Weekly Dish

March is a month of many celebrations in our little family. David and I were married on the 10th, and his birthday falls on the 25th. It’s also, in this part of the world, the beginning of my favorite season: spring.

This March felt especially monumental in our lives: David turned 30, and we celebrated 6 years of marriage, the last one where it will be just the two of us living in our house. It’s funny how the expectation surrounding the birth of a child makes everything seem like such a big deal; maybe it’s just the hormones, but I have felt a sense of urgency to mark occasions by celebrating with more fervor than usual (and anyone who knows me will tell you that I am even in my non-pregnant state an occasion kind of girl).

David was not thrilled about the prospect of turning 30, so I put that celebration on the backburner for a while and concentrated on our anniversary. Usually, I cook a romantic dinner and wear my wedding dress for the evening. Silly, I know, and not very possible this year due to this person protruding from the front of my body. And, I didn’t feel much like spending such a beautiful weekend inside cooking either, so we came up with a new plan. David orchestrated an afternoon picnic and afterwards, we decided to head out to see a movie (neither of us could remember the last time we actually watched one in the theater).

My only job was to come up with a dessert we could have when we got back home with our take-out, and it I knew it had to be an occasion-worthy one — one of the traditional gifts for six years of marriage is sugar, after all.

Over the Christmas holidays, we had the chance to meet and visit with our good friend Tee’s brother, Griff, who also loves to cook. Over Sunday lunch, we got on the topic of cookbooks. When I told him I had just been given Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking, he immediately recommended her recipe for a dessert called a diplomatico. The suggestion stuck with me, and when I wanted something special to make for David, Hazan’s recipe is where I turned first. I altered it a little, adding a pronounced hazelnut flavor in with the chocolate, but I stuck with her basic formula.

The end result was both lovely and delicious; the chocolate filling is light in texture but heavy on flavor (especially if you use really good chocolate) and the cake turns velvety soft under the influence of its coffee-liqueur bath. You could make a fancy chocolate frosting to go on top, but a simple layer of whipped cream was all it needed, in my opinion. After you have the cake made and cooled, the dessert comes together very quickly; the set-up time it needs makes it the perfect thing to make the day before you need it.
In fact, it was so good that after it served as a celebratory sign of the six years I’ve been married to the love of my life, I convinced David to let me throw a small party in honor of the thirty years he has been alive. He agreed, as long as I promised to make this cake again, a sure sign that this was a dessert worthy of both occasions.

Chocolate Hazelnut Diplomatico

7 t. sugar, divided
4 eggs
6 ounces good, semisweet chocolate (extra, for garnish)
2/3 of a baked pound cake
1/3 cup frangelico (hazelnut liqueur)
1 1/4 cups very strong coffee (I used hazelnut flavored coffee)
1 cup heavy whipping cream
Toasted hazelnuts, for garnish

First, make the chocolate filling. Separate the eggs, and beat the yolks with 1 t. of the sugar until pale yellow. Melt the chocolate in the top of a double boiler. Pour the chocolate very slowly into the yolks, whisking constantly until thoroughly incorporated. Beat the whites on high until stiff peaks form. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the whites into the chocolate mixture to lighten; then, fold the remaining whites in with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon very gently, being careful not to stir the air out of them. Set aside.

Next, line a baking dish or deep bowl with a damp dishcloth or cheesecloth, letting the edges hang over. Mix the coffee, frangelico, and 5 t. of the sugar in another shallow dish. Slice the pound cake thinly, and dip each slice quickly into the coffee mixture. Line the cloth-lined dish with a layer of cake slices, making sure to fill in all gaps (the wet cake smooshes well, so don’t be afraid to press small pieces into any holes). Spread a layer of the chocolate mixture on top of the cake. Repeat with remaining cake and chocolate, finishing with cake. How many layers you get will depend on the size of your container. I used a 4-quart round bowl and had 4 layers of cake (3 layers of filling). Cover the top of the dessert with the cloth and refrigerate for at least a few hours, preferably overnight.

Just before serving, whip the cream with a teaspoon of sugar until soft peaks form. Turn the cake out of the container onto a platter or cake stand. Frost the sides and top with whipped cream; garnish with chopped nuts and shaved chocolate.

–Adapted from Marcella Hazan’s Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking

Towards the end of last semester, I made a careless scheduling mistake in one of my classes — I miscalculated the number of minutes each student could have for his or her presentation, and it took me a good day to figure out why we kept running out of time. When I explained my error to my students, I told them I didn’t know how I could have come up with those numbers. One of my especially clever students raised her hand and said, “Do you think it has anything to do with your brain shrinking? I read in an article that pregnancy can cause your brain to decrease in size.” Now, of course, I know that science indicates that actual brain size has nothing to do with intelligence or with the brain’s ability to function properly. At the same time, I have to say that pregnancy has, at times, made me feel like part of my brain has gone inactive or shorted out on me. I am usually a very organized, task-oriented person, and all of a sudden, I have turned into a chaotically scatter-brained crazy woman. And the baby isn’t even here yet!

