Apple Carrot Cupcake It's as if our carrot cake and our apple cake decided to get together and have babies. (What really happened is that my father wanted to make a great 3-layer spice cake from Sunset magazine for the 3rd time in... Apple Cobbler For years, this apple cobbler recipe has been one of my father's "signature" apple dishes (knowing my dad, bemused by the thought of his having a "signature" anything, he would probably agree to this statement with dramatic flourish and an... Apple Coffee Cake Almost every Sunday morning growing up, my father would make a huge apple coffee cake for us after church. Recently I pulled this recipe from the Boston Globe; they had it listed as an apple cake for the Jewish high... Apple Cranberry Currant Crumble Pie They say that as you get older you develop more of a sweet tooth. If my parents are any test of this theory, I would have to say, yes this does indeed seem to be true. When my siblings and... Apple Cranberry Pie Every year for the past 6 or 7 years, my father has served this apple cranberry pie at some point over Thanksgiving weekend. He found the recipe years ago in Bon App?it magazine (Oct, 1998). This year we've modified the... Apple Crisp Apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, butter and oats? Welcome to the essential ingredients of the apple crisp, one of the most simple and easy of apple desserts. To make an apple crisp one layers sliced peeled apples that have been tossed... Applesauce Spice Cake July marks the beginning oJf the apple season here. The brightly striped Gravensteins are the first to ripen. And when they do, we spend weeks making homemade applesauce and apple butter. As our freezer is now packed with applesauce, and... Baked Apples It's apple season here in New England, where I am visiting my goddaughter and her family. We went apple picking a few days ago and came home with so many apples, we'll be cooking with them all week. Today the... Berry Almond Crumble My dessert obsessed father was at it again today; he just couldn't resist this berry crumble recipe he found in the New York Times. He used fresh strawberries, blueberries, and some of our frozen boysenberries. Our boysenberries tend to be... Berry Cobbler with Coconut Walnut Topping Not much that grows in our garden is available for picking in the spring. The first sign that the summer season is upon us and that the parade of glorious fruit is about to begin is when the boysenberries ripen... Berry Tart Every year the mother of my best friend from high school invites me to her 4th of July party. Mrs. Mull knows I like to cook so she encourages me, "Of course you'll bring something wonderful to the party, Elise... Berry and Banana Terrine Prep time 10 minutes. Total time 3 hours 10 minutes. This berry and banana terrine is an easy and beautiful way to serve summer berries with bananas for added sweetness. Think Jello but packed with fruit. And instead of neon... Bisquick Apple Coffee Cake Can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. A favorite family ritual growing up was apple coffee cake on Sunday mornings. My dad would prepare it for his six greedy kids, all of us begging for him to pile on... Bittersweet Chocolate Cake There is one day a year in which I will happily indulge in a piece of chocolate cake, and that is Valentine's Day, which also happens to be my birthday. This is the cake I made for this year's birthday... Blackberry Muffins "I have the best blackberry muffin recipe!" my friend Suzanne announced to me a few weeks ago as I was musing out loud that I was looking for a good muffin recipe. Suzanne and I have been friends since we... Blueberry Buckle Hanging out with my dad is like living in a test kitchen. Dad's baking experiments are the bane of anyone's low carb diet. One must have formidable willpower to resist his creations, and fortunately for my taste buds, I don't... Blueberry Cake We made this lovely g?eau a few days ago with some fresh blueberries now in season. Although the cake was delicious, I'm beginning to think that fresh blueberries are best eaten fresh. If we can't tell the difference after cooking... Blueberry Muffins There are three things I have a hard time resisting - my dad's tapioca pudding, Belgian dark chocolate, and freshly baked blueberry muffins. Muffins are not as easy to get right as one might think. Too dry, too dense, to... Blueberry Pie When blueberries are in season, what better to do with them (other than eating them straight from the basket) than make blueberry pie? Blueberries have been found to be a "superfood", so good for you that you should go out... Boysenberry Cobbler Come late spring, our