Category Archives: dessert

Carrot cake with pistachio crumb topping

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Carrot cake with pistachio crumble topping

In our house, when we put the boys to bed, David reads stories to Isaac, and I sit next to Malcolm reading my novel while he reads his. (Pretty clever, huh? Reading time for me!) Then we go downstairs and yell at them periodically to Be quiet! Get back in bed! Get to sleep! (They share a room, and it’s nice to hear them chatting for a long time after lights out – what on earth do they talk about? But really, they need their sleep!) I just started reading The Brothers Karamazov. I like it so far, but it reminds me of reading War and Peace, which was so confusing at first because everybody has about three different names that they’re called by, and they all sound sort of similar, and I have trouble keeping them all apart. Which reminded me, in turn, of my brilliant idea that somebody should make a hip hop version of War and Peace. I think it would be wonderful! Epic! Here’s why. Rappers have a lot of different names, and I sometimes have trouble keeping them straight. And…so many of the concerns explored in War and Peace are also of primary importance in hip hop songs. Religion, violence, love, lust, greed, over-indulgence in alcohol. Can’t you just see it? Or maybe hear it, it should probably be an opera, right?

Ahem. Sorry for the creeping tangential nature of this post. Anyway – I can sometimes hear snippets of the stories David reads to Isaac, and yesterday one of them mentioned carrot cake. Carrot cake!?! Said Isaac. What on earth is that? You know, said David, it’s like pumpkin bread – it’s sweet and sweet-spicy. You could see the little wheels turning in Isaac’s head as he processed this information. And, of course, you could hear the little wheels creaking rustily in my much older head as I planned to make a carrot cake. Why not, thought I, why not purée the carrots, instead of grating them? Just for a change. And then my mind wandered back to an Indian dessert I had recently read about (I like to read the dessert sections of my Indian cookbooks while I eat my breakfast, don’t you?) It was a sort of carrot pudding, with pistachios and cardamom. Sounded good! But I didn’t want to just stir the pistachios in. I thought I’d make them into a crumbly topping with lots of butter and sugar, to make this even less of a healthy cake. It turned out very good! The cake is velvety, and the pistachios are a perfect crunchy little accent. Isaac came running into the kitchen, with a beaming smile, saying “you made carrot cake!” and boys both give it their seal of approval (crumbs all over the living room).

Here’s the B 52s with Cake

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Oatmeal cake with pears and chocolate chips

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Oatmeal cake

A perfect pear. It’s such a nice phrase, and such a rare and wonderful object to find in real life. There’s something so hopeful about waiting for a pear to ripen. You buy a few hard, golden green unblemished boscs. You put them somewhere safe and you wait for that one day that they’ll be perfect. Not mushy, not hard, just sweet and yielding. But there’s no guarantee they’ll be sweet once they ripen! You don’t know! They could be mealy and bland. And the wait for them to ripen is like marking the passage of time – they change before your eyes, almost as you watch! In my house it’s a very rare pear that makes it to perfection without insult and abuse. They’re dropped, they’re played with, somebody sneaks little bites and then puts it back when they realize it’s not ripe. Somehow I miss the fleeting moment of perfection. And I have bruised, scratched, soft and overripe pears. Which is exactly why pear cake was invented!

This cake has ground oats inside, to give a nice oaty flavor and texture, and rolled oats on top for crispy crunchiness. It has cardamom, which is a mysterious but lovely flavor, and very nice with pears. It’s a nice cake to have with coffee in the morning, but it’s sweet and special enough to have with a glass of wine after dinner. Maybe with some ice cream or lightly whipped cream. It’s very quick to put together.