It isn’t just that I haven’t been posting. The holidays were nuts for us — we spent a lot of time away from home and our computers, and then getting back into the rhythm of a school schedule always makes life extra busy at the beginning of a semester — perhaps, it makes sense that I would take a blogging break until I’m in a more regular routine and things have settled down a little. No, the really troubling part of this whole brain chaos is that — I don’t know if I can make myself say this – I don’t really feel like cooking.

I am, of course. Cooking. Just not anything very interesting. I find myself poring over my new, glossy, pretty cookbooks and feeling completely at a loss for how to decide what to make. Part of it is that I am overwhelmed by what is actually happening in the formation of this new little person in my body. I feel so much pressure to make sure I am getting the right nutrients to help him or her grow that I find myself relying on familiar recipes (all of which you already know about).

Another part is that in some ways, I feel like all I do is think about food. I wake up starving, and if I don’t eat every two hours or so, especially in the mornings, I have dizzy spells. David’s favorite joke these days is, “Have you eaten all three of your breakfasts yet?” By the time dinner rolls around, I’m still hungry, but I can’t bear to really think about what to make. So, we have roast chicken and vegetables. Again.

I’ve only found one remedy for this culinary dry spell: baking.

Now, I know that sounds contrary to maternal instinct and, well, just plain good common sense. In order to gain a healthy amount of weight and get the nutrients the growing baby needs, one should avoid refined sugar and high-calorie sweets. So goes the conventional pregnancy-book wisdom.

But, the making of sweet, pretty things makes me so happy. It isn’t really the eating of them — although I won’t lie and say I don’t love that part too. It’s the sheer joy of putting them together.

Perhaps I’m still in holiday mode — my sister-in-law, Hannah, and I had such a lovely time whipping up fun treats in the kitchen, and then, before I knew it, her weeks here had passed and we were all on the road for Christmas celebrating, and then, to move Jon and her to Texas.

Or, maybe, it’s the weather. It has been wet and cold here for weeks on end, and if I don’t see more than one day of sunshine in a row soon, I’m likely to hide under my covers indefinitely. Folks in the Pacific Northwest, my sincere condolences. I don’t know how you do it.

Whatever the reason, after a long, long hiatus, I have not a menu or a quick dinner recipe to offer you, but what has been a bright spot in several a dark, rainy January day for me: a lemon cupcake.

I first made these for our friend Billy’s birthday right before we left for Christmas holidays, and I used the last of the Meyer lemon crop in these parts to make another batch not too long ago. The cake part of this recipe comes from the ever-reliable Rachel at Coconut and Lime: I adapted her Lime & Buttermilk cupcake recipe to suit my hankering for a lemon-only affair. To make the lemon flavor even more pronounced, and because I had some left over from a round of holiday gift-making, I filled the centers with lemon curd. Frosting, in my opinion, should match its partner: heavy buttercream works well with a hefty chocolate cupcake, but for these lighter, lemony ones, I opted for a dollop of plain whipped cream and a garnish of sugared rind.

If you need a pick-me-up in the midst of a hectic schedule, a rainy day, or simply the doldrums of winter, one of these cupcakes might just inject some sunshine into your soul. And if you’re six months pregnant and without the inspiration for a single meal, they might just make you feel like a cook again. Or, maybe that’s just me.

Lemon Sunshine Cupcakes

There are a variety of ways to make filled cupcakes, but most of them require some sort of assembly after the cupcakes are already baked. I wanted to see what happened if the curd baked right along with the cupcake batter. You won’t get a neat pocket of filling right in the middle of your cupcake that way; instead, the curd sort of soaks the whole cake, so that each bite is bursting with lemon flavor. Be forewarned: eating these cupcakes does make for sticky fingers.

For this recipe, I like long, thin strips of lemon zest, which you can get with a claw zester or with a really sharp vegetable peeler.

1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 t. baking powder
1/4 t. baking soda
1/4 t. salt
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
Juice of 1 large lemon
Zest of 3 large lemons
About 1 cup of Lemon Curd
Half pint of heavy whipping cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Line a muffin tin with baking cups, aluminum or paper, and spray with baking spray. Stir together the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, soda, and salt. With a mixer, cream the butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the eggs and continue beating, until the mixture is well-combined.

Toss half of the zest with a teaspoon of sugar and set aside; stir the rest in with the butter, sugar, and eggs.

Stir the buttermilk and lemon juice together in a glass measuring cup with a pouring spout. With the mixer on low, add the liquid and flour mixtures alternately, until the batter is thick and creamy.

Fill each muffin cup a little less than half-full and make a well in the center. Fill the well with a spoonful of lemon curd. Top with the remaining batter, to cover the curd. Bake for 18-22 minutes, until the tops are just beginning to brown.

When the cupcakes have completely cooled, frost with whipped cream and top with the sugared zest. Keep in the refrigerator until ready to serve.

