Tanglewood Baked Goods

Applesauce Cake with Caramel Glaze

2012-02-06T15:39:00.000-08:00

My life has been unexpectedly hectic and fast-moving lately. From percocet pie and the events that led to it, to a series of difficult, all-consuming decisions, to this wild and wonderful thing that my tarty partner in crime and I are doing, I had to call in the reserves, aka Mom, for a jaunty weekend visit that sped by in a 40-hour instant. I carried around scrap paper and pens like a security blanket while she was here so we could write down every idea about said decisions without missing a thing. In classic family fashion though, we spent most of her visit scarfing noodles, treating ourselves to excess, and falling asleep to SVU; I didn't record a single, frantic idea.

And as soon as she left, BAM! Life gave me a kick in the tights again, this time with joy for some great friends who are moving down to Texas, the anticipation of a new, very exciting collaborative art project, lots of lovely friends in town, and the galloping taste of this excellent cake, served up for a potluck and industrial music show* held at our house on Sunday night. The decisions still loom weightily and I miss my momma mightily, but all of these occasions and opportunities have led to some pretty cool stuff (including this feature on Refinery29, omg!), not to mention an exciting announcement or two to soon be revealed -- as soon as those damn decisions get made, anyway. In the meantime, I'm so glad I slowed down to make this cake, a cinnamon-apple dreamboat swathed in caramel glaze that comes together in no time; it's basically the rustic cake of my dreams in my all-time favorite cake shape. You'll love it!

*You guys, if you ever see that a DC band called Bereft is going to play, you have to see them. It's so loud, so head-shaky, and so the best.

Applesauce Cake

Adapted from Food52

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground ginger

1 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

2 large eggs

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 1/2 cups unsweetened applesauce

2/3 cup safflower or vegetable oil

1 teaspoon vanilla

Caramel Glaze

4 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

1/3 cup heavy cream

Scant 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt, or to taste

1/4 to 1/2 cup powdered sugar

1. Heat the oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a12-cup Bundt pan. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, pepper, and spicesand set aside. In a large mixing bowl, beat theeggs with both sugars on medium until smooth and light, about a minute. On low, mix in the applesauce, oil, and vanilla untilsmooth.

2. Using a rubber spatula, fold in the dry ingredients, beingcareful not to over-mix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan, rap sharply on the counter to eliminate air bubbles, and bake forabout 35 to 45 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comesout clean. [Original calls for 45, but mine was totally finished at 40; check yours earlier.] Cool the cake for ten minutes in the pan before turning itout and cooling completely on a cooling rack -- make sure the cake is not at all warmbefore you make the glaze.

3. Put the butter in a medium saucepan with the brown sugar, cream, andsalt, and set over medium heat. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirringconstantly. The recipe calls for boiling for one minute exactly and then removing from heat, but I went to two minutes plus a few seconds because I thought the glaze could use more caramel flavor. It ended up being totally fine and lovely this way.

4. Leave the pan to cool for a couple ofminutes, and gradually whisk in the powdered sugar until you have a thick,but pourable consistency (you will not likely need all of the sugar, but it's also okay to use more if need be). If the mixture seemstoo thick, add a splash of cream (or bourbon!) to thin it out a little. Immediatelypour the glaze over the cake, moving slowly and evenly to cover as much surfacearea as possible. The glaze basically sets on contact, so any overlapping glaze or second layering will be visible; try to stick to one even layer. Serve it up! Covered, cake will keep for several days, with the flavor deepening the longer it's around.

Savory Roasted Garlic and Goat Cheeses Tart

2012-01-29T20:27:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I broiled a pie. It was not some ingenious technique to caramelize the sugars, but a percocet-induced blindness to details that reduced my walnut pie to a smoldering mess that tasted like "baked beans and burnt popcorn," according to Joey. Hooray. It really was truly disgusting, and though I blame my altered state --thanks doctors! -- I think that the copious molasses might have had something to do with it as well. I usually love molasses, but this pie recipe called for it in excess of one cup and in addition to brown sugar, which frankly is just way too much sweetness for my palate. I'm still curious to try this pie and its cousins -- shoo-fly! --just not made in my own kitchen on prescribed, heavy narcotics.

Luckily, however, before going under the knife, I helped chef one of DC's numerous underground restaurants and emerged (lucidly) with this roasted garlic tart featuring plentiful herbs and goat cheeses. Other standouts were Eric's roasted fennel-celeriac salad, James's spicy stuffed onions and quinoa, and of course the cocktails invented by the geniuses behind the bar. I baked a couple of espresso-white chocolate-citrus tarts too, but this garlic jam might have been the queen of my contributions. It's pretty much an Ottolenghi recipe, though I swapped in a quiche crust, increased the garlic, and cooked the garlic at a lower heat and for much longer than he did. However! These weren't scientific changes, and no matter what your technique or substitutions, this tart will turn out beautifully and delicious. It must seem a welcome reprieve from the usual parade of sweets on this blog. Maybe my percocet disaster could be considered a sign that I ought to spend more time baking savory goods; butter is good in any light, after all!

Roasted Garlic Tart

Adapted somewhat from Yotam Ottolenghi's Plenty

I didn't tweak this much, but my changes are noted where applicable. Get to it! This tart is too good to ignore.

13 ounces puff pastry, defrosted if frozen, or your favorite quiche crust recipe

3 medium heads of garlic, cloves separated and peeled (not crushed) (I used 4 heads)
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon balsamic vinegar (I upped this to two)
3/4 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon chopped fresh rosemary
1 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme, plus 3 sprigs for garnish
1 teaspoon fine sea salt (orig. calls for 3/4 teaspoon), divided
4 1/2 ounces soft, creamy goat cheese, such as chevre
4 1/2 ounces hard goat cheese, such as goat gouda
2 large eggs
6 1/2 tablespoons heavy cream
6 1/2 tablespoons creme fraiche
Freshly ground black pepper

1. Roll out puff pastry/dough into a 13-inch circle. Fit puff pastry into an 11-inch round fluted pan with a removable bottom. Place a parchment paper round on top of puff pastry or crust; top with pie weights or dried beans. Transfer to refrigerator; chill for 20 minutes.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a cookie sheet with foil and set aside. Transfer tart shell to oven and bake for 20 minutes. Remove weights and paper and bake until pastry is golden, 5 to 10 minutes more. Remove from oven and set aside.

3. Place garlic cloves in a small saucepan filled with water. Place saucepan over medium heat and bring to a simmer; simmer for 3 minutes. Drain and return cloves to saucepan. Add olive oil and place saucepan over high heat; cook, stirring occasionally, until garlic is fried, about 2 minutes. Add vinegar and 1 cup water; bring to a boil and immediately reduce to a simmer. Let simmer for 10 minutes. Add sugar, rosemary, chopped thyme, and 1/4 teaspoon salt. Continue simmering over medium heat until most of the liquid has evaporated and garlic is coated in a dark caramelized syrup, about 10 minutes more (I ended up going for more than 15). Remove from heat and set aside.

4. Break both goat cheeses into pieces and scatter in tart shell; spoon garlic cloves and syrup over cheese. In a large bowl, whisk together eggs, cream, creme fraiche, and remaining 3/4 teaspoon salt; season with pepper. Pour egg mixture over cheese and garlic filling, making sure the cheese and garlic are still visible.

5. Transfer tart to lined baking sheet then to oven, and bake until tart filling is set and top is golden brown, 35 to 45 minutes (I ended up going for 50). Remove from oven and let cool slightly before removing tart from pan. Garnish with thyme sprigs; tart can be reheated but is best straight from the oven and served warm.

Gingersnap Icebox Cake with Lemon Whipped Cream

2012-01-05T16:29:00.000-08:00

Oh hey, hi, happy 2012. Hope you weren’t visiting thisblog to reaffirm any sort of recent personal declarations to observe weeks uponabstemious weeks of self-restraint and moderation. Well, because cake. Thiscake. It’s a no-brainer way out of your resolutions and an asceticJanuary. I’ve had high mind to make a gingersnap icebox cake for awhile now, but the opportunity was never quite golden enough to warrant sculpting 80 cookies into a creamy, tremendous tower until New Year’s came ‘round the corner. Our house – a lovely balance between comfortable chillage and devilry – elected to have an end-of-year Paper Moon bash coupled with a birthday party for our beautiful and inspiring talent of a friend, Pierrette.

The evening kicked off with a square dance in the dining room and live fiddling – led by my tarty partner in crime and friends from Kentucky and North Carolina – and was followed by relatively mellow mingling before evolving into a DJ-powered night of swilling and smooching. There was a photo booth and a kissing booth, demureness and debauchery, and generally all registers of revelry were met with a birthday backdrop.

Which brings us back to this cake! If you've had icebox cake before then you need not be persuaded, but if you're new to the dessert, it's a giant layer cake of cookies that softens in the fridge for some hours before it's cut into slices and served. The cream turns buttery, the cookies cakey, and it really is the pinnacle of celebration desserts. Happy 2012, y'all. May your year be full of health (likely found elsewhere) and oodles of new, delicious recipes (come back for more!).

Gingersnap Icebox Cake!

Makes about 85 cookies, or enough for one 77-cookie, 11-layer cake with a handful left over

The cookie recipe is very, very similar to the one that is all over this here blog. The spice and sugar profiles are somewhat different, as is the amount of baking soda, though only barely. The major difference is one of technique: this cookie dough is refrigerated first and baked from firm rounds instead of scoops; I think that this might play a role in the cookie's snappy-ness. Feel free to experiment with the Tanglewood classic too!

For the cookies

Adapted and doubled from Smitten Kitchen

4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

4 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon table salt
2 heaping tablespoons ground ginger
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon allspice
1/2 teaspoon ground white pepper
4 sticks (16 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup granulated sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 large egg

2/3 cup unsulphured molasses

1. In a large bowl, mix flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, allspice, and ground white pepper. In a separate large bowl, beat soft butter and sugars with an electric mixer on medium until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Add egg and molasses and beat until just combined. Give it a stir or several with a rubber spatula to make sure everything is incorporated, then heap dough upon some plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour, until firm.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Using a small cookie scoop or other device, roll roughly two teaspoons of dough into a round ball. Place on parchment-lined cookie sheet, and continue for rest of dough, spacing dough balls two inches apart. Bake for 13 to 15 minutes. I opted for 13, and 15 should make them pretty snappy. Allow cookies to cook on sheets for a few minutes before transferring them to a cooling rack where they'll continue to harden. Let cook completely before assembling cake. Leftover cookies will keep for a week covered in an airtight container, though they will soften a bit each day.

For the whipped cream
3 cups heavy whipping cream
5 tablespoons granulated sugar, or more to taste
3 teaspoons lemon zest

1. When cookies have cooled, prepare whipped cream. In a clean glass or metal bowl, beat whipping cream, sugar, and zest with an electric mixer on medium until soft peaks form. Taste for sweetness. If you're satisfied, beat just a bit more until peaks and "medium" and just hold their shape. Do not make ahead.

For the assembly
1. On a plate or serving platter, make a circle of seven cookies with one in the middle. Spread a half-cup of cream on top, leaving about a quarter-inch or so of un-creamed cookie border. Top with your next circle of cookies, then one-half cup or cream; repeat for whole cake, ending with a final layer of cream for a total of 11 cookie layers.

2. Cover with plastic wrap and place cake in the fridge for eight to 12 hours or overnight; this one hung out in the icebox for ten hours and was plenty soft. One way to keep the wrap from mussing the cream is to place a few toothpicks around the perimeter and drape the plastic over those instead of putting it directly on the cream. Top with a lemon twist or a pile of slivered candied ginger and cut into slices to serve.

Walnut + Cream Cheese Cookie Sandwiches

2011-12-21T05:44:00.000-08:00

It's 70 degrees and sunny in San Diego. I'm still shackled to my computer in DC working remotely, most unfortunately, but thank golly I'll be home snarfing fish tacos and wearing cut-offs before the day is through; southern California Christmas is sort of a terrifically fluorescent thing. My parents recently moved from the suburban home of my childhood to the San Diego neighborhood in which I would spend all my time were I ever to move back (so, never), and I am so excited to help them christen the place with leftover burritos and bloody marys and backyard sunbathing and general daughterly detritus.

In the meantime leading up to my sunny winter vacay, I've been doing shittons of holiday preparation and generally making enormous, annoying messes at my DC home. One such task was baking for the holiday party that I mentioned last week, and I wanted to share the second of three recipes that emerged from that frantic morning. If you're still seeking holiday baking inspiration or getting ready to fatten up yr family, look no further than these walnut cookie sandwiches. They appear a little unexciting or homely even, but these cookies are deceptively buttery and rich and basically all you need to have a pleasing holiday snack. I hope that you enjoy, and happy holidays from my kitchen to yours!

Walnut + Cream Cheese Cookie Sandwiches

Adapted from Kate Zuckerman via Lottie + Doof

I toasted the walnuts beforehand to make sure the cookies had enough nutty kick and also chilled the filling before making the sandwiches. Other than those changes, this is relatively untweaked.

Cookies

1 cup walnuts

2 1/2 cups flour, divided

1/2 teaspoon salt

8 ounces (two sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cup sugar

1 egg, at room temperature

Cream Cheese Filling

4 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup powdered sugar

pinch of salt

1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lay the walnuts outon a pan and roast for 10 - 12 minutes, until the nuts are slightly darkenedand fragrant. Combine the walnuts and one tablespoon of the flour in a food processorand grind to a fine powder. In a dry bowl, whisk together the walnut powder,remaining flour and salt and set aside.

2. Place the butter in the bowl of a stand mixer withthe paddle attachment and beat on medium speed for one minute. (I don't have astand mixer and did this with an egg beater.) Add the sugar and beat on mediumhigh speed until the mixture becomes fluffy and lighter in color, six to eightminutes, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.Add the egg and continue to beat until it is fully incorporated and the batterlooks smooth and glossy, one to two minutes.

3. Add the dry mixture to the butter mixture all atonce, and using a rubber spatula, fold together a few times. With the mixer onlow, mix the dough until thoroughly combined, one to two minutes. Scrape downthe sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula and mix for another 30 seconds.

4. Divide dough in half and using a rubber spatula,scrape the dough onto two pieces of plastic wrap. Form dough into two logs,about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Wrap the logs fully in the plastic and refrigeratefor two hours or overnight.

5. Preheat the oven to 350° F and line two cookiesheets with parchment paper. Using a sharp knife, cut as many 1/8-1/4 inchslices from each log of dough as possible and place the cookies on preparedcookie sheets. Bake the cookies until golden brown and you smell the toastedwalnuts and butter, 12 - 15 minutes. Allow the cookies to cool beforeproceeding with filling.

6. To make the cream cheese filling, combine allingredients in a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until the filling hasincreased in volume, lightened in color, and formed stiff peaks, four to fiveminutes. I then chilled the filling for about 20 minutes in order to get it tofirm up. Mound a couple teaspoons of filling on half of the cookies andsandwich with the other half. Zuckerman recommends serving within five hours offilling so cookies don't lose their crunch. You can bake the cookies and storethem in an airtight container for up to four days ahead, then fill them the dayyou plan to serve them.

Jammy Date and Fig Swirls

2011-12-17T09:19:00.000-08:00

I've been on a cookie roll (ba dun ch!) the past week or so, thanks in no small part to Lottie + Doof's killer annual 12 days of cookies series on his blog. While I tend toward salty-sweet, chocolaty, coffee-y, and other darkly flavored cookies and baked goods, Tim has a lot of fruit-filled, unique flavors in his repertoire that are always intriguing. These cookies don't sound all that special on the Epicurious post where the recipe is originally from, but Tim's praise and photos made them seem like an amazing, modernized Fig Newton, and that they are! The cream cheese- and butter-dough has a light anise flavor that even my anise-averse pal thought delicious, and the fig and date purée bakes up into a deep, jammy filling that is so delicious both hot out the oven and cooled the next day.

Plus, these cookies are total stunners. I brought them to a holiday party at Ginger Root -- a local artisan boutique run by two awesome ladies where I also sell earrings -- and the plate of swirls got a lot of love, 'specially among the folks slinging back the punch while they shopped. Whether on your dessert table at home or scattered among designer wares, these cookies are appropriately holidayish and easy to love.

Jammy Date and Fig Swirls

Adapted from Gourmet via Lottie + Doof

The precision in the directions might seem fussy to some, but don't worry too much about being perfect -- the cookies will turn out lovely no matter what size your rectangles and rolls are.

1 cup packed soft dried figs (8 oz), stemmed and coarsely chopped

1 cup packed pitted dates (7 oz), trimmed and coarsely chopped

1/3 cup water

1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons anise seeds, ground in an electric coffee/spice grinder

1/4 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick (1/2 cup) unsalted butter, softened

4 oz cream cheese at room temperature

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 large egg yolk

1/4 cup large-granulated raw sugar

1. Purée figs and dates with water and two tablespoons granulated sugar in a blender or food processor until almost smooth.

2. Whisk together flour, anise, baking powder and soda, and salt in a small bowl. Beat together butter, cream cheese, and remaining 1/2 cup granulated sugar in a large bowl with an electric mixer at moderate speed until pale and fluffy, about three minutes. Beat in vanilla and yolk until combined well. Add flour mixture and mix at low speed until just combined.

3. Halve dough and form each half into a rectangle. Chill, wrapped in plastic wrap, until firm, about one hour.

4. Roll out one piece of dough between two sheets of wax paper into a roughly nine- by seven-inch rectangle, about one-third-inch thick. Remove top sheet of wax paper and drop half of fig mixture by spoonfuls onto dough, then gently spread in an even layer, leaving a one-fourth-inch border around edges. Starting with a long side and using wax paper as an aid, roll up dough jelly-roll style into a log. Roll log in raw sugar to coat completely. Make another log in same manner. Chill logs, wrapped in wax paper, until firm, at least four hours, or well-wrapped up to three days.

5. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Cut logs crosswise into one-third-inch-thick slices and arrange slices about two inches apart on baking sheets that are lightly buttered or lined with parchment paper. Bake in batches in middle of oven until pale golden, 15 to 17 minutes, then transfer to racks to cool. (Tanglewood note: Gourmet recommends strongly that you bake only one sheet at a time in the exact center of the oven; I did this, but I don't really know how crucial it is.) Cookies will keep layered between parchment paper in an airtight container for up to one week.

Pumpkin Bourbon Ice Cream with Ginger Sandwich Cookies

2011-11-29T14:44:00.001-08:00

Sometimes you just need a distraction. Or a new job. Or a pickleback and a bunch of bar snacks. Or maybe you’re feeling kitchen-freaky, like you didn’t expend enough energy on Thanksgiving and you desperately need to make something totally easy yet time-consuming in order to reset your maniacal, holiday-plotting ways. Got it; I can help with that last one. These li’l ice cream sandwiches were on my desserts shortlist for last week, but the burden of transporting a frozen ice cream canister in a packed car to Pittsburgh was such that I opted for a full pie arsenal instead. No matter. These sandwiches still have their place. They're a killer way to put pumpkin in its best and proper light—that is, with booze and lightly spiced.

This is the first Thanksgiving that I can think of where there was no pumpkin pie, which was definitely fine with me. The stuff has never been my favorite, playing umpteenth fiddle to whatever else is on the table, which this year was a veritable smorgasbord of delicious weirdo pies, but I do like pumpkin all the same. And I can’t resist how nice it feels to be baking and making with pumpkin in the fall—it’s ceremonial in a way. So give it a shot if you’ve got the means to make this ice cream. It’s subtle and creamy and a lovely way to pay homage to the last licks of autumn.

Pumpkin-Bourbon Ice Cream

Adapted from Karen DeMasco with logistical help from David Lebovitz

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 cup heavy cream

1/3 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon freshly grated ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 cinnamon stick

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

5 large egg yolks

1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 to 3 tablespoons bourbon, or to taste

3/4 cup canned pumpkin puree (not pie filling)

1. Make an ice bath by putting some ice and a little water in a large bowl and nesting a smaller bowl with capacity for two liters inside it. Set a mesh strainer over the top.

2. In a medium saucepan, mix the milk, cream, sugar, ginger, cinnamon, cinnamon stick, nutmeg, and salt. Warm the mixture on low heat until the edges begin to foam.

3. Whisk the egg yolks in a separate medium bowl. Whisking continuously, slowly pour about half of the milk mixture in a slow, steady stream into the egg yolks. Pour the yolks mixture back into the saucepan and cook over low heat, stirring the whole time and scraping the bottom of the pan with a rubber spatula to ensure nothing sticks. Continue cooking until mixture thickens enough to coat the spatula, between 160 and 170 degrees F if you're using a thermometer (but looks alone are good enough to judge!).

