• Rutabaga, Celery, Dill, & Smoked Chicken Soup
  • Matcha Whoopie Pies with Sakura Buttercream Filling
  • Chicken with Oyster Mushrooms, Portobellos, & Napa Cabbage
  • Mushroom Chicken Pie
  • Pistachio Wasabi Beets
  • Sichuan Chili Oil, and variety of cold-chicken-based lunches
  • Lemony Pea and Radish Salad with Mint
  • The Fort Greene
  • East African Sweet Pea Soup
  • Lazy, Rustic, Haphazard, and Amazing Sour Cherry Pies
  • Malaysian Chicken Satay
  • The Wildman’s iPhone App
  • Welsh Cakes with Dried Apricots and Candied Ginger
  • Farmhouse Pork with Black Beans and Green Peppers (and Trotter Gear)
  • Black Pepper Tofu with Pork
  • Peposo
  • Toasted Hazelnut Chai
  • Kentucky Coffee Spread
  • Banana Guacamole
  • Spicy Shrimp with Wine Rice
  • Double Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones
  • Artichoke and Blood Orange Salad (with frisee, parsley, and cardamom)
  • Chevre Truffles
  • Clementine Sassafras Ice Cream
  • Jack is Closed (but you can vote for our pie on Sunday)
  • Our Wedding
  • Pecan Mole
  • Son-in-Law Eggs
  • Saffron Turmeric Cake with Meyer Lemon Sorbet, Argan Oil Whipped Cream, Almond Brittle, and Thyme
  • My Triumphant Return, with a Book Giveaway!

« | Main | »

Archive for the ‘Sweets’ Category

March 9, 2013

Matcha Whoopie Pies with Sakura Buttercream Filling

Matcha Whoopie Pies with Sakura Buttercream Filling

We went to Fletcher’s Brooklyn BBQ for my mother’s birthday last month, where the owner helped us celebrate by plying us with meat, whoopie pies, and shots of some sort of moonshine that made my mother scrunch her eyes shut after every sip. “Whoopie!” we declared in lieu of the usual cheers. Happy birthday, Mom! […]

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June 24, 2011

Lazy, Rustic, Haphazard, and Amazing Sour Cherry Pies

Lazy, Rustic, Haphazard, and Amazing Sour Cherry Pies

I’ve gotten seriously lazy with my sour cherry pies. I make at least half a dozen every year, or my father sulks. It’s just one of those things. The tree is ready in mid-June, so everyone gathers together to pick, pit, barbecue, and eat. I’ve learned to make the crust dough in advance at home […]

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April 5, 2011

Welsh Cakes with Dried Apricots and Candied Ginger

Welsh Cakes with Dried Apricots and Candied Ginger

Rose was going on and on about how incredibly easy and delicious Welsh cakes were, so I had to make them! But I couldn’t find my nutmeg and had to substitute mace, and then it occurred to me that I have slightly more flavorful turbinado sugar around, and then I glanced upon the candied ginger […]

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July 5, 2010

Kentucky Coffee Spread

Kentucky Coffee Spread

I went on another foraging hike with Wildman Steve Brill this past Saturday in honor of Dave’s 30th birthday. This time, I came prepared – I dropped pins on my iPhone map whenever we passed a tree or bush that I knew I’d want to be able to find again later! But putting aside the […]

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February 23, 2010

Double Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones

Double Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones

My honorary aunt and dear friend recently gave me a copy of Enlightened Chocolate by Camilla V. Saulsbury. It’s a collection of ‘healthy’(-ish) chocolate recipes. My concept of healthy-ish cooking is to bake infrequently and give away most of my cookies, not fret over ingredients, but some of the recipes here actually look pretty tasty. […]

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December 4, 2009

Chevre Truffles

Chevre Truffles

These truffles were inspired by Goat Lady Dairy, which I encountered at the farmers market in Greensboro, North Carolina last winter. Her chevre truffles were a blended ganache, about 60% chocolate to 40% chevre, with a bit of vanilla and salt as well – and they were fantastic! Of course, I had to come back […]

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November 29, 2009

Clementine Sassafras Ice Cream

Clementine Sassafras Ice Cream

This recipe was inspired by Wildman Steve Brill, who has a foraged, vegan version in his Wild Vegetarian Cookbook. The Wildman uses cashews for their creamy texture and actual sassafras roots foraged from city parks for their vivid flavor, but our civilized ovo-lacto interpretation can be made with ingredients actually purchased in stores. It’s clementine […]

