The following recipe is from the May 14th edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
In their Mediterranean cookbook Wine Bar Food, Cathy Mantuano and Tony Mantuano say that ring-shaped honey fritters are the typical fritters of southern Italy, where they're known as scalidi. They're meant to be eaten after being allowed to sit for a few days and soak in the honey.
Has your baby reached the "papaya" stage? Image from The Nest
Earlier in my pregnancy I kept coming across books and websites that would inform me of baby’s current size by comparing her to a fruit or vegetable. This struck me as very funny, and I kept hoping to find or create a website that laid all those yummy baby sizes out in a week-by-week parade of fruit.
Sure enough, someone had already done it: I discovered this baby/fruit chart at The Nest while conducting my ceaseless research about what infant paraphernalia we actually need and what we can skip. Apparently our baby is now the size of a papaya, soon to move into eggplant territory. Yes, I’m trying to ignore that alarming watermelon looming in the future. Meantime, here is a recipe for papaya sorbet in honor of baby Bellinger.
For the last year or two I’ve been obsessed with the idea of floating island even though I had never tasted it. It’s an old-fashioned dessert that sounded to me like pure delight: chunks of caramel-drizzled meringue in a puddle of crème anglaise. I’m neutral when it comes to meringue but figured that any dish involving a sea of crème anglaise had to be right for me.
Afraid that my dark-chocolate-loving husband would turn up his nose at the combination of vanilla custard, caramel, and fluff, last week I made it for my family in Houston. Reader, this involved a lot of time standing at the stove patiently stirring and vigilantly watching the candy thermometer. And then the meringues didn’t really succeed. My mother and I dished it up anyway. And?
I saved the best for last. Today's Cook the Book recipe, the final one to be excerpted from Cowgirl Cuisine, is for a deep, dark, incredibly dense Chocolate Whiskey Cake. This is one of my go-to, never-fail dessert recipes: I've made it for a bourbon-loving friend as a going-away present and for my boyfriend on his birthday. Why not make it for my mom on Mother's Day? Served with a mug of spiked coffee, it would be the perfect ending to a special, home-cooked meal.
Spiced with black pepper and cloves, this cake has subtle gingerbread flavors. The whiskey becomes more pronounced if it sits overnight, so it’s a great make-ahead dessert.
Win 'Cowgirl Cuisine'
As is always the case with our Cook the Book selections, we're giving away a number of copies to lucky readers. Enter to win here.
Turn this Greek yogurt and honey into a light, creamy dessert.
When it comes to cream-based desserts such as puddings, mousses, and flans, panna cottas have always been my favorite. Add to that Serious Eats' collective obsession with Greek yogurt, and it was easy to choose what to make for this week's magazine recipe review: Yogurt Panna Cottas with Honey from the May issue of Food & Wine.
The recipe was created by Marisa Chruchill, a San Francisco-based pastry chef and cooking instructor, and a former contestant on Top Chef. In her version of the Italian classic, tangy fat-free yogurt replaces the heavy cream. The results are not only decadent and velvety, they're also downright healthy—only 120 calories and a trace of fat per serving.
Photograph by Alan Richardson
Here's my go-to cheesecake recipe, a classic that can be varied in almost limitless ways. (I've got 11 variations in my book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, and the only reason I stopped there was that it would have taken way too many pages to keep going.) It's an almost traditional New York Cheesecake—it's missing the lemon, which, of course, you could add—and it's tall and lush and, no surprise, creamy. I usually make it with a graham cracker or chocolate cookie crust, but if you'd like to make this for a Passover meal, you can easily omit the crust or use macaroon crumbs.
You'll see that I use either sour cream or heavy cream in the cake. The sour cream will give you a tangier cheesecake, more New York, I think, while the heavy cream is milder. As long as you keep the measurement at 1 1/3 cups, you can use whatever combo of the two you'd like. You can also add fruits or nuts, swirls of chocolate (melt some chocolate and mix it in with some of the cake batter) or flavor the cake with an extract or oil. Whatever you do, serve something light beforehand—the cake is rich and, even though everyone knows it, people still reach for seconds.
