I need to start out by saying that everyone needs to read this collection. It focuses on feeling strong and loving yourself and healing, all wrapped together in stunning phrases and metaphors. (If you went to BookCon this year, you may have even seen Nikita sitting at a table with a stack of these beautiful books.)

I really wanted to make something with orange. Mostly because this whole collection just felt orange to me, but also because stars and fire make several appearances throughout the collection. "I would rather choose burning/ than ever return to you" ("Burning" 34). Even when it isn't explicitly mentioned, you get the feeling of a fire within.

The fire and the idea of fighting back made me want to add something that bit back too. Something spicy. Cayenne pepper.

Orange and cayenne worked nicely, but the cookie still needed balance. Semi-sweet chocolate gave a creaminess to the orange, and smoked paprika smoothed the cayenne's sharp heat.

The only thing that was left was figuring out what kind of cookie to make. But reading the poem "Possibility in Impossibility," and reading about magic in several of the other poems, I knew exactly what I wanted to make.

Have you ever had a cookie that melted away like cotton candy?

You bite into it and the soft crunch is just like a regular cookie, but, almost immediately, it starts dissolving into orange and chocolate. The warm smoke from the spices only shows up after, and lingers near the back of your tongue the way real smoke lingers in the air after a fire's gone out. 

Orange Meltaway Cookies

-1 1/2 c  unsalted butter, softened

-2 3/4 c  all purpose flour

-1 c  confectioner's sugar

-zest of one orange (about a tbsp)

-juice of half of an orange (a bit less than 1/4 c)

1. In a large bowl, whisk the butter until completely smooth.

2. Whisk in the confectioner's sugar, in sections, to make sure that it is completely dissolved in the butter.

3. Whisk in the flour, just like you did with the confectioner's sugar. The dough needs to be smooth and almost fluffy.

4. Stir in the orange zest and the orange juice.

5. Drop balls of the batter onto a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes. The cookies should be golden brown around the edges.

6. Let the cookies cool completely before trying to move them! They're incredibly soft and break very easily, especially when they're still warm.

Smokey Chocolate Drizzle

-2 c  semi-sweet chocolate chips

-5 tbsp  whole milk

-1 tsp  smoked paprika

-2 tsp  cayenne

1. In a small saucepan, heat up the chocolate and milk over medium-low heat, stirring constantly. You need to watch your chocolate, or it'll burn and get gritty.

2. Once the chocolate gets smooth, take it off of the heat and continue stirring, mixing in the cayenne and paprika. Mix the spices into the chocolate in small parts, tasting after each addition, to make sure it isn't too spicy or too smokey.

3. Let it cool a bit, but you still want it to be slightly warm when you put it on the cookies.

To decorate my cookies with the chocolate, I cut the tiniest bit off of a piping bag, and used it to drizzle the chocolate over the majority of the cookies. Knowing that some of my family members enjoy a bit more spice, I used a spoon to put the chocolate in the middle of the other cookies, covering the top of the entire cookie and really giving the chocolate and the spices a chance to shine.