S'more Cookies - No Eggs!

These taste just like S'mores, minus the heavy processed garbage ingredients and minus the sick feeling you get after eating two traditional fire burnt sweets. Try using this recipe if you can't find organic marshmallows.

1/2 cup each whole wheat flour & white flour
1 1/2 cup steel cut oats (toasted)
1 tsp baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup applesauce (The snack cups are perfect for this recipe.)
1/4 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup mini marshmallows

Toast the oats in a tiny bit of butter. Combine flour, oats, baking soda and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in large mixer bowl until creamy. Add the applesauce, beating well. Gradually beat in flour and oat mixture. Stir in chocolate chips and marshmallows.

Drop rounded tablespoon onto a very well greased baking sheet. Bake at 365 degrees for 15 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

Milano Cookies - No Eggs!

Craving Milano Cookies from Pepperidge Farm, which I can't have because they have eggs in them really stinks! So after playing around with a family favorite cookie recipe and a nearly empty jar of Nutella I discovered I actually can have them now.

1/2 pound of sweet, unsalted butter
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup yogurt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/8 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 1/3 cups flour
Blend thoroughly  Roll in wax paper and freeze for 30 minutes. Slice thinly.




Bake at 350* for 15 minutes. Wire rack cool. Smear with Nutella and stack.

 Enjoy stacked with a tall glass of milk.

Scottish Shortbread

Shortbread is an oft abused biscuit. People have added milk, eggs, water, extracts, vegetable oils, and other ingredients that should never appear in these crumbly "cookies".

They are made with only four ingredients, each as fresh as possible. Old butter leaves a metallic tang in the mouth, and old or cheap flour tastes mealy.

Only fresh unsalted butter, unbleached pastry flour, sea salt, and fine sugar will do.

3 cups finely sifted pastry flour
1 cup fine cane sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) of fresh unsalted butter
1 tsp sea salt (pink of grey)







Sift the dry ingredients then blend in the butter, 1 tbls pat at a time. The mix should be soft and granular like sand.








Press into two buttered pie pans. Score mid-way and bake at 350* for 30 minutes.








Set out and re-cut score marks with a large sharp knife. Completely cool. Serve with very hot tea, milky Earl Grey is my favorite.

To Every Season Turn Turn Turn - B. Ferrante's in the Fall

Who could resist a Nutella Baci di Giulietta (Juliet's Kisses) with their brilliantly colored sugar crystals? Not I. Not even when begged to, as I was for the photo shoot by KC Kratt for Buffalo Spree's November 2012 'Cheap Eats' issue.

Sarah and Lucy epitomize the spirit of seasonal foods. Their cases full of unique sweet and delicate, savory and bold baked goods rotate as the seasons turn, and this fall the selection is excellent!

November promises to be full of the sweet and the savory, with choices like the vegan pumpkin pecan cookies and maple agave cornbread muffins.



The knobby witch fingers with almond fingernails, were both morbid and delightful.

Gluten free options include double chocolate ganache brownies, snickerdoodles, and chocolate gateau with ganache and chestnut puree.





Bourbon Pecan and pumpkin pies, carrot tea cakes with cream cheese frosting, pumpkin bread with cranberries and apple cider glaze, currant shortbread, apple fritters, ginger bacon cookies (made with Spar's bacon), and molasses cookies overflow the cases.

Vegetarian and bacon lover versions of the savory winter vegetable pies with cabbage, potato, onion, bacon and cheddar will be available. You can special order your Thanksgiving pies now. There will also be old favorites year round, like the Biscotti and oatmeal raison cookies. Keep an eye out for more offerings as the year turns. Check out my Urbanspoons review on B. Ferrante's - Specialty Italian Cookies and Pastry.

B. Ferrante's - Specialty Italian Cookies and Pastry

Sarah Gilmartin and her mother Lucy saw a window open for them when Prish Moran of Sweetness 7 made this store front available. An opportunity to fulfill a long talked of fantasy of opening a specialty shop that served only the finest and most delectable confectionaries and traditional Italian baked goods.

