Jam-Swirled Meringue Cookies

Light and crisp on the outside, marshmallowy on the inside, Jam-Swirled Meringue Cookies are like delicious edible clouds. What makes these cookies so white and fluffy? Meringue.

What is Meringue?

When we think of meringue, many things come to mind. The billowy white topping on a lemon meringue pie. Light-as-air crisp pavlova topped with whipped cream and fruit. Or delicate macaron cookies sandwiched with buttercream.

All of them are meringue.

At its core, meringue is just egg whites and sugar whipped together. But, the kind of sugar and the temperature of the egg whites make a difference between the resulting types of meringue.

The three types include

• French. This is the most common one. Egg whites are beaten and granulated white sugar is gradually added until the mixture becomes glossy white with soft or stiff peaks. It is the lightest and least stable type. Cream of tartar or lemon juice may be added to stabilize it. French meringue is baked into cookies, pavlova, or folded into souffles.
• Italian. Egg whites are beaten and a hot sugar syrup is gradually beaten into them until a stiff meringue is formed. It is the most stable of all the types because it is partially cooked. Italian meringue is used in Italian buttercream frosting, to cover Baked Alaska, or incorporated into semifreddo.
• Swiss. Both egg whites and sugar are heated in a double boiler and beaten until a certain temperature is reached. It is then beaten until cooled and silky smooth. Swiss meringue is used as a base for meringue decorations or frostings because of its density.

How to Make French Meringue

Meringue has a reputation of being finicky and difficult to make. I’ve had my share of failures with it, but have learned there are a few tricks to ensure meringue success.

1. The easiest trick is to always start with a squeaky clean bowl and beaters. Washing them in hot soapy water, drying everything, and then wiping it down with a paper towel that is dampened with white vinegar guarantees that your tools are up to the task.
2. Use room-temperature eggs. Carefully separate the whites from the yolks (use the yolks for another recipe), then allow them to sit out of the fridge for 30-ish minutes on the counter. Your meringue will have more volume if the egg whites aren’t fridge cold.
3. Add the sugar very slowly, about 1 tablespoon at a time. We need the sugar to dissolve and incorporate into the egg whites before adding more sugar. If we add the sugar too quickly, it does not fully dissolve and we wind up with a gritty texture. It will require all the patience you can drum up, and then some more.

The payoff is a bowl of white, billowy goodness that make up these delicious cookies.

Lessons Learned

• Absolutely do not store these cookies in the fridge. They will go soft and weepy like a first-time grandma. Keep them in an airtight container at room temperature. You can also freeze them.
• Use any kind of jam you'd like. Nutella and tahini are good options, too.
• Meringue is not hard to make, but does take some monitoring and patience. If you like meringue, try Cape Gooseberry Pavlova for a real treat.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Country Hill Cottage for the meringue cookies recipe without cream of tartar and to Driscolls for the jam swirl technique.

Iced Chai Oatmeal Cookies

Spiced, soft, and chewy, Iced Chai Oatmeal Cookies bring all the cozy feels! A slick of vanilla icing makes them look snowcapped. Plus, a bevy of chai spices brings warm flavors.

Chai

Indian tea, or chai in Hindi, is a mix of black tea and spices steeped together in hot milk and hot water. Spices used include a mix-and-match combination of cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and black pepper. For chai purists, only whole spices or freshly ground spices will do. Sugar or jaggery, a type of unrefined cane sugar, sweetens the tea.

This popular way of making tea jumped the Pacific from India to America in the 1990s. Once Starbucks introduced its version, called chai tea latte, chai became popular with coffee and tea drinkers. You can order a chai latte (with steamed milk), dirty chai (with steamed milk and espresso), or vanilla chai (with vanilla syrup) in just about any coffee shop today.

Are you inspired to make your own chai blend? There are some good recipes here and here.

In this cookie recipe, a mix of preground spices, widely available in grocery stores, give it chai flavor. In addition to white and brown sugar, molasses is the stand-in for jaggery. The result is a sweet and spicy, moreish treat.

Like spiced cookies? You will also like gingerbread cookies with rum-butter glaze!

