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 tale of our first attempt at wild foraged NYC nocino, I want to tell you about the seeds of the Kentucky coffee tree.

Early in the hike, we passed a huge Kentucky coffee trees with leaves like the tailfeathers of a bird. The Wildman pointed out the seed pods on the ground, and told us that the seeds could be roasted and used as a tasty caffeine-free coffee substitute. After a bit of hunting, our eyes adjusted to looking for seeds instead of seed pods, and we collected baggies full of what looked like malted milk balls hidden among the dead leaves at the side of the path.

This next photo is by the Wildman himself, reposted here just so you can see what the seeds actually look like.

Following the Wildman’s instructions, when we got home we roasted the seeds in a foil-covered baking pan at 300 F for 2 hours. (The foil is there because some of the seeds end up popping like popcorn!) Our kitchen smelled like roasted chicory, and we thought of grinding up the whole seeds to make Kentucky coffee.

Dave and I are halfway through an elimination diet at the moment, though, and we’ve been craving chocolate much more than coffee. So, thinking back to when I made chocolate from scratch, we shelled the roasted seeds and used only the meaty innards.

Those innards, we ground to as fine a powder as we could. (We used a coffee grinder, but I’d strongly recommend using a superblender or sumeet instead.) I can pretty much guarantee you’ll want to sieve out the lumps.

Finally, we added in agave nectar (2:3 :: roasted and pitted Kentucky coffee tree seeds : agave nectar) and salt to taste, and blended until smooth.

It’s like a wild foraged chocolate spread or nutella substitute! What a perfect spread for toast or pancake. The Kentucky coffee spread had an intense, interesting darkness to it, and a touch of bitterness that was perfectly mellowed by the agave. As soon as this elimination diet is over, I am treating myself to a breakfast of crepes with sour cream and this Kentucky coffee spread.

One of these days, we have to go back and pick up more. In the meantime, you should go on one of the Wildman’s hikes. I think this was third or fourth one I’ve been on, and I still learned new things and had a great time.

Archives
2009: Son-In-Law Eggs
2008: Sour Cherry Coffee Cake

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.

These scones are just wonderful. Dave has slowly introduced me to enjoying baked goods made with whole wheat flour over the past few years – he started by sneaking a little bit into his breads, and then increasing the percentage slowly over time. It’s pretty amazing, but now I love that touch of whole wheat flour flavor mixed with the ginger in this recipe. Next time I might even go so far as to make it with half whole wheat flour, half cake flour! (”I’ve really learned how to manipulate your brain,” says he.)

I added extra chocolate and extra ginger, messed with the flour percentages, and used whole milk instead of fat-free. I also like cutting smaller scones, because they’re so much easier to share. And oh, they’re absolutely perfect with a big mug of genma chai for breakfast in the morning.

Archives
2008: Quick-Pickled Cucumbers with Chili Bean Sauce
2007: Chicken and Rice, Curry Banana, Roots and Rhizomes Stew
2006: Aztec Marshmallows


Double Ginger Chocolate Chunk Scones
(adapted from Enlightened Chocolate by Camilla V. Saulsbury)
2/3 C whole wheat flour
1/3 C all-purpose flour
1 C cake flour
1/4 C packed dark brown sugar
2 1/2 tsp ground ginger
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
5 tbsp butter, cut into chunks
1/2 C plus 2 tsp milk (I used whole milk, but fat-free would be fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg white
3 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped into chunks
4 tbsp chopped crystallized ginger (or Ginger People ginger chips – yum!) (Dave prefers trading half of the ginger for an equal quantity of chopped dried strawberries)
2 tsp raw/turbinado sugar

1. Preheat your oven to 450 F.

2. In a food processor, blend together the flours, brown sugar, ground ginger, baking powder, salt, and butter until the mix resembles coarse meal.

3. In a separate bowl, stir together the 1/2 C milk, egg white, and vanilla.

4. Blend the milk mixture into the flour mixture just until it starts to come together.

5. Pour the fairly liquidy dough out onto a lightly floured surface, and separate into two parts. Flatten a bit by hand.

6. Press half the chocolate chunks and half the crystallized ginger into the top of each mound of dough.

7. Knead each mound of dough about 4 times, sprinkling a bit more flour on it as needed. Don’t be afraid of it – it will stay gooey, and the chocolate and ginger will try to escape. Just squish it together as best you can, don’t overwork it in an attempt to solidify it, and don’t panic. It’ll all work out just fine. Honest.