4. Quickly pour the mixture through the strainer into the bowl that's settled in the ice bath. Discard the cinnamon stick. Mix in the brown sugar, stir for a bit to cool, cover with plastic, and refrigerate until well chilled, preferably overnight.

5. When chilled, whisk in the vanilla, bourbon, and pumpkin puree. Taste, add more bourbon if you like, then strain the whole thing in a fine mesh strainer one more time to ensure that grainy pumpkin doesn't make it into the ice cream. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. If storing in the freezer, place plastic wrap directly on top to prevent the formation of ice crystals. The liquor helps this ice cream stay creamier than most would, so ours has stuck around for three weeks and still tastes as smooth as it did on day one.

Ginger Sandwich Cookies

Follow this recipe, which has had a starring role in this kitchen since 2009.

I actually omitted the crystallized ginger this time around and increased the freshly grated ginger to a full three teaspoons to compensate. It was delicious!!

1. Once the cookies are cool, scoop 1/4 cup of pumpkin ice cream onto the back of one, sandwich it with another, and allow to firm up in the freezer for about 20 minutes. If storing longer than that, wrap in plastic wrap.

Four and Twenty Pies: Pumped for Thanksgiving

2011-11-23T06:49:00.001-08:00

Original little sister output at Orphans Thanksgiving, 2008

This Slate article speaks many an awesome thing to writing your own Thanksgiving traditions. It's written by an author whose mother makes pies in a quantity of more than one pie per person. Experimental pies like pomegranate, Depression-era pies like vinegar, Thanksgiving classics that seem less popular, and family favorites like mocha crunch fill her tables (and overflow onto bookshelves), leading her kid to proudly declare the tradition a "grotesque" and "demented" extravaganza.

Tip of the iceberg, Kickasserole 2011

Her excessive baking is definitely something that I admire and aspire to, but it's the author's reverent yet light-hearted treatment of the Plotz family tradition that really gets me. I mentioned it in a previous Thanksgiving post, but the holiday has become one of my favorites since I started celebrating my own way. Currently Thanksgiving week involves an outrageous pre-Thanksgiving vegetarian smorgasbord in DC called Kickasserole and an abundant meat- and booze-filled "Orphans Thanksgiving" with my sister in Pittsburgh. Both days defy what could be considered a reasonable amount of food, although we've yet to hit the Plotz family's 20-pie stride.

One of three obliterated pie shelves from this year's Kickasserole

Tomorrow's Orphans Thanksgiving dessert menu consists of six pies and tarts, some of which have been featured on this blog before: quince and biscuit pie, pecan frangipane with cranberry, four nuts caramel, lemon meringue, pear hazelnut crumb, and maple buttermilk. The extravagance is sure to be major and the hangovers total, and I totally can't effing wait; full-tilt friends and food and the promise of coming back next year is the best part about my Thanksgiving celebrations.

Simple Apple Tart (For Your Thanksgiving Consideration)

2011-11-06T16:17:00.000-08:00

It's officially getting down to the second most wonderful time of the year. As a young'n I sort of dreaded Thanksgiving: it was soccer tournaments in Vegas, college midterms, and too much turkey as my family came to terms with my now defunct vegetarianism. The holiday never really connoted family either; Fourth of July and Christmas did that and they still do. So three Thanksgivings ago I spread my little wings and went to Pittsburgh to be with my sister and the other "orphans" who couldn't or wouldn't make it home to carve turkeys and eat sweet potato casserole with 'mallows. That year was one of the finest Thanksgivings I've yet to experience, as I buckled down to make six pies while my sister roasted a turkey and made Brussels sprouts so buttery that they could stop your heart (and nearly did two years later, but everyone is fine). It ended with me and two pals breaking into a high-society party, downing a lot of Grey Goose, and ultimately punching each other in the face -- perfect.

And now I love Thanksgiving. It's not that I really hated going home or didn't appreciate the fantastic spread that my mom and dad put together every year, it's just that I've loved writing my own traditions with my sister and our friends. Thanksgiving season is now a two-fold celebration: the first is Kickasserole, our now annual pre-Thanksgiving for friends in DC on the Saturday before folks head for home. Last year saw 45 people arrive with everything from vegan apple pie doughnuts to seitan steaks to the absolutely most decadent macaroni and cheese you'd ever hope to meet. This year we've invited twice as many people, and our community Google doc is showing freeze-distilled applejack, beer soup (vegan!), sweet potato gratin, pumpkin-bourbon ice cream, and my first home brew -- a little IPA that's chugging away under the sink right now. And three days later I'll head out to Pittsburgh for the best of all Thanksgiving celebrations with friends, football, a keg, Gooskis, and a round of Celebrity that I excitedly await every single year.

All that to say that as you're preparing for your own Thanksgiving celebrations and writing your own traditions, think about bringing something ever so slightly new to share! Pumpkin pie ain't for everyone, and it really truly ain't for me, so it's recipes like this apple tart that are what I'm looking for this time of year. It's simple as all hell to make, comes together in no time once you have the crust prepared, and it's light and a little sweet -- a super good finish to a heavy, boozy, sports- and friends-filled meal.

Simple Apple Tart
Adapted from Alice Waters

Crust
Recipe for one crust, any kind you like. I used the second rye pie dough left over from this recipe, but there is also this rye crust and this all-butter pastry, both of which are excellent options. Alice Waters's original recipe calls for an all-butter pastry, but rye is so sweet and nice -- give it a shot if you're able.

Filling + Glaze
2 pounds tart, firm apple, any variety; peeled, cored, and cut into quarter-inch slices (save the peels and cores!)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
5 tablespoons granulated sugar + 1/2 cup granulated sugar for glaze

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. On a lightly floured surface, roll out your chilled dough into a 14-inch circle. Gently place into a 9-inch tart pan, or, if making a free-form galette, transfer round to the back of a cookie sheet lined with parchment.

2. Tightly overlap apples all the way to edges if using a pan, or with a two-inch border of crust if making a galette. The size of your apple slices will determine your apple placement. My slices were fairly large so concentric circles weren't possible. I did two simple rows down the middle, then filled in the sides with slices that were cut in half. Fold dough over apples and pleat at intervals.

3. Brush melted butter all over apples and dough, and sprinkle dough with two tablespoons sugar. Sprinkle remaining three tablespoons of sugar over the apples themselves. Bake in center of oven until apples are soft with dark edges and crust has turned deep golden brown. Rotate every 15 minutes to prevent burning.

4. Meanwhile make the glaze. Put all of your apple cores and peels and the remaining half-cup of sugar in a pot, add just enough water to cover, and simmer for 30 minutes. Strain syrup. When tart is finished, remove to a cooling rack for at least 15 minutes, then brush the tart with apple glaze and serve.

Maple Buttermilk Pie with Rye Crust

2011-10-18T10:52:00.000-07:00

Being from a region of the country wholly nonproximate to the South, I hadn't even heard of buttermilk pie until a few months ago. Bobbie with her sweet tooth was, naturally, responsible for the curiosity after she told me about chess pie, of which I was also unaware but by which I'm now equally intrigued. The two are related, and both seem to be the type of dessert that was made with whatever the ladies of the day had handy in their kitchens. As it were, Crafty Bastards left us with a fair amount of unused buttermilk, and this pie was a perfect cool-weather solution on a weekend saturated with the most excellent visitors.

For the skeptics and the west coasters, buttermilk pie comes out of the oven with a lightly caramelized top and a sweet, thick, custardy inside. The maple in this version -- that I gather is nontraditional -- complemented the caramelization, and the whole thing tasted a bit like tangy dulce de leche. It's a little ugly and a little stunning and wholly deserving of your leftover (or new!) buttermilk.

Maple Buttermilk Pie with Rye Crust
Adapted from 101Cookbooks

Crust
Makes enough for one double-crust or two single-crust pies.
I doubled the salt and added sugar. How predictable!

Scant 2/3 cup rye flour (75 g.)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
8 oz. (two sticks) unsalted butter, very cold and cut into half-inch pieces
1/4 to 1/2 cup very cold beer (!!!) or water, or slightly more (amount will depend on the weather; I used 1/2 cup plus 1 tablespoon beer)

1. Put the flours, sugar, and sea salt in the bowl of your food processor (or in a bowl if you don't have a processor). Pulse once to mix and sprinkle with little cubes of butter. Using short pulses (or a pastry blender), mix the butter into the flour until the crumbs range in size from large peas to oatmeal.

2. Turn the flour mixture out into a large shallow bowl. Drizzle 1/4 cup of the liquid over the flour-butter mix and cut through it with a rubber spatula to blend. If the mixture still looks dry, add more liquid one tablespoon at a time until it's pretty shaggy and holds cohesive when you squeeze it together. Divide dough into two equal pieces, wrap each in plastic wrap, flatten slightly, and refrigerate for at least one hour before rolling.

3. If you only need one crust for now, triple wrap the second in plastic and freeze for up to a week. Or! Make two pies. Rye crust is delicious with just about any filling. You could also halve the recipe, or check the archives for a different crust if you can't halve weights.

Filling
1 teaspoon lemon zest
2 tablespoons golden brown sugar
6 egg yolks
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup real maple syrup (pref. grade B)
2 cups buttermilk (pref. whole fat)
1 teaspoon vanilla
scant 1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt
large-grain sugar for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 375 F with a rack in the bottom third. Roll out one hunk of the pie dough hunks on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch round. Guide it into a 9-inch pie dish, and trim the crust so that there is a one-inch overhang. Tuck the overhang under itself, then flute it with your fingers or crimp with a fork. Prick the bottom of the crust with a fork a bunch of times. Line the bottom and sides with one large piece of parchment or buttered foil and fill with pie weights or dried beans. Bake for 20 minutes, remove the weights and parchment, and bake for 10 minutes more until golden. Allow crust to cool as long as possible.

2. Now mix the filling! In a large bowl, whisk the lemon zest, brown sugar, yolks, and flour until mixture is free of lumps. Slowly add the maple syrup, whisking, then the buttermilk, vanilla, and sea salt.

3. Dial the oven down to 325 F. Put cooled crust (or cooled-ish) on baking pan lined with foil, and pour the mixture into the shell. Bake until filling is somewhat firm around the edges and set in the center, about one hour. Filling will puff up like a crazy souffle then deflate as it cools. Allow pie to cool on a rack, sprinkle with large-grain sugar, and enjoy! Ours was finish in 24 hours, but we did leave it covered on the counter to great success during that time. If you're keeping it out for longer than a day, cover with plastic and put in the fridge.

Tarts by Tarts at the Crafty Bastards Fair!

2011-10-13T10:58:00.000-07:00

Photo by Emily!

Hot damn, blog blackout. Last I wrote, I was in the thick of summer and hardly baking a lick because of the swampy outdoors and sweltering indoors. It was a rollicking good summer with trips to Maine, California, and Pittsburgh and time spent in Baltimore, but fall is the g.d. best and what better way to kick it off than with a new business adventure!

Only the essentials y'all

In July, some amazing ladies and a wonderful fella moved into our house in DC, and one of these gals happens to be a killer baker with a pie forte. And in September, the Washington City Paper announced that this year's ginormous Crafty Bastards Arts and Crafts Fair would feature an "indie food market." Kismet! In years past, Crafty Bastards hasn't had much food, particularly not much local and independent food, so we quick-quick planned and wrote our application to represent. Thus was born Tarts by Tarts, our bakery ode to butter, bourbon, and New England.

Doughnuts stuffed with dulce de leche, savory apple tart, chocolate cookies, and apple-apple butter tartlets

Following nightly prep of business cards bunting, the day before the fair had us up and at 'em early with a breakfast of fried green tomato croque mesdames (holler!) and a last-minute grocery trip to purchase deep-fry oil and a boatload of sugar. Twenty-two hours of baking, two hours of sleep, and 15 pounds of flour later, we had churned out dulce-de-leche-stuffed doughnuts, apple cider doughnuts, chocolate- and vanilla-glazed buttermilk cake doughnuts, molasses gingerbread, pumpkin whoopie pies, a savory apple-onion-gruyere tart, double chocolate cookies, vegan iced oatmeal cookies, apple tartlets, honey walnut tartlets, and plum hazelnut tartlets—about 200 individual baked goods all told.

Emily, tartin' it up

And we sold out! After a rewarding though rainy and freezing four hours, Tarts by Tarts sold its last cookie and packed its many bags for home where hot toddies were flowing and nap time was calling. The marathon baking and fair had me tiptoeing the precipice of insanity, but in the end we had a bang-up time and are really looking forward to plotting our next appearance. Doughnut cart? Farmstand? Pop-up bakeshops? Thanks to everyone who came out to support, or helped us out with tents, cars, 3:00 a.m. company, and more! We're only just getting 'Tarted (hah).

Apricot Blackberry Tart with Rye Crust

2011-07-20T20:19:00.000-07:00

Warning y'all, I'm in a Law & Order SVU k-hole. It comes after an abnormally demanding couple of days at my job and just before the onslaught of six straight 17-hour work days i.e., my organization's annual conference. I'm spending my last few hours of respite thinking about pie and cocktails and watching a ten-year-old sociopath terrorize a father played by Agent Cooper. Joey and I (but mostly I) had a bad habit of watching probably six episodes of SVU at a time until Joey moved to Argyle and left me here to watch SVU on my ownsome while feeding a fear of our basement (total serial killer hideout!).

Well and so this tart. Joey successfully unleashed me from SVU's stranglehold last weekend when he came down to DC for a quick, two-night visit. We traipsed from one quadrant of DC to another, exclusively for gluttonous, double dinners and cocktails, and especially for ramen (at Toki Underground -- you have to go!) and for friends (they are the best!). And suddenly it was 2 a.m. on Saturday night when I realized that I hadn't baked the second of two of these tarts yet and that Joey was leaving at the crack of Sunday dawn. So we slept some, baked the tart, ate it, and kissed faretheewell until next time. But before Joey got on his train, he did declare this tart to be "it," and I think it almost worked magic in getting him to come back forever.

And anyway, this recipe makes two jammy, flaky, sweet, and tart tarts in what Kimberly Boyce calls a crust made “sweet and milky” by the use of rye flour. She recommends the tart dough for any fruit, particularly apricots and boysenberries together, and while my farmers market is woefully short on boysenberries, we have an abundance of blackberries and soon enough plums. Pears too. And I am officially hooked on Boyce’s palate. I mean, after her rhubarb tarts, whole-wheat chocolate chip cookies, iced oatmeal cookies, honey amaranth cookies, multigrain pear pancakes, quinoa cookies, and ginger peach muffins, I sorta already was. Definitely pick up a copy of her cookbook. It will blow your mind.

Apricot Blackberry Tart with Rye Crust

Adapted from Kim Boyce’s recipe for Apricot Boysenberry Tart

Makes two tarts

Boyce's recipe calls for homemade jam so I cut back the amount used since I was suspicious of how sweet commercial jam would be. I've noted below where my take strays from hers.

For rye dough
1 cup rye flour
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt
1 ½ sticks cold unsalted butter
1 teaspoon apple cider vinegar
Ice water

1. Sift the flours, sugar, and salt into a large bowl, dumping any grains that remain in the sifter back into the bowl. Cut the butter into half-inch pieces and add to the mixture. Rub the butter between your fingers to break it into smaller bits, until the butter ranges in size from hazelnuts to peas; work quickly!

2. Add the vinegar and eight tablespoons of ice water to the mixture, using a rubber spatula or your hands to cut the liquid through the dry ingredients. The dough should come together as one shaggy lump. Squeeze it together to see if a ball forms, and if it’s too dry, add more water one tablespoon at a time until dough comes together. Pile the dough onto a sheet of plastic wrap, sprinkle with a few dots of water, wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour or overnight.

3. (This next bit is a tad technical, but folding and rolling the dough like this creates seriously flaky layers of pastry.) Unwrap the dough on a floured surface and pat it into square. Roll it out to a rectangle that’s roughly 8 ½ by 11 inches. The dough will be crumbly, but fear not! It will come together. For the first turn, fold the dough in thirds like a letter; the seam should be on the left. Rotate the dough so that the seam is at the top and parallel to your body, and roll out into an 8 ½ by 11 rectangle again. Fold and roll again, and repeat the process for a third, final time. Wrap the dough in plastic and chill for another hour.

For filling and finishing

1 ¼ cup apricot jam (suspecting sweetness, I cut this back to 1 cup total)

2 pounds ripe apricots

2 to 4 tablespoons sugar, depending on sweetness of fruit

1 ½ cups boysenberries (I used blackberries)

1 egg

¼ cup raw sugar

½ teaspoon cinnamon

1. Cut the apricots in half, discard the pits, and toss the halves into a large bowl. Add the sugar and toss to coat. Gently stir 1/2 cup of jam into apricots; each piece of fruit should be lightly coated with jam. In a separate bowl, toss the berries with another ¼ cup of jam, careful to keep the berries whole.

2. To shape dough, divide it in half and keep the second half in the fridge while you work. Roll your dough on a lightly floured surface into a 15-inch circle. Transfer the circle to the back of a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.

3. To assemble tart, smear ¼ cup of jam (I halved this and used two tablespoons) across the crust. Pile on half the apricots and half the blackberries, tucking berries into the nooks. Working from the edges, fold the crust into the center, pleating as needed; there should be about three inches of crust showing. Using the same procedure, make the second tart. Freeze both tarts for at least an hour.

4. Meanwhile preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Whisk your egg with a splash of water until no streaks remain, and brush the tops of crusts with it. Mix the cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl, and toss it generously and evenly over both tarts. Bake tarts for 60 to 70 minutes, rotating pan halfway through, until crust is deep golden brown and filling is bubbling. If you only want to make one, keep the second unbaked tart wrapped in the freezer for up to one month.

Summer Peach Pie

2011-07-11T20:34:00.000-07:00

Summer, y'all. The season sticks around like molasses in the mid-Atlantic, but the produce disappears from week to week. My farmer said on Saturday that the window for apricots is going to be three weeks this year, and sour cherries were around for just two, so we had best be on our pit fruits wits! In the meantime, there's work to skip and quarries to swim, and two weeks ago I went way up north to visit Joey in his new tiny town of Argyle, New York, just a heartbeat away from the Adirondacks and around the corner from a killing of farmstand doughnuts.

There was also the blow-out bulgogi BBQ curated by my whipsmart, hilarious, and visiting big sister, and in the past two weeks there has been a series of roaring summer storms that have ripped through the city while we watch from the porch with beers like how our mom does. The dance parties have been supremely sweaty and the karaoke extra romantic, and every weekend someone is rattling off the names of beaches to infiltrate (side note: dudes, let's go). By the time fall rolls around (in like, December), I'm usually so tired of summer that I could just spit, but this year has felt a little more urgent, a little more important.

I'm not trying to get sick of summer anytime soon, which brings us back to pit fruit. And this peach pie. And last weekend when we sat in the kitchen hungover watching the Kennedys miniseries (it's just the worst!), and it was all I could do to make three fruit pies and pay homage to summer in my inside, Sunday way too. Guys, this pie is so rad, and you have to make it.

Summer Peach Pie

Blind baking fruit pies is awesome because it prevents the bottom crust from getting soggy. You don't have to do it, but I totally love that there is a way to guarantee crispy crust on both sides. If you don't want to go to the trouble, put the bottom dough in unbaked, fill it, top it with the top crust, freeze for 45 minutes, then do the egg wash, and bake away as directed below.

1 recipe all-butter flaky pie dough (instructions and ingredients over here!)

4 pounds ripe peaches

1/3 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon vanilla

2 tablespoons tapioca flour or cornstarch

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, cut into little pieces

2 tablespoons raw sugar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1. After your pie crust has done its requisite one-hour stint in the fridge, preheat your oven to 425 degrees. Roll out one-half of the crust to a 12-inch circle, and fit into a nine-inch standard pie pan. Trim the overhang to a half-inch all around, fold the edges of the dough under, and crimp. Place a piece of foil shiny side down onto the crust, fill with pie weights or dried beans, and bake for 25 minutes. Remove foil and bake for five to ten minutes more, until crust is lightly golden brown; let crust cool while you carry on. Turn oven down to 375 degrees for the pie.

2. Meanwhile, blanch and peel your peaches. Bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cut an X into the bottom of each peach, and boil three or four at a time for 15 seconds (if your peaches aren't utterly ripe, you may need to go to 20 or 25 to more easily remove the skins; test one peach to find out). With a slotted spoon, remove peaches to a big bowl. Continue to blanch peaches in rounds, bringing water to a full boil between each set. Then, starting at the Xs, press, slide, and peel the fuzzy skins off; cut peeled peaches into one-inch slices and toss into a large bowl.

3. Mix the sugar and vanilla into the peaches and allow to macerate for about 30 minutes. Drain a little of the resulting peach juice into a small bowl, and whisk the tapioca flour into it to dissolve. Then toss the flour and juice back into the bowl of peaches; stir to combine.

