You know what I like about Thomas Keller’s recipes (aside from everything)? His simplicity. Yeah, he’s got intricate recipes with ingredients not readily available to many home cooks, but when he gets the chance to be simple, he’s good at it. Especially when we’re talking about recipe titles.

For the most part, Keller takes a no-frills approach when naming his recipes. His brownie recipe from ad hoc at home is simply titled “brownies” — minus any capitalization and all the other things you can add to a title (i.e., “double chocolate brownies” or “best brownies in the whole freaking world”). Things many of us do to try and make our recipes stand out from the rest of the pack. He doesn’t need all that.

ad hoc at home, Keller’s latest installment, is by far my favorite.  It’s also the first Keller book that I’ve seriously cooked from, unless you count the time I made Bouchon’s onion soup. Though fantastic, it came at a steep price: Cooking the required 8 pounds of onions for 4 hours made my tiny apartment smell like I had a Funyun party the night before. With each passing day the intensity of the onion scent diminished, but the actual scent got worse. It went from smelling like sweet caramelized onions to the inside the mouth of a halitosis sufferer. But I’d spend another 4 hours of my life stirring a stock pot full of onions for that rich, buttery onion soup.

The wafting aroma of baking brownies is much easier to stomach than that of 8 pounds of slow-cooked onions. And in winter, a house smelling of chocolate and warmed by an oven is one of life’s pleasures. A simple pleasure, just like Keller’s brownies. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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(Note: Giveaway rules appear right under the recipe.)

Friends, the gods are totally smiling upon me today, for today is a double holiday. Not only is it Thanksgiving, but it’s also (Drumroll! Fanfare!) Furey & the Feast’s first birthday. Which means there’s turkey, pie AND birthday cake. I might add that it’s not just any birthday cake, but it’s a chocolate cake.

A microwave chocolate cake. (Are those crickets I hear?)

Normally I’m not too keen on using the nukebox as a cooking method, but this is a special case.

I was 9 or 10 years old when I bought my first cookbook, which I ordered from the pages of that Scholastic book club newsletter you get every month when you’re in elementary school. “Hershey’s Fabulous Desserts” had this beautiful chocolate cake on the cover, all done-up with chocolate curls and strawberry garnishes. What a cookbook was doing in an Scholastic newsletter I have no idea, but I remember thinking something along the lines of holy crap, I can make that?

Among the 140 recipes in this cookbook, there were only a handful of them that a child could make without parental know-how and knowledge. One of them was this cake. My mom had banned sweets from the house long ago, so this cake was, in my eyes, the greatest of mankind’s achievements. I could have cake every single weekday of  summer while my mom was at work, thanks to the ease of the microwave. She’d never know.

So in honor of these childhood and blog firsts, I wanted to “bake” this cake again. Back then, each forkful of cake laced with deviousness was especially delightful. Without that element, would it taste the same after all this time?

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe and giveaway)

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Once upon a time, there was a young(ish) food writer who wanted nothing more than to go to a cooking club potluck. Sadly, each month on the day of the meetup, there was always something that got in the way. Usually, it was the same thing.

“I have to work.”

While she tackled her workload, visions of au gratin pans and Corningware platters danced through her mind, always in theme with the cooking club’s genre of the month. Once, it was Chinese food. Then Italian. As she wrote (and wrote and wrote), she thought wistfully of what she was missing out on.

“How I wish I could go,” she would say.

Then one day, she got her wish. Her absentminded fairy godmother had come back from a long vacation, tanned and ready to jump back in the game. It was time to go to the potluck.

This time, the theme was 1950s food.

“So, what are you going to make, muffin?” her Valiant Boyfriend asked.
“Hmm,” she pondered for a few moments. “Baked Alaska!” she declared, disregarding that the party location was a 45-minute drive on the freeway, and that the local news had declared it the Hottest Weekend of the Summer.

