Desserts

Lemon Buttermilk Pound Cake

    Cutting the lemon the knife leaves a little cathedral: alcoves unguessed by the eye that open acidulous glass to the light; topazes riding the droplets, altars, aromatic facades.                     –Pablo Neruda   I’ve always…

An international ice cream primer…

  I thought this was interesting. I’m not sure about that German Spaghetti-Eis, though! Ice Cream Around The World

Cream Cheese Stuffed Carrot Cake with Orange Glaze

Cream Cheese Stuffed Carrot Cake with Orange Glaze

  Carrots improve your eyesight. Right? Therefore, if you are going to have a sweet, decadent dessert, you are somewhat forgiven for eating carrot cake. It’s a health food, for heaven’s sake! This line of argument works for me. If carrot desserts seem odd to…

Almond Praline among friends

I was invited to join friends for dinner last night and volunteered to bring dessert. I decided to bring chocolate mousse (see previously published recipe on this site–) but wanted to make the presentation a little more elegant than simply serving a cup of chocolate…

Chocolate Mousse

  “Coraline opened the box of chocolates. The dog looked at them longingly. ‘Would you like one?’ she asked the little dog. ‘Yes, please,’ whispered the dog. ‘Only not toffee ones. They make me drool.’ ‘I thought chocolates weren’t very good for dogs,’ she said,…

Peach, Plum and Blueberry Cake and a Young Man with a Man Bun

  I was shopping in Sprouts recently and found myself following the wonderful scent of fresh nectarines wafting across the store when I ran into a young man with a man bun who was on the same mission. “I could smell the nectarines from across…

Cherry Upside-Down Cake, Immortality and Sarah’s Birthday

According to Chinese mythology,  Goddess Xi Wang Mu grew immortality fruits in her garden. Most sources say they were peaches. Some say they were cherries. (Both are stone fruits.) Whatever immortality fruit it was, there was one very big problem. The fruits ripened every thousand…

Pavlova with Lemon Curd, Berries and a bit of attitude

  No. This is not a photo of Bjork. This is a photo of Anna Pavlova, the Russian prima ballerina after whom New Zealand’s national dessert was named.  (Disclaimer: The Australians and the New Zealanders have been coming to culinary blows for years over credit for…

Fresh Pear Cake

Homer (of The Odyssey not of The Simpsons) loved them. He called pears “a gift of the gods.” By the time the Renaissance came along, Europeans were even more in love with pears. The powerful Medici dukes, for example, had fruit gardens with expansive collections of…

Cherry-Pistachio Wedding Cry Babies

  OK. Let’s call it what it is. I’m on a cookie binge and yesterday’s oatmeal cookie plate is sitting on my counter empty. It must have been Juliet. Sweet little Juliet does have a few priors for helping herself to whatever is on the…