Writing about food since 2004.
Category
Desserts
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Mexican Hot Chocolate Cookies
The other night I was very cold so I made a hot chocolate. My method for a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants hot chocolate is pretty simple: I warm milk, whisk in unsweetened cocoa powder and a bit of sugar. I taste and allow it to thicken a bit at a simmer. Then, at the last minute, I add…
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Sam Sifton’s Thanksgiving Pear Cobbler
Talk about waiting until the last minute… Most food blogs and websites have inundated you with Thanksgiving recipes for WEEKS and here I am, the day before Thanksgiving, offering you up a recipe for cobbler. But maybe you’re still figuring out dessert? And maybe you haven’t heard about Sam Sifton’s Thanksgiving book yet? If the…
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Drunk Blondies
Repeat after me: Butter. Chocolate. Pecans. Coconut. Bourbon. Again: Butter. Chocolate. Pecans. Coconut. Bourbon. On Saturday night, we joined our friends Brendan and Danny for a screening of “Sunset Blvd.” at the Hollywood Forever cemetery. (You can read all about that in this week’s newsletter.) I was assigned the task of bringing a salad and…
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Blackberry Buttermilk Snacking Cake
Here in L.A. it’s harder to get in touch with my old New York self, the self who used to make an afternoon snacking cake. If you say the words “afternoon snacking cake” here in L.A. you will be shot by the body police, buried in a mountain of silicone, and never heard from again.…
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Key Lime Pie
It’s Father’s Day this weekend and no dessert makes me think more of my dad than Key Lime Pie. The association isn’t based on any particular memory; it’s based on a series of memories of dinners at steakhouses or seafood restaurants where my mom would be taking too long tearing apart her lobster, my dad…
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Vanilla Bean Pudding
Let’s talk pudding. It doesn’t sound sexy like “panna cotta” or sophisticated like “pot de crem.” It sounds like the kind of thing you eat out of a plastic container with an aluminum peel on top which, for many people who grew up with Billy Cosby shilling for it on TV, it very much is.…
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Pineapple Upside-Down Cake with Toasted Coconut Ice Cream
If you’ve ever seen “Fiddler On The Roof,” you probably know the term “yenta.” A yenta, in Yiddish, is a busybody, a meddler; in “Fiddler,” though, she’s a specific person, a matchmaker. My whole life, I’ve always been something of a yenta. I love to get involved with people’s life decisions, telling people where to…
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A Thin Mint Milkshake Recipe
When I heard that Doug and Bryan of The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck and The Big Gay Ice Cream Shop were making a Thin Mint Milkshake, a part of me thought: “Whoah, I wonder how they make that?” I also thought: “I wish I lived in New York still so I could taste that.”…
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Chocolate Guinness Cake
Here’s how you know I’m the real deal: whereas most food publications will cram an upcoming holiday down your throat in hopes that you’ll link to their page as you plan your holiday meal, I’m not so clever or strategic. I wait until the holiday’s over, when the post will no longer be relevant, and…
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Lindsey Shere’s Legendary Almond Tart
I suppose I must really like a challenge because, on the night that I made the bouillabaisse, I also attempted a famously difficult dessert: Lindsey Shere’s Almond Tart. Lindsey Shere, in case you don’t know, helped open Chez Panisse in 1971 and stayed there as pastry chef until 1998. I first heard about her famous…