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June 10, 2009

Saffron Turmeric Cake with Meyer Lemon Sorbet, Argan Oil Whipped Cream, Almond Brittle, and Thyme

Saffron Turmeric Cake with Meyer Lemon Sorbet, Argan Oil Whipped Cream, Almond Brittle, and Thyme

I’ve been meaning to post this for months! Since a few of you requested it, I may as well start with the backlog here. This was a really fun dish to throw together. The saffron turmeric cake was an adaptation of a chocolate cake recipe, where Dave started by replacing the cocoa powder with turmeric […]

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November 1, 2008

Cinnamon Marzipan Sichuan Peppercorn Truffles

Cinnamon Marzipan Sichuan Peppercorn Truffles

While I’m playing catch-up and trying to get back into the habit of blogging, here’s another set of truffles I made over the summer. I have a great love of the tingliness of Sichuan peppercorns in sweets as well as in savory dishes, and the flavor of them always makes me think of libraries and […]

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September 24, 2008

Zambian Honey and Rumquat Truffles

Zambian Honey and Rumquat Truffles

You can make the honey truffles with any honey you like, but I used Zambian honey from Zambezi. I met the woman who imports it at the Fancy Food Show this year, and loved her story. She was in Zambia with the Peace Corps and loved the honey there, and started up the import business […]

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July 5, 2008

Sour Cherry Coffee Cake

Sour Cherry Coffee Cake

I’m in Portland right now, but I made this sour cherry coffee cake not long before I left Brooklyn, with sour cherries we picked from my father’s tree. Bonnie helped us pick the first round of cherries off the tree, It was a 4-foot-all dwarf tree when my parents first bought it, but now it […]

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June 12, 2008

Chocolate-Whiskey Pudding Cake

Chocolate-Whiskey Pudding Cake

This cake is light and luscious, like a barely cooked chocolate mousse. It’s best served with strawberries, which are coming in gorgeous from New Jersey to the Greenmarkets right about now. Last week, we had the pleasure of hosting Pille of nami-nami while she was visiting New York. She brought us some wonderful gifts, including […]

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March 28, 2008

Roundup: Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts

Roundup: Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts

The theme for this month’s Sugar High Friday was Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts, where I asked you to tell me about a dessert you made (or want to make) for somebody else. What an amazing group of people you are, to have created such a huge collection of sweet gifts for your friends, […]

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March 4, 2008

Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts

Sugar High Friday #41: Sweet Gifts

First things first: Up there, that’s a photo of my entirely-too-cute goddaughter eating freshly made marshmallow straight from the spatula. We’re pretty brave (some might say stupid), sugaring up a 4-year-old like that. But how can you deny a child such a sweet, sweet gift? I’m thrilled that I get to host Sugar High Friday […]

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February 28, 2008

Tea Cookies

Tea Cookies

A friend and I recently went to check out Amai Tea & Bake House, because we like having tea together and I am big on supporting food bloggers in their endeavors (Amai is run by the blogger behind Lovescool). We really enjoyed the tea sweets there, and when I got home I found Amai’s recipe […]

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February 8, 2008

Kumquat Cake

Kumquat Cake

This cake is obscenely rich; it is more of a custard or pudding than a cake, almost. It is so moist that it may seem undercooked until you remember just how many eggs and pureed kumquats you poured into that wet batter to make it. It started out as a recipe for orange cake, but […]

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February 2, 2008

Rakott Palacsinta (Hungarian Pancake Cake)

Rakott Palacsinta (Hungarian Pancake Cake)

First things first. I would really appreciate it if you would go vote for me in Culinate’s Death By Chocolate contest. Also, I heard today is crepe day, so we made a Hungarian crepe cake! My grandmother says that she used to make this with a different filling in each layer – jam, ground walnuts, […]

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January 17, 2008

Cocoa Nib Flans with Raw Sugar Sauce

Cocoa Nib Flans with Raw Sugar Sauce

For New Year’s Eve this year, Dave and I served a multi-course meal, full of complex and labor-intensive dishes. What had our guests raving and demanding seconds and thirds, though? These simple little flans, which I threw together on a whim the day before. This basic flan recipe has only 5 ingredients, and takes just […]

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December 30, 2007

Parsi New Year’s Milkshake (Faluda)

