Category Archives: Recipes (Sweet)

Going Green For The Holidays with Matcha Cream Pie

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Beyond the tree and wreath, add a little more green to your holidays with this spectacular matcha cream pie.
Beyond the tree and wreath, add a little more green to your holidays with this spectacular matcha cream pie.

With a new year dawning, let’s all be brave enough to pledge to trust our gut instincts more.

I know so many friends who agonize over situations — analyzing, re-analyzing, and plain over-analyzing — before taking action, even if they know in their heart immediately what they should do.

I’ve been there many a time, myself.

Case in point: this “Matcha Cream Pie” recipe, which appeared in the Wall Street Journal in September.

It’s a recreation of the signature dessert at Stonemill Matcha in San Francisco by Pastry Chef Mikiko Yui.

It’s a dazzler, covered in a cloud of orange zest-scented whipped cream. It’s only when you cut into it that it truly reveals itself with its dramatic deep green filling made with matcha.

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When Are Cookies Like Brownies? When They Are Clinton Street Brookies

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Is it a brownie or a cookie? It's a cookie that tastes like a brownie.
Is it a brownie or a cookie? It’s a cookie that tastes like a brownie.

You know that delightful crackly, papery layer that forms and separates from the top of brownies when you bake them, adding a fabulous textural contrast to the cakey or chewy foundation below?

That’s exactly what you get in cookie form with these “Clinton Street Brookies.”

They bake up fairly flat and modest in size. So you’re taken aback at the unexpected colossal chocolate taste they provide that’s as deep, dark and potently rich as your favorite dark chocolate brownie.

The recipe for these stunners is from “Rose’s Baking Basics: 100 Essential Recipes, with More Than 600 Step-by-Step Photos” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018), of which I received a review copy.

The book is by baking doyenne Rose Levy Beranbaum, veteran of more than 10 cookbooks and creator of the blog, Real Baking with Rose.

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Caramel Popcorn Cookies

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Start with homemade caramel popcorn.
Start with homemade caramel popcorn.

Sure, you could make this addictive caramel popcorn and just call it a day.

But come on, it’s the holidays. It’s time to take it up a notch, to revel in being over the top, to go big or go home.

So go one better, and turn that snack into “Caramel Popcorn Cookies.”

Oh, yeahhh. Instead of stirring in the usual chocolate chips or dried cranberries into your cookie dough, throw in a big flourish of caramel popcorn instead.

It’s like two treats in one.

And end up with Caramel Popcorn Cookies!
And end up with Caramel Popcorn Cookies!

This novel recipe comes from the new cookbook, “Pastry Love: A Baker’s Journal of Favorite Recipes” (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt), of which I received a review copy.

It’s by one of my all-time favorite bakers, James Beard Award-winning Joanne Chang, of Flour Bakery, with multiple locations in Boston and Cambridge, and the Chinese restaurant Myers + Chang in Boston.

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Tartine’s Sweet Potato Tea Cake with Meringue

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Not your average loaf cake.
Not your average loaf cake.

A tea cake is a tea cake is a tea cake — until Tartine gets its hands on it.

Like a basic little black dress that turns extraordinarily chic with the right broach or necklace, this sweet-potato loaf cake goes from fundamental to fancifully froufrou enough to be the life of the party, thanks to a halo of torched meringue.

“Sweet Potato Tea Cake with Meringue” is from the new “Tartine: A Classic Revisited: 68 All-New Recipes + 55 Updated Favorites” (Chronicle Books), of which I received a review copy. It’s by co-founders Elisabeth Prueitt and Chad Robertson of the famed Tartine bakery founded in San Francisco, with locations worldwide now.

It’s a revised edition to their original book that came out 13 years ago. Of the 122 recipes, 67 are new, including one for Tartine’s ever-popular “Morning Bun.” There are also more recipes that use less sugar and more global flavors, as well as more gluten-free ones.

A few of these recipes are indeed for ambitious bakers, including a sleek, contemporary “Buche de Noel.” The majority of them, however, shouldn’t intimidate most home-bakers. “Black Tea Blondies with Caramel Swirl,” “Cranberry Upside-Down Cake,” and “Brioche Jam Buns” just entice you into the kitchen.

Imagine your favorite pumpkin bread, but made with sweet potato instead. That’s what this moist, tender loaf cake is like. But it goes one better by getting a cloud of meringue on top that gets swirled with the cake batter to produce pretty streaks in it.

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Too Good To Wait: Marbled Red Wine and Chocolate Bundt Cake

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A cake made for chocolate and wine lovers.
A cake made for chocolate and wine lovers.

Whenever my Mom started reading a new novel, the first thing she did was turn to the last chapter to see how it ends.

My Dad and I used to laugh and shake our heads in disbelief.

But I think I inherited a little of that gene because I don’t always adhere to strict order, either.

Take the new “365: A Year of Everyday Cooking and Baking” (Prestel) by Berlin-based food writer Meike Peters.

I couldn’t wait to tear into Peters new cookbook, especially because I loved her first one, “Eat in My Kitchen: To Cook, to Bake, to Eat, and to Treat” (Prestel), which won a James Beard Award.

As the name implies, this new cookbook, of which I received a review copy, offers up an entire year’s worth of recipes. Yes, one for each and every day.

The recipes are arranged from January to December, with everything from soups to salads to mains to desserts. The delights include “Saffron and Clementine Cake” in February, “Salmon with Juniper-Gin Butter” in April, “Squash Pasta with Orange, Maple, and Sage” in September, and “Spiced Chestnut and Apple Pie” in November.

I know it’s October, but when it came time to try my first recipe from the book, I leaped ahead unapologetically to January. Hey, you would, too, for a taste of “Marbled Red Wine and Chocolate Bundt Cake.”

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