Congratulations! You’ve survived perhaps the first of many holidays this season, and you’re about to get steamrolled by the rest. To celebrate this brief respite, in the quiet that hopefully is your house after relatives have left and before every corner grocery store starts playing headache-inducing numbers of holiday songs, we give you tiny bites of heaven (ie gluten free chocolate truffles, because, of course). They’re brilliantly easy to make, and we won’t judge you at all if you end up making an entire batch just for YOURSELF because honestly ’tis the season for self care and indulgence. You can also make more for your coworkers or those family members…
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Cranberry Apple Crisp
Crisps are those lovely fall desserts that are absolutely delicious but look less than appealing with spooned out and schlopped on a plate…so we tried our best to give this one a glamor shot and add a few accompanying goodies to make it look as appealing as it tastes. You’ll be the judge of whether or not we succeeded, but I think this one is having a pretty good hair day. It’s also amazing with a scoop of ice cream, which I know for a fact because after shooting the above and below plate of goop, I dug right in and ate the entirety of it. Two thumbs up, guys.…
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Gluten Free Pumpkin Madeleines with Pumpkin Spice Glaze
Need some fancy pants desserts to wow your out-of-town relatives tomorrow? Or just want to have a pre-Thanksgiving high tea fit for queens? We’ve got you covered with these gluten free pumpkin madeleines. And these aren’t just any gluten free pumpkin madeleines, they’ve got brown butter (a glorious ingredient I recommend putting in nearly everything), AND pumpkin spice glaze. As background for this post, I’ve actually tried making madeleines twice now with different recipes and equally disastrous outcomes. Either they were too stiff and so didn’t fit the delicate mold and just ended up looking like lumps of raspberry coal, or the batter was too thin and rose too quickly,…
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Classic Pumpkin Pie
All hail the North American fall classic, the sweet squash sensation, the origin of Starbuck’s fall drink line up and the simplest of Thanksgiving desserts: PUMPKIN PIE. How could we not include our own take on this incredible contribution to the American Culinary Tradition? Pumpkin pie is undoubtedly the sweetheart of the US and Canadian (I’m assuming) fall dessert table, maybe tied with apple pie of course. But it’ll certainly be the star of the show this Thursday when (for all of our non-US-or-Canadian followers) we’ll be tucking in for a massive feast of turkey, gravy, cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes, green beans, dozens of other side dishes, and about 8…
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Pistachio Snow Cookies
My mother makes a mean chocolate crinkle cookie, and a lemon version as well. Whether you call them crinkle, earthquake, or snow cookies, they’re one of the most visually delightful cookies with satisfyingly geometric splits and cracks that come from the dough being rolled in copious amounts of powdered sugar before baking and melting into this white-clad form. The earthquake title was recently brought to my attention by a coworker who only knew them by that name – but, as we’ve referenced before, a rose by any other name… This pistachio version looks quite similar, except for the telltale green hue that comes from heaps of ground the ground green…
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Persimmon Pudding
This is hands down one of the easiest and most densely earthy and rich winter cakes you can make. Being from the US, when I first heard my grandma say she was going to make her persimmon pudding, I pictured a bowl of actual pudding: the jiggly stuff that my sister and I loved to make from instant pudding packets, our patience tested by the 3-minute stirring time needed for the artificial flavors and colors to thicken into a goop that we would greedily spoon out while watching afternoon shows. Oh no, as any commonwealth citizen will attest, pudding is something quite different, and much broader than just a bowl…
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Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll Cake with Cinnamon Glaze
Cinnamon rolls are one of those ooey gooey doughy pull-apart bits of heaven that are tricky as hell to make gluten free. (says the person who’s never actually tried making them….). I did try an AMAZING one at Gluten Free Gem bakery in Portland, Oregon (if you’re in the area, definitely check them out), but have yet to find the time and the patience to dedicate myself to making them at home. So, in lieu of actual cinnamon rolls, I offer you this infinitely simpler, and deeply indulgent Pumpkin Cinnamon Roll cake! If you’ve been following along recently, you’ll notice that we’re on a bit of a Swiss roll/roulade kick,…
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Cheesecake Pecan Bars
You may notice a theme here: fall treats laden with hazelnuts, walnuts, pecans, almonds…autumn seems to be the perfect season to celebrate the brilliance of the nut. Buttery and rich, a touch sweet, and with an earthy variance in flavors as subtle as the gradient in fall colors. These cheesecake pecan bars simply jump on that nutty bandwagon, with the added bonus of a creamy, vanilla-packed layer of cheesecake to balance out the sticky sweetness of corn syrup and brown sugar caramelized around the pecans. What’s extra fun about this recipe is the magical switch that seems to happen after popping them in the oven: when you pour all of…
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Yogurt Cranberry Bread
We heralded the brilliance (and tartness) of cranberries in last week’s post (cranberry clafoutis) so we’ll refrain from repeating ourselves here. Instead we’ll just rave about the moistness (sorry) of this yogurt cranberry bread, which, yes, also contains bright crimson pops of color and fall crispness, but which also is a comfort food of the season and deserves to be your next baking adventure. If you’re celebrating turkeys and pies and all the drowsy effects of tryptophan in two weeks, this is another recipe to add to the Thanksgiving dessert table. Quick breads have a sort of humble elegance to them: rustic and simple, but with often more heightened flavors…
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“Oregon” Swiss Roll with Hazelnuts, Marionberry, and Dark Chocolate
If you’ve read our “About Us” section, you’ll know that we’re Oregonians, born and raised. We both were born in Ashland, Oregon, a small town nestled in the folds of the Siskiyous and celebrated for its theater (Oregon Shakespeare Festival is a must if you haven’t seen one of the dozen shows they put on a year), beautiful parks, extensive hiking trails that you can hop on anywhere in town, and a tiny but growing culinary and wine scene. If you’re ever driving up I5 (for international folks, this is the interstate freeway that connects everything from the Mexico-California border up to Canada) and need a rest in an idyllic…