PS: If you are reading this post, I’d just like to say THANK YOU for returning. After so many glimpses of my very fat cat in a Santa hat on your computer screen, I’d completely understand if you never came back. I truly appreciate all of your comments and emails and the simple fact that you’ve checked in again to see if I’ve managed to post again. I am also terribly behind in responding to those kind comments and emails, so if you’ve written and not heard back from me, please accept my sincere apology for my silence. If pregnancy has taught me anything, it’s that I can’t know what the future holds, so I won’t make any promises I’m not certain I can keep, but I will say that I hope to be a more regular presence, even if it’s just to tell you about another fun sweet that’s emerged from my oven. Just promise you won’t call the pregnancy nutrition police, okay?

PPS: After catching up on my blog reading, I was delighted to discover that Garrett at Vanilla Garlic and Cheryl and the Cupcake Bakeshop are collecting cupcake recipes! Head over to their sites to check out more ways to spend a rainy day baking on January 29th.

For this month’s Paper Chef competition, the required ingredients include:

1. Vermouth
2. Cranberries
3. Sparkling drink
4. Something wild

with a celebration theme. Cranberries and a sparkling drink are easy enough, especially this time of year, and although I’ve never actually had vermouth, I understand that the sweet red version is akin to sherry or port, both of which know their way around my kitchen quite well.

The something wild part, however, I was not so sure about.

Wild berries? Not this time of year. Wild animals? My pregnancy-induced aversion to meat says no. Wild…and crazy?

Hmmm. Well, I am not wild and crazy. In fact, anyone who knows me will tell you that I am quite the opposite: pajamas and a movie suit me much better than any night out on the town (especially these days). But, I do know some wild and crazy people. In fact, one of the people who has been in my life the longest who fits that description is also one of the women who taught me a good deal about the pleasures of food and cooking: my Aunt Emily.

Aunt Em is the youngest of five children, the oldest of whom is my father. Many stories circulate about which of them — the oldest and only boy or the youngest girl — got into more trouble as a kid. Apparently, by the time Aunt Em came around, my grandparents were so tired, she did exactly as she pleased. Or so the stories go.

By the time I knew her, she was the cool aunt who invited me up to her farmhouse in the summer, let me eat absolutely whatever I pleased, did flips off of the diving board when we went to the pool, and could waterski as well as any of the teenagers at the lake. Especially compared to my sweet, mild-mannered mother, Aunt Em was the picture of let-your-hair-down wild and crazy fun.

And, man, could she cook.

And so, although I know an actual person cannot be an ingredient, the spirit of Aunt Em is certainly what inspired this creation. One of my favorite desserts that she makes is something she calls Savannah Cake, made by mixing sherry custard and torn-up angel food cake and refrigerating it in a mold. The finished cake is iced with whipped cream and served with raspberry sauce. It is beautiful — the bright red of the berries and the white of the cake — but it is also delicious.

So, for my Aunt Em-inspired Paper Chef entry, I recreated her Savannah Cake, with a few alterations. For starters, I made a champagne cake, a bit denser than angel food, but airy enough to hold the custard well. The champagne flavor of the cake also provided a nice counterpoint to the vermouth in the custard, my second adjustment. And finally, I made a cranberry sauce with lime, instead of the raspberry sauce, usually made with lemon. Truly, a celebratory dessert, it would make a delightfully different birthday cake, or a fitting end to a fancy, celebratory dinner.

I love the custardy texture of this cake, and the flavors of the vermouth and champagne do play nicely together in your mouth. But, for me, the cranberry sauce makes it — the lovely, tart berry puree coats each sweet creamy bite with the perfect tang of contrast. Next time I make it, I won’t sweeten the cream for the icing — it doesn’t need it, and I think the cream could stand alone.

This cake also requires a celebratory spirit in the kitchen — it’s quite a process to make all of the individual parts before assembly, and then you have to wait until the next day to try it! But, when you do, the anticipation will make the celebration that much sweeter. Or, shall we say, wilder?

Wild Aunt Em’s Savannah Cake with Cranberry Sauce

For the cake:
2 3/4 cup cake flour
2 t. baking powder
1 t. salt
10 1/2 T. butter
1 1/2 cups sugar, divided
3/4 cup champagne
6 egg whites (set aside the yolks for the custard)

Sift the flour, baking powder, and salt together in a bowl. Set aside.

Cream the butter and 1 cup of the sugar. Add the champagne and flour mixture alternately to the creamed butter and sugar, mixing well after each addition (or just leave the motor running on your mixer like I do). Pour this batter (it will be very thick) into a large bowl and set aside.

Wash the mixer, and beat the egg whites with the remaining 1/2 cup of sugar until soft peaks form. Stir a couple of spoonfuls of the egg whites into the batter to lighten; then, fold the whites and batter together. Pour into a greased cake pan and bake for about 40 minutes, or until the edges are light brown and a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Put the cake on a rack to cool.

For the custard:
1 envelope unflavored gelatin, softened in 1/2 cup cold water
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup sweet vermouth (or sherry)
1/4 cup water

Beat the egg yolks until light yellow. Add the sugar and continue to beat. Stir in the vermouth and water; add the gelatin. Cook this mixture in the top of a double-boiler over simmering water (the highest temperature you can manage without the water boiling), and stir, until slightly thickened, somewhere around 15-20 minutes. The custard will coat the back of a spoon, but it won’t get terribly thick until it’s chilled. Set aside to cool.
To assemble the cake:
1 pint of whipping cream
1 cup sugar

Whip the cream and sugar together, and divide in half. Stir half of the whipped cream into the cooled custard; cover and refrigerate the rest. Mix the cream and custard well. Tear the cake into pieces and fold the cake into the custard-cream mixture. Pour this into a greased bundt pan and refrigerate overnight. The next day, ice with the remaining whipped cream and pour the cranberry sauce on top so it runs down the sides. Serve slices with more sauce.

