Sweets

Maple vanilla Greek yogurt

2 April 2013 Breakfast
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Winter’s apples and oranges are languishing in my fruit bowl now that strawberries are back. We’ve been celebrating early-season berries with strawberry oatmeal shortcakes with maple vanilla sour cream. But lately I’m using Greek yogurt instead of sour cream, which has broadened the concept from a dessert topping to an anytime indulgence. Even when the [...]

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Chinese steamed sponge cake (ji dan gao)

8 February 2013 Asian
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Nobody goes to a Chinese restaurant for dessert. Dairy products such as cream and butter, so essential to pastry, were uncommon in China until recent years. Even today, ovens are not typically found in Chinese kitchens. Traditional Chinese treats are made on the stovetop – fried goodies such as sweet, chewy sesame seed balls made [...]

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Buttermilk scones with chocolate chips and citrus zest

20 December 2012 Breakfast
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I’m a cream scone evangelist (I’ve written about them twice!), but whenever I have extra buttermilk on hand I like to make these classic buttermilk scones. I love buttermilk for baking – it brings great moistness without the heaviness of butter or cream. The original scones from Scotland were made of unleavened oats and cooked [...]

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Pecan pie, no corn syrup

19 November 2012 Food
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I love pies and pecans, but I was always wary of pecan pies. Why the gelatinous goo? Why the impenetrable layer of nuts that squishes the goo when you try to break through? Why pile such deliciously buttery nuts atop corn syrup jelly? But then I tasted my friend Jenny’s pecan pie. Jenny’s pie – [...]

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Marian Burros’s fruit torte

5 November 2012 Food
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First published in 1981, Marian Burros’s plum torte reigned for years as the most requested recipe ever from the New York Times archive. Silly that I’m only discovering it now. Have you guys been making this for years? If not, jump on my late-to-the-party bandwagon. This is one of those timeless recipes: easy, gorgeous, versatile [...]

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Butter cake

11 October 2012 Food
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It’s no wonder that my friend Lisa and I were fast friends from the very start of first grade. While other kids wolfed down lunches in their haste to claim a foursquare court, Lisa and I spent the entire lunch recess contentedly working our way through our tin lunch boxes. When we got together on [...]

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Peach crisp

15 August 2012 Food
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The way I see it, crisps (or crumbles for Brits) provide 80% of the joy of pie for 20% of the work. Crisps take the essential elements of a good fruit pie – great fruit, sugar, butter, flour – and provide a buttery crumble topping without the hassle of finicky pie dough. By doing away [...]

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Flourless oatmeal lace cookies

11 April 2012 Food
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Karma brought a surprise plate of crispy, buttery, brown-sugary oatmeal lace cookies to my door this weekend, in a cycle that began with my father-in-law Dave, a great doctor and much-loved local personality, who decades ago aided his neighbor Libbie and earned a lifetime of derby pie deliveries at Christmas. When my husband and I [...]

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Chocolate caramel matzoh

29 March 2012 Chocolate
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My windows are open today in central Ohio, and I’m breathing in spring. My crew at home has weathered pneumonia, a sinus infection, two eye infections, laryngitis and a molar extraction since my last post. Spring break in California was mostly rainy, but one sunny afternoon the six of us made up half the crowd [...]

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Creamier scones

22 December 2011 Breakfast
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It shouldn’t come as a surprise, but after making 400 scones for teachers and neighbors in the last two days, I’ve realized something important: more cream is better. Turns out it’s much safer to start with a moister dough and add flour as needed than risk a dry scone. The magic of these cream scones [...]

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