Parsi New Year’s Milkshake (Faluda)

The last recipe in Niloufer Ichaporia King’s new Parsi cookbook, My Bombay Kitchen, this light dessert drink is supposed to be served on March 21st, the Parsi New Year. It is a creamy, slipperycrunchity, really tasty delight, and certainly delicious enough to have year round, or perhaps on our own New Year’s Eve tomorrow night. […]

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December 19, 2007

Miso Butterscotch Spare Ribs

Miso Butterscotch Spare Ribs

Inspired by the miso butterscotch pork belly Dave and I had with our friend Allyson at Tailor earlier this fall, these ribs are meatier, heftier, and to my belly more satisfying than Sam Mason’s creation. The pork belly was just splendid, and it’s just that I personally prefer less fatty meat, cooked on the bone […]

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December 14, 2007

Nibby Strawberry Chestnut Cookies

Nibby Strawberry Chestnut Cookies

On a cold winter night, with icy slush waiting just outside the door, the greatest comfort I can imagine involves warm chestnuts, chocolate, and dried strawberries, far more flavorful than the imported ones you can buy this time of year. And last night, as we hid indoors from the “wintry mix” outside (it sounds like […]

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December 2, 2007

Forbidden Rice with Persimmon and Coconut

Forbidden Rice with Persimmon and Coconut

Before I explain this dish, I just want to announce that the 2007 Food Blog Awards are now open for nominations. You can nominate your favorite food blogs in various different categories here. Hurry up, because nominations end in just a few days, on Wednesday, December 5th! Because I am proud of my work, I […]

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November 19, 2007

Cranberry Quince Sorbet

Cranberry Quince Sorbet

Quinces are in season, and this year I mean to take advantage of it. Quinces are like apples’ upscale cousins – tarter, rosier, more gussied up and elegant. While the apple is available right here, right now, the quince must be cooked for a long time until its pale flesh turns a ruddy hue and […]

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November 14, 2007

Apples Doused in Cardamom Wine

Apples Doused in Cardamom Wine

This recipe was inspired by The Orphan’s Tales: In the Cities of Coin and Spice by Catherynne M. Valente. It is the second book of the now-complete series (the first was The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden), and it was just published a few weeks ago. It is brilliant and beautiful, rich and deep, […]

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October 31, 2007

Pumpkin Seed Cocoa Nib Brittle

Pumpkin Seed Cocoa Nib Brittle

This is autumn in its purest form, by which I probably mean its most candy-like form. Forget maple sugar drizzled on snow and all those other mental images we all picked up from Little House on the Prairie – this brittle is the real deal. Offering to friends and officemates has been a blast, because […]

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October 24, 2007

Almond Buttermilk Biscuits with Sour Cherry Compote, Butterscotch, and Candied Pickled Ginger

Almond Buttermilk Biscuits with Sour Cherry Compote, Butterscotch, and Candied Pickled Ginger

This dessert is entirely Dave’s creation. He calls it CBGB (cherries, biscuits, ginger, and butterscotch), but I just can’t bring myself to call it that, personally. I prefer recipe names that really warn you about what you’re getting yourself into. It’s a due process issue, as far as I’m concerned – when I skim through […]

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September 25, 2007

Chewy Cherry Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chewy Cherry Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

I’d been craving chocolate chip cookies for weeks before I made these. But I was always too busy, or occasionally, trying to take a day now and then without eating any desserts. (This is difficult for me. I don’t tend to eat huge quantities of dessert, but I like a little bit of sweetness at […]

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September 11, 2007

Chocolate Raspberry Napoleons

Chocolate Raspberry Napoleons

Not everything has to be complicated. These napoleons are dead simple and utterly delicious. The chocolate layers are made of an easy-schmeasy faux chocolate mousse, made by melting chocolate into heavy cream, chilling it, and whipping it like whipped cream. Phyllo is purchased, layered, and baked with minimal effort. And raspberries, oh, luscious, seasonal raspberries! […]

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July 30, 2007

Hazelnut Cookie Sherry Vinegar Swirl Ice Cream

Hazelnut Cookie Sherry Vinegar Swirl Ice Cream

This is my new favorite ice cream. I mean that. It is absolutely bursting with flavor, rich nuttiness, cookie crunchiness, and surprising sweet sharpness from the sherry vinegar swirl. God, this is good. Dave pointed out that when we brainstorm recipes together they always turn out better than the recipes we create separately on our […]

