Category

Desserts

  • Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Whole Wheat Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Until I get a cease and desist letter from Kim Boyce, whose book “Good To The Grain” inspired me to buy six different kinds of flours last week (that led to a spelt olive oil cake with bittersweet chocolate), I’m going to keep blogging my experiences cooking from her book. The good news is that…

  • Spelt & Olive Oil Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate

    Spelt & Olive Oil Cake with Bittersweet Chocolate

    Spelt is not a pretty word. There’s a reason that, when language was created, the word “love” became “love” and not “spelt.” You can’t imagine telling your life partner that you “spelt” him, can you? Let’s all thank the language gods for that. Unfortunately, we’re left with the word “spelt” to describe a certain kind…

  • Sour Cream Coffee Cake

    Sour Cream Coffee Cake

    It was only after I’d started making this coffee cake, mixing the butter and sugar, that I realized this wasn’t a round 9-inch cake sort of deal; this was a 13 X 9-inch beast. Yes, I know, you’re supposed to study a recipe carefully before proceeding; and yes, you’re supposed to butter the pan before…

  • Grilled Pineapple with Cardamom Whipped Cream

    Grilled Pineapple with Cardamom Whipped Cream

    After that salmon dinner, we were still hungry. Isn’t that funny how that works? You spend an hour making an elaborate French dinner (ok, I said it was easy, but it still took about an hour) and after you’re done eating it, you’re still hungry! But this proved to be a blessing, because it gave…

  • European-Style Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

    European-Style Oatmeal Raisin Cookies

    Once I was at Murray’s Cheese with David Lebovitz and he stopped to admire the butter from Vermont. I’ll confess, up to that point, I hadn’t given butter that much thought. For years I’d been buying Breakstones–you know, the kind that comes in the red box–and using it pretty universally. But then, after David talked…

  • A Sour Cherry Coffee Cake In Winter

    A Sour Cherry Coffee Cake In Winter

    Most food blog posts are meant to inspire, but this one is meant to mock. Yes I am mocking you! When sour cherry season rolled around last June, did I, like you, stuff myself silly, popping every last sour cherry into my mouth until I had none left? No, sir, I did not. Like a…

  • Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    Mississippi Mud Pie (From The Sky)

    It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No it’s me, The Amateur Gourmet, blogging to you live from Delta flight 2243, en route to Atlanta, Georgia. Yes, this is an absolute first for me, my first blog post written from a plane. And I choose, as my subject matter, a dessert that I made back in…

  • Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

    Chocolate Gingerbread Cake

    It’s pretty comical to come to Bellingham, Washington for Christmas. Comical because, for this Boca Ratonian Jew, it’s like stepping out of a noisy deli into a Christmas card. I’m writing this right now in a coffee shop with a Yule log burning on the fire and several people sitting around me who look like…

  • It’s Apple Season, So Here Are Three Desserts You Can Make with Apples (Baked Apples, Apple Cake & Apple Cobbler)

    It’s Apple Season, So Here Are Three Desserts You Can Make with Apples (Baked Apples, Apple Cake & Apple Cobbler)

    Peter Meehan recently ranted about hectoring food snobs, the ones who make you feel bad for putting milk in your coffee (something he witnessed at an elite coffee shop) or who mock you for not knowing your various kinds of meat (hogget, anyone?) It’s with a sense of subtle restraint, then, that I gently prod…

  • Eric Wolitzky’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Eric Wolitzky’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Tomorrow (as you’ll see in the next post) I’m hoofing it to Baked in Red Hook so I can do a live-streaming interview with Eric Wolitzky, everyone’s favorite contestant from the debut season of “Top Chef: Just Desserts.” You probably didn’t know this, but I met Eric years ago at my friend Jimmy’s apartment. It…