I hope you enjoy baking and eating these desserts and I would love to hear about your kitchen adventures. Please bear with me as I work on the website. Some of the recipes were developed for the site, while others were taken from various books I have written over the years or other projects that I have worked on.
It’s a banana bread, really, but the differences are the chopped peanuts and the golden raisins.
As smooth as honey, deliciously custardy, extremely chocolate (but not heavy), with a rum and espresso flavor.
This just might be the easiest bread you’ll ever make; the melted butter makes it quick and tender.
A classic commercially prepared ice cream dessert comprised of vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two thin, somewhat soft (some say cake-like) chocolate cookies.
Yes, the title is a mouthful and so are these! Can’t decide whether you’re in the mood for a Blondie or a Brownie? Why not layer both in one pan? That is the conclusion I came to, which led to this rich, dense, chocolate and nut filled creation. The bottom layer is a fudgy chocolate […]
While I like dried figs, I adore fresh ones. Just look at the photo! And they taste as luscious as they look. They should be plump and heavy for their size, which will indicate moistness and freshness. They are naturally quite sweet and their almost sticky texture is sensual and luxurious. This dish takes only […]
This white cake has coconut milk in the batter, coconut shavings all over the outside and a luscious peach filling between every one of its four layers. Plan accordingly, as this cake needs to sit in the refrigerator overnight. The cake was part of an all-peach article I wrote for the August 2002 issue. I […]
This is serious comfort food. Either pudding is great alone,. But layered in a clear glass makes these quite special. Note that I did use a natural peanut butter for this recipe. You could try it with Skippy or JIF. Let me know how it works if you do! Makes 6 puddings (a version first […]
A crisp sweet shell holds a chewy layer of caramelized, honey-sweetened peanuts, topped with a smooth creamy peanut butter filling and finally crowned with a ganache glaze. This tart keeps very well. NOTE: the tart is in the lower right of the picture. The three items were part of an all-peanut butter dessert article, for […]
Chocolate Mint Cookies Girl Scout Thin Mints have nothing on these. In fact, by being able to choose your own chocolate, I think these are better…hey, your kids could go door to door selling these! Note that I call for peppermint oil, not extract. It is much more potent and has a very true peppermint […]
I absolutely adore rhubarb. It looks like celery except that it comes in an array of colors from red tinged green, to pinkish, to deep red (which still has a greenish center). Vivid red stalks of rhubarb will give the pie a gorgeous rosy color. Also note that the lattice is created to allow a […]
Mint-chocolate truffles frozen in vanilla ice cream create a polka-dot dessert. The ganache makes the truffles as well as the sauce, making this easier than it looks. This showstopper graced the cover of the April 2005 issue of Bon Appetit. Note that the BA test kitchen used a loaf pan with angled sides to form […]
I think this might have been the first time I used purchased shortbread cookies to make a crust (as opposed to graham crackers or chocolate or ginger cookie crumbs) and I love the way they work. To make the shortbread cookie crumbs for the crust, seal the cookies in a heavy plastic bag and use […]
This tart came about because I love the idea of cheesecake, but often after just one or two bites, I’m done. Here a thin layer of cheesecake is nestled in a crisp crust and the amount of rich, creamy cheesecake is just right. You can top it with anything you like, but this fruit mélange […]
Kristine Kidd was the food editor at Bon Appetit in 2007 and early in the year she called me and asked me to make a “showstopping white Christmas dessert”. The idea was to evoke “white Christmas”. One of the many reasons I love writing for the magazine is that the assignments often push me in […]
Molten cakes, lava cakes, warm truffle cakes, these go by many names and no one seems to be tiring of them.
Chocolate, graham crackers and toasted marshmallows are an inspired combination and this dessert can be made year-round.
I developed this recipe for a “Trends” article. Both panna cotta and tropical fruits were finding their way around restaurant menus at the time, so blending them together made perfect sense. The panna cotta itself has a very slight tang from the buttermilk, which makes it very refreshing, and the illusion of being not so […]