On Sunday, I baked my Irish Chocolate Cake to take to an outdoor concert - a Motown tribute band who is always great. I gave half to my friends and left half at home - it didn't last long at either house. If anyone is wondering, my friend doesn't drink alcohol and we were a little worried if she'd like it - she loved it and couldn't taste the alcohol.

The changes I made with all your input definitely put it back in the category I always remembered, so thank you all for that. Now, if we can do the same thing with the Honey Vanilla Pound Cake, that would be wonderful. I added more information to that thread yesterday.

Besides cooking a storm (see other thread), on Tuesday, I baked crack pie bars for work. That recipe always leaves me with a lot of egg whites left over so this time I tried making KAF macarons. I think I overbeat the whites this first time and a friend who makes them all the time, she tasted some and said that I needed to bake them 1-2 min longer as they were a little bit hollow. And then on Friday, I made Barefeet in the Kitchen's pineapple cupcakes with coconut cream cheese frosting, and her sugared shortbread cookies. Definitely need to remind self not to make these cookies when it's super warm - I kept having to chill the dough in between rolling them out.

When I see the word 'macaroons' (rhymes with 'tunes'), I always think of the coconut goodies that show up mostly around Passover. (And I love coconut cookies.)

I prefer the French word 'macarons' (falls in between rhyming with 'johns' and 'lawns', there's no real equivalent in English, you have to sort of swallow the vowel) for the meringue-like cookies made with almond flour. When you get them just right, the inside is deliciously creamy.

What spelling and pronunciation do folks prefer?

I love both cookies. I like the French macarons as it's dairy free with the Swiss method of adding cooked syrup to the meringue. I haven't found a dairy free version for the coconut macaroons except for the KAF mix version.