Posted by Zach Brooks, February 27, 2008 at 11:30 AM
I still remember my first sandwich press. I convinced my mom to let me order it after spending a day at home sick from school watching some lady make apple pies, brownies, waffles and, of course, sandwiches. I also remember my first car accident—it was caused by my fumbling for a boombox that had just tumbled off the dashboard of my Honda (the car stereo was broken). I can't help but think that S. King had me in mind when it developed the car-powered Pro 12-Volt Sandwich Maker—it's perfect for that person who is in love with cheap sandwich presses but also stupid enough to put an appliance on the dashboard.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, May 23, 2007 at 6:00 PM
I bookmarked this image long ago as one of my favorite photos in the Serious Eats photo group on Flickr. Going through that collection today, my eye stopped on this arresting image. You can almost taste the missing bite that the photographer, Aapplemint, took from the cakelet at the bottom of the pyramid here. (In fact, this picture sent me scurrying off to the Serious Eats doughnut repository for a little something sweet.)
Those cakelets, by the way are lamingtons, which I'd never heard of before Googling them. These traditional Australian treats are small squares of butter cake covered with chocolate icing and dried coconut. If you'd like to make them, Aapplemint's got a recipe on her blog.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, May 11, 2007 at 5:20 PM
Matt of MattBites shares his memory of sopaipillas, a dessert that always takes him back straight to his childhood: "Made by my grandmother, the tender warm pillows of fried dough were sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and drizzled with honey and always disappeared within minutes. She would encourage us to eat them immediately while they were still warm, but it was always said with a wink in her eye – she knew we couldn't keep our hands off them until there was an empty plate of grease-laden cinnamon-scented crumbs."
Posted by Adam Kuban, May 4, 2007 at 6:30 PM
David Lebovitz says, "Here's my address book for the most popular, and my favorite places for ice cream in Paris," and proceeds to list six top glaciers and what he likes to order at each, plus the names and addresses of four more he's heard about but has yet to try. There's possibly no one else whose opinion on this I'd trust more, as he lives in Paris, is the author of the cookbook Perfect Scoop, and his recipe for Salted Butter Caramel Ice Cream is supposed to be better than that of Berthillon, which is regarded as the best ice cream maker in the world. Consider it a list you must print out when visiting Paris!
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Posted by Lia Bulaong, May 3, 2007 at 4:45 PM
If you're going to be watching this weekend's Kentucky Derby but Mint Juleps aren't your drink of choice, why not pay homage to another traditional Kentucky delight? The Philadelphia Inquirer's Craig LaBan visited Lynn's Paradise Cafe in Louisville and came away with Lynn's recipe for her Bourbon Ball Milkshake, a treat made with walnuts, bourbon and chocolate chips that's like "sipping a cold ice cream truffle through a straw, sweet but deceptively potent."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 26, 2007 at 9:57 AM
It's finally warm enough for me to reacquaint myself with the ice cream truck guy, but hey, he's kind of creepy, so maybe I'll just save my pennies and invest them in this Snoopy Sno-Cone Machine. Awfully cute, guaranteed to help me not pass out from the coming summer heat, and only $20 from Fred Flare.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 5, 2007 at 5:15 PM
Kitty Crider of the Austin American-Statesman recently interviewed pastry chef Dunia Borga, known in Dallas for her Cuatro Leches cake—a twist on the traditional tres leches (three milks) cake—that "begins with a vanilla sponge cake, coarser than American butter cakes but strong enough to hold up to the sauce of three milks poured over it. Then it is covered with a caramelized Swiss meringue and dotted with the arequipe [dulce de leche, or caramel sauce]."
Still not sold? Sarah Phillips of Baking911 sampled Borga's cake at her restaurant La Duni a few years ago and says, "It beats any tres leches cake on the planet, and I have eaten a lot of them! I was interested in the recipe because a few years ago I was on the best tres leche cake quest, and I think this one is the best I have EVER EVER tried in my whole life, and it still holds the title, in my mind. My friends and I must have had a dozen pieces (and then some) of this cake in two days...."
If you're nowhere near Dallas but would like to try cuatro leches, Borga's put the recipe up on her website so you can bake it yourself. Send me a slice if you do!
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 2, 2007 at 3:30 PM
Easy Home Cooking Magazine's recipe for Peanut Butter Ice Cream Triangles (at left) has you making the triangles out of scratch and then just adding vanilla, cinnamon or chocolate ice cream to make the ice cream sandwiches, but you can add some extra oomph by using Haagen-Dazs chocolate peanut butter ice cream to get PB flavor both inside and out.
If you'd like to make the entire sandwich from scratch, ice cream included, Emeril Lagasse has a recipe for Peanut Butter and Chocolate Praline Ice Cream Sandwiches from a 1999 episode of Emeril Live, which'll have you making both vanilla-praline ice cream and the peanut butter chocolate pralines to sandwich them in. A lot of work to be sure, but the results sound like they'd be worth it!