4. Mound your filling into the baked bottom pie crust. Roll out the top crust to a 12-inch circle, and follow these instructions if you want to make a lattice top. Since the bottom crust is baked, you'll need to tuck the edges of the lattice strips under themselves instead of under the lip of the bottom crust; no big deal! Mix the cinnamon and sugar together in a little bowl, whisk the egg to oblivion and brush the top of your crust with it, then cover it with the cinnamon and sugar mixture. Put pie on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper, and bake for one hour, or until filling is bubbling and crust is deep golden brown.

Roasted Strawberry Sorbet

2011-06-17T08:57:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, my good friends Bekka and Jon visited Larriland Farm in Woodbine, Maryland to load up on you-pick strawberries. Last year they came home with probably 20 pounds of berries that deliciously overwhelmed the freezer and fridge, so this year I was sure to sign up for a share of their lode. The berries from last summer were enormous, blood red, and exactly what you’d want for an eating berry, but this year’s have been like small ruby jewels that are slightly sour and much more floral—perfect for cooking, in other words. Growing up I mostly ate strawberries in things, or specifically, slathered with whipped cream, drowned in heavy cream, macerated and saturating a shortcake that was also slathered with whipped cream—they’re a blank canvas for dairy products, y’all. But Lipitor is in my future and I’m reining in my wanton use of fat-full dairy, which leads me to this sorbet: it is amazing.

Most of the sorbet recipes that I consulted consisted of just berries, sugar, and lemon juice, which is sort of plain, especially for one who is accustomed to the righteous richness of strawberries in things. So, taking a cue from 101cookbooks, I roasted the bejeezus out of these berries and then churned the results into my honestly new favorite frozen dessert. Roasting the berries seriously transforms their flavor, almost caramelizing them, and the extra "work" (it's so easy!) is totally worth it. Mom is still going to cram me with strawberries and cream when I go home, and I’m sure that I’ll eat a river of strawberries if the next ones that Jon and Bekka bring home are as far out as the ones from last summer, for now and maybe forever, this roasted strawberry sorbet is my jam.

Roasted Strawberry Sorbet

Taking a cue from Heidi Swanson's recipe for roasted strawberries

Heidi's original recipe is for just roasted strawberries, and she suggests pairing them with an array of sweet or savory foods (goat cheese and graham crackers!). The recipe below deviates from her original proportions quite a bit and leaves out the port wine she suggested. All this in the name of killer sorbet. If you're interested in her original, and you should be, check out her amazing book or feature over here.

Get Yr Roasted Strawberry Sorbet On

Yields about five cups sorbet

Two pounds (32 ounces) little strawberries, hulled, and halved if they're larger (trimmed, my berry weight came to 1 pound, 14 ounces)

1/4 cup pure maple syrup

2 tablespoons olive oil

1/2 teaspoon fine-grain sea salt

2 tablespoons natural sugar

1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon balsamic vinegar, to your preference

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F. Hull your berries, halve if they're large, and toss with maple syrup, olive oil, and salt in a large bowl. Spread out in a single layer across two rimmed baking sheets or in casserole dishes; you want to use a receptacle that will reserve the juices! Rotating the pans halfway through, bake for 30 to 40 minutes, until the berry juices start to thicken; don't let them burn. Heidi counsels us to check the edges of the pan for tell-tale signs of imminent burning.

2. Remove berries from the oven. Working in batches, carefully pulverize the hot berries and syrup in a food processor or blender until totally smooth (my mixture did not need to be strained). Stir in the sugar and balsamic vinegar to taste, and chill puree in the fridge for at least three hours and ideally overnight.

3. Churn the puree in an ice cream maker according to your manufacturer's instructions. This sorbet is the best eaten straight from the mixer or after firming up in the freezer for 20 minutes. If eating after the sorbet has spent a long period in the freezer, allow sorbet to sit out at room temperature for 15 minutes before scooping. Enjoy!

*Update: If you don't have access to an ice cream maker, check out this post written by David Lebovitz explaining how to churn by hand.

Raspberry Rhubarb Crostata

2011-06-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

When I was approximately seven, my grandmother's tipsy humor had us in stitches when she took a jab at her sister (not present) during a game of Balderdash. The word in question sounded something like “pompelsnell,” and grandma joked that it was “the sound you make after eating Eloise’s rhubarb cobbler.” She was not wrong! This is both my first memory of snark and my first memory of rhubarb, which I seem to recall being stewed without sugar and slumping under a deflated layer of cooked oatmeal.* I have a friend now who has never had rhubarb because it was verboten at his dinner table as his grandfather had grown up in orphanage eating rhubarb pie every day, and another friend who avoids it because her parents used to boil rhubarb (without sugar!) and serve it alongside rutabagas -- so very World War II. I cannot imagine a more un-Tanglewood way to spend a meal.

People go on about rhubarb being tart and sassy, but until recently, I really wouldn’t have known because my tendency was to sweeten the shit out of it, add strawberries, and bake it inside of buttery pastry dough. It is so good that way, but then my sister’s boyfriend made her a rhubarb-only birthday pie a couple of weeks ago -- the first pie he has ever made! -- and it was so tasty and new. Maybe Eloise was on the right track. I’m not quite interested in going bare-bones with the ‘barb yet, but having it on its own helped me divorce it from strawberries -- and right on time because I was growing bored of it that way and thinking I would just forget about rhubarb this season. But this tart is so good, and it will revive your rhubarb pie repertoire for certain. And if you’re looking for a spin on rhubarb that isn’t at all “pompelsnell,” well you should start right here. Now quick, quick! Get some rhubarb before it disappears until next season.

Raspberry Rhubarb Crostata

Spotted on Lottie + Doof, adapted from Karen Demasco in Bon Appetit

The only major change I made to this was swapping out the cornstarch in favor of tapioca starch. I once read that some people detect a gritty mouth feel when eating filling made with cornstarch. This has never been a problem for me, but

Crust

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

1/2 cup whole-wheat flour

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cubed

1 large egg

1 tablespoon whole milk

Filling

1/4 cup tapioca starch
4 cups 1/2″-thick slices rhubarb (about 1 1/4 lb.)
6 oz. fresh raspberries
2/3 cup sugar
1 large egg, beaten
Raw sugar
Sweetened whipped cream or vanilla ice cream (for serving)

1. For crust: Pulse flours, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a food processor to blend. Drop cubed butter over the top, and pulse a few times until butter is the size of peas. In a separate bowl, whisk milk and egg to combine, then pulse into the flour-butter mixture until it creates moist crumbs. Dump mixture into a shallow bowl, and quickly press into a ball with your hands; flatten into a thick disk. Wrap in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 1/2 hours and up to two days.

2. For filling: Mix tapioca starch and 3 tablespoons water in a small bowl to dissolve; set aside. Combine rhubarb, raspberries, and sugar in a large, heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat, stirring often, until sugar is dissolved and fruit starts releasing its juices, about four minutes. Stir in tapioca mixture and bring to a boil; rhubarb slices will still be in tact. Transfer to a bowl and chill filling until cool, about 30 minutes.

3. For crostata: Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Roll out dough on floured parchment to a 12-inch diameter; brush with beaten egg. Mound filling in the center, then spread out evenly, leaving a 1 1/2-inch border. Gently fold edges of dough over filling, pleating as needed; brush border with egg and sprinkle with raw sugar. Slide parchment paper onto a large rimmed baking sheet and bake until crust is golden brown, about 45 minutes. You might choose to line pan with aluminum foil as well to catch seeping juices. Transfer crostata to a baking rack, and serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream if so desired. Will keep covered for a few days, but truly is best eaten the day of or from the fridge.

* Well, my mom, sister, and I all have a different memory about this night. Sister insists that it was a mincemeat pie and that Eloise made them all the time. My mother is certain that it was pumpkin pie. They both say that it was Thanksgiving, which means that my memory of it being rhubarb is likely wrong, and my memory of it being cobbler even more so, but still! The point is that this crostata will never cause anyone to ridicule you during Balderdash.

Blackberry Chili Syrup with Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

2011-05-18T10:22:00.000-07:00

I made this ice cream two weeks ago to share with Joey’s family after he blew everyone’s socks off at the performance of his composition. We all went back to his house at the conclusion, and family from here and North Carolina sat around eating dessert and drinking wine and whiskey while Joey chatted about his impending move to Solitude, New England and played us another song on his marimba (it was not wholly unlike a more clothed version of the nights that defined my co-op experienced in college). Joey convinced me that his family does not like “hot,” though he loves it, so Tory and I sat in the corner draining the jar of spicy blackberry sauce and concocting other ways to use it (with bourbon! in oatmeal! on cheesecake!) and wondering whether one could subsist on spicy blackberry sauce alone.

Today my friend Guy expressed similar enthusiasm about his ideal diet staple when he said that his ice cream maker has revolutionized his eating habits. He claims to pulverize everything in a blender, chill it, and churn it, and while I’m sure he didn’t mean salad, he most certainly meant cantaloupe, mint, and cayenne pepper, pecans and cardamom, and any number of combinations that could convince most to disavow themselves of solid foods; there was talk of creamy cashew ice cream being next. My ice cream approach has worked in the other direction—start standard but pair with something plucky—and while this week’s recipe may seem vanilla at the start, it is totally delicious and doubly so with this spicy blackberry sauce.

Blackberry Chili Syrup

Inspired by 101 Cookbooks

Makes about two cups

This syrup is quite hot! A teaspoon poured into seltzer gave me the sneezes, but gobs on top of ice cream were perfectly tempered. I’ve also mixed this with bourbon and seltzer, eaten it with yogurt and granola, mixed it with salad dressing, and poured it on a cookie. It mellows out in the fridge a bit, but why would you want it to? Hello, year-round staple.

3 dried aji cereza or guajillo peppers (If you can find them, the aji cereza peppers are the way to go since they're already fruity and fragrant. I've seen them at the bodega down the street and at Whole Foods.)

3/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup natural sugar

1 1/2 cups water

1/4 cup fresh lemon juice

4.5 ounces fresh or frozen blackberries

1. Trim the stems from the peppers and tear them into pieces; add peppers along with their seeds to a medium saucepan with the sugars, water, and lemon juice. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, and, stirring regularly, continue boiling until the mixture reduces to about two cups of syrup, 20 to 30 minutes.

2. Add the frozen berries to the boiling pot, and cook for an addition few minutes, no longer than five. Remove from heat, and carefully puree the syrup, either with a hand blender, regular blender, or food processor (I used the later). Strain the syrup through a fine-mesh sieve, and store in the fridge in covered jars. It should keep for several weeks.

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Adapted from David Lebovitz

1 cup whole milk

3/4 cup natural sugar

A pinch of salt

1 vanilla bean, split lengthwise

2 cups heavy cream

5 large egg yolks

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. In a medium saucepan, heat the milk, sugar, and salt over low. Scrape the vanilla beans into the pan, toss the pod in, and continue cooking until mixture is warm. Turn off the stove, cover, and let steep for one hour.

2. Set up an ice bath by placing a medium bowl in a larger bowl filled partially with ice and water. Add the cream to the medium bowl, and set a strainer over the top. In a separate bowl, mix the egg yolks and set aside.

3. Reheat the milk mixture in the saucepan over low, and slowly pour some of the warmed milk into the egg yolks to temper them, whisking all the while. Add the tempered yolks and milk back to the saucepan, and continue cooking mixture over low, stirring and scraping the bottom with a heat-resistant spatula the whole time. When custard is thick enough to coat the spatula—six to ten minutes usually—remove from heat and strain into the cold cream, discarding the vanilla pod. Stir the mixture until it’s cool, then add the vanilla extract.

4. Cover and chill overnight, then process according to your ice cream maker’s directions.Once the ice cream reaches your desired consistency (I usually put mine in the freezer for an additional hour or two), scoop it out and cover with heaping spoonfuls of the blackberry chili syrup!

Whole-Wheat Shortbread Cookies

2011-05-04T14:41:00.000-07:00

Tonight! The gifted musician who is my fella is premiering a composition that he wrote for marimba, string quintet, and chorus. He has literally worked his fingers to their blistering bones to write this piece, which was inspired by the water-themed African folk songs that he and his classmates studied this semester. Joey was tapped by his school to be one of two student composers debuting original work at this evening's performance, and I'm bursting at the seams with excitement for him. In the past year, he has somehow managed to learn and excel at playing marimba (with four mallets!) and learned how to use composition software that makes everything sound like a video game, and which will undoubtedly translate into some seriously beautiful and bewitching music; his future is all kinds of bright and shiny.

After this composition endeavor, Joey heads to to Vermont with his band (link to old songs) for a year of intensive writing and recording, punctuated by extensive touring. Obviously I will be sending them baked goods all the while. These cookies—a solid airmail possibility—were recently featured on my all-time favorite food blog, and they are a total snap to make. While Lottie + Doof finished his with sugar alone, I thought the coffee-sugar combo nicely complemented the sturdy wheat flavor, and the cookies topped with cinnamon tasted just like buñuelos. Joey, I see you your bright future and raise you a buttery one!

Whole-Wheat Shortbread Cookies

Adapted from Lottie + Doof

Makes about 70 one-inch cookies

Obviously this recipe calls for a scale, something that I highly recommend purchasing. They save time, dishes, and ingredients—seriously one of the best $25 you can spend for your kitchen!

10.5 ounces all-purpose flour

5.5 ounces whole-wheat flour

4.75 ounces cornstarch

16 ounces high-fat butter (Plurga is recommended), at cool room temperature

4.75 ounces natural sugar

1 teaspoon salt

Superfine sugar, superfine coffee grinds, and ground cinnamon, for dusting

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. Line cookie sheets with parchment paper.

2. Combine the flours and cornstarch in a medium bowl and set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter, sugar, and salt with an electric mixer (or KitchenAid with the paddle attachment) until fluffy, about three minutes. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and combine, but be careful not to overmix. (I did the last bits of combining with cold hands and a rubber spatula since I’m paranoid about my oft overzealous electric mixer.)

3. On a lightly floured surface, roll out the dough to a quarter-inch thick and cut into desired shapes (Tim used a two-inch cutter; I used a one-inch inverted glass); you may reroll and cut scraps. Arrange one inch apart on cookie sheets and bake for 10 to 15 minutes until edges have browned. Let cool on sheets for two minutes, then dust with sugar or your desired sugar mix (ratios follow). Store in an airtight container once cookies are totally cool. They’ll last a couple of days!

For coffee topping: Combine 1/4 cup of sugar with 1 scant tablespoon superfinely ground coffee, or to taste.

For cinnamon topping: Combine 1/4 cup sugar with 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or to taste.

Aunt Sassy (Pistachio) Cake with Honey Vanilla Buttercream

2011-04-14T13:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes it feels irrelevant to write a baking blog. I always wonder whether this is not the totally wrong forum for me to write about being distraught with the government, or forlorn that Joey is moving to Vermont, or sad about my job, which forever bites the big one. Those things are all true, but then there is this glorious, delicious cake and the trouble of connecting it to Jon Kyl’s fake facts, Obama’s squirmy backbone, or the utter weirdness of an impending long-distance relationship; it’s so much smoother to connect baked goods to weekends and perpetual good times. Maybe I ought to thank my luck for the latitude afforded by the jokey truism that a blog-writer’s biggest audience is herself.

Joey's hand action shot! They can't all be winners.

So the government stinks tremendously, Joey is leaving, and my job is an endless bummer, but this cake is like eating airy, pistachio angel food cake swathed in magic frosting that rights ills and boosts moods! I made it for Ruben and Joaquin’s full-of-love engagement party, and initially I felt ill-equipped to describe how super good it is (the recipe gets all the credit!), and then my Alice Medrich cookie rampage clouded my cake-blogging motivations. But this cake—every bit as delicious as the ingredients tell you—is much, much easier to make than it seems and totally relevant to whatever is going on in your life, be it wishing some smarts into the government of celebrating the wonderful folks in your life.

Aunt Sassy Cake with Honey Buttercream

Adapted (barely) from Baked Explorations

I don't own any 8-inch cake pans so I attempted to proportion this recipe to fit my 6-inch cake pans instead. Using this awesome website, I learned I'd have to make 60% of the original recipe to do so, but I can't do that kind of math so I stuck to the original proportions but used my small pans and made six cupcakes with the leftover batter. It actually turned out great because the layers were towering and there were cupcakes for sampling. Also, this is a long recipe, but it's uncomplicated and totally worth the labor.

Pistachio Cake

1 shelled, unsalted pistachios

2 1/2 cups cake flour

3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon baking power

1 teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup vegetable shortening (I used Spectrum brand)

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups ice water

3 large egg whites, at room temperature

1/4 cup cream of tartar

Honey Vanilla Buttercream

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1/2 cup all-purpose flour

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1/3 cup heavy cream

1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, soft but not warm, cut into small pieces

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

3 tablespoons honey

Garnish

1/2 cup pistachios

1 tablespoon sugar

Make the Cake Layers

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Butter three 8-inch (I used 6-inch) round cake pans, line them with parchment, butter the parchment, flour it too, and tap out the excess flour. (F'real. My layers did not stick at all, so I'm not about to tell you that this step is overkill.)

2. In the bowl of a food processor, process just one cup of the pistachios until they are coarsely chopped. Transfer two tablespoons of the nuts to a large bowl, and then process the rest into a powder, but not a dust. Stir the pistachio powder into the large bowl with the coarse nuts. Sift the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in the large bowl. Dump anything left in the sifter into the bowl; stir.

3. In a large bowl, beat the butter and shortening on medium until creamy, three to four minutes. Add the sugar and vanilla and beat about three more minutes until fluffy. Add the egg and beat until just combined. Turn your egg beater or mixer on low, and add the flour mixture to the bowl in three parts, alternating with the ice water, and beginning and ending with the flour. The mixer should be on low for each addition, and flip it to medium for a few seconds until ingredients are incorporated; scrape bowl before each new addition.

4. In a medium bowl, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar on low until soft peaks form, but don't overwhip; gently fold whites into the batter using a rubber spatula. Divide the batter among the prepared pans and smooth the tops. Bake for 40 to 45 minutes (my six-inch pans still took 40) until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cakes cool in their pans for 20 minutes before removing them; allow to cool completely and then remove the parchment paper. At this point, I triple-wrapped my layers in plastic wrap for froze them for two days, which I've been led to believe makes frosting delicate cake layers terrifically easy.

Make the Frosting

1. In a medium saucepan, whisk the sugar and flour together. Add the milk and cream and cook over medium heat (I cooked on low because I have a gas range), whisking occasionally until the mixture comes to a boil and thickens, ten to 15 minutes.

2. Transfer the mixture to a cold bowl and beat with a mixer on high speed until cool, about seven to nine minutes. Press some bags of frozen berries to the sides of the bowl to speed up the process. Reduce the speed to low and add the butter, mixing all the way. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat until frosting is light and fluffy, about two minutes.

3. Add the vanilla and honey and continue mixing to combine. If the frosting is too soft, put the bowl in the fridge to chill, then beat it again until it's the right consistency. (I had to put mine in the fridge for 20 minutes.)

Assemble the Cake

1. Crush the remaining 1/2 cup pistachios with 1 tablespoon of sugar in your food processor; don't go too fine.

2. Level the tops of your cake layers (easier if they're frozen). Place on on your plate, and smooth 1 1/4 cups frosting on top. Add the next leveled layer and the same amount of frosting, then the third layer. Spread a very thin layer over the top and sides and put in the fridge for 15 minutes if you can (this is the crumb coat and helps tamp down loose crumbs), then spread the rest of the frosting on. Garnish the cake with the crushed pistachios, and refrigerate for 15 minutes to firm up. The cookbook recommends letting the cake come to room temperature for two hours before serving; I think we did incidentally, but it's not so fussy of a cake that you have to. Keeps for three days in a cake saver at room temperature.

Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

2011-04-07T20:11:00.000-07:00

The book from whence these and those cookies came is property of the DC Public Library (and therefore you!). I should have disclosed in my previous post that I am—with the help of my amazing librarian friend Bobbie—quickly assuming acquaintance with a multitude of cookbooks (and young adult fiction), but this one from Alice Medrich is by far my most favorite. Had Bobbie not brought it to our charming yet slovenly home, I almost certainly never would have used it. And were it also not for Bobbie and DCPL, I would not have seen Twin Peaks, read Just Kids, heard that infernal Alban Berg opera that Joey has been playing, or figured out this whole graphic novel thing so easily. Bobbie and I met three years ago on Craigslist when I was just a DC naïf looking for a home, and since then it has been a totally edifying friendship involving lots of rad shit from water snakes, bicycles, and dancing to a shameless love of cultural pulp and romcoms (but also Pride and Prejudice! Which I guess is sort of a romcom too.).

