Category Archives: dessert

Apricot almond cake w/ apricot-cassis cream

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Apricot almond cake

I love the idea of a cake with apricot glaze – I always have. It’s strangely associated with some childhood notion of sophistication in edible form. Strange, because I can’t remember the actual moment that I ate an elegant cake with an apricot glaze. I can remember plenty of battenburg cakes, wrapped in plastic like the block of modeling clay that they resembled. They had a layer of apricot glaze under their oddly chewy marzipan layer. I loved them! But I’m sure I never thought of them as elegant. The truth is, whether sophisticated or not, a layer of apricot makes sense in a cake! It adds a pleasant fruity tartness that offsets the sweetness of whatever else happens to be in the cake. This cake happens to have almonds – a classic match with apricots – and bittersweet chocolate, which adds its own version of bitter-with-sweet, to complement the apricots.

Inexplicably, I became semi-obsessed with making apricot-cassis cream. I thought about a million different things to make, but I kept returning to this. So I turned to my new BFF, the pastry cream, and I added a purée made of apricots and cassis, and then folded in a little lightly whipped cream. I thought it was very nice with the cake – I don’t think I’ve ever had pastry cream or any of its subsidiaries alongside a cake before, but I thought it was a lovely combination of textures. You could easily eat the apricot cream on its own as a mousse, with some crispy cookies!

I just can’t not share this! It’s a song called Apricot, by the Armenian Navy Band, and it has my Malcolm dancing around the room in his pjs.
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Brown butter caramel ice cream with chocolate chips

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Brown butter – chocolate chip ice cream

This is a story of redemption! This is a story of ice cream that lost its way, somewhere on the journey, but found it again to become glorious. (And was then eaten.) It started out with so much promise. A lovely brown butter caramel was made, and it was worked into a custard that thickened and didn’t curdle. Good custard!
Obedient custard! And then it sat in the fridge all day in a spacious bowl, getting nice and chilled, just like you hoped it would. But when you tried to put it in your little antiquated ice cream maker, it was all, “Whatever, I’m not going to freeze! That’s so totally uncool!” You tried a few times. You coaxed it, you tried to talk its language. To no avail. So, in despair, you set it aside. And it spent some time in the cold dark underworld we’ll call your freezer. Hobnobbing with the ne’er-do-well frozen peas, the reprobate frozen waffles. Chilling story! The next morning, faced with the harsh light of day, the ice cream was a mess. Weirdly icy in the middle, with a strange sugary coating on top. Well, we’ve all been there. We all know what it’s like the next morning. But you gave it what for! You worked it up good! And what you had before you, after a rigorous workout, was a creamy, slightly icy confection that you really needed to eat three bowls at a time.

So! If you have a regular functioning way to make ice cream, you don’t need to go through all this drama. You can just make the ice cream. I started by browning some butter; added the brown butter to some brown sugar; cooked till it was bubbly (but not petrified); made that into a custard, with the slight addition of a tablespoonful of tapioca flour. To thicken and preserve against curdling. You could easily leave this out or add the same amount of cornflour. I added chocolate chips, but I processed them first in my tiny food processor. This meant that you had some solidly chunky chocolate pieces, and some pieces of flaky chocolate “dust.” I think this was one of the absolute best things about this ice cream!! You could also just chop the chocolate chips with a big knife, and be sure to include all the little gravelly bits, if you don’t have a processor.

Here’s Blackalicious with The Fall and Rise of Elliot Brown

THE CUSTARD

3 T butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 cups milk
1 T tapioca or corn flour
pinch salt
1/2 t cinnamon
2 eggs
1 T vanilla

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 t seasalt

Warm the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat till it’s toasty and brown. (Ten minutes?) You’ll have brown solids on the bottom of the pan. Strain through a paper towel, collecting the brown liquidy part in a clean bowl.

Put the brown butter back into a saucepan with the sugar, and heat again at medium heat till the sugar is melted and boiling away. After about 1 minute of boiling, take it off the heat.

