Category Archives: Dessert

What the world needs now is. . . Goat’s Milk Panna Cotta with Star Anise and Grape Compote.

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Another panna cotta recipe?  Really?

As well ask, Does the world need another saxophone riff?  Another short story?  Another poem?  Of course it does.  Look, if you’re filleting fugu or sautéing false morels (not advised), you want a recipe nazi with hairy calves and an I summitted K2 without O2 tattoo.   But panna cotta?  Ah, no.  Panna cotta is a melody that invites riffing, if only because sometimes no matter how wonderful the last iteration, the simple tune of cooked cream cries out for variation, a what if . . .  and because sometimes things just don’t work the way the recipe says they should, so you need to improvise.  That’s how we ended up with Goat’s Milk Panna Cotta with Star Anise and Grape Compote.

Grilled Figs with Crème Fraîche and Chestnut Honey

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Grilled Figs with Creme Fraiche and Chestnut Honey.  What??!!  Two desserts in a row, what are Ken and Jody coming to?   Nothing spectacular–the blog reflects what we eat, and during August we eat a lot from the grill, including dessert.  I tumbled on to grilling figs one hot summer night when we were already planning on cheese and fruit for dessert and I had both figs and grill at the ready.  Hmm, I wonder what these would taste like?  Depends on how you feel about intense little packets of sweetness crusted with bits of caramelized fig sugar.  You will find no dessert with as high a ratio of taste to ease as this week’s recipe.

Coconut Yogurt Cake with Roasted Peaches

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Jody and I both like simple, unfussy desserts with a couple of dominant flavors that compliment each other.  A couple of weeks ago I laid my hands on a quart of wild blueberries, so my original vision for this included a wild blueberry compote.  Jody, however, wanted to go with peaches.  Since I couldn’t get my hands on any wild blueberries for the day we were scheduled to blog, she won.  This is a simple Coconut Yogurt Cake with Roasted Peaches.  The crumb is moist, with a rich with coconut flavor.  And the peach accompaniment, oh man.

Apricot-Cherry Cobbler

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Today I had Apricot-Cherry Cobbler for lunch.  Twice.  A rare indulgence.  I was outside taking pictures, the whipped cream was starting to fade–the rest of my family was headed for Cape Cod.  What was I supposed to do, let it go to waste?  It was a very satisfying lunch. This week’s subject requires no special expertise.  Make the fruit filling, dollop it with the biscuity topping.  Bake.  It may be simple, but it’s as primally satisfying as a rope swing beneath a shaded tree on a summer afternoon.

Rhubarb and Rose Upside-Down Cake

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We haven’t made a cake for awhile and Rhubarb and Rose Upside-Down Cake seemed like a no-brainer. Some pale pink rhubarb for spring, a note of the exotic in the rosewater, the whole thing delivered in as folksy and unpretentious American a package as one could imagine–an upside-down cake.

Nothing is ever as simple as it seems.

Pistachio and Blood Orange Torte

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I first came across a version of the cake that evolved into Pistachio and Blood Orange Torte in Nigella Lawson’s HOW TO EAT. Three things grabbed me about the recipe–how simple it seemed, even for a pastry klutz like me, that it called for cooking oranges for two hours, and that it had no flour.

Two hours! Would the oranges be mush? Inquiring minds needed to know, but inquiring minds didn’t have two hours to spend watching oranges break down. Enter my friend, the pressure cooker.

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Thumbprint Jam Cookies

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A friend and budding jam magnate, Bonnie Shershow, recently asked me for some editorial advice, which I was happy to give, and then rewarded me with a half-dozen jars of her preserves.  We never have six unopened jams in my house.  For awhile I can hold the line, the spirit being willing, but the flesh… …

Lazy Man’s Sheet Pan Apple Tart

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Although I can manage a country-style loaf of sourdough bread, more refined baking is my Achilles heel.  I avoid making pastry the way I avoid hanging doors or framing windows.  In a post-apocalyptic  world where my survival depended on advanced carpentry skills to keep the zombies out I would muddle through, but in the meantime …

Rhubarb rhubarb fool

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There’s something jokey about rhubarb, the way it passes for a fruit when it’s really a vegetable, the sexy red exterior seducing the unwary into a tart encounter, the way it can be fully ripe and–in the case of field rhubarb–fully green.  Even the alternative uses of the word itself have a kind of prankish …