Cranberry Sauce

12 ounces of cranberries
1 cup water
Zest and juice of 1 lime
1 cup sugar

Cook the ingredients over medium until the water boils. Then, cook for another 10 minutes, just until the cranberries burst. Force this mixture through a strainer.

One of the most satisfying holiday seasons I’ve had — at least in terms of making things — was the first Christmas after I’d started graduate school. I am a task-oriented person: I get great pleasure out of checking things off of a list, of seeing them finished. Unfortunately, graduate school is a place where many things stay on the to-do list for months and months. Books I want to read linger under the weight of things that have to be read for class, ideas I have for creative writing get lost in the flurry of academic research papers, and even the simple task of figuring out what I want to write about takes a very, very long time.

After a semester of this delayed gratification, I was more than thrilled to get into the kitchen, start a complicated project in the morning, and have it finished by the afternoon. As a matter of fact, if it weren’t for my cooking breaks, I am quite sure I would never, ever have completed a master’s thesis. The ho-hum activity of making dinner took on a new meaning: I would look at a pretty, delicious plate of food as I placed it on the table, and think, “See, I can accomplish something.”

Which is what eventually led me to writing this blog: the delight I gleaned from completed cooking projects I very much wanted from my writing. Now, when I read a finished post that I’ve had at least some time to compose thoughtfully, I feel like I can finish a piece of writing. And that feels good. It even motivates me to get back to work on the 25-page paper waiting on my desktop.

That first Christmas when I learned this about myself, my favorite project to complete were these truffles.

Now, I should warn you: these little gems do not come together in a couple of hours; making truffles is a process. It’s a process I love, especially during the holidays, at the end of a long semester, because you work on them for a bit and then you have an hour break to wrap presents, start another kitchen project, or sit down with a cup of tea and the paper you’ve been working on for weeks before you go on to the next step. And, the finished products are so pretty that by the time I’ve finished a whole batch, I really feel like I’ve accomplished something.

A little box of these makes a great hostess gift if you’re going to a party, or a lovely holiday happy to leave on a co-worker’s desk. I like to wrap them up in parchment paper and place them in a Chinese take-out box: a ribbon and a card, and they’re all set. You don’t want to leave them out if it’s warm, but in colder weather, I’ve found I can leave them in their packaging in my dark, cold laundry room until I’m ready to give them away.

Talk about a sense of accomplishment. When I’m rushing out the door to a holiday function, and I remember that I can open up my laundry room, pull out a gift that I made, and take it with me, I start to feel downright efficient. Unless, of course, I happen to glimpse the piles of laundry at my feet or the mess in the kitchen.

But, hey, a girl can only do so much, and I’ll take my victories when I can get them. Don’t forget to put away at least a few truffles for yourself: a bite of one of these chocolate treats and a hot cup of coffee is sweet victory indeed.

I should have posted these recipes a few weeks ago, when The Passionate Cook hosted a whole event dedicated to truffles, but that was the week of Thanksgiving, and I had too much else going on (but if you want to see a whole host of other truffle recipes, you can check out the round-up here).

This recipe gives endless possibilities: you can flavor the chocolate however you’d like and then proceed with appropriate coatings and decorations. The two versions pictured here, one almond and the other dark chocolate raspberry, get their subtle flavors from almond extract and raspberry liqueur respectively. I also usually make a plain dark chocolate one and coat it with white chocolate, and this year, I’m planning some peppermint ones, flavored with peppermint extract and rolled in crushed peppermint candy.

Chocolate Truffles

24 ounces semisweet chocolate (chocolate chips will work)
6 T. whole milk
6 egg yolks, beaten until pale yellow.
3/4 pound butter (3 sticks)

In the top of a double boiler, combine the chocolate and milk. Stir over medium heat until the chocolate is melted and smooth. Remove from heat, and add the egg yolks immediately, slowly streaming them into the melted chocolate, stirring constantly to keep the egg from solidifying immediately (you don’t want yellow flecks in your chocolate). Cut the butter into pieces, and stir it in until the mixture is shiny and smooth. At this point, you can divide the mixture into batches if you want to experiment with flavors, or use the whole batch to make the same kind of truffle.

For a flavored truffle, stir in one of the following*:
2 T. raspberry-flavored liqueur, like Framboise (Hershey also makes raspberry-flavored chocolate chips, which make a pretty good truffle)
1 T. almond extract (you can also add a spoonful of Amaretto if you have it)
1 T. peppermint extract
1 T. finely grated orange zest

*Depending on how many times you divide the chocolate, these quantities may need adjusting. Add and then taste to get the strength of flavor you want. 