8. Press each mound of dough into a 4″ diameter circle on a parchment lined baking sheet.

9. Cut each mound into 8 wedges, but don’t separate or worry about really cutting the lines all the way through.

10. Brush with the extra milk and sprinkle on the turbinado sugar.

11. Bake for 16-18 minutes or until golden, rotating from top to bottom and front to back halfway through.

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 home to NYC eventually, so I had to figure out how to make my own replacement instead of just relying on Goat Lady Dairy for my fix.

The Greensboro farmers market was just amazing. It turns out that Goat Lady Dairy does an occasional restaurant sort of like ours (sigh), excepts theirs takes place in their barn. I also met Ross Flynn of Cane Creek Farm, who chatted with me about tasty cow hearts, Ossabaw pigs (apparently more like historical Iberico than the Iberico available today!), and other meaty topics along those lines.

After getting home and going through some experimentation, I came to the conclusion that I liked simple salted chocolate-dipped chevre even better than blended chevre truffles. They look nicer to me, and I love the texture contrast as you bite through the chocolate shell and and the cold, creamy chevre bursts out into your mouth.

I’m a bit fussy, and I only like very mild cheeses. I always buy my chevre at the Union Square or Grand Army Plaza greenmarkets from Lynnhaven Farm, which has the mildest, sweetest, creamiest chevre around. It has just the right level of tanginess for my taste, and it works perfectly in these truffles.

I’ve also included cheat to get you out of having to temper the chocolate. It turns out that if you melt a bit of neutral oil in with your chocolate, it will help stabilize the crystal structure and keep your chocolate from blooming or otherwise appearing to be out of temper. It’s a great trick for dipping things in chocolate when you just don’t have the time or inclination to go through the whole process of actually tempering the chocolate properly. Seems too easy to work, but it does.

Archives
2008: Home-Cured Salmon with Black Pepper and Coriander
2007: Forbidden Rice with Persimmon and Coconut
2006: Truffled Gruyere Risotto


Chevre Truffles
4 oz chevre
4 oz bittersweet chocolate
2 tsp safflower (or other neutral) oil
Maldon (or other crunchy) sea salt

Roll the chevre into small spheres and spread them out on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Put them in the freezer and allow them to freeze.

The oil lets you cheat on tempering the chocolate. It helps stabilize the crystal structure, and keeps the chocolate from blooming even when it hasn’t been tempered.

Gently melt the chocolate with the oil, stirring it until all lumps are gone. Let it cool a bit.

Dip the chevre spheres into the chocolate and put them back onto the parchment paper to set. Sprinkle a bit of crunchy salt on top of each one after it is dipped – act fast, though, because the chocolate will set very quickly!

Store in the fridge. Serve cold but not frozen.

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 season again, and our apartment is never without a big wooden bowl full of clementines in the middle of the dining room table. I get my sassafras extract at New York Cake Supplies, though you can easily order it online or find it in other gourmet food stores.

This ice cream tastes like melted sunlight. (Sunlight qua frozen hot chocolate, perhaps?) It has all those wonderful bright citrus notes – though maybe I’m a bit overexcited, given what a clementine addict I become every winter. And sassafras is one of the key ingredients in root beer, and it tastes like root beer without all the distractions getting in the way.

In other news, we got some press by winning the savory category of the First Annual Brooklyn Pie Bake-Off with our muffin-sized individual saffron duck pot pies. Thank you to everyone who came out to eat and compete!

There was a big crowd with about 40 pies on the table, and we had a great time tasting as many as we could and hanging out with other food bloggers and pie enthusiasts. With such a great start, I’m awfully tempted to compete in more cook-offs from now on!

Archives
2008: Pork & Sundried Tomato Cappelletti with Pomegranate Walnut Sauce
2007: Cubed Radish Kimchi
2006: Kabocha Beef Tagine with Chickpeas and Preserved Lemon


Clementine Sassafras Ice Cream
2 C heavy cream
1 C wholemilk
Juice of 3 clementines
Zest of 6 clementines (just eat the rest!)
6 large egg yolks
3/4 C granulated sugar
1/8 tsp sassafras extract
1/4 c candied clementine rind (optional)
A bit of citric acid to taste (optional)

In a medium saucepan, stir the cream, juice, and zest together with half of the sugar, reserving the other 3/8 C sugar for later.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg yolks together with the other 3/8 C sugar until thoroughly combined.

Bring the cream mixture to a simmer, then remove it from the heat and slowly pour it into egg yolks, whisking constantly.

Pour the mix back into the saucepan and bring to 180 degrees F, stirring constantly. When it hits the right temperature, remove it from the heat and strain into medium bowl set in a larger bowl of ice water.

Stir until it cools to 120 degrees F.

Stir in the sassafras extract. Add the candied clementine and citric acid to taste (optional).

