I have many more thoughts on hazelnuts now than I did three years ago. Despite growing up in Oregon, a region that proudly proclaimed this fragrant tree product its official state nut in 1989, I had little dealings with hazelnuts until I was about 17 and tried one of my all-time favorite ice creams at Zoey’s in downtown Ashland – the “Oregon Trail” (dark chocolate swirled with roasted hazelnuts and marionberry jam). My relationship to hazelnuts grew when, in college, I’d often scoop whole spoonfuls out of Costco-sized Nutella jars sitting temptingly in the dorm dining hall. But as many food relationships do when you become an “adult,” mine with…
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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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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…