Refrigerate the batches of chocolate for about an hour (you want the chocolate to be pliable enough to work with, but not so soft that it melts all over your hands). Form the chilled chocolate into small balls and place on wax paper-lined trays or cookie sheets. Now, if you aren’t going to coat the truffles in chocolate or white chocolate coating, you can roll them in crushed nuts, candies, or cocoa powder and be done. If you want the smooth, hard outer coating, you’ll need to refrigerate the formed balls for another half-hour or so.

To coat: melt candy coating in a glass bowl (I do it in the microwave). Dip each ball into the coating quickly with a spoon and place on wax paper to cool and harden. For drizzles, melt a different color coating and drizzle away (I used red food coloring and white chocolate coating to get the pink decoration above).

This recipe makes between 2 and 3 dozen truffles, depending on how big you make them.

. . .that’s exactly what John Folse, famous chef around these parts, said on his radio show this morning. I laughed as I thought about my own kitchen — his description certainly fit. From Thanksgiving to Christmas, I go into baking overdrive. For one thing, our old house is drafty, and keeping the oven on helps me stay warm. More importantly, though, the constant scent of something sweet permeates the house, reminding me and everyone else who enters that this is a season to celebrate.

The holidays were so much fun at my house growing up — my dad would take all of us out to cut an enormous tree, Mom would pull down the decorations, and I would revel in the sheer energy of always having something to celebrate.

As David and I have started our own holiday traditions, making treats to take to parties, to snack on, or to give away later, has become one of the constants. This handy little shortbread recipe has been used over and over during past months of December. I don’t know why I don’t make it during other times of the year, but I started taking it to holiday gatherings some years ago, and for whatever reason, it feels like a holiday recipe.

For one thing, it’s incredibly sweet and rich — not the kind of everyday dessert I usually make. For another, it cuts nicely into cute little squares, and makes an elegant package wrapped in parchment paper and tied with a ribbon. People seem to love it, and one recipe goes a pretty long way (unless you leave it sitting out on your counter for passersby to nibble on.)

This month will be full of recipes like this one. As I prepare for the holidays, dinner is usually the last thing on my mind: the 350-degree oven is usually on and baking something sweet.

I LOVE December. It’s a good thing that I’m such a holiday fanatic because I really don’t care that much for cold weather. The holidays keep my spirits up, even if I am grumbling just a bit about my ever-icy hands and nose. I know, I know, I would never survive in a less temperate climate. Or perhaps I would just bake more.

Caramel Nut Shortbread

For the crust:
2 sticks butter
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 t. salt
1 t. almond extract
1 egg
2 3/4 cup flour
Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a 15×10 jelly roll pan with parchment paper. In a food processor or mixer, combine the butter, sugar, salt, almond extract, egg and flour. Process until the dough starts to come together. Press into the jelly roll pan, halfway up the sides. Cover the dough and refrigerate for an hour. Prick it with a fork and bake for 10 minutes.

For the topping:
2 sticks butter
1/4 cup sugar
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup honey (or a combination of honey and maple syrup or cane syrup)
1/4 cup heavy cream
3-4 cups of nuts (I used half sliced almonds, half pecans this time, but whatever you have on hand will work)
Good salt, like fleur de sel (regular sea salt works too)
In a saucepan, combine the butter, sugar, brown sugar, and honey over medium to medium-low heat. Simmer (but don’t boil) until the sugar dissolves. Once you can’t detect any granules with your spoon, bring the mixture to a boil. Boil for 3 minutes without stirring, remove from the heat, and stir in the cream. Pour the mixture onto the baked crust, and sprinkle the nuts evenly on top. Bake for 10-12 minutes more. The mixture should be bubbly. Dot with a few grains of sea salt (I place them on one at a time. You don’t want the bars to be salty, just to add a hint of contrast every now and then). When cool, cut into small squares.
–adapted from Intercourses by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge

I made these yummy muffins for some new neighbors who moved in across the street a few weeks ago, and I’d been waiting for the right time to post about them. As soon as I heard Alanna’s idea for this month’s Sugar High Friday — Surprise Inside — I knew this recipe would do the trick.

The cake part of these muffins is buttery and dense, almost shortbread-esque, with a hint of almond. Once you take a bite, though, you get a burst of orange. A dollop of marmalade makes its way into the center of the muffin as you’re filling the muffin cups, but you’d never know it to look at these muffins from the outside once they’re baked. Which is one of the things I love about making them for other people — a real surprise!

The bittersweet tang of the marmalade plays perfectly against the buttery almond flavor of the muffins, and while these probably don’t serve as a particularly balanced nutritional breakfast, they make a delightful afternoon snack, especially with a warm cup of tea.

The best part about making them on the spur of the moment is that I usually have all of the ingredients already on hand — no trip to the store is necessary. The new neighbors must have liked them — they invited us over for drinks the next week!

Marmalade Muffins

2 1/2 cups unbleached flour
2/3 cup sugar
2 t. baking powder
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
1/2 stick butter, melted
2 large eggs
1/2 t. almond extract
1/2 cup sliced almonds
About a half cup orange marmalade

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Sift the dry ingredients together in a medium-sized bowl. In another bowl, whisk together the buttermilk and melted butter. Whisk in the eggs, and then stir in the almond extract. Add the dry ingredients to the wet all at once, folding until well-combined, but being careful not to overmix.

