bookcooker: Desserts

Purity and Citrus Cheesecake

Sunday, January 31, 2016

It pains me to say it, but a big part of why I did not blog for so long is the result of my inability to get through Jonathan Franzen's purity. I am a big Franzen fan and was really excited when his new book came out this summer, since he takes his sweet ol time writing each masterpiece. But Purity, in my opinion, despite the great reviews, was just painful for me to get through. Usually, when I am having trouble getting through a book I just put it aside and give up. So many books in the world, why waste time on one that just isn't doing it for me? But with a Franzen book I felt like I had to stick it out, I had to see if it turned around. While it got a little better, enough that I could finish it, it took me several months to finish the book - this is NOT normal for me, I am through a book typically in a couple of weeks for a long one. This one drained the joy of reading out me, that sounds deciceddramatic, but it just honestly turned me off reading for a bit. That said, it did inspire this bright, pretty little cheesecake pictured above, so it wasn't all bad, right?

Sunday, June 28, 2015

I have obviously been away from bookcooker for a while. I was working, on vacation, distracted, uninspired, dieting, and more working. What brought me back is not the food, but the books. I had been off reading for a while and when I got my reading mojo back, I starting thinking about the blog again. So I am back, and hopefully I can keep this up at some regular pace, because I missed it! First up are these adorable strawberry rhubarb tarts, inspired by the Orphan Train, a great soap opera of a book that is perfect for summer reading.

Saturday, January 10, 2015

With January comes diets, cleanses, resolutions to be better to our bodies by eating less and working out more. The gyms are crazed, spin and yoga studies fully booked and sales of quinoa and Kale on the rise. I fall prey to the January resolution every year without fail. This year I have recommitted to my fitbit, on nights I have not hit my step goal you will find me feverishly dancing around the house to rack up the steps. I also bought a juicer, which now may crowd out my coffee pot on the counter, at least until the end of the month. And here are these eggplant "meatballs" and avocado chocolate "mousse" from Mark Bittman's VB^ ("Vegan Before Six") cookbook. Bittman, the long time NY Times food writer is an evangelist for healthy and environmentally responsible eating. He always makes me feel guilty about what I am doing to my body and the planet. I bought this book back in July, but these are the first two recipes I have made out of them. As with most Bittman recipes, they worked well - just as he described, and were easy. They did not wow me, but is it possible to be wowed by eggplant meatballs? The avocado mousse grew on me. At first bite I tasted too much avocado and not enough chocolate, but two bites in I liked that balance. A real treat, not that healthy since it does have sugar and fat, but something you can feel a good bit better about when you need your chocolate fix.

Sunday, January 4, 2015

Well hello there! Long time no see! Happy New Year! I am happy to be back with you and back to bookcooker. I apologize for my long absence - no good excuse really - lack of inspiration, lack of time, too much work, life etc...The important thing is I am back, ready to start 2015 with a bang and a blog post! I resolve to blog more this year, this will be helped by an awesome new camera I was lucky to get as an Xmas gift that has inspired me to get back at it! Starting the year with a visit with Ina Garten. Now as I posted previously, I clearly have a cookbook problem with 200+ cookbooks in my home. A good little chunk of this problem is with Ina Garten books. I have every single on her books, which I think is 9 now? There is just something about Ina - her personality, her style, her food and her adorable husband Jeffrey that I find irresistible. I have cooked out of all 9 of these cookbooks, and you know what? Not one recipe has failed. Not one recipe has been too complicated. And not one recipe has been "meh." I will admit her recipes, after 9 books, can seem a bit formulaic - but it clearly a formula that works, so who am I to question? For this post I am starting with Ina's newest book - Make it Ahead. One thing I have noticed in that some of Ina's later cookbooks there is a bit of repetition and some of the recipes seem a tad uninspired. But even in these books there is loads of great recipes to make, all a combination of accessible and special. The theme of this Make it Ahead book is obviously recipes you can make ahead of time. I am not sure how well this theme really drives the book - but like I said, there are loads of great recipes in there. I made all of them before I ate them ; ), but not anymore than 1 day before I ate them - so not that "make ahead." The three recipes I made are a good example of the end of December to beginning of January trajectory many of us are on: a festive mocha cake (end of December) to a quinoa tabbouleh (beginning of January) with a homemade ricotta somewhere in the middle of a celebration excess and cleanse diet mentality. All were easy, all were delicious, with perhaps the homemade ricotta as a standout - such minimal effort, such incredible reward!

