When I was first diagnosed as Celiac in 2004, life as a 10 year old seemed immeasurably miserable: no more Oreos, sourdough toast, mac and cheese, Costco croissants, or hotel danishes. No more peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! (my staple for packed lunches). It was a rough few months, to say the least, and those few months getting used to the new diet and figuring out what few items in the pantry I could still eat felt like a LIFETIME. Bowls of hot rice with butter felt like the best I could ever do, simply because the few brands in the US that were producing anything gluten free were woefully…
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Dark Chocolate Peppermint Cake Truffles
Ever develop a new recipe that you know will be a success, and then something goes terribly, horribly wrong? These truffles are the spiteful result of just that – though honestly, the only thing that was truly a disaster was the Italian buttercream frosting that I completely flubbed to top the chocolate peppermint cupcakes I had made. The cupcakes themselves were divine, the perfect mix of deep dark fudgey chocolate and crisp, winter peppermint that feels like candy canes and hot chocolate and everything lovely about the holidays. You’re more than welcome to make a dozen cupcakes out of the cake recipe below (or double it for a normal, two-dozen…
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Gingerbread Swiss Roll with Spiced Buttercream
This lovely russet Swiss Roll is a continuation of our Search for Delicious this holiday season, and the desire for soft (not rock-hard) gingerbread dessert items. Instead of heading in the direction of cookie-cutter vaguely-human shapes with limbs that may be harder to break than actual bones, we did a 180 and drafted a gingerbread version of our favorite (if you can’t tell from all of the other similar posts) recipe: the Swiss Roll. If you’re new to the blog, you may want to do a bit of background research on our burgeoning obsession with this light, aesthetically-pleasing sponge cake (see the Pistachio Rose roll, or the Chocolate Coffee roll,…
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Soft Gingerbread Cake
It’s been a while since our last post, but that doesn’t mean we haven’t been baking and developing new recipes! (quite the opposite, actually). And now that we’re hurtling towards the rest of the holiday season, we figured that it was about time for something a bit more festive, leading us to Kendra’s Soft Gingerbread Cake. If you’ve ever been sadly disappointed in rock-hard gingerbread cookies or stale gingerbread people, this cake is for you. I distinctly remember making and then smashing gingerbread houses as a kid and always being massively let down by the flat slabs of “gingerbread” that I gingerly picked out of the rubble. For an easier,…
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Gluten Free Chocolate Crème Fraîche Truffles
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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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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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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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…