Grease a 12-cup muffin tin. Fill the cups half-full with the batter. Top the batter with about a teaspoonful of marmalade. Fill the cups the rest of the way full and sprinkle with the sliced almonds.

Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are slightly brown. Cool before serving; the marmalade inside will be very hot!

–adapted from Muffins A-Z by Marie Simmons

Weekly Dish was born! I can honestly say that when I sat down at my computer this time last year and hit “publish” for the first time, I had no idea what I was in for. Over 200 posts later, as I click back through my archives, I realize that I’m looking at a year in my culinary life, a record of what I made and what I consumed. Which was partly the point of this whole endeavor, of course: documentation.

But it was also about honing my craft, both as a cook and a writer. The site has pushed me to be more conscious about what and how I cook, and having an audience has stretched my willingness to try new things, my technical abilities in the kitchen, and my knowledge of how this whole business of combining ingredients to create something new works in the first place. Weekly Dish has made me a better cook, plain and simple.

And a better writer: composing spontaneously (and quickly) several times a week has provided a welcome space for growth of my writing self. Thankfully for all of us, practice has also sharpened my photography skills. Slowly, over the course of the last year, horrendous, poorly lit exposures of uninteresting plates have given way to more thoughtfully composed presentations, which if still not where I’d like them to be, at least don’t make viewers shudder and turn away in horror (as some of my earliest pictures do for me now when I look at them!)

What I didn’t know to expect from Weekly Dish were all of the pleasant surprises that have come in the form of emails, comments, and other people’s blogs. Quite simply, you readers out there, have been the nicest surprise of all. Oh, sure, I expected that my grandmother would be delighted to read my posts and say that they were wonderful. But to have people who previously did not know me, come into my kitchen via this little corner of the web, pull up a virtual kitchen stool, and watch, listen, comment on, and participate in my culinary experiments alongside me has brought more joy than I fathomed possible. What began as a way to share recipes and ideas with a friend has turned into a (literal) web of friendships, cris-crossing the globe.

As I have shared with you before, making food is for me primarily an expression of love. So, to know that others out there are partaking in our meals — even just with their eyes — makes a world of difference. As I cook for my little family, and sometimes friends and neighbors, I also cook for you readers, hoping that along the way, you receive these meals and turn them into expressions of your own, sharing them with those you love.

So today, I want to say a great big THANK YOU to all of you who have joined me over the past 12 months to partake in what has turned out to be a terrifically fulfilling adventure. I hope you will continue to stop in and occasionally let me hear from you — your comments, stories, recipes, ideas are always welcome here.

To celebrate: cupcakes!

Birthday Cupcakes (Chocolate with Mocha Buttercream Frosting)

3 1/2 ounces (200 grams) 60% or 70% cocoa high-quality chocolate, chopped
2 sticks butter
1 cup sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
4 large eggs
2 cups flour
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
1 T. strong coffee

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Fill the cups of a muffin tin with paper or tin baking cups; spray with cooking spray.

In the top of a double-boiler over boiling water (or your mixing bowl placed over a pot of boiling water if you don’t have a double-boiler), melt the chocolate, stirring until smooth. Set aside.

Cream the butter and sugars in an electric mixer, until thoroughly combined. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well as you go.

In a separate bowl, stir the flour, soda, baking powder, salt and cocoa powder together (sift them if you’re so inclined).

Also stir together the buttermilk and coffee (I do this in a glass measuring cup with a pouring spout).

With the mixer on low, add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk mixture alternately to the butter and sugar, until all ingredients are well-incorporated. Last, stir in the chocolate.

Pour the batter into the paper or tin cups in the muffin tin, filling the cups about 3/4 full. Bake for 18-22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. When cool, top with frosting. Makes 24 cupcakes.

Mocha Buttercream Frosting

5 ounces semi-sweet chocolate, chopped
1 egg white
1/4 cup heavy cream
1 T. strong coffee
2 T. instant coffee granules (espresso powder also works)
2 sticks butter, softened
4 cups confectioner’s sugar

Melt the chocolate in the top of a double-boiler and set aside to cool. In a glass bowl or measuring cup, stir together the cream, coffee, and instant coffee until the coffee granules dissolve. In an electric mixer, whip the butter until creamy. Add the powdered sugar, 1/2 cup at a time, until completely combined with the butter. With the mixer on medium, add the chocolate. Next, beat in the coffee mixture, whipping on high speed until the icing forms soft peaks. This frosting works best if you use it immediately, but if you have to refrigerate it, you’ll need to leave it out for a while to soften so it will be spreadable. This recipe makes plenty to frost 24 cupcakes and still have some leftover.

–Adapted from Sara Foster’s Fresh Everyday and the Foster’s Market Cookbook 

I hope that the gracious host of Paper Chef and this month’s illustrious judge will forgive this tardy entry!

