Savory Inspired Plated Dessert

The basil and candied pine nut ice cream was very good, but as with any ice cream it is better as an accompaniment to dessert. In this case I used white cake I'd had in the freezer (I toasted it slightly to refresh it) and just a drizzle of really good extra virgin olive oil. If I'd been planning this I'd have made Thomas Keller's madeline cake (I really must post about that, it is delicious) and some sort of citrus olive sauce, probably thickened with xanthan gum. Still, it was a delicious dessert--and not just for something thrown together on a whim.

Basil and Candied Pine Nut Ice Cream

I got a new ice cream cookbook that uses a non-custard base. No custard means no pain in the derrière slow cooking and tempering eggs and curdled batches (yes, I've had scrambled egg custard more than once). Of course it also means a corn syrup and cream mixture that, while delicious, doesn't quite have the depth of a custard based ice cream. Still with fun flavors, like this one, it's a nice base and it is easier to make.

Salted Peanut Butter Chocolate Cookies

Chocolate chocolate chip cookies are always good, but add Reese's Pieces and Maldon sea salt and you've got something really quite special.

Homemade Tortilla Chips ~ With Recipe

Here's something that would go nicely with the spring pea guacamole (or salsa, or sour cream, or plain...): fresh tortilla chips. These are so simple to make and so worth it!

Spring Pea Guacamole

A few weeks ago, the Internet, to use a technical term, freaked out over a New York Times recipe for guacamole with green peas in it. Apparently President Obama doesn't like the prospect of peas in his guacamole--and things spiraled from there. If you'd like to hear the whole story, you can check it out here: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/03/dining/defenders-of-peacamole-step-up.html?_r=0.

Savory Palmiers

I've made plenty of sweet palmiers before but savory ones may actually be more enjoyable. They are extraordinarily simple to make; especially if you use store bought puff pastry. If you have the option, make sure you get all butter puff. This, I find, is really only an issue in the UK, but I suppose you never know. Speaking of British puff pastry, I find the store brand all butter puff sold at either sainsbury or waitrose (sorry, I don't quite remember which, though in a pinch I'd say waitrose) is brilliant. It's what I used to make the batch pictured above. It just puffs better than either brand (dalfour and pepperidge farm) that I've tried in the states. Plus it comes as a block rather than a sheet so you can roll it out to the right shape and thickness and you don't have to worry about the cracks you get with the sheets of puff.

Chocolate Chocolate Breakfast Muffins

These simple buttermilk mini muffins are kicked up with some cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Simple and not overly sweet, these dense but tender muffins are perfect for breakfast with a strong cup of coffee and perhaps some berries. Or have one (or two) in the afternoon with a cup of tea. But they really aren't dessert-y enough to be a full on dessert!

Put the Lime in the Coconut

I made this cake for an aquantaince whose adult sons wanted to speak with my mom about financial consulting careers. We had them over right around her birthday so I figured, why not make a birthday cake?!

Coconut frosting going on the first layer

Sixtieth Birthday Party

My pops turned 60 earlier this month. We threw him a big surprise party. And even with all the cooking and preparation we did, he (shockingly) was surprised! We really went all out too; it's quite something that we still managed to surprise him.

Flourless Chocolate Cake

Whoops, I forgot to post this after the other Passover cake, so I may not have entirely retained the details. But really, a nut free, gluten free, chocolate cake. Rich, dense, moist--almost brownie like. What more is there to say?

Topped with whipped cream, it is a decadent treat for Passover or any time of year.

Blueberry Muffins with Lemon Sugar

These are classic blueberry muffins with a slight twist, lemon zest in the batter and lemon sugar on top. The subtle tang of the lemon complements the sweet blueberries and the baking soda-y muffin nicely. Of course I don't like blueberries, so these weren't thrilling to me. That's okay though, I made these primarily to give away--so the fact that I didn't love them was quite helpful. And I got plenty of complements on them, so I assume that they were very nice if you like such things.

