The other day, I was reflecting on the labor of “putting on” the holidays, even for our petite family of two. Standing on our front porch on a chilly evening, I watched my wife plug in not one, not two, but FOUR strands of Christmas lights only to see that each and every one of them had bit the dust. Gazing out at our neighbor’s impeccable lighting display, I felt like a star in our very own holiday slapstick film. This was shortly after I’d completely coated my hands in an impenetrable layer of pine tree sap while attempting to right our tippy Christmas tree. We’ll get there in the end, surely!

Right under the deadline, I’ve got a new holiday cookie idea for you: a deeply spiced mulled wine pear butter linzer. The title is a mouthful but they’re truly so good. In years past I’ve brought you two or three holiday cookies, but I’m feeling good about paring back this time. You can find recipes for chestnut sandwich cremes and maple pecan panforte here, and recipes for panettone cookies, pistachio, olive oil, and cranberry jam bars, and coffee digestives here. I also whipped up two new recipes for paid subscribers of Nicola Lamb’s : fruitcake bon bons and stollen muffins.

In case you missed it, I’m hosting a cake raffle! The proceeds go to supporting people experiencing food insecurity in New Orleans right now. You can learn more details here. Only locals can win, but anyone can donate if you’re so moved!

On to the show!

The following recipe is sponsored by California Wines.

I’m thrilled to be presenting you with a recipe in partnership with California wine today! Just in time for the holidays, I have a mulled wine pear butter for you - a fruity, deeply spiced, burgundy-toned spread that is equally delicious tucked into a linzer cookie as it is on a cheese board. In fact, I’ve already put a sharp cheddar and pear butter grilled cheese sandwich on my menu plan for next week. If you’re partial to the dramatic, jewel-like glow of red-wine poached pears, I know you’ll love this pear butter.

When cooking with wine, it’s paramount to choose a bottle you’d enjoy drinking as-is. This fruit butter calls for infusing a fruity, low-tannin California red, like a pinot noir or grenache, with winter spices. We then cook the wine down with pears and sugar until it is thick, glossy, and spreadable. The result is a concentrated expression of each element’s flavor: the floral-honey aroma of pears, the plush jamminess of a California red, and the warming prickle of cardamom, clove, and cinnamon. It takes a little while to cook the pear butter on the stovetop, but I consider this a bonus as it will fill your kitchen with the scent of mulled wine. Once cool, the pear butter makes an exceptional filling to a linzer cookie, perfect for rounding out your holiday cookie plate.

The recipe below calls for not-quite a full 750 ml bottle of wine - all the better to reserve a glass for enjoying alongside the fruits of your labor, or for sipping while you stir the pear butter on your stove. I loved the sensation of nibbling on a mulled wine pear butter linzer cookie (say that three times fast!) with a glass of the same wine I used in the recipe. It feels like a conversation come full circle: first, the bright, fluid acidity of the wine, then the vivid, spicy sweetness of the mulled wine pear butter, and back again.

Mulled Wine Pear Butter

Makes roughly 2 heaping cups of pear butter

Recipe notes: You’ll want to pick a low-tannin red, like pinot noir or grenache, since this recipe calls for reducing the wine a great deal. By the same token, resist being more liberal with the warming spices and sugar than I call for here. Once the pear butter is reduced, it will read more deeply spiced and sweeter than in the beginning of the cooking process. I don’t bother to peel my pears for this recipe, and you shouldn’t feel the need to either. A last important note: this recipe has not been tested for shelf-stable canning safety. Pears are a low-acid fruit, so you shouldn’t assume this pear butter is safe for canning. I treat it like a refrigerator jam, and chill or freeze it for long term storage.

2 ½ cups / 600 ml California red wine, such as pinot noir or grenache

⅔ cups / 148 grams brown sugar, light or dark

¼ cup + 2 tablespoons / 75 grams granulated sugar

3 tablespoons / 63 grams honey

1 large piece of orange peel, white pith removed

1 cinnamon stick

6 cardamom pods, whole

3 cloves, whole

1 star anise, whole

8 scant cups / 1060 grams pears, de-seeded with stems removed, roughly chopped (about 6 large pears)

3 tablespoons / 45 grams lemon juice, freshly squeezed

In a large, non reactive pot, combine the wine, brown sugar, granulated sugar, honey, orange peel, cinnamon stick, cardamom pods, cloves, and star anise. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring until the sugar is fully dissolved, then reduce the heat and simmer for ten minutes. Turn off the heat and allow the wine to infuse for an additional twenty minutes. Then, strain the orange peel and spices out of the wine.

Return the wine to the pot (no need to wash it) followed by the chopped pears and lemon juice. Cook over medium heat for about fifteen minutes, until the pears are soft and infused with red color. If your pears are very ripe, this could happen quite a bit faster.

Puree the wine and the pears together until very smooth. Take care pureeing the hot liquid: do it in small batches for your safety. You may also use an immersion blender. Return the pear puree to the pot and cook over medium-low heat, stirring often, for 35 to 40 minutes. The pear butter will feel quite loose at first and slowly thicken. The thicker the pear butter gets, the more you should stir it so that the bottom doesn’t scorch. You’ll also want to lower the heat as the pear butter progresses, so that it doesn’t spit furiously at you (though you may still need to wipe your backsplash down when done, and consider wearing long sleeves).

When the pear butter is done, it will be thick enough that your spatula leaves a distinct path in the bottom of the pan, and the butter will be bubbling furiously. My friend Camilla Wynne describes it like so in her book Jam Bake: “when you pull the the spatula through, it will sound like a slavering ogre”. I’ve never heard it said more accurately!

Scrape the finished mulled wine pear butter into a heat proof container and allow it to cool. Refrigerate it for long-term storage. It will last for several weeks. If you like, use it to fill linzer cookies (recipe follows).

Bonus Recipe: Linzer Cookie Dough

This is a very traditional linzer cookie dough with a touch of almond flour for tenderness. I used to prefer my linzer cookies very golden brown and crisp. Lately, I like to bake them until they have only just barely begun to turn golden. After I fill them with jam, I age them for about six hours before serving so that they soften even more.

If you’re strict with your rolling and re-rolling and punch your cookies out carefully, you can get 18 one-inch round linzers from this recipe. However, I almost always double it so I have plenty of dough to work with, especially if I’m trying to hit a particular total number of finished linzers for a cookie box. I love making linzer cookies in various sizes and shapes for one platter (so elegant!). The linzers pictured below are giant, three-bite cookies, almost like a petite dessert unto themselves. You can glaze them with either a flat icing or dust them with powdered sugar (I used a little grenadine and lemon juice to make the pictured pink icing).

Almond Linzer Cookie Dough

Makes about 18 one-inch linzer cookies.

1 ¾ cup / 210 grams all purpose flour

½ cup / 45 grams almond flour

½ teaspoon salt

⅛ teaspoon nutmeg, freshly grated (optional)

1 ½ sticks / 170 grams butter, cool room temperature (between 65 and 68°F)

½ cup / 100 grams sugar

1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon milk

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

In a small bowl, combine the all purpose flour, almond flour, salt, and nutmeg.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar. Cream on medium-low speed for about a minute, until the sugar is fully incorporated into the butter and just beginning to lighten (no need to cream “until light and fluffy”). Add the flour mixture and mix until just combined, about one minute. The dough might look quite crumbly. Add the milk and vanilla and continue to mix on low speed until a cohesive dough has just formed. You may need to knead it gently by hand until it just comes together.

Immediately place the dough between two sheets of parchment paper and roll into a thin, even sheet about ¾ centimeter high. Slide the parchment onto a sheet tray and place in the fridge. Chill until firm, about 20 minutes.

When the dough is firm, cut out your cookie rounds. Using a second, smaller cookie cutter, cut a hole in the center of half the cookies. Gather up the scraps of dough and repeat the rolling, chilling, and cutting process once more. Keep unbaked cookies cold while you’re working.

When you are ready to bake your cookies, preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the cookies on two sheet trays. Bake for 11-14 minutes rotating once from top to bottom and front to back, or until the cookies are just beginning to tinge golden brown at the base and edges and feel firm to the touch. Let cool completely.

When you are ready to fill your cookies, dust the “top” halves with powdered sugar (or glaze with a flat icing). Turn the remaining “bottom” cookies over so that their flatter sides are now facing up. Pipe a dollop of pear butter into the center of each cookie, then place the top cookie on it to make a sandwich.

Linzer cookies can be stored in a covered container at room temperature for up to 24 hours, or refrigerated for up to three days.

When I first got my copy of Nicole Rucker’s whip-smart new cookbook, Fat and Flour: The Art of the Simple Bake, I was struck by how Nicole isn’t married to one “right” way of developing a recipe. You should buy the book to learn more, but from her cold-butter cookie method to her cold-oven pound cake, Nicole is willing to elide convention in pursuit of a specific texture, flavor, or feel.

In the pie chapter of the book, I learned that Nicole relies on modified cornstarch, in the form of instant pudding mix, for many of her cream pies. Modified cornstarch is what allows instant pudding to thicken without the application of heat and without the presence of eggs. It’s marvelously stable and resistant to weeping. If you’ve ever made instant pudding (which I somehow had gone my entire life without ever doing), then you’ll also know it’s super fast to put together. When set, a pastry cream made with modified cornstarch doesn’t have the powdery flavor of similar custards made with too-much conventional cornstarch. The result is a sliceable custard that retains the delicate mouthfeel of soft cream, rather than the bouncy, firm feel of custards set with a lot of gelatin. I’ve also learned home bakers swear by it for setting fruit pies, or for stabilizing whipped cream. This blog post over on King Arthur Baking delves into more of those possibilities.

There are some that might feel that modified cornstarch is a sort of frankenfood, an unnatural ingredient born of science rather than tradition. But honestly, you could make a similar argument about white flour, sheet gelatin, or commercial pectin- all ingredients transformed beyond their natural state, all useful when bent towards a specific purpose. The real drawback, for me, is the fact that you have to mail-order it (and I haven’t given you a ton of time to procure it). The recipe below uses modified cornstarch under the brand name Instant ClearJel. You can buy it on King Arthur’s website for $1.24/ounce, or on Nuts.com for $.47/ounce (though you’ll have to buy a one pound bag). It’s also on Amazon in various prices and sizes.

As soon as I began fiddling with Instant ClearJel, I began dreaming of a pumpkin cream pie. My dark secret is that I don’t love a traditional pie crust with custard pies. I think a cookie crust is almost always more delicious! But I’ve never had much luck baking a very loose custard, like pumpkin pie filling, in a cookie crust without it invariably getting all sogged out. I’m not a pie expert! Keia or Nicole, if you’re reading this, feel free to school me.

Here, the only thing we have to bake is a graham cracker crust. The pumpkin custard is set with Instant ClearJel, chilled for a few hours in the fridge, and then topped with whipped cream. The crust stays crunchy for at least two days, so you could easily make this ahead (though I’d hold off on topping it with the cream until the day you plan to serve it). I didn’t see any need to stabilize the whipped cream here, though if you wanted to you could whip a little mascarpone into it to make it firmer for long-term storage (or use the Instant ClearJel, since you’ll already have it!).

I tinkered with the total amount of Instant ClearJel and ultimately settled on 30 grams so I could get a tidy slice from the pie. If you’re worried it will taste too “jellied” (though I didn’t find it so), you could begin with less starch - say, 20 grams. Since it works nearly instantly, you can get a good sense of the consistency of the pie filling straight away, and you can always add a little more if you feel it needs it.

Another nice thing about this recipe is you can taste the pumpkin custard and adjust the seasoning before you fill the shell. Technically you can do this with even a conventional pumpkin pie (and I always do), but it is nice to have a preview of the finished custard sans raw eggs. I used one teaspoon of Diaspora pumpkin pie spice for mine, and that felt plenty seasoned as far as warm spices go. Their spices are quite fresh and thus more potent (the tin of spice I used for this pie happened to be gifted, but I’ve been buying their spices on my own steam for years, and I’m not being otherwise compensated for saying how much I love them, which I do). I used the Burlap and Barrel Royal Cinnamon for the crust - also a wonderful, intensely aromatic product.

I used a (gifted) Row 7 koginut squash for one test and canned Libby’s pumpkin for another. They were both delicious. If you do choose to roast your own pumpkin, make sure it is deeply roasted. I like to halve mine with a little oil and roast them at 400°F for up to an hour. Then I let the squash cool and trim away any too-dark parts and peel off the skin. The underlying fresh should be velvety soft. Butternut squash would be tasty here, too!

I haven’t personally tested a vegan version of this pie, but I’m almost positive you could do a 1:1 swap of the dairy in the custard for their vegan counterparts and top it with a vegan whipped topping and have an extremely serviceable plant-based pumpkin cream pie. If you do so, let me know!

Pumpkin Cream Pie

Click here for a pinter-friendly version of this recipe

Makes one 9-inch pie, about 8 servings

Graham Cracker Crust

This recipe makes rather a lot of cookie crust for a nice, thick layer in the pie, which is how I like it.

180 grams / 1 ¾ cup graham cracker crumbs

¾ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon kosher salt

84 grams / 6 tablespoons butter, melted

Prepare a 9” pie tin by spraying it with pan spray.

Combine the crumbs, cinnamon, and salt. Stir in the melted butter until evenly combined. Press the resulting sandy, damp mixture into the pie tin. I like to use the lightly greased 1-cup measure with a flat bottom to press the crumbs firmly into the bottom and sides of the pan. Place the crumb crust in the freezer for twenty minutes or so (or until you are ready to bake).

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Bake the crumb crust for 12-15 minutes, or until it is aromatic and the edges begin to tinge a darker brown color. Let the pie crust cool completely before filling.

Pumpkin Custard

250 grams / 1 packed cup deeply roasted squash flesh, or canned pumpkin

240 grams / 1 cup heavy cream

120 grams / ½ cup whole milk

106 grams / ½ packed cup brown sugar, light or dark

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or choose your own spice adventure)

¼ teaspoon salt

30 grams / ¼ cup confectioner’s sugar

30 grams / ¼ cup Instant ClearJel

In a medium pot, combine the squash, heavy cream, whole milk, brown sugar, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Warm gently, whisking all the while, until the sugar has dissolved and the spice has infused the custard. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Remove from the heat and let cool to warm room temperature before blending it until very smooth (you could use a conventional or immersion blender).

In a medium bowl, combine the confectioner’s sugar and Instant ClearJel and whisk until thoroughly combined. Make a well in the center and pour in the blended pumpkin cream, whisking all the while. The mixture should thicken up almost immediately. Continue to whisk until it is relatively lump-free. If you think there are any bits of unincorporated starch mixture, you can press it through a strainer, though I didn’t find the need to do so for mine.

Scrape the pumpkin custard into the prepared pie shell, smooth the top with an offset spatula, and chill for around two hours before serving. Top it with a brown sugar whipped cream (recipe follows).