I knew I’d be out of town the weekend the ingredients were announced, so I’d resigned myself to sitting out of this month’s competition. But when I checked Tomatilla! this morning just to see what the ingredients were, I knew I had to participate. For one thing, two of the ingredients–cherries and peaches–are among my most beloved fruits. For another, the third ingredient–an herb that you’ve recently discovered–has been sitting outside on my deck, waiting patiently for me to make up my mind about what to do with it: my new lemon verbena plant! And, lastly, I had an immediate idea for a dessert that combined the sweetness of summer fruits, the fresh herbal citrus of the verbena, and the last and final ingredient–something spicy.

So, because I’m hurrying to get this post in in time, I will not delay in presenting my Stone Fruit Tart with Lemon Verbena Cream and Chipotle-Balsamic Glaze. The crust is a buttery shortbread, accented with lemon zest to complement the lemon verbena in the cream layer, which consists of the delicate herb and sweetened mascarpone cheese. I topped the tart with fresh peaches and cherries–at this time of year, it almost breaks my heart to alter their fresh, summery flavor at all, so I wanted to keep them raw–and a spicy reduction of balsamic vinegar and brown sugar, with the added kick of smoky chipotle peppers.

I love the way the glaze plays with the fruit: a spicy hint here, a tangy, vinegary note there, all coated by the ethereal, citrus-tinged mascarpone and crisp, buttery crust. And, all in all, it came together in less than an hour! The only thing I might do differently next time is to increase the amount of lemon verbena. I used all that my new little plant could stand, but I think the tart could benefit from even more of its sweet, clean flavor.

Stone Fruit Tart with Lemon Verbena Cream and Chipotle-Basalmic Glaze

For the crust:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/3 cup sugar
Zest of 1 lemon
1/4 t. salt
1 stick cold butter, cubed
1 egg yolk

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In the bowl of a food processor, process the flour, sugar, zest, and salt for several seconds. With the motor running, add the butter, a cube at a time, until coarse crumbs form. Add the egg yolk, and process until the dough comes together in a ball. Pat the dough into a prepared tart pan, and bake for 15-18 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven, and brush with an egg wash (1 egg + a little water) to seal. Return to the oven and bake for another minute. While the crust is baking, prepare the lemon verbena cream and the chipotle basalmic glaze.

For the cream:
8 ounces mascarpone cheese, softened
1/3 cup powdered sugar
2 T. lemon verbena leaves (or more)
Whip the mascarpone and the powdered sugar in an electric mixer or by hand until well combined. Wash the lemon verbena leaves and dry thoroughly. Mince as finely as you can, and stir them into the cream. Set aside.

For the glaze:
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup basalmic vinegar
1 t. chipotle and adobo, mashed

In a small saucepan, melt the sugar, vinegar, and pepper paste together over medium heat until the sugar is dissolved, stirring constantly. Set aside to thicken.

To assemble:
2 peaches, peeled and sliced
6-8 cherries, stoned and halved

Spread the crust with the lemon verbena mascarpone. Arrange the fruit on top and drizzle with the glaze. Serve with extra fruit. Yum!

Let me just warn you before you keep reading. This recipe is strange. I’ve made it twice now, and everyone I’ve served it to thinks it’s strange too.

Hannah, my sister-in-law, first sent me the recipe, and hers got the same reaction.

But, here’s the interesting part: even though they think it’s strange, people can’t quit eating it. Because, apparently, strange can be good.

I’m always up for an adventurous recipe, but I was especially attracted to this ice cream because I wanted to make a frozen dessert for this month’s Sugar High Friday event, and I don’t have an ice cream maker.

Here’s the basic premise: take some ice cream, mix it with mashed-up avocado, a jalapeno pepper, coconut, and lime juice. Freeze it. Serve it to people just to see what their reactions are. It’s fun. You should try it.

The original recipe calls for vanilla ice cream, avocado, lime juice and zest, and jalapeno.
For the first version I tried, I used vanilla nonfat frozen yogurt and added coconut to the flavor mix. Andy and Jessica both really liked it, but we agreed that the nonfat yogurt texture was all wrong. And I didn’t really like the vanilla flavor–it overwhelmed everything else. Jessica recommended more lime. Andy said his favorite thing about it was that the spicy kick that comes at the very end of a bite because it’s hot and makes you want something cold. So, you just take another bite. Genius!

For the next batch, I tried Blue Bell Key Lime Pie ice cream and more lime juice. Billy said it tasted like frozen curry (that was not a favorable response). Garland didn’t like the coconut texture. I liked the added lime flavor of the ice cream, but the chunks of graham cracker crust didn’t fit in.

If I were to make it again, I think I might use lime (or coconut!) sherbet and process the coconut with the jalapeno-avocado mixture so that there aren’t discernible flakes. The creaminess of the avocado dresses up the ice cream’s texture to make it super silky, so frozen bits of anything are not welcome. The lime-coconut flavor dominates when you first put it into your mouth, but, then — wait for it — a spicy kick of jalapeno! This dessert certainly is a fascinating eating experience.

If nothing else, it makes for super-fun after-dinner conversation.