Chill and freeze churn according to your cream maker’s instructions.

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 and went on from there. It is intensely flavorful and moist and one of the most perfect cakes we’ve ever developed.

You can see from the photo how vividly red the inside of the cake is. It turns out that turmeric, a bright yellow root most commonly sold as a powder here in the U.S., turns red when it reacts with alkaline substances. In fact, the red dot traditionally worn by many Indian women in the center of the forehead is made by mixing powdered turmeric with lime (not the fruit!).

I can’t remember why we decided to pair it with the thyme brittle and the meyer lemon sorbet (I’m sure it made sense at the time, and it worked really well), but I definitely recall that we added thyme because we had read that meyer lemon contains one of the same flavor compounds as thyme.

Our few sets of our muffin pans are still stained red from making rounds of these cakes, but it was entirely worth it.

Now, what you’ve all been waiting for: the winners of my CIA book giveaway! I used a random number generator to pick winners from the comments. The winners are Sandy, Kathryn, Vicki, Alison, Esme, and Red! Winners, please email me your addresses and I’ll have a book sent out to each of you pronto. Thanks to everyone for playing along!

Archives
2008: Chocolate-Whiskey Pudding Cake
2007: Rum-Drenched Cocoa-Nana Bread
2006: Saffron Dill Cappelletti Stuffed With Leeks

Saffron Turmeric Cake
1 stick (1/2 C) unsalted butter, in 1 inch cubes
1/2 C warm water
2 tbsp turmeric
1 small pinch saffron
1 C sugar
1.7 oz all-purpose flour
0.7 oz whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/4 c sour cream

Preheat the oven to 350 F.

Prepare muffin tins with butter and flour, and set aside.

In a large saucepan, steep the saffron in the water. Whisk the flours, salt, and baking soda together, and set aside.

Add the butter and turmeric into the saffron water, then turn on the heat and simmer until the butter melts. Remove from heat.

Whisk in the sugar, but don’t panic if it doesn’t dissolve. Whisk in the flour mixture. Whisk in the egg and then the sour cream, until the color is even.

Fill the prepared muffin tins about 2/3 full.

Bake for 20 minutes. Don’t worry about it setting fully – it will finish setting as it cools.

Makes 10 muffin-sized cakes.

Meyer Lemon Sorbet
470 g meyer lemon juice
80 g glucose syrup
80 g agave nectar
80 g sugar
100 g water
1/2 tsp guar gum (or substitute pectin or a commercial sorbet stabilizer)

Blend together. Freeze in your ice cream churner as per usual.

Argan Oil Whipped Cream
Heavy cream
Sugar
Argan oil

Mix to taste and beat until whipped.

Almond Brittle
Sliced almonds
Water
Sugar
Cream of tartar

Toast sliced almonds in a dry pan on the stove until they start to brown and smell delicious. Set aside.

Heat the water, sugar, and a bit of tartar in a saucepan until it is lightly golden, a bit paler than you eventually want it to be. Stir in the toasted almonds, and spread on a silpat to cool and set.

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 crinkling yellow pages of gorgeous old books. In a delicious way, I mean. If books were made of candy, this is what they’d taste like.

A few publicity announcements:

Our occasional restaurant, Jack, is mentioned in the Fall 2008 issue of Edible Brooklyn. You can see a scan of the cover and the page 11 article about us here.

And if you’re of a mind to stop by a bookstore or order a book to read about business and leadership, we were also mentioned on page 21 of Seth Godin’s latest book, Tribes.

Incidentally, we went apple-picking last weekend.

We found that apple already bitten but still on the tree like that when we walked by. My youngest brother added the eyes.

Several apple pies later, we’re down to only about 30 pounds of apples left! Well. It’s time to get more creative with them.

Archives
2007: Pumpkin Seed Cocoa Nib Brittle
2006: Rosemary Currant Shortbread with Cumin Ginger Apples


Cinnamon Marzipan Sichuan Peppercorn Truffles
(adapted from Chocolates & Confections by Peter P. Greweling)
4 tsp ground cinnamon
60 g (2 oz) corn syrup
2 vanilla beans, split lengthwise
980 g (34 oz) 62% semisweet chocolate, tempered, chopped
490 g (17 oz) heavy cream
Ground sichuan peppercorns to taste
300 g (5 oz) marzipan
More chocolate for dipping

Set the chocolate aside in a bowl.

Stir together the glucose, cinnamon, and heavy cream in a saucepan. Scrape the seeds from the vanilla beans into the cream, then throw the beans in, too. Bring to a boil, whisking to break up the cinnamon, then remove from the heat and pour the cream mixture over the chocolate.

