This is a fun dessert to make during weekends or holidays, especially if you involve children in the grating step. Of course, you can also shred the apples in a food processor, but where’s the fun in that? Try baking these cakes in decorative molds (very well greased), and dust generously with powdered sugar to…
One Step to Better Pumpkin Bread
Quick breads should be moist but not soggy, so we often need to get rid of extra liquid in the batter. In some recipes, like zucchini bread, we squeeze all the excess water out of the shredded zucchini to avoid a soggy loaf. We can’t squeeze our pumpkin puree (that would be messy!), but cooking…
The Family Table: 4 Secrets to Grandma’s Unbeatable Brownies
Submitted by Megan Baker, Grants Pass, Oregon My grandmother and I have similar penmanship. Perhaps that’s why I pull out the index card containing her “Saucepan Brownies” recipe even though I’ve had it memorized for years now. I like looking at her writing. Growing up, my family would spend Sunday mornings at church and Sunday afternoons…
Old Bananas, New Trick: How to Make Banana Bread Pudding
Banana bread pudding is a delectable new way to use up slightly ripened bananas and day-old bread. As an alternative to your go-to quick bread, this custard-based recipe—with all of the same flavors as its namesake—is an excellent brunch or dessert option for using up aging bananas. Although it’s exceptional on its own, a warm rum…
An Ice Cream Cake Sweet With Childhood Nostalgia
If some of your fondest childhood food memories include packaged snack cakes—Devil Dogs, Yodels, Swiss Rolls, and the like—as well as store-bought ice cream cakes (Baskin-Robbins’ mint chocolate chip cake, I’m looking at you), I guarantee this ice cream-filled Swiss roll cake will rock your world. The cake is inspired by one I created for…
Easy Basil Ice Cream
Children will scream and adults will swoon over this ice cream’s green hue and sweet, fragrant flavor. You can make the vanilla ice cream base from scratch, or simply start with store-bought. It is fantastic served with berries, or just by itself in a pretty bowl. I love it frozen in a rectangular mold, inverted…
Have Vegetables for Dessert in These Sweet Italian Cakes
It took years to convince me that vegetables could belong in desserts. But Italy’s cucina povera, or peasant cooking tradition, is actually full of cakes with vegetables that perfectly embody the cuisine’s spirit: They use whatever is abundant and in season—not just fruit, but vegetables, too—in an inventive way, turning poor ingredients into rich treats….
Torta Di Verdure Coi Becchi (Swiss Chard Tart)
The sweet dessert torta coi becchi, made with Swiss chard, was born in Lucca, Tuscany thanks to locals’ knowledge and expertise about the many herbs that grow spontaneously throughout the area. Chard is categorized as a sweet herb, along with nettle and borage, opposed to bitter herbs such as dandelion or chicory. It is a…
Scarpaccia Viareggina (Sweet Zucchini Cake)
This thin, moist cake, filled with tender young zucchini and the unmistakable fragrance of basil, is a traditional cake from the coastal town of Viareggio in northern Tuscany. It was traditionally baked by old sailors with zucchini from their vegetable gardens. Now, come summertime, when zucchini flood market stalls and overtake backyard gardens, locals still…
Jeffersonian Ice Cream
Thomas Jefferson first encountered ice cream as the ambassador to France, and brought back a special French ice cream maker, called a sorbétière, to Monticello. Ice was harvested from the Rivanna River in the winter and stored in Monticello’s ice house, then used throughout the year to preserve meat and butter, but also to chill…
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