Posted by Lia Bulaong, April 2, 2007 at 11:00 AM
Baskin-Robbins is featuring a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup flavor all through March, April, and May, offering it in stores as scoops and prepackaged quarts, shakes, and sundaes, the latter of which sounds particularly scrumptious: "This madness is not just a layer of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, but three scoops of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream. How to top that? Hot fudge wouldn’t be enough. Let’s also add Reese's Peanut Butter Sauce and some whipped cream. Just for good measure."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 29, 2007 at 12:29 PM
I love all things ice cream and have a soft spot for Pop Tarts, but I don't know about this Pop Tart Ice Cream Sandwich that Rakka made by squishing a scoop of peppermint ice cream between two cookies and cream Pop Tarts. She says it was "so very wrong but so disgustingly, deliciously right."
(Oh, who am I trying to kid? I would totally eat it!)
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 28, 2007 at 6:00 PM
Joan Nathan of the New York Times talks to Ana Benarroch de Bensadón, author of a cookbook of Sephardic dessert recipes. After Spain expelled its Jews in 1492, her family lived for centuries in Tangiers; she moved to Madrid with her husband in the 1960s after political instability in Morocco, and brought with her dishes that had all but been forgotten in Spain over the last 500 years, notable for how they combine their Jewish, Spanish and North African roots while still keeping kosher:
No dish is as Spanish as a creamy flan. But hers is made with oranges, almonds and sugar, with no cream or condensed milk that would keep it from sharing a kosher table with meat dishes. Dishes like these were also cooked by Jews who stayed in Spain after the expulsion and pretended to convert to Christianity.
“To prove that they were like Christians, the Jews made flans, but used orange juice, sugar water and almonds so they could eat the flan with a meat meal,” she said.
The piece includes recipes for her orange-almond flan, chocolate olive oil mousse, and almond-lemon macaroons; all the recipes involve eggs, so they're not vegan, but the lack of milk and cream makes them good options for the lactose intolerant. I eat everything and don't need to keep kosher, but I might just try these making some of these anyway, they just sound so delicious.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 13, 2007 at 2:03 PM
Live somewhere with a large population of Irish descent? Chances are pretty good someone you know (or at least the bars around you) will be observing St Patrick's Day this coming weekend. If baking for holidays is your thing, you might want to try Nigella Lawson's recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake (from her cookbook Feast), as every single blog post I've ever seen about it has raved on about how delicious it is and how it's quite possibly the best chocolate cake ever.
If Nigella's frosting of cream cheese, sugar and cream sounds too sweet for you, Maki Itoh makes an Irish Stout Cake with Whiskey-Sour Icing, having reworked a Gary Rhodes recipe and added the icing. I can't decide which one sounds more delicious so as a non-baker I guess I'll just have to talk someone into baking me both!
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 13, 2007 at 11:06 AM
Jenn Garbee, in the LA Times:
Technically, it's just pudding. But mention the word budino to an Italian chef and eyes light up, chattering hands dance through the air and unabashed creativity is unfurled.
"Budino is BUDINO! Its big flavor hits your palate at once, so pure it dissolves right on your tongue," says Nicola Mastronardi, chef at Vincenti. "Nothing else is in the way — just custard and concentrated flavor."
Garbee includes three budino recipes, including one for the much-heralded butterscotch budino (in photo at right) by pastry chef Dahlia Narvaez at Nancy Silverton and Mario Batali's Pizzeria Mozza, that our head honcho Ed Levine says "will bring tears to your eyes because it is so rich and creamy and delicious."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 6, 2007 at 9:59 AM
yumsugar points out that today, March 6, is somehow both Chocolate Cheesecake Day and the day Nabisco debuted the Oreo cookie in 1912, so hey, why not make a Chocolate Oreo Cheesecake to celebrate?
Posted by Lia Bulaong, March 2, 2007 at 3:57 PM
"I love makin' doughnuts. People love 'em, no matter what they say. Every culture fries dough for some purpose, sweet or savoury. This last weekend's donut gathering was a local affair. I invited everyone I knew who lived within 20 miles of my house. I opened cupboards and invited others to concoct sugars of their wildest imaginings." Shuna threw a doughnut party and so can you, with her pate a choux recipe.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 28, 2007 at 8:54 AM
Luxury in a glass by Betty Hallock of the LA Times:
A verrine is an appetizer or dessert that consists of a number of components layered artfully in a small glass. (The word verrine refers to the glass itself; literally it means "protective glass.") Intriguingly composed, they're a study in textures, flavors, colors and temperatures. A beautiful glass might be filled with a layer of mushroom flan, sautéed wild mushrooms, a julienne of prosciutto, parsley gelée, wild mushroom emulsion and topped with a potato and prosciutto galette. Another will have clementine and mint syrup, fresh clementines and a gingerbread "crumble." American chefs are just starting to catch on to the verrine. But in France it's a culinary trend that's captured just about everyone's imagination — including home cooks.
