Most flourless chocolate cake recipes—whether from the New York Times, celebrated pastry chef François Payard, or the Stop & Shop supermarket chain—look surprisingly similar. They are essentially eggs, chocolate, butter or margarine, sugar and cocoa powder. Some call for fancy techniques, but all produce the same thing: a soft slab of deep, dark chocolate that identifies more as a truffle than a cake. So if all of these recipes are kind of the same, why not go for one that’s super-easy and fast? Ours will get you from zero to a chocolate lover’s delight in just 30 minutes. For Passover, if you have a little more time and want a Seder showstopper, try Leah’s Fudgy…
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Pepper Cheese Pot
Black pepper gets taken for granted. Grind a little, and flavors pop. But grind a lot and your taste buds explode. Its earthy taste and spicy tingle will turn mild, soft cheese into fireworks. Whip up Pepper Cheese Pot to spread on crusty bread or crackers and you’ll see why pepper was once called Black Gold. The smooth creaminess punctuated by tiny crunches of spice will delight your guests. This Recipephany favorite comes from Elinor Lipman, a longtime source of so many classics. It goes back to our roommate days, when smart recipes using kitchen staples stretched our food budget. We’d drop actual cash—a ten-spot apiece—into a jar for weekly groceries. And if…
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Greek Meatballs in Egg and Lemon Sauce (Avgolemono Sauce)
Josephine “Josie” McCarthy, cooked up some unusual dishes for her time. But that was her job. An Emmy-nominated host of TV and radio cooking shows in the 1940s and ’50s, she coaxed audiences to go beyond the mundane. And her sublime Greek Meatballs in Egg and Lemon Sauce (Avgolemono Sauce) did just that. These mint-flecked meatballs in bright lemon sauce are so good they could headline a Greek menu. Yet down-to-earth Josie just called them “the same old ground beef done up to be very important.” Josie shared thousands of recipes on her TV show and compiled the most popular ones in Josie McCarthy’s Favorite TV Recipes. A weeknight dinner that’s special enough for…
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High-Protein Chocolate Mousse
Protein. Everybody needs it. And these days everybody wants it. Even Pop-Tarts has jumped on the bandwagon with an added-protein line. But instead of adding protein to an empty sweet, why not turn something high in protein into a luscious dessert? This super-easy, creamy, high-protein chocolate mousse can satisfy your sweet tooth—and the rest of your body as well. The secret? Full-fat cottage cheese whipped until smooth, airy and much sexier than its original curdy self. Top off your meal with a one-half cup serving of this chocolate mousse and you’ll add at least 14 grams of complete protein to your daily tally. That’s like two eggs. Granted, it has more calories than two…
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Raegan’s Naturally Sweet Chocolate Mini Cupcakes
Leave it to Raegan Sales to develop naturally sweet chocolate mini cupcakes that make you feel good all over. After all, it’s her business to inspire child care educators with yummy and healthy food ideas. So hidden in these tasty little fluffs of chocolate are (you won’t believe it) mashed sweet potatoes. A hint of maple syrup puts these treats into the dessert zone. Raegan came up with this recipe when she wanted to make a chocolate cake without refined sugar. The mini cupcakes were her clever way to use up extra batter. We love the kid-sized portions of these mini cupcakes. But feel free to make a one-layer or a small two-layer cake…
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Blunder Bread: Pillowy-soft yeast bread with a baking powder boost
It started out as a mistake. Or so I thought. But a “ruined” yeast dough turned into a miraculously pillowy-soft loaf quickly and easily. Dan named it Blunder Bread. What seemed like a goof was a gift—perhaps the squishiest, fluffiest bread I’ve ever made. Perfect for sandwiches and toast. And delicious enough for a snack. The blunder, as it turned out, wasn’t a blunder at all. Just before Christmas I set out to make Dick’s Sticky Buns. I had substituted a “flaxseed egg” in the recipe, and in the moment I thought I’d put in too much. Too many flecks of flax. Rather than dump the dough, I said what the heck and baked…
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Aunt Ann’s Austrian Chocolate Balls
