With Mardi Gras right around the corner, there’s a lot of incredible food you should make a point of squeezing in before Fat Tuesday draws to a close. For your meals, a traditional fried chicken and andouille gumbo, a chicken and shrimp jambalaya, or perhaps a different spin on gumbo with a bit more winter squash will suit your fancy. However, all of these options neglect the sweet tooths out there, and for you, my people, there are paczkis.
I only recently heard of paczkis. These treats are Polish in origin (and pronounced like “poon-shkee”) and, to completely over-simplify them, resemble cake-like jelly doughnuts. The idea, as with all Fat Tuesday-centric food, is to use up and indulge in all of the things that aren’t to be consumed during Lent, and as such, these are more exciting than your everyday doughnuts.
Traditionally, these are a bit large and contain… click to read more…
Posted by mike on March 7th, 2011 in Cake, Dessert
I hate the short period that immediately follows the start of the New Year–fad dieting and half-hearted nods towards health-consciousness take over. It bothers me not so much out of pretentiousness, but more in that its what dominates the magazines, gym, and food scene for a month. The annual chant: “New year, new you!”…ugh
This lemon cream tart is what I ate for dessert on New Year’s Eve and is my polite middle finger to these forced habits that don’t survive past January, all of which are responsible for some of the least exciting food of the year. This tart contains a respectable ~2.5 sticks of butter and, in my case, followed a New Year’s Eve dinner of macaroni and cheese with lobster and truffle oil. Take that, health-centric resolutions.
So with that wholly unexciting rant (if it could even be called as much) out of the way, back to the food! From the ingredient list, this… click to read more…
Posted by mike on January 12th, 2011 in Dessert, Fruit, Pie
This post is a little later than I’d like it to be seeing how strawberry season has come and gone by me. My love of strawberries is no secret. When they’re at their peak, I’ve packed away several pounds (maybe four or five? Seriously. I love strawberries) a week just for snacking (forget the baking). So this is one of those tasty desserts you can go to when you need a break from inhaling strawberries by the pound: a berry scented bundt cake topped with a rich, strawberry cream cheese frosting.
This was delicious and very strawberry-ish. I would be happy just eating the frosting (and shamelessly licked the bowl clean. Very clean). My only disappointment was that the cake was a little denser than I would have liked–I’d consider lessening the amount of strawberry puree (e.g. by half a cup) in the cake so that it might rise more and take on a lighter texture. As… click to read more…
Posted by mike on May 31st, 2010 in Cake, Dessert, Fruit
This is that time of year where I get antsy about food. Its spring-time–the birds are chirping, the sun is out, and it feels like summer is just around the corner. So where’s the spring-time produce?! I know its too soon for the kinds of things I’m craving, and this is exactly why its always a good idea to preserve a bit of the season–to abate such cravings until nature has a chance to catch up. So today’s dessert: a sweet, creamy, cardamom perfumed cheesecake, topped with cardamom-scented peach preserves.
I’ll be honest: I’d forgotten about these peach preserves. They were buried in the back of my pantry, but when I found them, I needed to finally dig in (peach season is one of the things I’m anxiously awaiting, after all). They were simple to make (many months ago), and I remember from sampling a bit how wonderful they tasted–sweet, peaches at their peak, finished with that… click to read more…
Posted by mike on April 11th, 2010 in Cake, Dessert, Fruit
The idea for this tart began with me wanting something just a little bit different from one of my favorite desserts: pecan pie. I’ll spare you the loose set of ideas that led to this final product and just get to the food–rather than a topping of exclusively pecans, through complete indecisiveness sheer brilliance, I used a mix of pecans, hazelnuts, and almonds. Then, in place of the usual corn syrup-based custard, I instead made a maple syrup and chocolate based custard.
Taste and texture-wise, the pecan pie heritage of this tart is very clear. All the tweaks add to what is still very much a pecan pie flavor foundation, and I loved it. You pick up the flavor of almond and hazelnut with deeper, dark sweet notes of chocolate and maple which I found was a great foil to the touch of cinnamon you get from the graham cracker crust. You still get that gooey custard filling with… click to read more…
Posted by mike on December 8th, 2009 in Dessert, Pie
Pound cake is a rare treat for me, and given how easy it is to make, I’m not sure why I don’t have it more often. Its delicious, rich, crumbly, and buttery on its own but is also easily tweaked to highlight other flavors.
In this case, I chose to go with a more Italian inspired flavor profile: creamy and tangy ricotta with the bright flavor of lemon. The cake was delicious, and I topped it off with a simple, sweet, lemony glaze to further the lemon flavor. The final result was delicious with a sweet, crispy crust around the edges and a tender, crumbly, delicious cake inside. My only regret was using too small of a loaf pan (so I also had some free-form pound cakelet blobs to enjoy on the side, lol).
- Cake
- 1.5 cups flour
- 2.5 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup/6 oz unsalted butter
- 1.5 cups fresh whole
… click to read more…
Posted by mike on October 26th, 2009 in Cake, Dessert, Italian