Lessons Learned

• If you made or have a chai spice blend (without sugar), you can sub in 4 teaspoons of it for the spices listed in the recipe.
• Freezing the dough for later use? Scoop the dough balls and freeze on a baking sheet in the freezer. Once frozen, place the balls in a ziploc bag and seal until ready to bake. No need to thaw the dough, just bake for an additional minute or two.
• Don’t be afraid of the black pepper! It adds a tiny bit of heat and floral notes to the flavor.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Sally’s Baking Addiction for the iced gingerbread oatmeal cookie recipe and to Minimalist Baker for the caffeine-free chai spice mix recipe.

Mexican Hot Chocolate Pie

Dark chocolate and warming spices? Yes, please! Mexican Hot Chocolate Pie brings it. Plus, it is easily modified to be dairy-free or vegan.

The crust is extra delicious because it is made from the cookie of the skies.

Biscoff

The spiced cookie known as Biscoff appeared as an in-flight snack on Delta flights starting in the mid-1980s. Come fly with us, the cookie seemed to say, because you won’t get these anywhere else in North America. They became an airline staple and soon American and United were serving the little red packages as well.

The crisp, cinnamon-y, temperature-resistant cookie makes it a perfect travel snack. Delta now serves over 80 million of them each year!

Before their appearance on airlines, these cookies were only available in Northern Europe. You may have seen them labeled speculoos. I recently discovered there is a difference between speculoos and speculaas.

Speculaas is a popular spiced cookie from the Netherlands that uses the speculaas spice blend of anise, cardamom, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, nutmeg, and white pepper. However, Biscoff is a speculoos cookie that is popular in Belgium that uses just Ceylon cinnamon instead of a spice blend.

Biscoff is now available at many grocery stores and Target. They are perfectly delicious on their own and with a cup of coffee. But crush them and combine them with butter, and you have a super yummy pie crust.

The filling? Why, chocolate, of course.

Mexican Hot Chocolate

Have you had the warm and chocolatey drink from Mexico called champurrado? It contains bittersweet chocolate, sugar, cinnamon, and sometimes other spices like chile or cayenne. Corn flour and hot milk are blended in to make a steaming mug of goodness.

Cacao is chocolate in its rawest form and is something that has been around for centuries in Central America. The Mayans and Aztecs drank a cacao concoction considered the drink of the gods. Its ingredients are similar to the Mexican hot chocolate of today: crushed cocoa, chile pepper, and cornmeal.

It’s easy to make your own, but there are also several brands to purchase. Abuelita, Hernan, Ibarra, and Taza are all popular. The chocolate comes in tablets that you break into pieces and dissolve in hot milk.

The cinnamon and spice flavors of Mexican hot chocolate marry well with Biscoff crust to make one of the best chocolate pies!

Looking for a chocolate tart instead? I got you: Chocolate Tart with PB Pretzel Crust.

Lessons Learned

• The filling is already dairy-free. To make the crust dairy-free, swap out the butter with coconut oil, vegetable shortening, or vegan butter.
• Want to make this vegan? I know someone will ask. Sub out the egg in the filling for one of the following: either ¼ cup of aquafaba (liquid from a can of chickpeas) OR a cornstarch roux (one or the other, not both). To make a cornstarch roux, combine 2 tablespoons cornstarch with 3 tablespoons water and whisk into a solution. Use this to replace 1 egg in the filling recipe.
• This pie slices nicely if left to sit overnight. If you are eating this the same day that you baked it (like I did), the slices will not be as neat but it will still be every bit as delicious.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to The Subversive Table for the Mexican hot chocolate pie recipe and Salt & Baker for the Biscoff pie crust recipe.

Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream

Creamy, fruity, and fresh, Fruit Tart with Pastry Cream is fruit pie’s elegant cousin! A crisp shell, dreamy filling, and colorful produce make for a beautiful addition to your dessert table. Plus, it is easily adapted to be dairy-free!

The fruit makes it pretty, but I’m in it for the pastry cream.

Crème Pâtissière

If you are a Great British Baking Show devotee like I am, you already know what creme pat, or pastry cream, is all about. But even if you are a fan, have you had pastry cream? Friend, it is the stuff of dreams.

Pastry cream is one of many variations of custard. Traditionally, a custard is made of milk and eggs. For savory dishes like quiche, the custard is plain. But for desserts, sugar and vanilla are added.

Sweet custard versions include eggs, milk, sugar, and vanilla but vary in flavor and consistency. Some popular ones include

• crème anglaise: thin and pourable like a sauce
• crème diplomate: thickened with flour or cornstarch and whipped cream
• crème mousseline: thickened with flour or cornstarch and additional butter
• crème pâtissière: thickened with flour or cornstarch and used as a filling

Many of the desserts we know and love have custard at the heart of them. Things like crème brûlée, filled eclairs, flan, ice cream, pudding, and English trifle all involve some type of custard.

