Gingerbread Baby Cakes: Because Winter Isn't Over
I don't know where you are, but I'm in Connecticut looking out at a bunch of snow. Sure, I've seen a robin or two, but it's not feeling rhubarbish around these parts yet, which is why these baby cakes, which Johanne Killeen, she of Al Forno in Providence, Rhode Island, made when she came to bake with Julia Child, look so good to me.
I know they look like moist little chocolate cakes, but they're really moist little hot and spicy cakes, sweet little things pumped up with ginger and black pepper and fortified with cocoa and espresso powder.
Johanne, a fabulous baker and a mistress of all that is small, likes to make this recipe in pans that are 4 inches across and 1 inch deep. If you don't have mini pans, you can try making the cake in muffin pans or use one 10 inch pan, in which case it will have to bake for 50 to 60 minutes.
The cakes are great with whipped cream and candied lemon zest and just as good with ice cream—particularly coffee ice cream. A couple of bites could give us northerners the patience we'll need to wait for spring.
It's an elegant tart with a filling made with whole lemons—zest, juice and pulp—so that it's tart, tart, tart, as in really puckery.
It's not easy to translate gourmandise from the French. Strictly speaking, I guess it would be a delicacy or a treat, but the word, when applied to food, can also mean greedy. It's a great word—I mean, how many of us haven't been greedy for the treats we love—and it's a great name for this dessert from 
), I said that it "... falls into that rarely explored realm between refreshing and comforting. The coconut—its consistency like that of a bisque, its floating pearls just right for popping against the roof of your mouth—is mild, milky, soupy and soothing, while the pineapple, glistening with bittersweet marmalade and spiked with lime zest, is all sparkle and zip." More than a decade later, it still seems right to me. More important, the dessert is still exciting.
If you haven't already whipped up something wonderful for the sweetheart(s) in your life, here's a recipe for a cookie that makes any day sweeter. It's a linzer cookie—made with flour and ground nuts and spiced with cinnamon and cloves—cut out with a cute little heart-shaped cutter and dipped in melted chocolate. (I love the technique of pre-rolling the dough when it's soft and malleable and I hope you will, too.)