Stir the chocolate into the cream as it melts from the heat of the cream, creating a ganache/emulsion.

Make sure all the chocolate has melted. If it hasn’t, melt it very very gently over a warm water bath as needed.

Pour onto a baking sheet in a thin layer, and cover with plastic wrap directly touching the ganache. Set it aside until it reaches a “slightly firm, plastic consistency,” which should take about an hour.

In the meantime, roll the marzipan out into a square of about 10″x10″ and about 1/16″ thick. Trim the edges to make them nice and straight. Eat the trimmings.

Temper at least some of the chocolate you have for dipping. The best guidelines I’ve ever found on how to temper chocolate are by David Lebovitz, and you can read them here. The details he explains that made it finally make sense for me were using big chunks of seed chocolate instead of smaller chopped pieces, and removing what’s left of them once your chocolate is tempered instead of worrying about melting them in completely.

Coat one side of the marzipan square in chocolate.

Once it sets, flip the marzipan chocolate side down. Cut it into strips 1/2″ wide.

Stir the ganache and fill it into a pastry bag with a small plain round tip. Pipe two cylinders side by side and then a third cylinder atop and between the other two on each marzipan strip. Sprinkle some ground sichuan peppercorn on top to taste.

Leave them alone to set until they’re firm enough to handle. I did this by sticking them in the fridge for a few minutes.

Cut them into pieces about 1″ long.

Temper your dipping chocolate and dip the pieces. Put them on parchment paper until they set.

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 of it when she moved back to the U.S. I have a carboy full of mead made with it brewing up right now, half of which will go straight to her as soon as it is ready.

In the meantime, I’ve been making these honey truffles nonstop, and they have been a hit with everyone who tried them, including everyone wandered into the VIP Suite at SalonCon, which we catered earlier this month.

Also, Dave finally put together a craft blog for me to post the inedible things I make when my fingers start itching and my brain starts sizzling. He named it Rumquat after the rum ganache and kumquat marmalade filled truffles I was making the night he put the site together.

I’m in the airport on my way to the California (mostly Berkeley, Mountain View, and San Francisco) for a week, my second trip off to visit Mike Develin (mostly named here because someday I’m going to get a wacky email from someone saying, “Hey, I know Mike! You know him, too? Let’s chat and cause wacky hijinks to occur!”). We entirely failed to make reservations for any exciting restaurants, but I’m mostly interested in time spent with friends wandering by the beach, in any event. Still, if you can think of any good foodie spots thereabouts that don’t require reservations made way in advance, please let me know!

Archives
2007: Chewy Cherry Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies
2006: Dave’s Sour Cherry Barbecue Sauce and Baby Back Ribs


Zambian Honey Truffles
(adapted from Chocolates & Confections by Peter P. Greweling)
70 g Zambian honey
20 g butter, soft
450 g dark chocolate, tempered, chopped (for the ganache)
225 g heavy cream
More chocolate for dipping and making bases
More Zambian honey for filling the truffles

Chop the ganache chocolate and set it aside in a bowl.

Stir together the honey and heavy cream together in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat and pour the cream mixture over the chocolate.

Stir the chocolate into the cream as it melts from the heat of the cream, creating a ganache/emulsion. Make sure all the chocolate has melted. If it hasn’t, melt it very very gently over a warm water bath as needed.

Stir in the butter next, making sure that it is entirely incorporated.

Pour onto a baking sheet in a thin layer, and cover with plastic wrap directly touching the ganache. Set it aside until it reaches a “slightly firm, plastic consistency,” which should take about an hour.

In the meantime, temper at least some of the chocolate you have for dipping. The best guidelines I’ve ever found on how to temper chocolate are by David Lebovitz, and you can read them here. The details he explains that made it finally make sense for me were using big chunks of seed chocolate instead of smaller chopped pieces, and removing what’s left of them once your chocolate is tempered instead of worrying about melting them in completely.

Spread it out about 2 mm thick over parchment paper on two normal (half sheet) size baking sheets. When it is about 90% set, use a round cookie cutter to cut out disks about 1″ diameter. I actually use a large pastry tip, because my cookie cutters are all too big at the moment.

Let the chocolate finish setting. Do not remove it from the parchment paper.

Stir the ganache and fill it into a pastry bag with a small plain round tip. Pipe a circle of ganache around the perimeter of each chocolate disk. Fill the center of each ganache circle with more Zambian honey. Then pipe increasingly smaller concentric circles on top of the first to create a sort of beehive shape.

Leave them alone to set until they’re firm enough to handle. I did this by sticking them in the fridge for a few minutes (or overnight, when it got too late to finish the project in a single day).

