Oui, Chef

Almost Teddies Apple Cake and an OXO Egg Beater Giveaway!

A few weeks back I had the good fortune to attend the Boston book launching party for the The Food52 Cookbook .  My friend Emily (fiveandspice for all you Food52ers) and her husband hosted a pot-luck gathering where each guest made a dish from the book to bring, it was great fun and a delicious afternoon.  As you might imagine from a gathering of such food fanatics, we brought way more food than we needed for the gang assembled.  In fact, as the afternoon wore on I started to get a little concerned that we had not properly paced ourselves and would be unable to have a go at the beautiful desserts decorating the sideboard in their dining room.

A lesser group would have called it a day I’m sure, what with the sheer volume of savory tarts, salads, dips, breads, and charcuterie that we all consumed.  Many would have slipped into a food coma and curled up in the corner for a little snooze, but not this stalwart group.  No, the siren’s song of cakes and cookies took care of that, and as we emptied the last bottle of wine, our hostess took her leave and retired to the kitchen to gather things for dessert.

Lemon-Poppy Pound Cake

This is the first recipe that Muppet and I have baked from the cookbook I bought her for her birthday this year.  The book is the first from one of our favorite local pastry chefs, the delightful Joanne Chang.  Joanne's book is named after her bakery, "Flour", and is a beautifully produced collection of many of the confections that have made her famous, and her bakeries Boston institutions.

I've had the good fortune to have met Joanne at a couple of Share Our Strength events (she is a huge supporter of the organization) and found her to be very warm and charming.  She was kind enough to inscribe the book for Muppet, so cooking from it was an extra special treat for our young baker.

And the Winner is......Chewy Ginger Cookies!

This is the year that my sibs and I finally cried uncle and decided to suspend holiday giving between our families.  We did this for a couple of reasons.  First, all of our kids are now teens and are basically impossible to shop for, preferring to receive cold-hard cash (large denominations, please) in lieu of any creative gift idea we stupid adults might arrive at on our own.  Second, we stupid adults are so fortunate as to have all that we need or want, and so the whole idea of braving the hordes of holiday shoppers to buy token offerings seemed a bit nutty to us all.  We decided instead (full credit given here to my brother) to arrange a cookie swap between our three families, with each sending the other 4-5 dozen cookies of various types.  

It was such a brilliant idea that I wish it were mine.

Rugelach

These rugelach are a terrific cookie to add to your holiday dessert platter, though we like them so much we serve them year-round.  Rugelach generally come in one of two forms, either shaped like a crescent roll, or prepared the way we have here, like a strudel.  I've always liked them this way because it's easier to get a thicker layer of filling using this shape (hey....who are you calling a pig?), but if you prefer the look, or dough to filling ratio of the crescent shape, then by all means roll them that way.

Baked NYC - Sweet and Salty Brownies

In our seemingly endless effort to ferret out the best brownies on the planet, for you, our devoted readers, we come to you today with yet another contender for the title.  Many of you will recall our first foray into "Baked NYC" territory with this post about them back in January.  In it, we put the original "Baked" brownie to the test, and found we really loved it's deep dark flavor, and almost fudge like consistency.  

Well, the guys at Baked Bakery in Brooklyn are back with not only a new cookbook called Baked Explorations , but also a new take on their now famous brownie.  To put it simply, the Sweet and Salty Brownie is their original on steroids, and while we may hold steroids and all those stupid athletes that use them in low regard, in this instance, they are a VERY GOOD THING!

Zingy Wings

Arthas and I tossed these wings together a few weeks back as a treat to bring to a neighborhood barbeque.....they were fabulous!  The recipe is a rif on my friend Winnie's "Sweet and Spicy Rubbed Wings", which she submitted some time ago for a Food52 contest for your best chicken wings.

According to Winnie, she had developed this spicy coffee-cocoa rub to use on ribs and loved it so much that she then tried it on some homemade roasted nuts, and then finally these wings.  It sounds like she was tossing it on anything that didn't move!  Don't you love a condiment that can be put to use in so many different ways?  

Passion Fruit - Basil Ice Pops

Ice pops are among the easiest things you can make with your kids, and are a perfect treat to enjoy during these dog days of summer.  They are also incredibly versatile, offering those with a creative bent ample opportunity to design a custom pop of just about any flavor combination you can imagine.  Muppet and I had fun the other night making these pops with ingredients we had on-hand, but all the while she was dreaming up a kiwi-strawberry combo that we'll be making next.

Kale Chips

I know, I'm about two years behind the craze with this dish.

I'm hoping though, because I'm SO late to the kale chip party, that by sharing them with you today I'll actually be introducing them to all you food blog readers who like me, missed the first wave of excitement over them when they were foodie's darlings a few years back.

I've seen so many recipes for these on-line that its clear there was a bit of a kale chip craze at one point, much like the "macaron" frenzy that seems to be in constant force on food blogs.  

Now, having eaten more than my fair share of fabulous macarons during my time in France, I get how they can fuel a never ending obsession among foodies the world over.

But kale chips.....are you kidding me?

Chocolate-Caramel Slice

This little ditty is a treat my wife found recently and asked me to make to help feed the crowd that was joining us on the 4th of July.  As it turns out, what with other goodies we had made along with treats that guests brought, we didn't even have to dip into these babies.

Cherry Hand Pies

It seems that over the past year whenever we had guests that offered to make a pre-dinner nibble to have with cocktails, they decided to craft something using frozen puff pastry dough.  Given that each of these folks brought a fresh box of pastry sheets with them, and used only half a box to make their appetizer, we recently discovered that we had 83 half used boxes of puff pastry in our freezer (no wonder we're running out of room there).

As I was starting to panic, wondering what the #@*& we were going to do with that many pastry sheets, my wife found this simple but delicious recipe in our latest issue of Bon Appetit.  This recipe is for little cherry pies, using a combination of fresh and dried fruit, but any type of fruit would work.  Beware though, if you're using a really juicy fruit you may need to up the amount of cornstarch used in order to guarantee a nice thick filling for your pies.  I'm thinking fresh apples and dried cranberries would be lovely, or how about peanut butter with a fresh strawberry compote, or dare I say, Nutella with some orange marmalade?  Oohhhh.....