In a small bowl, combine the tapioca flour with a bit of the milk. Whisk to mix well. Pour this mixture into the rest of the milk, and pour it all into the sugar/butter combination. Whisk it all together until it’s well combined, and add the vanilla and the salt and cinnamon.

In the same bowl, whisk the eggs till they’re light and fluffy. In a slow stream, add the warm milk, whisking the whole time. Then pour the whole mix back into the saucepan, and cook over low heat, whisking the whole time, for about 10 minutes. You don’t want to let anything boil, or the eggs will curdle everything. After 10 minutes, it will just leave a light coating on the back of your spoon.

Pour it into a cool bowl, cover, put in the fridge, and leave for 5 hours or over night.

When you’re ready to freeze it…process 1 cup of good bittersweet chocolate chips for about a minute, till they’re mostly in tact, but they have some flaky dusty bits of chocolate all around them. Stir this into your custard, stir in the heavy cream, and then freeze according to your ice cream maker’s instructions. I shook a bit of sea salt in before freezing as well!

Banana, peanut butter, chocolate chip cake

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Peanut butter, banana, chocolate chip cake

There’s a flea market just down the road from us. It’s not the kind I remember from childhood, with fake leather boots, airbrushed t-shirts, rows and rows of new, cheap shiny things. This one is an antique flea market. You can find anything there. Any strange object that you can imagine, will one day show up at this flea market. The sellers always seem so Dickensian. I wonder about their lives – how far they’ve travelled, how they’ve come across all of these treasures, how much of their history is packed into their vans and pick-up trucks. And every object could tell a story. From old happy meal toys, two for a dollar (my poor boys aren’t ever going to go to an actual McDonalds) to super-8 cameras, ottomans, settees, paintings, scooters, antiquated medical equipment, old woodworking tools, beads, baubles, entire family photo albums, magic lantern slides, daguerreotypes… And of course, vintage military supplies. Knives, uniforms, binoculars, shell cases, canteens – all camouflage and olive drab and khaki. It always makes me think of Tom Waits’ Soldier’s Things…

A tinker, a tailor
A soldier’s things
His rifle, his boots full of rocks
And this one is for bravery
And this one is for me
And everything’s a dollar
In this box

When I was little I wanted to write a story that juxtaposed scenes in a museum, of armor or weapons, with scenes of those weapons being used – the actual story of the people that killed with them, or died by them. Maybe I will some day!

My favorite thing to find at the flea, lately, is china. Mismatched, cracked, beautiful plates and bowls. Well, on mothers’ day, David bought me a cake plate! I’m so excited! I’ve never had one, and this one is a beauty. From the fifties, maybe. Lovely, milky translucent form, with a foot, and a sweet silvery-gold polka-dot fleur-de-lis pattern. Of course I had to make a cake! We had two extremely ripe bananas. I wanted to do something a little different with them. I thought about one of David & Malcolm’s favorite sandwich variations – banana and peanut butter. And the rest is history!!

Tom Waits – Soldier’s Things
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Linden tea madeleines

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Linden tea madeleines

I’ve been obsessed with the idea of making these for some time! It all started when I discovered that Proust’s famous madeleine was not the memory-trigger so much as the lime-flower tea that he dipped it in. These cookies are made with linden tea, which is a sweet, subtle flavor. It tastes like a memory! It tastes like spring! And the madeleines are lovely – tender, soft, a little crispy on the outside.
Happy mothers’ day to all the moms of the world. And thanks to my mom, for all of the comfort and inspiration you continue to give me.

I go on and on about Proust, and being a mom, and have some pictures of my mother’s day bouquet, after the…JUMP

Here’s Goodie Mob with Guess Who. It’s about their moms. It’s beautiful!
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Nutella cake

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Nutella cake

I was shelving some books in the boys’ room (their preferred method of storing books is heaping them in a giant pile on the floor, as if in preparation for a bonfire) when I came across a book from my childhood. My Learn to Ride Book. It was from the period in my life that I saved up every penny to buy myself a horse. Looking at the pictures – clean line drawings and simple colors, I recalled vividly what a keen pleasure the book had been for me. I can’t really explain why that would be. There was something so hopeful about it, maybe…the book goes from choosing a horse to jumping over giant hurdles on your horse in about twenty pages. It makes it all seem possible. I never did buy that horse.

