Category Archives: Recipes (Sweet)

Bigger Bolder Irish Shortbread For Trying Times

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We all need a big, buttery cookie in these trying times.
We all need a big, buttery cookie in these trying times. Plus, you can play Jenga with it!

In a crisis, some people hoard toilet paper.

I bake.

And apparently, from the looks of social media, I’m not the only one. Peppering the updates of so many of my friends lately are photos and confessions of baking to ease the mind or merely distract from the news of late.

I readily admit that I sometimes fall victim to procrastibaking — ignoring writing deadlines only to bake a batch of cookies instead. Stress baking is merely its close cousin.

Psychologists have explained that those who hoard toilet paper or empty grocery shelves in a panic are only trying to exercise control in a world that now seems very much out of our hands. We can’t guarantee we won’t catch a deadly coronavirus. But darned if we can’t make sure our pantries and cupboards are filled to capacity.

And so, I bake. Because if I’m going down, I’m doing so fighting — and with a ready-steady supply of buttery sweet treats.

“Bigger Bolder Irish Shortbread” is ideal at times like this. It’s from the new cookbook, “Bigger Bolder Baking: A Fearless Approach to Baking Anytime, Anywhere” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019), of which I received a review copy.

It’s by Gemma Stafford, an Irish-born chef and creator of the YouTube baking show, “Bigger Bolder Baking,” who now makes her home in Los Angeles.

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Iced Matcha & Lemon Loaf Cake

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St. Patrick's Day calls for a green cake.
St. Patrick’s Day calls for a green cake.

St. Patrick’s Day calls for something green — and sweet.

Thankfully, Mother Nature provides the perfect natural green food coloring in the form of matcha, the Japanese ceremonial tea.

That’s what gives this cake and frosting its vivid hue.

“Iced Matcha & Lemon Loaf Cake” is a lovely dessert, both to look at and to eat.

It’s from the book, “Good & Proper Tea: How to Make, Drink and Cook with Tea” (Kyle, 2019), of which I received a review copy.

The book is by Emilie Holmes, an avowed non-coffee drinker in the United Kingdom, who started her own company, Good & Proper Tea, to source and sell top-notch whole-leaf teas. With crowd-funding resources, she first started an adorable mobile tea bar out of a converted 1974 Citroen in 2012 before opening a brick-and-mortar tea shop and cafe in 2019.

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Pear-Rosemary Muffin Tin Pies

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Two words: butter bomb.
Two words: butter bomb.

These may be little, but they are lethal.

Dare I tell you how much butter there is in these innocent looking “Pear-Rosemary Muffin Tin Pies’?

There are 3 1/4 sticks total.

That’s 26 tablespoons of butter for 10 itty-bitty pies.

(Math majors can be more precise, but that’s a little more than 2 1/2 tablespoons of butter per muffin-tin pie. Although, darn it, when you break it down like that, it doesn’t seem quite so bad. Well, maybe…)

Regardless, I am here to tell you that it is worth the calories and cholesterol to make these beauties.

We are talking some seriously flaky, supremely buttery, and moan-inducing, swoon-worthy crusts. They are filled with tender chunks of pears that take on an unexpected perfume from fresh rosemary. The finishing touch is a brown-butter, brown-sugar, walnut streusel top.

This divine recipe is from “The Perfect Pie: Your Ultimate Guide to Classic and Modern Pies, Tarts, Galettes, and More” by America’s Test Kitchen, of which I received a review copy.

Inside, you will find all manner of pies made with all manner of crusts such as “Classic Pie Dough” (made with butter and shortening), “Vegan Pie Dough” (made with coconut oil), and “Gluten-Free Pie Dough” (made with gluten-free flour blend, sour cream, rice vinegar and a little xanthan gum).

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The Aptly Named Aphrodisiac Biscuit

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Resistance is futile.
Resistance is futile.

If Valentine’s Day is all about showering the ones you love with an overload chocolate, then this biscuit is sure to do the trick — and then some.

“Aphrodisiac Biscuit” is aptly named because it not only has chopped chocolate inside a tender interior but glossy melted chocolate spread lavishly all over its top.

This decadent treat is from “The Big Bottom Biscuit: Specialty Biscuits and Spreads from Sonoma’s Big Bottom Market” (Running Press, 2019), of which I received a review copy.

The book is by Michael Volpatt, who opened the Big Bottom Market in Guerneville in 2011, a combo retail store and cafe that serves sandwiches, salads, and of course, biscuits.

It includes more than 50 recipes for biscuits, biscuit dishes and things that go with biscuits. In short, it will expand your horizon on just what biscuits can be.

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A Prickly Affair With Persimmons

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While this is a faux persimmon, my new-found adoration of Hachiya persimmons is very much real.
While this is a faux persimmon, my new-found adoration of Hachiya persimmons is very much real.

Like so many great love affairs, this one began with trepidation.

After all, an astringent personality is not something one warms to readily. What was required was untold patience for its latent sweetness to reveal itself in time.

Such was my relationship with Hachiya persimmons.

Now, with its cousin, the Fuyu, the attraction was immediate. Cheerfully hued, beguilingly sweet, and ready to eat in a flash while still crisp, the Fuyu is thoroughly captivating in salads or pickled.

But the Hachyia? Well, it was more like that demon lurking in the shadows in a horror movie, biding its time as it transformed ever so slowly but surely into something blobby, oozy, and frightening.

Can you blame me for trying to avoid it for years?

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