Sunday, August 3, 2014

I am little bit late for the July Cover Recipe post, but better late then never! I clearly have a thing for berries an ice cream, because this month I again turned to these fabulous summer ingredients to make chocolate raspberry ice cream sandwiches from the July issue of Food Network Magazine. Not my favorite food magazine - I'll admit it, I am a snob about the Food Network. In spite of this, the ice cream sandwiches are perfect for July and I fancied them a little bit by making my own ganache. The magazine recipe doesn't specifiy ingredients for these and the only homemade piece is the cookies. But that is what is great about these - make these cookies and a million different variations are at your finger tips. Want to make your own ice cream, go for it! Want to make homemade toppings, go for it! Want to combine weird flavors like mint chocolate chip and strawberries - the world is your oyster, do what makes you happy! I went with the cover recipe of the chocolate cookie, fudge sauce, berry ice cream and fresh raspberries. An elegant seasonal choice for July. These cookies are really keepers - they came together easily, taste delicious and froze beautifully. Summer is still here, have fun!

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Kate Atkinson's Life After Life was made for this blog. Never before have I been so spoiled for choices for what to make for bookcooker. The novel is set in England, from about 1910 to after WWII and includes countless references to very British sounding dishes - roly poly, rose madder, windsor brown, lump cookies, milk fadge, cabinet pudding, picallili, bakewell tart, iced fancy. The list could go on. In addition, there is a brief detour in Germany - Pfannkuchen, Schokolade, Palatschniken, Schawrtzwalder kirschtorte. How could I possibly decide what to make? I landed on Egyptian pudding, which I think was the first reference in the book to a fabulous English dessert. It was Mrs. Glover, the housekeeper to the Todd family makes after the birth of the book's protagonist - Ursula Todd. The shear volume of interesting British dishes is a result of the novel's unique narrative device - throughout the book Ursula Todd is born, dies and then born again - each time making it a little farther into her life. Atkinson starts over and over again, starting the story from the same place - Ursula's birth, and each time some disaester befalls her. I thought this might bore me (the same stuff over and over again), but it really is a fascinating story every time - a little different every time. The effect of this unique narrative device was truly dazzling, and the Egyptian Pudding rocked too.

Sunday, May 18, 2014

Any book that gives you an excuse to make frozen custard, must be good, right? Laura Lamont's Life in Pictures is mostly set in glamorous (and not so glamorous) Hollywood, but at its heart and start it is a story about a girl from Door County, Wisconsin - where frozen custard is a summertime staple. The novel tells the story of the improbable rise to stardom of Elsa Emerson, a young girl from Wisconsin. Elsa has the theater in her blood - her parents run a summer theater in rural Wisconsin. But it is a family tragedy that propels her determination to escape Wisconsin and make it in Hollywood - her drive to succeed is not just for herself, but for her family. Elsa spends her first years in Hollywood as a young wife and mother, never really making it in the Hollywood studio system. She finally makes it when she meets a man who convinces her to shed "Elsa" and transform into Laura, the glamorous Hollywood starlet. The book spans 40+ years of Elsa/Laura's life and career, and the ups and down that come with it.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

