The Cookie Buffet: The Greek Cookies

When I finally decided to do the cookie buffet for my bridal shower, I knew that I had to include some Greek cookies to honor my heritage. My favorite Greek cookie of all time, finikia, is a honey-dipped spice cookie perfect for autumn, but believe it or not, I've never gotten around to making them before. I usually just make the rounds of local Greek festivals to get my fill. So, because I didn't feel like debuting yet another new recipe (I already had 2 other new cookie recipes planned), I decided to stick with what I know.

In my house, we make two kinds of Greek cookies, mostly around the holidays: koulourakia and kourambiedes. I forgot to take pictures while baking, so I included a later pic of koulourakia as an example of the traditional shape. The pictures of the cookies in the basket below are the ones from my shower.

The Cookie Buffet: Details

I knew fairly early on that I wanted a sweets buffet as part of my bridal shower. Well-coordinated candy buffets have such a stunning effect, that I fell in love with the idea of a Halloween or autumn themed candy buffet, something gorgeous like this or these. But, budgets are always an issue, so I downgraded to the idea of a Halloween candy buffet, for the reason that there would be plenty of Halloween candy around in the middle of October, so it would be easier and more economical. I was right on this point, it would have been cheap (relatively) and easy, but something about the concept of a Halloween candy buffet 2 weeks before Halloween still wasn't sitting right with me. And then I hit upon a great idea, and I have no clue why I didn't think of it earlier: a cookie buffet filled with homemade cookies!


This had all the elements I wanted: homey, rustic, baked, etc etc. And although I love baking anything and everything, cookies make me especially happy. So I chose my cookie types and got to baking, starting about 3 weeks before my shower. And I had to figure out a way to turn this: into the cookie buffet of my dreams!

Bridal Shower Preparations: Little Details

As a scientist, I am very detail-oriented. I love details. Big details, little details, any minute way to tie together a theme: I'm there. The great thing about fall is that there are so many little ways to incorporate an autumn-theme into what you are doing. But be careful, not to overdo it, or it might end up looking like this:
This was my house prior to leaving to go set up for my shower. Yes, all those boxes on the floor were just to set up for the shower. It was a lot of work to put together, but I wouldn't change it, I loved how it turned out!
The flowers below I bought the year before, on sale. I bought up all of the flowers that I thought would make nice centerpieces, and then my mom and I arranged them into awesome copper pails I found at A.C. Moore for $1 each (just as awesome for the price as for the look)! In the below pic, they are in the boxes already in their pails, so you can get a feel for how the arrangements were put together. I have a picture of a table a little further down, so you can see the pail too.

Bridal Shower Preparations: Favors and Prizes

As a December bride who also dearly loves autumn, I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to plan my October Bridal Shower! The next several blog posts will be bridal shower-related, and although there will be a few which are not directly baking-related, most of them eventually come around to baked goodies in the end (or at least are related to baking).

My shower was this past October 11th of '09, not even two weeks have gone by yet. I hatched on the idea of a fall themed bridal shower pretty early on, in the fall of '08 in fact, which made it a lot easier since I was able to buy a lot of my items last year after the season, at a pretty steep discount. If you have the time to plan, I highly recommend doing the same.

Neopolitan Cheesecake (Daring Bakers' Challenge, April '09)

Dispensing with the obligatory: The April 2009 challenge is hosted by Jenny from Jenny Bakes. She has chosen Abbey's Infamous Cheesecake as the challenge.


This month's Daring Baker's challenge was cheesecake, and I know I say this about every challenge, but this one really excited me. I have made cheesecake countless times, but most of the time I stick with the tried-and-true basic cheesecake with a graham cracker crust (or occasionally a bittersweet chocolate cheesecake). Yummy to be sure, but I have been wanting to branch out for a while now. My mind was a-whirl of possibilities that I had spied over the years: pumpkin cheesecake, caramel turtle cheesecake, cookies-and-cream cheesecake, the possibilities are endless! I can truly say the most difficult part of this challenge was limiting myself to just one cheesecake. And that took a lot of deciding, because I wanted something rich and yet light, appropriate for spring.

Tsoureki (Sweet Greek Easter Bread)

One of my most consistent childhood memories is of the tsoureki my Yia-Yia would always bring to my house at Easter. She would get it from the church, and I was always fascinated by the slightly sweet, almond topped bread with a blood-red egg stuffed into it. This year, I decided to try my hand at making my own. I have never made a yeast bread before, and every Easter when I see the tsoureki at the Greek store by my house, I think "I can do that" but I never actually try. So I decided that 2009 would be the year. Ignoring my family's dusty, obligatory "Joys of Greek Cooking" book, I located a recipe online that I liked the look of, from Evelyn/Athens at RecipeZaar.


For those who don't know, tsoureki is a braided Greek sweet bread, traditionally served at Easter. It has many equivalents in other cultures, including: corek (Turkey); panaret (Albanian); choreg (Armenian); and, more distantly, Challah. It is considered a "brioche-like" bread, meaning that it is tender and yet has a dark outer crust courtesy of an egg wash. Although it has the right amount of flour, it does not, however, contain enough butter to be truly considered a brioche bread. In Greece, tsoureki can also be known as lambropsomo, which is a derivative of the Greek name for Easter Sunday, and literally means "shining bread." The outer glossiness of the bread is considered an important symbol for the light of Christ, and the blood-red egg (kokkina avga) is also highly symbolic -- red for the blood of Christ, and egg as a symbol of renewal and rebirth. All of this, of course, went right over my head as a child. I just thought I was getting a yummy dessert!

The prospect of tsoureki-making was exciting to me because it was such a familiar part of my life (and yet I had no clue how to make it), because it was a yeast bread, and because it contained a few elements out of the common way.

Squash Macaroni and Cheese

So, I've been trying to eat healthy lately. Or, at least more healthy than in recent memory. The biggest obstacle between me and my goal? The food! Quite a big obstacle! I love food. I love eating. I love baking. And I am even starting to nurture a budding love of cooking. With this in mind, I got it into my head to scope out some new "healthy" recipes, and I came across this on the Food Network website, from Ellie Krieger's show, Healthy Appetite (which I've personally never even watched, but maybe I should put it on my list).

It is a recipe for squash mac and cheese, and it caught my attention because 1) mac and cheese is a major comfort food for me; 2) I like squash; 3) mac and cheese is not diet friendly; and 4) the recipe uses ingredients like part-skim cheese and 1% milk. Notice how anything health-related is relegated to the end of the list. Ahem. Be that notwithstanding, I decided to give it a try, how bad could it be?