Category Archives: Recipes (Sweet)

Playing It Sweet and Safe

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In these uncertain times, we long for stability. We crave comfort. We want reassurance.

What we need, dang it, is pudding.

Bradley Ogden’s butterscotch pudding, to be precise.

It’s a taste of nostalgia, of a better era, of more flush times. It’s a sweet, creamy spoonful that goes down ever so easily, unlike each morning’s painful headlines. And it’s got a touch of real booze in it. How many of us couldn’t use a bit of a buzz these days to calm our anxieties, right?

This classic dessert, that’s thick as all get out, and a real mouthful of butterscotch flavor, can be found on the dessert menus of the various Lark Creek Restaurant Group establishments, of which Ogden is a founder.

In the original recipe by Ogden’s mom, the pudding is baked in individual ramekins in a water bath. The restaurants make their pudding in one large pan in a water bath, then strain the baked pudding through a chinoise, before serving it in tulip glasses. By straining the pudding, you get rid of the thin, darker skin that forms on the pudding after baking. It also results in a pudding that’s a little less dense in texture.

Since the skin doesn’t bother me, and because I like the pudding at its very thickest, I cook mine with the individual ramekin method sans sieving post-baking. It’s the way Ogden’s mom made it, and the way he prefers it, too.

Make a batch of this awesome butterscotch pudding, and welcome 2009 with a sure thing.

The pudding needs to be made a day ahead of serving, as it needs time to chill and set up in the refrigerator. Covered with foil, the pudding will keep in the refrigerator for about 3 days.

Butterscotch Pudding

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A Show-Stopping Dessert with A Spicy Taste of Winter

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Gingerbread cake that's mmm, mmm good.

This is one of the desserts that award-winning San Francisco Pastry Chef Emily Luchetti says she makes most often.

It’s easy to understand why.

It’s a classic gingerbread cake with an air of elegance and sophistication because of its accouterments — a compote of warm, tender apples, and a rich, creamy sabayon with the added complex kick of Calvados (apple brandy).

Luchetti says she used to slice the cake and build little gingerbread houses out of them. Now, she takes the simpler approach and just cuts the cake into squares. “Tastes just as good,” she says with a smile.

“Gingerbread with Warm Apples and Cider Sabayon” is from Luchetti’s lastest book, “Classic Stars Desserts” (Chronicle Books).

The dark, moist cake looks almost like it’s made of chocolate because of the molasses in the batter. Warm spices including ground ginger, cinnamon, and cloves give it a comforting taste of winter.

The cider sabayon is made by whisking egg yolks, sugar, apple juice and Calvados in a double-boiler until thick and smooth. Then, whipped cream is gently folded into the cooled sabayon for even more luxuriousness. I could happily eat this by the spoonful all on its own. But that would be wrong, wouldn’t it?

You can make the cake, warm apples (I used a mix of Galas and Granny Smiths), and sabayon a day ahead of time. Just reheat the apples before serving.

I made this dessert for my in-laws’ Christmas gathering. Even my husband’s 20-something nephews went wild for it.

The recipe says it serves 6, but that would mean some seriously large slabs of cake. I found that it makes more like 8 servings, even for me, who can’t get enough of this knockout dessert.

Gingerbread with Warm Apples and Cider Sabayon

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Root Beer — It’s Not Just For Drinking

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The secret ingredient in this luscious cake? Root beer.

One of my fondest memories as a teenager is the jolting brain freeze I’d get slurping an A&W root beer float after spending the afternoon playing tennis with my older brothers.

The frosty mug of root beer and soft-serve vanilla ice cream went down sweet, slightly bitter, and creamy. I was usually so thirsty that I couldn’t help but take that first gulp big and fast. The coldness would race up my nose to the middle of my eyes, forcing them shut with part pleasure and part pain. For a kid, it was the ultimate reward after all that running around after a fuzzy, bouncing ball.

Nowadays, I can’t remember the last time I picked up a tennis racket. And I long gave up root beer floats in an ode to try to be more health conscious.