Temper your dipping chocolate and dip the pieces. Put them on parchment paper until they set.

Rumquat Truffles
Same as above, but use rum ganache (recipe below) instead of honey ganache and kumquat marmalade (my recipe is available here) instead of extra honey for filling.

Rum Ganache
(adapted from Chocolates & Confections by Peter P. Greweling)
430 g dark chocolate, tempered, chopped (for the ganache)
180 g heavy cream
60 g glucose or light corn syrup
20 g butter, soft
30 g dark rum

Chop the chocolate and set it aside in a bowl.

Stir together the glucose/corn syrup and heavy cream together in a saucepan. Bring to a boil, then remove from the heat and pour the cream mixture over the chocolate.

Stir the chocolate into the cream as it melts from the heat of the cream, creating a ganache/emulsion. Make sure all the chocolate has melted. If it hasn’t, melt it very very gently over a warm water bath as needed.

Stir in the butter next, making sure that it is entirely incorporated.

Add the rum in steady stream, stirring constantly until it is also entirely incorporated.

Pour onto a baking sheet in a thin layer, and cover with plastic wrap directly touching the ganache. Set it aside until it reaches a “slightly firm, plastic consistency,” which should take about an hour.

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 dwarfs us all.

We picked cherries for two days, and ended up with about 3 dozen jars of jam, 4 pies, 2 coffee cakes, sour cherry syrup, sour cherry molasses, at least a gallon of pitted sour cherries in the freezer, and a Persian sour cherry meatball polow (a sort of pilaf, a rice dish). And we left about a third of the cherries on the tree because we were stuck heading out of town before all of them had fully ripened, and some of them were too high up and too far out from the house for us to reach no matter how we tried.

Next year, maybe we should just rent a cherry picker and make no travel plans for June just to be sure to pick them all!

Archives
2007: Apple Caramel Ice Cream
2006: Blueberry Oatmeal Crisp with Lime Ice Cream

Sour Cherry Coffee Cake
(adapted from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan)
for the batter
1 1/3 C all-purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp plus a pinch of salt
2 large eggs, separated
1 C (1 stick, 8 tbsp) unsalted butter
1 C plus 1 tbsp (packed) dark brown sugar
1/2 C whole milk
2 C pitted sour cherries
for the crumblies
1 C flour
1/2 C sugar
2 tsp ground cinnamon
2/3 C butter

Preheat your oven to 375 F.

Prepare a 9×9 square baking pan by buttering and flouring it.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and 1/8 tsp salt for the batter. Set aside.

In a separate bowl (I always use my KitchenAid for this), beat the egg whites with the pinch of salt until they form firm, glossy peaks. Transfer them to a separate bowl and set aside. (You don’t have to clean the mixer bowl between steps, mind.)

Beat the butter and sugar together until creamy. Add the egg yolks and beat on medium speed for about 2 minutes more. Reduce the mixer speed to low and beat in half the dry ingredients, then all the milk, then the rest of the dry ingredients.

Take the bowl away from the mixture and stir in 1/4 of the egg whites with a spatula. Fold in the rest of the whites. Fold in the sour cherries.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan.

Make the crumblies by mixing together the non-butter crumbly ingredients. Cut the butter into the mixture until the texture is crumbly. Spread over the cake batter.

Bake for about 55 minutes, or until a knife or cake tester comes out clean.

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 grated rye bread from Estonia. Dave immediately jumped up when she showed us what she had brought and made her caramelized rye bread with whipped cream for us as a late-night snack.

I don’t usually like rye bread. I’m boring – I like challah and english muffins and ciabatta and other simple, plain white breads. I don’t like the sourness of sourdough or the complexity of wholegrain loafs. Rye is not my thing. That said, the caramelized grated rye bread with whipped cream was spectacular! I never expected to like it, but when I tasted it, I loved it. I ate a small bowlful even despite the sore throat I had at the time.

I mention this because we’re thinking of serving them together at the restaurant one of these days, chocolate and whiskey and rye and cream and fruit and a few other things to pull it all together. Sounds good, doesn’t it? If you can’t join us when we serve it, you should give it a try at home.

I haven’t really posted about my life much, lately. Dave and Katya and I are all doing well. It’s gotten too hot for glassblowing, so we’ve put that on hold for the summer. That said, it’s finally hot enough to open up the window and get enough airflow for lampworking, so I should be back to making glass beads pretty soon.

