TWD: To bake or not to bake

I came really close to bailing on this week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe.

After a bit of a baking hiatus over the last couple of months I feel like I'm surrounded by sweet things. There's still a wedge of caramel cake on the counter. And several servings of last week's two-fer pie. I *was* able to offload the banana bars on John's parents... but do I really need yet another sweet temptation in the kitchen so soon?
So I did what I do when I'm trying to resist temptation. I shared the caloric wealth. I took the two-fer pie into work with me where it lasted on the counter next to the water cooler 18 minutes, beating two tins of Girl Scout nuts, a plate of chocolate chip cookies and a bag of home grown meyer lemons to the empty plate club. (and I walked out of the break room with a handful of the aforementioned lemons).

After a taste test and a photo shoot tonight, the majority of my Linzer Cookies will follow in the pie's footsteps tomorrow.

Have I mentioned how much my colleagues love the concept of Tuesdays with Dorie?

I made my cookies with hazelnut flour because I had it on hand. And tossed a bit of whole wheat pastry flour in the mix in a vain attempt at making them nutritious. Rather than a fruit center, I smeared my base cookies with a bit of Nutella to carry on the hazelnut theme. And the irony that I was assembling my cookies and licking Nutella off my fingers on commercial breaks during The Biggest Loser was not lost on me...

Special thanks to the first man to join our fold, "Noskos" of Living the Life who chose Dorie's Linzer Sables for this the first week in December. To see how the other Doristas approached this one, check out the blog roll.

From the archives...
In 2006 I followed the insanity of NaBloPoMo with Holidailies (which starts on the 5th this year).
In 2007 I channeled my inner Popeye.