Proving that everything sounds better in Italian, “nocciola” rightly implies dark depths of flavor. The hazelnut grows abundantly in the Piedmont Region, and became a cocoa substitute as Italy rebuilt after World War II. This explains why nocciola gelato has the smooth richness of chocolate, and why Nutella tastes like chocolate spread with some hazelnuts, when it’s really the other way around. This recipephany produces a classic, crunchy biscotti with a toastier, more mouthwatering flavor than the almond variety. Because chocolate is hazelnut’s soulmate, I used to throw in mini chocolate chips. But the chips smeared when I sliced the warm cookies for the second baking. I found that a thin coating of melted…
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Jan Hagel Cookies, a Dutch Treat
No relation to Chuck, the Jan Hagel is as fun to make as it is to say (Yahn HAHgle). This traditional Dutch Christmas cookie is a crispy melt-in-your-mouth delight with cinnamon and toasted almonds. Curiously, this cookie makes me think of my college orientation week. A day in Harvard Square was on the schedule, including an exciting “Dutch Treat” lunch. Imagine my surprise when we ended up at the Wursthaus, a legendary spot with fabulous schnitzel, but no Gouda or Edam. I suppose I might have figured it out if it had said we’d “go Dutch,” but I was a teenager who didn’t get out much. Two years later, I had my first Jan…
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Dick’s Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Of all my mother-in-law’s signature recipes for cakes, breads, cookies and pies, her Sour Cream Coffee Cake elicits the most nostalgia. So much so, the family handed it out on printed cards at her memorial service. Dorothy, or Dick as we all called her, passed away three years ago at the age of 91. She started out with the usual nickname, Dot, until her baby brother mangled it so adorably that the mutation stuck. I don’t know how much gender confusion it caused, but when she and my father-in-law Louis won a bridge tournament, the local newspaper reported their names as “Richard and Louise.” Dick first baked this sour cream coffee cake in the…
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Oscars 2012: The Help (Yourself to Another Slice of) Chocolate Pie
If you’ve seen The Help, you know that Minny’s famous chocolate pie has to headline this year’s Oscars menu. I found what purports to be the recipe, but I had to test it before posting. After all, it was a movie prop. I was afraid it would look good, but taste crappy. After some adaptation (adding lots more cocoa and vanilla, and simplifying the baking), I’m pleased to report that my Minny’s pie recipephany below rates 5 out of 5 stars, with a dark filling that tastes like a melted chocolate bar. Neither cream, nor custard, nor chiffon, it’s a firm pie that would not lend itself to tossing. It poses no danger of…
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Great-Grandmother’s Gingerbread (Over 100 Years Old)
I believe in probability. I don’t play Powerball because I have about as much chance of winning as drowning in a bucket. However, eerie coincidences tend to follow me around like stray puppies. I don’t notice them until I look over my shoulder, and there they are, tails wagging and tongues panting, and a little too close for comfort. When I was 24, I noticed the registration number on my birth certificate: 123456. It was creepy then, but even eerier now that it’s the most popular computer password—and a sucky one at that. This eerie coincidence involving Great Grandmother’s Gingerbread (Over 100 Years Old) began in 1976, when I bought an old textbook, Domestic…
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Heather’s Cranberry Apple Pie Inspires OccuPie Brookline
A week ago, after chowing down chow foon in Chinatown, we went with our friends Heather and Will to Occupy Boston. Will led us, as he had been there before to donate goods. With tents snugged together like soap bubbles, the encampment is not so much a protest site as a tiny village. It has a library, a bike-powered generator (courtesy of MIT), a canteen, art exhibits, entertainment, derelicts, tourists (us), and dedicated activists chanting responsively in the village square. An apple from the canteen that had rolled to the foot of a tent got me thinking about Heather’s Cranberry Apple Pie. Sweet, tangy, scrumptious, and so New England. Heather gave me this recipephany…
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Red Sox Dinner Lineup, Featuring Jacoby Ellsberry Pie