boysenberry vines start giving up their berries, a few cups a day. What to make with them? Boysenberry cobbler. Quick and easy, this recipe produces a delicious cobbler, a formidable blow to any low carb diet... Boysenberry Pie Come late May and early June, my mother's boysenberry vine comes alive with fruit. Boysenberries look like blackberries, but are actually a cross between blackberries, loganberries, and raspberries. As such they fruit much earlier in the season than blackberries, and... Bread Pudding This bread pudding recipe is based on one from the famed Bon Ton Cafe in New Orleans, which by the way is back open for business (lunch only at the time of this writing). My friend Becca has been making... Butter Pecan Ice Cream An ice cream loving friend was in town this weekend, giving me the perfect excuse to make this batch of butter pecan ice cream. Butter pecan is one of my all time favorite flavors. In this recipe the butter flavor... Buttery Apple Torte This Italian apple torte is easy to make, and delicious. Cooking the apples first helps concentrate the flavor and remove moisture, so the cake doesn't get soggy. The lemon zest, although only a half teaspoon is used, is an essential... Caramel Apples Caramel candy apples are one of those things that are as much fun to make as they are to eat. I helped out at a young friend's birthday party this week, making up a batch of these caramel apples for... Caramel Sauce Making your own caramel sauce from scratch is a lot easier than you might think, and it takes practically no time at all. This recipe comes from my friend Suzanne who is a baking genius. I've watched her make caramel... Caramelized Nut Tart Here is a delicious autumn nut tart that you can make with practically any mixture of nuts. Just make sure you get the freshest nuts possible - from your local farmers market, or from the bins at stores with high... Cardamom Citrus Fruit Salad The leaves are all down, apples, pomegranates, and persimmons all picked, days mostly overcast and dreary, save for neighborhood citrus trees with their orange and yellow orbs dotting the landscape with vivid color. Citrus trees love winter in California and... Carrot Cake We love the carrot cake recipe from the Silver Palate cookbook. However, each bite is enough to send a normal person into sugar shock. So here is our recipe with the sugar level much reduced. Chai Ice Cream According to historian Lizzie Collingham in her terrific Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, the English popularized tea drinking in India in the early 1900s as a way to expand the market for the tea they were growing there... Champagne Sorbet I love cooking with friends, so when Garrett came over with a bottle of champagne in hand and a suggestion to make champagne sorbet for New Years, I was all over it. Unfortunately, our first two attempts were miserable failures... Cherry Ice Cream with Chocolate Chips Every year about this time, I'm invited to pick Bing cherries at our next door neighbor Pat's yard. Pat picks all she can freeze and eat for the year, and anything left is for friends or the birds. There is... Chiffon Pumpkin Pie If you are looking for a special pie for the holidays, this is it - a light pumpkin pie with beaten egg whites folded into the pumpkin custard, spiked with rum, set in a gingersnap cookie crust, and covered with... Chipotle Flourless Chocolate Cake This flourless chocolate cake by Garrett is to-die-for. Almost like fudge. ~Elise For a recent potluck for all the Sacramento food bloggers I decided to throw together this intensely decadent and very easy chocolate torte. The original recipe is based... Chocolate Bourbon Cake Chocolate. Bourbon. Cake. I think the moment my father spied this recipe in the New York Times he was a goner. ("You had me at chocolate.") Nothing was going to stop him from making this cake. When he found out... Chocolate Dipped Strawberries Another Valentine's treat from Garrett McCord. Enjoy! ~Elise A classic little treat perfect for a date or as a gift, chocolate covered strawberries are a defined part of romance in America. Dressed up to the nines in white and dark... Chocolate Fondue Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord. ~Elise Fondue has finally made a comeback, as most culinary fads eventually do, but this time with a bit of spark. Back in the seventies a party wasn't groovy unless a fondue pot was... Chocolate Ganache Torte This over-the-top chocolate torte flourless cake recipe comes here by way of my friend Rob Kent, who is famous among his friends for showing up at various birthday parties and special events bringing what is affectionately