Almond macaroons and Cherry Heering drinks

Never before have we memorized a recipe just by making it once, but without even trying we've committed these to memory, mostly because almost all the ingredients have the same measurements. It's great to have a super simple cookie/bar in your arsenal, and this one is so good that we immediately filed it away in our culinary memory bank. It's the first thing we've made from The Cake Club by Susie Quick, and we'll be returning to that book for more of her Southern specialties.

Macaroon seems kind of like a misnomer, since these don't have any coconut in them. But if you wanted to top them with some shredded coconut along with the almonds, it would probably be pretty great.

Almond Macaroons

¾ c (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

1 ½ c sugar

2 large eggs (maybe because 1 1/2 eggs doesn't exist?)

1 ½ c flour

pinch of salt

1 tsp almond extract

½ c sliced almonds

Preheat oven to 350 and line a 10-inch skillet with foil, leaving a few inches over the sides to lift the cookies out. Combine everything but the almonds in a bowl, stirring with a wooden spoon. Spread the batter evenly on the bottom of the skillet. Scatter almonds over the top and sprinkle with about 2 tsp sugar.

Bake for 30 minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool in the skillet for 5 minutes, then remove and cut them into cookies. You could also use a biscuit cutter or heart cookie cutter to make these into nice shapes. They’ll be pretty soft, but thick enough to eat anyway. You could probably just make these in a baking pan, which would make it easier to cut them into squares.

Along with these, we tried a couple drinks with Cherry Heering, a cherry liquor that has a nice flavor, but won't take the paint off the walls (we're looking at you, Maraschino liquor).

The Cherry Cobbler: 4 parts gin, 1 tsp sugar, 1 part Cherry Heering, 1 part Chambord, 1 part lemon juice. Add soda and a slice of lemon if you like. This is a big drink but really the Chambord

combines with the Heering to give it a cough syrup texture (the technical term is mouthfeel but there’s no not-pervy way to say that).

For some more enjoyable mouthfeel (rim shot), check out The Hunter (2 parts Rye Whiskey and 1 part Cherry Heering), good for warming up after a long day of chasing big game, or The Hot Shot (juice of a ¼ lime, 2 parts light run, 1 part heering), a slightly tropical cocktail that still packs a punch. Drink it with a jet engine hot dog, perhaps?