I wouldn’t be here or nearly as happy without Bobbie, and these cookies wouldn’t be here or nearly as tasty without the DC Public Library. This is the first wheat-free cookie recipe using alternative flours that I have ever totally adored; they were also loved by my great pal Tory who is gluten-free, and they were deemed tolerably delightful by my dear housemate Susan who has professed a strong unhappiness with wheat-free goods. They are thin and crispy—fast becoming my favorite cookie qualities—and the crumb tastes sweet and buttery, not powdery and Play-Doh-esque, which I sometimes equate with gluten-free desserts. I think that you could love them, and so will the beautiful Bobbies your life.

Wheat-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Alice Medrich's Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy

I used a scoop slightly smaller than that called for by Medrich and still came out with the 60 cookies predicted by this recipe. She adds one cup of coarsely chopped pecans as well, but I'm not so into that, so I upped the chocolate from 12 to 15 ounces. These are wheat-free, and will be considered gluten-free by your strictest eaters as long as you buy flours that have not come into contact with any wheat. Bob's Red Mill is always a reliable brand, and check your local co-op or farmers' market to see what's in stock.

1 cup + 3 tablespoons oat flour
1 cup brown rice flour, superfine if you have it
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons potato starch
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon aluminum-free baking soda
3/4 teaspoon xanthan gum
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
15 ounces hand-chopped chocolate chunks or large chips (semi-sweet will not overpower the delicate flours; use bittersweet if you want to get thwacked in the face with chocolate flavor)

1. Combine the flours, potato starch, salt, baking soda and xanthan gum in a medium bowl and mix thoroughly with a whisk. In a large bowl, mix the melted butter, sugars and vanilla. Whisk in the eggs. Stir the flour mixture into the wet mixture. With a rubber spatula, mix the batter briskly for about 45 seconds to activate the xanthan gum, but don't overbeat or you risk gummy cookies (blech). Stir in the chocolate. If possible, let the dough stand for one to two hours at room temperature, or cover and refrigerate overnight.

2. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F, and line your cookie sheets with parchment paper or foil dull side up. Using a 1 1/2-tablespoon cookie scoop (Medrich calls for 2 tablespoons), place mounds of cookie dough at least two inches apart on the sheets. Bake the cookies for 12 to 14 minutes until they are golden brown, rotating pans from front to back and top to bottom halfway through. Cookies will be soft when you remove pans from oven, so leave them on the sheet for about two minutes before moving them to wire racks to cool all the way. Ours kept well in a sealed container for the two days it took us to eat them all.

Crunchy Seed Cookies

2011-04-01T09:53:00.000-07:00

Spring, you devious bastard. First you’re gettin’ weirdly toasty and inviting ice cream sandwiches and porch-sitting, and now you’re all snowin’ on us again; a retreat indoors feels totally unnatural this time of year. So, Bobbie and I rode bikes home in the spittle-snow last Saturday after an evening spent eating dinner with best friends and then dancing artfully inside a ring of non–best friends wearing togas. Super food and slippery floors made it an evening impervious to dumb ol’ snow, but my nerves are starting to rankle anyway.

The flipside, at least, is that indoor activities translates to lots of kitchen time, and last weekend’s windy, wet jerkdom prompted an all-day baking session that led to these—possibly the most adorable cookies known to humankind. If anime could bake itself into a pastry, it might come out looking like these li’l baby butter cookies covered in seeds (on both sides!). They are also super tasty and addictive, and I whole-heartedly recommend them no matter what the weather outside your window portends, which, for me, is a snow-wet weekend filled with yard sales, karaoke, beer, crafts, and clothing swappin’. Take that, fake spring.

Crunchy Seed Cookies

Adapted from Alice Medrich, Chewy, Gooey, Crispy, Crunchy

This recipe makes about 60 li'l cookies. They are really the most adorable cookies of all time. And even though I'm wary of fennel, I loved it here and will certainly use it every time. I'm planning to add poppy and sunflower seeds next time though, maybe in place of the white sesames. Customizing is love.

2 teaspoons black sesame seeds

2 teaspoons white sesame seeds

2 teaspoons flax seeds

2 teaspoons fennel seeds (I used 1 1/2)

1/4 cup coarse raw sugar

2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

8 tablespoons (1 stick) butter, very soft

1 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg

2 tablespoons bourbon (I used brandy)

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a large shallow bowl or plate, mix seeds and coarse sugar and set aside. In a different medium bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda, and salt, and mix together thoroughly with a fork.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the butter and granulated sugar. With a large spoon or electric mixer on medium-low, mix the butter and sugar until smooth and well-blended, but not fluffy. Add the egg and bourbon/brandy and mix until smooth. Add the flour mixture, half at a time, and mix by hand until completely incorporated.

3. Roll heaping teaspoons of dough into one-inch balls. Press each ball into the seed mixture on both sides (genius!), flattening the ball to a half-inch thick round. Place the cookies two whole inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets, and bake for 14 to 16 minutes until cookies are slightly browned on the edges, rotating pans halfway through. Set the liners on racks to cool. Medrich says cookies will keep for up to two weeks in an airtight container, but we ate them all in three days.

Coffee Ice Cream Sandwiches

2011-03-07T10:07:00.000-08:00

March is starting to feel like the most do-or-die month, and I sort of totally love it. I'm besickened with the worst cold I've had in over a year and one day from my organization's giant, fancy gala for which I'll be up all night barking into a walkie-talkie, yet all I can think about are ways to start a bicycle cafe and names for my weekend doughnut business (Dough-Zone Layer!). I've been staying up late to make earrings for Ginger Root, DC's most awesome custom clothes, jewelery, and design store, and am squeezing in a visit with my sister that has been full of SVU (pasttime numero uno), good food, and chest hair jokes. Joey and I are planning our symphony date and our vacation to San Diego, and right now even, I'm waiting for an assignment at work to come through and using my spare minute to blog. I'm straddling obligations and compulsions–and not really balancing them–but instead of making me feel crazy and weird, it's making me feel excited. I'm totally pumped for what's in store in the next few weeks, and hopefully these ice cream sandwiches are some indication of what will filter through this manic month!

Coffee Ice Cream

Adapted from The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz

1 1/2 cups whole milk

1 1/2 cups cream, divided

1 1/2 cups whole coffee beans

3/4 cup granulated sugar (I used turbinado)

Pinch salt

5 egg yolks

1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/4 teaspoon instant espresso or superfinely ground coffee

1. In a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, stir the milk, a half-cup of the cream, whole beans, sugar, and pinch of salt until the sugar is dissolved and the milk is steaming (not boiling!). Cover and let steep for one hour.

2. Fill a large bowl with ice, and place a medium metal bowl inside it over the ice. Pour the remaining cup of cream into the metal bowl and put a fine mesh strainer over the top. Whisk the five yolks in a separate large bowl, and then reheat the milk and beans until the mixture is steaming (not boiling!). Slowly pour the milk into the egg yolks to temper, whisking vigorously the whole time. Pour the yolks and milk back into the pan, and. stirring the whole time, cook over medium heat until the mixture has thickened into a custard, seven to ten minutes. You'll know the custard is ready when you can run your finger across the back of a spoon dipped in the custard and it leaves a clear trail.

3. Pour the custard through the sieve into the cold cream, pushing on the beans to extract as much custard as possible. You'll need to clear out the strainer every now and then so that it doesn't overflow. Mix the vanilla and superfinely ground coffee into the cold cream mixture, and stir the whole thing until it's cool. Allow the mixture to cool completely in the fridge, preferably overnight, and then process according to your ice cream maker's directions.

Ice Cream Sandwiches

I made these sandwiches using cookies that were leftover from last week's thin mints. Any not-too-crispy cookie will do though, and a stay in the freezer overnight will soften them up a little bit for perfect ice cream sandwich texture. The coffee ice cream goes really well with the chocolate wafers, but I think that a chocolate chip cookie with toffee would have also been amazing!

1. Make half of this recipe to get about 35 cookies, or enough for 15 or so sandwiches. Once the cookies have cooled completely and the ice cream has hardened in the fridge for about an hour, scoop 1 1/2 to 3 tablespoons of coffee ice cream (or however much) onto a cookie back, then sandwich it with a second evenly sized cookie.

2. Wrap the sandwiches in waxed or parchment paper and let them hang out in the fridge for a few hours or overnight to soften the cookie somewhat. Take them out about ten minutes before you're ready to serve, and enjoy!

Homemade Thin Mints

2011-03-01T14:22:00.000-08:00

During the first of the only two seasons where I ever sold girl scout cookies, my dad bought 30 boxes of Thin Mints so that I could "earn" the super seller girl scout patch that had a harp seal pup on it. An additional prize was in the mix too, but I was really into harp seals, specifically, and my earnest patch-wantin' tears coaxed my dad into footing the bill for a freezerful of cookies. Not like he complained though, because as much as the rest of us, my father the girl scout hero could totally eat a whole tube of thin mints in one sitting. And then three summers ago my mom was leaving Safeway and decided to confront a cookie-selling scout about the hydrogenated oil and corn syrup that were standard (at the time) in girl scout cookies. The girl was most likely an eight-year-old do-gooder with no idea what my mother the girl scout villainizer was talking about, but still, Mom had a point. Enter: homemade thin mints!

I made them a little too large, a little too thin, and none too smooth, but they are so very, very good, that they might permanently thwart your craving for actual Thin Mints. Plus, the chocolate wafer that they use also makes an excellent snacking cookie and a phenomenal sandwich cookie for ice cream and filling (more on that later).

Homemade Thin Mints

Adapted from Alice Medrich, Bittersweet

This wafer recipe makes approximately 70 cookies. I divided the dough in two and used one half for these thin mints and the other half for the tops to ice cream sandwiches. You could either halve the recipe below or double the chocolate coating recipe to make a whole batch of thin mints.

1 1/2 cups (6.75 ounces) flour

3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder (I used the fancy shit)

1 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

14 tablespoons (1 3/4 stick) unsalted butter, room temperature

3 tablespoons whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. In the bowl of a food processor, put flour, cocoa, sugar, salt, and baking soda, and pulse a few times until blended. Cut the butter into 12 chunks, add it to the bowl, and pulse it a few times. Combine the milk and vanilla in a small bowl and with the processor running, add the liquid and continue to process until dough clumps together. Transfer the dough to a large bowl and knead a few times to ensure that it's thoroughly mixed.

2. Divide the dough in two, and roll each into a log that is 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter (I used the smaller diameter for the thin mints, larger for the ice cream sammiches). Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until firm, about an hour, or up to a day as needed.

3. Preheat the over to 350 degrees F. Line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Slice your cookies into thins that are 1/8 inch to 1/4 inch thin, and space one inch apart on the sheets. Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, rotating sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through. Cookies will puff up and deflate as they bake, and they are ready about 1 1/2 minutes after they deflate. They should crisp as they cool, and if they don't, you can pop them back in the oven for a few minutes so they finish baking. Cool cookies on their sheets on top of cooling racks. When completely cool, being the chocolate-coating process!

Chocolate Mint Coating

This makes enough for 35 to 40 thin mints, or about half of what the recipe above yields. You can either halve the cookies, double this chocolate to make a huge she-bang, or keep the wafers in the freezer and use them as needed for ice cream sandwiches or snackin'.

12 ounces semisweet chocolate, chips or chopped

2 to 3 teaspoons peppermint extract, or to taste

1. Prep your station by lining cooling racks or cutting boards with waxed or parchment paper.

2. Place the chocolate in a metal bowl set over gently simmering water. Stir frequently until chocolate is melted, smooth, and glossy. Start by mixing in a teaspoon of peppermint extract, and increase by half-teaspoons until you reach your desired level of mintiness (I used a full three teaspoons).

3. Using a fork or clean fingers, dip the cookies in the chocolate one at a time, coating both sides with a thin layer. Let the excess drip off, and place the dipped cookies onto the wax paper to set. If the dipping chocolate ever gets too thick, put it back over simmering water for a minute to thin it out. Place the finished cookies in the freezer or fridge for 20 minutes to speed up the setting of the chocolate. I kept my thin mints in the freezer the whole time because frozen thin mints are the best, but they'll keep stored in an airtight container at room temperature too.

Olly Oxen Free Recap!

2011-02-22T12:00:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday marked the most recent installment of Olly Oxen Free, my in-house restaurant that I plan menus for constantly and execute every now and again. Fifteen people attended—four of whom I had never met before!—and most of what I heard from the kitchen was belly laughs, clinking glasses, plate-scraping, and other signs of inevitable food coma. I am thrilled with how things turned out—killer food, drinks, and folks and tons of ideas for the next go-around.

I started doing Olly Oxen Free last year as a way of incubating my ideas for owning a food business. I've definitely learned a lot on the technical and creative side—timing, menu balance, space, pricing, feel—but the payoff comes in seeing an arguably random assortment of people share a meal and conversations together. To orchestrate a space that brings people into the ritual of a meal has become the most satisfying part of putting an in-house restaurant together.

I waxed poetic a few weeks back here, but let's get into the menu again! There were hot-out-the-oven cheddar twists and castelvetrano olives out when folks arrived, and Bobbie made sure to sling a St. Germain cocktail into everyone’s hands while they hung out in the makeshift bar area. The first course was a bowl of spicy cauliflower soup drizzled with hot chili oil and crispy fried shallots (no picture though, dang). Then came the watercress, arugula, and mesclun salad with pine nuts and green goddess dressing with lots of tarragon.

This is Joey’s half-eaten (mea culpa) third course of cornbread and mushroom-stuffed apples with truffled macaroni and cheeses. The homemade cornbread was tossed with grilled onions, celery, sage, thyme, and buttery mushrooms and stuffed into honeycrisp apples that were baked until they puffed got all bubbly. The macaroni was baked with sharp cheddar, gruyere, and a truffled sheep’s and cow’s blended cheese. Truffles Forever.

The final course was a parfait of this molasses gingerbread with this salted caramel sauce, layered with sweetened vanilla whipped cream. I could eat this parfait for the rest of my (consequently short) life and be totally at ease. And look! The thrift store treated me right that weekend because I found exactly 15 old-timey and adorable sundae cups the Saturday before Olly Oxen Free.

And here’s a final shot of some of the awesome folks who came out to be a part of Olly Oxen Free! My sister and I are joining forces for the next one, which is almost sure to include blue cheese, corn, fried things, and icebox cake. I totally can't wait.

Blood Orange Tart with Salted Caramel

2011-01-31T14:35:00.000-08:00

I remember thinking about marriage a lot before I turned 20. I suppose that it could have either been a Herculean feat or a total delusion since I was living in a half-naked co-op in Berkeley and I had a long-distance boyfriend at the time, but my obsessive plotting dissipated once I left for France and got knocked down a couple of life ladder rungs. I never regained the ideas that I had about marriage—though the handful of heteronormative design blogs that I read aren't doing much to help me form a realistic conception of healthy relationships—and until recently it didn't have a real place in my life. Now a few of my most favorite friends are married or planning weddings, and I find myself learning something about relationships each time I hear a new story or listen to a stranger give a toast to my friends.

And so this weekend found me celebrating the upcoming wedding of my dear friends Ruben and Joaquin, who are getting married in November as all of their adoring friends (what seems like thousands!) root them on in Dia de los Muertos style. I made three desserts for the evening, including this blood orange tart with salted caramel, and even though everyone seemed to love the food, it was totally forgettable compared to the toasts that had people blubbering and the dancing that ensued. I shouldn't sell this dessert short though: The tart is a great reprieve from and celebration of winter, and the bitter orange goes perfectly with the salted caramel. Please don't stick around long enough to see me turn that into a metaphor, just go make this and congratulate yourself for having so many friends with real and inspiring relationships.

Blood Orange Tart with Salted Caramel Sauce

Adapted from Zoe Nathan via Lottie + Doof

Per L + D's suggestion, I used a different caramel than the one Nathan suggested, and I ultimately decided on a different crust recipe as well. I tried Nathan's crust when I made the tart early in the week, and my method may be at fault here, but I found it to be too dry and difficult to work with. When I made this again for the party, I swapped in my favorite all-butter crust recipe and upped the sugar to match the level that Nathan used. It was much more to my liking!

Blood Orange Tart

One-half recipe all-butter crust (recipe and directions over here!) with 2 TBSP total sugar

8 to 10 medium blood oranges, about 7 ounces each (I used 8)

1 tablespoon unsalted butter, thinly sliced

1 large egg yolk mixed with two tablespoons of water

3 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon raw sugar for dusting the crust

1. Once you've made your pastry and it has chilled in the fridge for 30 minutes, roll it out on a lightly floured surface into an 11-inch circle. Transfer the pastry to a sheet of parchment paper on the back of a cookie sheet and let chill while you prepare the oranges, or at least 15 minutes. The oranges actually took me exactly 45 minutes to prep, so you could put your crust in the fridge, start prepping the oranges, take a break to roll out the crust, then carry on with the recipe.

2. Peel your oranges and keep them intact as much as possible. Using a very sharp knife, gently slice the pith off of the outsides of all. Pick your two most intact and beautifully colored oranges and slice them crosswise into thin rounds. Set aside. Set up a sieve over a bowl and carefully segment your remaining oranges, slicing between the pith to extract just the pieces of fruit. You'll need a generous cup of slices. Gently shake the slices to remove excess juice; save the juice for a different use.

3. Leaving a two-inch border of crust all around, arrange the orange segments on the pastry. Sprinkle two tablespoons of granulated sugar and sliced tablespoon of butter over the top. Fold edges of pastry over the fruit, pleating as you go and leaving most of the fruit uncovered. Use a pastry brush to spread egg wash on the crust, and sprinkle with the raw sugar. Finally, arrange the orange circles over the top and sprinkle with the remaining tablespoon of granulated sugar. Freeze tart for at least four hours, preferably overnight.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Bake tart on the back of the cookie sheet directly from the freezer for one hour and 15 minutes, until the crust is deep brown and the fruit is bubbling. You may want to put some foil on the rack below the tart to catch any drips. Allow to cool on cookie sheet for a half-hour, then remove to a cooling rack and allow to cool completely. Meanwhile, make the caramel!

Deep Dark Salted Caramel

1 cup granulated sugar

6 tablespoons salted butter (or unsalted + 1/4 teaspoon sea salt), cut into one-inch pieces

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1. Pour the sugar into a three-quart pot set over medium-high heat and allow the sugar to melt, whisking occasionally to ensure even cooking. Once sugar is melted, continue to cook until it turns a deep copper color (I like to push caramel to the edge of burnt; go lighter if you don't). With the heat still on, add the butter and whisk like crazy, then whisk in the cream until you have a smooth sauce. Turn the heat off and enjoy! Leftovers will keep in the fridge for awhile!

Olly Oxen Free: In-House Restaurant!

2011-01-24T14:48:00.000-08:00

Clicky to enlarge to readable proportions!

Amid all of the bellyaching baking and sweet tooth pursuits is my fairly new secret cafe endeavor in DC. Olly Oxen Free was borne out of an ambition to anticipate what it might be like to start a food joint some day, and although it's still in its babyhood -- especially in terms of frequency -- this in-house cafe has already been a huge source of education for me. It seems tremendously difficult to come up with new, creative food ideas all of the time, and the first thing I've learned is to always be open to inspiration and to experiment as much as possible. February 13 will mark just the second installment of Olly Oxen Free, although this is at least the tenth menu that I've created for it, and I could not be more excited to get started. The last iteration focused on timing, and this time I'm going to work harder on the ambiance and improving the balance of flavors and proportions -- though I admit that this menu tends toward the rich. I hope that Olly Oxen Free one days leads to collaborations and a new feeling to my community here, but for now I'm really enjoying the anticipation and how this project keeps me on my creative toes!

Oh, and if you're local and interested in attending, shoot me an email! So far the guest list is lookin' real nice.

Butterscotch Pots de Crème

2011-01-20T11:32:00.000-08:00

Thursday as it may be, I still feel as if I only just arrived home from my roisterous weekend in New York. Most of my California dearest live in Brooklyn now, concentrated all easy-like within a few train stops of one another, so I try to visit as often as possible since it's a quick WiFi-powered bus ride away. This trip was especially fun because one of my closest friends from DC was in town visiting her (and our!) friends, so we friend-melded at a karaoke joint in the East Village on our last night there. En Vogue, Dolly Parton, Erasure, Patti Smith, and a few musicals later, and it was 5:00 a.m. and I had lost my voice, developed a crush on an Australian girl, and perfected a karaoke body roll. The night was preceded with a couple of gallery openings, interjected with besties and a lamb burger dinner (be it told: worst vegetarian ever, right here), and bookended by couch-cuddling sessions, so clearly it was a trip fueled by excellence.