Brown Sugar Whipped Cream

240 grams / 1 cup heavy cream

40 grams / 3 tablespoons brown sugar, light or dark

A dash of vanilla bean paste

A pinch of salt

Combine all of the ingredients in a chilled bowl, taste, and adjust the seasoning to your preference. Whip (by hand or in a mixer) until you achieve soft peaks. Dollop it onto the pie and use an offset spatula to smooth the top into attractive swirls. Chill the pie in the fridge if you’re not planning to serve it straight away. Grate a little nutmeg on top if you like.

I’m actually quite a slow recipe developer. In my restaurant days I might fiddle with a new dessert for two weeks before putting it on the menu, even if I was incorporating recipe elements I’d already mastered. This feels like an oddly embarrassing confession in an era where new recipes come at us at ever more breakneck speed. I’ve also learned that exhilarating high of nailing a recipe in one take, which has happened to me exactly twice through this process. Only twenty-odd more recipes to go!

Below I’ve got a sponsored recipe for you that took more than one take! But I love the results, and now I’ve still got a stash of caponata kolache in my freezer to pull out as impromptu writing snacks as I wind my way to the finish line. Eat kolache, they will fuel your creative exploits!

Content below sponsored by California Canned Olives.

Caponata Kolache with California Canned Green Olives

I don’t get to flex my savory baking muscles often, which is why I’m especially stoked to present this recipe to you today! Kolache are round, yeasted buns that can feature either sweet or savory fillings, and while they originate in the Czech Republic, they’ve taken on a life of their own in East and Central Texas. You can find both mom-and-pop and chain stores dedicated to fruit-filled or sausage kolaches all through this part of the lone star state. I’ve given my version a Sicilian spin, filling them with one of my favorite Italian condiments, sweet-and-sour caponata. My caponata features deeply roasted eggplant with onion, tomato, celery, golden raisins, and buttery green canned olives from California. Canned California green olives are milder and sweeter than other types of olives, bringing an approachable salinity and delicate flavor to the caponata. I use whole, pitted olives here to bring lots of olive flavor to every bite.

The caponata recipe makes more than you’ll need to fill the kolache, which is fine by me since I’ll serve the extra on pasta or freeze it for an easy bruschetta topping next time I’m hosting friends. I’ll be bringing these caponata kolache to tailgate at my bocce league meetups all through October!

Both the kolache dough and the caponata benefit from an overnight rest, so if you can swing it, start this process the day before you hope to serve them.

Caponata Kolache with California Canned Green Olives

Makes 14 kolache

For the caponata:

1 large eggplant, about 1 lb / 454 grams, cut into ½ inch cubes

¼ cup plus two tablespoons / 90 grams olive oil

1 large sweet onion, diced

Two tender inner ribs of celery, diced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 tablespoon tomato paste

1 14-ounce can crushed tomatoes

1 14-ounce can California whole, pitted, green olives, drained

¾ cup / 100 grams golden raisins

2 tablespoons / 26 grams brown sugar

3 tablespoons / 45 gram red wine vinegar

Salt and red pepper flake, to taste

Preheat the oven to 450°F.

Toss the cubed eggplant in two tablespoons of olive oil and a hefty pinch of salt. Lay out on a greased sheet tray and roast in the preheated oven for 20 minutes, or until it has just begun to turn golden brown at the corners.

While the eggplant is roasting, add the diced onion to a large, non-reactive pot with the remaining olive oil. Cook over medium heat, stirring occasionally, until the onion is just beginning to turn golden at the edges and is fragrant, about ten minutes. Add the celery and cook for a few minutes more, until the celery is just beginning to soften. Then, add the tomato paste and the minced garlic and cook until the garlic is very fragrant and the tomato paste has just begun to caramelize, 2-3 minutes. Add the can of tomatoes, the olives, the golden raisins, and the roasted eggplant, and stir until everything is well coated before finally adding the red wine vinegar and the brown sugar. Taste the caponata and add salt and red pepper flakes to taste. Lower the heat and let it simmer and meld for another twenty minutes, stirring occasionally. Let cool to room temperature before storing in the fridge overnight. The caponata can be kept, covered and refrigerated, for up to four days. The flavor often improves as it sits.

For the kolache dough:

Note: The milk powder in this kolache dough helps keep the dough extra soft and fluffy, but you can omit if you don’t have it on hand. If you don’t have a dough hook, use the paddle attachment. The dough may not clear the sides of the bowl, but it will still come together.

2 ¾ cups / 330 grams all purpose flour

¼ cup / 50 grams sugar

2 tablespoons / 16 grams dried milk powder

One packet / 2 ¼ teaspoons / 7 grams instant yeast

1 ½ teaspoons kosher salt

½ cup / 120 grams whole milk, gently warmed to around 100°F

6 tablespoons / 85 grams butter, melted

2 tablespoons / 30 grams olive oil

2 eggs, large

Combine the flour, sugar, dried milk powder, instant yeast, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and give it a whisk to combine. Combine the warm milk, melted butter, and olive oil, and add them to the dry ingredients. Crack the eggs and add them to the stand mixer. Beat together all the ingredients with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. With the dough hook attachment, knead the dough on medium speed (speed 4) for 5-6 minutes, until it has cleared the sides of the bowl and looks smooth and elastic. Scrape the dough onto your counter and form it into a ball. Place the dough into a greased bowl, cover, then refrigerate overnight (or for at least two hours).

To assemble the kolache:

Note: if you’d like to add a cheese element to your kolache, you can tuck balls of fresh mozzarella under the caponata - you’ll need 14. You could also use goat cheese or a thick, strained ricotta beaten with an egg yolk.

14 small, fresh balls of mozzarella

1 egg, for egg wash

Minced or torn basil or parsley, olive oil, or crushed California green olives for garnish, optional

Remove the chilled dough from the refrigerator. Portion the dough into 14 pieces (about 50 grams each) and roll them into balls, tucking the ends under. Let the balls rest on your counter for one or two minutes to relax, then place them onto two parchment-lined sheet trays, flattening them gently with the heel of your hand until they resemble discs. Mist them with oil spray, then cover them with plastic wrap or a clean cloth. Set aside for 45 minutes to an hour, or until they have risen. They’ll look quite puffy, and if you poke the center with your finger the indent will remain.

While the dough is rising, remove the caponata from the refrigerator and taste, adjusting the seasoning as necessary. Make the egg wash by beating the egg with a pinch of salt and a few tablespoons of water.

Preheat the oven to 350°F.

When the dough has risen, grease the base of a small drinking glass, like a juice glass, that has a diameter of about two inches. Use the glass to make an indentation in the center of each kolache (you can also use greased fingers). You may need to re-grease the glass if it starts to stick. With a soft pastry brush, brush the entire surface of the kolache with egg wash. Place a mozzarella ball in each indentation. Cover it with about two tablespoons of caponata.

Bake the kolache in the preheated oven for 25-28 minutes, rotating the trays from top to bottom and front to back at 15 minutes. The kolache are done when they are an even golden brown. Once removed from the oven, use an offset spatula to place the kolache on a wire rack to cool completely.

The kolache can be garnished with a drizzle of olive oil, a few crushed green olives, or diced parsley or basil. They are best the day they are made, though leftovers can be frozen and then toasted to bring them back to life (I have stash in my freezer now for quick lunches).

Before we dive into the recipe, I wanted to talk about something very near and dear to me: the current campaign against trans and queer people, and the broader attacks on federal workers in the US. I know many of us, regardless of where we live, are profoundly concerned about the avalanche of executive orders coming from the White House. If you live in the States, I would like to ask you to make time in your day to contact your reps and let them know that you expect them to protect federal workers, and that we must preserve access to trans healthcare and protect the rights of queer kids in schools.

I won’t pretend I’m not scared (and wishing I had the foresight to marry my wife in a state that has enshrined same-sex marriage into the constitution, unlike Louisiana, which still has a gay marriage ban on the books). I also feel a profound certainty that I deserve to live safely and comfortably here in the south, my home, my favorite place.

That being said, in addition to lightly bullying my Republican senators, I’ve been engaging in massive amounts of my own personal favorite brand of escapism: inhaling Edwardian detective novels like there’s no tomorrow. I’m nearly done with Dorothy Sayers and am actively seeking recommendations for more, so do reach out if you have any favorites!

The following recipe is sponsored by my pals at California Prunes!

I adore a New Orleans-style king cake (and always will), but I leapt at the chance to develop a recipe for its fancier French cousin, the galette des rois. Last year the talented baker Melisa Spence made a prune butter galette with benne seed frangipane, and it sounded so good I needed to try my own hand at it. The prune espresso butter here is inspired by the the classic flavor combination, and I paired it with almond frangipane as a nod to the French tradition.

Traditionally an almond or a coin is hidden inside the galette des rois, and the lucky recipient becomes the king for the day. These days I typically slip my fève under the slice rather than hiding it within, for safety’s sake. I’m the lucky recipient of handmade ceramic beans from the brilliant Michelle Marek, which feel almost too precious for me to use.

Whether you celebrate with a galette des rois, a king cake, bolo-rei, or a rosca de reyes, I hope you have a happy and safe Mardi Gras season.

Prune, Coffee, and Almond Galette des Rois

Note: you can certainly make your own rough puff pastry if you wish - I did, and I adore the results I got from making Natasha Pickowicz’ rough puff recipe from her debut cookbook More than Cake. However, store bought puff works perfectly well too, and certainly makes this more weeknight-friendly. If you do make your own, you’ll need about a pound.

Both the prune butter and the almond frangipane can be made ahead. You will need to bring the frangipane to room temperature before using.

You’re welcome to omit the espresso powder! I like the subtle earthiness it brings but I enjoy it either way. I’d avoid substituting all of the water for coffee - I found it to be a little strong when I tried that avenue myself.

Ingredients:

2 sheets store-bought puff pastry (or homemade, see note)

For the prune butter:

170 grams / ¾ cup (packed) prunes

160 grams / ⅔ cup water

40 grams / 3 tbsp brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

½ teaspoon espresso powder

Large pinch salt

For the almond frangipane:

85 grams / 6 tbsp unsalted butter, room temperature

75 grams / ¼ + 2 tbsp granulated sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

64 grams egg whites (from two eggs)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

¼ teaspoon almond extract

60 grams / ½ cup almond flour (or finely ground blanched almonds)

10 grams / 1 tbsp + 1 tsp all purpose flour

For the egg wash:

36 grams egg yolk (from two eggs)

A dash of cream or half-and-half

First, make the prune-coffee butter. Combine the prunes, water, brown sugar, vanilla, espresso powder, and salt in a medium non-reactive pot. Place over medium-high heat and bring to a simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar and espresso powder are fully dissolved. Continue to cook for about five minutes, until the prunes are meltingly soft, and remove from the heat. Allow the mixture to cool before tipping it into a small blender or food processor and pureeing it until very smooth. Set aside in the fridge to firm up a little.

Then, make the almond frangipane. Combine the butter, sugar, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer (or use a hand mixer). Cream together until the mixture has lightened a little, about three minutes. Add the egg whites, vanilla, and almond extract and continue to mix until just combined, scraping down the sides of the bowl as necessary. Add the almond flour and mix, followed by the all purpose flour. Scrape into a small dish and set aside at room temperature.

To make the egg wash, simply stir the remaining egg yolks from the frangipane into a little cream, half-and-half, or water.

To assemble:

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Line a sheet tray with parchment paper.

If using store-bought puff pastry, follow the instructions on the box to defrost, and keep very cold before rolling out. Roll out each sheet into about an eleven-inch circle. You can use a round of parchment paper as a template to help you cut. Slip each round of puff pastry onto a sheet tray and pop them in the refrigerator to get nice and cold before proceeding.

Take one puff pastry round out and place it on your prepared sheet tray. Brush the edge with a little egg wash and spread the interior with the prune butter, leaving a one-inch border around the edge. Place the tray in your freezer for five minutes to allow the prune butter to firm up.

Remove the tray from the freezer and spread the almond frangipane over the prune butter, remembering to leave the one-inch border around the edge. You can also pipe it, which makes it a little easier not to disturb the prune butter.

Take out the second puff pastry round and carefully place it on top of the bottom layer. Press your fingers into the border to seal. Using the tines of a fork, crimp the border to further seal the galette. Place the whole thing back in the freezer for ten minutes to get very cold.

Remove the galette from the freezer and brush the top with the egg wash. Using a very sharp knife, slice a few decorative vents in the top. Place it in the oven. Bake for twenty minutes before rotating, and continue to bake for another ten minutes. Remove the galette from the oven when it is a deep golden brown (this may take longer in your oven - use the color of the galette to judge). If you have a cooling rack, carefully transfer the galette to the rack using the parchment paper as a sling, and then wiggle the parchment paper out from under - this will keep the bottom crisp.

The galette will keep for up to three days at room temperature. You can also freeze it, unbaked, for several weeks and bake it from frozen.

Today in a fit of holiday chaos I bring you:

• a printable template for making a zine from a piece of 8.5” x 11” paper

• a new class

• a mildly unhinged recipe

Let’s dive in!

If you read my gift guide, you might remember my plan to gift my niece a zine-making kit for Christmas. I ended up making a printable template that she could fold into a little book, customized with her name, and put it in a box with stamps and stickers. Here’s a version of what I made, with a blank space so you can write whatever name you like. You’ll need a printer that can print a double-sided page - just fold the paper longways, cut along the dotted line, and staple the book together.

I find it’s best to draw on it with colored pencils or crayons versus markers, which tend to bleed through the thinner printer paper I used.

In case you missed it: I have a new class available in my online store! This one is all about how to securely stack tiered cakes, and it comes with a comprehensive video tutorial and a suite of 9 recipes that you can mix and match. I call it Tiny Tiers, because practicing with a small tiered cake is so much easier than trying to stack a massive cake your first time. The finished cake serves around 26 people, so if you want to gift your friend an elopement or baby shower cake next year, you’ll have all the skills you need. Click here to see more about the class (including a list of recommended tools), or click here to gift it to someone else.

I also added new recipes and a Yule Log tutorial to my dome cake class just in time for the solstice. If you’ve already bought the class, you should have gotten the recipes in your inbox - shoot me an email if you don’t see them!

In case you can’t tell, I had an absolute blast writing this next recipe. The following is a paid partnership with California Prunes (but to be clear I did pitch prune whip and they bravely allowed me to follow my dreams).

Justice for Prune Whip

You’ve seen it: on social media, a recipe card or advertisement from the 1950’s will make the rounds to a collective shudder of revulsion. A cloudy tuna salad molded into a bulbous shape and adorned with black olives, contorted hot dogs in aspic, or pureed ham loaves topped with mealy hard boiled eggs, these images are always depicted in fuzzy halftone, a comforting reminder that these dishes remain firmly in the past.

Folks who know I work with California Prunes will often come across one iconic example of this phenomenon and send it to me - a towering glass of prune whip, a mauve mixture flecked with brown and topped with a rosette of cream. The subtext is always the same. Get a load of this??? Can you believe it?