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July 10, 2007

Apple Caramel Ice Cream

Apple Caramel Ice Cream

Life has been busy. I’ve been to Portland, Boston, and home again. I won an acquittal in a murder trial, had lunch at the incomparable Love + Butter, foraged for tasty plants with Wild Man Steve Brill, attended the Fancy Food Show, and discovered that I love not only glassblowing, but lampworking glass beads as […]

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June 21, 2007

Strawberry Tarragon Sorbet

Strawberry Tarragon Sorbet

I dipped a spoon into the churning ice cream maker and gave it to my brother to taste. “This is actually very good,” he said. “What else are you going to put in it?” “Nothing,” I assured him. “Good!” This took place last Sunday, when we all gathered at my parents’ house to pick sour […]

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June 19, 2007

Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

Chocolate Malted Whopper Drops

I love malt. A good vanilla malted is one of my favorite things in the world, and I adore those Banana Malt Brûlée Spoonfuls I made last summer. So for this recipe from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, I was up for questing all over to find a big carton of […]

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June 11, 2007

Rum-Drenched Cocoa-Nana Bread

Rum-Drenched Cocoa-Nana Bread

This is a combination of two recipes from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, one of the smartest and friendliest cookbook authors and food bloggers I know. It remained moist and delicious almost a week later, and got rave reviews from my mother and Dave’s coworkers. (We bake a lot, so we […]

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May 30, 2007

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Chocolate Birthday Cake

Having a food blog makes you instantly popular. People email you recipes. Your mother may cut out recipes from magazines and ask you to make them for her, in fact. Even kids like you better once you start to blog about food. My friend’s young nephew was eager to tell me of a recipe he […]

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May 10, 2007

Amaretto Brownies with Saffron Creme Anglaise and Bee Pollen Spice Mix

Amaretto Brownies with Saffron Creme Anglaise and Bee Pollen Spice Mix

Dave wanted something chocolate and something creamy. I wanted to play more with Aki and Alex’s bee pollen spice mix, and thought saffron would pull everything together. I hesitate to call these brownies. They were based on a brownie recipe, but adjusted and baked in muffin tins so that they were practically transformed into rich […]

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March 29, 2007

Raspberry Pomegranate Urfa-Biber Brownies

Raspberry Pomegranate Urfa-Biber Brownies

My partner, Dave, wanted to make brownies last night. “Fine,” I said. “Make them with urfa-biber!” Urfa-biber is our latest thrilling spice discovery. It’s a Turkish pepper, spicy and just extraordinarily flavorful. The literature all says that it tastes a bit like raisins, and I tend to agree. It has that depth of fruitiness to […]

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March 18, 2007

Chewy Maple Cookies

Chewy Maple Cookies

This recipe was invented by my partner, Dave. He was so delighted by the reduced maple syrup we had to create when making the maple crema that he wanted to use it as a cookie base as well. He threw in the rest of the ingredients by feel, figuring that the proportions should be something […]

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March 15, 2007

Cardamom Almond and Black Pepper Chocolate Pinwheel Cookies

Cardamom Almond and Black Pepper Chocolate Pinwheel Cookies

I am constitutionally incapable of looking at a cookie recipe without feeling the urge to add, oh, cardamom and black pepper. Or something along those lines. It’s just one of those things. Some people can look at a chocolate almond swirl of a cookie recipe and think, God bless this green earth and the cookies […]

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February 26, 2007

Maple Crema

Maple Crema

This recipe was recently published in the NY Times, and as soon as I read it there, I knew I had to try it. This is basically pure maple sugar in luxurious creamy form. Looks almost like a créme brûlée, doesn’t it? Don’t be fooled. Adding any more sugar atop this custard would be a […]

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February 20, 2007

Pink Grapefruit Ginger Cream Cookies

Pink Grapefruit Ginger Cream Cookies

It has been a week since I last posted, which is longer than I like. I am sorry about that. Still, as I mentioned before, things have been busy around here lately. I’ll have some exciting news for you in a few weeks. While it’s very hard for me to keep my mouth shut about […]

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February 8, 2007

Monkey Bread

Monkey Bread

When is a bread not a bread? When it’s a monkey! Life has been pretty stressful for me lately, with some hard decisions still left for me to make, so my partner Dave and I decided to spend a recent evening just monkeying around. We dipped balls of risen, yeasted dough into melted monkey butter […]