Last month my mother and I were talking about what babies eat and when during their first year, and she asked me if I was planning to make my own baby food. "Of course I am planning to," I said, “but I understand that things get a little crazy when you're dealing with a baby." My dreams of beautiful little jars of farmer's market vegetables lovingly pureed by mama will, I'm sure, soon be abandoned when mama is not getting the generous amount of sleep to which she is accustomed.
The difficulties of the third trimester, pain of labor, and complications of breastfeeding are all described in excruciating detail in pregnancy books, but the infant’s overwhelming needs are just vaguely, ominously mentioned. I believe it’s true because everyone says so, but I still don’t quite understand how a tiny baby can take up so much time that you have trouble sneaking in a shower. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.
The week's final Cook the Book recipe, adapted from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, appears today at the insistence of Serious Eats overlord Ed Levine. And though Sweet Melissa Patsisserie is only a few blocks away from my home, I haven't yet tried this Butterscotch Pudding. I just asked Ed why he insisted we highlight this recipe: "Because it's great," he said. "It's not too sweet. It's incredibly creamy. It's smooth. It's the best butterscotch pudding I've ever had in New York City."
And how many have you tasted, Ed?
"A lot! I taste every one I come across!"
As is always the case with our Cook the Books, we're giving away a number of them. Enter to win here »
Today's Cook the Book recipe, adapted from The Sweet Melissa Baking Book, is one that Melissa Murphy says is her favorite—Sour Cherry Pie with Pistachio Crumble. Developed by her friend and one-time pasty chef at Sweet Melissa Patisserie, it's also one of the most popular pies at the shop.
As is always the case with our Cook the Books, we're giving away a number of them. Enter to win here »
While I have been known to exaggerate now and then, I've never gone overboard in my praise for this lemon cream (think curd); I just call it extraordinary and rest assured that I haven't gone overboard.
The recipe comes from Pierre Hermé, my pastry hero, and I think it's fascinating. It has all of the ingredients you find in a traditional lemon curd, but the way you make it changes the cream's texture—Pierre's lemon cream is tangier, lemonier and, I think, lighter on the tongue, than traditional lemon curd. The secret is in the way the butter is added. In a curd, all the ingredients, including the butter, go into a pot and you cook, cook, cook and stir, stir and stir and then, when the mixture cools, it's curd. With Pierre Herme's lemon cream, you cook and stir everything—except the butter—then, when the ingredients have thickened, you put them into a food processor or blender, let them cool a bit, then whir in the butter and keep whirring. Essentially, you make an emulsion. And, because the butter doesn't melt and re-firm, as it does with curd, the lemon cream is silky, luxurious and yes, extraordinary.
I've always wanted to try baking a clafouti, the homey French dessert that is part pancake, part pudding, and part custard. But classic clafoutis are made with fresh cherries, and I was deterred by the idea of pitting cup after cup. So when I saw a saw the clafouti recipe in the April issue of Everyday Food that replaced the cherries with dried figs, I knew I had to make it for this week's recipe review.
The clafouti recipe was part of a larger article about a basic, homemade baking mix (6 cups flour, 3 cups sugar, 2 tablespoons baking powder, and 1 tablespoon salt). The total yield is about 9 cups, which is more than enough to make one batch of every recipe in the article: the clafouti, plus oatmeal blondies, jam sandwich cookies, and silver-dollar pancake sundaes.
I must be in a mini-mood—I just looked over my posts from the past couple of weeks and saw that everything was baby-sized. And here's another "small enough to hold in the palm of your hand" recipe. This one is for little bread puddings made in 6-ounce custard cups or ramekins. (Although, now that I think about it, I bet you could make these in muffin cups or, better yet, silicone muffin cups.)
I like to make these with prunes and to flavor the brown-sugar custard with allspice, but they're just as good with dried apricots and ginger (see Playing Around). Whatever dried fruit you use, make sure that it's soft and plump before it goes into your mixture. If your fruit is hard, you can either soak it in some very hot water or steam it for a minute or so, a process called "plumping." In either case, make sure to pat the fruit dry before mixing it into the recipe.