I am here to tell you: I do believe it! Prune whip is actually delicious. I’m not talking about that sad weeping mess of soggy baked meringue and pureed prunes beloved of Dwight Eisenhower, but instead a far more elegant dessert. Instead, whole prunes are simmered until very soft, whizzed into a velvety prune butter, and folded into whipped cream. An intrepid housewife might have once substituted pureed prune baby food as a time-saver, but we certainly don’t have to bring that particular hack along with us into the future. Nor do we need to top it with corn chips, as a vintage Frito’s advertisement suggests.

My own adaptation is more contemporary Paris than 1950’s Des Moines. I cook the prunes down in Armagnac and fold soft mascarpone together with the cream, adding lots of salt and vanilla on the way. I couldn't decide what to call it. Salted Vanilla Prune Mousse? Prune and Armagnac Cream? Neither felt quite right. So, I’ll call it Prune Whip, and I dare you to try it. If you abstain from booze, you can substitute the liquid for earl gray tea for an equally chic version (London Fog Prune Whip, anyone?).

Prune Whip

I piped this cream into decorative glasses for serving. You could top with shaved chocolate or a dusting of cocoa powder for a chic finish. Makes about 5 cups or 6 servings - or cut the recipe in half for a smaller crowd. This may seem like a lot of armagnac, but I promise the result isn’t too booze-forward.

227 grams / 1 packed cup prunes

113 grams / ½ cup armagnac, brandy, or rum

113 grams / ½ cup water

54 grams / ¼ cup brown sugar

454 grams / 2 cups heavy cream

227 grams / 8 ounces mascarpone

100 grams / ½ cup granulated sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla paste (or extract)

Large pinch salt

Combine the prunes, armagnac, water, and sugar in a medium non reactive pot. Place over high heat and bring to a simmer, stirring to dissolve the sugar. Cook the prunes at a rolling simmer for 3 minutes, stirring occasionally. Allow to cool to just warm.

Using a small blender or food processor, puree the prunes and the liquid together with a pinch of salt until very smooth. Allow the prune puree to cool to room temperature.

Combine the cream, mascarpone, granulated sugar, vanilla paste, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whisk on low speed in the beginning and gradually raise to medium speed until the cream holds soft peaks. You want to take care not to over-whip it or it might become grainy - err on the side of it being a little loose, as it will firm up when chilled. Taste and add a little more salt if you like.

Fold the prune puree into the whipped cream, using a light touch so as not to overmix it - you want it a little streaky. Pipe or scoop it into your serving glasses immediately. Keep chilled until ready to serve. Alternatively, you can chill the prune whip in a large container and scoop it into glasses later - it firms up as it cools and is capable of holding a quenelle.

Liz’s cookie box

Last Christmas, however, I was struck by the urge to develop my own Christmas cookie arsenal. I’m influenced as ever by my friend Tim Mazurek, who takes his cookies very, very seriously. I love Tim’s essay about them, particularly the notion that Christmas cookies are, against the odds, a stubbornly secular tradition:

“For this non-Christian who loves Christmas, the modern season is most fully encapsulated in the holiday cookie platter, a generous fantasia where butter cookies decorated like angels mingle with rugelach and rum balls. The cookie platter doesn’t care about your religion, or lack of one. It welcomes everyone and promises that you’ll find something you like.”

As a fellow non-Christian who loves Christmas, I’ll think about this passage every season, perhaps forever. It inspired me to develop three holiday cookies last year - a crunchy, wheaty espresso digestive, a chewy panettone cookie chock full of dried fruit and topped with pearl sugar, and a tangy pistachio cranberry bar (that’s incidentally vegan). If you make only one, I can still say the digestive is my favorite.

This year, I have two for you: a chestnut sandwich creme and maple pecan panforte. To be totally honest they are both a little finicky to put together, but I think they are some of my best work. The chestnut cookie requires you to find peeled, pre-cooked chestnuts, which are often sold in little vac-sealed packets or jars. This might strike you as difficult to find, but I sourced them at Costco, World Market, Whole Foods, and Wal-Mart this year, and you can always try online. I’ve never roasted and shelled my own chestnuts but it sounds like too much work!

If you’re not familiar with panforte, I often think of it as if fruitcake was a confection - a sweet, chewy, nutty slice, redolent with winter spices. I had it for the first time when I worked for Michelle Polzine in San Francisco ages ago, who would serve it on cheese plates. I think it works equally well in a Christmas cookie box, and it keeps for ages. Traditionally made with honey and almonds, I’ve substituted maple syrup and pecans to give it a distinctly North American edge. I want to enjoy it with a glass of amaro soon.

Without further ado: the recipes. You can click the links below for printer-friendly versions or scroll down to see them complete with pictures.

Maple Pecan Panforte (click through to print)

Chestnut Sandwich Cremes (click through to print)

Maple Pecan Panforte

Makes about thirty-two portions

This version may offend the Italian traditionalists, but if living in New Orleans has taught me anything, it is that Italian-Americans (and Creole Italians in particular) make magic when they adapt their culinary traditions to what is available where they currently live.

I bake my panforte in an 8” square baking pan rather than the traditional round because I think it makes it easier to portion into neat rectangles for gifting. I have a square pan with a removable bottom which makes removing the cooled panforte considerably easier - if you don’t have a similar pan, then I would recommend a 9” round springform. Many panforte recipes feature an addition of melted chocolate, but I found that it muted the maple flavor. I add just a tablespoon each of cocoa powder and cocoa nibs instead. I also add a touch of corn syrup to prevent the maple syrup from crystalizing as it cooks. You could substitute glucose if you have it.

Judging the “doneness” of a cooked panforte can be tricky, because it will still feel quite molten when you remove it from the oven, and firm up as it cools. I would err on the side of underdone than over, as a too-firm panforte could break a tooth. I allow my own to cure completely overnight before portioning. If it still feels a bit sticky or soft when you go to divvy it up, you can pop it in the freezer for a few hours, cut it into neat slices, and let it come to room temperature. You’ll want to cut it with a sharp serrated knife, using short sawing motions to neatly slice through the pecans, revealing an appealing terrazzo of fruit and nuts.

A last note - I would recommend sticking to the ratio of dates I’ve included here. A version I made with more dates turned out far too sweet. I’ve also included imperial measurements, though I recommend you stick to the weights, as dried fruit and nuts can vary so much in volume when piled in a measuring cup.

Ingredients:

188 grams / two cups whole pecans, toasted

155 grams / 1 cup dried figs, chopped

113 grams / a packed ½ cup dates, chopped

50 grams / a scant ½ cup candied orange peel, chopped

1 tablespoon cocoa nibs

90 grams / ¾ cup all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon cocoa powder

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon five spice powder

¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

⅛ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

200 grams / ⅔ cup minus one teaspoon maple syrup

164 grams / ¾ cup plus one tablespoon granulated sugar

22 grams / 1 tablespoon corn syrup

28 grams / 2 tablespoons butter

A couple tablespoons of confectioner’s sugar

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

Prepare your pan by spraying the heck out of it with pan spray - I use Pam. Then line the bottom with parchment paper and spray again. I use an extra long piece of parchment so that I have a sling to help pull the finished panforte out of the pan.

Combine your pecans, cocoa nibs, chopped dates, figs, and orange peel in a bowl. In another bowl combine the flour, cocoa, salt, and spices and whisk to combine. Toss the dried fruit and nuts in the dry ingredients, taking care that all the pieces of dried fruit are adequately separated. Place this bowl near the stove, and set the butter nearby so it's close to hand.

In a small non-reactive pot, combine the maple syrup, corn syrup, and sugar. Cook the syrup mix over medium heat, stirring gently with a heat proof spatula, until the sugar is dissolved. Using a candy thermometer or an instant-read thermometer, continue to cook the syrup until it hits 240 degrees - this should take about a minute and a half from when the syrup begins to boil. Pause for a beat so that the syrup can carry to about 243 degrees, then turn off the heat and add the butter, followed by the dried fruit mixture. Stir it vigorously until it is well combined - it will feel quite thick. Scrape the mixture into your prepared pan. I like to use a greased square of parchment paper to press the mixture into an even layer, though you could use gloved hands if you like. It will be very thick, and the panforte mix will cool rapidly and won’t be too tricky to handle.

Place the panforte in the oven and bake for forty minutes. When you remove it, it will still feel soft in the middle and may be bubbling lightly at the edges - it will firm up a lot as it cools. I like to let it cool for about twenty minutes in the pan, and then take a sharp knife or offset spatula and run it around the edge of the pan to separate it from the sides. You can then carefully flip it out onto a clean work surface. It may still feel a little sticky and soft - this is normal. You don’t want to let it cool completely in the pan, as this will make it difficult to unmold. Carefully peel off the parchment paper from the bottom of the panforte. Sprinkle the panforte with the confectioner’s sugar, rubbing it into the surface, and let cool completely. Allow it to cure overnight before portioning (or freeze it for a little while if you’re in a rush). You can store it wrapped tightly in plastic wrap or beeswax-coated cloth for several months at cool room temperature.

Chestnut Sandwich Cremes

Makes about 24 sandwich cookies

The flavor profile of these cookies is very simple, but the result is magical. Brown butter shortbread is rolled thin and baked until crisp, then filled with a soft and nutty chestnut cream. When eaten fresh, you get all the textural contrast between the crunchy sables and the rich filling, but I almost prefer them when they’ve sat overnight and everything melts together in your mouth. I tinkered with this recipe quite a bit to get the textures right, and by the time I was finished I could not be bothered to reverse engineer this recipe back to imperial measurements. I only offer this recipe in grams (it’s worth it).

Pre-cooked and peeled chestnuts aren’t appealing as-is, but when simmered until very soft in a rum simple syrup and blended with butter and salt, the starchy chestnuts transform into a velvety ganache-like texture with a flavor that's difficult to describe. People sometimes say they taste like sweet potatoes, but they remind me more of sweet boiled peanuts (complimentary). Fair warning: the recipe for the chestnut cream below makes twice as much as you need. I found when I tried to make smaller amounts that it was difficult to blend. You need a certain volume of material to “catch” the blades of small food processors, and the remaining chestnut cream freezes well, anyway. Use the leftovers to spread on french toast, put on the side of a cheese plate, or add a little egg white and bake it up like a frangipane. The French even use creme de marrons, the paste made from broken bits of candied chestnuts, as a mix-in to their breakfast yogurt.

A note on the brown butter shortbread: you’ll need to brown butter for this recipe (obviously), but different types of butter have different water contents, and the finished weight will vary. To get around this, you should brown a stick of butter and then make up the weight with uncooked butter until you get to 170 total grams. There are more details below.

Brown Butter Shortbread Ingredients:

170 grams butter

85 grams granulated sugar

255 grams all purpose flour

½ teaspoon plus ⅛ teaspoon kosher salt

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or a dash of vanilla paste

Confectioner’s sugar, for sprinkling

Place 112 grams of butter in a non reactive pot and cook over medium heat, stirring frequently, for about five minutes, or until the butter solids have browned and taken on a nutty aroma. Meanwhile, set the bowl of a stand mixer on a scale and tare it. When the butter is deeply browned, scrape it into the bowl of the mixer and add a chunks of cold butter, a little at a time, until it reaches 170 grams in weight. At this point, the cold butter will have cooled the brown butter down considerably, but we still will wait until the mixture has reached room temp before proceeding. You can speed up this process by placing the mixing bowl in the fridge and giving the butter a little stir every now and then until it’s cooled to a pliable (but not liquidy) consistency.

At this point, add the sugar and cream the butter/sugar mixture together with a paddle attachment for about one minute. You don’t want the creamed butter and sugar to be too light and fluffy - we rely on undermixing it slightly to achieve the shortbread's fine-grained, crunchy texture. After a minute, add the flour and salt and mix just to combine. Add the milk and vanilla and finish mixing by hand until a soft dough has formed.

Immediately roll out your shortbread dough. I like to roll it out between a silicon mat and plastic wrap, obviating the need to use any additional flour (and risking toughening the shortbread). You can also roll it out between two sheets of parchment. The ultimate goal is a uniform sheet of shortbread just under a quarter inch in height. Slip the shortbread onto a half-sheet tray and refrigerate (or freeze) until firm.

Punch out your cookie rounds. You’ll want to use a cutter between 1½ and 1¾ inches in diameter. I like to take half my rounds and punch a cute shape out of the center, like you would with a linzer cookie, but you don’t have to. You can re-roll your scraps once, or even twice if you’re careful not to over mix it.

Preheat an oven to 350 degrees. Arrange your shortbread rounds on two sheet trays - you can place them pretty close together, as they won’t spread much. Bake for 13-15 minutes, rotating the trays front to back and top to bottom halfway through, until the cookies are pale golden brown.

Once the cookies have cooled, sprinkle the confectioner’s sugar on the “top” halves.

Chestnut cream ingredients:

150 grams water

150 grams sugar

1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon rum

1 teaspoon vanilla extract, or a dash of vanilla paste

Heavy pinch kosher salt

8 ounces / 226 grams peeled, pre-cooked chestnuts

56 grams butter, cold and cut into chunks

Combine the water, sugar, rum, vanilla, and salt in a small non-reactive pot and warm over medium heat until the sugar is fully dissolved. Add the chestnuts and simmer them for about ten minutes, stirring occasionally, until they are very soft. Use a heatproof spatula to smash the chestnuts against the side of the pot until they’re all broken up.

The chestnut puree before adding the butter.

When the sugary syrup has reduced until quite thick and the chestnuts are all soft and broken, scrape the mixture into a small food processor or blender, like a Magic Bullet or even a large spice grinder (I achieved this successfully in three different appliances). Puree the soft chestnuts until they are very fine and nearly smooth. Add the cold butter and continue to blend until the butter is fully melted and the chestnut cream is even smoother. If you need to, you can add a dribble of water or rum to thin it out. Taste the mixture and add a little more salt if you like. Allow to cool fully to room temperature.

To assemble

When the brown butter shortbread is fully cooled, take the bottom half of your cookie sandwiches and pipe a generous dollop of chestnut cream on them. Top them with their confectioners-sugar dusted tops. The cookies keep at room temperature for up to three days.

A quick note:

Many of you have already seen the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene in North Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, and Georgia. Southern Smoke Foundation is set to provide grants to hospitality workers in affected areas, and Blue Ridge Public Radio has put together a list of other ways to help. Please consider donating if you are able.

A Tater Tot Quiche is Born

Lately, I have been working hard to become the woman I want to be: a woman who uses up every scrap of leftovers in her fridge. I could tell you this is my noble effort towards sustainability, but truthfully, I think it’s looming middle age: I currently count cleaning and organizing my refrigerator as one of my more exhilarating weekly hobbies. After every grocery trip, I pull a chair up to my fridge and detail it, FIFOing1 yogurt and parmesan, rotating lettuce in the crisper, and figuring out how to incorporate any remaining leftovers into tomorrow’s lunch. 

Thus, tater tot quiche was born. I had an excess of eggs, a dash of cream, leftover grilled zucchini and tomatoes, a pallid quart of shredded kale, a freezer-burnt roll of store-bought pie crust, three slices of salami, and half a bag of tater tots. A couple of pieces of cheddar rounded out my plan. 