In this fruit tart, the creme pat is the plush filling on which the fresh fruit rests. The combination of crisp tart crust, rich pastry cream, and refreshing fruit is just about perfect. It's so delicious!

Looking for a cake-y version of this? I got you! Try Fruit Dome Cake.

Lessons Learned

• Make your life easier by dividing the work into multiple days. Prepare the tart shell and the pastry cream a day ahead. Leave assembly for the day you are going to serve the tart.
• To make the crust and the pastry cream dairy-free, you know what to do. Replace the butter with margarine or vegan butter.
• If you are serving this at a big family dinner or holiday meal, allow the artistic moody teenager or that person who *always* wants to help assemble this for you, preferably out of your way. Have the tart, pastry cream, and fruit ready for them and let them be your kitchen serf.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to House of Nash Eats for the French fruit tart recipe and to Smitten Kitchen for the tart crust recipe.

Grapefruit, Lime, and Tequila Pie

It’s so light, tangy, and refreshing! Grapefruit, Lime, and Tequila Pie is a creamy dessert that combines citrus juice and zest with the most popular spirit of Mexico.

If you think this sounds like a cocktail, you’re right.

Paloma Cocktail

The Paloma is a tequila-based cocktail that is easy to make and easy to drink. It only has a handful of ingredients. One of those is a grapefruit soda such as Fever Tree, Fresca, Jarritos, or Squirt.

Tequila + grapefruit soda + lime juice = a delicious, fizzy, and refreshing drinkie!

Does this sound like another drink called the Salty Dog? Well, you certainly know your grapefruit cocktails. Yes, swap out the tequila for vodka and you’ve got yourself a Salty Dog.

Like many things in life, the Paloma has a murky past. It most definitely has its origins in Mexico from one of the areas that produce tequila: Jalisco and parts of Guanajuato, Tamaulipas, Nayarit, and Michoacán. The drink most likely was born during the mid-1950s when grapefruit soda became a popular mixer for tequila.

It is one of my favorite cocktails because it is uncomplicated and delicious!

All the flavors of the Paloma cocktail are poured into this pie. Are you puzzled as to how this works? I will explain.

Fruit Curd

Fruit curd is well-known and popular with scone eaters like myself. But for the rest of you, fruit curds are a sweet topping made from juice, zest, egg yolks, sugar, and butter. The ingredients are cooked at low heat until the mixture thickens, then placed in the fridge to cool and thicken further.

The most popular fruit curd is lemon curd. It is delicious on scones, of course, but it also forms the base of lemon meringue pie and other desserts. Curd is also made from other fruits like berries, mango, and passion fruit. I especially like it made from citrus fruits such as lime, orange, and grapefruit.

In this pie, grapefruit curd contains both grapefruit and lime juices and zest. Plus tequila!

Lessons Learned

• Don’t be afraid of the saltine cracker crust. Think of it like the salted rim on a cocktail: essential.
• Be careful not to burn your curd. Medium heat and constant whisking will help prevent anything from sticking to the bottom of the pan.
• If you are on high blood pressure medicine or calcium channel blockers, this might not be the pie for you. Grapefruit juice can interact with those medicines, so please check with your doctor.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Baking a Moment for the Paloma pie recipe inspiration and to The View from Great Island for the grapefruit gingersnap pie recipe and detailed curd-making instructions.

Triple Flavor Slab Pie

I won’t mince words. Triple Flavor Slab Pie is a lot of work. You are essentially making three pies at the same time.

But the result is spectacular and so worth it!

Basically, it is a slab pie divided into sections: apple, pecan, and pumpkin.

Slab Pies

A slab pie is a pie baked on a sheet pan. Technically it is baked on a half-sheet pan, one that measures 13 x 18 inches. Flat, rimmed, and constructed of heavy gauge aluminum or sheet steel, sheet pans are great for easy weeknight dinners like this one and even a holiday dinner.

But! A pie baked on a sheet pan? Really?

Yes. Similar to sheet cakes, slab pies are perfect for when you have a carload of people coming over for dinner, a church potluck, or an office holiday party. They feed a crowd.