On the wedding planning front (August 2009, so we have plenty of time), we stuck our heads in the sand for a while, and I told Dave that he has to be the bride. I’ll look pretty and show up, but don’t really want to be the primary wedding planner in the meantime. We are leaning strongly towards doing it out at my parents’ house in the Hamptons, but are just looking around for an indoor space out there that we could reserve as emergency back-up in case there’s a hurricane. And apparently we need to figure out who our vendors will be before we can apply for an event permit from the Village of North Haven. Then we can worry about the fun stuff, like what I should wear and how we can entertain people without renting a dance floor.

On the law firm front, I’ve gotten more into will drafting and estate planning. This summer is stuffed with depositions for a few employment discrimination cases I’m working on. And I have the usual allotment of other cases, criminal, matrimonial, and more. Two of my legal clients had dinner at my restaurant the other night, and we went through the will signing there for their convenience. It’s not every day your chef comes out of the kitchen with legal documents and notary stamp in hand, but that’s my life and it works.

Archives
2007: Rum-Drenched Cocoa-Nana Bread
2006: Onion Jam Thumbprint Cookies; Saffron Dill Cappelletti Stuffed With Leeks

Chocolate-Whiskey Pudding Cake
(adapted from Desserts by the Yard by Sherry Yard)
2 sticks (1 C, 8 oz) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
12 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
5 large eggs
1 C plus 2 tbsp granulated sugar
1/2 C bourbon
1 1/2 tbsp all-purpose flour

Preheat your oven to 350 F with a rack in the middle of the oven. Set up a deep baking pan with sixteen 4 oz ramekins set in it. Butter and flour the ramekins.

Melt the chocolate and butter together in a double boiler and stir together until smooth.

Beat the eggs with 1 C sugar until light and fluffy – they will expand drastically in size and become far paler than you might expect, a light cream color, almost. It’ll take about 5 minutes on high speed in a Kitchenaid stand mixer.

Whisk in the chocolate mixture and the bourbon.

Stir the flour and 2 tbsp sugar together in a separate bowl. Whisk that into the batter as well.

Fill the ramekins to about 1/4″ from the top with the batter.

Pour boiling water into the baking sheet around the ramekins, such that it comes about halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until fully set. Remove from the oven and set to cool on a rack. Serve slightly warm with fruit and perhaps whipped cream (Yard suggests whipped creme fraiche).

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, family, and loved ones all over the world! I’ve enjoyed reading all of your stories and imagining the tastiness of your desserts. Thank you so much for participating and sharing your stories with me here.

Next month’s Sugar High Friday will be hosted by La Petite Boulangette, and the theme is Asian Sweet Invasion.

Big Blondes
Elle from Feeding My Enthusiasms
Elle made these cookies from a recipe from Jill O’Connor’s Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey as a gift to her mother, to thank her for the gift of the cookbook. Way to go positive reinforcement!
 
 

Honey Bears for my Honey Bear
Kiriel from The Papillon Pantry
These bears were sent as a care package to a far-off friend, to help him eat properly even without Kiriel there to cook for him each day.
 
 

Rum Baba
Cakelaw from Laws of the Kitchen
Cakelaw made her very first Rum Baba to thank her friend for her generosity in inviting her to stay at her house in a beachside suburb for the Labour Day long weekend. I’m sure her friend loved receiving her favorite dessert as a thank you gift.
 
 

Flourless Peanut Butter Cookies
Mrs. W from Mrs. W’s Kitchen
Mrs. W’s dear friend is going through a hard time with her granddaughter, and Mrs. W is trying her best to help by being there to listen, to share driving and lunches, and to bake cookies to help her friend through this difficult time.
 
 
Nega Maluca
Sarah from What Smells So Good?
Sarah made this cake for her mother’s surprise birthday party. What a treat!
 
 

Whole Grain Biscotti
Smita from Smita Serves You Right
Smita gives these biscotti out for all sorts of occasions – Bon Voyage! Good luck before an exam! Welcome back (to work!)! Happy Friday! And they’ve always gone over well.
 
 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle Cupcakes
Holly from PheMOMenon
Holly made these cupcakes for her four-year-old, Aidan, as a special treat that won’t trigger his allergic reaction to too much dairy. What a lucky kid, to have such a sweet Mom!
 
 

Chilled Pandan Soufflé
Rachel from R khooks
A sweet gift for Mr Soul & City and Mr Bump.
 
 

Espresso Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Amy from Eggs on Sunday
Amy made these cookies for her family, who all love chocolate and coffee combined as much as she does.
 
 

Nutella Crêpes w/Strawberry & Banana
Mike from Mike’s Table
When Mike was younger, he and his brother tried to make crepes for their mother on Mother’s Day, and, well, I’m sure she appreciated the gesture, at least. But now that he is older and more skilled in the kitchen, he was able to get over the anxiety of that memory to make these beautiful crepes for his wife.
 