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January 31, 2007

Balsamic Fudge Drops

Balsamic Fudge Drops

I thought I could add balsamic vinegar to these fabulously easy cookies to make them even more interesting. I love balsamic vinegar with sweets as well as with savories, so how could it not work? In the end, I couldn’t taste the vinegar at all, but the cookies seemed more chocolatey than they ever had […]

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January 7, 2007

Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

Banana Chocolate Chunk Muffins

This is Dave’s ancestral recipe for banana chocolate chunk muffins, slightly updated for the modern age. The key difference is that the modern age involves Chinatown produce stands with small, cute bananas, and cheap bars of Scharffenberger bittersweet chocolate at the Co-op.

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January 1, 2007

Roundup: Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art

Roundup: Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art

I want to thank and congratulate all of you. When I set the Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art challenge for this month’s Sugar High Friday, I was afraid I would scare people off, intimidate them out of just going ahead and having fun. Instead, you went ahead and made an extraordinary array of gorgeous […]

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December 29, 2006

Cardamom Meyer Lemon Créme Brûlée Bubbles

Cardamom Meyer Lemon Créme Brûlée Bubbles

This is my entry for Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art. Today is the last day to post entries, so please get them up and email me about them soon! I’m really excited about all the entries I’ve seen so far, and would love to see what the rest of you can come up with, […]

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December 17, 2006

Salty Oat Cookies

Salty Oat Cookies

Teaism is a wonderful chain of cafes in DC.Their salmon ochazuke is delicious, and I am utterly addicted to their cinnamon apricot tisane. A year or two ago, I finally discovered their brilliant Salty Oat Cookies. According to Teaism’s package, the fellow who originally came up with the Salty Oat Cookies wanted to recreate the […]

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December 12, 2006

Lemon Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Granite Countertops

Lemon Chocolate Chunk Cookies and Granite Countertops

I was walking in to work the other day when I passed a large piece of gorgeous granite countertop leaning against the side of someone’s stoop. It had a sign taped to it that read, “Do Not Touch.” As I was staring longingly at it, a man came out of the building and told me […]

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December 6, 2006

Apricot Hazelnut Squares

Apricot Hazelnut Squares

The worst thing about my latest cookbook acquisition, Essence of Chocolate: Recipes for Baking and Cooking with Fine Chocolate by John Scharffenberger and Robert Steinberg, is the terrible difficulty I had in trying to decide what to make first. In the end, though, I had to go with these cookies. This turned out to be […]

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November 27, 2006

Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art

Sugar High Friday #26: Sugar Art

This month, I am hosting Sugar High Friday, a traveling event that was originally created by Jennifer of The Domestic Goddess. Last month, Johanna of The Passionate Cook had the wonderful idea of inviting us all to make chocolate truffles, and oh, my, did everyone produce some tasty looking treats. In fact, they were so […]

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November 24, 2006

How to Make a Truffle from Scratch

How to Make a Truffle from Scratch

It was hard, trying to figure out what to do for Sugar High Friday #25: Truffles. After all, we all know how to make truffles – either you throw together a ganache and roll it in something, then keep it in the fridge, or you take out your chocolate molds and create chocolate shells into […]

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November 22, 2006

Cocoa Nib Caramel & Almond Butter Nougat Bars

Cocoa Nib Caramel & Almond Butter Nougat Bars

These candies are what Snickers bars ought to be – soft, salty caramel with the luscious crunch of cocoa nibs, topped with almond butter nougat, and coated with dark, high-quality chocolate. If I’m feeling very nice indeed, I will make boxes of these to give away for the holidays. Buying candy at the store is […]

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November 12, 2006

Meeting John Scharffenberger

Meeting John Scharffenberger

I met John Scharffenberger last Thursday. Yes, one of the founders of Scharffen Berger Chocolate Maker. I passed by my local chocolate cafe, The Chocolate Room, that afternoon, only to notice a sign in the window saying that John Scharffenberger would be there that evening to give a talk and sign copies of his new […]

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November 5, 2006

The Queen of Sheba

The Queen of Sheba

The Queen of Sheba was Solomon’s only match, as rich and wise as he, or more. Legend has it that it was she who told him of the lost vessel of blessed light that cast peace on anyone who stood in its presence, which became the greatest of his treasures. William Butler Yeats imagined the […]