A traditional 9-inch pie contains between 8 and 12 slices (there is always that person who wants “just a sliver”). Slab pies, however, yield anywhere from 24 to 30 pieces depending on how you cut them.

Tips for Baking Slab Pies

There are a few musts when putting together a big pie like this one.

• Make your crust. I recommend you make your pie dough because it tastes so much better than store-bought. But, if you have crust issues, I understand. If using packaged pie dough, you will need two boxes and will be using three of the four doughs.
• Blind bake the crust before filling it. You certainly don’t want a soggy bottom after all your hard work. Prebake the crust for 15 to 20 minutes, let cool, then fill.
• Making a multi-flavor slab pie like this one? Choose fillings that have a similar bake time.
• Partially cook fruit fillings. Certain fruits release a lot of juice when baked, resulting in a watery filling. Precook the fruit part way to avoid too much liquid.
• Line your oven with foil. Because these pies are shallower than a normal pie, there may be some spillage and overflow from fillings. Laying down aluminum foil will save you from oven clean-up later and prevent your kitchen from smelling like a tire fire.

Pie Choices

When it comes to Thanksgiving, the most popular pie flavor varies depending on where in the nation you live. For those in the western U.S., pumpkin is definitely the fave. But as you travel east, the preference changes from pumpkin to pecan, and then to apple.

My family enjoys all three pies, any time of the year. I sneak in a rogue flavor every once in a while, but normally I stick to the big three for holidays that are heavy on tradition. The great thing about this triple-flavor slab pie? You get all three flavors in one giant pie!

Lessons Learned

• Planning ahead is key for success! Components of this pie can be made in advance. I recommend preparing the pie dough and apple filling a day ahead.
• Are you tempted to skip sauteeing the apples? It will save a step, but you will regret it once the apples release their juices and run into the other flavors. But you are an adult, so do what you want.
• If lattice is not your thing, keep the dough for the top of the apple pie in one piece. Remember to cut steam vents in the top before baking.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Macheesmo for the Thanksgiving tri-pie inspiration, Pioneer Woman for the pecan pie filling recipe, NYT Cooking for the apple pie filling recipe, and Libby’s for their famous pumpkin pie recipe.

Easy Rocky Road Candy

Sweet, nutty, chewy, and only four ingredients! Easy Rocky Road Candy comes together fast and satisfies any sweet tooth. It’s not just an ice cream flavor.

Versions of Rocky Road

How many of you thought Rocky Road existed only in ice cream form? Yes, me too. But, friends, we is wrong.

Rocky Road is a chocolate candy that includes different ingredients depending on who is making it. In traditional American-style Rocky Road, it is just three ingredients: chocolate, marshmallows, and walnuts (or almonds). With all the lumps and bumps on the surface, it really does look like a rocky road.

Recently, I discovered that Rocky Road exists in the UK and Australia and they each have their own very different versions. Across the Atlantic, the British include dried fruit and biscuit (cookie) pieces in theirs. And across the Pacific, the Australians tip in glacé cherries, shredded coconut, marshmallows, and peanuts.

They all sound delicious.

But for me, the chocolate marshmallow walnut trifecta of Rocky Road is nostalgic. It was one of the few ice cream flavors available at the military commissary when my brother and I were growing up. Vanilla was and still is my favorite, but Rocky Road is a close second.

This toothsome treat is nice to bring to a potluck, party, or girls' night. It disappears fast.

Lessons Learned

• Use whatever chocolate you like, dark, milk, or a combo of the two. I used Ghiradelli 60% dark.
• Don’t like walnuts? They are traditional in American-style Rocky Road candy, but other nuts would be just as delicious. Almonds, cashews, peanuts, pecans, or pistachios are all great subs.
• Whatever nut you wind up choosing, be sure to toast them first! They will taste nuttier and keep their crunch for longer.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to my mother-in-law Sue who makes a similar chocolate candy minus the marshmallows and to Recipe Tin Eats for the Rocky Road recipe inspiration.

Basque Cheesecake Small Batch

Love cheesecake but don’t want 16 slices hanging around your kitchen tempting you at every turn? This Basque Cheesecake Small Batch version yields just six slices of dreaminess. Perfect for two, three, or four people, depending on willpower.

It’s not just any cheesecake, it’s Basque-style.

What is Basque Cheesecake

Most traditional cheesecake is a creamy white from top to bottom with a graham cracker crust. But Basque cheesecake is very dark brown on top, almost burnt in appearance. You’ve seen it, I’m sure, all over social media the past few years.

