Rainbow Cookies (Seven-Layer Cookies)

I can't believe I made these a month ago. I miss them. Deeply. But It's well past time I shared my favorite cookie with you.

Rainbow cookies, or as the Smitten Kitchen's recipe calls them, Seven-Layer Cookies (chocolate-spongecake-jam-spongecake-jam-spongecake-chocolate... 7.. mmm), are a rich (as the SK says, they're kinda more like petit fours) combination of three delectable components:  almond-based spongecake, apricot (and/or raspberry) jam, and chocolate.

Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

In the spirit of last month's world athletic activities, I'd say that the delectable combination of peanut butter, oatmeal and chocolate makes these cookies

creamier.
chewier.
tastier.

Baked at the right temperature and for just the right amount of time, these medallions of flour, sugar and butter achieve the perfect golden and bronze hues that'll make anyone's mouth water.  (Ok I'm done with the puns.)

Once again, my friend Trent spared me from having to schlep all my baking gear down five flights of stairs to the kitchen. Instead I just had to carry my baking sheets halfway across campus. A fair deal.

Trent proposed making some sort of peanut butter cookie this time, so I turned to one of my favorite blogs, Brown Eyed Baker. Of course, she had just what we were looking for: Peanut Butter Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies. Even though their name was a bit of a mouthful,  they looked so good that all I could think of was just that:  mouthfuls and mouthfuls of them.

Chunky Monkey Biscotti

Put together a little chunky (peanut butter & chocolate chips) with a little monkey (mashed banana) and you get these dark, rich cookies that are perfect with a cup of coffee. Based on the Ben & Jerry's flavor combo :

these biscotti have a blend of banana, chunky peanut butter, and chocolate all baked (twice, more on this later) together into the form of the traditional Italian dry cookie.

More on biscotti: The plural of the Italian biscotto, meaning cookie or biscuit, biscotti are a twice-baked (from which they get their name "bi-cooked") and therefore relatively dry cookie or biscuit. Biscuit, actually, is a cognate (Can you tell I'm a linguistics major?) of biscotto, as are the Spanish bizcocho and German Biskuit, although the latter two refer more to a type of spongecake than to a cookie!

Before I get to the recipe, I need to thank my friend and roommate from last year, Trent, who offered to let me bake in his kitchen! Not only did he save me from scrubbing the AEPi kitchen with Lysol wipes (he keeps his kitchen spick and span) , but he also was a big help: I conquered my OCD and let him measure the cocoa powder.