Fans of the Girl Scout’s Do-si-do cookies, also known as Peanut Butter Sandwiches, will notice some similarities between them and these  Toffee Peanut Butter Sandwich Cookies. They look similar and both have a great peanut butter flavor to them. The signature element of those cookies is their light, crisp texture. These are chewier, making them a little more substantial, and I think they have an even better peanut butter flavor.

These peanut butter cookies have two ingredients that set them apart from your average peanut butter cookie: oatmeal and toffee. A little bit of quick cooking oatmeal in the cookie dough helps these cookies to bake up to be slightly thinner than your average peanut butter cookie, as well as a bit more tender. It also gives them a little bit of extra flavor. The toffee contributes a lot of flavor as well. Because it is finely chopped before being incorporated, it really almost melts into the cookies. When fresh from the oven, these cookies are tender and crisp around the edges, with a chewy center.

I sandwiched the cookies together with creamy peanut butter. The end result is a great combination of salty and sweet. That said, I must admit that the cookies are good on their own even without the filling!

These cookies are done when their edges start to turn golden brown. It may be tempting to overbake these cookies because they will look a little bit pale in the center when they’re golden on the edge, but overbaking them will only take away their chewiness.

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• Croissants, brioche and other french pastries are a good way to start off the morning, but one of my other favorite breakfast pastries is the Pastelito. Pastelitos are Cuban pastries that have a guava and cheese filling. 5 Star Foodie made a batch of Pastelitos at home, starting with a layer of puff pastry and filling it with a mixture of cream cheese and guava jelly. Guava paste is traditionally used in these pastries, but it is more difficult to find in stores than guava jelly. A quick brush of an egg glaze and sugar syrup for extra sweetness, and these pastries come out of the oven looking like something you’d find at a good Cuban bakery.
• Hamantaschen are cookies traditionally made for the Jewish holiday of Purim. As a holiday cookie, they’re one of those treats that people don’t usually make at home, but are much better when made at home rather than being store-bought.Simply Sifted starts these a batch of these cookies off with a simple dough that is flavored with orange zest. Any kind of fruit filling or jam can be used to add a splash of flavor and color to the center of the cookies, which are rolled out and then folded up into triangular hat shapes before baking.
• Natalie’s Killer Cuisine’s Salted Cashew Cookies with Homemade Dulce de Leche are a twist on peanut butter cookies. They start off with whole, roasted cashews, which need to be processed in a food processor (with a little bit of peanut oil) until very smooth and creamy. The nut butter then goes right into a cookie dough, along with brown sugar, butter, vanilla and a few cashew bits for crunch. The cookies are finished with a little sprinkle of sea salt, which makes then a good match for the creamy dulce de leche spread that sandwiches them together.
• Dense, decadent and rich all describe the Vintage Butterscotch Bars from Culinary in the Country. These easy to make bars are a type of blondies, as their chewy and almost fudgy texture does make you think of brownies, even though there is no chocolate in these. The bars get their flavor from a very generous amount of brown sugar. To stop these bars from being too sweet, CitC mixed in some chopped walnuts, but cutting them up into bite-sized pieces will let you savor their flavor without being overwhelmed by butterscotch, too.
• Cookies and Cups has been experimenting with making Homemade Kit Kats. These layered bars aren’t really exactly like the candy bars for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which being that they’re quite large. Still, the flavors are there and with good quality ingredients you’re going to get a treat that will taste better than the “real” thing. The bars start with a lyaer of salted club crackers, which are topped with a graham cracker-containing caramel. Another layer of crackers and caramel comes before the final crisp layer of crackers and finishing layer a rich chocolate peanut butter mixture.

Popsicle-style cake pans - or pans that make small, flat cakes that can easily be skewered with a popsicle stick for a whimsical presentation of a cupcake - seem to be popping up all over the place lately. I’ve seen heart-shaped caksicles in addition to the classic popsicle-shaped Caksicle. The G&S Design Lollipop Cake Pan is a new spring-themed pan of the same type. The pan features three daisy-shaped cavities, three tulips and two butterflies, for a total of eight cake molds per pan. The pans are nonstick, for an easy release, and have just enough detail that the finished cakes will have a nice shape without too many nooks and crannies for the cake batter to get stuck in during baking. You can bake cake batter in these molds, but can also use them to shape cookie dough or even plain chocolate. The designs can be enjoyed year round, but really are perfect for spring and summer use.