Sometimes it is called burnt cheesecake.

It is also known as San Sebastian cheesecake. This cheesecake was invented in the town of San Sebastian in Basque Country, an autonomous region in Spain. Chef Santiago Rivera has been making this unique style of cheesecake for 30 years.

Look how gorgeous this town is! It's now added to my list of places to visit.

Other than its tanned top, Basque cheesecake is different in other ways too. It is crustless, which isn’t revolutionary since crustless cheesecake, like crustless quiche, is a thing. But the puffy firm edges along with the sunken and lush middle is what makes it stand out in my mind.

It reminds me of chocolate lava cake, where the edges are firm and the middle is still runny. Now, with Basque cheesecake, the middle is NOT runny but just barely set. Instead of being uniform in texture like a traditional cheesecake, Basque cheesecake has both firm and gooey textures in one slice.

The ingredients are simple and few. You might even have them in your fridge right now, which makes this a dangerous proposition. Cream cheese, eggs, sugar, and heavy cream.

And that deep dark tan that makes it look like a Bain de Soleil model? It’s caused by a higher baking temperature. Basque cheesecake bakes at 400F/204C.

Lessons Learned

• Be sure the cream cheese is very soft and easily blendable with the other ingredients. You want the batter to be silky smooth before pouring it into the pan.
• Is it necessary to scrape the mixing bowl after the addition of the eggs and the flour? Absolutely yes. We want to avoid ingredients collecting in the divot of doom at the bottom of standing mixer bowls (IYKYK). Also, there is no day-ruiner like biting into a piece of cheesecake and finding an unmixed pocket of flour or a clonk of cream cheese.
• Ovens are so finicky. Some run hot and others not so much. The best way to judge when your cheesecake is ready is the same way a friend’s son chooses his girlfriends: the suntan and the jiggle.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Bon Appetit and Recipe Tin Eats for their Basque cheesecake recipes and detailed instructions. And thanks to Andrea Hula Pareja on Unsplash for the San Sebastian photo.

Best S'mores Bars with Fluffernutter

It’s always a good time for s’mores but not always a good time for a campfire (hello, Southern California wildfire season). Best S’mores Bars with Fluffernutter are baked in the oven, no open flames needed. Plus, fluffernutter!

Fluffernutter

You either grew up eating fluffernutter sandwiches or you didn’t. I didn’t and the thought of them slightly makes my teeth ache. White bread + marshmallow fluff (aka marshmallow creme) + peanut butter = cavities. Just kidding, I meant, fluffernutter sandwiches.

These sandwiches are definitely a New England throwback to the mid-twentieth century. They were a marketing tool in the 1960s for the Marshmallow Fluff brand. The marshmallow fluff and peanut butter sandwich became popular to put in brown bags and lunch boxes.

Marshmallow fluff, also called marshmallow creme, is an ingredient in homemade candy, fruit dips, fillings, and frosting. I stocked up on several jars when I stumbled upon a sale not too long ago. Snacking cake with chocolate fluff and chocolate cake with mocha whip are two things I’ve made with those blue-lidded jars.

Peanut butter combined with marshmallow fluff in any kind of dessert is going to bring retro vibes, especially to those who remember fluffernutter from their childhood. There is no denying that the sweet and salty combo is tasty. The combination makes these bars extra yummy and gooey.

You will want some more.

S’mores

Yes, the dessert really does originate from a Girl Scout publication from 1927 where it was called “Some Mores.” Tramping and Trailing with the Girl Scouts was a handbook for members that guided them in how to set up camp, organize their patrols, and cook for themselves, among other things.

In reading through the handbook (see it here online), I was impressed at what these young ladies in the 1920s cooked for their meals. Biscuits from scratch, fish chowder, meat kabobs, and squaw corn were just a few things on the trail menu lineup. I noticed a dish called Komac Stew, which when I read the recipe sounds a lot like Israeli shakshuka.

There was also a recipe for planked fish that involved gutting and prepping a fish to cook on a hardwood plank over an open fire. Wow. These teen girls knew their way around a campfire.

And yes, there was the infamous recipe for Some Mores. It consisted of a marshmallow roasted over hot coals until melty. It was then sandwiched between two graham crackers and a piece of chocolate where the heat from the roasted marshmallow softened the chocolate.