No, in this fairy-tale world, transporting a Baked Alaska in a steaming-hot car down the 405 on The Hottest Weekend of the Summer wouldn’t be a problem at all. So it began.

First, a batch of brownies came out of the oven and cooled on a rack. Then, chocolate mint, chocolate and vanilla ice cream was smooshed into a plastic wrap-lined bowl, layer upon layer until the bowl was full. Then, the platter of brownies was placed on a plate, the bowl inverted and the excess brownies trimmed. A cloud of egg whites and sugar haloed the ice cream, and a mini-torch containing the fires of hell singed the meringue with a brown crust.

The baked Alaska was finally ready for its entrance at the party. All three piled into the car to begin the trek, with Valiant Boyfriend at the wheel.

But oh, what a perilous journey it was! The Baked Alaska, tried as it might, seemed as if it was no match for the harsh, stagnant heat. It melted. A lot.

Knowing that the poor dessert was on its last leg, Valiant Boyfriend weaved in and out of lanes, dodging slow cars and crammed interchanges, while food writer scanned the horizon for signs of lurking police cars. It seemed as though the journey would never end, but at last, all three made it to the party. As for the Baked Alaska, its health was grave: A gaping hole and melting ice cream pooled at the bottom of its plate. Into the freezer it went for a recharge, and (much) later, it was as good as new. It was a showpiece dessert, and everyone lived happily ever after. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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Once, I made a chocolate mint cake for someone’s birthday. We’re talking a big-deal kinda birthday cake, tall and proud, with Valrhona, fresh mint leaves steeped in cream, chocolate curls and piped borders. When I was finished, it looked like every Baking 101 technique out there had assaulted the defenseless, 10×6 confection. It took days to complete. And it only took a split second to devastate.

The cake was transported from my kitchen to the birthday site, a mere 10-minute drive down a residential surface street. I sat in the passenger seat with the plated cake in my lap. Sometime during the drive, I remember blinking, and the next thing I knew my seatbelt had tightened forcefully, and the heavy weight on my lap was suddenly absent. While my friend cursed the car that had caused the sudden stop, I sat stunned, staring at an almond-crusted pile of shit at my feet. It may as well have been steaming.

Cakes don’t travel in my lap anymore. At the very least, they travel in wide boxes with slip-proof rubber mats underneath. Since then, I’ve had a few more rounds of travel mishaps — like a car floor covered in cream of mushroom soup and butterscotch pudding after yet another sudden stop — but for the most part, things have remained unscathed. A homemade three-tiered wedding cake survived a three-hour trip from Orange County, Calif., to Santa Barbara, and this strawberry cream cheese cake recently arrived at a San Diego housewarming party in near-perfect condition. Thank goodness for that. 

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe.)

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Being in a sour mood doesn’t always have to mean that you want to plant crossed arms in front of your chest or scrunch up your face and hold it there for as long as you can. Being in a sour mood can be a good thing.

Like when you’re in the mood for something sour, for example.

I for one am a big advocate for putting sour cream in quick breads like muffins, pancakes and coffee cake. Sour cream adds a moistness (fat! Yes!) and tang without even a mutter of its presence. If it’s added in the right quantity, you won’t even know it’s there. It’s ummph, and just because it’s pucker-worthy doesn’t mean it’s having a bad day.

(Click “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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In my early years of college, I was editor-in-chief of our campus newspaper. The first decision I made under that title had nothing to do with breaking news or investigative stories, however. Instead of getting down to business, I planned a party.

It was kind of business-related. I thought it would be cool to have a summer bonfire at one of the local beaches as kind of a get-to-know informal event, so editors could befriend some of the incoming writers and vice versa. We’d have a united staff, I thought, bonded equally by our love of sniffing out the news and the strong friendships that would stem out of this gathering. It was gonna rock.

And initially, at least 30 staff members also thought it was gonna rock, all agreeing to come after we settled on a date in August that worked with everyone’s schedule. As it drew nearer, I started stocking up on goodies like booze and s’more ingredients.

