After locating almond meal and making this recipie, I am now back in numerical order in moving through the recipie list. I made them earlier this week, and shared them with dozens of people because the recipie made so many cookies!

These are the special ingredients. I got the almond meal at Fresh Market, but I found out later they were cheaper at Target. 

First beat together the butter and cream cheese, then mix in the brown sugar. 

Add egg yolk, vanilla, and almond extract. 

Now beat in almond meal and flour, divide the dough in half, and chill it. 

This leads us to ambiguous meanings of the word "chill" . . . I took it to mean freezer, because the freezer is faster. 

In the meantime, make the filling. All you have to do is unwrap the caramels and  put them in a...well, whataver kind of pan this is (or whatever kind of pan you have, for that matter!) and stir them while they melt.  

Then stir in the cream cheese. I was hoping the mix would make a beautiful swirl; I was disappointed. See? Looks kinda gnarly. 

At this point, the dough should be chilled, so roll it out on a piece of wax paper. Or, if you're me, squish it with your fingers on a piece of foil. Here's a picture of it in the freezer. I'm a little confused why it's flat in the freezer—did I chill it twice—so I'm going to assert that it doesn't really matter quite the order of the process. Just follow the recipie somewhat; it'll be fine. 

When your dough is flat and chilland your caramel is melted, spread half the caramel on half the dough. 

Then do the other half. When you finish, it should look about like this:

Because I was using foil, I peeled the dough sheet off the foil (then set it back onto the foil) before I spread the caramel on so that it'd be easier to roll up. If you use wax paper, though, I think you should be fine. 

Now just roll it up! This worked surprisingly well, better than I thought it would. 

Chill it for at least four hours (a joke, I know. who wants to wait?). I think it's so the swirl stays swirly. Important stuff, man. 

When it's time, preheat the oven and slice them up! I let mine sit out on the counter while the oven preheated because I thought it'd help them cook more evenly. 

As I baked them, I found that they were coming out of the oven brown on the bottom, but the top still looked doughy. I started flipping them over when they got to five minutes. I think they at least looked better, I'm not sure if it did much else. 

I'm going to be honest: This is not my favorite cookie I've made. But when they're coming out of the oven, and the caramel is hot and gooey, they're pretty irresistible. 

This picture is half what the bottom (tray side) of the cookies looked like, and half what the top side looked like, even when I flipped them. Both are pretty, it's just preference which you like better, I suppose!

So here's the verdict:

Taste: 8/10 (I wasn't the biggest fan of the almond flavor, and the cream cheese flavor in the filling wasn't my favorite either. They were still yummy, though, as you can tell by the score! 

Easy-to-Make: 8/10 (Just remember that the dough has to chill twice, so take that into account when planning your time.)

Visual: 8/10 (The element of swirl was so cute, fun, and unique! Cookies made from scratch don't often have a swirl. My inability to cook them evenly, which affected the appearance but not the taste, is the reason their score is low.)

Overall, these were fun to try, but this won't become a go-to recipie for me. This is the first time I've done a swirl, though, and it's made me interested in doing that in more recipes in the future. Chocolate and peanut butter swirls? Yum! 

Anyway, here's the link. The final verdict? Yummy, but not astounding. 

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/almond-caramel-swirls/

When Taylor Swift tweeted a few months ago about how much she loved Selena Gomez's upcoming song, my anticipation was tempered by remembering Selena's most recent studio efforts. "Come and Get It," among other songs from her last album Stars Dance, was not above reproach, so I didn't look forward to this next single very much. Also, the new song was set to feature A$AP Rocky, and all of his music is explicit, so that wasn't a good sign. 

I regret to say that my hesitation about the song was justified; "Good for You" came out and, though it delivered musically, it was lyrically inappropriate.

I'd like to pause to quickly recap my views on music and the words I like to use to discuss it. I think this will help if you disagree with me, because then you can approach the rest of this post knowing our points of dissension:

"Above Reproach"— If a song is above reproach, it meets the standards of Christ. It doesn't have to be a Christian song, but its content must be appropriate. I expand on this in my initial Music Monday post, but basically it has nothing explicitly or implicitly inappropriate. I usually only listen to a song if it's "above reproach," though I'll sometimes make an exception when I think the themes and the way it addresses them is worth the override.
"Appropriate"— This explains whether a song measured up to the standard or not. Because my standard as a Christian is Christ, this is usually what this refers to, which usually relates back to the phrase "Above Reproach."
"Musically thus-and-such"— I recognize that my opinion on a song is easy to disagree with regardless of your personal beliefs. One thing I am more that willing to agree on is that the songs are often excellent as far as musicianship goes. Please, as you read my analysis of music, know that I know this. Usually if I call a song bad, it's because of the content, not the musicality. There are thousands of songs that I'd call bad that are musically really cool. 

But now, back to Selena Gomez.

I take issue with lots of things about "Good for You." But what matters more to me than my opinion on the morality expressed in her song is the feeling I get when I realize that Selena's beliefs and feelings are reflected by this song. I know that this type of dependent behavior is real, truly I do. But it breaks my heart that she believes it anyway, and I also hate for her to trumpet it in a song. I wish I could tell her that even though I know it's valid to feel like you have to please a boy, she doesn't have to live like that or focus on that. She doesn't have to work to be "good for" any boy, and if she does, he's not the kind of boy she should have. 

Lines like "gonna wear that dress you like, skin tight" and "leave my dress a mess on the floor, still look good for you" communicate desperation, and I want people to know that they don't have to be desperate! 

This song is about pursuing carnal desires to keep someone happy. Happiness is circumstantial; only pursuing Christ will satisfy. 

Sorry, Selena. Please know there is Someone who loves you more than that boy ever could. 

Hello, all! Here we are on our third recipie already! Named number four, because we had to skip number two for the moment. 

I don't like typing out exclamatory remarks, but I'm finding it harder than usual to restrain myself with these. They were thin, sugary magic. 

Well, the first batch wasn't thin (aka the picture below). But I fixed it in the next ones. I'd recommend that you make itty bitty dough balls and smash them with your hands or a glass. They inflate in the oven, then collapse as they cool. Like I said, magical. 

I froze this dough too, and it also worked well! The cookies were a little crumbly, but I'm not fancy enough to know what factors contributed to that. It could have been the freeze-thaw, or it could have been something else. Whatevs. 

The icing was simple to make, but it was too thick to be drizzled. I added a few extra tablespoons of whipping cream, maple syrup, and a little more butter, and it did fine! When I got it out of the fridge to put on the cookies before my presentation, I warmed it in the microwave and it drizzled on wonderfully! 

I found them much too easy to eat, and people who tried them really liked them! Here's the rankings:

Taste: 9/10

Easy to Make: 9/10

Visual: 8/10 (because of the crumble issue)

Knock yourself out! I think these would be great for fall parties, but I'd keep them on the docket all the way through winter too.

http://www.bhg.com/recipe/cookies/soft-maple-sugar-cookies/