Each pan includes a number of popsicle sticks so you’ll be ready to bake right away. Cookies, shortbread and other dense baked goods hold up well to the popsicle concept. For lighter or more delicate cakes (most, in my experience), the best way to serve these is by pairing up the shapes and sandwiching them together with frosting, inserting the stick and then dipping everything into a glaze (or melted chocolate) to coat the popsicle and keep hold everything in place.

Ad Hoc is one of Chef Thomas Keller’s restaurants in Yountville, California. The restaurant has an interesting story behind it, but even more interesting is the food, which is high quality, family style fare. They actually have just one menu each day - just like Mom might make (assuming that she is a truly excellent cook) for dinner. Since the food is homestyle, it’s not too much of a stretch to take their food from the Northern California restaurant into actual home kitchens. There is now a line of Ad Hoc food products to choose from, from a Fried Chicken Kit to gourmet cake frostings.

I don’t usually think of canned or jarred cake frosting as being a gourmet ingredient, but Ad Hoc’s Milk and Dark Chocolate Frostings certainly are that. These frostings are made with premium ingredients and are definitely a cut above your average grocery story frosting. Of course, at about $20 per jar - enough jar is enough to frost a 9 inch layer cake - they had better be a big cut above! Both frostings are rich tasting and creamy. I’ve had other dark chocolate frostings with a similar bittersweet flavor, so I wasn’t as impressed with it as I was with the milk chocolate option. The milk chocolate frosting really did have a great milk chocolate flavor to it, like hot chocolate or an actual chocolate bar. I haven’t had too many milk chocolate frostings with a similar flavor, and I know that I haven’t had a premade milk chocolate frosting that was anywhere near as tasty.

Both frostings were easy to spread and there was plenty in each jar to cover a cake well, assuming that you don’t eat a couple of spoonfuls straight from the jar (recommended on the label) before you finish off your cake! I don’t know that it’s worth the price tag when you could make your own frosting much less expensively, but because they are very good, they might be worth a splurge for yourself and would make a nice gourmet gift for a baking friend.

A good scone should be tender and buttery, and while it may not need accompaniments like butter, cream or jam to improve the overall flavor, it never hurts to have some at hand to finish the scone off as you eat it. These scones are a bit of an exception, because they really need no accompaniment - no matter how much you like spreading a bit of jam on your scones.

These Butterscotch Pecan Scones start out with a buttery, light scone dough and are studded with butterscotch chips and toasted pecans. Butterscotch chips are quite sweet on their own, but work very well against the buttery but not sweet background of the scone. I used lightly salted, toasted pecans in these to make sure that they would contrast well with the butterscotch chips and the butterscotch drizzle that I added. Feel free to use unsalted nuts, if you prefer, but do take the time to lightly toast them in a skillet to bring out their flavor and make them just a bit more crisp before adding them into the scone dough.

These scones are great when they are fresh, because the scone itself is crisp on the outside and very moist inside, with a great combination of flavors in each bite. I’d make them shortly before serving, if possible. That said, they do keep well when stored in an airtight container, loosing only a little crispness but none of the flavor. If you must make them in advance, don’t glaze them and pop them back into a 350F oven for a couple of minutes to freshen them up before serving!

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I find that it is very easy to remember a good dessert, but some desserts truly stick in your mind as something special. The cookbook Unforgettable Desserts certainly hopes to put each of its 150 recipes into this category, and offers a wide range of recipes, from very simple to complex showstoppers, to bakers to try. What you end up trying in your own kitchen and what you end up remembering is, of course, up to you, but there is no shortage of ideas in this book.

The cookbook starts out with a chapter full of basic recipes. From pie crusts to puff pastry, these are recipes that you’ll use over and over with the recipes in this book and with others. Ingredients and equipment are also touched on in an introductory chapter before getting into the recipes. The recipes are well written and easy to follow, and there are notes with tips on baking each specific recipe to help answer any questions that might come up while you work. I like the fact that many of the recipes have a twist that makes them stand out (hence the unforgettable name!), such as oatmeal cookies that sandwich a bright purple blueberry ice cream. That isn’t a dessert that you’ll easily forget.

The only drawback here is for photo fans, since not every recipe in the book comes accompanied by a photograph. This isn’t a problem for some of the cookies and things, but might make you shy away from trying the more involved cake recipes if you are the type who prefers to know what the finished product should look like, or wants some visual assistance when putting all the components of a dessert together. Still, a well-written recipe will get you through the process and if you just have a little extra confidence (and are willing to take a chance on decorating without a guide), you’ll do just fine here.