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November 2, 2006

Rosemary Currant Shortbread with Cumin Ginger Apples

Rosemary Currant Shortbread with Cumin Ginger Apples

When Rose and I got together a few days after our apple picking excursion, we decided to experiment with some of the apples. The rosemary currant shortbread is her adaptation of a shortbread recipe she found on Epicurious. Back when we were dating, she and I made rosemary chocolate truffles together; a love for rosemary […]

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October 20, 2006

Kaddo Bourani (Pumpkin with Yogurt and Meat Sauces)

Kaddo Bourani (Pumpkin with Yogurt and Meat Sauces)

Perhaps the best Afghani restaurant I have ever been to is Helmand in Cambridge, MA. Bamiyan in NYC has a special place in my heart, because we discovered it when Dave was trying to keep me fed while I was taking the bar exam, but Helmand won me over with their Kaddo Bourani. The way […]

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October 15, 2006

Nutmeg Chipotle Tuiles with Chocolate Mousse

Nutmeg Chipotle Tuiles with Chocolate Mousse

This is my entry The Spice is Right VII: Seasons of Love. If you would like to join in, please do! Today is the last day to post entries for this month’s challenge, which is all about family spice mixes. One of the flavor bases Dave and I have been using a lot since we […]

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October 10, 2006

Baked Rummy Plantains with Cinnamon Gelato

Baked Rummy Plantains with Cinnamon Gelato

Plantains, o platanos, which I fell in love with in the form of sweet fried maduros years ago. Plantains, which look like large bananas, but hide a secretly unsweetened center until they blacken and transform into something marvelous. From the black, squishy, grotesque exterior of a fully ripe plantain emerges an ingredient you cannot find […]

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October 2, 2006

Cranberry Lemon Cornmeal Cake

Cranberry Lemon Cornmeal Cake

Yet again, let me tell you why I love living in NYC, and in Brooklyn in particular, and in Park Slope in particular. We found a stack of clean, beautiful cooking magazines out in front of someone’s brownstone a few blocks away from our apartment just a few days ago. We often find books this […]

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September 28, 2006

Pumpkin Nests

Pumpkin Nests

It is time to celebrate winter squash! Not only that, it is also time to celebrate low-fat desserts that are actually too rich for me to handle large portions. (Some of our guests had seconds, mind.) This is basically pumpkin pie filling served in delicate, darling phyllo nests; the perfect fall dessert. Our first taste […]

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September 19, 2006

Cabbage Strudel and Paprika Ice Cream

Cabbage Strudel and Paprika Ice Cream

While I am still on my Hungarian cooking kick, I offer you two desserts: one traditional, the other, not so much. This my entry for Sugar High Friday 23: Surprise Inside, which is run this month by Alanna of A Veggie Venture. Finding cabbage inside a dessert strudel is not surprising to Hungarians or their […]

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September 14, 2006

Apricot Marzipan Tartlets

Apricot Marzipan Tartlets

I just love the way that apricot in the center is peaking up his little head over the expanse of crust like a prairie dog going up on his hind legs to see the world outside his den. This recipe was inspired by a photo of rustic apricot marzipan tartlets I came across in a […]

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August 14, 2006

Fig and Date Basteeya

Fig and Date Basteeya

In their original form, basteeya are Moroccan dove pies, savory pastries of spiced dove with almonds and cinnamon and sugar. We usually make them with chicken instead, with cumin and saffron and dill and other such things. There are often several dozen of them in our freezer, in case of emergency meat hunger. These sweet […]

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August 11, 2006

Blueberry Port Chutney Shortbread Bars

Blueberry Port Chutney Shortbread Bars

When I was flipping through Gale Gand’s Just a Bite, what really caught my eye was her suggestion that when making shortbread, you can simply grate the frozen dough into your baking pan instead of bothering to thaw it and roll it out. How simply wonderful! That means that you can keep a hunk of […]

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July 29, 2006

Banana Malt Brûlée Spoonfuls

Banana Malt Brûlée Spoonfuls

Tiny single mouthful desserts with which to finish off the meal with just a single moment of bliss, is what these are. Vanilla malt cream, adapted from a recipe in Claudia Fleming’s The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern. A single spoon filled with cream and topped with a slice of banana and burnt […]

