When Dessert Goes Awry, Christmas Edition

It happens to the best of us: juggling five tasks at once, you forget the cake baking in the oven. Before you know it, the smell of burning wafts in your direction. Rushing to the oven door, you crack it open to find your worst fears confirmed: your cake has charred to a coal-black crisp.

I would like to say: fear not! This circumstance doesn’t have to be an occasion for despair. So much in the kitchen is salvageable. If you give that disastered cake a loving adjustment or two, your mistake need never be revealed to your dinner guests. Read more »

Rosemary-Cheddar Apple Pie

Hold onto your hats, ladies and gentlemen: Welcome to part two of The Roaming Kitchen’s two-part series: Thanksgiving Desserts!

At the moment, I am down in sunny Florida visiting family, and feeling very glad that I baked and photographed this pie before I flew down here. (Although, to be honest, I spent all of today indoors, laboring over three pots of turkey stock–because I’m insane–much to the Frenchman’s chagrin. I vow to fully enjoy the waves tomorrow!)

Since apple pie is a standard at any Thanksgiving table, I offer you the version I’ve been baking lately, should you wish to honor tradition while deviating slightly where flavor is concerned.

The incorporation of rosemary and cheddar tack the pie ever so slightly in a savory direction, while keeping a firm foot in the flavors of fall. Once the crust is made (which you can do days, or even weeks, ahead of time), simply slice the apples, toss with sugar and spice and everything nice, and pop that puppy into the oven. It’s really quite simple. Read more »

Spiced Pear Chocolate-Caramel Tart

As promised, welcome to part one of The Roaming Kitchen’s two-part series: Thanksgiving desserts. Please try to contain your excitement!

I wanted to try my hand at a poached pear dessert, so here we are. I wondered if I should pair my poached pears with chocolate, or perhaps ginger, or possibly caramel, or perchance figs. And then, because it’s the holidays and a time for a wee bit of decadence, I decided to include them all.

This tart has quite a few steps, it might be true, but none of them are difficult, and all of them are an excuse for family participation in the kitchen. If you don’t feel up to making the whole tart, however, you can simply make the poached pears alone, and match them with: ginger snaps, a drizzle of chocolate or caramel, a dollop of mascarpone whipped cream, a sprinkle of crushed, toasted hazelnuts, a spoonful of vanilla ice cream, or whatever else you wish. All would make a pretty (and delicious) picture on your Thanksgiving table. Read more »

Banana Cake with Swiss Cream Cheese Frosting

When my sister was in elementary school, one day each year was devoted to “Multiculturalism Around the World”. On this day, the lunchroom was transformed into a kind of culinary bizarre where each student should bring in a food item to share with their class to represent their heritage.

My mother, mightily dutiful to the plenteous needs of her three daughters, but at the same time a full-time lawyer, had to be clever. A full blown observance of her Costa Rican and Panamanian ancestry would have required the sacrifice of night hours she should have been..you know.. sleeping. And so she decided to make a recipe much loved in our house. Meanwhile, she told my sister to tell the teacher it was “plantain bread”.

Plantain bread, ha! ‘Plantain bread’ summons images of a somber, dense brick, does it not? What my sister passed around that day was tender and sweet. Of course it was. It was the dog-eared banana cake recipe from my mother’s 1965 edition of the Fannie Farmer cookbook, fragrant with butter, sugar, vanilla, and banana mash. Read more »

Nectarine Hazelnut Tart

This was supposed to be one tart recipe, but it morphed into two. The reason being, when you toss an assemblage of ingredients into a food processor and hope they will magically whiz together into tart dough, well.. they don’t always cooperate. Baking has rules. Toasted hazelnuts and a stick of butter do not a tart dough make.

The first crust recipe I tried (which you’ll see in some of the pictures) was far too buttery, and too crumbly. (Just take my word for it that there is such a thing.) Even after some solo time in the oven, the crust would’ve been far better scattered over the top of the nectarines than underneath them.

On my second go around, I added more flour, a touch of baking soda, and an egg. These additions provided much needed structure. Note to self: making dough is not reinventing the wheel. Read more »

Peach Melba

When I was small, my family frequented a restaurant that (now I think upon it) offered a rather old-world array. (An appropriate continuation from last week’s old-world dessert soliloquy.) I distinctly remember Steak Diane–a towering portion of filet mignon bathed in buttery pan gravy I now know was amplified by garlic, shallots, Worcestershire, brandy, and cream. It felt so luxurious, to eat steak so thoroughly sauced. A generous showering of chopped parsley was all that interrupted the dish’s monotonous brown.

And then there was dessert. Peach Melba, served in a giant red wine glass. One slick orb of peach, at least two scoops of vanilla ice cream, and many running, garnet rivulets of raspberry coulis. Here is what I remember: swooning over the tart brightness of the raspberry sauce, contrasted by the creamy sweetness of the ice cream. How gorgeous the dessert looked, when the ice cream melted into the raspberry. Read more »

Cherry Chocolate-Chip Ice Cream (Sandwiches)

I would like to take a minute to talk about the Frenchman’s familial home. Since we just returned from a sojourn there, now seems an appropriate time.

The home is actually three small houses, which form a periphery around a bean-shaped swimming pool and a terrace. The property is bombastic with vines and flowers, their geneses and medicinal qualities neatly labeled on slate squares. A closed well is painted the baby blue of the region. In warm weather, lunch and dinner are verbose, lingering affairs set at the colorfully-laid terrace table, protected from sun and drizzle by a canopy of fanning grape leaves. Read more »

Strawberry Popsicles

Some of you may have noticed a bit of a lapse in recipe posting as of late. This is due to the fact that I am about to graduate from my Master’s program (exciting), and my attentions have been thusly diverted with things like terrifying thesis-readings, employment searches and retrieving my cap and gown (brown velvet trim, really?).

While I don’t have time to blather on as I usually do before a recipe, I wanted to post something regardless. Here are the essentials: Read more »