known as "Death by... Chocolate Mousse Chocolate mousse is a great dessert for entertaining because 1) it looks pretty, 2) everyone gets their own serving, and 3) you can make it a day ahead of time. In fact, you do need to make it at least... Chocolate Pudding What to do on the last day of vacation with a kid who loves to help cook, a fridge stocked with whole milk and eggs, and a pantry with cocoa, chocolate chips and sugar? Make chocolate pudding, of course! Aldie... Chocolate Zucchini Cake When I first encountered Clotilde Dusoulier's fabulous Chocolate and Zucchini website, I thought to myself, "How wonderful, the ingredients of my favorite cake!" My grandmother taught me how to bake when I was very young, and later when I was... Cinnamon Sticky Buns "Elise, I absolutely forbid you from making these again," exclaimed my father in exasperation after his fifth sticky bun from this batch. "That good, eh? I'm glad you like them," I answered smiling. We finally had to freeze the few... Coffee Ice Cream I love coffee ice cream, but rarely get it because the caffeine does a number on me. If I have coffee or even mocha ice cream after dinner I'm jittery until 3 am. So, when I opened David Lebovitz's new... Coffee Oreo Cookie Mount Gay Ice Cream Some things, prepared with delightful results in the exuberance of our youth, when made again 10, or 20 years later, don't quite live up to the blissful memory. This coffee, oreo cookie, Mount Gay ice cream is not one of... Cranberry Sorbet Guest author Garrett came over to make this cranberry sorbet for us the other day, so good! Even in bone-chilling weather. ~Elise I've gone a bit cranberry crazy at the moment. Plain loco. Off the deep end. You see, it's... Cream Cheese Frosting Quick and easy cream cheese frosting brought to you by guest author Garrett McCord, the cupcake king. ~Elise Cream cheese frosting is a baking basic. It's perfect for practically any cake and any leftovers are great dolloped onto some freshly... Easy Pumpkin Ice Cream Most of the ice cream recipes we have on this site involve making a custard base. This approach results in a creamy and smooth homemade ice cream, but requires several extra steps and extra time. If you don't use an... Eggnog Ice Cream Admission, I love eggnog. When I was a kid my parents would get a couple cartons at a time, which they still had to ration, because I, like my 5 siblings, could easily drink a carton apiece. These days I... Eggnog Pound Cake Here's a perfect cake for the holidays, an eggnog pound cake. This recipe is a favorite of my friend Evie, a professional pastry chef, who passed it on to us. If you like eggnog and pound cake, you'll love this... Extra Thick Apple Pie Apple season means apple pies, and my favorite are those apple pies packed with apples, not overly sweet, and with a buttery crust. The problem with baking thick apple pies is that the apples shrink as they cook, leaving a... French Vanilla Ice Cream Years ago I remember my father making vanilla ice cream for all of us with an ice cream maker that required a lot of crushed ice and salt. Can't remember now if it was hand crank or electric. But man... Grandma's Pineapple Cucumber Lime Jello Salad Growing up in the 60s, one would encounter a lot more Jello salads than one does these days. My grandmother used to love to make gelatin salads for us - salads molded with Jell-O gelatin. One of her favorites included... Grandma's Sunshine Salad Updated Years ago, in the sixties, my grandmother came to live with us. She loved to bake, especially oatmeal raisin cookies and lemon meringue pie. She also loved to make Jell-O salads. As kids we loved Jell-O in all flavors... Grasshopper Pie My grandmother, on my dad's side, had an amazing sweet tooth. How that woman could eat as many jelly-filled donuts as she did and still live to 97, I'll never know. One of her favorite pies to make for us... How to Make Butterscotch Please welcome guest author pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater who shares with us the (almost) lost art of making butterscotch. ~Elise When was the last time you tasted authentic butterscotch? Flavor, sauce, memory, aroma, era: butterscotch was an... Indian Pudding My first encounter with Indian Pudding was over 20 years ago at Durgin Park, a landmark restaurant in Faneuil Hall, Boston, famous for its home-style Yankee cooking and, at the time, its cranky, octogenarian waitresses. Few desserts look so completely... Kahl? Brownies Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord and pour yourself a glass of milk; you'll need one with these brownies! ~Elise So I had a bottle of Kahl? sitting about collecting