Chocolate Thumbprint Cookies with Caramel and Sea Salt

It's hard to go far wrong with chocolate and caramel. These were in Sunset magazine's Christmas cookie collection this year...though I wouldn't limit these to Christmas. The cookies were a little dense - with no leavening in the recipe, that could be an easy fix by adding a teaspoon of baking powder. Either that or tweak it for a chewier cookie! :)

Sunset magazine - full recipe.

Since I planned to roll mine in sugar (no reason except that I like the look of it), I reduced the sugar in the dough to 1/2 cup.

Danish Salted-Butter Cookies

If you're going to decorate and cover them with icing and sprinkles, save yourself the trouble and just go for regular sugar cookies. But if the cookies are to be the main focus, these are worth the extra effort!

Thanks to Bon Appetit for the recipe.

I did find that mine -- even though I felt I was rolling them a little thin -- took longer than the 10-15 minutes to cook to really delicious, golden brown, light and crispy, buttery cookies...about 20.

Quinoa Bark

My World Lit students are currently in our African literature unit reading Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart. At one point, the tribe rejoices as locusts 'invade' -- ready to be roasted for a tasty, crunchy treat. I often provide ethnic dishes for the students to try, and they jokingly asked in class about the possibility, including comments of "I'd maybe try them...if they were chocolate covered!" 

Well, culinary grade locusts are hard to come by here (not that I've ever given it any serious effort!!) but when I saw chocolate quinoa bark in this month's Cooking Light, I thought it would be fun to see if my students would eat a roasted, crunchy, chocolate covered snack...before I told them exactly what it was. :)

1/2 C uncooked quinoa
1/3 C turbinado sugar
7 oz dark chocolate
1/4 tsp sea salt

Photo and complete recipe from Cooking Light this month.