Birthday Treats

Not only did I get my chocolate peanut butter cake, I also got some goodies. My favorite frozen yogurt at a cute little place on the water (chocolate-hazelnut with chocolate jimmies.)

Peanut butter chocolate pudding pie at Dinosaur BBQ. Amazing pie! (And amazing dinner including poutine and catfish strips, not pictured here. If you ever go, I recommend their ultimate BLT, with house smoked bacon and fried green tomatoes.)

And visiting friends in NYC, I go treated to Magnolia Bakery's icebox cake (yum!)

And four fancy rugalah from a cute place on the Upper East Side (I don't remember the name, sorry.) From left to right: raspberry and farmer's cheese, apple pie, cinnimon, nutella. I think. In any case, a great way to prolong the birthday celebration!

Chocolate, chocolate chip, fudge muffins

These are very good. These are rich, moist, chocolate muffins with mini chocolate chips tossed in. These are topped with a fudgy chocolate glaze. That's it. Chocolate, chocolate chip, fudge muffins.

Need I say more?

Strawberry Rhubarb Buttermilk Quickbread

Now that I'm not living in a city, I can't alway get some of the odder ingredients I want, but good produce is easy to come by. Case in point: my nextdoor neighbor grows rhubarb and she very kindly told me that I could pick it anytime I want as she never comes close to using it all. I admit I've never actually baked with rhubarb before. I'm not sure why--probably a combination of it being hard to come by in NYC and London and the fact that, while I like rhubarb, it's not my favorite.

Kumquatini~with recipe!

This is a martini made with kumquat simple syrup (see? I told you that it'd be turning up everywhere), a dash of bitters, and a measure of grand marnier. I rimmed the glass with Demerara sugar and tossed in a candied kumquat for good measure. Delicious.

Just for fun, here's the recipe for two small(ish) kumquatinis:

Quinoa Flour Cake with Kumquats

I made this for Passover, but I will have to try it for my gluten free cousins, because it was really good! The quinoa flour made the cake much lighter with a smaller crumb than the average nut flour based Passover cake. Plus the it lent the cake a nice nutty flavor without being overpoweringly nutty.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Birthday Cake

My mom made me my birthday cake as she always does. This year it was chocolate cake--Thomas Keller's recipe. It was good. Very moist and chocolatey but not too heavy and dense. 

Cookies for Passover

The thing about baking for Passover is that it makes you think a bit more about what you are baking. But past thinking a bit harder when you choose your recipes, it doesn't really change things. Okay, yes, no flour unless it's matzo meal, but how hard is that? It's rather like keeping gluten-free (assuming you aren't using matzo meal). In fact the coconut macaroons and the chocolate walnut cookies are staples of my year round gluten-free repertoire. The third cookie, a nutty and floral macaron, will definitely be added to that repertoire--but more on it in a minute.

Candied Kumquats

I see more and more recipes pop up on places like pinterest that use kumquats. Kumquats, a diminutive citrus fruit with an edible peel, happened to appear at my grocery store recently. I had to get in on the kumquat craze, so I bought some. I didn't necessarily think through the fact that, with Passover starting, my recipe options would be somewhat limited. That's okay, I decided to candy them and figure things out later. After all I love candied citrus! 

Crumb cakes and quickbreads

I could have sworn I posted these two cakes, but apparently I didn't because the photos were still in my "to post" folder. So here goes:

The cake above, a raspberry sour cream crumb cake, is a really excellent and rather large crumb cake from the Williams Sonoma cookbook Muffins. It is dense, moist, great with coffee (or tea if you prefer), and has a crumb layer on top. What is really special about this cake are the fresh raspberries nestled between the cake batter and the crumble layer. The sour cream makes the cake moist, tender, and ever so slightly tangy. I'm all for substituting fat free yogurt for sour cream, but I'd hesitate to do it here--it does alter the texture and flavor slightly and I'm not sure it would be for the better in this case. On the same line, use full fat sour cream; the fat is what makes the cake tender and without oil or butter this cake is light enough already.