With so much fun and distraction all around, I've been having a hard time focusing on baking and other pursuits, but Jason and I had words about creativity and temperament over the weekend, and I feel more energized to keep on keepin' on. So, continuing the sequence on this blog of rich dairy desserts, I present thee with butterscotch pots de crème. The original called for some wacky sugars that I can never find, so I did my best to substitute and this turned out to be the most insanely rich dessert. It was like eating cold velvet. I might even say it's too rich for my taste, which is weird because I like to eat cheese melted in butter, but some house guests and my pal Bobbie said these pots de crème were spot-on and delicious. I can at least vouch for the flavor being unreal. Please let me know what you think!

Butterscotch Pots de Crème

Adapted from Gourmet via Orangette

1 1/2 cups heavy cream

6 tablespoons muscovado sugar (I used sucanat)

1/4 tablespoon sea salt

6 tablespoons water

2 tablespoons demerara (I used turbinado)

4 large egg yolks

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1. Set oven rack in direct center and preheat oven to 300 degrees F. In a small heavy saucepan, combine the cream, muscovado sugar, and sea salt. Cook over medium-high until cream barely simmers and sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat.

2. In a large, light-colored saucepan, cook the demerara and water over medium-low heat until it bubbles and turns dark golden brown, five to ten minutes (Molly's recipe called for five minutes. I did mine for seven and thought it could have stood to caramelize much more). Remove from heat, and slowly pour in the cream mixture, whisking all the while.

3. Meanwhile, heat a bunch of tap water. Then, in a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks and vanilla. Add hot cream mixture in a thin stream, whisking all the while. Set a fine mesh strainer over a clean glass measuring cup and pour the mixture through. Skim off any foam.

4. Divide custard between four 4-ounce ramekins (I had enough to make five actually). Seal each with a piece of foil. Line a deep, large casserole dish with a dishtowel, and arrange the ramekins on top so that they are not touching. Put the dish into the center of the oven, and then fill the dish with the hot water until it comes halfway up the side. Bake for 40 minutes, or until the sides of the custard are set and the middle still jiggles when shaken.

5. Remove ramekins to a cooling rack and allow them to come to room temperature. They'll set as they cool. Touch a piece of plastic wrap to the top of each and then refrigerate until cold, a few hours. These will keep covered for a day or two in the fridge, but are best eaten on the same day.

Bourbon Ice Cream

2011-01-12T08:45:00.000-08:00

I've been sitting on this bourbon ice cream recipe for a minute, partly because it seems to have made its way around the blogs already, but mostly because the end of 2010 was both a blinding rush of parties and a stultifying burrito fog. Back in California, I baked little, ate lots, vegetated myself into a Law & Order SVU fugue state, and generally dismissed any and all responsibility, save for a sisterly pact to ruin Mom's winning streak in Hearts: Holidays well done!

And now I'm back in the emotionally un-regressive land that is my east coast home, ready to kick my creative projects into gear, although not so ready that I'm blogging a spanking-new recipe. All the same, this bourbon ice cream is totally golden, and whether you're snowed-in or not, it's winter-appropriate and delightfully boozy. If you're unsure of ice cream in the winter, I can say with conviction that this recipe in particular makes a killer affogato too.

I hope that it's not too late to wish you a solid New Year! Thanks so much for reading along with me. I hope to share many more delicious projects with you this year!

Bourbon Ice Cream

Adapted from Bon Appetit via Lottie + Doof

2 cups heavy whipping cream

2 cups half-and-half

1/2 cup nonfat dry milk powder (I skipped this, but it would add more creamy if you left it!)

6 large egg yolks

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1/4 teaspoon coarse kosher salt

7 tablespoons bourbon (original called for five; I used Woodford Reserve)

1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract

1. Bring cream, half-and-half, and milk powder to simmer over medium-high heat in a heavy-bottomed saucepan until powder dissolves. Remove from heat.

2. Combine egg yolks, sugars, and coarse salt in a large bowl; whisk until thick and blended. Slowly pour hot cream into egg mixture, whisking all the while. Return egg and cream mixture to the pan, and stir over medium-low heat until the the custard thickens enough to leave a trail on the back of a spoon when you draw your finger across it and the temperature registers 175 to 178 degrees F., about three minutes. Remove from heat, and mix in bourbon and vanilla.

3. Cover custard and refrigerate, stirring occasionally until cold, at least three hours. Process in an ice cream maker according to manufacturer's instructions. Cover and freeze until solid, about six hours. Will keep for a week or too!

Five Golden Butters

2010-12-22T22:28:00.000-08:00

Man, December moves as fast as lightning and I freely admit that I can’t keep up. In lieu of a full post about bourbon ice cream, cardamom cookies, potato-gruyere tartlets, or chestnut wedding cookies (see how far behind I am?!) this post is dedicated to unveiling the Tanglewood Recipe Box and to reminding you of some excellent holiday-appropriate recipes that it’s definitely not too late to bake. These triple ginger cookies have become a serious year-round favorite in my kitchen, as has this molasses gingerbread and these honey walnut tartlets. Chewy amaretti cookies with chocolate filling, classic peanut brittle, and sugar cookies with espresso topping would all make welcome gifts or contributions to the holiday table!

Quince Pie with Biscuit Top + Kickasserole

2010-12-02T09:03:00.000-08:00

For the longest, most incurious time, I thought that quinces were just bootleg pears. I always wondered why farmers market vendors didn't wipe off the cobwebs before selling them, and I instead skipped on to fruit that did not appear to have been colonized by dust bunnies. I still don't know why quinces are furry on the outside, but what I've recently learned is that the quince is pretty much one of the most ancient fruits of all time--preceding the apple in most countries--and that Greek myths and certain biblical stories involving apples might actually be referring to quinces. Ladies of the day used to bite into quinces in order to "perfume their kiss before entering the bridal chamber" (shudder), and I believe it, because this is absolutely the most perfumed fruit I've ever cooked with. Raw, it tastes like an astringent potato, but cooked up and softened, the quince magically becomes rosy and tastes like a more floral apple or a concentrated pear.

Christian tells me this is a Japanese maple. It was at its brightest during the weekend of Kickasserole!

My favorite cooking site, Lottie + Doof, seems to have incidentally started a one-blog education campaign about the fruit when he posted a Martha Stewart quince pie recipe a few weeks back. Lo and behold, that mysterious moldy-seeming pear-ish fruit was explained! And used in a beautiful pie recipe to boot! A pie recipe with no bottom crust, minimal grunt work, and enough disarmingly fruity goodness to cut through the buttery, rich, and fried tides of any Kickasserole feast. This pie, impressive if sort of homely looking as well, ended up being one of my favorite Kickasserole desserts, so much so that I literally licked the plate clean. If you can't find quinces in your area, the technique of this pie would work great with any combination of hard fruits--poach in maple syrup until palatable, cover with a salty biscuit top, and bake until bubbly and awesome.

Just about the whole Kickasserole crew!

Quince Pie with Biscuit Top!

Barely adapted from Martha Stewart via Lottie + Doof

In his version, Tim of Lottie + Doof made a maple whipped cream to go along with the pie. Most regrettably, the kitchen folk and I were not in the proper state to be whipping cream by the time the people were ready for their dessert. There was no love loss, but I'm sure the experience would have been that much better if the pie had been accompanied by the whipped cream.

For the filling

5 quinces, peeled, cored, and quartered

5 cups water

1 cup pure Grade B maple syrup

3/4 cup granulated sugar

1 vanilla bean, split and scraped, pod reserved

2 teaspoons cornstarch

1. Bring the quinces, water, syrup, sugar, and vanilla seeds + pod to a simmer in a large pot over medium heat. Cover pot with parchment paper, and cook until quinces are soft and rosy pink, about two hours. My quinces turned ruby red, but sometimes they don't change color until late in the process if at all, so be sure to judge doneness by the softness of the fruit. Discard the vanilla pod and proceed with the recipe.

For the topping

1 3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/3 cup fine yellow cornmeal (grind it finely in a food processor if yours is coarse or medium)

1/3 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

3/4 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 sticks cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons slivered almonds

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Sift the ingredients a second time (this helps giving the biscuits lift as the topping bakes). Cut in butter with a pastry blender or two knives or rub the butter into the dry mixture with your fingers until it resembles coarse cornmeal with some large pieces remaining. Make a well in the center of the mixture. Pour in cream and stir until well-combined.

2. Using a slotted spoon, transfer quinces to a nine-inch deep-dish pie plate set on a foil-lined baking sheet. Add one cup of the poaching liquid (reserve the rest) and the cornstarch. Toss gently. Arrange large spoonfulls (quarter- to half-cup each) of biscuit dough on top, leaving a hole in the middle; this is your steam vent. Sprinkle almonds on top and bake until biscuits are golden brown and filling is bubbling, about 50 minutes. Allow pie to cool completely; the flavors are a bit strong when warm, and this is much better at room temperature.

For the maple whipped cream

1 cup heavy cream, chilled

1/4 cup maple syrup

1. Just before serving, whip the cream in a glass bowl until soft peaks form; fold in maple syrup. Garnish pie with scoops of cream, et voila!

And what about that poaching liquid?

Again, Lottie + Doof has the bright ideas! Tim suggested making a cocktail of rye and the leftover poaching liquid, suitably dubbed The Poacher. We mixed the poaching liquid with Knob Creek bourbon and found the flavors to be slightly too intense, so we added some sparkle water and ice and served the drink in a collins glass -- it was pretty outstanding. You could also reduce the liquid to make a syrup for use as a yogurt mix-in or ice cream topping!

Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

2010-11-24T09:05:00.000-08:00

Topped with halved dark chocolate malt balls.

Between the ages of 12 and 14, I was obsessed with the banana cream pie recipe from The Joy of Cooking. My dad loved it too, which made it easy to find an excuse to make the pie repeatedly whenever my mom the flight attendant was working. Little more than sliced bananas between layers of whipped cream and chocolate shavings, the pie would hold up in the fridge for about day before the filling turned slimy and gray and became something that only my dad had the stomach to stomach. While I know that I totally loved banana cream pie, it has grossed me out in recent years since the day-old refrigerated alien mush is much more palpable in my mind than the fluffy banana layers that beget the mush. Now fast-forward to this year's Kickasserole feast where I ignored my slimy misgivings and revisited the banana cream pie printed in Baked Explorations. This recipe uses pudding instead of whipped cream, and the pie is topped with a peanut butter layer that makes for a sturdier update on the bare bones banana pie of my youth. In short, this recipe is awesome. It would last longer than a day in the fridge, but won't last longer than an hour on your dinner table since it's super good, so I say hop to it and see if you can squeeze this one into your Thanksgiving repertoire.

And a merry Thanksgiving to y'all! Thanks so much for supporting this blog!

Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie

Barely adapted from Baked Explorations

This pie is seriously easy, but it takes a while to make because of the refrigeration steps. It's a good one to start in the morning and then forget about while you work on other dishes. Also awesome is that the only part that needs baking is the crust. I didn't add any bourbon to the pudding, but I was seriously tempted to; let us know if you customize!

For the crust

6 oz. vanilla cookies (a good time to remember that Nilla wafers taste exactly like marshmallows)

6 tablespoons chilled, unsalted butter, cut into half-inch cubes

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Put all of the ingredients in the bowl of a food processor, and blend until mixture looks like moist crumbs, about one minute. Transfer to a nine-inch glass (glass!) pie plate, and press the crust to the bottom and up the sides until it's even with the rim and even thickness throughout. I do this step by pressing a floured metal measuring cup on the bottom and up the sides, and using the thumb of my other hand to tamp down a rim. Bake crust until golden brown, 12 to 15 minutes; if the crust has puffed, push it down with a metal spoon. Allow to cool completely.

For the puddin' layer

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1 1/2 tablespoons cornstarch

1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup heavy whipping cream

1/2 cup whole milk

2 large egg yolks

1 vanilla bean split lengthwise

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

3 firm, but ripe bananas

2 tablespoons orange juice

1. In a medium, heavy-bottomed saucepan, whisk the sugar, cornstach, and salt. Slowly add the whipping cream, then the milk, whisking the whole time to prevent lumps. Add yolks, and using a small pointed knife or a quarter teaspoon, scrape the vanilla seeds into the mixture. Drop the pod in too. Cook over medium heat, whisking constantly, until pudding thickens and boils, about five minutes. Remove from heat and add butter, whisking vigorously for about two minutes to release excess heat. Spread pudding in cooled crust, and chill until filling is cool, about one hour.

2. Thinly slice bananas on the diagonal and, in a small bowl, gently mix them with the OJ (this prevents them from turning brown). Blot the excess OJ off the bananas with a paper towel, and arrange the slices in a single layer across the top; make sure to cover completely. Proceed with PB layer.

For the peanut butter topping

3 oz. cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/3 cup creamy peanut butter (not old-fashioned or freshly ground; I used Whole Foods 365 brand)

2/3 cup heavy whipping cream, chilled

Malt balls, chocolate-covered peanuts, chocolate shavings, or any decorative goodness of your choosing

1. In a large bowl, mix the cream cheese and powdered sugar with an electric mixer until smooth. Beat in the vanilla, then peanut butter, mixing until the color is uniform and the mixture is slightly fluffed, about one minute.

2. In a separate glass bowl, beat the whipping cream on medium-high until soft peaks form (not stiff peaks please). Here the directions said to add the whipped cream to the PB mixture in large spoonfulls and fold it in with a rubber spatula. This didn't work well for me though, so I ended up using my electric mixer for about 30 seconds, until the topping was smooth and uniform in color.

3. Spread the peanut butter topping evenly across the pie. Adorn with chocolate topping of your choice; I went with dark chocolate malt balls sliced in half. Chill pie for at least three hours, and up to eight.

Spicy Chocolate Sorbet

2010-11-22T10:16:00.000-08:00

Sorbet is so much more photogenic if you lick it first.

Joey just handed me a glass of IPA and is now beat-boxing Beethoven and dancing the robot in the center of his bedroom. This is among the many things that I am grateful for this Thanksgiving season, also including knowing some exceptionally talented and fun people in DC who love to eat. Yesterday, my house and I hosted the first of what will hopefully become an annual Thanksgiving for friends, lovingly dubbed Kickasserole, and it was a downright killer if not outrightly hedonistic meal. Our friends and their friends rallied to bring awesome soups, apple pie doughnuts, standout pies, cheesecake, roasted vegetables aplenty, handmade pasta, smoky salads, sopapaillas, and of course, boatloads of macaroni and cheese (vegan and regular; photos to come). I made a few pies and some rigatoni that was fully drowning in gruyere, and with the tightrope walk that is sharing one oven between six housemates and 44 friends, well, I was thankful to have made a few ice creams and sorbets earlier in the week. As you're making preparations for your own feast-y celebrations this week, fear not the convenience and awesomeness of the freezer. In addition to cuties with robot moves and friends with culinary prowess out the wazoo, pie à la mode is another reason to be thankful this (and every) season.

Spicy Chocolate Sorbet

The basic chocolate sorbet recipe is by David Lebovitz; the addition of spices and booze is my own and inspired by my lovely friend Samantha. Cinnamon is my jam, but next time I might try steeping cardamom pods and adding espresso powder instead of using cinnamon, chili, and brandy. So many good combinations await!

2 1/4 cups water

3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa (use Ghiradelli or better)

1 cup granulated sugar

Salt

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons chipotle, smoked paprika, or chili powder of your choice

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

6 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped finely (I used Guittard chips)

1 tablespoon brandy, or to taste

1. Make sure that your ice cream bowl is frozen and ready to churn. Okay, check. In a large pot, bring 1 1/2 cups of the water, the cocoa, sugar, salt, cinnamon, and chili to a boil over medium heat; whisk frequently. Let the mixture boil for 45 seconds, whisking vigorously the whole time.

2. Remove from heat and add chocolate; stir until it's melted. Add the remaining 3/4 cup water, vanilla extract, and brandy. Put the mixture in a blender and blend for 15 seconds to smooth it out. Transfer to a container and chill the mixture thoroughly, preferably overnight. Then, freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. I then froze my sorbet in the freezer for an additional two hours to thicken it up some more.

Maple Pecan Tartlets (And When Things Could Go Better)

2010-11-10T13:14:00.000-08:00

Hazelnut cardamom "tartlets"

I have a hard time with effing up. Usually I cry, often I break things, and if I'm not snappy then I'm hysterical. Shown are some hazelnut, cardamom, honey tartlets that I absolutely effed up three times in a row (in the same night!). Not shown is my poor little dented tartlet pan bottom that I banged repeatedly and frustratedly with a fork while trying to dislodge a stuck, curdled tart. The truth behind my kitchen is that I'm thrilled with about 80% of what I bake and totally mortified by the rest of it, and usually I only blog about what turned out awesome. I've done a lot of bake sales and events in DC since participating in that first bake sale way back when, and I've always been proud of my contributions. This makes me pretty lucky as far as sharing what I love goes, but I have yet to learn how to troubleshoot or recover when things go disastrously. If there was any day to know how to screw up gracefully, it would have been last Saturday.

Maple pecan tartlets. Say it proud!

Before the Punk Rock Flea Market, my pumpkin whoopie pies fell flat, I broke my favorite dish, broke my oven thermometer, broke the sink, and I'm pretty sure that our new oven is out of whack, so maybe I broke that too. I burned cookies, underbaked cookies, over-diluted icing, ran out of butter, lost a tartlet pan bottom, dropped stuff on the floor, and didn't bake my maple pecan tartlets with enough time to allow them to set. Panicked, I called my sister who counseled me to save what I could and walk away from the rest; "remove the stress," she said. And I did! And she was right! In the end, I donated four potato-gruyere tartlets and two dozen cookies (less than half of what I had planned to sell) with moderate success, and Joey and I spent a killer day thrifting and eating food made by others. I learned that if I must fuck up, then I shouldn't agonize over it or smash my tartlet pans with a fork. I'll save what I can and walk away from the rest and hey, who knows, maybe by the time I get back, my maple pecan tarts will be set and they will taste so effing good that any anguish will have almost been worth it.

Maple Pecan Tartlets

Adapted from Gourmet

Makes six tartlets, but could be adapted for one nine-inch tart.

These would be super for Thanksgiving. I love maple with most of my soul, and it's great and gooey with the pecans. The original recipe calls for maple sugar though, but since it's so pricey and there's already maple syrup in the tartlets, I opted for tubrinando sugar. I don't think these needed any help in the maple department, but if you've got maple sugar lying around (you luxurious animal!), you might try it.

For the tartlet shells

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 cup powdered sugar

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 stick plus 1 tablespoon very cold unsalted butter, cut into small cubes

1 large egg, lightly beaten

1. In the bowl of a food processor, add flour, sugar, and salt, pulse once to blend. Sprinkle the cold butter across the top and pulse several times until mixture has some pea-sized lumps of butter and some oatmeal flake-sized lumps of butter. Do not overmix. Add the egg a little bit at a time, pulsing after each addition. Once it's all in, process in long pulses--about ten seconds each--until mixture comes together in clumps. Shortly before this stage, the processor will make a different, deeper sound; that's how you know the dough is about to be ready.

2. Dump the contents of the processor onto a lightly floured surface, and using your hands, gently incorporate any ingredients that didn't get mixed in. Flatten dough into a disk, wrap in plastic, and refrigerate until firm, about two hours. After the dough has chilled, divide into six equal rounds. Roll out each round to a five-inch diameter and gently line your tartlet shells with the rounds. Either trim the overhang or tuck it down for a double wall of crust (what I do). Pop them into the freezer for 30 minutes to chill thoroughly (this helps prevent the crusts from shrinking).

For the filling

2 large eggs

1/2 cup Grade B maple syrup (the good shtuff)

6 tablespoons light brown sugar, packed

6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly

3 tablespoons maple sugar (I used turbinando)

1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar

Rounded 1/8 teaspoon salt

1 cup pecans, 2/3 cup finely chopped and 1/3 cup coarsely chopped

1. Preheat oven to 370 degrees F. Line a cookie sheet with foil, and line each of the frozen crusts of the tartlets with a square of lightly buttered foil, shiny side down. Bake the tartlet shells for ten minutes. Remove the foil and bake for an additional seven to ten minutes, or until the edges are slightly gold. Remove and let cool (in pans) for about 15 minutes.

2. Increase the temperature to 375 degrees. As crusts are cooling, whisk the eggs, syrup, sugars, vinegar, and salt in a medium sized bowl. Make sure that everything is evenly mixed. Put the tartlet crusts on the cookie sheet, and evenly distribute the finely chopped pecans to each of the shells. Then evenly distribute the filling among the shells, and top with the remaining large pieces of pecans. Bake for 15 to 18 minutes until filling is just set. Remove and cool on racks for at least 15 minutes and up to 30, until filling has firmed somewhat. Serve warm or at room temperature, possibly with bourbon whipped cream.

Punk Rock Flea Market and Bake Sale: This Saturday!