Somebody asked me to bake a cake! For an occasion! I felt so honored. I decided to make a nutella cake – everybody likes nutella, right? So I added dark cocoa and ground hazelnuts to the batter, I put a thick layer of nutella in the middle, and I coated the whole thing with bittersweet ganache, just for kicks. While I was making it, I thought about a picture from My Learn to Ride Book. The picture shows the kind of horse you should avoid at all costs. The poor thing has so many problems, one of which is a sway back. Well…my cake didn’t get all puffy and round on top. It wasn’t meant to, I tell you! It was meant to have a dense but tender, cakey-brownie-like texture, with little crunchy hazelnut accents. It was all carefully calculated! But the people at the event might not know that! They might think my cake looked like an undesirable old horse! Sigh. I made myself a tiny version of the cake to be sure that it was edible, and let me tell you, people, it was delicious!! Firm on the outside, light and soft on the inside, with lovely lovely hazelnut taste and crunch. You really can’t go wrong with nutella!

This might seem like sort of an odd connection, but here’s Big Boi’s The Rooster. It was the PTA that asked me to bake the cake, and he talks about going to a PTA meeting on this track, which just kills me, somehow. I love this song!
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Meyer lemon, rosemary, black pepper mousse & chocolate-dipped ginger shortbread

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Meyer lemon mousse & ginger shortbread cookie

When I was 12 or 13, my friend and I made dinner for our parents. The whole meal – cordials, a main course, dessert. Our parents gave us complete freedom in the kitchen, and bravely agreed to eat whatever we set in front of them. I think I had just stopped eating meat at the time, but apparently I wasn’t averse to cooking it for others, because we boiled a whole chicken with copious amounts of dried thyme. (The smell of dried thyme still makes me think of that day!) We boiled a whole chicken! I can’t claim to know how to cook chicken, to be honest, but that just doesn’t sound right! We made little cordials with (our parents’) brandy and crushed blackberries. I’d drink that in real life! And for dessert we combined whipped cream, lemon juice and sugar, and then we froze it. That’s right, we made lemon ice cream. I made a meyer lemon mousse, yesterday, and the whole process reminded me of that day.

I like anything that combines lemon and cream. It’s such an unlikely combination – surely the cream should curdle! But no, it’s like magic! It all stays together, and the tartness of the lemon is such a nice contrast to the, um, the creaminess of the cream. As you may recall, I was very excited the other day to have discovered a method of making non-chocolate mousse without gelatin. The secret was pastry cream, my new best friend – so satisfying to make, so fail-proof, so thick and creamy when it’s done. Is this really the same substance that I found kinda gross in cream donuts all these years? Could it be? I infused the pastry cream with a couple of rosemary branches…I think I may have been inspired by a recipe for rosemary apple ice cream that Liz kindly left in the comments! And I added black pepper, for a little kick. I’ve made bread with rosemary, lemon and black pepper, and I like the fact that all three ingredients comfortably straddle the sweet/savory divide. They’ve taken a little leap over to the sweet side, in this dish! The rosemary is quite subtle, because I didn’t leave any actual bits of rosemary in. Maybe next time! And now we’re wondering, here at the test kitchens of The Ordinary, when a mousse is actually a mousse. This was thick, it was creamy, it was light, and it was delicious. It wasn’t exactly frothy or airy, though. Need it be, to be a mousse? Is it a pudding? A custard? Questions to be set before the creamy dessert division of The Ordinary.

Lemon syrup

The cookies are thin, crispy ginger shortbread rounds, coated in bittersweet chocolate. I made a ginger shortbread crust for a tart the other day, and I’ve been determined to try it in cookie form ever since. Very nice dipped in coffee, very nice dipped in meyer lemon mousse!