For those of you unfamiliar with them, hamentashen are cookies that are made every year to celebrate the Jewish holiday Purim, which is next week. Purim is a holiday that usually falls in March and celebrates the Jews survival against a plot to destroy them in ancient Persia. What I have always loved about Purim is that the hero of the Purim story is Esther - a woman. The villain of the story is a man named Haman, who was an adviser to the king of Persia who planned to kill all the Jews is Persia (as described in the book of Esther in the Old Testament). As I remember the story, Haman wore a pointed hat and the triangle shaped cookie - hamentashen - was named after him. Purim is a fun holiday which is often celebrated by costume parties and pageants with the story of Esther. For many years now I have yearned for the hamentashen I ate as a kid - doughy with rich fillings of apricot, poppy seed and prune. I have not been able to find cookies like that anymore as the number of Jewish bakeries in Boston has dwindled to 1or 2. I never made them as a kid so the past few years I have been meaning to try, then March comes and goes and I don't get it. Finally this year I found the time. These are pretty easy cookies, and the ones I made were delicious, but did not quite replicate the ideal hamentashen of my youth (these are more shortbread consistency rather than doughy). Isn't that always the way, I will just have to try again next year!

Sunday, December 1, 2013

While frozen hot chocolate does not sound like the right kind of thing for December, it is a great nostalgic and refreshing treat even in winter. This version is inspired by that classic New York City institution Serendipity who is famous for one thing - its decadent frozen hot chocolate that little tourists and NY princesses have been enjoying for decades. The restaurant (and frozen hot chocolate) make a brief cameo in Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rivka Brunt which was a real sleeper hit for me. I had not heard anything about the book before I picked it up and about 10 pages in I was deeply in love with the book. It is an emotional coming of age story of an awkward girl - June Elbus - living in suburban New York in the eighties. I immediately connected with the character. June, at 14, is a little weird, a little overweight, she likes to wear lace up boots and medieval style dresses and hang out alone in the local woods and pretend she lives in medieval times. June is lonely and isolated and the only person in her life that gets her is her gay uncle Finn, who is a painter that lives in New York and is dying of AIDS. This is the eighties so the disease is new and something to be kept under wraps. In stark contrast with June's positive relationship with her uncle is the fractured relationship she has with her older sister Greta - the two of them used to be thick as thieves and then Greta became mean and is cruel and mocking to her younger sister. The book is about these two relationships and June's rough passage into young adulthood.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

The Language of Flowers is a book with a heroine that loves to eat, so there were many many options presented for bookcooker. Perhaps if it was another season I would have selected another type of food that Victoria voraciously ate (roast chicken, homemade ice cream, peanut butter muffin), but since I read the book as autumn sets in, I knew immediately as I read the words that I had to make maple doughnuts Who can resist maple donuts? While these donuts are fluffy and sweet, The Language of Flowers is a book about serious issues - foster care, homelessness, trust issues. While these serious issues are the focus of the book, I must admit, in some ways the book reads a bit fluffy - there is a lightness to it that makes it feel a bit like one of those 80's after school specials - tough stuff turned into soap opera. Despite that criticism, I really enjoyed the book but maybe felt a little guilty reading it. Just like how I felt after eating one of those doughnuts.

Sunday, September 29, 2013

Hello old friends! After a bit of a hiatus (a little bit of a writing rut, reading rut, cooking rut and enjoying life outside the blog) I am returning to bookcooker. I hope you will bear with me as slowly get back on the horse! I made these pretty little muffins a while ago, when the recipe appeared in the New York Times. It was perfect timing, because I had recently read two (very different) books that this recipe was perfect for - Where'd You Go Bernadette and Bringing Up the Bodies. Where'd You Go, by Maria Semple is a unique novel where much of the story is told through letters, emails and various other documents, like memos. It is the very funny story of a daughter's search for her brilliant but more than slightly off mother (Bernadette) set in the milieu of affluent and politically correct Seattle. A disastrous chain of events is set off when Bernadette gets into a dispute with her obnoxious neighbor concerning some unruly blackberry bushes on her property (inspiration for the blackberry part of the muffin.) Bringing Up the Bodies is Hilary Mantel's riveting second book in her series of books about Henry VIII's right hand man - Thomas Cromwell. This book follows the downfall of Anne Boleyn - and while this tale has been told many times before, unsurprisingly Mantel brings new wit and intelligence to the story. While Anne is certainly a compelling distraction, the story is really about Thomas Cromwell - his relationship to the mercurial king and how he manages to survive yet another upheaval in the house of Tudor. Those around Cromwell give him the nickname "Crumb", hence the crumb part of the muffin. A two for one recipe was the perfect impetus to get me off my bum and back to blogging. Here we go.