These little chocolate delights come from my cookie idol, Ann Chargin. Like a one-woman Italian bakery, she creates stunning cookies and confections that turn a dessert tray into a work of fine art. Fortunately, one of her favorites, fudgy Austrian chocolate balls, is easy enough for any of us to make. What’s more, its glaze stays so beautifully glossy that we now use it for dipping other types of cookies, too. A powerhouse in everything she does, Ann has baked many thousands of specialty cookies for weddings and other milestones over the years. Two years ago she gave a chic mixed bag of cookies, spiced nuts and toffee to each of her 120 guests—at…
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Beef and Pea Curry (Keema Matar)
What magic ingredient transforms ho-hum ground beef and frozen peas into exotic lusciousness? Garam masala. This blend of warm spices usually gets sprinkled on sparingly at the end of Indian cooking for a bright, fragrant finish. But in beef and pea curry (Keema Matar), a heap of garam masala added early on infuses every spoonful with the excitement of a Bollywood extravaganza. If pumpkin spice had a savory, more sophisticated, less seasonal cousin, it would be garam masala. Besides cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and cardamom, garam masala throws in cumin, coriander, and black pepper. Garam masala adds mysterious warmth to tomato sauce. You can find a similar effect in Greek tomato sauce, which leans on…
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Sour Cream Twists
A cookie that could pass for pastry, sour cream twists have beautiful, delicate layers that melt into richly flavorful bites. The easy-to-mix dough has no added sweetener, but picks up plenty when rolled out on a countertop heavily sprinkled with cinnamon sugar. In the oven, that sugar caramelizes to create the lovely layers. This cookie hails from The Old Country, but we’re not sure which Old Country. Some say Sweden, some say Germany. We found this recipe in our favorite collective cookbook—and perhaps our favorite baking book—From Manna to Mousse. In the early 70s, the Sisterhood of Congregation Beth El in New London, Connecticut, published this classic compilation of Jewish heirloom recipes. Since Mrs.…
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Moroccan Zaalouk (Eggplant and Tomato Cooked Salad)
Moroccans love their cooked salads. And although it starts with “z,” zaalouk ranks high on their list of favorites. Eggplant, tomatoes, spices and herbs mash up into a richly flavored, umami-packed side dish or dip that just needs some crusty bread or (even better) pita chips to complete it. Even though “zaalouk” means to mash or puree, leave it a bit chunky to show off the lovely eggplant and tomatoes you picked up at the farmers’ market. Moroccan zaalouk also ranks high with Len and Miriam Discenza, who gave us this recipe with an enthusiastic you’ll-love-this recommendation. Even if you’ve got a go-to eggplant appetizer like baba ganoush or Grandma Annie’s Romanian Eggplant Dip,…
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Baked Tortilla Crackers and Chips
Sometimes you just want a simple, pita-style cracker for hummus or cheesy spreads. But today even supermarket crackers go for cheese-shop prices. So look no further than the humble store-bought flour tortilla for a quick and inexpensive way to a delicious crunch. With a touch of olive oil, paprika and salt, you can bake up crispy flour tortilla crackers for happy dipping and snacking. They cost way, way less than boxed crackers. And what better use for stale or leftover tortillas? Go crazy and sprinkle on chili powder, Italian seasoning, Parmesan cheese, or whatever you like to flavorize these little cuties. But they taste great plain. And you can bake corn tortillas into crisp…
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Anne Silber’s Strawberry Bread
Our friend Anne Silber surprised us with this sunny strawberry quick bread a few years ago. And when we found ourselves recently with a bonanza of fresh California berries, I thought of her and her recipe. Now I ask, what took me so long? Unusual and yet deliciously familiar, this moist bread has elevated strawberries onto our list of favorite baking fruits (bananas, blueberries, and apples). Anne is a fine artist known for her serigraphs (gorgeous silkscreens) featuring gentle transparent colors that blend together like crisp watercolors. Hollywood loves her work, and you have probably seen her still lifes, landscapes and cityscapes on hit TV shows like ER and Grey’s Anatomy, as well as…
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Pressure-Cooker Boston Baked Beans