Maybe when the weather is more spring-like, I'll start feeling more expansive and break out the BIG recipes. For now, I hope you enjoy these little babies.
This week's Cartoon Kitchen features Serious Eats' cartoonist in residence Larry Gonick's spin on pound cake. —Ed Levine
My Last Supper takes the old "last bite on earth" game to the next level by asking that question of 50 of the world's best-known and most-loved chefs. Though beautifully photographed and almost more of a coffee-table book in size and format, there are some serious recipes in here to accompany the memorable visuals and fun interviews. As this week's featured Cook the Book entry, we'll be highlighting a recipe a day from it. Today's is by Jonathan Waxman, of Barbuto in New York City. These shortbread ice cream cookies are the dessert in an all-too-delicious hypothetical final meal the includes fresh gnocchi with truffles, spit-roasted spring lamb, and guacamole with handmade chips, among (many) other things.
My grandfather took me to a buffet dinner when I was very small, younger than six, and after surveying my dizzying options I chose bread pudding for dessert because it had such a lovely cinnamon aroma. When the first bite landed on my tongue, I crumpled—mushy bread was not on my list of acceptable textures. The disconnect between inviting smell and (to me) repulsive mouthfeel was so jarring that I did not eat bread pudding again until I was 28, hungry for dessert on a whim, and in possession of a stale loaf of bread.
Photograph from gargoylesoftware on Flickr
Forget budding daffodils, lingering twilight, and afternoon rain showers. For me, the surest sign of spring is the return of street corner fruit stands. So I was thrilled last week to see them beginning to pop up around Brooklyn, some beneath umbrellas, others off the back of pick-up trucks, all overflowing with pineapples, papayas, and pints of strawberries.
It was cause for celebration. And celebrations are cause for ice cream.
By the time you read this, I'll be in Paris, where I hope I will have not have discovered that I left half of what I needed in New York. If so, it won't be the first time. For as much as I travel, I'm not a good packer—I'm always stuffing one last thing into a bag—and I'm not terribly organized. I pack at the last minute, which is how I end up taking more of what I don't need and sometimes forgetting that one vital something.
Knowing this about me, my husband wondered why, when nothing was packed and I was still writing to meet a deadline, I decided to make a banana cake. You'd have thought after all these years he'd be able to guess, since the reason is both simple and obvious: I had two over-ripe bananas languishing on the counter! And besides, nothing makes me calmer or happier than baking and a calm, happy me might actually pack better.
I know I'm going to get hammered by the nutrition police for advocating eating pound cake for brunch, but really, when you think about it, what's the difference between eating pound cake and eating pancakes or French toast or cereal?
And this pound cake, adapted from a recipe in the current issue of Saveur by James Villas, is so light and moist it's better than many pancakes I have eaten. I am telling you, a slice of this pound cake with a glass of milk makes for a mighty satisfying breakfast or brunch. And if you want to round your meal off with a little bit of protein, drape two slices of bacon on top of each slice of pound cake. Now that's good.
Note: Villas is by his own admission a pound cake fanatic. As a result, this recipe may seem a little obsessional and overly precise. But if you follow the directions to the letter, you'll be amply rewarded with the finished product—a perfectly golden brown and ridiculously delicious pound cake.
While those of us in the northern part of the world are sitting around waiting for spring to come, it's nice to know that lemons are within easy reach. Not only do they perk up any salad, bring out the best in seafood and look cheery on the counter, they're a blessing when you've had your fill with apples and pears. (I love both apples and pears, but it's nice to give them a little time off in the winter, don't you think?)
I've got a bunch of lemon desserts that I turn to this time of year, but one of my favorites is a lemon tart I learned to make when I was working with Daniel Boulud on Cafe Boulud Cookbook
The best part about taste testing a recipe for cupcakes is that you can get a dozen opinions. This week for my magazine recipe review I decided to bake the banana cupcakes with honey-cinnamon frosting from the March issue of Everyday Food. I was intrigued by idea of the spiced buttercream. In my experience, most banana cakes are slathered in sugary cream cheese concoctions, of which I'm not the biggest fan. (Is that a horrible thing to admit as a foodie? What's your take on cream cheese vs. buttercream frosting?)