If verrines sound like something you might like to try out for a fancy dinner at home, Hallock includes three recipes, two of them savory and one sweet; the latter is adapted from the emotion exotic created by the celebrated pâtisserie chef Pierre Hermé.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 23, 2007 at 10:38 AM
The NYT's Mark Bittman makes a pudding promise: " You can make not only a credible but elegant and delicious chocolate or vanilla pudding in 20 minutes flat, not counting the time it takes to chill. That’s not much longer than it takes to start with a box of powdered mix, add milk and heat it." I have to admit that for some reason I've just always assumed pudding was fairly complicated to make and so had never so much as looked at a recipe for it before; Bittman is also sure to make the point that starting with quality ingredients (like with natural milk, not ultrapasteurized, and maybe purchased from a farm or farmer's market) is the best path to good pudding. He also demonstrates the art of pudding making in a short video, which is a nice touch and something I'd love to see more of in the online food sections of newspapers.
Maki Itoh's Righteous tofu pudding in under 5 minutes should do the trick for you quite nicely, if you're lactose intolerant or vegan. She says, "Now I do not pretend to you that this tastes like a proper pudding or mousse made with cream and such, and if anyone tries to convince you that a tofu based dish like this is ‘just as good/rich as the real thing’ they are either lying or have no taste buds. It’s different, but still good. It’s a lightly sweet, cool and creamy dish that will quiet a sudden urge for Something Sweet."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 15, 2007 at 5:55 PM
"Dessert is a fine thing. Creamy, fruity, chocolaty — I like a sweet finish to the meal. But I like it even more when dessert arrives in a cocktail glass. The best dessert drinks are as carefully crafted as any cocktail, with well-balanced flavors and innovative ingredients that go beyond the run-of-the-mill chocolate martini. And, thanks to mixology trends, such drinks are easier than ever to find." Short but sweet piece by Anne Brockhoff on something I've been seeing more and more of on dessert menus these days, although I have yet to give any of them a try; most just sound like liquid candy and really I'd rather have a nice simple panna cotta instead.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 14, 2007 at 8:13 AM
Regina Schrambling, on tricks to cooking for two: "The best thing about dinner for two is that you can brave dishes that would be too labor-intensive and time-consuming for a crowd. You can fry up little corn cakes to top with smoked salmon and crème fraîche, or skillet-roast a whole duck cut in half, or sauté two skate wings that can go from skillet to plate without waiting for four or six more to be cooked. But when you want a night to remember, you can pull out more stops and spend a little more money. In polling coupled friends on their ideal menu with wine but no cliché roses, I found the ingredients and dishes always differed, but the underlying philosophy was the same: special but simple."
Other highlights:
Chickenjoy, eel rolls: Pop goes the fast food, by Susan LaTempa and Leslie Brenner: "The new generation of chains, with names such as Santouka or Pinkberry or Pollo Campero, has a youthful pop-culture aesthetic, with food that's a bit distinctive and instantly likable. They've got bubble. They've got swirl. But what do they have to eat? And how does each measure up?"
(I think Pinkberry is overpriced but wow, their green tea yogurt really is delicious; it's light, clean and has that special tang you only get in Asian yogurts for some reason. Also they're either dead wrong about Jollibee's Chickenjoy or the US franchises have a lot to answer for, Chickenjoy is incredibly tasty and crispy in its native market and Jollibee is the biggest fastfood chain—the Philippines is one of the very few markets McDonald's is in that it doesn't dominate.)
"Swirled in soufflés, pooled under pastries, frozen as ice cream, crème anglaise sexes up almost any dessert." Amy Scattergood explains how to make the simple stove-top custard that accompanies many a delicious dessert at your favorite fancy restaurants.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 14, 2007 at 2:09 AM
Florence Fabricant explains why over 300 people (including 80 chefs) flew into Monte Carlo from all over the world to spend this past weekend commemorating the 80th birthday of the chef Paul Bocuse in Celebrating the Ringmaster of the Restaurant Circus: "Before chefs had their own TV shows and million-dollar book deals, when today’s international obsession with chefs and restaurants was in its infancy, Mr. Bocuse was on the cover of Time magazine as the champion of nouvelle cuisine. People knew his name when they could name no one else who worked in a kitchen. "He made it possible for chefs to be respected international celebrities,” said the New York restaurateur Drew Nieporent. "And he made haute cuisine popular. His restaurant was a pilgrimage destination, the way El Bulli in Spain is today."