2010-11-04T09:00:00.000-07:00

If you're in the Washington, DC area this weekend, please come to Positive Force DC's Punk Rock Flea Market at St. Stephen's Church on Saturday! Positive Force DC is an awesome organization that works throughout the city to build community and help people in need, and it's a huge supporter of local arts and events. The flea market benefits Positive Force, and there is going to be a heap of local crafts, art, music (by True Womanhood, Imperial China, Tereu Tereu), and food, including baked goods made by myself and others! I'll be offering some brand-new baked goods, one with about a bucket of maple syrup, and the other with some salty-as-shit gruyere for the savory crowd. Please join us, and come meet other awesome folks about town who are dedicating their Saturday to a great cause!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

2010-11-02T13:36:00.000-07:00

It has been an eventful week (okay, okay, eight) since I last blogged and summer reluctantly, finally expired. It's cold now! And while it was becoming such, a lot happened. I moved from the house that feels like Christmas to the house that feels like Thanksgiving, started selling earrings in an awesome store that newly opened in DC, took a vacation to visit my parents in Maine (where we discovered the perfect flat-iron building for housing a dream bakery), became briefly obsessed with religious snake-handlers after reading a memoir about the exploits of one, acquired shared responsibility for a Rottweiler named Emma Jane who looks cute as pie dressed like a banana, and gave all of the Tootsie pops to a five-year-old who was dressed like Harry Potter and holding the hand of his curly-haired baby sister. I have yet to go apple-picking (for shame!), but a group of considerate folks from New York brought us a bushel of upstate apples that have been put to good use inside cheddar cheese pie crust and given as consolation prizes to the post-candy trick-or-treaters that were banging on our door at 10:30 on Sunday.

And while I hope you haven't tired of the lone September recipe that I bequeathed--and really how could anyone tire of a doughnut recipe?--I come bearing a new autumn-appropriate recipe for pumpkin cinnmon rolls that I hope you'll try. This was originally posted on TheKitchn a few weeks back, and while I was skeptical about the instructions that don't require you to activate the yeast or knead the dough, my dough was nice and puffed the next morning when I pulled it out of the fridge, and these rolls baked up delicious! I would have liked them better with the cream cheese icing from over here, but it's real hard to go wrong with cinnamon rolls of any kind, especially on a Sunday morning when enjoyed first hot and second cold after a bike ride and during a retreat to plaid blankets.

P.S. Please don't forget to vote today!

Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls with Brown Sugar Icing

Adapted from TheKitchn.com

Makes about 16 rolls

As I said, I was skeptical about the yeast, so I've provided instructions for activating yeast as I normally would have done. If you'd like to skip that step and want some validation about it, go ahead and consult the original recipe over here.!

For the dough

1/4 cup water, warmed, not hot

1 package active dry yeast (just shy of 1 tablespoon)

1 cup milk

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1/2 cup sugar

1 15-ounce can pumpkin puree

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

For the filling

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick)

1 cup packed dark brown sugar

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 1/2 cups toasted pecans, chopped and divided

For the icing

1/4 cup melted butter

1/2 cup milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 cup brown sugar

2 to 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (I don't like the taste of powdered sugar, so I try to get away with using as little as possible)

Pinch of salt

1. Mix the yeast, warm water, and a pinch of sugar in a small bowl, and set aside. Mixture will become foamy if years ts alive and ready to rise.

2. Warm the butter and milk in a small saucepan until butter is melted. Combine in a very large bowl with sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. Let the mixture cool somewhat until it is just warm (as opposed to piping hot), then stir in your foamy yeast mixture and the pumpkin. Add the salt and five cups of flour, stirring until the flour is well-incorporated. The dough should come together in a shaggy ball, but if it still feels moist, add the remaining half-cup of flour (I did).

3. Cover the dough with plastic wrap and let it rise in a warm, dry place for one to three hours; it should double in size. Then gently deflate it by pressing two fingers into the top, cover it again, and pop it in the fridge overnight for up to eight hours. If you'd rather bake the dough right away, deflate it and begin shaping instead of refrigerating overnight.

4. To shape the rolls, shake some flour onto a large work surface. Dump the dough out, pat it into a rectangle, and use a well-floured rolling pin to push it into a rectangle that's about 1.5 inches thick, and longer than it is wide (mine ended up being about 20 inches by five inches). To make the filling, mix the melted butter, milk, sugar, and spices in a medium bowl. Pour the filling onto your dough rectangle, and spread it around evenly, leaving a half-inch border. Sprinkle one cup of the toasted pecans on top. Working long-ways, roll the dough into a cylinder and pinch it closed at the top. Using a sharp knife or bench cutter, cut cylinder into rolls about 1.5 to two inches thick. Arrange them side by side in a few buttered caked pans, cover, and allow them to rise until they look puffy, about 30 minutes.

5. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. When the rolls have puffed and are all squished together, bake them for 20 to 25 minutes until golden. Rotate the pan halfway through baking. Meanwhile, make the glaze by heating the butter, milk, and brown sugar in a medium saucepan until sugar is dissolved. Remove from heat, and sift in the powdered sugar; blend thoroughly with a fork. You now have pourable, awesome glaze.

5. When the rolls are golden, remove from the oven. Pour on the glaze and the remaining chopped pecans. These are best if eaten immediately, but will keep for a day, covered.

Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts (with Cinnamon, Sugar, and Cardamom)

2010-09-08T08:25:00.000-07:00

I have been craving doughnuts for roughly two years. Sure, I eat doughnuts in Maine every summer, and yes, I ate that crumb doughnut from a corner shop in Portland, Oregon not too long ago, but I had been drinking then, and it was a yeast doughnut, so it doesn't really count. Southern California is all kinds of famous among Californians for being the mecca for sprinkle-drenched cake doughnuts, twisted maple doughnuts that are just this side of being too much (read: awesome), and apple-filled bear claws with crackled glaze that are actually too much, but my god, how could you resist?

My sister is an east coast doughnuts denier who believes, as I do, that cake doughnuts (and popsicles for that matter) are the best when left to Southern California and its sugar trails that weave through gas stations and wander into corner lots by defunct copy stores and auto shops; the gritty doughnut is the legit doughnut. My mom, a flight attendant for 38 years and simultaneously a toy-store owner for approximately three, thought about cashing it all in to open a tiny doughnut shop that would focus exclusively on doughnut holes -- just the right size for people who needed a break from their day, she said. She also once scolded me for getting her a chocolate doughnut in the morning, asking, "Why would you ever want to dip that in your coffee? Old-fashioned is the best."

While I've got an insatiable, hereditary craving for deep-fried cake batter, I had neither found a favorite doughnut shop in DC, nor mustered the energy to make homemade doughnuts until last Saturday, after a long, dumb week and with a killer weekend ahead. I'm kicking myself for not having made doughnuts sooner! Don't be daunted by the length of the recipe -- few things are better than fried cake, especially early on a Saturday morning. It's also entirely likely that your main squeeze will wake up and look at you as if you're made of magic when you slide a plate of fresh, hot doughnuts (beautiful words!) and a coffee press in front of him.

Buttermilk Cake Doughnuts

Adapted from The Art of Baking by Karen DeMasco

DeMasco uses a KitchenAid mixer for this recipe, but I did the whole thing by hand. I'll give you the by-hand version since it's less dish-intensive (read: more lazy and thus better for an early Saturday morning), but just note that she uses a KitchenAid with a paddle attachment beginning with step two. I shook my doughnuts with cinnamon, sugar, and cardamom, but there are lots of good glaze recipes hanging around the internet, and powdered sugar (oh man, or vanilla sugar! or maple syrup glaze!) would be great too. You can do no wrong.

3/4 cup buttermilk (or make your own with 3/4 c. milk + 1 1/2 teaspoons apple cider vinegar)

1 large egg yolk

3 large eggs

1/3 cup grapeseed oil

3 3/4 cups cake flour, sifted, divided, plus more for dusting (I used all-purpose)

1 cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoons nutmeg

1 teaspoon kosher salt

Zest of one lemon

Peanut oil for frying, enough to pour about two inches deep into your pan (about five cups for me)

1. Whisk together the buttermilk, eggs, and oil in a small bowl. Set aside. In a large bowl, sift 1 3/4 cup of flour, the sugar, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon zest.

2. Using a fork (or egg beater or KitchenAid), blend the dry mixture just to evenly distribute the ingredients. Slowly add the buttermilk mixture, and mix with your fork until just combined. Use a rubber spatula to fold in the remaining two cups of flour. The dough will be very sticky.

3. Plop the dough on to a floured sheet of parchment paper that's about 12" by 14". Lightly dust the top of the dough with flour, cover with a second sheet of parchment paper the same size, and roll out dough into an oval 3/4" thick. Slide your dough baby into the fridge for about a half-hour, until dough is firm enough to cut. Remove, peel off top parchment sheet, flour the sheet place dough on top, and then pull off and discard the second sheet of parchment. You should now have a slab of dough that moves freely along a well-floured piece of parchment.

4. Using a floured three-inch doughnut cutter (I used a three-inch drinking glass and a bottle with a one-inch mouth for cutting out the center hole), cut your doughnuts as closely together as possible. Place them and the holes on a cookie sheet sprayed lightly with oil. You should get close to 13 doughnuts. Rerolling scraps is not advised for the actual doughnuts, but I did it to make doughnut holes out of leftover dough and they worked just fine! Slide the cookie sheet in the fridge for a half-hour.

5. In a wide pot with high sides, pour your peanut oil so that it covers the bottom of the pan by about two inches. Heat the oil on medium to 350 degrees F. Working in batches of three, plop your doughnuts into the oil, and turn after about a 1 1/2 minutes, so that each doughnut cooks for three minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer doughnuts to paper towels to soak up excess oil, and then shake them in a bag with your spice mixture (recipe follows). Repeat for remaining dough, keeping an eye on the temperature of the oil. For doughnut holes, cook about a minute each, turning halfway through if you can. Once drained and sugared, doughnuts will keep for about a day, but I recommend eating them the morning of. Voila!

Cinnamon-Sugar-Cardamom Mixture

3/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon cardamom

A little less than 1/8 teaspoon salt

1. Pour ingredients into a plastic resealable bag, zip, and shake up to mix. Once doughnuts have drained but while still hot, put them in the plastic bag and shake 'em up to distribute sugar and spices on both sides. The same technique could be used for coating your doughnuts with powdered sugar or a different spice mix of your choosing.

Caramelized Plum Galette

2010-08-26T09:55:00.000-07:00

Two weekends ago I visited my sister in Pittsburgh, where among sisterly activities such as thrifting, eating corn fritters, and tallying the number of cicadas that Trout (cat) killed, we also had a dinner party of sorts. I'm going to hijack the nuanced reason and say that it was a test drive for Olly Oxen Free, which is the secret cafe that I've been doing in Washington, DC (well, did once anyway). The menu, was a simple savory tomato and thyme tart, an all greens and herbs salad with shallot vinaigrette, a super delish roasted chicken, our adopted and adapted recipe for truffled macaroni and cheese, sweet corn custard with blueberry compote, and a plum and apricot galette with an almond-y crust. Oh and an assortment of bar drinks, especially red wine spritzahs and a seriously good Katie-made St. Germain cocktail.

The dinner was awesome, the kitchen only a mild disaster, and the food coma so very severe that we skipped the Night of a Thousand Bowies in favor of unzipping on the couch and listening to the addling 4:00 a.m. ramble of a well-meaning neighbor. In addition to learning that truffle is best goddamn flavor I have ever put in my mouth, I also discovered that plum desserts are totally underrated and fully delightful. I got zero pictures of the evening (well almost zero, here's an iPhone snap), but the macaroni and the plum galette were my favorite edible parts, so I tinkered with and recreated the dessert recipe last weekend. What follows is a caramelized and more buttery (and more photogenic) version of the galette from Pittsburgh. Baby, it's pure late summer in a pie shell.

All-Butter Pastry Dough
(Makes enough for two crusts)

2 sticks unsalted butter, very cold
1 cup ice water, divided
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
1 teaspoon salt

1. Read this if you want to get some good advice about pie crust. I'll throw in some of my own hints, but Deb has compiled some excellent suggestions about how to keep your dough cold and your crust flaky. Start by cubing your butter into small, half-inch pieces. Put these in the freezer while you ready the rest of the ingredients. Measure one cup of water, add some ice cubes and set aside to chill.

2. I use a food processor for my dough, but was making wonderful crusts with a pastry blender until very recently. If your kitchen is very warm, you might want to chill the bowl or the blade of the processor to ensure that it cuts rather than melts the butter. Add all of your dry ingredients to the bowl of the processor, and pulse once or twice to blend the mixture. Sprinkle the cubes of butter over the top, and blend in pulses about 15 times, or until some pieces of butter are the size of peas, and the rest resembles oatmeal.

3. Dump the mixture into a chilled, shallow bowl, and drizzle a half-cup of the ice water (minus de cubes) over the top. Using a rubber spatula, cut the moisture quickly into the dough, gathering it together as you do. If the dough is too dry, add more water 1 tablespoon at a time until the dough comes together in a shaggy mess. (Sidenote: I never use more than two or three additional tablespoons of water, and generally keep it to a half-cup anyway, but this all depends on the moisture and heat in your kitchen!) Knead the dough gently a few times to make it come together more, divide into two equal pieces, and wrap in plastic wrap. Flatten into disks and store in the fridge for at least an hour, preferably longer.

4. If not using all of the dough that day, it will keep in the fridge for up to a week, wrapped in an additional layer of plastic.

Plum Filling
Freely adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques

Suzanne Goin's recipe is for a plum tarte tatin with puff pastry, but since I lack a cast iron pan and love galettes, I used her caramelizing technique and scaled back the filling to make this summery tart with a crust. Do not be dissuaded by all the text -- this recipe is simple and delightful.

1 1/2 pounds of plums, or about 12 small (I used a combination of Italian, red, and black), sliced vertically and pitted
1/4 cup + 6 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 teaspoon lemon zest, optional
Pinch salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 egg

1. In a medium bowl, gently mix plums, quarter-cup sugar (or less if your plums are real sweet), pinch of salt, and zest if you're using. Allow to macerate for half-hour.

2. Meanwhile, heat a large, flat skillet over medium heat for one minute. Add butter and melt until foamy, then add the six tablespoons of white sugar, stirring quickly just to evenly distribute. Over medium-low heat and swirling often, cook the mixture for about six minutes, or until it's the color of dark caramel. Remove from heat and allow to cool for 20 minutes. It will harden, but that's okay!

3. Once the plums are finished macerating, drain the liquid. Arrange the plums cut side down on your skillet and return stove to medium heat. Cook the plums in the caramel for 20 minutes without stirring. They'll release a lot of liquid and essentially stew in their own awesome juices.

4. Allow to cool for an hour or two. Then preheat the oven to 375 degrees F, and roll out one piece of dough to a 13-inch round and trim the edges so they're smooth (If it's hot in your kitchen, place the rolled-out dough onto the back of a cookie sheet and slide it into the freezer or fridge for ten to fifteen minutes to keep the butter from melting). Slide your dough onto a sheet of parchment on the back of a cookie sheet. Maintaining a three-inch border of crust, arrange the plums cut side up in a tight concentric circle. Gently fold the edge of the dough over the fruit, pleating as you go.

5. Brush pastry with the beaten egg and sprinkle with sugar if you wish. Bake in the middle of the oven for 45 to 55 minutes, until pastry is deep golden brown and fruit is bubbling. Allow to cool on cookie sheet for ten minutes, then eat it up or let it cool further on a cooling rack. Whipped cream or ice cream would be excellent companions here.

Pine Nut Rosemary Cookies

2010-08-11T10:35:00.000-07:00

Dudes, trust: These cookies are the jam. I have a friend who jokingly refers to them as "roasted chicken cookies" (I hope you're already sold) because rosemary is so elemental to oven meats, and another friend who started talking to me about pesto after he had them, but these aren't the unclassifiable troll child of a savory-sweet marriage that friendly jokes make them out to be -- these are an awesome cookie reinvention. They're also a completely crossable bridge between savory and sweet, falling deliciously short of being overwhelmed by either flavor. And as we know, savory-sweet land is, of course, the most addictive land of all.

Bonus summer-awarded points for level of ease too! While I am generally uninterested (disinterested?) by claims of ease in the kitchen, on this fifty-first day of heat above 98 degrees in the swampy wonderland that I call home, I'll grasp onto anything that minimizes my time in the kitchen.

Pine Nut Rosemary Cookies
Via Martha Stewart

I'd say these are pretty customizable too. If you're not a fan of pine nuts, try hazelnuts and a pinch or so of cardamom instead of the rosemary, or maybe walnuts with thyme. Lemon thyme is supposedly budding in everyone's backyards these days, and I think that could make a bright substitution for the rosemary.

1 tablespoon + 1/2 teaspoon finely chopped fresh rosemary
1/4 cup pine nuts,* toasted + extra for topping cookies
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger (remember, trust!)
1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
1 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
2 tablespoons good-quality olive oil
3 tablespoons heavy cream (I used half-and-half)
1 large egg, lightly whisked
About two tablespoons raw or turbinado sugar for sanding

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees F., and line two cookie sheets with parchment paper. Finely chop rosemary some more in a food processor. Add pine nuts, and pulse until coarsely ground, about like the consistency of coarse corn meal. Transfer to a large bowl; whisk in two cups of the flour, baking soda, ginger, and salt, and set aside.

2. In another large bowl, cream butter with white sugar on high until light and fluffy, two to three minutes (may take less time if your kitchen is of hellish temperature). Slowly mix in oil. Reduce speed to low. Mix in flour mixture in three increments, and then add cream. Using a fork, mix until well combined. Mix in egg, then final 1/4 cup of flour.

3. Using a 1 1/2-tablespoon ice cream scoop, scoop balls of dough onto cookie sheets, leaving at least an inch between each mount. Very slightly flatten tops, top each with a pine nut or two, and then shake some raw sugar on there.

4. Rotating halfway through, bake cookies until edges are golden, about 13 minutes. Let cool on sheets for ten minutes, and then transfer to wire racks to let cool completely. Cookies are best if eaten the same day, though they'll be fine for a day if store in an airtight container.

* Moment of Science: Instances of "pine mouth" have reportedly been on the rise in recent years, so to avoid turning your mouth into a piney wonderland, be sure to use pine nuts that are neither rancid nor imported from China. Thems the rules.

Summertime Strawberry Mascarpone Tart with Chocolate Cookie Crust

2010-08-04T19:22:00.000-07:00

This has been a dreamy-as-fuck summer. I was feeling a little snarky when I started writing this, as recent experiences with aggressive basil-plant death, terrible things happening to a hazelnut-cardamom-tartlet experiment, and a traveling Joey and faraway Molly had left me feeling a little crotchety, but then I remembered how I recently learned that the Potomac is home to four-foot long water snakes and probably water moccasins too (awesome), and that if someone hollers at you to shout the name of a state capital when you're swinging off a tree, you might possibly shout back "Maryland!" but no one will hold it against you.

Multiply that by a bunch of seriously good-times trips to Maine, Seattle, Portland, and Richmond and a perpetual marathon of beer, bikes, and dance parties, and well, it's no wonder I've totally been cheating on this blog with summertime and instant ramen. Let me make it up to us though: This recipe is shamefully easy and it's practically no-bake! It's a take on last year's nectarine tart (You should click that. I use the phrase "fickle produce mistress."), adapted since the strawberries in Maine are baby jewels of awesome. If you're like me and have been completely underusing your farmers' market's supply of berries and stone fruit this summer, then this is an excellent recipe for getting back into the rhythm of fruity dessert accountability (for you and me both); it would be equally and possibly more awesome with gingersnap crust and blackberries drizzled with honey on top. Get yr summer on.

Strawberry Mascarpone Tart

Adapted from SmittenKitchen

Crust
About 3 1/2 cups of crushed chocolate cookies
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

2 tablespoons brown sugar, or more, if you prefer a sweeter crust

Filling
1 8-ounce container mascarpone cheese
6 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup sour cream
1/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon grated lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Topping
1 quart of the tiniest strawberries around, with their tops cut off
1/4 cup strawberry jam, warmed (I skipped this, it felt cheap)

For crust: Preheat oven to 350°F. Finely grind cookies and sugar in food processor. Add melted butter and pulse on and off until crumbs are evenly moistened. Press mixture over bottom and up sides of 10-inch-diameter tart pan with removable bottom. Bake crust until color darkens, pressing sides with back of spoon if beginning to slide, about eight minutes. Cool completely.

For filling: Beat first six ingredients in medium bowl until smooth. You can make this ahead and keep refrigerated for up to one day, or proceed and spread filling in prepared crust. Cover loosely and refrigerate at least two hours and up to one day.