Head over to the Delcious Life to see what other fun frozen sweets people are making. Oh, and if the name Vanilla Ice rings vaguely of your adolescence, please read Sarah’s introductory rap. It’s hilarious.

Chili-Lime-Avocado Ice Cream

1 quart ice cream, softened (lime or coconut are my flavor recommendations. But I’d love to know if you try something else!)
2 avocadoes, pitted and peeled
Zest and juice of 2 limes
2 t. sugar
1/2 cup coconut milk
1/2 cup sweetened flake coconut
1 or 2 jalapeno peppers, seeded or not (depending on how much of a kick you’re going for)

While the ice cream is softening up, mince the peppers in the food processor with the lime juice and zest. Process well until the mixture is paste-like. Add the sugar, coconut, and avocadoes, and continue processing until the mixture is well-combined. Spoon the ice cream into a freezable container, and stir in the coconut milk (this will help to soften it up even more). Work in the avocado mixture, stirring until the ice cream turns a lovely shade of avocado green and seems evenly mixed. Freeze for a few hours or up to a week. Serve it to your friends (and for extra fun, don’t tell them what it is!).

This recipe was adapted from the Sweet Avocado-Green Chilli Ice Cream at The Splendid Table.

Last year was insanely busy for my family. In order, from youngest to oldest, the four children in our clan graduated from high school and started college, graduated from college and started law school, got married, and finished one graduate program and entered another. All of us except one moved. My parents, after trotting swiftly from one major life event to another, suddenly found themselves with an empty nest.

Needless to say, it has been a year of adjustment for all of us. The hardest thing for David and me is to know how to negotiate holidays, how to see everyone we need to see without completely wearing ourselves out, and how to mesh quality time with people who matter a great deal to us with our new lives in a new, not-so-near place.

So, when my entire family loaded up to come down for a visit for my birthday in June, I was ecstatic. It was the first time all of us (except my sister-in-law who was badly missed!) had gathered in the same place without a million other people to see, places to go, and things to do. It was just us, and I loved it.

I floated the idea of building a deck in our backyard over Christmas holidays, and my sweet father (who is a builder) immediately offered for him and my brothers to come help. One hot, sticky, 14-hour day later, a perfect structure jutted out from my back door, exactly as I had envisioned it.

To celebrate and to say thank you, I spent the day with my mom and sister preparing food. During the day, we made BLTs for lunch with fresh summer tomatoes, salsa to snack on, and supplied plenty of water, Gatorade, and, as the afternoon wore on, beer for the crew. For dinner, we boiled shrimp, roasted potatoes with rosemary, and tossed together a big salad with crusty bread.

My favorite part of the meal, besides the fact that the people I love were sitting at the table with me eating it, was dessert. For as long as I can remember, my mom has made this peach dessert for my birthday. It’s funny now–Cool Whip, Jello, and cream cheese are not ingredients that regularly find their way into my kitchen, but this dessert screams summer to me, and it’s one of my favorite ways to enjoy fresh peaches.

It’s a quintessential southern layer dessert in many ways–buttery crust, creamy sweet middle, and jello and fruit top, but it’s the combination that makes it so divine. The buttery crust crunches with chopped pecans and provides the perfect salty canvas for the sweet peaches and tangy cream cheese.

We ate about half of the 9×12 pyrex dish the night after the deck-building. Over the course of the next week or so, I proceeded to eat the rest of it nearly by myself, for breakfast, mid-morning snack, just like I did when I was a teenager still living in my parents’ house.

Some things I guess we never grow out of. Favorite desserts and the love of family are two that come to mind every time I step outside my back door.
Mom’s Peach Dessert

1 cup flour
1 stick butter, diced
1/2 cup pecans, chopped finely, plus extra for serving
2 8-ounce packages cream cheese, softened
1 cup Cool Whip plus extra for serving
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1/2 cup peach flavored Jell-O
2 T. corn starch
1 cup sugar
2 cups water
4 cups peeled, sliced peaches (about 10-12 whole peaches)

For the crust: Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Pulse the flour, butter, and pecans together in a food processor until crumbly. Press the mixture into the bottom of a 9×13 casserole. Bake for 15 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool completely.

For the top: Stir together the Jell-O and corn starch. Bring the water to a boil, and add the Jell-O mixture. Stir until dissolved; add the sugar and continue to cook and stir until the mixture is completely clear. Turn off the heat and set aside.

For the cream cheese layer: Whip the cream cheese, Cool Whip, and powdered sugar until thick and creamy.

To assemble: Once the crust is cool, spread the cream cheese layer evenly on top. Arrange the peach slices in a single layer on top of the cream cheese, and pour the Jell-O mixture over. Cover and refrigerate for at least a few hours, preferably overnight. If you need it to set up in a hurry, the freezer will do it in about 2 hours, sometimes less. To serve, cut into squares and top with a dollop of Cool Whip and a sprinkle of chopped pecans.
If you’re looking for a last-minute Fourth dessert, this one feeds a lot of people. Happy Independence Day, everyone!
If you happen to be looking for me, I’m likely to be in the hammock or the swing pictured below. Dad, Jason, and David, you are my heroes!