Custard pie has been one of my absolute favorite Thanksgiving dessert table treats since I can remember. To give you a bit of background – my mother hails from Alabama (moved to Oregon when she was in 8th grade), so we continue to ride the long coattails of southern cuisine, from pecan to karo to custard pies, to green jello salads (I had a MIND-blowingly-good one when we visited family outside of Montgomery when I was five and still think about it *sigh*), to hush puppies and family-secret barbecue sauce. Custard pie is arguably one of the simplest ones on that list, but it’s just so dang good! Now, after…
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Gluten Free Parsnip and Ginger Tart
Parsnips are far and beyond one of the most over-looked root veggies when it comes to sweet dishes (anything, really, or maybe we just haven’t gotten the memo), and they’re AWESOME. They look like white carrots, and taste similar, with less bitterness and more sweetness which makes us wonder… why did carrot cake overtake parsnip cake as one of the top 5 most common cake flavors in the US? It’s a mystery to us, so we’re making it our mini-mission to find great and wonderful reasons to start picking up these colorless carrot cousins more often on your grocery runs. And they’re just as good on the savory side! We…
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Gluten Free Kiwi Lime Tart
Are you a kiwi skin on or skin off type of person? I was always a skin off, slice in half short ways, around the equator of the fuzzy brown fruit, and scoop out the electric-green kaleidoscope with a spoon type of person. It wasn’t until I got the chance to travel to Australia when I was 13 that I first encountered a faction of skin-on folks. What a world this is. The trip was with People to People Student Ambassador program, started by Eisenhower in hopes of promoting cultural exchange and friendship through sending teenagers in delegations abroad to learn and meet people and generally foster greater awareness of…
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Gluten Free Strawberry Rose Cream Tart with Pistachio Crust
Amongst the anxiousness and worry that abounds in every city across the globe this weekend, let us eat things that make us happy, and while we’re at it, spend time making creative baked goods that do the same (and then, eating those too). After making a tough call to not to do our first farmers market booth as Sisters Sans Gluten (live! out in the real world!) in an effort to keep those most vulnerable around us safe, I realized today is/was Pi Day, and that was definitely something worth celebrating. Next, I realized that if I were to exit our downtown San Francisco apartment and make my normally-easy trip…
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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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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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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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Classic Pecan Pie Bars
Sometimes a baked good just exudes coziness. Oozes curled up evenings under the covers with a good book (or four) or with the projector on and a Harry Potter movie playing out on the canvas of your apartment wall. These pecan pie bars do just that, with a kick of wickedly sweet corn syrup custard and the nutty fall crunch of caramelized pecans held together by the flakiest of shortbread crusts. If this sounds like the perfect Saturday evening, then by all means, read on. And, if you toss them in the oven before dinner, they’ll be done just in time for that movie night, or start them on the…
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Spiced Apple Crisp
Apple crisp is one of my enduring fall favorites. It exudes warmth (quite literally but also figuratively), the coziness of spices, the sweet, soft abundance of homey apples, and the crunch of an earthy, deeply spiced crumble. It’s a humble dessert that melts me back into worn couches, a cracking fire, and cousins and family members teasing and laughing over plates and plates of food. Or to after dinner instant apple crisps that my grandma would whip together in about 10 minutes (without measuring a single ingredient much to the lament of me, who wanted her recipe) and that we would dig in to once the dishwasher was rumbling away…
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Blue Ribbon Blueberry Cobbler
Does it ever bother you that blueberries aren’t actually blue? Sure, they appear so from the outside, but deep down they’re just a purple mess masquerading as royal blue perfection. Aren’t we all. There’s nothing a good-quality coat can’t hide. This cobbler, though, celebrates the internal mess – it’s actually quite lovely to Jackson Pollock your plate in the deep, runny purples and red-tinged violets of blueberry guts or gaze at the ethereal glow of a fuchsia stained glass pie plate. The neat little circles of topping that crown the entire mess just furthers our affinity for this self-reflection-in-cobbler: lighter, slightly crunchy clouds of biscuity dough that tuck everything in…