But when I saw the photo of Root Beer Bundt Cake in the new “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking” cookbook (Stewart, Tabori & Chang) by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito, I knew I had to make it. There’s root beer in both the chocolate cake and the chocolate frosting.

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For Pumpkin-Pie Haters

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Cheesecake you can't resist.

Let me just say right off: I am not fond of pumpkin pie.

I know this makes no sense, but I thoroughly love pumpkin bread, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin ice cream, and pumpkin cheesecake. Just not pie.

Don’t get me wrong, I love pie in general. But there’s just something that turns me off about pumpkin pie. Too much of a one-dimensional flabby texture? Perhaps. All I know is that if pumpkin pie is the only option for dessert, I’d rather go without. And for a dessert lover like me, that’s saying a lot.

Yet I love the drama and festiveness of a big, beautiful dessert decked out in the color of fall. So that’s why I was thrilled to find this extraordinary cheesecake recipe by renowned New York Pastry Chef Pichet Ong, a University of California at Berkeley grad, who has worked at Chez Panisse in Berkeley and La Folie in San Francisco, as well as Jean Georges, and Spice Market, both New York restaurants owned by celebrated Chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten. Ong now is chef and owner of P*ONG, a cutting-edge dessert spot in New York City, where his creations fuse both the sweet and the savory.

Kabocha squash or Japanese pumpkin

His recipe for Kabocha Squash Cheesecake with Walnut Crust comes from his cookbook, “The Sweet Spot” (William Morrow). No pumpkin here; only kabocha squash. Also known as Japanese pumpkin, it’s probably most familiar to you as a component in assorted Japanese tempura. I don’t know about you, but the orange curve of golden-battered squash in the mound of fried veggies and shrimp is the tempura piece I covet most.

I love its natural honeyed, nutty sweetness, and its fluffy, starchy texture that’s like roasted chestnuts or a roasted russet potato.

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Being Frugal with Ricotta, Part 2

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Fruit-studded ricotta biscuits perfect with jam, butter or all on their own.

After staying up late to witness last night’s historic presidential election, all you sleep heads might need a little pick-me-up today.

Look no further than these tantalizing Ricotta Biscuits with Dried Cherries, Apricots & Raspberries.

We refer to ricotta as cheese. But did you know that it’s really not? So says the must-have, go-to book, “The Food Lover’s Companion” (Barron’s) by the late Sharon Tyler Herbst and her husband, Ron Herbst.

Ricotta is technically not a cheese because it has neither a starter or rennet in it, the Herbsts state. Ricotta is actually reheated whey (the watery liquid that separates from the solids or curds when making cheese). When the whey is reheated, “protein particles rise to the surface, are skimmed off, strained, then placed in perforated molds or baskets to drain further.” The result is ricotta.

This great recipe comes from “Leslie Mackie’s Macrina Bakery & Cafe Cookbook” (Sasquatch Books) by Seattle bakery owner, Leslie Mackie, with Andrew Cleary.

These fruit-studded biscuits were the perfect way to use up the last of my leftover ricotta. In my posting yesterday, as you recall, I raved about another baked good that put some of that remaining ricotta to good use.

The dough for these biscuits is very wet and loose. So much so that I needed a dough scraper to turn out and fold the “dough” as it called for in the directions. I also needed a spatula to lift the cut biscuits onto the baking pan. Either that or they would have stuck all over my hands. Yes, this dough is a mess to work with, but don’t let that discourage you from trying it.

These treats taste like biscuits and look like scones. They are not dessert-like sweet, but pleasantly sweet enough from the infusion of all the fruit. The recipe says it makes eight biscuits. It does if you want ones the size of individual meatloaves. Personally, I think you can make 16 biscuits out of this, easily. Freeze some to enjoy with coffee or tea for breakfast another time. As winter approaches, you’ll be so glad you have a stash of these hearty babies tucked away.

Ricotta Biscuits with Dried Cherries, Apricots & Raspberries

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