Pea beans (aka small white beans or navy beans) are the Cinderella of dried beans. They start out bland and plain. But dress them up in molasses-rich sauce and they turn into glossy brown, gorgeously delicious Boston baked beans. And with an Instant Pot or pressure cooker, you can make this iconic New England dish in just a couple of hours—from bag to serving bowl. What makes these Boston baked beans?Molasses. Lots of it. Boston wouldn’t be Beantown if it weren’t for molasses. (See The Great Molasses Flood and Mighty Molasses Clove Cookies.) In fact, if you don’t have pea beans, try other white beans like pinto, Great Northern, or cannellini beans. They will fall…
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Basmati and Wild Rice with Chickpeas
Basmati and Wild Rice with Chickpeas, from award-winning British cookbook author and chef Yotam Ottolenghi, has “Middle East” written all over it. It’s a Sephardic relative of the classic Arab lentil-rice dish Mujaddara. Crispy fried onions, spiced chickpeas, tiny currants, and fresh herbs make a taste explosion. All those textures, flavors and colors form a striking side dish or vegetarian main course. The one ingredient that takes it beyond the Middle East is wild rice. A close cousin to rice, it grows primarily in the Great Lakes region, far from the land of milk and honey. Native Americans lived on it, and yet it wasn’t until the late 1950s that this chewy, nutty grain…
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Tomato Pudding
It beats me why this North Carolina sweet-and-savory classic never swept the rest of the country. Maybe it’s because the name sounds too much like dessert. And while it may be distantly related to bread pudding, tomato pudding identifies as a side dish. Perfect for a holiday dinner or barbecue, it dresses up any meal. Nobody has to know it’s embarrassingly easy. A neighbor in Raleigh introduced me to the joy of tomato pudding and gave me her “recipe”: Mix stale bread with a can of stewed tomatoes and bake. I realized later she’d forgotten to mention the butter—the universal secret ingredient. And yet the whole thing tastes far better than its parts. As…
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No-Knead Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread
Our incredible no-knead challah makes such an addictive Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread that I’ve been making it every week. But I got tired of going back and forth between our recipe for challah and the recipe for our three-loaf Cinnamon Raisin Swirl Bread. So I finally combined the two into this simple, cinnamon-lover’s recipe. The aroma alone from this beautiful, oversized loaf can make you swoon. The secret to great cinnamon bread? Lots of tight swirls. And you get them by rolling out the dough into a long, thin rectangle, covering it with more cinnamon sugar than you’d imagine, and then rolling it up tightly. The dough will expand as you incorporate the filling,…
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Spanish Almond Cake: The Passover Cake That Survived the Inquisition
This flourless Spanish Almond Cake (Tarta de Santiago, or St. James’ Cake) came to us from Recipephany’s Senior Cookie Advisor, Joanne Hofmann Sexeny (see Pecan Praline Cookies). Moist, sweet, light and fluffy, this simple cake tastes luxurious and looks elegant. “It’s my best almond cake go-to,” Joanne said, pointing us to the Tarta de Santiago recipe on Epicurious. Then out of the blue we got an email from Steve Granek, also a fan of the Epicurious almond cake. He had stumbled onto Recipephany and suspected that the cake and its backstory would ring our chimes. Well, did it ever. Steve bakes the cake frequently, and in many variations—with lemon and orange zest, only lemon…
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Grammy Brody’s Irish Soda Bread
For the hearty brown soda bread that the Irish swear by every day, you can’t beat Matt Murphy’s Irish Brown Bread. But when you want its light, slightly sweet, raisin-studded cousin, Grammy Brody’s Irish Soda Bread will make your St. Patrick’s Day. This quick and easy soda bread bakes up a celebration-worthy loaf every time, without any need for practice, special skills, or fresh buttermilk. Irish soda bread notoriously calls for buttermilk because its lactic acid activates the soda, creating the bubbles that cause the bread to rise. But really, who keeps buttermilk in their fridge? Sure, it’s easy to make a buttermilk substitute by souring a cup of milk with a tablespoon of…
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Punjab Pasta with Chicken or Chickpeas
This one-pot wonder couples Indian masala with Italian pasta, a fusion made in heaven. Known in India as Masala Pasta or Desi Pasta, it’s a popular street food and a favorite quick meal for families. Dan, Recipephany’s Chief Name Generator, calls it “Punjab Pasta.” And what do you know, the dish actually comes from that northwestern region of India. This tomato-rich Italo-Indian hybrid packs a punch of Punjab flavor into a hearty, comforting pasta bowl. Just open a couple of cans and a box of pasta and you’re halfway there. Chicken gives Punjab Pasta a richness, and chickpeas make a perfect vegetarian dish and cut the prep time to nearly nothing. The pasta cooks…