The original recipe ends with a directive: “Though it tastes like ‘some more’ one is really enough.” I think I hear the sound of the original mike drop.

Amazingly, the recipe has not changed in almost a century. Somewhere along the way, the name morphed to “s’mores.” They are now a staple dessert among campers and non-campers alike.

Lessons Learned

• Use whatever chocolate you’d like in this recipe. Dark chocolate is amazing in this. This time, I used 6 bars of the 1.55 oz size of Hershey’s milk chocolate bars because that is what my local grocery store had in stock. You want enough chocolate to fill the pan in a single layer.
• I like to use Adams No-Stir Natural Peanut Butter because it is just peanuts and salt with a little palm oil as a stabilizer (otherwise, natural peanut butter is too runny). Using PB without sugar helps keep the dessert from being sicky-sweet.
• For these bars to slice nicely, they need several hours of cooling time. So plan accordingly!

Hat Tips

Many thanks to several creative s’mores bar recipes all over the internet, but especially to Pinch of Yum and their Best S’mores Bars Recipe.

Banana Cookies with Brown Butter

Sweet with a smidge of chocolate and a touch of salt, Banana Cookies with Brown Butter are so, so good! Plus, the recipe uses up those bananas on your kitchen counter that are quickly going brown in the summer heat.

Ripe Bananas

I spy with my little eye some mottled brown fruits languishing on your countertop. I’ve got them, too. Once a greenish hue, these bananas have progressed to bright and sunny yellow to dark and broody brown.

No one wants to eat them once they get past a certain point of ripeness, at least not in my house. Why do bananas go brown? It turns out they, like certain dogs in your family, are gassy.

Bananas are picked while they are unripe and green so they can be transported to grocery stores, gas stations, and Walmart Supercenters before they get too ripe. The timing needs to be right or they start to release the ethylene gas that causes them to turn yellow. We’ve all seen it when the timing is off and a shipment of too-ripe bananas hits the store.

And when the weather is warm, more ethylene is produced and released so bananas ripen quicker.

How to Keep Bananas Fresh

So, if you’ve managed to get a nice bunch of greenish-yellow bananas what’s the best way to store them?

• Allow them to ripen on a countertop to your desired level of yellow or freckly brown. Keep them away from heat and direct sunlight as these things speed up the ripening and eventual decay of these fruits.
• Once the bananas are at your favorite hue, eat them. Or place them in the fridge to slow down the ripening. The skin will continue to brown but the inside won’t do so as quickly.
• Some folks believe if you un-bunch the bananas, separating them from the main stem, they won’t go bad as quickly. I don’t know if this really slows down anything, but it does make it easier to grab one on your way out the door.

Now, if you haven’t been monitoring your yellow fruit as closely as you meant to and they’ve all become blotchy with brown spots, you do have some choices.

• Freeze them. Peel them, then either leave them whole or chop them into shorter sections. Place in a Ziploc bag and freeze. The frozen pieces can be thrown in smoothies, dipped in chocolate, blitzed into a version of ice cream, or eaten as is.
• Make banana bread. I think everyone found a favorite recipe for this during the pandemic lockdown, didn’t they?
• Mash them. Then, add them to your oatmeal, yogurt, or pancake batter.
• Coat with tretinoin. Just kidding, this is completely untrue. But it works on the skin of your face that is blotchy with brown spots. Talk to your dermatologist.

I found my new favorite thing to do with very ripe bananas: make cookies. These cookies are so good because of the brown butter.

Brown Butter

I know you are thinking there is a lot of brown going on in this recipe. Brown bananas, brown chocolate, and now brown butter.

What is brown butter?

It is called beurre noisette in France and is used as a multi-purpose one-ingredient sauce. Butter is cooked over low heat until the fat and milk solids separate. Once the milk solids sink to the bottom of the saucepan, it becomes a kind of sludge that continues to cook turning from toasty brown to deep amber.

The finished product is the color of hazelnuts, or noisette in French. The taste? It is nutty, caramel-y, and rich. The beautiful thing about brown butter, or beurre noisette, is it can be used in both savory and sweet dishes.

Brown butter adds a more complex flavor to dishes than butter that has merely been melted. The deep, rich taste is worth the extra step of browning. It makes these cookies phenomenal.