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July 26, 2006

Brandied Peach, Ginger, and Sweet Corn Cornbread Trifles

Brandied Peach, Ginger, and Sweet Corn Cornbread Trifles

Peaches and sweet corn grow together, so therefore they must go together, right? That was my reasoning when I picked them up at the market, figuring that I would combine them somehow once I got home. I asked Dave to make his fabulous cornbread for the trifle, and he did, with a bit of extra […]

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July 19, 2006

Basil Sorbet with Lemon Olive Oil

Basil Sorbet with Lemon Olive Oil

I came across this recipe for basil or mint sorbet by Sara Kate over at Apartment Therapy: the kitchen, and of course had to give it a try. I followed Sara Kate’s recipe almost exactly, except that I used apple lambic instead of apple juice, and added it when I added the basil, because I […]

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July 5, 2006

Blueberry Oatmeal Crisp with Lime Ice Cream

Blueberry Oatmeal Crisp with Lime Ice Cream

Whenever I see blueberries, I think of my mother. She loves blueberries so much that even when she was pregnant with one of my brothers, Josh, and eating them made her feel nauseous, she just couldn’t stop. Pregnant and sick and miserable, she ate blueberries until she vomited purple. She has told me repeatedly that […]

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June 28, 2006

Grapefruit Almond Tart

Grapefruit Almond Tart

Imagine, if you will: A rich, buttery, almond-based tart crust. A thick, granular layer of creamy grapefruit almond curd. Slices of fresh pink grapefruit, sweeter, pulp bursting with juice. The crunch of a thin layer of caramelized sugar. The warmth of the crust, fresh from the oven. Curd and grapefruit, cool from the fridge. The […]

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June 25, 2006

Chocolate Cassis Sorbet

Chocolate Cassis Sorbet

I have a confession to make: I like chocolate sorbet better than chocolate ice cream. There is a darling little chocolate cafe near my apartment called The Chocolate Room. Every time we go there, we are given a tiny dish of unbelievable Valhrona sorbet as a mise en bouche which always ends up surpassing whatever […]

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June 22, 2006

Sour Cherry Almond Milk Sorbet

Sour Cherry Almond Milk Sorbet

No story here. Just another photo taken in my parents’ kitchen, and the perfect way to finish off the last sour cherries of the year. The first thing to hit your tongue here is the sour!, and then mostly smooth almond, until a lingering aftertaste of pure, tart cherry sweeps in.

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June 16, 2006

Sour Cherry Pie (Old Version)

Sour Cherry Pie (Old Version)

My father planted a sour cherry tree by the side of the house a few years back, and every year he insists that I make him a sour cherry pie. The deal has always been that my brother picks the cherries and I pit and bake the cherries. The tree has grown enormously in the […]

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June 1, 2006

Thai Iced Tea Ice Cream

Thai Iced Tea Ice Cream

Two ice cream related posts in a row? I suppose it’s appropriate. Let’s say it’s for plaisir sucre‘s summer ice cream event. We also installed our air conditioners a few days ago. Ice cream season is definitively here. Thai iced tea is one of the best substances on the planet. Thai iced tea ice cream […]

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May 27, 2006

Lemongrass Saffron Soda and Ginger Ice Cream Float

Lemongrass Saffron Soda and Ginger Ice Cream Float

Sugar High Friday #19: Ginger It Up! posed a real challenge for me. You see, I love gingery sweets. I make them all the time. I’ve posted about one here already, my ginger rum churros with milk chocolate dipping sauce. I use ginger in my apple pies, my ice creams, everything. And I hate using […]

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May 8, 2006

Paprika Sticky Rolls

Paprika Sticky Rolls

For The Spice is Right #2: Sweet or Savory?, we were supposed to choose a spice used primarily in sweet or in savory applications in our native culture, and then turn it around and use it in the other. My mother’s side of the family is Hungarian, and so my life has been saturated with […]

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May 4, 2006

Pear and Basil Tart

Pear and Basil Tart

My partner, Dave, and I joined the Park Slope Food Co-op as soon as we moved to the neighborhood. Last Sunday, we finally did our first work shift there. I desperately wanted to do something physical, since I spend so much of my time at the court sitting at a desk and writing. More office […]

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April 21, 2006

Ginger Rum Churros with Milk Chocolate Dipping Sauce

Ginger Rum Churros with Milk Chocolate Dipping Sauce

One of the best things about NYC, and Park Slope in particular, is the abundance of streetbooks. Everywhere I go, I find books people have left out on the street for whomever may pass by. A few days after the move, we found an autographed copy of Bobby Flay Cooks American sitting in a box […]