Saturday, April 13, 2013

I guess it does not make sense to make such a cute little dish for a book with Death in the title, but as spring tries to break through my New England April, I felt compelled to make something pretty and light. Luckily, a dainty little tart is exactly the kind of thing that would be enjoyed at the fictionally famous great house, Pemberley. P.D. James' Death Comes to Pemberley borrows the characters from Jane Austen's classic Pride and Prejudice and uses them in a murder mystery. The novel is set several years after Pride and Prejudice ends, with Elizabeth (formerly) Bennett and Fitzwilliam Darcy happily married, with children and living at Pemberley, the Darcy family seat. On the eve of the Lady Anne's ball, an annual grand ball that the Darcy family hosts, a man is found dead in the woods on the Pemberley estate. Of course, if there is trouble, Elizabeth's sister Lydia and her scoundrel husband Wickham are bound to be involved, and Wickham is charged with the murder of his friend Captain Denny. I have not read any of James' 20 or so previous books - she is a well known and lauded crime writer, who also happens to be in her 90's. Austen done by a mystery writer? You would expect the book to be clunky and a poor imitation of Austen's wit and style. The opposite is true, James falls effortlessly into Austen's world, and writes with her wit, but with a simpler more modern writing style. I found the book charming and engrossing, and I was so happy to have a chance to see what happened to these beloved characters after Austen's story came to a close. I was, however, a bit stumped as to my dish. Originally, I was going to make a regency "white soup" that is mentioned in many Austen novels and was mentioned in Death as well - it is a weird soup made with almonds, stale bread, beef stock and sometimes eggs. I bought white bread twice for this, and never got to the soup before it went moldy. So when I saw a picture of a cheerful lemon tart on Serious Eats, I decided that would be my dish for Death Comes to Pemberley, since it is the type of tart the Darcy's would have served at their ball or at tea. With this much sunshine on a plate, hopefully the Boston weather will turn towards spring soon too.

Sunday, April 7, 2013

I zoomed through Christina Alger's The Darlings. The book felt like the perfect combination of the New York Times coverage of the financial crisis and a "Gossip Girl" like CW drama. The book was inspired by the Madoff scandal and is an imagining of what goes on behind the scenes when a family is brought down by secrets and lies. The Darlings, the stars of the novel, are a long established New York family with a patriarch, Carter, who runs a successful hedge fund - Delphic Carter is married to a beautiful but difficult Brazilian, Ines, and they have two grown daughters. Much of the novel is told from the perspective of Paul, who is both an insider and outsider to the family - he is married to Carter's daughter Merrill - and also works for the family's hedge fund in the always dangerous role of general counsel. Alger creates both a real financial thriller (who did what, who knew what) and a classic melodrama (will Paul's marriage survive the crisis, what will happen to Carter's mistress, an SEC official charged with investigating him). I read this on a plane, it was absolutely perfect for that purpose. These little black and white cookies are a tribute to another main character in the book - New York, and are mentioned as a favorite of Merrill Darling, who is thrown hard by the scandal. These little cookies are different than the black and white cookies in my neck of the woods - the Boston area. Here they are called half moons and are bigger, more cakey and covered in a thick buttercream frosting rather than a thin glaze. I am most definitely partial to the New England version, but these have there charms too.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Daisy Goodwin's American Heiress is the perfect frothy little read to help you get over the end of the third season of Downton Abbey. Pick it up next Sunday when you feel an emptiness around 9PM without the Crawleys, manor houses, upstairs-downstairs dramas and dinners in tuxedos. The novel is about a beautiful rich American heiress - cheekily named Cora Cash - at the turn of the century, who finds herself marrying above her non-noble American routes and becoming a British Duchess. At first Cora naively falls in love with both her husband, the Duke and the glamorous world he comes from, but soon she realizes, as of course she must, that neither her husband nor the world he comes with are so shiny and wonderful. The novel is filled with delicious melodrama and is great escapist fiction for when you don't want to think too much, but want to be transported to a world seemingly more glamorous and interesting than your own.