Lessons Learned

• No chill time is required for this cookie dough, which makes me love it even more. The dough is ready to scoop and bake immediately after mixing. Here is another cookie with minimal chill time.
• Don’t have bar chocolate? Sometimes I don’t either. Sub in ⅔ cup dark chocolate chips. Blitz them in the blender for a couple of pulses to get them into smaller pieces. Or not.
• You decide how large or small you want these treats. The original recipe calls for dividing the dough equally into 9 pieces, making for some ginormous cookies the size of a cat’s head. If you go big, don’t forget to add a few minutes to the baking time.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Justine Snacks for the salted banana cookie recipe.

Vegan Triple Coconut Cake

Did you see the words Vegan Triple Coconut Cake and think “No thanks, I'm out” because it is 1) vegan or 2) coconut? I don’t blame you. We’ve all had our share of dry and tasteless cake that we immediately regretted eating.

Since there are no calorie refunds, I am picky about the cake I put in my mouth. It better be good and it better be worth it. I assure you this one is both, thanks to coconut milk.

Coconut Milk

When I was a kid we lived in Hawaii. I thought only tourists drank coconut milk, usually through a straw stuck into the shell. So imagine my surprise when tetra paks of it hit mainstream grocery store chains a few years ago.

Contrary to what my seven-year-old self imagined, coconut milk is not the liquid that is found inside a coconut. That translucent liquid is coconut water. And that is what those sunburned visitors drank just before they got the runs.

Coconut milk is made from grated coconut pulp that has been simmered with water to create an opaque liquid that looks like cow’s milk. Depending on the amount of water used, the resulting milk can be thick (coconut cream), thin (coconut milk), or really thin (lite coconut milk).

What is it used for, besides annoying the barista at Starbucks? Coconut milk is an ingredient in many Southeast Asian dishes such as tom kha kai (Thai coconut soup), nasi lemak (Malaysian rice dish), and soto (Indonesian soup). Some Latin American and Caribbean cuisines use it, too.

It is super delicious when used in desserts. This cake uses coconut three ways: milk, oil, and shredded flakes. The milk adds moistness and a subtle coconut flavor without being overpowering.

Plus, it keeps this cake vegan.

Vegan Cakes

Common sense says we need eggs and dairy to make a delicious cake. We talked recently about wacky cakes, which disproves all that. It is possible to put together a cake worthy of any celebration and have it be vegan.

What makes a cake vegan? No animal products. So that means no butter, no milk, no eggs, no gelatin, and no milk chocolate.

That sounds like a buzzkill but read on.

Vegan cakes rely on

• baking soda or baking powder combined with an acid like vinegar for the lift, or leavening, that cakes need in order to be fluffy.
• vegan mayo and oils to provide fat to make the cake tender.
• water or plant-based milk to provide moisture.
• egg substitutes like ground flax seed or aquafaba.

There are many scrumptious cake recipes that just happen to also be vegan, and this is one of them.

Lessons Learned

• You will not use the whole can of coconut milk. It’s tempting to just dump the remaining few tablespoons into the cake batter, but don’t do it because the batter will be too wet. Save the tablespoons of milk for the glaze.
• Don’t overmix. Like most vegan cake recipes, you want to stir the wet and dry ingredients together until they just come together, then pour them into the pan. Your cake will be fluffier and less dense.
• Ovens vary and so do oven temperature calibrations. Start checking on the cake at 35 minutes. Depending on your oven, it may need another 5 to 10 minutes.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Smitten Kitchen for the plush coconut cake recipe.

Eggless Sprinkle Snacking Cake with Chocolate Fluff

Looking for a cake that doesn’t require eggs? Eggless Sprinkle Snacking Cake with Chocolate Fluff comes together in one bowl, is vegan-friendly, and looks like a party. It’s a fun snack!

Snacking Cakes

What are snacking cakes? Well, any cake can be called a snack really. It might also be considered breakfast if it is your birthday week, but let’s stick to the point here.

Snacking cake is usually a one-layer cake that is baked and snacked on over the course of several days. It is not as fussy as a celebratory cake but fancier than banana bread. Some are plain, but many of them include a simple glaze, thin icing, or light frosting.

Food companies have pumped out prepackaged snacking cakes like Hostess Twinkies, Little Debbie snack cakes, and Dolly Madison zingers since I was a kid. And I may have eaten one or two of these myself after riding the bus home from junior high.

Like many things, the homemade version is cheaper and tastes better. Is it healthier? Um, maybe. At least you have some control over the ingredients included.