Other highlights:
Eric Asimov visits Park B. Smith's wine cellar in Connecticut, an 8,000-square-foot space (with its own full kitchen, bath and dining room) constructed over 25 years that currently contains over 65,000 bottles. If that number boggles your mind, consider this: "More than half of Mr. Smith’s collection is in magnums, twice the size of normal bottles, and the count doesn’t include the 14,000 bottles auctioned off by Sotheby’s last November, which raised almost $5.33 million for his alma mater, the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass."
In So Naughty, So Nice, Florence Fabricant talks discusses how red velvet cake is on the ascendance in New York City: "The layers are an improbable red that can vary from a fluorescent pink to a dark ruddy mahogany. The color, often enhanced by buckets of food coloring, becomes even more eye-catching set against clouds of snowy icing, like a slash of glossy lipstick framed by platinum blond curls. Even the name has a vampy allure: red velvet. "It’s the Dolly Parton of cakes: a little bit tacky, but you love her," said Angie Mosier, a food writer in Atlanta and a board member of the Southern Foodways Alliance at the University of Mississippi in Oxford."
Posted by Adam Kuban, February 12, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Chocolate is delicious, whether it's in the form of a bar or a chocolate layer cake with mocha buttercream. You've got intense flavors, bitter flavors, and sugar added to varying degrees. When matching wine to this dessert favorite, these three factors will inform your choice. Just in time for Valentine's Day, Serious Eats's Sommelier to Go, Joshua Wesson, gives you two great recommendations and some general guidelines.
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Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 5, 2007 at 3:55 PM
If you enjoyed Roadfood Roundup: Doughnuts and have the means to deep-fry at home, you might want to try making Nordljus' Wafu Beignets—oh how I love the idea of twenty small freshly-made cream-filled sesame-coated doughnuts, made just for me. Keiko also makes them with azuki red bean paste inside or with raspberry jam filling and a cinnamon sugar coating for her boyfriend, so tweak the recipe as you will.
Posted by Lia Bulaong, February 5, 2007 at 10:05 AM
The ubiquity of the warm chocolate cake: "What started as a refreshing choice at a handful of restaurants is now becoming a de facto dessert at almost every restaurant - eclipsing the likes of such stalwarts as creme brulee and (gasp!) apple pie. (...) Mind you, I am not saying I don’t enjoy this cake a lot, I’m just saying that it is no longer a pleasant surprise and I think its time for chefs in the city to start thinking about how they could raise the bar on what has become the safe choice on a dessert menu."
Posted by Lia Bulaong, January 29, 2007 at 12:45 PM
If just thinking about a cinnamon roll makes your mouth water, perhaps you should consider buying yourself this lovely cinnamon roll necklace from Pancake Meow, purveyor of scented miniature dessert jewelry. (Her cupcake and donut necklaces are equally adorable but currently out of stock, as is the waffle necklace I've got on right now.)
Posted by Ed Levine, July 31, 2006 at 8:33 AM
I love chevre, I really do. All kinds: domestic chevre, French chevre, fresh chevre, aged chevre, even goat's milk cheddar. Hell, I like Coach yo-goat yogurt drinks. But try as I might to love Laloo's Goat's Milk Ice Cream, I just can't.
At least not the Deep Chocolate flavor. It's just too, well, goaty. Each spoonful gives you three intense, distinct flavor hits: first the goatiness hits your taste buds like a sledgehammer, then the chocolate kicks in, and just when you think the chocolate is going to carry Laloo to flavor victory, the goatiness comes back with a vengeance. Maybe the vanilla or the molasses flavors will be better. I will give them a try, but I can't say I'm optimistic.
Note: It's not as if I haven't tried and loved ice cream made with something other than cow's milk. Some of the best ice cream I've ever eaten was the water buffalo's milk ice cream I ate in Campagna last May.
Posted by Ed Levine, April 4, 2006 at 12:20 PM
Sorbet eaten in moderation is a dieter's best friend. Some of the best commercial sorbets on the market contain a hundred calories in a serving. Of course it's hard to limit yourself to a single serving of sorbet if it's really good, but that's a problem that can be solved by a creative sorbet manufacturer. When I found myself perusing the ice cream selection at Whole Foods the other day, I came upon Blue Moon Sorbets, made in Queechee, Vermont, undoubtedly by some old hippies that went to college when I did in the late sixties. I bought two pints, Blackberry Lime and Pear Ginger. They cost $5.00, or half of what a pint of Capogiro's sorbetto costs. They are not as smooth-textured as Capogiro's are, but they are intensely flavored and very clean-tasting. The Pear Ginger was downright smooth, perhaps because pears are naturally creamy. The flavor combinations are blessedly straightforward and carefully thought out. Pear belongs with ginger as blackberry belongs with lime. No savory flavors or herbs need apply here. I'm a fan of Sharon's sorbets and even of Haagen Dazs, but neither offers the judiciously chosen flavor combinations that Blue Moon does. I wish they were creamier, but you can't have everything.