Here’s Big Youth with Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. Time is running and passing, and you better get it right this time, but wait…there is a next time! If you miss the moment of ripeness – bake a cake!!
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Cardamom rabadi with champagne mango & salted pistachios

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rabadi

I find it fascinating that different cultures have similar recipes, especially when they involve not-so-simple techniques. The other day, Isaac and I made paneer, which, it turns out, is a lot like making ricotta. Did they teach each other? Did somebody in each country accidentally drop lemon juice in their boiling milk and say, “hey….”? I’ve been reading my Indian cookbooks (those by Julie Sahni and Madhur Jaffrey), and I was excited to come across recipes for rabadi. This is milk, boiled and then simmered for quite some time, until it becomes a lovely, slightly sweet pudding-like consistency. It’s thick and creamy and tawny. It’s very delicious! And the method of making it is quite similar to dulce de leche, except that you don’t add sugar, so it’s not as caramel-y. How did people discover these things? That if you whip egg whites they become stiff, or that if you cook milk for hours it becomes a comforting pudding? I like the simplicity of this dessert. It’s really just milk! I added a tiny bit of cardamom, and a few spoonfuls of sugar, and that was it – it was delicious by itself, but it was even nicer with some perfectly ripe champagne mangos, some pretty strawberries, and a handful of roughly chopped salted pistachios. This is a nice dessert for summer time, because you serve the rabadi chilled, and it’s perfect with whatever fruit is ripe. The next day I blended the leftover rabadi with the leftover mangoes and pistachios, to make a delicious thick frothy drink.

rabadi

And here’s the perfect song for this! Hot Milk, by Jackie Mittoo. He’s the best!
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Chikoo ice cream

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Chikoo ice cream

Chikoo (also called sapota) are not the prettiest fruit.They’re brown and mottled and slightly furry. I’m not sure what possessed me to buy two of them on our super-bodega traveling trip to Patel’s Cash and Carry. Yet buy two I did. I’d never heard of chikoo fruit, I had no idea what they tasted like or how to use them! Therein lies the very heart of the edgy and exciting fun that is super-bodega traveling! When I researched the little fruits, you cannot imagine my excitement to learnt that they are exceptionally sweet and malty, and that they taste like caramelized pears! Can you even imagine?!? Why don’t we eat them all the time!

So I brought my two little chikoo fruits home and waited for them to grow nice and soft, and I schemed to make ice cream with them, because it seemed like a nice way to let the flavor shine through against a simple yet tasty and creamy canvas. I cut into the first chikoo fruit. Very pretty, soft amber flesh. Crazy looking spiky shiny black beetly seeds. First taste – swoon! They’re delicious! I cut it into a bowl. I cut into the second fruit. A little firmer and paler. Took one very small bight. Tasted fine, but seconds later, my entire mouth was dry as can be. Turns out when they’re not ripe, they’re astringent. D’oh! So I had one little chikoo fruit to flavor the near-quart of custard and cream I had incautiously concocted. I tried to think of other things I could add. I let it sit in the fridge. I fussed and stressed.

And then David wisely said that if the whole idea of the ice cream was to showcase the chikoo fruit, obviously, what was needed was more chikoo fruit. We had the nicest impromptu afternoon adventure! We stopped to look for ebony wood. We went to an antique store. We went to Patel’s Cash and Carry, and I bought even more inexplicable produce! I bought frozen chikoo fruit. I bought a can of chikoo fruit, and I bought 4 very very ripe actual chikoo fruits. We can’t afford to go out to lunch at the moment, but we bought two fresh fat 79 cent samosas, which tasted as nearly perfect as you can imagine.

So I added the pulp of 4 more chikoos to my chikoo ice cream. (Minus the pieces that Malcolm, now a fan of the chikoo, snuck from the bowl). It turned out very very delicous! It did taste malty and caramel-y, with a lovely sweetness and a pleasing texture. And I still have frozen and canned chikoo fruits to fuel my future scheming!

