Posts Tagged ‘dessert’

It’s a double-edged sword to have a kid who loves to bake. On the one hand, I can print out recipes for sinful treats and within a couple of days I’m enjoying warm goodies right out of the oven, thanks to him. On the other hand, I can’t keep myself from invading the cookie jar 12 times a day when something is a smash-hit like these Chocolate-Pistachio Sablés!

They’re super-easy to make: you roll the dough into logs, chill, slice and bake. They’re rich and a little crumbly, with the crunch of pistachios and the creaminess of chocolate chunks. They’re not too sweet. And they’re sprinkled with sea salt. Need I go any further?

Whether you’re looking for…

Category: Recipes

I’m an especially lucky mom these days. One of my guys adores baking, and if I text him a recipe that has a drool-worthy picture, chances are pretty good he’ll whip up a batch within a day or two.

Such was the case with these decadent peanut butter cookies. They’re rich little treasures, filled with peanut butter cream and mini chocolate chips. I found them in a Food52 post on Friday, and when I got home from a very cool car show with my auto enthusiast son on Sunday, there was a plate of these—beautifully made—on the kitchen counter. Bless his heart!

Generous guy that he is, he made the cookies about three times larger than called…

Category: Recipes

Oooey-gooey s’mores. They conjure happy memories of warm summer nights under the stars: toasting a marshmallow to golden perfection, carefully sliding it onto a crisp graham cracker, topping it with a square of chocolate and another cracker, and watching all the melty lusciousness ooze out the sides of the sandwich. Comfort food doesn’t get much better than that!

While I can’t promise that these baked s’mores bars will transport you right to that same happy place, they do have the potential to make even the grumpiest monsters smile. The top and bottom crust (the “graham cracker”) is soft like a blondie. The chocolate is literally some chocolate bars placed on top of the crust. And the marshmallow…

Category: Recipes

Sure, chocolate’s the expected choice for a Valentine’s Day dessert, but c’mon, doesn’t this sweet and glossy raspberry dream look festive and romantic too?

A traditional English dessert, Eton Mess is commonly made with strawberries, layered with meringue and whipped cream, and it’s named for the college in the UK where it was created back in the 1800s. This variation, adapted from the Barefoot Contessa, features plump, glorious raspberries. The sweet meringue pieces contrast the tangy berries and add a delightful crispy crunch, and it all swirls together on your spoon with the help of fresh whipped cream.

To top it off, Eton Mess is a cinch to make. The raspberry sauce takes but a few minutes on…

Category: Recipes

Fine, I’ll admit it. I had a hankering for cake batter a couple of weeks back. Not cake-cake batter. Yellow cake batter to be exact. A few licks of a batter-coated rubber spatula, I reasoned, and I would be a happy woman. Simple pleasure. And then it dawned on me that one of my kid’s birthdays was the next day…so I actually had a legit excuse to mix up some batter, do some covert spatula-licking, and wind up with a birthday cake in the process!

First recipe I thought of called for buttermilk, which is not something that I happened to have in my fridge. And I wanted the cake batter licking to commence as soon…

Category: Recipes

These Salted “Kitchen Sink” Cookies are so damn good, it’s absurd. You like cookies? You like the combo of sweet and salty? You like pretzels? You like chips from both food groups: chocolate and potato? Then these cookies are a must-try.

The recipe comes from a Facebook friend who happens to be a superb caterer based in Stamford. I spied her photo of the cookies in the news feed one night, and instantly put the recipe on my to-do list. Let’s just say it rocketed up that list with a bullet! I made the cookies on Christmas Day, and the swoons began as soon as the first batch came out of the oven. They…

Category: Recipes

Don't get me wrong, I loves me some fruit. Bursting berries, juicy pineapples, luscious mangos—all scrumptious treats. But for dessert, there's nothing as satisfying as something rich and chocolatey, crunchy and creamy. And man, this Chocolate Cream Pie(Saveur, Issue #126)fires on all cylinders.

I grew up eating the "semi-homemade" version of chocolate cream pie. My mom would boil up some My-T-Fine, pour it into a baked Oronoque crust from the freezer, chill it, and voilà! Chocolate cream pie! She'd serve it with a dollop of Cool Whip or a swirl of Reddi-Whip. Pardon me for a moment while I grab a barf bag.

This is the real thing, and we were lucky enough that Ben found…

Category: Recipes

This is likely to set off shockwaves among my foodie peeps, but believe it or not, I don’t have an apple pie recipe in my repertoire. I know-heretic, isn’t it? And the reason why may even be more surprising: I basically don’t like apple pie. Crazy. Warped, even. What’s more bizarre is that my sister and I were both born of apple-pie-loving parents, and neither of us likes it. (The most elusive genetic mystery, however, may be how our parents-two coffee-drinking folks-managed to produce THREE non-coffee-drinking offspring. Anywho.)

Ironically, I wound up marrying a guy who prefers pies to cakes, and I can crank out delectable creations filled with things like blueberries, chocolate cream, or pumpkin. But I…

Category: Recipes

Uh, YUMMMM! Is there anything better than caramel, sea salt, chocolate, and crunchiness? I think not!

Although I personally prefer my chocolate-caramel crunch in non-Passover form – made with saltines rather than matzoh – it’s just as addictive with the unleavened bread of our ancestors. And as if that isn’t enough of a ringing endorsement, you don’t even have to clean the pan because it’s covered in foil and parchment.

Enjoy this simple recipe, adapted by David Lebovitz ““ and don’t blame me for getting you hooked on this addictive crunch!

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Chocolate-Caramel Matzoh Crunch

From DavidLebovitz.com

This recipe is adapted from Marcy Goldman of Betterbaking.com. It’s super-simple and requires no fancy thermometer, equipment, or ingredients. If…

Category: Recipes

Meeeee luvvvvvv cooooookiessss!

My super-duper sleuthing has uncovered the fact that Eli Zabar’s shortbread recipe is published over and over again throughout the Barefoot library in different variations. Shortbread hearts, linzer cookies, shortbread cookies with dragés…it’s all the same shortbread.

Granted it’s just four ingredients and it’s yummy, but I like making these because there are few things more fun than using cookie cutters! Takes me back to little cans of Play-Doh (“Doh!” ““ how Homer Simpsonian!), a tiny rolling pin and plastic cookie cutters. I haven’t made these cookies in ages, and I was so happy to find my worn bag of steel cutters in different shapes and sizes. (My favorite cutters? Four copper ones in…

Category: Recipes