Wait, weren’t we talking about amazing holiday cookies just the other day?  Yes, I know I just gave you those addictive Maple Jam Thumbprint Cookies a few days ago.  Too many cookie recipes, too soon!  Well, ’tis the season for homemade baked goods.  Besides, who can go to a party with only one type of homemade cookie?  Underachievers, that’s who.  These shortbread wedges are ultimate party showstoppers.  People will be raving.  You will be a party queen.  Recipe requests will come pouring in.  Holiday cookie success.

Sweetened entirely with honey and made with whole wheat flour, these hover on the border of healthy cookies.  Eh, the cup of butter aside … they might qualify.  Either way, they only have six ingredients and I can pronounce all of them which is enough for me.  Honey-sweetened and pecan-studded, these addictive shortbread wedges are drizzled with enough decadent dark chocolate to satisfy even the most demanding palette.

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A few weeks ago, when Hurricane Irene was barreling toward the Eastern seaboard (aka. My Home), New York City was in a panic.  Store shelves were stripped bare, batteries had never been worth more and people were walking around with more cash in their wallets than they had since the early 90s.  Like most other urbanites, I went to stock up.  Load our pantry with necessities.  Non-perishable items to live off of if the worst happened and we were stranded for days on end.  I came home with a whole chicken and a bunch of fresh basil.  Oops.

Of course, that chicken turned into an amazing one-pot meal because I was certain that if the world was going to end we weren’t going to go out hungry.  Then, in a fit of panic upon realizing that I didn’t have the proper necessities to survive Storm-aggedon, I decided it was time for Emergency Cookies.  Cookies to get you through a hurricane tropical storm.  Cookies to soothe the nerve-wracked soul but healthy enough to keep you in your skinny jeans if the world doesn’t end.

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I’m not going to tell you about how easy these brownies are to make.  I won’t bore you with the fact that they are sweetened naturally, use an olive oil base and are made with whole wheat flour.  Going on about the healthfulness of these brownies, the ease of assembly and the practical bonus of using up excessive amounts of zucchini distracts from the main selling point about these brownies:  They are insanely delicious!

A multi-tasking brownie that cranks the chocolate meter up to a level 10, these Double Chocolate Zucchini Brownies pack a serious punch.  These two-faced little devils are intensely fudgy when served chilled from the fridge yet cakey, moist and gooey when served warmed.  A chocoholic’s dream, these brownies satisfy even the pickiest sweet tooth while secretly throwing in a healthy dose of veggies!

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Bookmark this recipe immediately.  I promise that there is going to come a time when you are backed in a corner, you have to make something fabulous for a party/mandatory work function/end-of-a-bad-day-cure and you are going to feel trapped.  You don’t know what to make!  You don’t have time to make anything elaborate but you can’t show up with a plastic-wrapped, store-bought, chemical-laden baked good.  You don’t have time to go to the store and your kitchen looks as though it’s been ravaged by a pack of wild dogs.  This is your go-to, all-purpose problem solver cake.

A chocoholic’s dream, this flourless chocolate cake is fudgy, moist and perfectly devour-able.  It is endlessly adaptable (top with ice cream, fresh whipped cream, berries, cherry sauce, powdered sugar, chocolate ganache) yet perfectly delicious on its own.  It takes less than 10 minutes to whip up the batter and it’s out of the oven in less than a half hour.  Plus, I promise you that you already have at least four of the five ingredients already in your kitchen.  Problem?  You have met your solution!

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Let’s say that you have a Dear Friend who suddenly, without warning, was required to go on a strict vegan diet.  Luckily, this was a temporary situation but a drastic change nonetheless.  Being told that you can eat no eggs, no butter, no cheese, no milk overnight would be a shock to anyone’s system.  After being told that you can’t eat those things, what is the only thing you want to eat?  All kinds of dairy!  Let the buttery cravings begin!  As a good friend, I scoured the ends of the internet to locate a baked good suitable to my friend’s situation.  Enter these perfect little morsels.

These magical cookies are made with all-natural peanut butter, heart-healthy olive oil and whole wheat flour.  Dark chocolate chunks crank up the antioxidant value, making these a front runner for the healthiest cookie around.  They are free of dairy, white flour and white sugar!  Sounds too good to be true, right?  Even for us non-vegans, these cookies pack a fudgy, peanut butter-chocolate two punch knockout combo that ends up with a snack you can feel good about chowing down on.

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Consider these clementine cakes my apology for throwing that heaping pile of indulgent deliciousness in your direction last week.  When I tell you that these mini cakes are guilt-free, I mean they are completely guilt free.  They also happen to be gluten-free, refined sugar-free and flour-free (ok, flourless but I was on a roll there!). Did I forget to mention that they are also packed with protein and fiber?  I know, it’s too good to be true.

These mini beauties are adapted from a recipe made famous by the Domestic Goddess herself, Nigella.  As strange as it sounds, you puree whole clementines (after boiling the heck out of them!), mix that with ground almonds, a couple other baking staples and you have the most incredibly moist, flavorful mini cakes around.  Dip them in dark chocolate (packed with antioxidants!) and you have all the indulgence without the waistline impact.  Like I said: Guilt. Free.

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Am I the only person who finds the thought of making batches and batches of Christmas cookies intimidating?  There is so much rolling of dough, cutting of intricate shapes, hoping those shapes don’t spread into unrecognizable blobs while in the oven, whipping up batches of different colored icing that will likely be the wrong consistency and run all over the place like a bad finger painting experiment.  Plus, everyone has a “sure fire” “perfect” sugar cookie recipe, which inevitably ends up being less-than-perfect and far from sure-fire when tested in your own kitchen.

Let me introduce you to your new best friend in a sea of holiday craziness.  They are delicious, they sport the traditional red and green holiday colors and they look terribly fancy.  The brown sugar base blends with orange zest, tangy cranberries and salty pistachios for a flavor explosion that just gets better with time.  The best news, they are beyond simple to make.  The whole batch will be finished in less than an hour, which should leave you plenty of time for the requisite shopping/present wrapping/partying/celebrating.

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