This entire week, in honor of Valentine's Day, we put together a shelf of our favorite books on chocolate, with one Cook the Book recipe a day adapted from each volume. To end the week, and to complete our "Chocolate Lover's Library," we're adding Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé
The recipe we've adapted here is for simple chocolate mousse, made super-light by the addition of whipped egg whites and by using milk instead of the more common heavy cream. Hermé sees this mousse as a base recipe to which all kinds of flavors and textures can be added, from caramelized Rice Krispies to cardamom.
We're giving away five (5) sets of the Chocolate Lover's Library—one each day this week. So you can win a copy of Dorie's Chocolate Desserts by Pierre Hermé, along with the four other other fantastic chocolate books we rolled out this week. Just answer the following question in the comments:
What is your favorite chocolate dessert?
One (1) winner will be chosen at random from among the comments of this post. Comments will be open until 3 p.m. ET February 16. You may win only once during the lifetime of the contest as a whole. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
This week, in honor of Valentine's Day, we've put together a list of our favorite books on chocolate, with one Cook the Book recipe a day adapted from each volume. Today's addition to our "Chocolate Lover's Library" is one that many of you may be familiar with, especially if you read food blogs as much as we do. The Great Book of Chocolate
This recipe makes a dozen Black Bottom Cupcakes, so called because the bottom and sides are rich chocolate cake while the centers are filled with a cream cheese filling studded with chocolate chunks, creating a visually appealing two-tone cake that needs no icing.
We're giving away five (5) sets of the Chocolate Lover's Library—one each day this week. So you can win a copy of Lebovitz's Great Book of Chocolate, along with four other fantastic chocolate books (to be revealed as the week progresses) by answering the following question in the comments:
What is your favorite type of cupcake?
One (1) winner will be chosen at random from among the comments of this post. Comments will be open until 3 p.m. ET February 15. Feel free to enter every day, but you may win only once during the lifetime of the contest as a whole. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
For years, a good friend of mine with roots in the South has complained of her inability to find a respectable red velvet cake in the Northeast, even when she makes them at home. And, for nearly as long, I have vowed to one day lead her to the object of her desire.
This past weekend, since she would already be in my midst for a long-planned John Cusack movie marathon, I decided there was no time like the present to try to make good on my promise. I traipsed around the neighborhood pulling together a few of my favorite classic red velvet slices and then headed a few neighborhoods over to score a few off-beat, cinnamon-scented cupcakes—red velvet with a twist. Then I set about deciding which recipe to use to make my version. I had never made a red velvet cake before, and though I could probably have winged it, adding a little cocoa powder and a lot of food coloring to any standard white or yellow cake recipe, I wanted to be sure to find a legitimate recipe for this occasion.
Chocolate fondue is, as I've previously stated, the perfect Valentine's Day dish and activity for adults and kids. It's the ultimate sensual (if you want it to be) participatory food. And as Sara Moulton (this recipe is adapted from her Sara's Secrets for Weeknight Meals
Valentine's Day is less than 24 hours away, and wine shops everywhere are busting out the Champagne. But before you blow a wad of cash on an expensive bottle of bubbly, why not consider a carton?
That’s right: a carton of wine. Don't worry, though—this boozy treat bears no relation to the 5-liter boxes of Chablis that may haunt your collegiate past. Each pint packs up to 5% alcohol by volume, and there are currently six varietals to choose from: Rosé, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Riesling, Sangria Rojo, and Champagne.
- makes about 2 pounds of cookies -
Brutti ma buoni translates roughly to "ugly but good."
4 egg whites, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons flour
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon amaretto
1 tablespoon cocoa powder, bitter
1/2 cup chopped hazelnuts
1/4 cup chopped almonds
1/4 cup pine nuts
Zest of 4 oranges
1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter and dust cookie sheet.