For topping: Place hulled strawberries bottom up across your filling. Alternatively, you can cut the berries into thin slices and fan them across the top. Brush with jam if you're using. Serve, or cover loosely with plastic wrap and refrigerate for up to six hours. (We actually had leftovers for about two days and they kept okay, but the crust gets soggy and the fruit degrades after about a day, so this is definitely best if eaten in the same day.)

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Butter: Rustic Blueberry Cornmeal Tart

2010-07-02T14:39:00.000-07:00

I don't know that I've ever given the Fourth of July its due. Maybe it's because I gave in to the misguided undergraduate angst at my university, or confused orginality with being anti-patriotism, or maybe I just totally feared incurable dorkdom, but for the majority of my post-adolescent years (few though there are), I have celebrated Fourth of July among friends with comical irony and among family with only hesitant sincerity. How so very trite of me! And with so much pie and sparklers to be had? I'm glad I finally got a clue.

Other awesome things about the Fourth of July include going to Belgrade Lakes, Maine with my family every year and generally hamming it up while also fishing, grilling, eating lobster, perusing antique stores, wearing matching plaid button-downs, getting daily homemade old-fashioned donuts from the general store, and of course, lounging on the dock with slices of pie on our bellies and beers in our hands. Last year, my dad decapitated a two-inch long spider with a seven-inch long hunting knife, and my mom and I went canoeing on Sundays to go to the farmers' market and bring home berries and breakfast. Granted, these things don't all occur on the Fourth, but I'm grateful for the occasion and the excuse to get together with my favorite people and eat butter as a family.

Rustic Blueberry Cornmeal Tarts

Adapted from The Craft of Baking by Karen Demasco
Since I was so into the strawberry rhubarb tarts from a few weeks back, I tried to swap some corn flour into this crust recipe. The results were good, if slightly too tender, but I so love the flavor of corn that I had to try it. The original and my adaptation are provided below.

For the crust
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 tablespoons buttermilk (or make your own: add 1/2 teaspoon white vinegar to 2 tablespoons of milk, stir, and allow to curdle for ten minutes)
1/4 + 1/8 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 cup finely ground corn meal
3/4 cups all-purpose flour*
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg for brushing the crust

*If you'd like, use 1/4 cup corn flour and 1/2 cup all-purpose flour instead.

For the filling
3 cups fresh blueberries (or a 15 oz. package of frozen**)
1/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon all-purpose flour, plus extra for rolling
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 to 2 tablespoons Turbinando sugar

**If using frozen berries, mix the berries, sugar, flour, and lemon juice in a bowl and allow to come to room temperature. This will help improve the flavors and allow the juices to thicken. Also add a second tablespoon of flour since frozen berries tend to have more juice than fresh.

1. In a large bowl, rub the butter and sugar between your fingers until it's evenly blended. Or, as Demasco suggests, use a KitchenAid with the paddle attachment for 30 seconds. Add the buttermilk and vanilla, scraping down sides and mixing with a rubber spatula.

2. In a small bowl, whisk corn meal, all-purpose flour, corn flour (if you're using it), and salt. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture, blending with your rubber spatula until well combined. Try not to over-stir. Flatten dough into a disk, cover with plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour, or overnight.

3. On a lightly flour sheet of parchment paper, roll chilled dough out into an 11-inch circle. Slice parchment with dough onto a cookie sheet and let rechill in the refrigerator for at least five minutes while you prepare the filling.

4. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. In a medium bowl, toss berries, sugar, flour and lemon juice. Remove rechilled dough from fridge and mound berries in the center, leaving a four-inch border all the way around. Gently fold the edges of the dough up and over toward the berries, pleating for an even look, or folding casually for a rustic look. Work quickly, especially if your kitchen is hot, lest the crust become hard to work with. Slide tray back into the fridge for 20 minutes.

5. Whip the egg in a bowl until whites are fully incorporated. Once tart has chilled, brush the crust with the egg wash and then sprinkle Turbinando sugar over the crusts (and filling too if you wish). Bake for 40 minutes in the center of the oven, rotating once halfway through. Tart crust will be golden brown when finished baking. Remove to a cooling rack and serve warm or at room temperature with whipped cream, ice cream, or creme fraiche. Since corn is fragile, this tart is best eaten the same day.

A Wedding and Forty-Eight Cupcakes (+ Yellow Cake)

2010-06-29T14:18:00.000-07:00

I used to be on the fence about summertime in DC. Being from the desert and all, I developed what my boss calls a "tender California constitution" that leaves me absolutely enfeebled by the humidity. I had a killer summer last year anyway, but I was starting to feel languid last week when temperatures hit 100 and going to work felt like bicycling through a butterstick. This year, I've decided to run with it. I embarked upon my summer with a trip to Richmond to visit the very best of pals, and when not eating Cuban food or drinking iced coffee, we explored the neighborhood, hiked through the forest, and thrashed down the river, earning belly scrapes and having a ball with the best dog of all time. I made a new friend too, and I'm riding my post-Richmond high all the way to Maine on Friday, followed by Texas and Seattle, and back to North Carolina and Pittsburgh in late July, just time to revel in the peak of east coast heat.

So I've recently vacated my perch to plant myself on the pro-summer side of the fence, which, in addition to unholy heat, boasts baseball, swimming holes, piles of fruit pies, IPAs, citronella, Arsenal Park Olympics, and no time to wait for autumn. And then there are the weddings! Summer has also brought a slew of weddings, and for one of these, I was hired (hired!) to bake four dozen cupcakes for a small Friday-night reception. I'll soon get to the fruit pies (and their buttery, flaky, and possibly cream cheesy crusts), but for the mo' I want to delight in the floor-to-ceiling pile of dishes and frosted floors that begot my first wedding project, one dozen each of: carrot cake with maple cream cheese frosting and cinnamon flecks, rich chocolate cake with vanilla-marshmallow frosting, my favorite yellow cake with bittersweet chocolate buttercream, and vegan dark chocolate cake with vegan chocolate buttercream. I realize that I posted this yellow cake recipe once before, but I did it such a sloppy disservice, that that's the recipe I'll post today. Happy summer y'all.

Yellow Cake Cupcakes

Adapted from Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman

This recipe makes exactly 18 cupcakes. The quantities might strike you as impractical, but they are they way they are because I've halved this recipe from a triple-layer cake recipe. The original quantities are available here.

1 1/2 cups + 6 tablespoons cake flour (all-purpose is fine)

1 1/4 cups granulated sugar

2 3/4 teaspoons + 1/8 teaspoon baking powder (or, one scant tablespoon)

1 1/4 sticks (ten tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature

3/4 cups + 2 1/2 teaspoons buttermilk

2 1/2 whole eggs

1 egg yolk

1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

1. Preheat over to 325 degrees F. Spray two cupcake tins lightly with cooking oil and line with cupcake liners.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt; stir with a fork to combine. Using an electric mixer on low speed, mix butter and 3/4 cup buttermilk to briefly blend; then increase the speed to medium and blend for two to three minutes, until fluffy.

3. In a smaller bowl, whisk together the eggs, remaining buttermilk, and vanilla extract. Pour one-third of the egg mixture into the flour mixture at a time, folding it in completely with a rubber spatula after each addition. Divide the batter between the cupcake tins, filling each bowl about three-fourths full. Bake for 15-20 minutes (mine were finished at 18), or until a wooden toothpick inserted into the centers comes out clean.

4. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans for ten minutes before gently twisting them out of the pans and allowing them to cool completely on wire racks. Proceed with the frosting recipe that follows, or consult a different one!

Bittersweet Chocolate Buttercream

This makes a little more than enough to pipe the frosting onto cupcakes, about 2 1/2 cups. You'll need less if you plan to spread it instead.

7 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I used Ghiradelli)

1 cup heavy cream

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature

1. Melt the chocolate with the cream in a double boiler set over barely simmering water. Whisk to blend well. Remove from heat and let stand, whisking occasionally, until the chocolate has thickened to the consistency of mayonnaise (this might be tough if your house is particularly hot -- a stint in the fridge could help).

2. Place the butter in a large mixing bowl and whip on medium-high speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, one to two minutes. Add the chocolate cream and beat until lighter in color and somewhat stiff, about three minutes. Do not overwhip, or your frosting might separate. Pipe away!

Rustic Rhubarb Tarts

2010-06-15T14:22:00.000-07:00

Two weeks ago, I took my first foray down to Wolf Trap National Park in Virginia to see Prairie Home Companion (and Gillian Welch!) with some near and dear friends. While I've only been to a handful of outdoor performance spaces (and never to The Gorge), I can say with some confidence that Wolf Trap is remarkable, especially when it's blazing sunshine and you've just come from an indoor picnic and possibly maybe a beer-chugging session. We watched the radio show (what a concept!) in the Filene Center, which is ten stories of dizzying carpentry set in the middle of an expanse of lawn for picnickers. Our troupe had planned to picnic along with everyone else, but when thunderstorms (that never materialized) threatened to close in, we relocated to Tory and Joey's house to potluck, drink (Dogfish Head Immort Ale), and of course, eat dessert.

My obsession with Kim Boyce's new cookbook still hasn't relented, so when I finally got to the farmers market early enough to pick and choose my produce, her corn flour rhubarb tarts became the obvious choice for a Saturday baking endeavor. While I've managed to acquire some obscure flours for her recipes, I still can't find the dried hibiscus flowers this one calls for, so I altered the rhubarb compote and made it with strawberries instead. Call me boring, but this dessert is anything but, and while the free-form pastry dough can be slightly troubling on a sweltering day, this is still a simple, beautiful, spring or summer tart.

Rustic (Strawberry) Rhubarb Tarts

Adapted from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours

Her full recipe makes ten tarts. I made the full pastry recipe, but only made six tarts, and cut the compote recipe in half because I didn't purchase enough rhubarb. From the leftover pastry, I made ten thumbprint cookies dolloped with the remaining compote. The tarts cook for 35 minutes, and my cookies were finished after 18. You can follow what I did, or scale back the pastry by half, or better yet, pick up a copy of Kim's book and get her original recipe.

For the pastry (full recipe)

1 cup corn flour (I used Bob's Red Mill)

1 cup all-purpose flour

1/2 cup fine cornmeal

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 teaspoon Kosher salt

1 stick (four ounces) cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream

2 egg yolks

1. Combine dry ingredients in a food processor. Add the butter and process in short pulses, until mixture resembles coarse corn meal. Add the heavy cream and egg yolks, and pulse until combined. Don't overmix here; the dough will look crumbly, but it will come together when kneaded. You can also do this all by hand, just by rubbing the butter into the flour with your fingertips until it reaches that same corn meal consistency.

2. Divide the dough into ten equal pieces. Lightly flour a work surface and, using the heel of your hand, flatten a piece of dough into a rough circle. Continue flattening until it's approximately five inches in diameter (or, I found, even a little larger). Try to work quickly so that the dough doesn't get too soft. For a more elegant edge, Boyce recommends flattening the outer edge with your fingertips, making it thinner than the rest.

3. Spoon three tablespoons of the strawberry rhubarb compote (recipe below) into the center of the dough (Boyce calls for four tablespoons, but based on advice from SmittenKitchen and my own observations, I went with three). Fold the dough into the center of the tart and up, to make a ruffled edge; continue all the way around until you've achieved your rustic aesthetic. Slide a bench scraper or metal spatula under the pastry and place on a parchment-covered cookie sheet. Continue with the rest of the dough. Freeze the tarts for at least an hour, or up to two weeks if wrapped tightly in plastic.

4. In an oven preheated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, bake the tarts, still frozen, for about 35 minutes or until the edges are golden and the compote is bubbling and thick. Serve warm or at room temperature. The tarts keep in an airtight container for up to two days (but they probably won't last that long).

For the Strawberry Rhubarb Compote (half recipe)

Again, Boyce makes Rhubarb Hibiscus compote. I'm still trying to get my hands on some hibiscus flowers, which I bet are fully excellent (Lottie and Doof says so too).

1 pound strawberries, rinsed and hulled

1 pound rhubarb stalks, de-leafed

3/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 teaspoon fresh lemon zest + 1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice

1. Rinse rhubarb stalks and trim very ends. Cut in half lengthwise and cut stalks on the diagonal into 3/4-inch pieces (You should have about 3 cups). Cut the strawberries lengthwise into quarters (You should have about 3 cups).

2. Leaving three-quarters cup of the rhubarb aside, combine rhubarb and brown sugar in a heavy-bottomed pot. Add the sugar, lemon juice, and lemon zest, and turn the heat to medium low. Cook, covered, for 15 minutes until the rhubarb has released its juices and your kitchen smells awesome. Add the strawberries, increase heat to medium, and cook, uncovered now, for another 15 to 20 minutes, or until the compote is fairly thick and a metal spoon leaves a trail at the bottom of the pan. Watch the mixture closely so it doesn't burn.

3. Remove from heat, toss in the remaining rhubarb. Spread compote on a cold plate or baking pan and allow to cool and thicken for about a half hour, then proceed with filling the tarts. Remaining compote keeps covered in the fridge for about a week, and is awesome mixed into yogurt, ricotta, or on toast.

Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

2010-05-25T07:30:00.000-07:00

I just arrived home in the District, fresh from a four-day seafood, BBQ, Fat Tire, and sunshine bender in Savannah, where Joey (time to give him some photo love) and I celebrated a birthday, food-laden and Southern style. This means truffled macaroni and cheese, shrimp and grits, red rice, oodles of okra, tuna steak sandwiches, sweet tea galore, mashed sweet potatoes, wonderful coffee, and pretty wonderful people too. A park every other block and ornateness that transfixes for hours, well when we weren't stuffing ourselves, swimming, bicycling, or (let's be honest) drinking, we were usually just walking around staring at the people and the houses. I think we both started to feel at home our last day there, which was an encouraging shame since we loved it (so quickly!) but had to leave (so soon!), and also a testament to how easily the city's charm and grit can really hook you.

Well and so then there are these cookies. They have nothing to do with Savannah except that I made them right before we left and haven't stopped thinking about them either, so I guess they share bewitchment over the mind of a capricious 24-year-old. I might even like these better than the all-famous Leite/New York Times recipe. The whole-wheat flour adds the best nutty flavor, and these are so shamefully buttery and perfectly salty--the texture is outstanding. I also cannot profess my love enough for the book from whence this recipe came, which has expanded my list of obsessions by eight new flours. Those plus a few cities in the South, and I'd say I have my daydreams all sorted out.

Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Kim Boyce's Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours

I halved the recipe and also halved the size of my cookies (from three tablespoons of dough to 1 1/2 tablespoons). As you can see, they're plenty big that way. I've included Kim's original amounts below, but a halved batch with smaller cookies yielded exactly 30.

3 cups whole-wheat flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt (I used sea salt)

2 sticks unsalted butter, cold, cut into half-inch pieces

1 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 cup granulated white sugar

2 large eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

8 ounces high-quality bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped into quarter- and half-inch pieces

1. Position racks in lower and upper thirds of oven. Preheat to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

2. Sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a medium bowl. Add any leftover grains that remain from the sifting.

3. Combine the butter and sugars in a large bowl, beating on low speed with an electric mixer for two minutes, or until just blended. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing to incorporate after each addition, then add the vanilla. Then, add the flour mixture until barely combined. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl using a rubber spatula. Add the chocolate using the rubber spatula, and make sure it's evenly distributed. Make sure all of the flour mixture is incorporated by using your hands to blend in any visible dry ingredients (Boyce asks you to do this on a lightly floured surface, but I found it worked great to just do this in the bowl).

4. Scoop three-tablespoon mounds of dough (I did 1 1/2-tablespoon mounds) onto your prepared baking sheets, spacing them three inches apart. Bake for eight to ten minutes, then rotate sheets from top to bottom and front to back, and bake for an additional eight to ten minutes, until evenly browned (I baked my cookies for 13 minutes total, since they were smaller). Remove to wire racks and let cool. Mine kept for three days, covered.

Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies and Radio CPR Record Sale

2010-05-05T20:48:00.000-07:00

A little more than a year ago, I was lamenting the District (I was so misguided!) while proffering the Radio CPR Record Sale as a rare form of social recourse (I was so correct!), and this year the radical ladies (one in particular) who power the station were kind enough to let me contribute to the sale again. Two veteran baked goods soldiers continued their history of wowing, but this year I also offered a new recipe of vegan granola bars with a plethora of nuts and sticky things keeping 'em together and some espresso chocolate shortbread cookies that are like a double shot of caffeine and awesome straight to your heart.

And really, the heart doctor business must be booming. The past three weeks might have limped along on the chronicling front here, but there's butter/batter a'beating in my kitchen nearly every day. In spite of jam-packed days and a few spectacular failures, I've emerged from my sweltering kitchen armed with a handful of buttery, awesome recipes to share. These espresso chocolate shortbread cookies are numero uno, and if you live and die for butter and coffee (me too!), you very much must make them.

Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Adapted from Dorie Greenspan who says they make 32, but my method (madness?) made only 18

1 tablespoon instant espresso power

1 tablespoon boiling water

2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature

2/3 cup powdered sugar

4 ounces bittersweet chocolate (I guesstimated from a Ghiradelli bag and probably used closer to 5 ounces), finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon salt (Kari addition)

Additional powdered sugar for dusting, if you like

1. Dissolve the espresso in the boiling water and set aside to cool to room temperature.

2. In a large bowl, beat the butter and powdered sugar together on medium high for about three minutes, until very smooth and somewhat pale. Beat in the vanilla and espresso, then reduce the speed to low and add the flour and salt, mixing only just until the flour disappears into the dough. Do not overwork the mixture. Fold in the chopped chocolate with a rubber spatula.

3. Scoop the dough into a gallon-sized zipper-lock plastic bag. Using a rolling pin, roll the dough into a 9" x 10 1/2" rectangle that's 1/4" thick -- your rectangle should take up about half the bag. Make sure the dough has even thickness throughout, seal, and the pop it flat into the fridge for at least two hours and up to two days.

4. Position the racks to divide the oven in thirds and preheat to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Remove the dough from the fridge, cut the plastic bag away, and, using a ruler to guide you, slice the dough in 1 1/2" squares. Space the cookie squares one inch apart on the sheets, and then make two sets of fork marks in each cookie, gently pressing the tines all the way through the dough until they hit they sheet. Careful not to crumble the cookies when you do this step.

5. Bake for 18 to 20 minutes, rotating pans and switching from top to bottom halfway through. The cookies will not take on much color. Remove from cookie sheets once you pull them from the oven, and allow to cool completely on racks. Dust with powdered sugar if you like. The cookies seem to get better with a day of rest, stored in an airtight container.

Best Peanut Butter Cookie Quest: Part One

2010-04-10T14:00:00.000-07:00

You may have noticed that I'm capricious and that I get really "into" things for brief periods of time. Awhile ago it was sewing. Then photography. Bikes for quite some time, but never long enough to hone any lasting expertise. At one point it was the South, and this week it's Twitter, secret cafes, and Rickshaws. I'm gearing up to be real into camping and web design, but in the meantime, I'm still all about baking—possibly my longest-running hobby—and therefore I have decided, as much as a noncommittal kid can, to undertake a quest for my personal favorite peanut butter cookie of all time. Did I mention that the quest is going to be totally delicious? Oh yes, absolutely yes.

This one here used to be my all-time favorite, but this time around I found the peanut butter flavor wasn't pronounced enough, partially because I think there might be too much butter, but also because the chocolate overpowered the peanut butter chips. This is a peanut butter cookie recipe for a chocolate-lover, which I am, but which preference I will forego in favor of something more sincerely peanut buttery. Stay posted: If I don't suddenly decide to take up furniture design, I think constant baking energy could do us some sweet, sweet wonders.

Peanut Butter Cookies (makes 50 to 60 small cookies)

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened

1 cup peanut butter (I used hand-milled chunky, but apparently the fake shit works best)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed

1 large egg at room temperature

1 tablespoon milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

1/2 cup peanut butter chips (I'd up to 3/4)

1/2 cup semi-sweet chips (I'd decrease to 1/4)

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit.

2. In a small bowl, mix flour baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside. In a large bowl, beat together butter and peanut butter on medium-high until light and fluffy, two to three minutes. Add in sugars and beat until smooth. Add egg and mix well. Add milk and vanilla, and a little bit at a time, beat in flour mixture. Using a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, mix in all of the chips.

3. Put a couple tablespoons of sprinkling sugar on a plate, and by rounded teaspoonfulls, drop balls of cookie dough onto the sugar and roll them around until covered. Place the balls onto your cookie sheets (mine were bare, but parchment paper never hurts), press down lightly with a fork, and toss 'em in the oven for ten to 12 minutes. Do not overbake. Leave cookies on sheets for one minute only, then remove to a cooling rack to let cool completely. These are awesome after they've been sitting for about an hour, eaten in groups of five or six.