Last year, I published an essay on how to improvise a savory galette, where I wrote the following: 

Learning where and how to riff in a recipe is a great way to liven up your baking, and a galette is a great place to start since, no matter, what, we’re all just chucking a temperamental range of ingredients in a flaky crust and hoping for the best. In my opinion, even a galette you’ve made a million times will always come out a little bit different depending on the vagrancies of the oven, the ripeness of the fruit or veg, the phase of the moon.

The same, I believe, is true for quiche. I don’t quite have a recipe for you today, but I also don’t really think you need one. Sure, I could iterate a tater tot quiche twenty times in a row and build out a recipe that answers any conceivable question, but a tater tot quiche is just not that serious. Instead, I’ll walk you through my thought process for assembling this quiche, so that you, too, can chuck all of your leftovers in a crust, cover it with eggy custard, and enjoy a lunch flavored with a little sanctimonious glee. 

The crust

I don’t think you need to be precious here, and I’ve already revealed myself to be the sort of person who has store-bought pie crust in the freezer. I think it can be a nice thing to have around if you don’t feel like making one from scratch, and while they may not be as delicious as homemade, they make a perfectly adequate vehicle for quiche. Or, make your own, from whatever recipe you like. The most important thing here is that we’ll need to blind bake the crust. I like to parbake mine a little harder than you might expect, since my egg custard won’t take long to set up (more on that later). I weigh my crust down with a sling of parchment and some old brown rice, and bake it in a preheated 375 degree oven for twenty minutes. When done, you should see the bottom of the crust has lost its damp sheen, and your crimped edge will be a pale golden brown. This may take more or less time in your oven.

The filling

While your crust is parbaking, we’ll figure out our filling. We want all of the vegetables that go into our quiche to be pre-cooked and well-seasoned. This means any juicy vegetables, like peppers or summer squash, will need a hard sear to draw out and evaporate excess water. Cherry tomatoes, if used, should be roasted until burst and caramelized. I’m not a fan of patches of watery veg in my quiche custard, so taking these steps will mitigate that.

Make sure you’re seasoning as you go, a key to building flavor. I use salt and pepper or these korean chili flakes.  Of course, leftover grilled or roasted veg is great for this purpose as it’s already pre-cooked. If you’re using greens, saute them with lots of garlic, salt, and pepper, and add a little more than you think you’ll need to the pan, as well all know they’ll shrink down more than we expect. I want my quiche to be chock-full of filling, just barely bound together with custard. If you’re using meat, like salami or bacon, chop it up into small bits and treat it like a seasoning. 

Here is an incomplete list of further leftovers that I think would be tasty in a quiche:

• Mashed potatoes (I would ball these up into croquette-sized pieces and scatter them around the bottom of the crust)

• Croutons (think savory bread pudding)

• Old slightly sad bags of spinach or arugula

• Leftover charcuterie

• A wilted salad of bitter, hearty greens 

• Roasted sweet potatoes or hash browns

• Knobs of dried-out parmesan, grated 

• Bits of stale biscuits, savory scones, or cornbread 

• The last of a jar of kimchi or salsa

Whatever you use, you’ll want about three cups of filling for a 9” quiche. 

The custard

I need a synonym for the phrase “don’t be too precious about it” so that I can say it again. I use 5-6 eggs, beaten well with a pinch of salt, pepper and about half a cup cream. This may be a pastry chef problem but I always have cream laying around that needs using up. You could also use half-and-half. I personally would not use milk as I find that eggs take on a sulfurous quality I don’t enjoy when not muted with a healthy dollop of fat. Your custard will be much silkier for it as well, and will set firmly in a shorter amount of time. I also use the custard as an opportunity to use up the dregs of any other dairy products I have laying around - the last scraping of a tub of sour cream, labne, or ricotta, for instance. I never measure that element but I’d hazard you shouldn’t add more than 3/4 of a cup.

The tots

If you have them, cook them first. I have an air fryer, so I use that. They should be as I crispy as you can make them. I think I used roughly 16 tater tots for my own quiche. 

I think sometimes people are surprised I have processed food laying around. I don’t think processed food is inherently bad, and our pantry is stocked with lots of both raw ingredients and convenience foods. This frees up mental space for me to think about things other than making all my meals from scratch. Processed foods are a gift.

To assemble and bake

Place your filling in your pie shell - it should fill it up about three-quarters of the way. Pour your egg custard over the filling. It might seem like too much custard but it will all soak in. If using tots, press them onto the surface of the quiche - some will eventually be submerged and lend a spanish-tortilla quality once baked. If you’re using a melty cheese, or a crumbly feta or bleu, scatter it over the surface of the quiche now. Bake in your oven until set, which might be 20 minutes, or maybe more like 35. I didn’t measure the amount of time it took my own quiche to bake, and this isn’t a real recipe anyway. This is a nice time to sharpen our powers of observation: your cheese should be melty and your crust golden when the quiche is finished, and your egg custard should be firm but not rubbery. A little undulating wiggle in the center is fine. I let mine cool most the way before slicing and serve it gently warm.

I don’t know about you but this summer has been a drag. I don’t want to wade too deep into “summer is terrible” discourse but I do think I’ve seen more Greek vacations or tomato sandwiches than I can bear (and I love tomato sandwiches, don’t get me wrong, but I wish to see no more of them). Blame the New Orleans heat + humidity, which can drain anyone of their last shred of humor.

Today’s post is a glimpse of a cooler future - I’ll be talking about the Diaspora pumpkin spice blend that comes back this week, and I’ve got a killer blondie recipe for you as well.

In case you missed it, there are still some slots for my upcoming collaborative class with Megan Bayha of Baby T Rex Farms on Thursday, September 19th. We’ll be talking everything you need to know about growing, harvesting, storing, and decorating with edible and non-toxic flowers (with plenty of tips for container gardens in small urban spaces). You’ll also get a really delicious recipe for olive oil cake with whipped cream frosting. You can get 15% off with the code GROWING15.

Sponsored post ahead!

Producing a recipe for Diaspora was a dream collaboration for me. To be clear, this is a sponsored post! But the lines feel fuzzy when I’m talking about Diaspora, a company that produces such dizzyingly expressive spices. Working with their products changed the way I bake- I’d never had access to spices that were this intensely fragrant before. Cinnamon used to be a throwaway spice for me, something I’d add to autumnal bakes almost as an afterthought. Now I recognize the full potential of cinnamon - how its vibrant, burnt caramel notes can pull out more nuanced flavors in apples or pears, or how it can serve as the bracing undercurrent to a gingerbread, just as important as the ginger itself. The luxury of the Diaspora mace is especially seductive. The lacy apricot-colored aril of the nutmeg seed is preserved whole- something I’d literally never seen before! When ground, it smells of tea and wet earth and tastes of bitter orange and licorice. I love to pair it with stone fruit, slipping it into summer preserves and pies. It's especially transformative with aromatic nectarines. 

In a previous life I would have turned up my nose at a pumpkin spice blend, snubbing it for its popularity among people who felt so different from me. It took taking stock of my own perceived-as-guilty pleasures to change my mind. Nicole Rucker said it best in her evergreen pro-PSL treatise for Bon Appetit:

“I seek to avoid being perceived as needy or fussy, and least of all, unsophisticated. It’s what you learn to do as someone who works in the ‘farm-to-table,’ ‘natural,’ ‘organic’ food space. Maybe it’s something I do as a woman, a fat woman, to make myself feel smaller and more deserving.”

Like Nicole, I had to give myself permission to embrace the idea of pumpkin spice. What freedom in just letting people enjoy things! And what delight in this particular spice blend - like any recipe, an expression of personality. The best recipes feel like strong, decisive choices were made in their development. The Diaspora pumpkin spice straddles a tricky line: it feels nostalgic, reminiscent of the pumpkin spice blends you might remember from childhood pies, while also striking into fresh territory. Both literally fresh- these spices arrive at your door much sooner after harvest than commodity spices - but also new: with a stronger (but not overpowering) backbone of clove and white pepper, threaded with green cardamom, nutmeg, and mace, along with the familiar ginger and cinnamon. The green cardamom, both floral and vegetal, pairs especially well with squash, sweet potatoes, and carrots. 

Tasked with developing my own recipe to feature the Diaspora pumpkin spice blend, I knew I wanted to create something that could bridge the gap between these last days of August and the upcoming fall season. The result - carrot cake blondies, which are, in the words of another favorite LA pastry chef Sasha Piligian, “aggressively spiced”. They feature white chocolate, another famously polarizing ingredient I’ve only recently admitted that I love, as well as shredded carrots (of course), dates, and toasted pecans. The spices are bloomed in brown butter, and while it’s perfectly ok to use solely all-purpose flour here, this recipe would also work beautifully with a little rye or whole wheat thrown in as well. The best thing about this blondie is the way the texture shifts: cookie-like at the crisp edges and sinking into fudgy territory in the center. 

These recipe is very adaptable to whatever you have on hand. Feel free to substitute any nut or dried fruit you like (apricots and walnuts would be amazing, or toss in a handful of shredded coconut or golden raisins). They have a great shelf life- the texture and flavor are even better the next day. The recipe below can be made with brown sugar or a 50/50 blend of brown sugar and Diaspora jaggery for a more complex sweetness, the jaggery adding its own notes of maple and graham cracker. 

Spiced Carrot Cake Blondies

Yields about 12 blondies (depending on how you slice them!)

2 sticks / 8 oz / 226 grams butter

2 ¼ teaspoons Diaspora Pumpkin Spice Blend

1 ¼ cup / 272 grams light of dark brown sugar or 50/50 brown sugar/jaggery 

2 eggs

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1 teaspoon orange zest (optional)

2 cups / 240 grams all purpose flour

¾ teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 cup / approx. 120 grams carrot, shredded

1 cup / approx. 170 grams dates, pitted and chopped

1 cup / approx. 110 grams pecans, toasted and chopped

4 oz / ¾ cup / 113 grams white chocolate, roasted (see note) 

Note: roasting the white chocolate is an optional step. If you’re not typically a huge fan of white chocolate, roasting it tempers some of the sweetness and adds beautiful caramel notes. I typically find higher-quality white chocolate in bar form in the grocery store, rather than using white chocolate chips (though you can use either). To roast, first preheat the oven to 350 degrees and chop the white chocolate (you’ll want largish chunks, about an ¾ of an inch wide). Line a baking tray with parchment paper, and spread the chopped white chocolate in an even layer.

Bake for 8-12 minutes, checking frequently to give the chocolate a little stir as it browns. It can move quite quickly, so once it begins to take on a pale golden color, watch it closely. Once it is a light brown, go ahead and pull it from the oven. Let cool completely before using. If you’re using white chocolate chips, this whole process will move quite a bit faster.

You may also substitute milk or dark chocolate if you prefer, though be forewarned an exceptionally dark chocolate may overpower the spices. 

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Prepare a 9 x 13 baking pan (often called a brownie pan) by spraying it with pan spray and lining it with parchment paper - allow yourself a long enough piece of paper that it extends up and over the sides of the pan. You can fold down the excess parchment and use it later to help lift your blondies out.

First, brown the butter. Melt the butter over medium heat in a small non-reactive pot, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon or a heatproof spatula, until it turns the color of dark straw and begins to sputter. Lower the heat and continue to stir. In about 6 minutes, the butter solids will begin to look like golden brown specks, and you’ll smell the brown butter’s nutty sweetness. Add the Diaspora pumpkin spice and stir vigorously to bloom the spices in the fat - this will smell incredible. Turn off the heat and pour the butter and spices into a separate bowl to cool, taking care to scrape all the brown butter bits out of the pot (they provide so much flavor!). Allow to cool to room temperature. 

While the butter is cooling, you can toast your pecans, shred your carrots, and chop your dates. If you’ve opted to roast your white chocolate, it should be also be cooling and almost ready to fold into your blondie batter.

Combine the all purpose flour, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl and set aside (you may need to sift your baking powder if it looks clumpy). 

Combine the cooled brown butter, brown sugar, orange zest, vanilla, and eggs in the bowl of a stand mixer (or feel free to use a handheld mixer). With the whisk attachment, mix on medium-high speed for 3 minutes, until the mixture has thickened and lightened. Fold in the dry ingredients by hand and stir until mostly combined - you should still see some unincorporated dry patches of flour. Add the carrots, pecans, dates, and roasted white chocolate (in that order). Stir until just combined. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and spread in an even layer - the texture will be quite thick. 

Bake for 28-30 minutes or until the edges of the blondies are a deep golden brown and have begun to separate from the sides of the pan, and the center springs back lightly when poked. Don’t be afraid if the center seems a little gooey- we want to take care not to overbake the blondies. Allow to cool completely before using your parchment sling to lift the blondies from the pan. Cut into twelve pieces and enjoy! The blondies can be kept, well-wrapped, at room temperature for up to three days, or frozen for several months. The texture of the blondies will be more cake-like the first day, and begin to develop a more fudgy quality as they sit (which is just how I like them). 

I’m FINALLY debuting my next pre-recorded baking class this Friday. I’m really excited to share that I’ve been spending months fine-tuning a dome cake class. While it comes with four recipes, the bulk of the class is really about the technique of covering a rounded shape with a silky smooth layer of buttercream for a refined finish, plus three dome cake decorating techniques. It is so, so detailed (thanks in large part to my collaborator Drew, who has meticulously gone over this video and had me add so much context). I’ll have more information on Friday, plus a discount code for the class just for newsletter subscribers! 

A recent return to plated desserts 

The past few weeks, I’ve been playing a small part in helping open a restaurant. The last time I was hired as a consultant on a plated dessert menu, I was twenty-six years old and had been a pastry chef for less than a year. I had no idea what I was doing. The head chef, the brilliant Brandon Jew, had enjoyed my work at the tiny, beloved Outerlands in San Francisco, and brought me on to develop a menu for the very hyped upcoming restaurant Bar Agricole. The rest of the management team there seemed to have vast reservoirs of money to match their eccentricities. The PR reps bragged about the staff forager and the onsite biodynamic garden producing all of the cocktail garnishes (reader, there’s no way a garden that size could have realistically done that year-round). I wish I could remember the price tag on the custom chandelier that undulated through the dining room, made of hundreds of tubes of blown glass. One owner was maniacally particular about sourcing. I once walked into the kitchen to find him dumping a fifty-pound bag of organic sugar I had ordered into the compost because it wasn’t fair trade. I get this story sounds fake, but 2010 in SF was a wild time. The bubble hadn’t burst and millionaires were giving restaurant keys to alcoholic twenty-somethings with boy problems.
My task was to come up with three intensely seasonal desserts that could be executed by a team of overworked line cooks I barely knew. I’d work my shifts at Outerlands before dashing on the train from the Outer Sunset to SoMa to troubleshoot and taste their mise en place, a wildly untenable situation even with the best of intentions. I was only at Bar Agricole briefly until the all-consuming drama of my personal life sent me back to New Orleans. I actually kind of miss those train rides, firmly believing I was the main character, listening to Bon Iver and gazing out at the fog.