2. Place whites in the bowl of an electric mixer; whip to soft peak. Add sugar steadily, and beat 2 minutes. Stop machine; add flour, vanilla, amaretto, and cocoa powder. Mix 1 minute, and stop machine. Stir in nuts quickly; place 2-inch blobs on cookie sheet. Bake 30 minutes until crisp. Remove and let cool.
This week's Cook the Book is a little different—and sweeter—than most. Usually, we feature one book the entire week, excerpting adapted recipes as the days go by. This week, in honor of Valentine's Day, we've put together a list of our favorite books on chocolate, and we'll be featuring a recipe from each.
First up is Alice Medrich's Bittersweet
Bittersweet is indispensable for anyone who loves baking with bittersweet chocolate. Each of Medrich's recipes is tailored to the stuff, and the book covers every question you might have about substituting one type of chocolate for another, how to decorate with chocolate, and almost anything else you'd want to know about the confection.
You can win Bittersweet, along with four other fantastic chocolate books (to be revealed as the week progresses) by answering the following question in the comments:
What is your favorite chocolate recipe?
One (1) winner will be chosen at random from among the comments of this post. Comments will be open until 6 p.m. ET February 12. The standard Serious Eats contest rules apply.
I love chocolate. But when it comes to Valentine's Day it can be a bit of a cliché: the Whitman's Samplers with their impossible-to-decipher filling maps; the miniature heart-shape drugstore candy bars; the Hershey's Kisses, once simply silver, suddenly dressed in every shade of pink and red.
This year, why not make your honey swoon by baking her (or him) a special treat made with that other creamy, sweet, incredibly rich and decadent substance—peanut butter?
And the last of our chocolately, Valentine's Day–appropriate from Cook the Book recipes for the week from Alice Medrich's Chocolate Holidays: Unforgettable Desserts for Every Season
This rich, moist flourless chocolate cake is sure to please any valentine. Unless he or she hates chocolate. And if that's the case, why don't you go get yourself a new valentine?
Be sure to make it at least one day before serving. And serve it with a dollop of whipped cream and a hot cup of your favorite coffee drink.
The following recipe is from the February 6th edition of our weekly recipe newsletter. To receive this newsletter in your inbox, sign up here!
Although I love ordering blintzes at restaurants, I've never thought of making them until I read Alice Medrich's recipe for chocolate banana blintzes from Chocolate Holidays. She says they look more complicated than they really are, which gives me a glimmer of hope that I could make them without screwing up too badly.
Who doesn't love chocolate truffles? And going through the effort to make your valentine a batch of these treats only sweetens the deal. You can make these with domestic bitter- or semisweet chocolate that doesn't list a percentage on the label. Or, if you're using imported or artisanal chocolate, look for 50 to 62 percent varieties. Additionally, you can decrease the chocolate to 6 ounces if it's 64 to 66 percent.
Perhaps you’re just a lukewarm fan of the Pats. You dig Plymouth Rock, the Boston Tea Party sounded like a hoot and Sam Adams is reliably drinkable. But you’re not a die-hard. Maybe you’re just rooting against the Giants. Rather than going for a big shebang recipe, embrace your inner fair-weathered fan. Play it cool with a microwavable Boston Cream Pie. Absolutely no ovens involved.
Cookbook Wiki, an open source cookbook that's not actually affiliated with the real Wikipedia one, has a recipe speaking to this. After experimenting with the oven-free concept the other night, some of us discovered that microwaved eggs can yield weirdness. Burping may ensue, but hopefully not salmonella poisoning.
This week's Cartoon Kitchen features Serious Eats' cartoonist in residence Larry Gonick's spin on filbert brownies. —Ed Levine
I've probably gone a little heavy on the mains from this week's Cook the Book selection, and now that the weekend is here and I have some time to devote to dessert, I'm thinking this Honey-Vanilla Cheesecake might do the trick. And who knew cheesecake could be both healthy and delicious?