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March 31, 2006

Carrot Cake

Carrot Cake

Last time I saw him in concert, Arlo Guthrie told the story of how his grades dropped in 6th grade, leading his family to send him to see a shrink. His mother had to go with him. He put pegs into holes, looked at ink blots, took all the tests. The shrink sent Arlo out […]

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March 28, 2006

Cranberry Leek Strudel

Cranberry Leek Strudel

I was reading Clotilde’s recipe for Leek and Apricot Strudel with Pinenuts over at Chocolate & Zucchini, and started thinking about what it would take to transform it into Danielle food. I’d have to take out the pinenuts, of course. I don’t like those. And the breadcrumbs, which I prefer to avoid in sweets, though […]

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March 19, 2006

Maple Cream Truffles

Maple Cream Truffles

Josh, the elder of my younger brothers, took a bite out of a store-bought chocolate the other day, and declared, “This is amazing! What is this delicious taste that is filling my mouth? I know it, I know that I know it, but I can’t think of what it is!” It was a maple cream. […]

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March 17, 2006

Cocoa Nib and Currant Rugelach

Cocoa Nib and Currant Rugelach

My mother’s side of the family is Hungarian. Her parents were born in a small town in Hungary, and their paths took them from there to Auschwitz, from Auschwitz back to Hungary (with a few countries in between), from Hungary to Italy (briefly), from Italy to Israel (where they helped found a moshav), and finally […]

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March 13, 2006

Cocoa Nib Ice Cream

Cocoa Nib Ice Cream

Cocoa nibs are nothing more than pieces of roasted cocoa beans, the basic building blocks of chocolate. They’re slightly bitter, with an intense flavor that can vary greatly depending on their origin. While you can taste a hint of the chocolate they can become, they really have a unique and incomparable flavor of their own. […]

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March 11, 2006

Banana Caramel Tart

Banana Caramel Tart

The original recipe for this tart in The Union Square Cafe Cookbook calls for more butter, more sugar, and a higher temperature for the initial baking than what I have laid out below. After fussing with it a bit, though, this is what I came up with. It’s a wonderful confluence of textures: the tart […]

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March 7, 2006

Lime Syllabub

Lime Syllabub

“I’m not stupid, you know.” “Quit bragging.” “Stop being rude.” “When was the last time you read a book? The truth now. And picture books don’t count – I mean something with print in it.” Buttercup walked away from him. “There’re other things to read than print,” she said, “and the Princess of Hammersmith is […]

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March 5, 2006

Chocolate Maple Lace Cookies

Chocolate Maple Lace Cookies

The lace pattern of these cookies is created by the bubbling of the very thin, caramel-based batter. When the cookies are removed from the oven, the bubbles collapse, creating the lace between them. When summer comes around, I intend to use the same technique to make honey lace cookies sandwiching homemade sour cherry jam. Lace […]

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March 3, 2006

Pink Peppercorn Encrusted Flourless Chocolate Cake

Pink Peppercorn Encrusted Flourless Chocolate Cake

Dave and I spent an entire weekend trying to make this cake, and we utterly failed at life at least twice during that time. On our first attempt, we undercooked it, and then we tried to remove it from the pan before giving it a chance to fully cool. Unsurprisingly, it oozed all over the […]

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March 1, 2006

Apricot Fruit Leather Ravioli

Apricot Fruit Leather Ravioli

Weekend Cookbook Challenge #3: Foods in Shades of Orange is my first food blog event (as a participant rather than as an onlooker, that is). In honor of the occasion, I turned immediately to my newest cookbook, Jacques Torres’s Dessert Circus at Home.

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February 28, 2006

Marxipan Muffins

Marxipan Muffins

What is the difference between a muffin and a cupcake? Is a sweet muffin merely a cupcake in disguise? If so, wouldn’t it do well to have a real disguise? My sweet Marxipan Muffins are wearing Groucho Marx disguises made out of marzipan, so that they needn’t risk being found out.

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February 26, 2006

Aztec Marshmallows

Aztec Marshmallows

I must confess: I’m off to a bad start. For my first post in this beautiful new blog that Lisa and Dave worked hard to create for me, I am showing off a recipe that I neither invented nor cooked alone. My partner, Dave, adapted Martha Stewart’s marshmallow recipe into something suitable to bring to […]

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