dust and figured that it needed to be put to... Le Talleyrand I apologize in advance. This recipe is anything but simple. My father, the same dad who has never met a dessert recipe he didn't want to try, discovered it recently in the New York Times. When we recalled that my... Lemon Tart My father and I have been experimenting with lemon tart recipes for a year, without much success, by the way (until now). First there was the disastrous lemon tart from the New York Times, described so well by Deb of... Lime Mango Sorbet Lime, mango, sugar, a dash of tequila. These ingredients are just destined to be together in a sorbet. Unlike lemon sorbet which can be quite tart, this lime mango sorbet has the smoothing influence of the mango. The addition of... Marion Blackberry Shortcake Who says strawberries have a monopoly on shortcake desserts? Mid summer is the season for many varieties of blackberries, which are delicious served over biscuits with whipped cream. Sweet and juicy marionberries are native of Oregon, but we found some... Marsala Poached Pears Don't you just love it when you put something together on a whim, and it works out the first time? My friend Garrett had a few extra pears from a baking adventure which I decided to poach in Marsala wine... Meyer Lemon Sorbet Making lemon sorbet is like making lemonade with a detour through the ice cream maker. Easy. We pulled down several Meyer lemons last week to avoid the freeze that hit here in California and I've been thinking up things to... Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream "This is the best mint chocolate chip ice cream I've ever had in my whole life." This, straight from the mouth of my nine-year old nephew, who, since mint-chocolate-chip is his favorite ice cream flavor, has probably had more mint... Mint Chocolate Pudding Cakes I was recently invited to lead a cooking session with a Girl Scout troop. For days the hostess and I deliberated on what to cook. We finally settled on these luxurious chocolate pudding cakes, because 1) they're easy to make... Mom's Baked Apple Slices We have 3 apple trees on which we grow 15 varieties of apples, so we are always looking for good and easy apple recipes. My mom started cooking up apples this way for an everyday dessert a few years ago... Mom's Nectarines Every year in mid July the nectarines on our white nectarine tree become ripe, all at once, and we harvest them all within the space of a week. White nectarines and white peaches grown at home are so delicate that... Mrs. Adams' Delicious Pound Cake My mother has been praising our neighbor Mrs. Adams' pound cake for many years. My mother is a self-described cake person ("There are cake people and there are pie people. I'm a cake person.") who gets dreamy eyed just thinking... Mrs. Paxton's Raw Apple Cake When it's apple season here in Northern California, we are picking and processing daily from our trees (3 trees, 15 varieties). Of the many apple recipes we have on the site, this is one of my favorites. You simply cannot... Nectarine and Peach Cobbler It is getting to the end of the peach and nectarine season here. I picked the last 4 ripe yellow nectarines from our tree today. But what to do with them? Inspiration came from a recent food blogger picnic where... Old Fashioned Apple Pie It's that time of year again, apple season. Our trees are practically raining Granny Smiths. In anticipation of a long apple season we have begun to experiment with apple pies; this recipe is our current favorite. What makes it special... Orange Cornmeal Cake When we first came across this recipe in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine we had to try it out. We've made it several times now, and everytime with great results. It's sort of a cross between a coffee cake and... Pavlova Please welcome pastry chef extraordinaire Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater who is our guest author for this article on Pavlovas. ~Elise It's no coincidence the late Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, for whom the Pavlova dessert was named, is said to... Peach Blueberry Cake I found this peach blueberry cake recipe on epicurious and couldn't resist trying it. The crust is almost biscuit-like and has a rich buttery flavor. Although the original recipe calls for the cake to be cooked for 1 3/4 hours... Peach Cobbler My friends know me well. They know if they invite me over and I see that they have bushels of fresh-picked peaches just waiting for a home that I will offer my own kitchen counter space to take some of... Pear Ginger Maple Pie This pear pie by guest author Garrett of Vanilla Garlic scored major points