It's adapted from The Culinary Institute of America's Techniques of Healthy Cooking
I always think of pots de crème, or little pots of crème, as the French answer to our puddings. Really a baked custard, the crème can be created in just about any flavor combo. That uber-chef Daniel Boulud created them to be coffee-cardamom was a nod to the way coffee is often drunk in the Middle East: through a cardamom pod held between one’s teeth.
Of course, Daniel being Daniel (and thank goodness he is), he ups the ante a bit: he caramelizes the coffee beans and cardamom pods before he pours in milk and cream and steeps everything for a few minutes. Even though this dessert is made with big flavors—you can hardly call coffee or cardamom wallflower flavors—the caramelizing step makes the flavors even bigger and more intense.
When these are baked in a professional kitchen, the custard cups, set in a roasting pan filled with water, are covered with a sheet of plastic wrap. The wrap doesn’t budge or burn because the temperature is low (of course, you’ve got to have an oven that keeps this low temperature). If the idea of baking with plastic wrap doesn’t make you comfortable, cover the set-up with foil.
Editor's note: Larry Gonick, a brilliant San Francisco–based cartoonist, is an avid and very fine home cook. He did a series of recipe cartoons for newspapers that I've always loved. We'll be bringing you one of these Sunday funnies from Larry's archives each week. They originally ran in black and white, but Larry was kind enough to color them in for us. —Ed Levine
And here's a bacon-filled dessert you can make over the weekend, now that you've got some extra time. In Germany, these cookies are known as Speckkuchen, and, as James Villas, author of The Bacon Cookbook
Madeleines are about as iconic as pastries get in France, which might explain why I haven't had the nerve to offer these Fluff-Filled Chocolate Madeleines to my Paris neighbors. Actually, they'd probably like them—who in the world can resist chocolate and marshmallow and, just for good measure, ganache, that ethereal mix of chocolate and cream?
The first time I made these was also the first time I'd had Marshmallow Fluff. Since I didn't grow up with Fluff and it wasn't anything either my husband or son liked, filling luscious chocolate madeleines with the stuff wasn't an idea that jumped to mind naturally—I was nudged by a request from Justin Schwartz, the author of The Marshmallow Fluff Cookbook
My friend Sally, she of the garden elves, showed up for a pancake breakfast this weekend bearing gifts: rosemary and bay plants transplanted from my garden into house-size pots and a recipe for her friend Ann Brettingen’s Swedish Apple Cake. According to Sally, the cake was so good she kept poking around in the pan to pick up all the crumbs. It was also so good that she made Ann stop everything and write the recipe down on the back of a napkin, the napkin she came bearing along with the plants.
As soon as I saw the recipe, I smiled—it looked very familiar. In fact, it is almost exactly the same recipe that my friend Ingela Helgesson gave me. Ingela’s recipe, which is in Baking, From My Home to Yours, is called a Swedish Visiting Cake and it’s turned out to be one of the most popular recipes in the book, and with good reason: It’s easy (it comes together in under 10 minutes), foolproof and, most important, great-tasting.
Whip out the butane torch, kids. This Pumpkin Pie Brûlée, also from friend Brendan Cox of D.C.'s Circle Bistro, is super simple and just needs that hand-held ignition and flame tip (also good for destroying small patches of weeds and for high-tech lightage of birthday candles). Grandma Mildred may call it untraditional, but again, we say: Bring on the pyromaniac urges.
We’ve done sweet potato spoon bread and Japanese sweet potatoes with scallion butter, but not a sweet potato trifle yet. The traditionally Brit dessert with a kick could be considered "fusion" since it combines Union Jack with the American harvest. As long as we don’t start giving you sweet potato spotted dick and sweet potato bangers and mash, we think the combo is safe.
This recipe was created by Washington, D.C., chef Brendan Cox of Circle Bistro, who even adds an expected s’mores twist for a little campfire fun at the end. Also, on the topic of trifle—we were pretty impressed when this commenter 'fessed up on our "10 Steps to Getting a Thanksgiving Invitation," admitting that she tragically dropped her hazelnut torte (with hand-peeled hazelnuts even), and when it broke into “about 60 chunks,” presto-chango transformed it into a trifle but “told no one.” Good strategy. We like.