Tomato Chickpea Dip

Since I just posted my Thai food, I figured I'd keep on the savory roll and post this. It's from ages ago, so I don't really have much to say, but here goes:

This is sort of like hummus, but fresher. It's lighter tasting but still somehow thicker than traditional hummus; I think the fresh tomatos make that possible. It's great with the fresh pita--light and healthy--but I wouldn't say no to having tortilla or pita chips with this. Alright, that's all I've got for you. I promise I'll be back with desserts and slightly more comprehensive posts soon!

Asian Cuisine

Have I mentioned that from time to time at work I teach cooking classes? Well I do! And I'm meant to be doing some Asian cooking (using premade sauces, thank goodness--I can make a soufle that doesn't fall, but don't ask me to make a curry sauce from scratch!)

Quinoa with Cranberries and Pecans

I like quinoa. It's delicious, with its slightly nutty flavor. The texture is good. And it happens to be a berry (or something of that nature) and therefore fits almost any dietary requirements. Also, I can never get non boil in a bag rice to come out properly, but I've never had a problem with quinoa. Finally, I find it more versatile than other grains. It works nicely with basil, a bit of lemon zest, and pine nuts; or black olives with a bit of crumbled feta; or as a base for grilled vegetables and falafel. But it can also be more on the sweet side, as with this recipe. In this case, all I did was toss in dried cranberries and toasted, chopped pecan after the quinoa was cooked. It makes a great side for a protein like turkey--perhaps a healthy addition to Thanksgiving dinner?--or, cold, a hearty addition to a baby spinach salad.

I feel as though I rambled through this a bit, apologies--I'm tired but determined to get this posted!

Pomtini

Just before the holidays my mom and I bought a beautiful bar for the living room. Neither of us are drinkers, but we thought it would be fun (and we needed a better place to store our glassware). Since we have a bar, I figured I needed to learn to make proper mixed drinks. I'm starting slow--it's been 4 or so months and we are still on our first bottles of gin and vodka (and we haven't even opened the rum.)

So anyway, these are pomegranate martinis--or pomtinis. They are a vodka martini with all natural pomegranate juice and a bit of powdered sugar, all shaken (not stirred). I rimmed the glass with a mixture of clear and red sanding sugars held on by a touch of lemon juice (run a wedge of lemon around the rim of the glass, then dip in a saucer of sugar). Fun!

Red Velvet Bundt Cake

I cannot stand bright red red velvet cakes. Originally the reddish color came from the reaction of vinegar with cocoa powder. Now most recipes have tweaked the ingredients to make a richer, moister cake, as I understand it. This means that a bit of food coloring does need to be added. I use the tiniest bit--just to make sure it's clearly red velvet, but not so much as to dye your mouth.

Because this was a Bundt cake, I wanted a glaze rather than a frosting. This ended up somewhere in between; pourable but still thick. It was cream cheese, warmed, and mixed with a bit of heavy cream, plenty of powdered sugar, and a dash of vanilla extract. Yum!

Strawberry, White Chocolate, Pistachio Scones

These were delicious. I used a basic scone recipe and snazzed it up with white chocolate and pistachios. But I decided that, as much as I like the combination of pistachios and white chocolate, it wasn't quite flavorful enough. I happened to have some delicious dried strawberries, so I chopped them up and tossed them in. The tangyness of the dried berries complemented the sweet white chocolate and the nutty goodness of the pistachios perfectly.

Rice Crispy S'more Scones

These scones come by way of the Alice's Tea Cup cookbook. Their recipe is for rice crispy treat scones. I know that sounds a bit odd, but the cookbook acknowledges it and swears that they are good. Well right off the bat, I decided that they would be better with chocolate--a rice crispy treat crossed with a s'more crossed with a scone. All I did was toss in some mini chocolate chips at the end, other than that it was Alice's recipe. And the cookbook was right; they are great scones. The Rice Krispies give the scones a light and slightly crispy texture but they don't add too much crunch. The mini marshmallows get melted and the ones on the edges get caramelized in the oven giving the whole thing a sweet, gooey texture. The scone itself was tender and sweet, but not overly sweet. The chocolate, of course, was delicious with the marshmallows and the scone as a whole. Probably not my favorite scone, but it's up there near the top!