My most recent experience at Acamaya has been entirely different. For one thing, I am now forty and I actually know what I’m doing (mostly). I’m also blessedly free of boy problems. I feel really honored to have helped chef Ana translate her vision of a dessert menu to the plate. It felt like stretching muscles I haven’t used in ages - plated desserts are a whole different ball game than cakes. It’s like a puzzle. First, the dessert needs to be delicious. Then, you’ve got to figure out how to arrange the components on the plate in a visually arresting way. After that, you have to figure out how each component will be made and stored, how much labor that will take, and long it will take for a chef to assemble it when ordered. Can a crispy meringue garnish work in a humid kitchen? Not usually - you end up throwing away so many sticky meringues that the labor it takes to produce them is no longer worth it. Does it make sense to have a cook dash to a freezer ten paces away to add a quenelle of ice cream to a plate? It’s one thing in a home kitchen, but when these steps are repeated over and over during a busy service, you quickly re-arrange a menu to be more physically efficient. Not to mention- a distant freezer is a recipe for ice cream that melts, re-freezes, and gets riddled with ice crystals.

Consulting on a dessert menu is maybe only half about the food - the rest is about implementing systems to make a menu manageable without a full-time pastry chef on staff. I’m lucky that Ana’s back of house team are some of the most kind, focused, and funny chefs I’ve encountered in my career. We’re keeping it short and sweet for now, with a flan and a tres leches cake. I’m really proud of both of them, and of this gorgeous, thoughtful restaurant in general. The biggest con to this gig is remembering that everything in a new kitchen is SHARP - even the edges of hotel pans have not yet been dulled down by years of use and will nick you. I have some new dings to match the half-moon shaped scar on my hand I got when shopping for tart pans for Bar Agricole (nothing like your hand dripping blood in the restaurant supply store when you’re trying to impress a new boss). 

I had plated desserts on the brain when I came up with my most recent recipe for California Prunes - a riff on a pudding parfait that I first presented at a collaborative prunes dinner with Ana herself (you can find her own brilliant recipe for a bone-in pork chop with prune mole here). I was briefly famous for a butterscotch pudding I had on the menu of a restaurant uptown- my second full-time pastry chef gig ever. If I could do it all over again, this is the dessert I would come up with instead - all of the nostalgia of butterscotch, but with a sophisticated edge.

The recipe below is sponsored by California Prunes! Click here for a printer-friendly version.  

Chicory + Prune Butter Parfait

Prunes and coffee are a classic match, and this classy layered dessert pairs these flavors with a Louisiana twist. Chicory powder, available online or at natural food stores, is a dissolvable instant coffee substitute, famous as the star of the New Orleans-style cafe au lait. I love it for its earthy, powerful flavor that stands up beautifully to milk and cream, and is naturally caffeine-free. Here I infuse the chicory powder into a diplomat cream, which sounds fancy but is basically pudding lightened with whipped cream. The diplomat cream has a lighter, airier mouthfeel than straight pastry cream, with just a touch of gelatin to stabilize it. You may remember I used a similar filling in my walnut chiffon cake recipe- this version is new + improved (and easier to make!).

Layered in a glass with a bright prune butter and brown sugar whipped cream, this parfait is a glam chilled dessert that altogether tastes, somehow, just like butterscotch pudding. You could enjoy it as is, or top with crumbled chocolate wafer cookies for a bit of crunch. Or imagine it spooned into a chocolate cookie pie crust? 

Recipe notes:

This recipe makes about six parfaits, depending on the size of the individual serving dishes you’re using, or you can make one big one like a trifle and spoon it out family-style. 

This recipe was developed with instant chicory powder in mind - I use Anthony’s brand. Sometimes chicory is sold in granules instead. In that case, you can use roughly the same amount, but you may notice the granules don’t entirely dissolve - that’s no issue, as we’ll be straining our pudding anyway. In a pinch, you can easily substitute two teaspoons of instant espresso powder for the chicory powder. 

You may also leave the gelatin out - your diplomat will have a softer set, and you may want to assemble the parfaits immediately upon folding the whipped cream into the chicory pastry cream. If made as written, you can make the chicory diplomat up to two days ahead, and the prune butter up to three or four days ahead. 

The vincotto in the prune butter is entirely optional, but delicious if you happen to have it laying around! Vincotto is a thick, bright syrup made from reduced grape must - I love adding a little to jam recipes to deepen the fruity flavor. It’s especially lovely in roasted strawberries or with simmered prunes, as I do here. You could also substitute bourbon or rum for a more adult dessert (rum would really bring out the butterscotch notes). 

Chicory Diplomat Cream

1 cup / 240 grams milk

2 egg yolks

½ cup / 100 grams sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

Hefty pinch salt

1 tablespoon chicory powder (or two teaspoons espresso powder, see note)

½ teaspoon powdered gelatin (optional, see note)

2 oz / 4 tablespoons/ 56 grams butter, chilled and cubed 

¾ cup + 2 tablespoons / 198 grams cream

Prepare a shallow bowl with a strainer set over it and set aside. 

Combine the egg yolks and the milk in a liquid measuring cup and set aside. Combine the sugar, cornstarch, salt, chicory powder, and gelatin in the bottom of a medium non-reactive pot and whisk thoroughly to combine. Slowly pour in the milk/yolk mixture, whisking all the while so there are no visible lumps of cornstarch. 

A quick aside - typically with powdered gelatin, you’d bloom it in water separately and add it in later. I tweak this method by allowing it to bloom with the milk in the initial step - by suspending the gelatin with the sugar and cornstarch, you shouldn’t see any lumps. Another reason one might bloom gelatin separately is that it loses its strength when boiled for a considerable length of time, but this pastry cream will only be at a rolling simmer for about a minute. I originally developed this method because I hate fussing about with blooming powdered gelatin and I’m a bit lazy about it. I’ve never noticed any ill effects when doing it this way and so I’ve never looked back. If you’re not using gelatin just ignore all this and proceed with the next step.

Place the pot over low-to-medium heat and cook, whisking all the while, until the chicory pudding has thickened, and you begin to see fat, rolling bubbles simmering across the surface. Continue to cook and whisk vigorously for an additional one minute. Remove from the heat and taste your pudding - you shouldn’t be able to taste the powdery finish of cornstarch - if you do, you may need to cook for an additional 20 seconds or so. Take care not to overcook at this stage - we cook the pastry cream for a minute because any longer can weaken the bonds of cornstarch that we've developed, and result in a looser (or curdled) pudding. 

Whisk in the butter until totally incorporated, and strain the pudding into the prepared dish. Press plastic wrap directly to the surface of the pudding and refrigerate until totally chilled. 

When the pudding has cooled completely, put the heavy cream into a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and whip until it achieves loose peaks. Add the chilled pastry cream to the mixer and whisk at high speed until it’s fully incorporated into the whipped cream, about 15 to 20 seconds or so. The result will be a beautiful coffee-colored, voluptuous cream with a velvety finish. Chill until ready to assemble your parfaits. 

Prune Butter

1 packed cup / 260 grams prunes

1 cup / 227 water

¼ cup / 54 grams brown sugar 

Pinch salt

2 teaspoons vincotto (optional, see note)

Place all of the ingredients in a small non-reactive pot and simmer over medium heat until the prunes are very soft and the liquid has reduced and taken on a slightly syrupy consistency, about three to four minutes. You should be able to easily halve the prunes with a wooden spoon, but you don’t want to simmer away all of the liquid. Before blending your butter, you can pluck out six syrupy prunes from the liquid and set them aside for garnish, if you like. Tip the remaining prune mixture into a blender and blend until very smooth (I use a magic bullet). Set aside to cool to room temperature. 

Brown Sugar Whipped Cream

1 cup / 227 grams cream

¼ cup / 54 grams brown sugar

Pinch salt 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Hold off on whipping the brown sugar cream until you’re ready to build your parfait. Assemble all of the ingredients in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment (or use a handheld mixer). Whip the cream on medium speed until it has thickened and achieved soft peaks. 

To assemble the parfaits:

Spoon or pipe the chicory diplomat cream and the prune butter into sundae glasses or mason jars, alternating the two to create a striated effect. This recipe will make about six servings, depending on the size glass you’re using. Top with the brown sugar whipped cream. The parfaits can be assembled up to a day ahead sans the brown sugar whip, or up to two hours ahead once garnished with the cream. If you’re folding in chocolate wafer crumbs, sprinkle them in between the layers or on top. Garnish with the reserved syrupy prunes, if you like!

I wanted to also share a little background as to why I was invited on an “agritour” a few weeks ago in Santa Cruz, including a vignette about what you learn when you’re allowed to word vomit your climate anxiety on a government official over dinner!

This past month, I was invited to join an agricultural tour by California Grown. These trips are sponsored, meaning we are paid to produce content about the tour and what we’ve learned. Frequently, though not always, the content is a recipe featuring one of the agricultural products we’ve studied on the tour. CA Grown exists to educate people about the agricultural industry in California and to encourage folks to buy produce grown in the state. They’re the umbrella organization for California Prunes as well, which many of you may already know are a frequent (and beloved) sponsor of my recipes, including last newsletter’s chocolate prune sheet cake.

Independent recipe developers are sponsored by brands all of the time - All Clad, Graza, and Our Place immediately come to mind. I do think it surprises folks that this particular brand is as broad and varied as “California Agricultural Products”. It’s an enormous story to tell. This tour featured presentations on the dairy industry’s approach to controlling methane emissions, conversations about the limitations of one farm’s insurance to adequately remit their expenses when they lost their fruit trees to a wildfire, and the complicated math of crop storage when you produce and process millions of bulbs of garlic a year. We learned about grafting, crop rotation, sustainable wine, and the water needs of blueberries. 

As was the case with my first tour, we were joined by Karen Ross, the secretary of agriculture, and for the second year in a row we happened to be seated next to each other at dinner. Someone asked me if my flight had been disrupted by a recent spate of bad weather in the south, and I mentioned that the tornado warnings had already dissipated by the time I needed to board. They were taken aback - was that a common occurrence in that part of the country? Secretary Ross immediately replied that tornadoes were uncommon in the past but becoming a more frequent, unwelcome visit to Louisiana due to the warming climate.

 At first I found it remarkable that she would know that about my own state, but then again of course she would - one of her many jobs is preparing California’s agricultural sector for climate change. I asked Secretary Ross how far in the future they’re planning with their climate change outlook. She replied that California created a series of goal posts five, ten and fifteen years in the future, in the hopes that their agricultural emissions will be below 1990 levels by 2030. California’s agricultural industry is currently responsible for 8% of total carbon emissions- down from the nation’s average of 10.6%. Secretary Ross wryly mentioned that the governor had asked her personally to spearhead the communication of these goalposts with the dairy industry, one of the largest contributors to climate change in agriculture. She told me that part of this commitment is proving that it is possible - as California goes, so will the rest of the country and hopefully, the world. The approach is many-pronged, involving responsible water management, renewable energy, methane remediation, and encouraging people to buy their produce domestically (that’s where I come in). More than a third of the United States’ vegetables, and over two-thirds of its fruits and nuts, are grown in California. People often think that tiny farming operations and farmer’s markets are the key to a sustainable food system, but I often wonder if these folks have really grasped the scope of what it takes to feed the world. It would not be possible to produce enough food without a mix of larger and smaller farms, and a robust governmental commitment to making operations of all sizes sustainable is crucial. 

Rhubarb and Pistachio Bostock

The last day of our agricultural tour, we visited Sea to Sky Farm, a small regenerative operation north of Santa Cruz. Chris, a fourth generation farmer and the first woman in her family to take up the mantle, grows sweet potatoes, stone fruit, and blueberries on a broad, hilly patch of ground surrounded by forest. She sprays nothing on her crops (not even organic pesticides), instead co-planting flowers that attract beneficial insects. Chris laughed while telling us she simply sprays aphids with water- their brief life cycle interrupted by a good hose-down. We were brought here to watch Chris harvest the last of that month’s rhubarb crop. Rhubarb benefits from the cold - Chris grows hers on a plot of land that is shaded from the sun by a large stand of hundred-years-old redwoods. Thrillingly, she let me harvest a few stalks - we can’t grow rhubarb in humid New Orleans, so this was my first opportunity. 

Last week, I set to brainstorming a recipe for rhubarb that would highlight its tart, fleeting glory. My only caveat is that I don’t want to have to pick up a rolling pin - we’re in the first of many heat waves, and my official summer laziness has set in. Enter the bostock: an underrated french pastry featuring a thick slab of brioche topped with almond cream and sugar. A bostock has all the charm of a twice-baked almond croissant, without having to commit the crime of allowing croissants to go stale. It comes together quickly, and unlike a rhubarb frangipane tart, does not require me to fuss about with making pastry or pressing a crust into a finicky mold. I’m continuing my recent love affair with pistachios by subbing them for almonds in the frangipane - the pink and green combo of rhubarb and pistachio is irresistible to me. 

We begin by very lightly poaching the rhubarb. I like to give the rhubarb a head start in cooking, gently taming its bracing tartness by baking it submerged in simple syrup. You’ll have a good bit of rhubarb-infused poaching liquid left over - not an issue in my book, as I’ll stir it into lemonade or mix it into cocktails. I arranged three large fig leaves over my rhubarb as it poached. I’m not sure you can taste it in the final product, but it sure felt romantic. 

While the rhubarb is slowly warmed and softened, we’ll make a pistachio frangipane. You can begin with store-bought pistachio flour, which typically retains a much punchier green color, or do as I do, and grind whole pistachios in a spice grinder until they are very fine. 

Thick slices of brioche are then brushed with the rhubarb poaching syrup and topped with the pistachio frangipane. The rhubarb, now gently imbued with the poaching liquid, is sliced and arranged on top. The whole shebang is then baked until the frangipane is lightly golden and the rhubarb has just begun to caramelize. The bostocks are best enjoyed the day they are made - perfect for a fancy brunch, or even as an evening dessert with a scoop of ice cream on the side.

Click here for a printer-friendly version of the recipe.

You’ll need:

6 one-inch thick slices of brioche, lightly stale

1 pound / 453 grams rhubarb

1 cup / 200 grams sugar

1 cup water 

2 Tablespoons granulated sugar, for sprinkling 

For the frangipane:

4 oz / 113 grams butter, room temperature

¼ cup + 1 Tablespoon / 63 grams sugar

¼ teaspoon salt

1 cup / about 136 grams ground pistachios

2 Tablespoons / 18 grams all purpose flour 

One egg white (about 18 grams)

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

First, poach the rhubarb. Warm the water and sugar in a medium non-reactive pot until the sugar has dissolved.

Wash and slice the rhubarb into about 4.5 inch pieces (or as long as your pieces of brioche toast are wide). Arrange them in a baking dish and pour the simple syrup on top. Place a piece of parchment over the dish and press it gently to the surface of the poaching liquid - this will help the rhubarb cook more evenly and prevent it from bobbing to the surface. I actually used fig leaves for this purpose - use them if you have them for a more perfumed poaching liquid! Place the dish in the oven and bake for about 20 minutes. My rhubarb stalks were on the thicker side, and this baking time was enough so that a knife poked into the stalk went in with almost no resistance, but the rhubarb still maintained its shape. Our goal is to only very lightly cook the rhubarb - you don’t want it to get mushy. If your stalks are thinner, you may want to check them at 10 or 15 minutes. 

