Sweet Melissa Sundays: Honey Beescotti

Lorelei, the fabulous mermaid at Mermaid Sweets, came up with the seriously fun idea to bake through the Sweet Melissa Cookbook. I just got this book for my birthday and I had marked some recipes that I wanted to make so when I saw her post about Sweet Melissa Sundays I knew I had to join in. It's a really wonderful book with some great looking recipes and I am so excited that I'm along for this ride from the very beginning!

I may not like bugs (especially the kind that sting!) but there's something rather lovable about the honeybee. My dad just loves honey bees and he's always threatening to start a hive in the backyard. That idea I'm not so wild about but I do like honeybees and honey and these Honey Beescotti are a wonderful way to enjoy some honey.

The recipe is sort of remarkable to me, coming from a TWD standpoint, because they have a mere 4 tablespoons of butter. Yup, that's right. Not a lot of butter for a standard issue baked good. Not much at all actually. There are 3 tablespoons of chestnut honey (my wonderful aunt and uncle brought me a jar last summer so that's what I used) that give the dough its "sticky" texture. I'll admit, I had some sticky issues with refrigerating the dough and forming logs. However, the dough for these beescotti is retardedly good and I couldn't stop eating it! So, any that ended up on my hands went in my mouth. That's bad, I know. I made the candied orange peel from Giada's recipe. It's super easy and I highly recommend that you try it. It was raining, raining, and really gray the day that I made these so I don't have pictures because the light was horrible. So, just trust me, the candied orange peel is super fabulous and make it. I think that several bakers used Giada's recipe this week. I left out the caraway seeds because I didn't have any. And, I didn't have any because I hate them. I remembered that I used to pick them off of my everything bagel in college because I hated the taste. So, no caraway seeds for me. I also used blanched almonds rather than whole almonds because I had some in my freezer. Other than that I followed the directions and I had no major snafus!

So, the verdict on the finished product? These Honey Beescotti live up to their name! I think that the honey flavor is quite prominent and I love the bits of candied orange peel throughout. The almond extract gives them a great flavor that sort of amps up the presence of the almonds in the cookies. I loved these! They're great with coffee and I'm sure that they're wonderful with tea as well. Thanks Lorelei for starting us off with such a great pick!