The good news is snacking cakes come together quickly. They are easy, uncomplicated, and made from pantry staples. These simple cakes make for a yummy mid-morning snack or after-school treat.

The square pieces are just the right size to pick up and eat as you walk around the kitchen waiting for the Nespresso to do its thing.

Don’t forget to lick your fingers before touching anything else. Marshmallow fluff is sticky.

Marshmallow Fluff

You might remember that I recently scored on several jars of marshmallow creme that were on sale. The sweet confection goes by several names like marshmallow creme, marshmallow fluff, and marshmallow spread.

I just learned that marshmallow fluff was invented over a hundred years ago in 1917 by Archibald Query of Somerville, Massachusetts. With World War I came shortages and rationing of staples like sugar, which forced Query to close his door-to-door marshmallow fluff business. He later sold the fluff formula to H. Allen Durkee and Fred L. Mower.

These two men were WWI veterans who had returned home to Massachusetts after fighting in the war in France and went into business together. After purchasing the formula, they cooked up fluff in their kitchens and sold tins of it throughout neighborhoods. It became so popular that eventually it was stocked on grocery store shelves both locally and nationally.

Marshmallow spread has old skool vibes and I figured it was the perfect thing to add to a frosting for this snacking cake.

Lessons Learned

• This is an oil-based cake, so be sure the oil you use is neutral in flavor and good quality. I chose light olive oil, but canola or vegetable oil would work, too.
• So, is it marshmallow creme or fluff? The original brand is called Marshmallow Fluff. There are other brands including the one I bought, Jet-Puffed Marshmallow Creme. You can use either one for this frosting!
• Since this recipe doesn’t have eggs, the cake gets its lift from the rainbow sprinkles. Not really. The baking soda and vinegar make bubbles that help the cake rise, so be sure your baking soda is not expired.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Real Simple for the rainbow sprinkle snacking cake recipe and Cookies Cakes Pies Oh My for the chocolate buttercream frosting recipe inspiration.

Eggless Chocolate Cake with Mocha Whip

A cake made in one bowl, does not require eggs (which are ridonculous in price right now), is vegan adaptable, AND delicious? It seems too good to be true, but Eggless Chocolate Cake with Mocha Whip is the real thing. You might think it’s wacky.

Wacky Cake

You may have grown up eating wacky cake. It seems to be a potluck staple in the Midwest brought by maternal grandmas, great-aunts, and that family friend who shows up at weddings and funerals. Chocolate is the go-to flavor.

This cake is unique in that it does not contain dairy or a typically important cake ingredient, eggs. Some say that it was a cake born out of necessity during the food rationing of World War II. No butter, eggs, or milk of any kind is used yet the cake manages to be moist.

The cake gets lift and structure from ingredients like baking soda and baking powder. Butter is replaced by oil or mayo, and hot coffee adds depth of flavor. These genius grandmas knew what was up because wacky cakes are also damn delicious.

We don’t need no eggs!

And the frosting? Bring on the marshmallow creme.

Marshmallow Creme

I was on a normal grocery shopping trip a few weeks ago and did a double take. Jars of marshmallow creme were on sale for 28 cents. Yes, really.

They were not expired or even near expiration, so I considered it a sign that I must buy some. You never know when you will need a jar of marshmallow fluff.

When I posted a photo of these treasures in jars of plastic, the comment section kind of blew up. The blue-lidded tub seemed to unlock some core childhood memories for people. Who knew that we all secretly love marshmallow creme?

And the suggestions for its use were plentiful. Fluffernutter sandwiches! Fruit dip! Fudge!

I chose to use the marshmallow creme for yet another option. It also happens to start with an F.

This frosting is light and airy, with just a whiff of coffee. It is particularly delicious with egg-free chocolate cake, but I could see it on a vanilla sponge or pavlova, too.

Lessons Learned

• To make the cake vegan, sub in vegan mayo for the regular mayo. You can also sub in CocoWhip for the frozen whipped topping as I did for my dairy-free family members.
• If you don’t need or want a 9x13 cake hanging around your kitchen, it is easy enough to halve all the ingredients and bake it in an 8x8 pan (not 9x9, or it will be too thin).
• I know someone is going to wonder if they can make this gluten-free. That is asking a lot of an eggless cake, don’t you think? But if you must, try it with one-to-one GF flour and hope for the best.

Hat Tips

Many thanks to Anna Ginsberg of Cookie Madness for her one-bowl chocolate mocha cake recipe.