This song Deewangi Deewangi was playing in the store when we selected our chikoo fruits. Yesterday my sons made a fort/pirate ship out of blankets on the couch. When I played this song, they both stood up at the helm of their ship, and did an instantly perfectly choreographed dance. Joy!
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Cadbury creme egg tarts

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Cadbury creme egg tarts

Here at The Ordinary, we are done baking with cadbury mini eggs (until the next time!). We’ve used the milk and royal dark mini-eggs in cookies. But we hadn’t used the mini creme eggs. That was a bridge we’d have to cross. Some might say a bridge too far. As you are no doubt aware, I am a scholar of savory pastries, and It has come to my attention that throughout the world you find some variation or a pastry with a crust, a soft yet firm inner layer, and a hard-boiled egg hidden inside. This would be the starting point for our mini creme egg experiments. The jumping-off point from that bridge too far. So I made little tarts, with a paté sucrée crust (kind of shortbread-y) a blackcurrant-almond filling, and one mini-egg hidden in each one. I was very curious to see how the creme eggs would fare in a hot oven. They sort of melted, but they’re still recognizable as creme eggs, I think. I like them! My boys love them! David thinks they’d be better without the cadbury creme egg, because what the heck is that cremey stuff made out of, anyway?!? My one regret is that I mixed the blackcurrant jam with the almond paste, rather than including it as a layer. But only because it turned the inside a bit grey, not because it doesn’t taste good. I think if you used raspberry jam, the whole thing would be pink and pretty. I don’t know for sure – I might have to try it!

Here’s The Smiths with Sweet and Tender Hooligan. Because these are tender, and decidedly sweet. And we’ll never never never do it again…
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Dulce de leche blondies

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Blondies

We, here at The Ordinary, ate too many brownies some time in midwinter. As we lay with a glazed look in our eyes and crumbs on our bellies, we said, “I’m never eating brownies again.” Oh, I know, we’ve all said it, after a rough bout of brownie eating. But this time we meant it. Cakes and cookies and tarts? Sure. But no brownies. Fortunately, we didn’t say anything about blondies! So here we go! I had a half a can of sweetened condensed milk leftover from my almond quince cake. What a strange and magical substance sweetened condensed milk is. Who thought of it? How was it invented? Or was it discovered, like a rare and elusive natural phenomenon? For some reason it always makes me think of those 50s food ads from magazines, with the oddly fascinating coloration. The truth is, it’s a really nice taste. There’s something so comforting about the sweet, thick milkiness.

I seem to have made some indelible connection between dulce de leche and sweetened condensed milk. I didn’t use it when I made dulce de leche, but I bought a can then, just in case! Once again, I didn’t actually use dulce de leche in this recipe, but I melted brown sugar, butter and sweetened condensed milk to start it out, and that’s what I thought of.

The result is complete deliciousness. I’ve never made a brownie or a blondie with a more crackly top. And the inside is delightfully chewy and fudgy.

Here’s Blondie with Atomic. Wouldn’t you like to be Deborah Harry, living in NYC when this came out?
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Almond cake with quince glaze

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Almond cake with quince glaze

I love quince! So I was very happy to be given a jar of quince jelly recently (Thanks, Ellie!) It’s delicious on toast, of course, but it’s so pretty, and has such a lovely, distinctive, mysterious flavor, that I knew I had to make something else with it as well. Obviously I needed to make a cake. Somewhere in the back of my muddled mind, I remembered reading about a Uruguayan confection that combined quince and dulce de leche. So I wanted the cake to have a hint of dulce de leche about it. It doesn’t actually contain any, but it’s made with sweetened condensed milk and brown sugar, so it has that rich, caramel-y flavor to it. It’s a dense cake, and the almonds add a nice texture to it. The flavor of the cake itself is fairly simple, so that the quince-y quinciness shines through in all of its delightful flavor.