Best Sugar Cookies + Tooth and Nail Craft Fair

2010-04-03T15:24:00.000-07:00

I am seriously relieved to learn that sugar cookies go really well with beer. All this time I spent bemoaning (and well, celebrating too) the cold and the winter, and suddenly spring is here and it's warm as hell, and I didn't think I'd ever want to put anything sweet in my mouth ever again. Okay yeah, the future tastes like summery pies and the Californian in me is practically throwing a tantrum for stone fruit tarts, but sweet sweets have been another story. Then I came across this recipe that yields the most perfectly shortbready sugar cookie of all time, and while I sprinkled pepper on some, herbs on others, and topped a few with ground coffee, all variations went equally well with my spring beer of choice, which is most excellent because I can't imagine a day without a baked good or a spring day without a beer.

Well, and part of the reason I was feeling anti-supersweet is because I've been occupied with testing recipes over and over again for the past three weeks as preparation for selling baked goods at a craft fair. Hooray! DC's Bored of Trade arts collective threw the Tooth and Nail Craft Fair at the Velvet Lounge on Saturday, and it brought together all kinds of vendors, from Treasury Vintage and Smash Records to a DC comics collective and the makers of instruments crafted from salvaged wood and toys. Cookies out of a suitcase and tartlets out of a library card catalogue, and the super supportive crowd still ate up all 107 of my baked goods. It was an honor and a pleasure, and next time there will be sugar cookies too.

Lindsay Shere's Sugar Cookies

Adapted from Sunday Suppers at Lucques

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened

3/4 cup granulated white sugar, plus a little extra for rolling

1 extra-large egg yolk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

2 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Fresh rosemary, cracked black pepper, finely ground coffee, or other toppings of your choice

1. In a large bowl, cream the butter at high speed, about one minute. Add the sugar and beat three to four minutes longer at medium-high speed until light and fluffy.

2. Add the egg yolk and vanilla and beat a few more minutes, until light and fluffy again. Slowly add the flour and salt, and mix at a low speed until the dough (thick by this point) comes together. Shape the dough into two logs about 11/2 inches in diameter, roll the logs in sugar, then wrap each in plastic and refrigerate until firm.

3. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Once the dough is firm, slice it into quarter-inch-thick rounds, place them on the baking tray with about an inch of space between them, and besprinkle each with the topping of your choice. Bake for ten to 12 minutes, until they're lightly browned on the bottom. Let sit on the tray for one to two minutes, then remove to a cooling rack. Enjoy!

Molasses-Gingerbread Cupcakes with Coffee Icing

2010-02-25T19:01:00.000-08:00

Forgive me for the unseasonably and unfairly long list of ingredients, but I promise these are totally worth it. You know the drill—punchy, no-bullshit flavors that I can't effectively persuade you into trying, partly because February is the longest month of all time and I'm completely exhausted, but mostly because: Molasses. Ginger. Coffee. Chocolate. There's not much else to say! So much love though, from my sometimes churlish kitchen to yours.

Gingerbread Cupcakes
Adapted from The Craft of Baking by Karen Demasco

3/4 cup stout beer, such as Guinness
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons freshly brewed coffee
3/4 cup dark molasses, such as Grandma's
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons grapeseed or other neutral oil
3 tablespoons Demerara sugar
2 1/2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger
1 large egg
1 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
2 1/4 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
2 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground cardamom
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground white pepper
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
Candied ginger, cut into thin strips, for topping

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Using two cupcake tins, line 18 cups with silicone or paper liners.

2. In a large saucepan, bring the beer, coffee, and molasses to a gentle boil. Whisk together to combine. Remove from the heat and whisk in the baking soda (it will bubble quite a bit); let the mixture sit for five minutes to cool.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, oil, Demerara, and grated fresh ginger. Whisk in the egg. In another large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder, ground ginger, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, white pepper, and salt. In three additions of each, alternately whisk the flour mixture and the beer mixture into the brown sugar mixture to combine.

4. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling them about three-quarters of the way each. Bake for 20 minutes without opening the oven. Then, rotate the tins and bake until the cakes spring back to the touch or until a cake tester inserted into the centers comes out clean, about five minutes more. Invert the cupcakes onto a rack, turn them top up, and let cool completely. Proceed to icing!

Coffee Icing
1 1/2 cups confectioners' sugar (I used 3/4 cups, see below)
4 tablespoons coffee (I used two of coffee and also two of heavy cream)
1 tablespoon dark molasses
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. I'm not too into the taste of confectioners' sugar, so I used half of what KD recommended and made mine more of a glaze than a thick icing. I accidentally brewed my coffee too strong too, so I used cream for half the liquid to temper the taste. Add your sugar to a mixing bowl and whisk in the coffee (cream), molasses, and vanilla. Add more sugar if you want to thicken it up, or more coffee or cream if you'd rather thin it out.

2. Dip tops of cupcakes in the icing, top with strips of candied ginger, and let icing set for 30 minutes. Cupcakes will keep, covered, for up to three days.

P.S. I don't always redo my banner to match my most recent posting, just this once!

Coconut Cupcakes with Marshmallow Frosting

2010-02-16T19:46:00.000-08:00

Last weekend was a weekend of cravings ignored and answered. First on Saturday morning, cake donuts infiltrated my dreamscape (sprinkles too) and prodded me awake with the hope for donuts and coffee. It is a combination that's so very unobtainable to a tired-eyed girl on a snowy Saturday morning, but a craving so acute that I'll be splashing around with hot oil and a splatter guard in the near future. Then there was a barbeque chips vs. brie vs. chocolate dilemma at the store; it ended poorly, and my self-preservation is prompting me not to recount. Then came a good and proper craving that I could master and that wouldn't involve Joey whispering devilishly in my ear to just get all three. And as much as taste, this recipe answered a craving for textures. Airy cake with fluffy frosting and hunky shards of flaked coconuts, and well...

Coconut Cupcakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart's Cupcakes
Makes between 16 and 18

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut, packed
1 1/2 sticks (6 ounces) unsalted butter, softened
1 1/3 cups sugar
2 large eggs plus 2 large egg whites (so four whites all together)
3/4 cup unsweetened coconut milk
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup or so large-flake unsweetened coconut, for tops of cakes

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line cupcake tins with 16 liners to start. Mix all dry ingredients in a medium bowl.

2. In a large bowl, cream butter and sugar until light and fluffy, about two to three minutes. Add eggs to butter one at a time, beating after each addition, then add whites and beat. Measure coconut milk, and add vanilla to the same measuring cup. Add dry ingredients to butter mixture in three additions, alternating with coconut milk mixture and ending with dry ingredients; whisk after each addition until just incorporated. Scrape sides of bow to make sure batter is evenly mixed.

3. Fill cupcake tins 2/3 full, and bake for 20 to 23 minutes until domed tops are springy to the touch and cake testers inserted in the centers come out clean. Turn out of tins and let cool on wire racks. Frost (recipe follows) one at a time, sprinkle large-flaked coconut on top, and serve immediately. These are best the same day, but will keep at least overnight, covered. I didn't manage to let any stick around longer than that to see what happened.

Marshmallow Frosting
Classic recipe, with more frills according to Martha Stewart, less according to Joy of Cooking

2 large egg whites
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 light corn syrup or golden syrup (the latter will lend a more caramel- or honey-like taste)
2 tablespoons water
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla

1. Combine all ingredients and a pinch of salt in a metal bowl set over a saucepan of simmering water. Beat at high speed with an egg beater for six to seven minutes, or until frosting is thick and fluffy. Remove from heat and continue to beat until slightly cooled. Use the same day.

Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes

2010-02-10T16:22:00.000-08:00

Maybe pancakes aren't a baked good, but in the midst of the snowiest winter the District has witnessed since 1898, I'm inclined to believe that almost anything with flour (rapidly depleting as we head into the seventh day of snowy annihilation) counts as a baked good. Hamburger buns? Yes. Pizza crust? Close enough. Pancakes? Sure thing! And if you're still not feelin' it, well, these pancakes get you to exercise the single most important baking preparation skill of all time, which is whipping eggs, a skill my father showed me when I was a wee thing who wanted to eat belgian waffles for every breakfast. My mom taught me to cook, but I have to give heaps of credit to my pops too since the alchemy of egg-whipping is what attracted me to manipulating food through baking.

Blueberry Buttermilk Pancakes
Adapted from Martha Stewart's The Original Classics

If you don't have buttermilk or don't have three cups worth, just make your own by mixing one tablespoon of distilled white vinegar with one cup of milk (for every one cup of buttermilk) and setting it aside for ten minutes to curdle. Also, if you don't feel like whipping your egg whites, just beat the eggs together and whisk them in all at once. The results will still be tasty!

2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
3 tablespoons sugar
2 large egg yolks, lightly beaten
Whites from two large eggs, beaten until soft peaks have formed
3 cups buttermilk
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, plus 1 extra tablespoon melted for brushing the pan between pancakes
About one cup fresh or frozen blueberries or raspberries, or one to two thinly sliced bananas, or a half-cup of semi-sweet chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 175 degrees Fahrenheit, this is for keeping the pancakes warm while you continue cooking them.

2. Place cast iron or regular frying pan on medium heat. Whisk all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the buttermilk, lightly beaten egg yolks, and melted butter, and whisk just until combined. You want batter that's pretty lumpy, so don't over mix.

3. In a clean, glass measuring cup or bowl, beat egg whites on medium until foamy, about one minute. Increase the speed to medium-high and beat for about two minutes more, or until soft peaks have formed. You'll know that you have soft peaks when you turn your mixer off, remove it from the egg whites, and the little peaks left from the beater marks maintain their shape, but curl over on top. Using a rubber spatula, plop egg whites on to batter, and gently fold in (do not stir!) until egg whites are distributed. Batter should still be lumpy.

4. Test the heat of your pan by sprinkling some water droplets on it. If the sizzle and shake, you're good to go. Brush the pan with a thin layer of butter, and pour out your pancake batter using a half-cup measurer. In an amount to your liking, add your blueberries to the pancakes' up-sides. Let cook until golden brown, from two to three minutes, then flip and let cook for a minute more. Using an oven-safe plate, slide your pancakes into the oven to keep warm.

5. Repeat with remaining batter, and serve warm with toppings of your choice. We went with powdered sugar and agave nectar, but last time did bananas, pecans, and maple syrup. Enjoy!

Obi Wan Kasnowbi: Crafting Sanity

2010-02-07T21:05:00.000-08:00

My house, with twenty inches of cotton balls outside and four people approaching insanity inside.

Coffee-molasses-ginger cupcakes with coffee icing. Recipe to follow in the coming days!

My first earrings project for a lady who works at my favorite brunch spot in Takoma Park, MD.

I worked on a few valentines for my nearest and dearest before giving in to the blizzard malaise and cracking open very many beers.

Super Bowl party at my house tonight supplied much jubilation, burritos, pizza, pepper dip, and beers—social reprieve from our thusly two-day snow sentence. Both thankfully and not though, I'm off work again tomorrow while the city patches up the roadways and makes getting around reasonable, so I'll be catching up on a few more crafts, seeing a movie or two, and working on some baking endeavors (anyone see Smitten Kitchen's walnut-jam cake post? Yes.). And I'm hardly bored, but tomorrow will definitely be a dig-deep sort of day, best begun by a serious brunch and a couple long walks in the forest. Capping it with some drinks and Yahtzee for money wouldn't hurt either. Happy snow day to you!

Braided Challah Loaf

2010-02-06T10:01:00.000-08:00

The District is, according to headlines, "completely paralyzed by epic snowfall." The snowfall is slightly less than apocalyptic so far (about 18 inches), but we're sealed in all the same, steeling ourselves against cabin fever with NPR, early afternoon beers, Roald Dahl, and crafts. Being from Southern California though, I might be a little too delighted by weather and banishment from the outdoors since this snowy stalemate has become the most convenient reason to work on sewing projects and use up all of my flour. It's practically springtime in our house too, as I'm swaying to a dreamy Beach House album and just about sweltering from the heat of the oven and furnaces. Well, if you've been forecast to be stuck inside for three days too, then challah is a great choice for bread-baking because it will fully perfume your house while it's in the oven and will make the perfect french toast on your final day of weather captivity. Here's to hoping that my first blizzard is as charming at the end as it is at the beginning.

Challah
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1 packet instant dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
1 1/2 teaspoons + 1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup vegetable or olive oil, plus more for greasing the bowl
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk + 1 more egg for brushing
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup raisins, if using, plumped in warm water and drained
Poppy seeds for sprinkling

1. Dissolve yeast, 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar, and seven ounces of lukewarm water in a large glass or metal bowl until yeast foam doubles in size (or close to it).

2. Whisk oil into yeast, then beat in two eggs and one yolk, one at a time each. Also add remaining sugar and salt. Gradually add flour. When dough holds together, it's ready for kneading.

3. Turn dough on to lightly floured counter and knead, for eight to ten minutes, until dough is smooth. Clean out bowl then grease it, then return dough to bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in warm place for one hour, until doubled in size. My favorite way to do this is to place the bowl in the oven and leave the oven light on--it provides just enough warmth to get the dough going. Gently deflate dough and let it rise for another half-hour.

4. Knead the raisins into the challah if using. To form a braid, divide the dough into six balls and roll each ball into a strand that's about 12 inches long and 1 1/2 inches thick. Then follow this video tutorial or check Smitten Kitten's directions if you're not a visual learner. I couldn't make sense of the written directions, so I won't post them to this blog, but really, the YouTube video helped me along nicely, and SK's directions were well-received in her comments section. Brush loaf with beaten egg and let rise for another hour.

5. If baking immediately, heat oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit, brush with remaining egg, and sprinkle with poppy seeds. Or put loaf in the freezer, and remove at least five hours prior to baking, brushing with egg and sprinkling with poppy seeds once loaf has warmed to room temperature.

6. Bake in middle of oven for 30 to 40 minutes or until golden (If you have an internal thermometer, bake until center is 190 degrees. I don't have one and just went by looks). Cool loaf on rack, and enjoy!

Note: Any of the three risings can be done in the fridge for a few hours. When you're ready to work with it again, just bring the loaf back to room temperature and move on from there. Also, in my opinion, this would be excellent with cinnamon marbled through it, rolled in to the dough when you roll your strips before braiding.

Old-Fashioned Gingerbread

2010-01-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

I'll just say it: Chocolate has been surpassed by ginger as my unequivocal favorite ingredient to bake with. Maybe it's the winter doldrums, but dudes, these days it's all about flavors that punch you in the mouth. This recipe is for those of you fellow ginger fiends who love rib-sticking molasses baked goods and unabated intense flavors. The combination of molasses and stout beer seriously smacks, and while the cake is pictured here with a dusting of powdered sugar, I found it was even better when I swathed a slice in butter and sprinkled it with sea salt, serious as a heart attack.

Old-Fashioned Gingerbread

Adapted from Claudia Fleming of Gramercy Tavern

1 cup oatmeal or standard stout beer (I used Guinness, but I'd like to try Bell's Kalamazoo or something with a stronger flavor)

1 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

2 tablespoons ground ginger (I added an extra 1/2 teaspoon)

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

Pinch of ground cardamom

3 large eggs

1 cup dark brown sugar

1 cup granulated white sugar

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Generously butter bundt pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess.

2. Bring stout and molasses to a boil in a medium to large saucepan. Remove from heat and whisk in baking soda (mixture will bubble up some). Let cool to room temperature.

3. Sift flour, baking powder, and spices in a large bowl. In a separate large bowl, whisk together eggs and sugars. Whisk in oil, then molasses mixture. Add liquids to flour mixture and whisk until just combined.

4. Pour batter into bundt pan, and rap pan sharply on the counter a few times to eliminate air bubbles. Bake in the center of the oven until a cake tester stuck into the cake comes out with just a few moist crumbs adhering, about 50 minutes. Let cake cool for five to eight minutes, and then turn out onto cooling rack and let cool completely. Serve dusted with powdered sugar and unsweetened whipped cream, or with unsalted butter and a smattering of salt on top.

*Some have said that this cake is best when made a day in advance. I made mine the night before, and found it was ever-so-slightly more bitter the next day, which I was way into.

Bittersweet Chocolate Pudding

2010-01-27T09:56:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday morning, I woke up with a head cold and a pudding hankering and decided that answering my craving would remedy my illness. Well it did, but not until I had navigated through a minefield of pudding recipes that called for everything from water baths and oven time to egg yolks and butter. My favorite butterscotch pudding recipe takes 15 minutes to make and 30 to cool, yet I found one chocolate pudding recipe (highly rated at least) that called for seven hours of total preparation time and another that required two pots, a blender, and some baking—egads that's unreasonable. Thankfully, Smitten Kitchen had the answer, and this intense, chocolatey pudding emerged after 24 minutes of practically unattended cooking and one nap's worth of chill time in the fridge—a delicious, three-step cure to any cold.

Bittersweet Chocolate Pudding
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1/4 cup cornstarch
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups whole milk
6 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I used 60%, you could also do high-quality semi-sweet for more classic flavor)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Combine cornstarch, sugar, and salt in the top of a double boiler. Slowly add the milk, whisking to make sure all of the dry ingredients are incorporated. Place over gently simmering water, and stir occasionally, making sure to scrape the bottom and sides with a heat-proof spatula. Use a whisk as necessary to prevent lumps. After 15 to 20 minutes, mixture should be thick enough to coat the back of a spoon. Add chocolate, and continue stirring for about four minutes until pudding is smooth and thickened. Remove from heat and add vanilla.

2. Strain pudding through a fine mesh sieve into a large bowl or measuring cup with a pour spout. Discard lumps from strainer, and divide pudding between six bowls.

3. Place plastic wrap directly atop pudding if you don't like pudding skins, or just over the bowl if you do. Chill in the refrigerator for 30 minutes to an hour (mine was at a good, cool pudding temperature after an hour). Pudding will keep, covered and refrigerated, for up to three days.

Classic Peanut Brittle

2010-01-24T09:22:00.000-08:00

Recall: Jurassic Park when the mosquitos are stuck in the amber.

Most people I know who actively seek out peanut brittle are older, probably verging on elderly (not you Mom!). The recipes I've seen are almost always family recipes passed down from a sweet-toothed grandparent, and I realized the other day that I hadn't even had brittle since I was a little kid and my own grandparents were zipping around. When Joey told me his granddad is enamored of the stuff too, well I turned to the blogs to figure out how to make it so we could hostess-gift it on our trip to North Carolina. What I ended up with though looked like crumbly drywall and tasted exactly like ocean sand—probably the result of the two unholy tablespoons of salt the recipe blithely called for.

Twirls of brittle instead of blocks!

I've never had much luck with desserts needing caramelization, making everything from inedible sugary concrete to butterscotch pudding that didn't taste a lick like butterscotch. So like everyone before me, I turned to a classic (Mom) for help, and that classic recommended another classic (The Joy of Cooking), the recipe from which my mother very patiently read to me over the phone, and then reread it frantically, but no less patiently, when I called her on speakerphone 30 minutes later with butter all over my hands, not sure what to do next. Also she just scanned and emailed it to me. Moms, brittle, and sweet-toothed grandparents—obviously in cahoots for a classically delicious reason.

Classic Peanut Brittle

Adapted from The Joy of Cooking

2 cups sugar

1 cup golden syrup (available at lots of cooking stores, or corn syrup)

1/2 cup water

1/4 cup cream of tartar

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into small pieces

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

2 cups peanuts, toasted

1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Oil a cookie sheet and set aside.

2. Bring the sugar, syrup, water, and cream of tartar to a boil in a medium, heavy saucepan. Stir until sugar is dissolved, washing down the sides of the pan with a pastry brush dipped in water. Place a warmed candy thermometer in the pan, raise the heat, and heat without stirring to 265 degrees F (the hard ball stage).

3. Remove from heat, and quickly stir in the butter and baking soda with a wooden spoon. Return to stove and heat without stirring to 300 degrees F (hard crack stage). Add the peanuts with a silicone spatula until well-coated with the syrup.

4. Remove from heat and quickly stir in vanilla. Pour out onto an oiled cookie sheet, spread flat with the rubber spatula, and let stand for about three minutes until cool enough to handle gently. Loosen the mixture with an offset spatula, and wearing buttered plastic bags as gloves (!!!), pull and stretch the brittle by lifting it with the spatula and pulling it with your gloved hands until it is very thin. Let cool completely. Break into small pieces, and store between layers of waxed paper.

Flashback: Triple Ginger Cookies

2010-01-13T18:17:00.000-08:00

A smattering of ginger sugar on top

Remember these crackle-topped, chewy cookies with three kinds of ginger? I made them again last night, this time with three twists of cracked black pepper, which you could round up to one-quarter teaspoon. Verdict: Still delicious, still awesome.