Funny you should write that Jo! At Christmastime in the states I always made trays of cookies for friends and family.

I am good friends with a restaurant/club owner in Phila. and would always make one for him and his wife as well as one for the bouncers and waitstaff at his establishment. Much to my surprise, when I showed up there this past Friday (a must go everytime I am home...gotta move those salsa feet), one of the bouncers said..."Hey you´re back! What?? No chocolate chip cookies??!!"

Maybe I should point him in the direction of the local Starbucks??

All this talk of food is making me very hungry! But I think the cafeteria is already closed...besides there's really no food left at this time of the morning.

Chica, have you ever tried adding oatmeal to your chocolate chip cookies?...(if you're into oatmeal chocoate chip cookies with walnuts)

You don't even taste the oatmeal too much, but it makes the cookie so tender and moist... :o it really won't matter what type of baking sheet you use....

Wyndyl

Chica,

You may have stumbled onto a way of starting a cool business. An American bakery. Although it might not start out too big, it could grow, especially if you hook Spaniards on the banana nut bread, orange muffins, and a smattering of my fave, blueberry muffins. Throw in bear claws, a few jelly filled donuts, and some nerve jangling sugar enriched brownies, with chocolate a 1/4" thick on top and they won't be able to resist!

I can just see the queue (word chosen for my bud, Anchovy who doesn't know what a line is - :p ) running around the block a couple of times, and you doing your impression of Betty Crocker, throwing baseball sized muffins into a sack for the happy customers to take home, while your Mom-in-law keeps the cash register jingling.

Well --- maybe that's a bit of a stretch --- maybe not around the block twice - Just once!

Knowing that anything with sugar in it is addictive, you might just create a new generation of Spaniards who are shaped like many of us Americans. At least we'd be able to find clothes that would fit us when we get to Spain! Geez!

Wolf (Who's going to look Chica up for a bit of banana nut bread when he gets to Spain, so he can give it a Michelin rating, even though I don't believe it will taste anything like rubber tires - )

ok folks...put your money where your watering mouth is!

Who´s investing capital in the New American Bakery?

Oops...sorry MM, I´m stealing your thunder. I think your idea is to raise $$ so you can get your butt over here... Then again, you could be potentially hired by the New American Bakery. Have you brushed up on your baking skills?

LiM since you played basketball, you can be the one slam dunking the muffins.

yum yum!

I saw and took a photo of the new, yet-to-be-opened Starbucks across from the Neptune Fountain and below the Palace Hotel, of all places.

Guys, there was (is?) an American bakery selling all these things in Pozuelo de Alarcon. An American woman was running a small business by word of mouth and out of her kitchen, and it became so successful she opened a store and hired some people. I believe it opened in '95, and was still there in '96 when I left. I'm not really sure how successful she was once the store was opened. I'm afraid those lines Wolf described didn't appear! Her food was excellent - great quality baked goods -brownies, breads, muffins, and her bagels were out of this world. Prices were a bit high. The question is - Is she still in business? The store was on the street running behind the American School. If I have time to locate a map of Pozuelo, I'll look up the name of the street. I don't remember the name of the store.

I consider myself a Spanish cook - I learned to cook there, and we still eat Spanish food nearly every day - but while in Spain I occasionally baked American-style. Chica, if I can find it, I'll send you the recipe I followed to make brownies there. I found the key to be the chocolate. You need to use unsweetened chocolate, which is difficult to find in Madrid, and extremely expensive when you do. Once el Corte Ingles had a special on products from the US. They were selling Ghiardelli chocolates, and so I sent my Spanish husband there to buy a few bars of unsweetened chocolate so I could make brownies. He decided a few bars would not be enough, and he wiped the entire shelf clean! We had enough chocolate in our freezer for months. The extended family was thrilled. It's true that many Spaniards really love the baked goods we have in the US. I have seen Spanish people go mad for magic cookie bars (choc. chips, coconut, walnuts, graham cracker crust made of galletas maria, condensed milk..). I didn't make them too often though, because I'd get tired of chopping chocolate bars into chips!

I also bring mixes to Spain now as gifts. One of my nieces is especially fond of chocloate chip cookies, and I bring her the mix. It's usually in the oven within an hour! It's also nice that the mixes have instructions in Spanish on them.

Sorry I've gone off topic. Back to Starbucks!

Hey fellows, I'm all for it, count me in!!!

Wolf, I TOTALLY agree with you on the blueberry muffins !, but also cinnamon, chocolate, etc....And Diana is right, let's not forget the bagels (I'm not too familiar with them, but I see a lot of people here craving them (the not frozen ones) so I think we'd be quite succesful!)

Saluditos,

Pim

You guys got me going! You made me hungry for fresh baked goods!

When my wife comes home from work tonight, she's in for a big surprise. Because of this link going off where it did, I started baking this morning - I now have a loaf of apple cinnamon bread in the oven, blueberry & orange muffins ready to be put in there when the bread is done, and have started two loafs of Spanish pan which will be ready to bake right after the muffins! Geez! This ain't fair! I'm not even a good baker! The pan doesn't quite cut it, but it isn't bad. The problem is, we don't have the right kind of oven to make it in. I wish I could afford a nice brick and clay lined one in our kitchen, it would be fantastic!

To stay on subject - no Starbucks coffee with it! - Just a good cafe con leche....

Wolf (Who's about to pull out the recipe for caramel rolls, and chocolate chip cookies. I feel like the Pillsbury Doughboy [We've got a similar physique]! Hey! That is me!)

Thanks Wolf for the laugh , and I also made my weekly muffins this morning-apple,bananas muffins, and No Starbucks coffee for me either, instead I had my Saimaza-Mezcla café, that I brought back with me from Spain, with my nice, warm and sooo good muffins this morning (even though I rather be over in Spain now having this , but for now, it's the best I can give myself, a little of both worlds! )

So MM, as long as we mention STARBUCKS STARBUCKS STARBUCKS in our postings in this thread, does that count for staying on topic? We will then be able to avoid your wrath? (wasn´t me dude)

When we open the New American Bakery serving all sorts of yummy baked goods with recipes provided by a number of the board members, maybe we can open a STARBUCKS franchise inside it. Or, maybe not...

Cafe valenciano anyone?