Here’s Gene Krupa with Lemon Drop
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Chikoo Mousse

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chikoo mousse

If you’re like me, you spend a lot of time wondering how you can possibly make mousse without gelatin. Chocolate mousse is easy – when the melted chocolate cools it provides enough substance to set the mousse. (At least I think that’s how it works.) How about other mousses, though? How about fruit mousses, for instance? How does that work? It might not seem like a very pressing question, because I don’t actually make mousse all that often. But when I discovered chikoo fruit, that unlikely-looking but ridiculously delicious fruit that tastes like caramelized pears, I was determined to make a mousse. Why? Because chickoo mousse, besides being very fun to say, also sounds a lot like Eek-a-Mouse. Right? Well, my first attempt became derailed, because I couldn’t make a thick enough custard to set the mousse, so I made it into ice cream instead, which turned out very tasty indeed.

Last week, as I was making the cardamom pastry cream for my champagne mango tart, I had a revelation. An epiphany. Pastry cream is certainly thick enough to set a mousse! And my cardamom pastry cream tasted so good I was eating it by the spoonful. And cardamom and chikoo would be delicious together. I had some pastry cream left over. I had a can of chikoo in light syrup I’d bought on my last super bodega traveling mission, that I was saving for a special occasion such as this. All planets were aligned!

The mousse is a little softer than perhaps is traditional, but pleasantly so. It’s very lightly flavored with cardamom, the sweetness of the chikoo carries the day, and it made a nice small sweet thing to eat after a heavy and intensely flavored feast of Indian take out. I’ll be deploying pastry cream in mousse-related projects many times in the days to come! You could easily make this recipe with any other sweet soft fruit. Strawberries would be nice! Or mangoes – mangoes would be perfect!

Here’s Eek a Mouse with George Porgie
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Champagne mango tart (with cardamom pastry cream and ginger-shortbread)

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Champagne mango tart

The Guardian recently had an article about alphonso mangoes. They sound magically delicious! They also sound like champagne mangoes, and I thought they might be the same thing. When I did a little research I learned that they’re closely related, but not the same. Alphonso mangoes come from India. Champagne mangoes come from Mexico, and they’re also called Adolpho mangoes. I love that! I love that they have people names, and that they’re close relatives. Can’t you just imagine a family reunion of mangoes from all over the world? If mangoes were people they’d be bright and sweet and pleasant, with just enough of a piquant edge to keep them interesting.

Champagne mangoes are ripe and cheap around here at the moment. They’re also irresistible. They have a mild, sweet taste (you can see why they’re also called “honey mangoes.”) They have small pits and pretty, velvety flesh, not at all stringy. I wanted to make a fresh little tart that would show them off nicely without overwhelming them. So I made a ginger-shortbread shell (which would taste good on its own as a cookie, as it happens!) And I made a pastry cream flavored with vanilla and cardamom. Pastry cream is my kind of custard. It has a little bit of flour in it, which means that you don’t have to worry too much about letting it curdle. And if it does curdle, you can process it till it’s smooth again. And – you know when it’s thick. There’s no doubtful “Is that coating the back of the spoon? What does that even look like? Should I be using a metal spoon or a wooden spoon? Will it get thicker, or will it just get RUINED?!?!” (I’m a nervous custard maker.) When pastry cream is thick, it’s thick.

Everybody liked the tart, even the littlest food critic, Isaac. And, you know, it’s just fruit and milk! Right?