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Pasta e Ceci (Pasta with Chickpeas)
We’re big fans of the ancient chickpea, that protein-packed morsel whose sweet, nutty taste stands out from other beans. And its charming round shape complements specialty pastas. So it’s no wonder that Italians created pasta e ceci (pasta with chickpeas), a beloved comfort food made in a simple, classic Italian style. Recipephany’s Italian-in-Residence, Dan, makes the quintessential pasta e ceci using traditional ingredients and techniques. He gets so many requests for his version I’m embarrassed it has taken me so long to post it. “I love this as a pasta dish,” Dan says, “but it also doubles as a soup when you add more broth.” Both ways qualify as true Italian pasta e…
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Walnut Acorn Cookies
Walnut Acorn Cookies, tender walnut shortbread cookies dipped in chocolate and more nuts, got Gourmet magazine’s title “Best Cookie of the Year” in 2000. A favorite for Christmas cookie platters, they resemble acorns with their chocolate “cap.” We haven’t mastered the acorn shape, so ours come out oval-ish and a bit blobby. Even so, these relatively easy cookies look plenty fancy, taste rich, and make us feel like it’s a special occasion. And it turns out they’re vegan, too. We usually use only butter for shortbread cookies. But because walnuts make up a lot of the flavor here, we tried our favorite margarine, Imperial.* Its soft consistency makes it easy to blend and, in…
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Thin Cheese Straws
Yet another recipe for cheese straws? As if Puffy Cheese Sticks or “Aunt Sammy’s Radio Recipes Revised” Cheese Straws weren’t enough. But these thin cheese straws pack a surprisingly powerful cheddar punch. And they’re so darned cute. We first met skinny cheese straws at the famous Olde Pink House restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. Instead of a bread basket, a glassful of tall cheese straws greet guests while they check out the menu and take in the 18th Century oil portraits. The historic pink stucco mansion was the home of Joseph Habersham, Jr., whose ghost is said to still wander about. Did he ever eat a skinny cheese straw? Who knows. But his ghost should…
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Egg White Custard Cups from Josie McCarthy
So you’ve made an egg-yolk-rich dessert (such as hazelnut ice cream) and have four egg whites left over. And you’re not in the mood to make anything with them, not even an omelet. So what do you do? We’ve got the perfect, super-easy, comfort-food solution—Egg White Custard Cups. You can have a deliciously silky custard, bright with vanilla and nutmeg, in just a few minutes. And the ramekins make this dessert special, even though it started out as a clean-out-your-fridge strategy. This brilliant recipe came from Josie McCarthy, a pioneer in cooking shows on radio and TV in the 1940s and 1950s. She’s gone and pretty much forgotten now, even though she was nominated…
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Chocolate Babka
In the “The Dinner Party” episode, Seinfeld says it best: “You can’t beat a babka.” He means the chocolate babka, where dark chocolate zigzags wildly through a sweet yeasted loaf, swirling this way and that. Jerry’s bakery ran out of his object of desire, but you don’t have to depend on a bakery for your babka fix. It’s easier to make than you’d think—you just have to allow time to let the dough rise overnight. And all that gooey chocolate makes it totally worth it. Babka or krantz cake? We ran across the basis for this babka recipe in the Jerusalem cookbook. Authors Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi praise it as “the most popular…
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Apple Crisp, Gluten-Free and Vegan
Capture all the spiced apple goodness you love in a pie—but without the crust. This gluten-free, vegan Apple Crisp teams up two of our favorite recipes: Apple Pie and Meri’s Berries. Fortunately, baking with wholesome oats makes it gluten-free. And while you can use an egg, it’s easy to stir up a flaxseed “egg” to turn it vegan. Mix up the sweetly spiced apple filling and then pour it right into a greased pie plate. Then sprinkle it with Meri’s crumbly oatmeal dough for a crisp, cookie-like topping. This quick and easy gluten-free Apple Crisp has all the flavor and comfort of America’s favorite pie. Who says you can’t please everyone? Filling Topping
