Melamakarona Cookies

These are some of my new favorite cookies. They are essentially a dry shortbread, but the wonder of honey turns them into a delightfully soft cookie. They are easy to make, but messy when you have to dip them. I doubled the orginal recipe so I could share more of them with friends and family. I made them last Wednesday and they are almost all gone.

2/3 cup cooking oil
1 cup softened butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 Tbsp orange juice
2 Tsp baking powder
1 Tsp baking soda
3-1/2 to 4 cups flour

1-1/2 cups sugar
1 cup water
2/3 cup honey
2/3 cup finely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350.
Beat the cooking oil and the butter together for 30 seconds. Add 2/3 cup of sugar and beat until fluffy. Add orange juice, baking soda and baking powder. Beat well. Gradually add the flour to make a medium-soft dough. You want to be able to work with the dough. I usually use closer to 4 cups of flour. Shape dough into ovals about 2 inches long. Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 20-25 minutes until they are lightly browned. Let cool.

Meanwhile, combine the rest of the sugar, honey and water in a pan. Bring to a boil (watch out! It boils fast and then it will want to bubble over). Reduce heat and simmer 5 minutes. Lay down some parchment paper and place a wire rack over the paper. Dip each cookie in the honey mixture while it is still warm. Place on the wire rack and immediately sprinkle the cookies with the nuts.

The cookies like to crumble and stick together, so separate them between layers of parchment paper or wax paper.

Hi, I'm Ashley!

While I will never be able to thank my darling friend, Adriane, for "introducing" me to such an amazing woman, I know she is right here with us and our blossoming friendship. To add to Amber's description, I met Adriane in graduate school through the UF Dairy Science club, where the two of us were the most unadvised graduate "advisors". After a trip to LSU in Baton Rouge, we became the nearest and dearest friends. Adriane and I shared a love of animals (mainly cows), food/cooking/eating, Jimmy Buffett, the ocean, the state of South Carolina and listening to silly music while driving with the windows down.

I will never forget the day that she moved into my house and proclaimed, "We are going to be the best house EVER because we have all of the ridiculous kitchen gadgets you can buy!" Between ramekins and cracker cutters, zesters and cheese slicers, we had the most amazing kitchen equipment! (But sadly, our graduate student incomes didn't support our foodie habits.)

After graduating and starting my new job, Adriane was still looking for her place to shine, so she was able to send me all kinds of yummy recipes to try since now I had the money to buy the fun ingredients once so far from our reach! I will completely agree with Amber's list of recipes to post because I know I like the easy ones, but I also like yummy ones that may take a little more finesse! :)

To those of you who never knew Adriane, she was sunshine bottled in an adorable, friendly, happy person. She never met a stranger and if for some reason you could get her to talk about animals or food, she would have you captivated for hours. (I know! There were way too many nights we stayed up playing with her puppy and talking about all of the yummy concoctions we were going to try as soon as we got our "big girl jobs" and could afford to cook more than ramen noodles!)

I hope you enjoy our blog as much as we are going to enjoy writing it. If Adriane was still here with us, I know she would just LOVE this idea and would have gladly incorporated all three of us into this culinary journey.

Adriane's Awesome Icing

Ok, so here is the first recipe for the blog from me. It is one of my favorite recipes that Adriane could whip out at the blinking of an eye. One morning she had to drag a few of us to the dairy farm at an ungodly hour of the morning. Out of guilt for making us wake up at 4:30 am, she had these awesome cupcakes. They originally sounded gross until the lid came off and I caught a whiff of the icing. YUMMY!!! I figured one was good before we had to work, then around 9 am when we left the dairy covered in crap we decided to eat more. It is truly amazing what you will actually eat when your hands and clothes and body are covered in cow manure, blood and sweat. It did not matter, the cupcakes were awesome and our digestive systems were getting a challenge due to the new microflora we introduced that morning. So, I got the recipe and it is always on my fridge labelled "Adriane Bell's Awesome Icing". So, without further ado, here it is. Enjoy it on cookies, cake, or cupcakes. Or heck, just make a batch and eat the icing from the bowl!


1 stick softened butter
1 box (lb) confectioner's sugar
rind of 1 orange (1-1/2 tsp)
juice of 1 orange

We actually did it!

Well, here is our first post. I thought I would give a little background....without taking 5 hours to write it!

Ashley and I both shared an AMAZING friend who was tragically killed in a car accident on September 14, 2009. It was a day of horror we will both never forget. Through our pain and loss we have become great friends and we try to fill the void where Adriane used to be. We have never actually met, but Adriane painted a picture of us both to each other. I hope it was beautiful :)

I knew Adriane as a graduate student at the University of Florida where I was a lab technician. We became instant friends and spent HOURS together. I moved to Indiana in late November of 2006. Soon after that Ashley and Adriane became inseparable friends and then became roommates.

Some of my great memories of Adriane involved food and calling her to hear about the crazy tales of their cooking mishaps. My favorite night was when I called and she and Ashley were making crackers. I had never heard of anyone making crackers (except for Keebler elves). So, I imagined Ashley and Adriane in the tree house dressed as elves baking crackers. Crazy, I know!

When I knew I was moving I baked and cooked all the time. I wanted to get rid of my food because I did not want to move it all! Adriane would always come over and eat my creations with me and my husband. Food was definitely something that was celebrated in our friendship. They did not have to be complicated or expensive to taste great.

Now Ashley and I make some creative food and we share the recipes via email. I love to eat, which really undermines my attempts to lose weight. Ashley came up with the idea to blog about some of our recipes. I plan on sharing some fun recipes that fall under the following categories:

1) Super easy to make
2) Super yummy and easy to make
3) Super yummy, slightly hard to make, but totally worth the time!
4) Fun recipes that remind me of Adriane