Here are two versions of Mr Jelly Lord, by Jelly Roll Morton. Don’t you love that song title? And the song?
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Hazelnut, pear, chocolate tart

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Pear-hazelnut tart

Among life’s most pressing philosophical questions is this one: When is frangipane not frangipane. We have a think tank, here at The Ordinary, entirely devoted to solving this riddle. Another pressing question…why am I so fascinated by frangipane? I don’t know! Frangipane is a sort of baked custard of eggs, sugar and ground almonds, at its simplest. (As I understand it! Feel free to correct me, if you know otherwise.) So, if you take the sugar out, and make it savory, what’s that called? If you add a little more flour than is customarily used, and rather than being soft and eggy, the custard has a bit of a crispy top, what’s that called? If you use hazelnuts, instead of almonds, what’s that called?

That’s what I did, people. I’ve experimented in the past with the delightful trinity of pears, hazelnuts and chocolate, in cake form. Well…*breaking news*…I bought a tart pan. I’m so excited! It really is something I should have had all along, because I’m such a tart person (sharp, bitter, sarcastic…). I used it the day I bought it, to make this tart.

We have a layer of paté sucrée made with brown sugar. We have a layer of bosc pears caramelized in rum, and then we have a layer of hazelnut frangipane (until somebody gives me another name for it!). The top layer was the slightly crispy on top kind, rather than the dense and eggy kind. This means that you can break off little pieces to have with your coffee in the morning, as well as eating a slice on a plate with lightly whipped cream for dessert.

Here’s Common & Mos Def with The Questions. (caution, might be a bit sweary) Why do I need I.D. to get I.D.? Why, indeed.
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Cadbury egg cookies

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cadbury egg cookies

What?!?! Chocolate chip cookies with cadbury mini-eggs baked right in?!?! THAT’S RIGHT!! This was another inspiration of my husband, culinary genius. These are chocolate chip cookies – the kind that are just the right amount of crispy on the outside and just the right amount of chewy on the inside, with the better part of a bag of cadbury mini-eggs mixed into the batter. The mini-eggs are milk chocolate, the chocolate chips are bittersweet chocolate, and the cookies are ridiculously tasty. I love the way that the candy shell on the blue eggs changes color as it bakes, and comes out a real robin’s-egg blue. So pretty! But they won’t last very long for you to admire them!

Here’s the Beastie Boys with Egg Man.
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Chocolate drambuie mousse

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When I was little, a friend of my parents came to the house with a walking stick. It was a very special walking stick! The brass knob on top unscrewed, and when you pulled it out, a long glass tube emerged. Like a slim, secret bottle. I thought it was the neatest thing I’d ever seen! (Yes, we used the word “neat” back then, children.) I was too young to drink, or even want to drink, but oh how I coveted that cane. Imagine my delight when a gift arrived in the mail – my very own secret bottled-cane, from the gentleman who had introduced me to the concept in the first place. I was so happy! At the time, I was also very taken with drambuie. Not to drink – just the idea of it. Flavored with herbs, spices, and heather honey. From the Isle of Skye. What magical potion is this! So I filled my secret tube with drambuie. And then pretty much left it there until the cork dried up and the glass tube got stuck in the cane. Sigh. Now that I’m 42 (how did that happen?) I’m taken with more than just the idea of drambuie. I’m also a big fan of the unusual, distinctive flavor, and the way it burns a little bit on a sore throat.

I wanted to make a special dessert for valentine’s day. Not just cookies or cake, that we’d all eat for days afterwards, but something just for that moment. So I made mousse. It’s ridiculously delicious – it’s like a distillation of good flavors and textures. But it’s not something you’d want to eat every day. It’s so rich, and seems so sweet! (Although it really doesn’t have any sugar other than that in the chocolate.)

It was actually fun to make, too. You start with a zabaglione, which is one of my current favorite words. That’s egg yolks, whipped and cooked with some sweetish liqueur or wine. This kind of thing makes me very nervous – cooking egg yolks till they thicken, but watching to make sure they don’t cook too fast and curdle. It’s a special feeling of victory when it works. Which it did! Then you add melted chocolate and whipped cream. And that’s about it. Very simple, very delicious.

Here’s Cab Calloway’s So Sweet.
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