Remove the baking dish from the oven and allow the rhubarb to cool to room temperature in the poaching liquid. Meanwhile, make the frangipane. In the bowl of a stand mixer (or with a handheld mixer), cream the butter, sugar, pistachios, and salt together until light and fluffy. Add the flour and egg white and beat until just combined.

When the rhubarb has cooled enough to handle, remove it from the poaching liquid. You can keep the stalks in thick bars, or cut them down into smaller pieces as you please (both are attractive, though the latter may be a bit easier to eat). Brush the brioche with the poaching liquid, giving it a good soak. You will have liquid left over - save it for cocktails or lemonade! Smear the pistachio frangipane over the soaked brioche. Arrange the rhubarb decoratively on top, nestling it into the frangipane. Sprinkle a little granulated sugar on top.

Bake the bostock at 350 degrees for about 30-40 minutes, or until the edges of the bostock are quite crisp and the pistachio frangipane has just begun to brown. One of my favorite things about this dessert is the textural contrast between the crust of the bostock and the custardy interior, where the poached rhubarb and pistachio frangipane mingle, so don’t be afraid to get a little color on the border of the toast. This will happen much more quickly if you happen to have a convection oven.

The bostock may be eaten warm or at room temperature, and are best the day they are made. You can make both the poached rhubarb and the frangipane ahead of time - you can refrigerate the frangipane for up to three days, and let come to room temperature before using. 

But first to business! I’ll be slinging my final cakes the first two weekends of May. You can click here for early access to orders beginning at 10am on Wednesday, April 24th. Thank you so much for all your support! It’s wild being in the home stretch, and I hope to bake for as many of you as possible.

This is the first of two recipes I’m bringing you in partnership with my friends at California Prunes!

I’ve occasionally had folks apologize to me for serving store bought cakes at parties. I wish I could go back in time, gently hold them by the sides of their faces while maintaining eye contact, and truly, deeply convince them that: I do not care. Store bought cake is good! All cakes have their place! I grew up on the grocery store cakes my grandmother would bring home from her job in the checkout line at Graul’s Supermarket in Annapolis, sheet cakes piped with raucous neon roses. You know that buttercream - with the crusty exterior and velvety interior, scented with artificial vanilla extract. I still love that stuff.

When my pals at California Prunes came to me to develop a new recipe, I knew immediately that I wanted it to be simple to put together, and settled on a classic chocolate sheet cake, reminiscent of the ones I had as a kid. This one ups the ante with the inclusion of velvety prune puree and a hybrid Russian / American style cocoa buttercream. Together, they marry the nostalgia of that grocery-store sheet cake with the elegant flavor of prunes. This is the closest I may ever come to pairing fruit with chocolate (it’s just not my favorite combo!) but the winey, earthy prune puree adds just the right amount of acidity to the chocolate without veering into raspberry-coulis-with-molten-lava-cake territory. 

I don’t always work with American style buttercreams, but here the bracing sweetness is moderated by adding bittersweet cocoa and condensed milk, which adds a mild milkiness reminiscent of a chocolate milkshake. The cake itself just skirts the border between a devil’s food and a fudgy brownie. The inclusion of the prune puree will keep this cake moist for ages. And while I mainly suggest that folks temper their cakes before serving, this one is just begging to be served cold with an icy glass of milk. 

You can serve this in a simple single layer, swooped with the buttercream, or bake, slice into two pieces, and stack it for a fancier presentation (see the pics below for an example). If you’re doing the former, you can halve the buttercream recipe if you’re fond of just a thin layer of frosting - otherwise go ham and make the full amount for a thicker layer of buttercream. 

Chocolate Prune Sheet Cake

Click here for a printer-friendly version.

For the cake: 

1 ½ cups / 340 g water

1 cup, packed / 186 g california prunes 

16 tablespoons / 227 g unsalted butter

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup / 60 g bittersweet cocoa

4 oz / 113 g bittersweet chocolate, chopped 

¾ cup / 154 g brown sugar

1 ¼ cup / 250 g white sugar

2 whole eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

3/4 teaspoon salt

2 cups + 1 tablespoon / 248 g all purpose flour

1/2 cup / 113 g buttermilk

Note: baking this cake at a slightly-lower-than usual temperature ensures that it bakes in a nice, flat layer, perfect for frosting.

Preheat the oven to 325. Grease a 9 x 13 pan (often called a brownie pan) with pan spray, line the bottom with parchment paper, and grease again. 

Combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl and set aside. 

Simmer the water and prunes in a medium non-reactive pot for about five minutes at medium-high heat, or until the prunes are so soft you can easily squash them in half with a wooden spoon. Remove from the heat and let cool slightly before pureeing until very smooth (I use a magic bullet for smallish jobs like this as I abhor scraping small amounts from the bottom of a large blender). Return the prune puree to the pot and add the butter and vanilla extract. Warm over low heat until the butter is totally melted, whisking the mixture until it is totally combined. Add the chocolate and cocoa and continue to whisk over low heat until the chocolate has melted and the cocoa has bloomed and suffused the mixture, and there’s no trace of dry cocoa. Remove from the heat and add both sugars, whisking until smooth. Add the eggs and whisk until combined. Add the flour mixture and combine until no patches of dry flour remain. Finally, add the buttermilk and stir vigorously until it is fully incorporated.

Scrape the batter into the prepared pan and spread into an even layer, pushing the batter into the corner of the pans. Bake for 36-38 minutes, or until the edges of the cake have begun to shrink away from the sides of the pan, and a sharp knife inserted into the center comes out nearly clean, with perhaps a few stray crumbs. Allow to cool completely before frosting the cake. 

For a simple presentation, you can halve the following buttercream recipe and serve the cake in the pan, with the buttercream swooshed attractively on top (this will give you just enough to ice the surface of the cake in a thin layer). Alternatively, you can read on and prepare a more highly decorated cake.

To make a two-layer sheet cake, allow your cake to cool completely and unmold it from the pan. Slice it neatly in half so that you have two 4 ½ by 6 ½ inch layers. Place the bottom layer on a cake stand or serving platter and dollop about a cup of buttercream on top, smoothing it into an even layer with an offset spatula. Chill briefly. Place the second half on top and give your entire cake a quick crumb coat. Chill again for at least half an hour. When your crumb coat has chilled completely, frost the surfaces of your cake with an even, thin layer of buttercream. If you have fun piping tips to play around with, this is a great opportunity to go wild with them - if you don't like how the cake is going, you can always scrape it off and start over! 

For the buttercream:

3 sticks / 336 grams butter, room temperature

1 can sweetened condensed milk

¼ cup - ½ cup / 30-60 grams bittersweet cocoa

½ - 1 cup / 62 - 125 grams confectioner’s sugar

Heavy pinch salt 

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Note: You’ll see that both the suggested amounts of powdered sugar and cocoa in this recipe are listed as a range. Begin with the smaller amount, and if you prefer a sweeter buttercream or a deeper chocolate flavor, add the additional amount. For instance, when I used either Ghiradelli or Trader Joe’s cocoa, I found I preferred the lower amount of powdered sugar and the full amount of cocoa. However, when I tested the recipe with the bracingly dark Valrhona cocoa I use at work, I found I preferred the smaller amount of cocoa and the full amount of powdered sugar. This is a nice opportunity to really think about your preferred level of sweetness in a buttercream, and a fun way to experiment with the flavor of your preferred cocoa powder. That being said, this recipe isn’t meant to be the most chocolatey buttercream you’ve ever made - it’s designed to be reminiscent of the chocolate frosting on a child’s sheet cake.

Place your tempered butter in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment and beat on high for about five minutes or until it is very much lightened in color and very fluffy. Add the sweetened condensed milk and beat to combine. Sift the confectioner’s sugar, cocoa, and salt into the buttercream (taking into account the recipe note above). Beat once again until all the ingredients are fully incorporated, add the vanilla, and then beat for about five minutes more so that all of the confectioner's sugar is fully incorporated and there’s no trace of a powdery mouthfeel. Use immediately or store, refrigerated, for up to a week - you’ll need to let it come to room temperature and beat it once more before using. 

Happy Mardi Gras from New Orleans! The first parade rolled here on January 6th- we begin with a walking parade through the French Quarter dedicated to Joan of Arc. It’s a short season this year, so there are parades and events nearly every weekend until Fat Tuesday on February 13th. 

In case you missed it, my online king cake class is available through Ash Wednesday - it's a series of videos and a detailed recipe that you download and own forever. New Orleans-style king cake is a simple bake that’s surprisingly difficult to get right. My recipe has been made hundreds of times by people all over the world (I think the farthest away was New Zealand!), and I’m confident even novice bakers will have successful results. Every year I add updates and new variations to the recipe, so if you’ve bought the class in the past just shoot me an email (bayousaintcake@gmail.com), and I’ll send you the revised class!

Malted Rice Pudding two ways!

To be totally honest, I’ve spent most of my free time the past month teaching myself how to sew a jacket from a pattern instead of, well, all the other projects I need to do, including writing this newsletter. I’m trying to make a full suit from scratch for my Mardi Gras costume this year, and it’s very hard! Last weekend, prompted by a setback in attaching the collar, I actually, physically, hung my head in my hands, a gesture I don’t think I’ve ever performed in real life. Yesterday I sat down to write the introduction to this recipe and my brain fizzled. So, I asked ChatGPT to write an introduction to a newsletter about rice pudding - here’s what it had to say:

Get ready to embark on a culinary journey that will tantalize your taste buds and transport you to a realm of sweet indulgence—Rice Pudding Extravaganza is here!

So, uh, I guess get ready? 

For my recent pastry and dessert trend piece, I predicted that 2024 was going to be a big year for rice pudding, and while I’m sure there’s an element of confirmation bias involved, I really do feel like I’ve been seeing it everywhere lately - baked into pastry, piled into pie crust, or, in the classic manner, simmered on a stovetop:

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NYT Cooking on Instagram

January 23, 2024

With so many variations out there, I couldn’t settle on just one, so I began with my basic rice pudding recipe that I used to serve as a rotating special when I worked in restaurant kitchens, and manipulated the textures to two very different places. 

The following recipe consists of a base that, with a few tweaks, can be served either chilled, or baked and brȗléed. I love it both ways! The first version has a fluffy, mousse-like texture, thanks to cream that is whipped and folded in after the pudding chills. For the second, I add egg and a little additional cream and bake it in a water bath until just set, then brȗlée the top for a crunchy finish. Both are excellent paired with fruit - candied kumquats, a spoonful of jam or marmalade, or warm roasted apples or pears would all be great. A little malt powder simmered in the rice gives it an old-fashioned warmth.

Served here with a spoonful of quince paste.

Malted Rice Pudding - the base 

Quick note on rice- I tested this with long grain rice, short grain sushi rice, and arborio rice, and would definitely steer you towards the latter two. With this ratio of liquid, the long grain rice won’t sufficiently cook and will have a grainy mouthfeel. 

I kept this recipe very simple but you can flavor it however you like- vanilla bean, cardamom, cinnamon, or nutmeg would all be delicious. You can easily halve the recipe as well if you’re not serving a large crowd- I always feel like rice pudding is best within a day or two of being made. 

2 cups / 472 ml milk

1 cup / 236 ml cream

½ cup / 106 grams short grain or arborio rice

½ cup / 100 grams sugar

2 Tablespoons / 20 grams malt powder (optional)

Large pinch salt

Bring a medium pot of water to boil over high heat on the stove. Blanch the rice for two minutes and drain.

Return the rice to the pot and add all the remaining ingredients. The malt powder may clump up at first, but will eventually dissolve as you stir the pudding. Bring the milk and cream up to just below a simmer, and reduce the heat to low. Simmer for half an hour, stirring frequently, or until the pudding has thickened and the rice barely has just a wisp of an al dente center (I used this time to look up vintage belt buckles on Etsy, but you do you). 

Let stand, covered, for ten minutes. At this stage, you could serve the pudding as-is, warm from the pot, or continue on for the two alternative variations (I suppose this is actually rice pudding three ways!). It will seize up a bit as it chills, so you may need to thin it out with a splash of cream if you’re not going to move forward with the variations. 

Chilled Pudding Variation

Allow the rice pudding to cool completely in the fridge (it will firm up considerably). Whip an additional 1 cup/236 ml cream to medium peaks. Add the chilled rice pudding and whisk vigorously to combine. Serve dolloped in decorative glassware or bowls and top with literally whatever you want.

Brȗléed Pudding Variation 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a three quart shallow baking dish with a little soft butter (you really could use any shape or size- you just want the rice pudding to bake in a shallow layer). Prepare a larger dish, like a large roasting pan, to act as a water bath. 

Let the rice pudding cool to warm room temperature (you just don’t want it to be screaming hot when you add the egg). Combine two eggs and two egg yolks with an additional one cup / 236 ml of heavy cream, whisking thoroughly to combine. Add the cream/egg mixture to the rice pudding, whisk again to combine, and pour into the prepared baking dish. Bake for 30-35 minutes (uncovered) until the custard has just set, with just a whisper of a lazy wobble in the center. Remove from the water bath. Just before serving, cover with a generous sprinkle of turbinado sugar and torch the top (or set it under your broiler until the sugar melts and caramelizes). I prefer this custard served warm or room temperature, rather than chilled - I actually brȗléed mine right out of the oven and it worked great! 

Another note - for my latest version, I made a half batch and baked it in a small baking dish for a treat for my family of three. Before baking, I slipped several whole dried Flavor King pluots in the pudding in a bit of a marriage between a baked rice pudding and a Far Breton. If your dried fruit is a bit stiff, I’d plump them first - a big, soft, gorgeous prune would also be delicious (not sponsored, I swear!), or you could try a handful of sultanas or dried apricots. A little grating of nutmeg at the end is not out of place either. Bake and brȗlée as directed.

For locals - I’ll have a small menu of cakes available for pick up on Christmas Eve - you’ll be able to place an order on Wednesday, December 13th at 10am by clicking here (the link won’t work until that time). Newsletter subscribers get a two hour head start!

Three new cookie recipes for you

I just started brainstorming holiday cookie recipes a few weeks ago, which means I’ve been wading through batch after batch of mediocre cookies nearly every day since. Once I get a notion in my head, I’ll worry at it sleeping and waking until I get it right, and while I’ve had to jettison a few ideas - the sunflower butter shortbread were uninspired, and the pineapple and saltine divinity veered too bizarre - I’m proud of the following recipes and I hope you like them too. 

I wanted three very different styles- a slightly finicky but very rewarding roll-and-cut cookie dipped in chocolate, a jammy bar with streusel that melts in your mouth, and a drop cookie that can be baked from frozen for ease.