On the day of the bonfire, people slowly trickled in — until the attendee flow just stopped completely. In all, seven people, including myself, showed up. I’ll never forget the moment we gathered around the fire, outnumbered by the boxes and grocery bags that lay before us. I sat there lost in my thoughts of failure in bringing our staff together. But then I heard a laugh, breaking my concentration. “Well, we can have a bottle each,” he said, pointing to the cooler full of vodka, rum and juice. Hmm. There was a bright side after all.

So there we were, all seven of us, with a gazillion boxes of graham crackers, a boatload of family-size Hershey bars and an estimated 3 pounds of marshmallows. And at least 10 bottles of top-shelf rum and vodka.

We drank like kings that night.

(Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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My former ballet mistress once told me that the barre is a dancer’s home. No matter how much time was spent on a stage or center floor, rehearsals and classes began and often ended there, with dancers performing the steps and stretches that were learned from the very moment we stepped into the studio for the first time.

I loved that no matter how great or awful I had performed that day, the barre was always there for me, waiting in the wings whenever I wanted it, offering nothing but comfort and familiarity. On the floor, I’d frantically go over the new combinations – a flurry of microscopic steps, pirouettes and grand jetes – trying desperately to match mind and body to an accompanist, who played perfect, staccato notes with his piano.

Dancing at the barre was a different story. Muscle memory and music would take over, while my mind took a backseat. It was all like sliding into a buttery leather recliner that you’ve spent years coaxing to hug your body perfectly. The pianist played in tune with my every perfect tendu. One flick of his wrist for a high note matched my frappe. A bellowing series of notes, low and slow, matched my plie developpe. Nothing else existed. It really was home.

Over the years, the dance studio would be replaced by the kitchen, with the stove taking the place of the barre.

This is my home now.

This becomes especially true when the task at hand is baking, performed in the wee hours, when it seems you’re the only person in the world not tucked into a warm bed and dreaming of good things. Whatever tasks performed during the day become distant memories, whatever responsibilities lie ahead don’t exist. Muscle memory takes over, and with its help I execute the choreography that I’ve performed so many times before: A scoop of flour added to a sifter. Heavy cream poured with both hands into a measuring cup. My thumb and forefinger, poised to clap imaginary castanets, instead pinch salt into a mixing bowl full of dry ingredients.

The musical accompaniment is rhythmic. A scraping sound from the stainless steel spoon against the Nutella jar. The soft, crunch crunch, crunching as my chef’s knife rocks against a board littered with toasted hazelnuts. The muted pops and subtle hissing from the oven while baking the pan of Gianduia brownies. It all falls into place, like music notes sprinkled over a crisp, white page, with my immediate world as the orchestra. It’s a different dance, but it produces the same warm feeling I used to have while at the ballet barre. It feels like home. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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I’m one of those people who can spend whole days trying to finalize a dinner-party menu. The same rings true when I’m finalizing a dish for a potluck or party, especially when meeting strangers who know me only as “the food writer.” To me, it means that whatever dish I hold in my hands while standing on the doorstep of said potluck has to be flawless, or my reputation as a food writer is nil. There’s no room for error. (Cue anxiety.)

Luckily, I have a few back-pocket recipes I whip out in my moments of extreme social anxiety, like the below recipe for pumpkin cheesecake. Found it on Epicurious – along with a few other recipes to throw in the mix to make it sing: caramel sauce, candied pecans and a caramel whipped topping. Why is this two-day bake-monster one of my go-to staples? For one, it’s a showstopper. With toppings, it stands rather tall, and I’ve always felt that taller cakes and cheesecakes are more worthy of bakery-windows and food-porn admiration than shorter, wider cakes. The toppings also act as distractions layered on top, so you can mask virtually any imperfections (i.e., cracks, bubbles, etc.).

For the sake of this post, I’ve combined and reworded the Epicurious recipes to omit the things I didn’t do and include the things I did. (Click on “Read the rest of this entry” for recipe)

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