B. Ferrante's is open from 7:30 am to 3:30 pm Wednesday through Saturday and Sunday 8 am to 2 pm at 218 Grant Street across from Westside Stories and behind Sweetness 7 near the corner of Grant and Lafeyette in the Westside of Buffalo.

"Our cookies, pastries, and breads are taken from family recipes that have been handed down throughout the years. All items are baked fresh daily, and are baked in small batches (to ensure freshness and quality) using only the best ingredients. Our commitment to tradition, and to top quality ingredients allows us, at B. Ferrante's, to bring our customer's, what we believe, are exceptional products that you won't find at larger, commercial bakeries."

When I went in this morning, the light streaming in through the exceptionally large glass windows was daydreamy and bucolic. It glanced off the shinning wood and glass cases, making all of the plated sweets and breads luminous.

Unlike many pastry and bread shops, there were plates of pizzettes and sausage rolls and greens rolled into bread. I picked up two cannoli (slivered almonds and chocolate chips) and two of their specialty rolls (salami, capicola, pepperoni, banana peppers and fresh mozzarella).

Here is Sarah preparing my cannoli.

The cream was bitter sweet and sharply earthy - perfect. The hand rolled shells were crisp and buttery.

The dusting of powdered sugar was delicate, Sarah was not heavy handed with it as many other pastry shops tend to be.

 Sitting in the warm glow of sunlight.

Family, inspiration and inspiring, keeps watch like a Roman Ancestor altar.

Layers of color encourage the shopper to linger and chat.

There are sets of hand towels in a basket above a bookcase of pizzelles and scones.

 Crockery, ceramic sculpture and baskets filled with baked goods are well shown, encouraging you to load your bag full.

Chocolate dipped macaroons.

Logs rolled with fig filling and topped with icing and candy pearls.

Customers can order trays of cookies for parties.









I am so glad there is such a fine Italian panetteria within walking distance of home. They will become a fast family favorite! Welcome to the neighborhood!

Gingersnap Gingerbread Geodesic Domes

3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup brown sugar and 1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup unsulphured molasses
1 large egg
1/2 tsp pure vanilla
2 cups mix of whole grain wheat and white flour

1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons ground ginger1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

In a large bowl, beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy (about 2 - 3 minutes).

Add the molasses, egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, and spices. Add to the butter mixture and mix until well combined. Cover and chill the batter for about 30 minutes or until firm. 

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Roll out the dough and cut the necessary number of shapes to create your gingerbread "house". This dome used trapezoids, pentagons, and hexagons. A regular house might use rectangles and triangles. Design one on paper, mock it up in cardboard and then use those cardboard pieces as patterns for your final product.

Bake for 12 minutes. You'll need to recut the cookies once they're done baking to give them nice sharp clean edges.

Do this while they are still warm so the cookies don't snap or shatter. Make the 1 inch snaps out of the left over dough.

The houses will not be for eating as you will be using Royal Icing to put them together. Royal Icing is made using 1 lb powdered sugar, 1 tsp of water and two egg whites. Beat until smooth and glossy. If you want it colored, drip in food coloring now and mix until the color is fully incorporated.

Use the icing as mortar, sticking tiles to your frame, together, or to add details. Use your imagination!

Leto's dome for school got plugged with orange candies at each corner, creating a blue and orange igloo.
Short i sound...
i...i...igloo!

Mannie's dome had curly peaks of icing in the corners.

The Occupy Buffalo Food Tent got this one in honor of their dome that allows them to gather together in the cold and wind in general comfort to talk about different issues. They are one of the very few Occupy groups in the United States treated with respect and dignity and the City of Buffalo is actually listening to and working with them.

These gingersnaps are easy to make with applesauce as substitute for eggs. You end up with a snap more like the Swedish Anna's Ginger Thins, which are super duper scrumdiddlyumptious!