Stress baking {+ a recipe}

I've mentioned it before, but I'm a bit of a stress baker.

The last few days have been a bit stressful for me and my family, 

so I decided to bake my stress away this weekend.  

Plus I wanted to try out a few recipes for a friends' bridal shower.  

All the bridesmaids are bringing a dessert for the dessert bar.

First, I made thin mints for my Valentine.

{Recipe from here - it was super easy and only took 3 ingredients}

With my mom's help, we made french macarons.

{Recipe from here - we quadrupled it.}

This recipe is incredibly forgiving.  

{fyi - use a bigger tip than this, you hand will thank you later}

And even though we did everything wrong, sifting the meringue powder with the almond meal, using wax paper instead parchment paper on one of the cookie sheets, 

we still managed to get a plate full of delicious Nutella filled cookies.

I think we'll make these for the bridal shower but with a variety of fillings.  Miette's book has some great recipe ideas.

Because there are 2 days on the weekend, I then decided to make Miette's graham crackers.  

I found the recipe while looking at the macaron fillings.  We had the the ingredients sauf one substitution.  No biggie.

Graham Crackers

slightly adapted from Miette

Ingredients:

 - 1 cup all-purpose flour

 - 1/3 + 1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

 - 1/2 tsp kosher salt

 - generous 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon

 - 2/3 cup butter, at room temperature

 - 1/2 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

 - 2 tbsp honey (we didn't have any honey so we substituted agave)

 - raw sugar, for sprinkling

Directions:

Sift together both flours, salt, and cinnamon.  Set aside.

With an electric mixer, combine butter, brown sugar and honey and beat until fluffy, for about 5 minutes.

Add the dry ingredients to the butter mixture in 3 batches.  Beat until just combined.  Wrap dough tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes, or up to 2 days.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Unwrap the dough and place between two sheets of waxed paper.  Roll out dough into about 1/4 inch thickness.  The recipe suggests using a 3 1/4 inch scalloped cookie cutter for about 2 dozen cookies.  I wanted them a bit smaller so we used 3 inch, 2 1/2 inch and 2 inch cookie cutters, obviously we got more than 2 dozen.

Place cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet about a 1/2 inch apart. Sprinkle with raw sugar.  Bake until golden brown, about 14-16 minutes.  Transfer to wire rack to cool.  Store in airtight container for up to 2 weeks.

P.S. After baking you could also crumble these up to use for a homemade graham crust for cheesecake or tarts.

Enjoy!

What are your best stress relievers?

LMF