with my parents. Great pie! ~Elise Every once in a while I see a recipe in a magazine at the doctor's office or in the reception room... Pecan Pie Most pecan pie recipes I've found call for 2 cups of sugar - one cup of corn syrup plus one cup of either granulated or brown sugar - which results in pies so sweet they can give you a sugar... Peppermint Ice Cream I love peppermint ice cream! Too bad around here the grocery stores only stock it during the holiday season. This week I decided to make my own and got some great advice from the king of desserts himself, David Lebovitz... Perfect Pie Crust The big dilemma for those of us who like to cook but don't always have the time to do everything perfectly is whether to attempt to make our own pie crust or to buy a frozen store bought version. Most... Persimmon Pudding Cake Hachiya persimmons can bake up into a delicious, moist cake that is almost a pudding. This recipe takes only a half cup of added sugar and uses the sweetness of the persimmon pulp. Pineapple Upside Down Cake This pineapple upside-down cake is one of my father's favorite recipes (he'll look for almost any excuse to make it). The cake is wonderfully dense, with a slight almond flavor and with sweetness from caramel and pineapple. Dad has recently... Plum Cobbler What to do with Santa Rosa plums? One easy and absolutely delicious possibility is plum cobbler. This was so good, we're making it again tomorrow. (Have to do something with all these plums!) Plum Galette We've got plums coming out the wazoo at the moment. Every time I mention a potential plum recipe my mother's eyes light up with what appears to be frantic joy; she can't give them away fast enough and she's tired... Plum Sorbet Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who turned a few of our ripe plums into a "wow-that's-good" sorbet. ~Elise I developed this recipe out of necessity rather than noble ingenuity. Every summer Elise's mother loads me up... Plum Upside Down Cake My father should have a t-shirt that reads "I've never met a dessert I didn't like" or in this case, "Got Plums? Will Bake". His baking endeavors might not always look their bakery best (please don't ever ask him to... Pumpkin Bread Double the recipe and make two loaves of pumpkin bread. Whenever we carve up a pumpkin for Halloween I'm always reluctant to throw the pieces out. We salvage the pumpkin seeds and roast them for a tasty snack, but what... Rhubarb Berry Pie The first time we made this pie we used blueberries instead of blackberries and a whole cup of sugar instead a half. The blueberries were frozen and not completely thawed or drained. The pie ended up being runny (pie soup... Rhubarb Ginger Galette Please welcome Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who ushers us in to Spring with this rustic rhubarb tart. ~Elise Early Spring, sadly, is a time of wanting. Where we pace back and forth, twiddling our thumbs, rolling our eyes, waiting... Rice Pudding "Rice pudding is how God intended us to eat rice," my father announced when I mentioned I was thinking about making some. Well that settled it, rice pudding it would be. With a little investigation, I found that there are... Ricotta-Mascarpone Mousse with Balsamic Strawberries Ever stumble upon something that everyone else seems to know about or has tried, but for you it's a brand new oh-my-gosh discovery, and then you feel like an idiot, because, where have you been? For me, that something was... Rose Petal Flan Have you ever encountered a stubborn teenager who outright refuses to eat something new, in spite of everyone telling her how good it is? At some point you just give up and say, "oh have it your way, all the... Rustic Apricot Tart Leave it to the lady with the tree to have some great recipes for apricots. My neighbor Pat (the one whose tree is raining apricots this week) suggested cooking an apricot pie on the grill and passed along a recipe... Sour Cream Apple Pie with Streusel Topping You know that when your friend's smile fills the room as he speaks of his wife's "sour cream apple pie with a brown sugar crumb topping" that it has got to be good. Dad and I couldn't wait to try... Strawberry Cream Cake My father has been looking for an excuse to make this cake since he first saw it in Cook's Illustrated (May/June 2006). With dual imperatives of Mother's Day being two weeks away and my brother John's birthday (never mind that... Strawberry Frozen Yogurt What happened to our spring? It's been over a hundred degrees here for the last 3 days and there's no break in sight. With strawberries in season and abundant, this frozen yogurt is a great way to cool down quickly...