Some more cookie inspiration for you from my holiday celebration north star: Tim Mazurek’s essay What We Talk About When We Talk About Christmas Cookies (yes, I know I was hyping his gift guide only last week!). I’m reminded that, while I’m not Christian, I can still take joy in celebrating the secular trappings of the holiday - including Tim’s perfectly salty takes on what makes a Christmas cookie and how to properly store them. The truth is, I fucking love Christmas now (I didn’t always) and the traditions my queer little family have started together have totally re-shaped the holiday for me. This year, we’re making fondue together on Christmas Day, and once again we’ll convince my father-in-law to take a holiday selfie with us while wearing panda-shaped sheet masks (it’s what we do).

However you celebrate, if you make these cookies I’d love to hear what you think! I can’t lie - the digestives are my favorite, but the jammy cranberry bars are lovely and tart, and the panettone cookies are the sleeper hit (especially if you love citrus).

Click through for printer-friendly versions of the recipes sans images:

Coffee Digestives

Pistachio, Cranberry, and Olive Oil Jam Bars

Panettone Cookies

Or scroll down to see process pics with the recipes.

Coffee Digestives

Makes about 22.

Crisp on the edges, malty and soft in the center, these biscuits (in the British sense) are lovely all on their own or dipped in tempered chocolate and decorated with fruit, nuts, or sprinkles. I especially like them topped with slivers of dried apricot or candy-coated fennel seed.

I tested this with Bob’s Red Mill whole wheat flour because it’s commonly available (at least here in the States), but I think these would be great with your fave small batch stone ground grain - you just might find the dough is a little thirstier and could use a few more drops of milk to come together. 

I actually used Heilala Vanilla coffee-vanilla extract in my last batch because I had some laying around and it was great! 

1 ½ cups / 180 grams all purpose flour

½ cup / 60 grams whole wheat flour 

½ teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup / 100 grams granulated sugar 

1 tablespoon malted milk powder (optional but very tasty)

1 teaspoon espresso powder 

12 tablespoons / 168 grams butter, cold, and cut in ½ cubes. 

¼ cup / 60 ml milk, cold

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

Combine all of the dry ingredients in a food processor and pulse a few times to combine. Add the chilled butter and pulse until it’s incorporated into the dry ingredients in very small pieces - your mixture should look sandy and relatively uniform. Turn out into a medium bowl and drizzle the milk and vanilla over the flour and butter mixture. Using your hands, gently knead the mix together until a shaggy dough forms.

This dough will be quite sticky to work with if you roll it out in the traditional way -plus I’m loathe to add additional flour when rolling. Do as I do, and roll out your dough between a silpat and a sheet of plastic wrap, or between two sheets of parchment paper. You’re looking for your dough to be just under a quarter inch thick.  Slip your rolled-out dough onto a sheet tray and place it in the freezer for an hour or so, or until it's cold enough that you can easily punch out your rounds. I used a 2.5 inch round cookie cutter and got about twenty-two cookies. When you don’t add additional flour when rolling, you can also re-roll your scraps more easily to eke out a few more cookies. 

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-17 minutes, or until the cookies are quite crisp on the edge with just a whisper of softness in the middle. I’ll arrange no more than 12 cookies on a tray (three by four), as they’ll spread a bit as they bake. These cookies maintain their shape best baked from frozen.

Allow to cool completely, and dip in tempered chocolate (I’m honestly kind of terrible at tempering chocolate so follow the link for instructions - I used about 340 grams of bittersweet chocolate to coat mine). Decorate as you please with dried fruit, nuts, sprinkles, cocoa nibs, flaky salt, or not at all. I actually find I enjoy the texture of these cookies equally on the day they are made and up to two days after - they are crispiest on the first day and begin to soften into a graham-cracker style texture as they rest. For long-term storage, I’d cut them out and freeze them unbaked. 

Pistachio, Cranberry, and Olive Oil Jam Bars

Makes about 24.

Dairy and egg free (but not on purpose), these bars are tart and rich and have a pleasantly Christmas-y color palette. Pistachio and olive oil shortbread is pressed into a 9 ½” by 13” pan, parbaked, and topped with cranberry jam and pistachio and olive oil streusel. 

I tested this recipe with both commercially ground, very fine pistachio flour, as well as pistachios ground in both a spice grinder and a magic bullet. All these methods worked fine - you should aim for as fine of a grind as you can hack with the tools you have. Pistachio flour (bought already milled) will likely have the most vibrant green color. 

I’ve also doubled the shortbread recipe and pressed it into the pan without the cranberry and streusel for a more straightforward pistachio and olive oil shortbread. I’d sprinkle it with a little coarse sugar and slice it into bars when it’s fully baked (about 35-40 minutes at 350 degrees). 

For the shortbread:

2 ¼ cup / 270 grams all purpose flour

¾ cup / 90 grams pistachio flour or very finely ground pistachios

½ cup / 100 grams granulated sugar

½ teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking powder

¾ cup / 168 grams olive oil 

For the jam:

1 bag / 340 grams cranberries, fresh or frozen

1 cup / 200 grams granulated sugar

¼ cup water

For the streusel:

½ cup / 50 grams confectioners sugar

½ cup / 60 grams all purpose flour

½ cup / 50 grams pistachio flour or very finely ground pistachios

1 teaspoon cornstarch

½ teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons / 40 grams olive oil 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Assemble the shortbread:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. 

Line a 9 ½ by 13” inch pan (aka a quarter sheet tray) with a parchment paper sling, so that the paper extends up over the edge of the pan on the long side. Grease lightly.

Assemble all the dry ingredients in a medium bowl and whisk to combine. Drizzle in the olive oil and stir until the dough comes together. Press the dough into the bottom of the tray in an even layer. Parbake for 15 minutes, or until the dough puffs up and is very lightly golden at the edges. While the shortbread is parbaking, make the jam and streusel. 

Make the jam:

Put the cranberries, sugar, and water in a medium non reactive pot. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring vigorously, until the cranberries release their juices and all but a few break down completely. Let cool a bit (it’s easiest to spread when it’s still a bit warm, but you don’t want it to be screaming hot). 

Assemble the streusel:

Assemble all the dry ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Drizzle in the olive oil and vanilla extract. Stir the mixture with a fork until it forms a crumbly texture - if it still appears like there are dry patches of flour, add a little more olive oil a drizzle at a time until it comes together. 

Assemble the shortbread bar:

Spread the slightly warm cranberry jam over the parbaked shortbread (it will be just enough to cover the whole surface in a thin layer- I use a small offset spatula to spread it into the corners). Sprinkle the streusel in an even layer on top. Bake for an additional 30-35 minutes or until the streusel takes on a pale golden cast and the shortbread bar has puffed up a bit in the center.

Allow to cool completely before using your parchment paper sling to lift the bar out of the pan. Cut into 2 inch squares (or smaller if you like).

Panettone Cookies

Makes about 30

Crisp on the edge, with a cakey center chock full of mix-ins, these cookies mimic the flavor profile of the burnished top crust of a panettone. You can use whatever you like for the dried fruit - I used sundried apricots and cherries for several batches and threw in some sultanas in another batch and enjoyed all. In my opinion you shouldn’t skip the candied citrus peel as the citrusy flavor is central to my experience of panettone, though you could mimic it with lots of grated orange or grapefruit zest if you like. I used a combination of candied satsuma and meyer lemon peel. I’ve noted that the chocolate is optional - I like it, but you don’t want to overwhelm the flavor of the dried fruit and citrus, so it’s there in a smaller ratio than your average chocolate chip cookie. I use store-bought roasted and salted pistachios (I am lazy) in my version but almonds might be nice too! 

Fiori di Sicilia, often found in panettone, is wonderful in these cookies, though you could also add a few drops of orange blossom water or almond extract. The pearl sugar is likely going to be tricky to find in local stores - I ordered mine online. The cookies are still great without it but I do think it adds a rad crunch to the finished cookie. 

As with any cookie, the bake on these is quite important. You’ll want to err on the side of slightly underbaked to get the properly cakey, soft interior texture. I usually bake a single cookie as a test when running a new recipe so you can figure out the proper timing without messing with a whole batch. These cookies can be baked either straight away, or from frozen (though make sure you mind the note about flattening the ball of dough). 

1 cup / about 140 grams dried fruit, such as cherries, apricots, currants, or sultanas

¼ cup / about 40 grams candied citrus peel, chopped 

1 cup / about 120 grams pistachios, toasted and roughly chopped. 

½ cup/ about 60 grams bittersweet chocolate, chopped (optional)

12 tablespoons / 168 grams butter, soft

¾ cup / 156 grams brown sugar

6 tablespoons / 75 grams white sugar 

½ teaspoon salt 

Two egg yolks (hang on to the whites)

¼ teaspoon Fiori di Sicilia (or orange blossom water or almond extract)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract 

2 ¼ cup / 270 grams all purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

Egg whites and pearl sugar, to garnish

Assemble your mix-ins - chop your nuts, dried fruit, candied citrus, and chocolate, and set aside. Whisk the baking soda into the flour and set aside. 

Cream your butter, both sugars, and salt (either in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer) until light + fluffy, about 4-5 minutes. Add your egg yolks, vanilla, and fiori di Sicilia (if using), and beat just to combine. Add the flour and baking soda mixture and stir just to combine - the dough may be a bit drier than you’re used to. Fold in your mix-ins (nuts, fruit, peel, and chocolate) until they are evenly dispersed. 

Scoop your cookie dough into balls about 1 ½ inches in diameter (or between 32-36 grams in weight) - I prefer a cookie for a holiday cookie platter to be on the smaller side. Flatten the balls with the palm of your hand (these cookies don’t spread very much so this step is important). You can either freeze your cookies unbaked at this stage, or proceed with baking. If you don’t chill your dough the cookies will spread a bit more and crisp a bit faster - I think baking from frozen is slightly preferable for these cookies. 

When ready, preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Arrange the cookies in rows of four cookies by five cookies. Brush with egg white and press pearl sugar into the top of the cookie - I like that the egg white gives the finished cookies a little bit of gloss, like the surface of a panettone. Place in the oven - if baking from frozen, the cookies will take between 11 and 13 minutes. You’re looking for the edges to begin to take on a golden brown color while the center is paler and puffy.

That’s all! Thanks for reading.

Last week I promised to share with you my sweet potato pie filling - this is not that! I can’t for the life of me find the pink three ringed notebook that contains that particular recipe (don’t ask why it’s not digitized, my executive dysfunction simply wouldn’t allow it). I did, however, find a very similar recipe for a sweet potato flan I used to make in my restaurant days. I’d bake it in individual ramekins then, but here I’ve converted it into a family-style portion fit for Thanksgiving. You’ll need to bake it at least a day ahead, though you could make it as early as Tuesday.

I keep the spices in this base recipe fairly simple - just a hint of cinnamon- though you should feel free to experiment here : cardamom, nutmeg, mace, clove, or a sliver of orange peel would all be delicious. I used a dash of Heilala vanilla-coffee extract in mine and loved it. The Indianapolis-based baker Zoë Taylor introduced me to the idea of pairing coffee with warm spices, pumpkin, or carrot cake, and I’ve been playing with the combination ever since  - you could even slip a sprinkle of espresso powder into the custard base as its warming.

You’ll need about two sweet potatoes for this recipe, though I’d do three or four since weights can vary so much (I’ll snack on any extra roasted sweet potato later). To roast, I place the whole, scrubbed sweet potatoes on a silpat in a 350 degree oven for about an hour, until they are very, very soft and any juices that have spilled out have begun to caramelize on the tray. Allow to cool and the skin will slip right off. 

Oh and you can definitely substitute canned pumpkin or the flesh of a roasted butternut squash for the sweet potato here in a 1:1 ratio!

Sweet Potato Flan

For the caramel:

¾ cup / 150 grams sugar

3 tablespoons water 

For the custard:

Approx 1 cup / 250 grams roasted sweet potato, skin removed

1 cup / 200 grams sugar 

1 cup / 236 grams cream

1 cup / 236 grams whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

½ teaspoon cinnamon

¾ teaspoon salt

4 eggs

4 egg yolks

Preheat the oven to 325. 

For the caramel:

Combine the milk and cream in a measuring cup and set aside. 

Have a 9” metal cake pan ready to go to the side of your stove, as well as a large roasting pan that can easily accommodate your cake pan. 

Combine the water and sugar in a medium non-reactive pot. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally with a heat proof spatula, until the sugar has dissolved. Continue to cook without stirring until the caramel is a medium amber, about the color of a penny. If your sugar looks like it’s about to crystallize, cover the pot with a tight fitting lid and allow the build up of steam within to dissolve the crystals. I like to err on the side of undercooking the caramel at this stage. When your caramel has achieved a nice color, scrape into your cake pan. Gently tilt the pan until the caramel reaches the edges. If the caramel seizes up or is a little lighter than you’d like, simply place the pan on top of a burner on your stove over very low heat until it warms up and deepens in color. You can also pop your pan in the oven for 5-10 minutes and achieve the same effect. Allow the caramel pan to cool completely. 

For the custard:

Without washing out your caramel pot, take it back to the stove and add your milk and cream. Warm over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the traces of caramel in the pot dissolve. Add the sweet potato, sugar, cinnamon, vanilla, and whatever other spices you’re using and cook until the sugar has fully dissolved. While your dairy mixture is warming, crack your eggs and separate your yolks and place them in a medium bowl.

When your sugar has fully dissolved in your milk/cream mixture, pop the contents of the pot in a blender (I use a magic bullet) and blend until very smooth. Whisk the eggs and egg yolks together and, whisking continuously, add the warm sweet potato custard in a thin stream into your eggs. Pass the custard through a fine mesh strainer directly into your cooled caramel pan.

Fold a tea towel and place it in the bottom of your roasting pan (this will keep your flan from sliding around). Place the flan in the center and fill with hot tap water about half way up the side. Cover the pan tightly with foil and place in the oven. Bake for anywhere from 50 minutes to an hour and ten minutes (cooking time can vary widely depending on the size of your roasting pan). You’re looking for your flan to be set around the edges and have a seductive wobble in the center - if you have a probe thermometer, you can poke the middle gently (you’re looking for an internal temp of 175). Allow your flan to cool at room temp for about half an hour before refrigerating overnight (or at least ten hours or so, but you’ll ideally have a full overnight rest to allow the caramel to soften). The next day, just before serving, run a thin bladed knife around the perimeter of the flan. Place a plate over top of the pan, and flip the flan out (if it’s sticking a bit, put the pan briefly over a burner or a pot of simmering water and the caramel will loosen right up).The caramel should pool around the base of the flan. I am not ashamed to say I have been known to lift the plate to my lips at this point and take a little sip :-)

I’ll be finishing up my residency at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum by the end of June. 

For those who don’t know - I’ve spent the last year and a half as a Chef in Residence at the museum - I keep their kitchen running smoothly for folks who rent it out for events, teach classes, and help brainstorm museum programming. In exchange, I’ve been able to use their commissary to run my baking business. It’s been a fun ride with some really lovely people, and I’m so grateful to them for having me along. 

