Bite Club and the Reveal of the Giant Almond Cookie

After I'd looked through several of the One Pot Meal books, I ended up doing a dessert from the Martha Stewart One Pot Meals book, a hybrid in fact.

There were two giant cookies, where you make just one huge one and cut it up or break it at will.  One used the castiron skillet, which I like for baking, but was about chocolate chips, don't like chocolate much at all, and chips not at all.  The other one used ground almonds, which I wanted to try out, but a springform pan, which I don't have.  Soooooo, I made a hybrid sort of thing.

I made brown sugar by mixing molasses with white, and did the top recipe on the page you see here, but instead of chocolate chips, used the ground almond, and added in almond essence as well as the vanilla essence they list.  And I baked the thing in a castiron pan, for longer than the almond recipe, several minutes longer, and reduced the heat to finish.

It slid out of the pan easily, no problem, and I put it in another dish to take it to the meeting, castiron being too hefty to sling about.  And we'll see what the gathering has to say about it.  I found that a package of sliced almonds for 1.5 cups will make a little more than one cup of ground almonds, about right for my needs.  I'm taking in a pizza wheel to help people cut into it if they don't want to break into it by hand.  I suppose this is what makes it one pot.

Speaking of favorite tools, I use my pizza wheel to cut all kinds of flatbreads and biscuits and flattish baked goods, much easier than a knife.  And I use it to mince herbs, too, just run it back and forward until the herbs are minced.

So substitution ruled the day yet again, and it does look pretty good.

Excitement in the food world: Christopher Kimball is leaving America's Test Kitchen, which he helped found.  Apparently things have been very exciting since they took on their first CEO and this is the next big event.  I guess they all got their aprons in a twist! You simply never know how passionately food can get people, and the business dealings attached thereto.  I certainly wouldn't get into an argument with people who all have sharp instruments to hand and are skilled in their use.