 

Marzipan Mushrooms
Zlamushka from Zlamushka’s Spicy Kitchen
Every year, Zlamushka’s mother grumbles, revolts, and eventually whips up a beautiful batch of these candies for her devoted husband.
 
 

White Chocolate Irish Cream Marbled Loaf
Ngoc from Professional Bakist
This was a belated birthday cake for Ngoc’s father, who usually gets his own birthday cake but somehow failed to do so this year.
 
 

Vanilla Panna Cotta
My kitchen treats
This was made from V, who got a sore mouth from spicy food and deserved something sweet afterwards.
 
 

Bring Back the McDonald’s Shamrock Shake
Susan from Food Blogga
When Susan had her wisdom teeth removed and couldn’t eat solid food, her father waited on line to bring her a McDonald’s Shamrock Shake after work every day for a week. 15 years later, she recreated the shake as a thank you for her father.
 
 

Mint Oreo Truffles
Steph from Cooking In An Apron
Steph made these truffles as a St. Patrick’s Day present for her Irish boss and the rest of the work clan.
 
 

Time for Key Lime
Saralynn from Happy Baker
Key lime pie is Saralynn’s husband’s favorite, and his eyes light up when she makes it for him. It’s her way of thanking him for being a wonderful helpmeet to her.
 
 

Orange Date Cake
Miri from Peppermill
Miri used orange extract she received as a gift from another food blogger to create this cake for her orange blossom, her almost-three-year-old daughter.
 
 

Milk Chocolate Cookies and Cream Bark and a White Chocolate Fruit and Nut Bark
Nicole from Sweet Tooth
I’m not sure who Nicole gave these candies to, but whoever the lucky recipient was, I’m sure they enjoyed them very much.
 
 

Chocolate Pound Cake
Sihan from Walking in the Rain
Sihan’s babe never had much of a sweet tooth, but he sure loved this cake!
 
 

Matcha White Chocolate Pralines with Pistachios
Meeta from What’s For Lunch, Honey?
Meeta made these treats for her lucky local friends right before she left to visit her family for Easter, so they wouldn’t forget her while she was gone. I wish I lived in her neighborhood!
 
 

Pralines
Ann from Redacted Recipes
Ann’s grandmother used to make pralines each Christmas for her father, who liked to greedily hoard them for himself. The last time Ann made some for him, she had to make an extra batch for her children, because he still wouldn’t share. The man likes his pralines. And I’m sure he loves his daughter, who just made yet another batch to put in the mail for him.
 
 

Carrot Cake Cupcakes
Alanna from A Veggie Venture
While working on this post, Alanna discovered the unthinkable – she’s lost her carrot cake recipe. The one her grandmother made for her 17th birthday, which she made for her grandmother’s 80th birthday, and which she made year after year to celebrate her grandmother’s birthday after her death. She’s searched and searched, but she just can’t find. And while I’m sure the carrot cake recipe she’s shared with us is wonderful too, I’m so sorry to hear that her grandmother’s recipe is lost, and so grateful to hear the tale of the love and cake they shared together.
 
 

Lemon Sandwich Cookies
Katie from Salt and Chocolate
Katie made these cookies for her father’s birthday.
 
 

Chai Latte Cupcakes
Joanna Mong from Salute to Sanity
These cupcakes were a gift for a worthy cause, baked for a bake sale that was being held to raise money for the university’s library.
 
 

Swirly Macarons With Bittersweet Chocolate Ganache
Helen from Tartelette
This is my favorite entry, because not only did Helen make these gorgeous macarons for her friend’s wedding, she even agreed to mail me some to eat! Thank you, Helen!
 
 

Eggless Cranberry-Walnut Scones
Mansi Desai from Fun and Food
Mansi makes these for her husband’s breakfast, and she likes knowing that she’s serving him something that is not only delicious, but also healthy and nutritious.
 
 

Almond Butter Cake with Lemon Thyme Cream
Brittany from The Pie Lady
Brittany made this cake for her sister, who sounds like an awesome person and a life-long friend (and who declared this cake a mouth-gasm).
 
 

Vermicelli Kesari ~ Semiya Kesari!
Srivalli from Cooking 4 all Seasons
Srivalli made this thinking of Amma, who used to make it specially for her.
 
 

Orange Truffles
Linda from make life sweeter!
Linda made these truffles for two lucky girlfriends of hers.
 
 

Colomba Pasquale with Candied Peel
Louise from Knit1Bake2
Louise shares this recipe with a wonderful story about a girl who saved herself from the king by baking this cake for him.
 