On Thursdays, Dorie Greenspan drops by with a delicious baking recipe for you to try. Preheat those ovens, people! —Ed.
As every baker knows, Thanksgiving is really about the pie. The turkeys may get the covers of the all the glossy mags, but it's the pie—specifically pumpkin pie—that counts. Skip it and no one will ever come to your home for Thanksgiving dinner ever again.
Here's the recipe for my favorite pie for the holiday. It's got a creamy pumpkin filling that's smoothed with sour cream, spiced like eggnog and spiked with dark rum. The filling can be used to make either a pie or a tart. I usually make a pie for Thanksgiving and a tart when I want something a little lighter and a little more elegant. (If you make this as a tart, you'll have filling left over, which you can use to make mini-tartlets; bake the minis at 400 degrees F for 10 to 15 minutes.)
The filling is super-quick to make—it gets put together in a food processor—and, if you're looking to save time, you can make it the night before and keep it in a covered jar in the fridge. Just give it a little shake before you pour it into the crust. And you can get a jump on the crust—pre-bake it the night before and keep it at room temperature; it will hold without a problem overnight.
Wishing you and yours a delicious holiday!
Ruth Reichl's favorite part of Thanksgiving is baking the pies—why else would she wake up at 4 AM to do so? One of the pies she'll be baking this year is this cranberry almond crostata, an Italian tart made of an almond-scented crust filled with fresh, cranberries that have been cooked down. Read our interview with Gourmet magazine's editor-in-chief Ruth Reichl about the magazine's approach to Thanksgiving this year for more of her recipe recommendations.
And so we've come to the end of the line with this week's featured Cook the Book, Gina DePalma's
Dolce Italiano: Desserts From the Babbo Kitchen
For a cake, it's relatively quick to make and would be perfect to turn out for unexpected guests or for an after-school snack for kids.
When we talked to Cook's Illustrated publisher Chris Kimball about the November 2007 issue of the magazine, we asked what recipes really stood out in it this year. This pie crust is one of them, he said. "It's a brilliant recipe," Kimball said. "The secret ingredient in it? Vodka."
Gina DePalma, author of Dolce Italiano: Desserts From the Babbo Kitchen
Although I can’t quite believe it, it’s almost Thanksgiving, America’s favorite and most food-centric holiday.
I’m like everyone else, I love Thanksgiving—but it’s not a holiday without its hassles. For me, the biggest problem, and the one I can never beat, has to do with real estate, specifically: how to get everything into my one average-size oven when the turkey is hogging most of the space for most of the day.
Since every square inch of space I can liberate is precious (and also, as I see it, a triumph of ingenuity), I try to get as much of the baking as possible done as far ahead as possible—something that’s easy to do since so many sweets freeze so nicely.
I get biscuits, muffins, and scones in the freezer early, ditto coffee cakes for Friday’s brunch, and I always have this All-in-One Holiday Cake ready to go.
This bundt cake includes all the ingredients we think of at holiday time—pumpkin, cranberries, apples and nuts—and cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger, the fall spices, too. The only thing more you might want is maple syrup and you can get it – you can mix a little into some whipped cream and use it as a topping, or you can make a maple sugar icing to drizzle over the cake (see Playing Around).
If you bake the cake ahead—and I think you should—make sure to:
Next week, another Thanksgiving treat.
Today's Cook the Book recipe is for zaletti, a polenta cookie studded with grappa-soaked currants. When I talked with Gina DePalma, the author of Dolce Italiano: Desserts From the Babbo Kitchen
Gina DePalma's Sicilian Pistachio Bars are another easy-to-make Italian dessert that she recommended we feature this week. It's one simple dough pressed in a pan and then baked with pistachios on top. Of course, the half cup of ground pistachios incorporated into the dough doesn't hurt the flavor, either.