We’re putting together the lineup for a Red Sox dinner—we hope for October—but I don’t want to give them any kenahoras, if you know what I mean. Here’s what we have so far, and I invite your suggestions. (Of interest, in 2007 Jacoby replaced what otherwise would have been dessert: Coco Crisp.) Starters: Cocktail Francona Bun, Adrian Gorganzalez Cheese, Green Muenster Cheese, Tim Wheatfilled Crackers, and Carl Crawfish Dip. Main Course: Veal Saltalamacchia, Marcoroni Scutaro, Josh Reddickio Salad with Big Poppy Seed Dressing, Jason Varitexas Toast, Kevin Yuccaless Side Dish with Jed Lowrie’s Seasonings, and Dustin Pedroyams. Dessert: Jacoby Ellsberry Pie, with (of course) Jonathan Papelbon-Bons closing the dinner. The Berries Our bumper crop…
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Quick and Creamy Microwave (for the heatwave) Chocolate Pudding
We’re having a heatwave, a tropical heatwave, and the temperature’s rising to 100°. So do I hold off cooking dessert? No! I get out a bowl and whisk up this quick and creamy microwave chocolate pudding without adding a single degree to the house. Essentially guilt-free (except for the sugar), it can also be guilt-optional, letting you choose whether or not to add all the butter or top with whipped cream. It tastes rich using skim milk, and, unlike many puddings, has no egg yolks to sabotage your summertime shape. There’s no saucepan to scrub—you can cook it right in the serving bowl—so in some small way you’re doing your part to conserve water…
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Kathleen’s Tiny Tarts: short and sweet
Tiny Tarts. I admit I love the nutty name as much as the nutty flavor. You’d think “pecan” would be the operative word, but no, the diminutive size gets top billing. This recipephany goes back to our first visit to the postcard-perfect Canadian seaside resort of St. Andrews in the ‘70s. We stayed at our friend Julie’s family home, a charming Cape Cod cottage that served as a dining hall for officers stationed at a nearby fort during the War of 1812. Julie’s mother Kathleen was a superb, versatile baker, ahead of her time with high loaves of molasses oatmeal and other whole grain breads. When she treated us to these delicate Tiny Tarts…
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Julia Lipman’s Cinnamon Tea Cake
This Cinnamon Tea Cake comes from Elinor Lipman. A best-selling novelist who serves up social comedies with affection and wit, Elinor has a talent for observing and carving up our culture — which of course includes food. Most notably, she can remember every meal she ever ate. While critics have praised her pitch-perfect ear for dialogue, I would also like to extol her taste buds. Everything she cooks and bakes and every restaurant dish she recommends is a winner. So I am overjoyed she has let me feature her mother’s recipe for Cinnamon Tea Cake. Like a Drake’s crumb cake, it’s delightfully light and luscious with cinnamon. And it performs the brilliant trick of…
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The King’s Peach Pie for Oscar night 2011
The winning pie for the Oscars 2011.
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Ma’s Lemon Sponge Pie
It’s holiday time. Who is making Ma’s Lemon Sponge Pie? My husband’s grandmother, Frances Leahey, brought home this recipephany from a cooking class sponsored by the Western Massachusetts Electric Company and its live-wire mascot Reddy Kilowatt in the 1940s. She had just bought an electric oven, and the class was, according to Reddy, to help “our electric customers to make the very best possible use of the electricity they buy.” There is no better use of electricity than this pie. At first, Ma thought this recipe was the case of a lemon meringue pie gone awry, where the teacher mistakenly folded the egg whites in with the filling instead of spreading them on top.…
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Orange Cake-Pan Cake — more than just a flash in the pan
The “cake-pan cake” could be the Missing Link between pudding and cake. Moist almost to a fault, it has giant, intense flavor. You mix it right in the pan – in a flash. What could be easier? With no butter, eggs, milk, or sour cream, it gained popularity during the food-rationing Depression Era. It’s perfect now for vegans, folks with egg or milk allergies, or for pareve occasions. The chocolate cake-pan (or three-hole) cake has been kicking around for years. I discovered this citrus variation in the King Arthur Flour 200th Anniversary Cookbook. What a recipephany: freedom from the cholesterol-laden orange bundt poundcake I used to make. Here is a guest-worthy dessert you can…
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Vegan Banana Bread — can it be a guilty pleasure?
