…but if anyone’s looking for a gift pour moi, check this puppy out: it’s the Baker’s Edge Brownie Pan.

I baked this morning, taking advantage of a relatively cool kitchen.

I’m so pleased with how this pie turned out, and I would have loved to have tasted it, but alas, it was not for me: I donated a homemade pie as a prize for our staff Summer Reading Program at the library, and I owed this to the winner. She requested peach, so Mike picked up some beautiful peaches at the Barr St. Market this weekend. I might have to get some more and make another for us.

I also baked some of my ridiculously tasty chocolate chip cookies. I pretty much use the Toll House recipe, but I have made enhancements:

• Use good unsalted butter.
• Use good vanilla.
• Replace one cup of regular flour with one cup of whole wheat flour. (I didn’t let the flour mix quite as long as I usually do, resulting in less gluten production, and thus somewhat flatter cookies than usual, but it still gives ‘em great texture.)
• Use good chocolate chips — Ghirardelli are my current favorite.
• Instead of baking the whole batch at once, I only bake one sheet. Then I drop cookie-sized globs onto a sheet with waxed paper on it until the batter’s all gone, and I freeze them. Once they’re hard, they go into a zipper bag and stay in the freezer until we’re in the mood for cookies. Baking them frozen only takes a couple minutes longer than normal.

Hopefully this will eliminate Mike’s sad face when we walk past the cookie aisle at the grocery store.

I’ve made this twice now, loosely adapted from the “Strawberry Cheesecake Pie” recipe in Lauren Chattman’s Icebox Pies (Harvard Common Press, 2002).

Basic Graham Cracker Crust:
11 graham crackers, crushed in the food processor to yield 1 1/3 cups
5 tbsp. butter, melted
1 tbsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
— Mix dry ingredients, and toss with butter. Press firmly into 8″ pie pan. Bake at 350° for 6-8 minutes.

Filling:
2 tbsp. cold water
2 tsp. unflavored gelatin
8 oz. cream cheese
3/4 c. heavy cream
1 pint berries
2/3 c. sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
— Sprinkle gelatin over cold water and allow to absorb. Mix cream cheese, cream, berries, sugar and vanilla in a food processor until smooth. Melt gelatin in a small bowl over a saucepan of simmering water. With the food processor running, pour gelatin down feed tube and blend thoroughly. Pour filling into cool pie crust and refrigerate overnight, or at least 6 hours.

Note: I also tried this with blueberries, and they need quite a bit less sugar (as little as 1/4 c.?), as well as some additional acidity — lemon zest wasn’t enough on its own. I tried substituting half and half for the heavy cream, which worked just fine since I also added a little more gelatin to the mix.

Makes about 8 dozen 1 1/2 inch round cookies

DOUGH:
2 cups (280 g) unsifted all-purpose flour
1 1/2 oz. (1/3 cup) shelled raw pistachios
3/4 cup (150 g) granulated sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
8 oz. (2 sticks) unsalted butter, chilled
1 large egg
1/4 tsp. each pure lemon and almond extract

FILLING:
6 tbsp. (3 oz.) unsalted butter
4 oz. white chocolate, finely chopped
4 oz. (1 cup) shelled raw pistachios, finely chopped
3 oz. (about 6 large whole) dried apricots, finely chopped and mixed with pistachios

1. Adjust rack to lower third of over and preheat overn to 350 degrees F. Line two large cool baking sheets with parchment paper.
2. Dough: Place the flour, pistachios, sugar and salt in food processor; process just to blend ingredients. Add the butter in pieces, then process with on/off bursts until the mixture has the consistency of cornmeal. Whisk the egg and extracts in a small bowl. With the motor running, pour the egg mixture down the feed tube and process just until ingredients form a ball.
3. With your palms, shape the dough, 1 level measuring teaspoon at a time, into balls and set 1/2 inch apart on the baking sheet. Gently make an indentation in the center of each ball, pressing down almost to the bottom without breaking through the dough.
4. Bake for 12 minutes, or just until the cookies are ivory-colored and pale golden on the bottom. Transfer cookies to a wire rack to cool.
5. Filling: In a small saucepan, melt the butter and white chocolate, stirring just until chocolate is almost completely liquid. Place 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon white chocolate butter in each indentation. Sprinkle the chopped pistachios and apricots over chocolate. Allow 30 minutes to set.
6. Stack in an airtight metal container and store at room temperature up to one week.

…cobbled together from, like, eight different recipes for meringue cookies…

3 egg whites
3/4 c. sugar
1/4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 c. pureed strawberries
1 tsp. vanilla

Separate cold eggs and bring whites to room temperature. Preheat oven to 250 degrees F. Run granulated sugar through a food processor until fine and powdery, or use superfine sugar. In a clean, dry mixing bowl, beat egg whites until frothy. Add cream of tartar and beat until the whites hold soft peaks. Add sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, letting each addition of sugar dissolve completely until adding more. Continue to beat eggs until stiff but not dry. A pinch of mixture between the fingers should feel smooth, not grainy. Add vanilla, and then carefully fold in strawberries. Fill a pastry bag with the egg whites, and pipe small kisses onto parchment-lined baking sheets. Bake for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, depending on the humidity in the air. The meringues are finished baking when they pull easily from the parchment and are almost entirely dry when broken in half. Leave the cookies to dry in the oven for another couple hours or overnight. Store in an airtight container.

So that I don’t forget, here are my notes from when I last made these little nuggets of goodness:

1. I used Ghiradelli semisweet chips instead of unsweetened chocolate, and didn’t put the mini marshmallows on top.
2. Use 1/8 cup brown sugar, 1/8 cup granulated sugar in the crust.
3. Semisweet is fine, but mix it with some dark to cut down on the intense sweetness.
4. Add more salt, maybe 1/2 tsp instead of 1/4.
5. Do something with marshmallows, either putting the mini on top, or spreading the whole thing with a layer of fluff before drizzling chocolate and cutting (which would hide the cracks in the top).
6. Let the pieces sit cut for a day before serving, to make each square a little less sticky.