Baked Lemon Tart with Really Easy Tart Crust~With Recipe

I prefer a lemon curd tart to a baked lemon tart, but every once in a while I like to mix things up. This recipe seemed worth trying. The filling was very lemon-y with a surprisingly creamy texture for a baked tart--sort of like lemon curd but lighter and a bit tangier.

Simple Chocolate Truffles

These chocolate truffles are so simple to make. They are a relatively thick ganache, chilled and rolled into balls. The balls are then rolled in various toppings without the traditional double layer of tempered chocolate applied first. This makes them much easier to make. Of course it also makes them significantly more delicate and prone to melting/smushing, but when you really want truffles it can be worth the tradeoff.

The truffles are rolled in various toppings, as I said above. Some were rolled in cacao powder, to give the appearance of a traditional truffle. Others were rolled in cinnamon sugar (these were my friend Sophie's favorite). I also rolled a few in some of the (very strong by now) bourbon sugar from the bourbon balls I made at Christmas. Those are all pictured above. I also made, but did not photograph, some cacao ones with a few flakes of pink Himalayan sea salt on top (perfect color scheme for Valentine's Day, hint hint). They were my favorite, although the bourbon sugar ones were a close second.

Mexican Food

I like Mexican food. It's fun and much of it is surprisingly healthy. Plus, as it turns out, it's much easier to make than I'd anticipated. I got to try out a couple Mexican recipes from Tyler Florance's new book, From the Test Kitchen, for work.

 

Peppermint Chocolate Bundt

Just because it's after Christmas doesn't mean I can't still use peppermint. I like peppermint! This moist bundt was nicely minty but not as richly chocolaty as the deep color indicates; it's made with high quality cocoa, you see, rather than melted chocolate, so it looks chocolaty but could be richer. That's why I made a nice chocolate glaze to kick up the flavor a bit. Then I just sprinkled on some crunched up candy canes. Yum!

Brownies with Citrus Salad

I tried the brownie recipe from Thomas Keller's Ad Hoc. It's not the simplest brownie recipe, but it's well worth the extra effort. They were perfect. Richly chocolaty, tender, fudgy but still extraordinarily light. Oh gosh.

Individual Apple Bread Puddings

After the success of the waffle and chocolate-hazelnut ice cream, I decided to have fun and make another plated dessert at home. I had slightly stale sourdough bread and some lovely but somewhat bruised apples so I made bread pudding! I made each mini pudding in a well buttered ramekin so I could turn them out onto plates a bit like a baked Charlotte.

I topped the warm bread puddings with vanilla-yogurt cream, apple caramel sauce, and some crushed oat and walnut "nougatine". I put quotes around nougatine because typically it's made of slivered almonds coated in caramel; this is a granola-y version. This breakfast-y but still very dessert-y plated dessert was delicious and, perhaps, a bit whimsical (beiWng breakfast inspired and all that)!

Caramelized Waffles and Chocolate-Hazelnut Ice Cream

I bought myself a small Breville waffle maker for the holidays. It's a great waffle maker! So great that I have made far too many waffles. So I froze some. To heat them up I coated them with cinnamon sugar and fried them. They got all nice and caramelized and toasty warm. I served them with homemade ice cream.

The ice cream was amazing. It's a creamy chocolate and sour cream ice cream base (from the New York Times food section) with some toasted hazelnuts and a dash of Frangelico added in for good measure. I didn't add much liqueur because it can interfere with the freezing point of the ice cream, but with Frangelico on top of the hazelnuts, a little went a long way. This was, hands down, the best batch of ice cream I've ever made, and I've made some good ones. I think it was the sour cream. You couldn't taste it at all (which was good, sour cream would have been all wrong with the hazelnuts) but it made the texture unbeatable.

Plated all together, the warm, crisp waffles and the cold, creamy ice cream were just perfect! (Happy New Year, by the way.)