It goes beyond moist to practically gooey. Think banana intoxication with a nutmeg buzz and a chocolate rush. Does this come in IV form? Is it right to swoon like this at breakfast? Yet Vegan Banana Bread can’t be a guilty pleasure, can it? Raegan Sales, a talented vegetarian cook, may have created this cake-like bread for vegans, but it’s also for anyone with too many bananas and no eggs. It bakes beautifully with all non-creature ingredients. And I admit I was pleasantly surprised with Earth Balance, a delicious faux butter. Thank you, Raegan, for sharing this special recipephany. Be forewarned, though: waiting the eternal half-hour for this to cool is a primal test…
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Edith’s Flaky Pie Crust, and how it may become Chelsea Clinton’s favorite
Pie crust is the basic black dress of baking. It starts out simple, with flour and salt. But then come the choices. Good or bad fats? Water, milk, juice, buttermilk, vinegar, or vodka? And what about secret ingredients like sugar or baking powder? Some recipes obsess over technique. If you want to see how many annoying steps you can stuff into a pie crust recipe, see how fussy Alton Brown gets. So where can you find a recipe for delicious, wholesome, flaky pastry crust in 40 words or less? One that even comes with a story of conflict, mystery, and revelation? The answer is this recipephany shared by our guest blogger, Robin Henschel. I…
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White Chocolate Fruit Tart (no real chocolate was harmed in the making of this summer treat)
First, the White Chocolate Disclaimer I could never understand white chocolate. Red licorice, yes; white chocolate, no. At best, its claim to any chocolateyness is its cocoa butter, and anybody who thinks it tastes like real chocolate belongs in a neuroscience experiment. As it turns out, Nestlé white baking chips (Premier White Morsels) are total frauds and don’t contain any cocoa butter at all. Not that you’d taste the difference, anyway. But no matter. These smooth imposters shine in this glorious summertime dessert, blending into an ideal substrate for the fruit. And no one’s the wiser. Tasty Tart I would never have tried this if it weren’t for our guest blogger, Chris Fogarty, and…
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The Best Cheesecake in Chicago
If our guest blogger, Jennifer Pieszak, ever wanted to chuck her career as an award-winning architectural lighting designer, she could open a beautifully lit bakery and there would be lines around the block for her superb cakes, desserts, muffins, cookies, scones and breads. I am honored she has chosen to share her “signature dessert,” The Best Cheesecake in Chicago. This black and white cheesecake is truly the best—it’s luscious, gorgeous, easy to make, and punctuated with chocolate. Here’s what Jennifer wrote: “When I was growing up in suburbia, Chicago and my grandmother came to represent the exotic and new. She lived on Chicago’s near north side in what is now the very trendy Lincoln Park…
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Black Magic Cake Works Its Wizardry
Black Magic Cake: The Platonic ideal of a chocolate cake Whatever your passion—milk, dark, or super-antioxidant dark—chocolate has a special relationship with your pleasure center. From FudgSicles to Chunky bars to Sky Bars, chocolate melts into happy memories. There are probably better chocolate delivery systems than cake. Flour and overbaking can mute the flavor. This explains the popularity of molten lava cakes and dense brownie-like cakes. Layer cakes can get dry or wimped out. For decades we had a reigning chocolate layer cake recipe in our household. We were happy. No complaints. But that was before I experienced my recipephany. I opened The Hershey’s Chocolate Treasury, copyright 1984, which I bought a few years…