Sunday, January 27, 2013

Eowyn Ivey's wintery The Snow Child is a perfect book for the middle of January. Set in the Alaskan wilderness in the 1920's, the book tells the story of a late middle aged couple, Jack and Mabel, who are childless and have moved to Alaska late in life to try to build a farm and a life away from everything and everyone they know. What drives Jack and Mabel to Alaska is their grief over losing a child in infancy and never having a child after that. The couple is ill equipped for the Alaska wilderness - Jack is in his 50's and has only farmed on fertile, temperate land in Pennsylvania. Mabel is a tightly wound upper middle class woman who knows a lot about books, but not much about how work outside or how to make a home far away from civilization. When we meet Jack and Mabel they distant from each other, just doing what they can to get by, and they are about to head into their first Alaskan winter without enough food or money to get them through. At the first snow, Jack and Mabel make a child out of the snow and shortly thereafter they spot a little blond girl running around the forest outside their home. It is this that changes everything, and sets the story in motion. As with the book, this Maple Walnut Pie is also perfect for the middle of January. It is the type of humble pie that you make when you don't have fancy or freshly picked ingredients around. It was inspired by the walnut pies that Mabel would make to sell in town, in an effort to make some money until the farm was up and running. I added the maple to make it a little more interesting.

Saturday, December 15, 2012

I have not read a Stephen King book since Stand by Me in middle school. I have never read many of the scary books he is most famous for like Salem's Lot, Pet Cemetery, Cujo. Part of the reason for this is that I had nightmares for years as a kid based on the one or two scenes of the movie Salem's Lot I must have caught while my older siblings were watching it - I was convinced there was a kid vampire hanging outside my bedroom window for years... Anyway, as readers of my blog know, I tend to read contemporary literary fiction, and candidly, while I respected his success, I did not consider Stephen King a writer of literary fiction. That perception changed with 11/22/63, a monster of a novel about history and time travel. The book imagines what would happen if someone was able to go back in time and prevent the assassination of JFK. There is no gory horror in this book, but there is a subtle spookiness that is always there, giving the entire novel a sense of uneasiness - this endeavor could all go wrong at any moment, with ramification that we cannot foresee. The novel starts off in Maine, a familiar King stomping ground, with Jake Epping, a middle aged, divorced teacher who seems to be going through his life aimlessly. That all changes when Al, the owner of the diner that Jake frequents shares with him a portal to the past - 1958 to be precise. By simply walking down a set of stairs in the back room of Al's diner, Jake is transported to a sunny afternoon in 1958 and soon is swept up into Al's mission to try to use the time travel portal to change the course of history. All of this seems rather fantastic, but King writes the story in a very matter of fact and detailed way, that to me it all seemed perfectly possible. 11/22/63 is a book you can really sink your teeth into (it weights in at over 800 pages), just like this pound cake, which in the novel served as a romantic euphemism for hanky panky for two of the main characters, which I will explain after the jump.

Thursday, December 6, 2012

The bark at the center of Ann Patchett's State of Wonder is a lot more mysterious and powerful than my simple chocolate, fruit and nut bark above. The book is sort of a female version of the classic Joseph Conrad Heart of Darkness story. A single, childless forty year old woman who works for a pharmaceutical company, Dr. Marina Singh, is asked to travel deep into the Amazon to try to track down her old professor, Annick Swenson, who has shut herself off from the rest of the world doing research concerning the powerful effects of an Amazonian tree bark. This book was immediately compelling to me, after all, I also am a single, childless, though not yet! forty year old woman who works for a pharmaceutical company. But here's the kicker - what is so amazing about this tree bark Dr. Swenson is studying ? The village women who munch on it every day in the Amazon - they are able to have babies into their seventies. Yeah, that grabbed my attention pretty quick, and I was drawn into the story just as Dr. Singh was irresistibly drawn into the jungle to find Dr. Swenson and see if this bark really had such miraculous effects. I read the book a couple of months ago, and had some trouble with my first version of this bark. It is OK that it took so long for me to try it out again, since this chocolate bark is a great holiday hostess gift or solution to an addition to a cookie swap when you don't have the time or inclination to turn on the oven. More about the fascinating story and simple bark after the jump.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