 

Dark Chocolate Toffee Cookies
Mary Lynn Allen from Sweet Mary
Mary Lynn made these cookies for another worthy cause, a bake sale to raise money for the March of Dimes (a/k/a the March for Babies).
 
 

Coconut Toffee Almond Crunch Cookies and Cinnamon Raisin Bread
Brilynn from Jumbo Empanadas
Bri, this is only the easiest thing ever because you’re all such loving, giving people to begin with! And I love the cookie system idea: “Everything seems so much better when you’re handing someone an amazing cookie. Arrive late to work? One cookie. Need to take the weekend off? Two cookies. Want your co-workers to be nice to your? Three cookies. Handing in a resignation letter when three other people have just quit and the store is uber-busy? Tin of cookies. See, if everyone worked on the cookie system, life would be so much easier.”
 
 

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies
Zarah Maria Food & Thoughts
Zarah made these cookies for the amazing woman and new mother who has been her best friend since they were 12 years old.
 
 

White Russian Cake
Chriesi from Almond Corner
When Chriesi surprised her mother with this cake, her mother said it was even better than her own. Now, that’s a compliment!
 
 

Milk Chocolate and Passion Fruit Truffles
Aran from Cannelle Et Vanille
Aran made these beautiful truffles to welcome her friend Deena’s new baby into the world. Congratulations, Deena! And with such a sweet welcome, I’m sure that child will have the sweetest of lives. Welcome to the world, welcome to chocolate, welcome to life!
 
 

Vegan Caramel Candy
Maggie from Dog Hill Kitchen
These vegan caramel’s were Maggie’s son’s first taste of caramel candy!
 
 

Chocolate & Cornflakes nests with Mini Eggs, Chocolate Eggs, Milky Truffles, and Easter Egg Cookies
Isabel Cholaky from Isa’s Cooking
Isa made overflowing easter baskets for her cousins this year.
 
 

Lavender Shortbread and Nutella Cupcakes
Yoko from Virtual Frolic
Yoko made these when she visited her friend Sarah, and lucky her, Sarah made her dinner that evening as well.
 
 

Quadruple Chocolate Cookies
ashleystravel from Introducing Ashley
This was a gift for her husband right before he left for a month-long work trip to the Netherlands.
 
 

Chocolate Walnut Brownies
Deeba from Passionate About Baking…& beyond
Deeba made these for a dear old lady who lives near her, who is 78 years old and still makes sure to greet her at the children’s bus stop each morning.
 
 

Carrot Muffins
Nora from Pipe Dream Pastries
Nora’s family is obsessed with carrot cake, so she made these somewhat healthier than usual carrot muffins for them.
 
 

Peach Kuchen
Kate from A Way To Eat
Kate delivers extra kuchens to her lucky friends around Easter.
 
 

Peanut Manjar Balls
Gretchen Noelle Jones from Canela & Comino
Gretchen loves hospitality, and she brought these treats to the new wife a pastor she’s worked with for several months when she was invited over for lunch.
 
 

Irish Cream Truffles and Grand Marnier Truffles
Mandy from Fresh From The Oven
Monica made these for OTC’s colleagues, in thanks for the wonderful farewell party they threw for them.
 
 

Coconut Cupcakes
Mimi from Mimi on the Move
Mimi made these cupcakes for her friend SV, who declared that they were as good as the cupcakes from Magnolia bakery! (What, not better?)
 
 

Vegan Animal Crackers
Maybelle’s Mom from Feeding Maybelle
Maybelle’s Mom made these cookies for her as a low-sugar Easter treat.
 
 

Caramel Cake with Caramel Cream Cheese Frosting
Ashley from eat me, delicious
Ashley made this cake for her sister-in-law’s birthday.
 
 

Banana Jam
Joy from Joy Of Desserts
Joy has wonderful childhood memories of receiving homemade jams from her aunt, and now she shares with us one of the jams she makes herself.
 
 

A Rainbow of Fortune Cookies
Michelle Safirstein from Big Black Dogs
Michelle even typed up her own personalized messages to put into these fortune cookies for her nieces. Too cute!
 
 

Move Over Bugs Bunny, This Carrot Is For Cake!
Danielle Deskins from Colin’s Mom
Danielle made this cake for two co-workers of hers who share the same birthday, but have very different tastes in sweets.
 
 

Grandpa BB’s Red Hot Baked Apples
Lisa from Confessions of an Apron Queen
Lisa’s theory is that her Grandpa baked these red hot apples for her Grandma, and that’s why she fell in love with him and they had 50 wonderful years together.