You’re impressed aren’t you? I have to admit I’m pretty impressed too. You should see the Full Spectrum Rainbow Cookie post that inspired it. Debbie‘s rendition is much prettier. Mine was pretty damn yummy though, if not as pretty. I was captured by the ingredient list which, along with chocolate (can’t go far wrong there), included almond paste. I love marzipan and the ilk. Thankfully, I wasn’t put off by her unusual comments that this was a tad fussy. I don’t think it actually is. Well maybe compared to other Debbie recipes, but still. Worth the fuss. Check out the bowls. Beautiful eh?
Sidetrack/ January and February are all about rainbows here in the desert. Not in that incredible rainbow-every-single-day Hawaii way, but beautiful subtle rainbows over mountains and desert promising much needed moisture to the desert. We actually have two rainy seasons. The big dramatic monsoon storms bring relief and theater in Summer II (July and August) and a gentler, softer drizzle soaks a parched desert in January and February. Yep, rainbows. We might not get much rain here in the Sonoran Desert, but we get rainbows and even more fabulous sunsets when we do./End Rainbow sidetrack
Back to the baked goods. Debbie is part of the reason I’ve got back into cooking from scratch, or almost scratch. I’m not sure if I ‘got back’ to, or just started. Cooking in England is much more from scratch, at least it use to be, than family cooking here. Somewhere between moving here at 19 years old and post college I got sucked into prepped risottos and eating out. I still use them occasionally. There were a couple of other reasons for the return to cooking. Seven months spent in Florence, Italy where the produce was phenomenal, the grocery stores new and different and I had more time (I had more time than ‘just stick it in the microwave’). A year after we returned to the US, I packed in my job and our belts tightened (if only my actual belt could be tightened. It just feels tighter.) and so cooking at home became more important. Debbie’s recipes, especially her Pantry Cooking section, have been used again and again in our house. Her first cookbook, Parents Need to Eat Too is about to come out. I’ve got my copy on order from Antigone Books, our fabulous local feminist bookstore. Green and I were testers for the book so I’m excited to see how it turned out. The recipes we tested were fabulous, with one exception, but I think that was because I didn’t follow the instructions.
This rainbow season we’ll be making these Rainbow Cookies/Cake again for Bean, who was born under a desert rainbow sky.
Debbie,
Thank you. Your blog, your recipes brought real food to our family dinners.
ps. I think you might want to change the name to Pride cookies. Several friends of a certain demographic were totally taken with these and renamed them Pride Cake. I even received marriage proposals.
Wow, I actually got a little teary reading this. THANK YOU for all your support–the book wouldn’t be anywhere near as good as (I hope) it is without your contributions. Seriously, you’re a rock star.
I just shared this on Facebook with a plea that one of my friends with more culinary ambition than I can muster make them for me. I’ll take pictures!
Did anyone take you up on your offer?
Unfortunately, no. I’ll have to make them myself, I guess.
It really isn’t too hard. You don’t need the 6 pans. I just used two and then swapped them out the second time and used apricot preserves rather than raspberry which I preferred.
Oh that looks delish! I made a similarly rainbowed dessert with layers of jello a year or two ago–it was very retro feeling–but probably not nearly as delicious!
Ooo, retro jello. Sounds like a fabulous idea.
These are awesome. And yea for rainbow season!