I’m in the planning stages of transitioning into a new space, which will necessitate operating the biz a bit differently. Moving into a new kitchen is like breaking in a new pair of work shoes - a little uncomfortable, occasionally painful, but ultimately for the best. Any of you who are also cottage bakers or itinerant chefs will know this drill intimately. I’m not personally interested in having a brick and mortar bakery - the overhead seems like a drag and I like the freedom of being able to incorporate different types of work into my routine. The past six months, I’ve assisted on the food styling for an upcoming cookbook, contributed a recipe and article to the Washington Post, submitted an essay to a forthcoming compilation, taught online and in-person baking classes, developed recipes and branded content for my pals at California Grown, all while running “Bayou Saint Cake”, the internet bakery. Moving forward, I still intend to bake cakes for y’all, but my availability may be a bit more limited as I continue to weave in different jobs and adjust to my next spot. I’ve also paused orders for July fully so I can continue to plan the transition. (Locals, if you know a few strong people with a truck who can move a lowboy cooler for cash, comment below!).

After I posted this image I realized the bird icon and word choice made it seem like I was about to make an earthly transition rather than a business one.

Speaking of California Grown - I’ve got another sponsored recipe for y’all below! I really love this one and have quite genuinely eaten it for breakfast multiple times this week. 

An admission: I’ve also been working on another (not-sponsored) recipe for fig leaf oatmeal cream pies, but it isn’t ready yet. Such is life! If you haven’t already subscribed you can do so below so you’ll be the first to know when I’ve finished that particular recipe.

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Roasted Cherry Semifreddo

Brought to you by our pals at California Grown!

The official start of summer is only just here, but the heat has officially hit New Orleans. Our “feels-like” temperatures are nearing 112 degrees and the humidity is laying over the city like a thick, wet blanket. This is my twentieth New Orleans summer and I think I may have a bit of amnesia when it comes to the experience of it - it’s always stickier than I remember. Stepping outside, the turbid heat immediately humbles you. The warmth builds in a cresting wave until late afternoon, when we’ll get a near-daily torrential downpour that does little to cut the thick, hot damp. The only way to get through is to slow down. Come home from work, sluice off, and ignore your chores. Planning a dinner party? Don’t you dare turn on your oven: we’re in cold food territory now. 

It always strikes me as ironic that the worst time to embark on a baking project is also the greatest time of year for fruit - stone fruit season. We’re in the flush of cherry season, the brief and sweet period where you’ll find me zoning out over the sink, eating cherries by the handful. Growing up, we’d get whole flats of them from my cousins in California, who’ve owned a cherry farm in Stockton for generations. My young cousin Matto (I saw young, but he’s a fully married father of two now!) is now the steward of the Katicich Ranch. We’re so proud to see him continue the farming tradition in the family - one of over 600 family farms in California growing the best cherries.

I developed this Roasted Cherry Semifreddo just for this moment - an easy, elegant dessert, no oven time required. Semifreddos are typically based on a mixture of whipped eggs, but here I’ve simplified the process by riffing off the “no-churn” ice cream tradition. It should also be noted that I’ve done this because I am lazy and I could not abide separating eggs while my air conditioning struggles to maintain an interior temperature below 76 degrees. So is this a proper semifreddo? No. I’ll put the word “semifreddo” in quotes below to satisfy any scrupulous Italians.

Cherries are roasted on the stovetop until just soft, then blended with sweetened condensed milk, lemon juice, and sour cream. Whipped cream is folded in to lighten the mixture, and then the whole thing is frozen in either a loaf pan or a silicon mold overnight. You can make this dessert several days ahead- once fully frozen, it’s ready to plate in minutes. I serve it with additional roasted cherries in their juice, and drizzled with olive oil for a lovely color contrast. 

A nod to Nicola Lamb’s iconic recipe newsletter Kitchen Projects - in my research I saw lots of “no-churn” ice cream and frozen dessert recipes that recommend using condensed milk, but Lamb is the first I found to explain why. Frozen desserts have the best texture when you remove as much water as possible from the recipe - otherwise you get little pockets of ice crystals that disrupt the creaminess. The dense, milky nature of condensed milk is excellent in frozen desserts for this reason, especially combined with whipping cream, and shouldn’t be substituted. 

Roasted Cherry “Semifreddo”

Recipe note: you can double the roasted cherries and poaching syrup if you’d like to have extra to serve on the side of your semifreddo. I’m not fussy about pitting cherries super cleanly - I honestly just use a gloved hand to pop out the pits rather than fussing with a cherry pitter or knife. 

I highly recommend freezing the semifreddo overnight before unmolding (8+ hours at least). Most home freezers are crowded and unreliable, and things need a little longer to get properly chilled.

Makes about 8-9 servings

For the poaching syrup:

¼ cup plus 2 tablespoons / 75 grams sugar

¾ cup water

2 tablespoons / 30 grams lemon juice

Combine ingredients in a small non reactive pan and simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sugar is totally dissolved. 

For the “semifreddo”:

1 pound / approx 3 cups / 458 grams cherries, pitted

1 tablespoon sugar

1 tablespoon olive oil

1 14oz/ 398 g can sweetened condensed milk

½ cup / 120 grams sour cream

¼ cup / 60 grams lemon juice

Pinch salt 

1 ½ cups / 339 grams heavy cream

Spray a loaf pan with pan spray and line it with plastic wrap. 

Toss the pitted cherries with sugar and let macerate for about five minutes. Heat the olive oil in a non reactive skillet until just sizzling. Add the cherries and their juices and sear over medium heat for 4-5 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the cherries have taken on a roasty color and the sugar has just begun to caramelize. Add the poaching liquid to deglaze and simmer briefly until the cherries have softened (but pause before the cherries have blown out or turned to mush). Turn off the heat and remove the cherries with a slotted spoon and set aside to cool. Turn the heat back on and continue to simmer the poaching liquid, which will now be a deep crimson color, until it’s reduced enough to be syrupy in texture. Taste and adjust for acidity by adding another dash of lemon juice if you like (I like my syrup to be quite bright). If you’ve doubled the roasted cherries for serving, you can store them in this poaching syrup until you’re ready to use them (up to five days). 

Once the roasted cherries have cooled, combine them with the sweetened condensed milk and lemon juice and blend in a blender until very smooth (if you’ve doubled the roasted cherries, you’ll need about 9 ounces / 255 grams roasted cherries for this step - save the rest for later). Decant into a bowl and whisk in the sour cream and salt. Whip the cream to soft peaks and fold into the cherry mixture. 

Pour the “semifreddo” base into the lined loaf pan and freeze overnight. The next day, you can quickly dip the loaf pan in hot water and use the plastic wrap to pull your loaf of semifreddo out to slice (after this point, I’ll wrap any leftovers in foil and pop back in the freezer). Alternatively, you can freeze your semifreddo in individual round silicon molds for a fancier presentation (these are available online, or you could use a silicon muffin pan). Also for what it’s worth, if you have a silicon muffin pan, don’t bother using it for muffins - silicon is terrible for baking (not for health reasons, it just doesn’t provide proper heat conduction and makes for pallid bakes). It’s fabulous for molded desserts like this semifreddo though!  I got about nine 4 oz servings when I molded mine this way.

Serve the semifreddo with a drizzle of poaching liquid and roasted cherries, or a drizzle of olive oil. Toasted pistachios or almonds would be a lovely addition for a bit of crunch.

I’ve always been a fan of a culinary underdog (my obsession with fruitcake, anyone?). A few years ago I was mouthing off on the internet about how another maligned favorite of mine, prunes, are criminally underappreciated. I can’t stand the inevitable scatological jokes, and I’m incredulous that we’re still allowing them to turn us off such a delicious snack.

Unbeknownst to me, a photographer acquaintance of mine (now a buddy, hi James!) had been working with CA Grown and put my content in front one of the subgroups they represent, California Prunes. They reached out and asked if I’d be interested in writing recipes and posting sponsored Instagram content for them. I responded that I would be delighted.

Growing a modest Instagram following and meeting other creatives who use social media has really changed my relationship to sponsored content. At times I can still feel existential about the way social media can feel like a relentless, grim parade of self promotion. Yet creating content, especially recipes, for corporate clients has become a lifeline for many indie internet chefs and food writers. The chef Paola Velez has been instrumental in crystallizing this notion for me, and her candor on the subject has shaped my perception of my own sponcon. Many of you know how razor thin the margins are for microbakers, and having the extra income from these types of gigs has allowed me the breathing room to imagine other projects I’d like to accomplish. Plus now I can tell people I’m sponsored by prunes!

Next time you see a chef schilling a product on Instagram, consider that by interacting with that content, you’re actually tangibly supporting them and increasing the likelihood they’ll pick up other sponsorships, which may mean more recipes, more writing, more art, or maybe just a vacation.

With that, a commitment- when I share sponsored content here in the future, know that I’ve thought about the relationship carefully, and that I believe in the product I’m selling. Today that product is California dried apricots! I’m the featured blogger for California Stone Fruit this season, which means this is the first of two recipes I’ll be sharing for them in the next month.

Ahoy, sponsored content below!

Right now in New Orleans, we’re in a market lull - the strawberries are petering out and the blackberries and blueberries haven’t yet begun in full force.

A late cold snap this past spring is creating a difficult year for farmers. You may have heard the rumors too - we’re actually having a tricky season for stone fruit across the country, so in the South we can expect a late, small crop of peaches and very few plums or nectarines. That’s why dried fruit, and especially dried California stone fruits like apricots, prunes, and peaches, are so wonderful to work with. They’re dried in the peak season and ready to go whenever I’m craving them, and I don’t have to wait for apricot season to roll around (which, to be frank, it never does down here as we don’t grow apricots locally). One of my favorite hacks is to simmer dried stone fruit in syrup and blend into a fruit butter (like I did with the prune raspberry butter for the almond cake recipe I developed last year). This time, dried apricot butter is the star of this new coffee cake recipe - apricot, pistachio, and olive oil coffee cake. 

It’s a given that I’ll source my dried apricots from California - California grows more than 95% of the apricots in the United States, and over 50% of the nations produce in general (!). And while I’m typically a stickler for sourcing my produce locally and in season, dried apricots are available year-round. Buying from California means my produce is being grown with attention and care, utilizing cutting edge sustainable farming practices - practices that are a model for agriculture around the world.

Here, a base of tender pistachio cake is topped with a bright layer of apricot butter and finished with an addictive pistachio and olive oil streusel. The olive oil plays so well with the flavor of the dried apricots - each has a lovely, fruity acidity, and the addition of both butter and olive oil to the cake itself means it stays moist for ages. I even love baking this cake the evening before and letting it mellow overnight - in the morning the pistachio streusel has melded into the apricot butter in the most luscious way (much like the inspiration for this recipe, the Entenmann's raspberry danish twist). On that note - I’ve developed the streusel for this recipe to have a soft, melt-in-your-mouth quality. If you prefer a crunchy streusel, omit the cornstarch and substitute granulated sugar for powdered sugar. 

Apricot, Pistachio, and Olive Oil Coffee Cake

Recipe note: almond flour is a good substitution for the pistachios in this recipe. I used pistachio flour to great effect, but you could also grind your own pistachios in a food processor - the cake will have more of a rustic edge and the streusel will be a bit crunchier.

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 9” round springform pan by spraying it with pan spray and pressing a piece of parchment paper into the bottom, allowing the edges of the paper to come up the sides of the pan (this will give your cake a lovely rustic look, and prevent any errant apricot butter from scorching on the edge of the pan).  A note- I use an oven thermometer in my notoriously unreliable home oven to make sure it’s at the correct temp - for me, that means setting my oven to 380 degrees to reach a true temp of 350. If your bakes routinely come out wonky, consider buying one.

Begin by assembling the streusel, and then make the apricot butter. You’ll finish by preparing the cake batter, and then assemble the coffee cake from there.

For the streusel:

½ cup / 50 grams confectioners sugar

½ cup / 60 grams all purpose flour

½ cup / 50 grams ground pistachios or pistachio flour

1 teaspoon cornstarch

½ teaspoon salt

3 Tablespoons / 40 grams olive oil 

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Assemble all the dry ingredients in a small bowl and whisk to combine. Drizzle in the olive oil and vanilla extract. Stir the mixture with a fork until it forms a crumbly texture - if it still appears like there are dry patches of flour, add a little more olive oil a teaspoon at a time until it comes together. Spread the streusel in a single layer on a sheet tray and pop it in the freezer while you assemble the rest of your coffee cake elements.

For the apricot butter

1 ¼ cups / 200 grams dried apricots, roughly chopped

1 ¼ cups water

¼ cup / 50 grams granulated sugar

Juice of half a large lemon

Simmer the apricots, water, sugar, and lemon juice together in a small non reactive pot until the sugar has dissolved and the apricots have become very tender, about three to four minutes. Puree the mixture until very smooth - you may need to add a little water if the mixture is quite thick. Let cool to room temperature.

For the cake

1 ½ cups / 180 grams all purpose flour

½ cup / 50 grams ground pistachios or pistachio flour

¾ cup / 150 grams sugar

¾ teaspoon baking powder

¾ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt

1 stick / 112 grams butter, room temperature

¼ cup + 2 Tablespoons / 92 grams sour cream

2 Tablespoons olive oil

1 egg

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

This cake uses the reverse creaming method - where the room temperature butter is first incorporated into the dry ingredients, followed by the wet ingredients. 

Combine the flour, pistachios, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and whisk to combine. Add the room temperature butter to the dry ingredients and mix with a paddle attachment until the mixture looks coarse and crumbly, like sand.

Combine the sour cream, olive oil, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla in a separate bowl and whisk to combine. Add half the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix at medium-low speed until the wet ingredients are fully incorporated and the mixture takes on a lightened appearance, about two minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the remaining sour cream mixture to the bowl and mix for an additional two minutes at medium speed to aerate the batter.

Spread the cake batter into the prepared pan. Sprinkle with half of the streusel. Gently spoon the apricot mixture onto the surface of the cake batter - or if you have a piping bag, it can be helpful to use one to pipe the apricot butter evenly over the surface of the cake batter. Use a spoon or an offset spatula to gently smooth the apricot butter layer over the surface of the coffee cake batter. Finish with the remaining pistachio and olive oil streusel.

Bake for 38-42 minutes or until the cake has taken on a deep golden brown color around the border. The thick layer of apricot butter can make it difficult to tell if the center of the cake is done, as a knife poked in the center can still come out moist. I like to look at other visual indicators here - the center of your coffee cake shouldn’t wobble when gently shaken, and the border of the cake will have separated from the sides of the pan and be a deep burnished color. I actually got another brilliant tip for just this problem from Natasha Pickowicz’ recipe for Jammy Coffee Cake in More than Cake - there, she suggests “sliding the knife in at a sharp sideways angle, count to three, and then remove the knife. If it’s dry, the cake is done”. In my experiments with this method with my own recipe, I found that there would be a few damp crumbs still attached to the knife, but otherwise it’s a wonderful indicator for doneness in these tricky bakes.

Allow to cool completely before slicing, or let the cake rest, loosely tented in foil, overnight to enjoy the next morning.