The recipe comes from this week's Cook the Book, Dolce Italiano: Desserts From the Babbo Kitchen
And, as promised, here's the first recipe from Gina DePalma's Dolce Italiano: Desserts From the Babbo Kitchen
When it comes to looking good, 1980s supermodel Carol Alt probably has a genetic advantage on most of us, but she attributes her age-defying beauty to the raw-food diet she's been keeping for years.
Raw foodism is a diet based on food that is unprocessed and not cooked above a temperature of 116°F. Supporters of this diet say that this keeps food enzymes, which aid in the digestion and absorption of food, intact. Other benefits may include general detoxification, clearer skin, and more energy.
It can be a tough lifestyle to adhere to if eating delicious foods aside from salads is a priority, but there are a few cookbooks out there to help expand your raw-food horizons. Alt wrote The Raw 50 to answer the need for recipes that turn raw ingredients into real food. Having tried a few recipes for the novelty of it, I can attest that she crafts dishes that are full of flavor and have a variety of pleasing textures, from creamy to crunchy.
Alt's recipe for pecan pie results in a sweet treat that can serve as an introduction to the raw experience and as a healthy, guilt-free end to an otherwise gluttonous Thanksgiving dinner. I was surprised by how tasty, rich, and dense it actually was. Shock your in-laws or impress your vegan friends this Thanksgiving by bringing a raw dessert.
I don't know where you are, but where I am, people are stocking up on wood for their fireplaces and shopping for long wooly scarves they can wrap around their necks a couple of times before tying them in stylish knots. I'm in Paris and it's beginning to feel like winter here. In fact, it's beginning to look like winter, since the clocks were turned back last Sunday and it's dark by 6 p.m.
Because I can't make a fire in my fireplace, I did the next best thing—I put apples in the oven. It didn't do much to warm the place, but it certainly made everything smell great.
Baked apples, or pommes au four, as they're known here, are less a recipe than a construction—I didn’t include a "Playing Around" section this week, since the whole recipe is an exercise in playing around. While I do nothing more than core the apples and stuff the centers with dried fruits and nuts, honey, and butter, I've had meringue-topped baked apples (once the apples are baked, you crown them with meringue, then run them under the broiler to brown) and apples topped with streusel—both nice ideas and ways to turn this nursery sweet into something fit for company.
Here in Paris, the apple man told me to use Canada or Boskoop apples, but you can use almost any kind of apple. Galas work well, but I'm kind of partial to big red apples, like old-fashioned Rome Beauties. If your apples are bigger or smaller than "regular" apples, you might need a little more or a little less filling, but, since the filling isn't cooked, it's easy to make adjustments.
One word of advice: Cut a little circle around the tummy of each apple to keep it from expanding and bursting. I tucked the apples into the oven forgetting that little cut, and one of them popped—not tragic, but not pretty.
Bonjour from Paris, where the Salon du Chocolat just finished its run. This year’s salon, the French edition of what Americans know as the Chocolate Show (which will open in New York City on November 9), was held at the Porte de Versailles, a mega-big convention center on the edge of the city limits. It was huge and it made me think of that old advertising line, “You’ve come a long way, baby,” since I can remember going to an early Salon du Chocolat (it may even have been the first, 13 years ago) and "doing" the show, which was held in a tent near the Eiffel Tower, in about an hour.
In honor of the Salon/Show and to celebrate one of the greatest chocolatiers in Paris, Robert Linxe, who founded La Maison du Chocolat 30 years ago, here’s a recipe for a very simple cake that Mr. Linxe told me his grandmother used to make. Mixed in a saucepan and baked in a water bath, it’s a far cry from the polished sweets that fill his shops here and abroad. Actually, it’s more like fudge than cake and most like something you’d want to have with a big glass of milk.
I'd imagine this hot chocolate pudding would be an especially welcome dessert on a chilly day. (But who knows when that may be, what with the weird unseasonably warm weather that's befallen much of the U.S. lately). As the authors Fergus Henderson and Justin Piers Gellatly write in Beyond Nose to Tail, this pudding needs no introduction. So on with the show.
