it ended up being the one I liked the best because it had the most intense flavor. The red velvet was a much more mellow butter cake--nothing all the special, save the deep red color of the cake. The Butterfinger was delicious, but I'm biased, considering my obsession with any and all peanut butter and chocolate combinations. The S'mores seemed to be all butter to me, a white cake base with bits of graham cracker. As much as I love S'mores, this cake truffle retained few qualities of its namesake, but could easily be improved with a few tweaks.

These cake truffles are easy to replicate because the principle steps for making them are so basic. The cake base can be made from any recipe or boxed mix and topped with chocolate ganache or white chocolate or anything else you can dream up.

If you happen to be in the Milwaukee area, I highly suggest you stop by C. Adams Bakery, pick up just about anything there, grab some of the legendary coffee from Alterra (to temper the sweetness and decadence of the desserts), and enjoy them at any of the excellent locales along the lakefront.