I was so excited to, simultaneous with the unveiling of my new blog design, give you all a complete solution to the problem of what to make for Thanksgiving dessert that will please everyone but not take days to make. As you can see from the photo above, I had a major fail in unmolding Dorie Greenspan's "all in one" cake, and could not throw another one together because of cross country travel for a friend's wedding. While the cake, above, did not come out looking like a pretty bundt cake, it was delicious even in its uneven cake chunks form. My conclusion from this particular cake baking disaster is that for me, silicone bundt cake pans just don't work that well. The cake is great idea - a pumpkin cake filled with apples, cranberries and pecans. If it had come out nicely, I would have drizzled with a maple glaze, and voila, all your Thanksgiving baking headaches are gone. As for the blog design, I hope you guys like it! I worked with Julie at Blogger Boutique and highly recommend her for you bloggers out there! Happy Thanksgiving to all!

Friday, October 19, 2012

With this maple apple upside down cake, the time has come to say goodbye to apple fest. Never fear, up next is a pumpkin party, which will hopefully provide inspiration for all of your pumpkin cravings! Although this is the last post in apple fest, I cannot guarantee that apples will not continue to pop up here throughout the rest of the fall, as they are most certainly one of my favorite ingredients, and something I eat every day (though usually not gussied up in recipes). I found this ~~case~~ recipe (a sign from my brain that I should be working rather than blogging right now) on Food and Wine's website and it is by Joanne Chang, the owner of one of my favorite bakeries here in Boston - Flour. While I love, love, love Flour's baked goods in store, I have found that recipes from the Flour cookbook don't always work that well. I am sad to say that there was a pretty big error in the Food and Wine recipe for this cake too (a 1 and half hour baking time) which I luckily discovered by reading the comments (unluckily I didn't read the comments until I had already baked the cake 1 hour!). I have adjusted the baking time in the recipe below, and the only other change was the addition of some cinnamon. I have a hard time staying away from the cinnamon when apples are around. This is a dessert that is is really beautiful, so can be special occasion, but it also feels just right with a cup of coffee in the afternoon. Now we are ready move on to some pumpkin.

Friday, October 12, 2012

We're almost at the end of apple fest and soon will be moving on to pumpkin fest (oh yeah, and this is still a book review blog too, right? The Marriage Plot and Game of Thrones coming soon). This Apple Ricotta toast is something for the easy but indulgent breakfast/brunch hopper. I saw it on Food and Wine's website, and the recipe is from April Bloomfield, whose Spotted Pig restaurant I love in NY and whose cookbook, a Girl and Her Pig, I am also a big fan of, for the pictures at least, I have not made anything from it yet. This toast attracted be because it was different than the usual apple breakfast concoctions - muffins, breads, pancakes and because it had fresh ricotta, which is one of my favorite things to eat. The recipe calls for thickly sliced pan de mie or other fancy bakery white bread. I went with Trader Joe's Texas Toast and I must say it was a revelation. I generally don't eat white bread, so have never had this before, though I have seen it often on my sister's kitchen counter. The bread was perfect for this dish - it is a thickly sliced enriched white bread - kinda like challah but not quite as rich, making it a good base for the buttery apples and cheese. Since the bread is so thick, one piece of toast is the perfect portion per person. This is something you could whip up as a treat for yourself or as a dish for guests. And while the bread and cheese are great, in truth this is all about the sweet buttery pile of apples. Enjoy.

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