Desserts

Berry Basil Sorbet

August 5, 2011

Wow! It tastes like pizza! said a friend when I gave him a scoop.

That’s not exactly what you want to hear when you’re making a dessert sorbet, right?

Inspired by some fresh berries and an abundance of basil sitting on my counter, I made this sorbet for a party last month. I was surprised at how much everyone seemed to enjoy it (the pizza comment notwithstanding). And no, I don’t think my friend really meant that the sorbet tasted like tomatoes and cheese, but rather that the fresh basil was surprising and basil makes him think of pizza. At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

But the comment got me thinking and clearly had an impact since I could not let it go.
What is dessert and what isn’t?
How savory can you go and still call it “dessert?”
The lines seems to have been blurred more in the last decade and …

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Meyer Lemon Vanilla Bean Creme Caramel

July 19, 2011

What, another lemon dessert?

Shhhh…yes, another one, and don’t give me any flack about it. I love my little ancient lemon tree and it loves me back. It’s my own personal “Giving Tree” providing me with luscious, sweet, Meyer lemons almost year round. Of the 22 desserts in my “Dessert” category, 6 are made with Meyer lemons, but only 9 of the 150+ recipes on the blog are tagged with “lemon.” And what’s not to love about lemons? The flavor is bright, fresh and clean so how can you go wrong incorporating it where ever possible? In summer we drink lemonade, so why not make a light lemon dessert?

This is the perfect do-ahead dinner party dessert. You can make them up to the day before and then just invert them onto plates (or eat them right out of the ramekins!) right before serving.

Lemon Creme Caramel Recipe
Printable Recipe in PDF

For the …

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Chocolate Banana Bread with Flax and Whole Wheat

March 29, 2011

Do you associate banana bread with the 1970′s? I know I do. In that era of hippies and free love, there was a push toward eating healthy and that’s when natural food stores, macrobiotics and crimes against nature like carob came into vogue. But banana bread actually became popular in the 1930′s during the depression as a way to salvage over ripe bananas, along with a rise in the use of baking powder in recipes to create such things as “quick breads.” Regardless of association, banana bread is often thought of as healthy, though it can be loaded with fat and cholesterol and in general is not exactly good for you despite the addition of fruit.

Banana bread is not always my favorite because it’s usually loaded with walnuts (which I loathe). However, remove the walnuts and add chocolate and I’m a happy girl. I wanted to see if I could make a healthy banana bread without wanting to use …

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Meyer Lemon Pudding Cakes

February 7, 2011

Sometimes recipes come from the strangest, most unexpected places. They can come from a flash of creativity connected to absolutely nothing, they can be inspired by eating something amazing or even by a location, they can be passed down from generation to generation or given like a secret gift from friend to friend. The recipe for this lemon pudding cake came to me from of all places, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Only in our digital age would it have found its way to me as it did.

In the Fall of 2009 I sent out a tweet, asking for lemon dessert recipes. Robyn Eckhardt, a professional travel/food writer who also writes one of my favorite blogs Eating Asia replied, asking if I’d ever made Lemon Pudding Cake. I said no and she emailed me a scanned page from an cookbook called Classic Home Desserts, one I can only presume made its way …

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Biscotti with Anise and Hazelnuts

December 19, 2010

Everyone is familiar with the phrase, when life gives you lemons, make lemonade, right? Well, my lemons are still on my tree, not ready to be picked, and unfortunately, my computer’s hard drive is now toast and there’s no great parable for that, no way to make lemonade out of a 20 lb paperweight.

One morning last week a awoke to find an error message on my computer. I ignored it, clicking on whatever button I could to make it go away. That was the last I ever saw of my computer. Shortly thereafter it froze up and never rebooted again. Had I known, I would have said my proper goodbyes.

It took me a while to determine that the hard drive was good and truly dead. Fortunately, I have an external backup drive and the contents are current. What I don’t have is a full size computer with photoshop on it and a big …

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Molasses Spice Cookies (Gluten Free)

December 14, 2010

I haven’t always had the best luck with gluten free baking. I bought all the right flours and starches, but my experience when trying to bake gluten free bread was less than positive; it was edible but not something I’d eat by choice. While I don’t need to eat gluten free I have friends and family who do and when it came time to bake some holiday cookies, I realized that everything I wanted to give had gluten in it. That didn’t really seem fair to me. Who wants to get a box of something beautiful they can’t eat?

I set out to find a decent gluten free cookie recipe, and was hoping to find something not just “good enough for gluten free” but simply “good enough to eat.” I’m happy to say I think I’ve found it and no surprise, it was on the well known Gluten Free Girl blog. The cooled cookie should …

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