Here’s Mango Meat by Mandrill. I love this one!!
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Millionaire shorbread with sea salt, rum, and meyer lemons

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Millionaire shortbread with sea salt

Apparently there’s a woman who successfully sued nutella because they made her believe their product was healthy. She fed it to her daughter daily, with dangerous results. Well! I feed nutella to my son on a regular basis, but I don’t kid myself that it’s healthy! I know it’s got lots of sugar and fat. But I spread it on a sandwich made with unsweetened peanut butter and whole wheat bread. And I know those are good for him. I believe it’s important to find a balance. A little bit of sugar is okay if it’s part of a relatively healthy combination. Sugar whipped together with chemicals in candy is a very rare treat. Chocolate in a cookie, on the other hand, is a good reward for a meal well-eaten. Especially if it’s a cookie that we make together! I’m suspicious of processed foods. Even “healthy” processed foods. I’m not a fan or margarine, low-fat cheese, or sugar-free anything. These products remind me of the saying, “Americans will try anything to lose weight, except eating less food.” And the food companies will try to sell any kind of diet that involves products they can market to people trying to lose weight. Which, let’s face it, is probably a majority of Americans. I’d rather have a small amount of real butter or real sugar than a large amount of a substitute that tastes like chemicals. Everything in moderation. As long as you have lots of vegetables and fruits and foods with protein and vitamins, it’s fine to have something special and sweet once in a while.

Which brings us to millionaire shortbread with sea salt, rum, and meyer lemons. Let’s see. There are ground almonds in the crust! That’s good for you, right? A little? Well, you wouldn’t want to make these every day, but they’re ridiculously delicious, and I think we need to eat sweets like this every now and again (health permitting)! I cut them small, and I almost think of them more as candy than cookies. Let me tell you about them…they have an almond shortbread crust with some rum in it. They have a layer of caramel with meyer lemon zest & juice and a bit of rum and sea salt. And they have coarse sea salt sprinkled on top. I had fun making the caramel, but it was a slightly anxious time. I’ve made caramel in the past to spread over a cake. I wanted this to be a little harder, but not hard enough to crack anybody’s teeth. I thought I might have made it too hard, so I added an extra tablespoon of butter and milk. And it turned out perfect! I’ll have to try it again and see if I can repeat the feat.

Here’s Mississippi John Hurt with Shortnin Bread. He’s the best!

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Isaac’s ultimate nutella-filled pretzels

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Isaac had strep throat twice this winter. It’s almost a relief when you get the diagnosis, because you know what it is, and you know how to treat it. There must have been a time before antibiotics were discovered that it would have been such dire news. The medicine usually kicks in right away, but you can’t send the kid to school for another twenty-four hours. I like that grace period! I like spending a day with one of my boys, when it almost seems like they’re playing hooky, because they feel well enough to do (quiet) fun things. We’re always both a little tired, from nights of staying up feeling ill or worrying (I do a lot of that!), so it’s nice to cuddle on the couch and read, or draw, or sit in the sunshine. Or bake! It seems to have become a tradition that we’ll bake cookies, usually based on some idea of the boys’ clever little brains.

nutella-filled pretzels

This nutella-filled pretzel cookie, though, is something I’ve been scheming about for a while. Over the summer it was all the rage to dip skinny little pretzel sticks into a giant jar of nutella. (An invention of their cousin, Evan) It is an oddly perfect combination. Mild and salty meets almost-too-sweet. So that’s what we decided to do here. I wasn’t sure if the nutella would stay inside the pretzel, what with all the baking and the boiling. I was delighted that it (mostly) did! On a few of the pretzels, the nutella leaked out and somehow melded with the salt and the butter and lord knows what else to form completely delicious little crispy chips. Someday…I will find a way to make them.

We mixed up the dough, and then we had to let it rest for an hour, so I suggested Isaac have some lunch while we wait. “A lunch break!” he declared. “This is the first job I’ve ever had where I got a lunch break!”

These cookie pretzels are very popular in my family at the moment. Although for some reason David keeps saying, “you shouldn’t have done this!” They are dangerously good!!

We went to the doctor twice, and both times, this song was playing when we drove back down the flower-lined streets of our town. Isaac said, “this is one of my favorite songs at the moment.” Which is funny, cause it’s one of my favorite songs of all time. It’s Barbara Dane with Ramblin’ Round. I’ve heard it a million times, and it makes me weepy every single time I hear it, as though I’ve never heard it before.

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