This is a beautiful summer dessert when fresh citrus and berries are in season. For some reason I wanted it to be greener (it turned out yellow-green, which i suppose is because of the eggs), but the taste made up for the color. I think the zest was supposed to be minced finer, but even though I could see strips of zest, it still tasted just fine. In fact, I think i like being able to see that there was zest in it. It is quite tart, so serve each slice with big dollops of whipped cream and sliced strawberries.

This curd recipe was really easy, as it did not require a double boiler. I was apprehensive about pouring the curd mixture directly into a pan, but it turned out just fine!

Recipe here: (more…)

From my old, brown-paged, batter-stained Joy of Cooking, vol. 2: Appetizers, Desserts, and Baked Goods. It needed a little adjustment, but it was quite good - even though I don’t usually like orange flavors in desserts. I’m sure you can make it with lemon zest instead. It’s very good spread with ricotta cheese and drizzled with honey.

By the way, zest can be frozen. If you’ve got a bag of lemons to make lemonade, or if you’re peeling an orange to eat - zest it, then freeze it in a little ziploc bag, and juice a little bit of the fruit into the bag. You can keep it on hand and be ready to bake or make curd or add it to seafood.

Recipe here (more…)

After making dulce de leche for the first time, I was entranced by its gooey caramel goodness. I needed to find something else to do with it. Behold. Beautiful deliciousness.

Click for recipe (more…)

Ameir asked for the Buttermilk Alfredo Pasta again, so I was looking for something to do with the rest of the buttermilk. I had seen this on various blogs and decided to look for it in my Joy of Baking cookbook and….there it was! This is a “Quick Bread,” according to Joy. It’s easy if you’ve never made bread before (like me), but you’d like to start experimenting. This bread doesn’t need yeast, because the baking soda (hence the name) and acid in the buttermilk react together to act as a leavening agent. It doesn’t get too puffy, but it sure is crusty-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside delicious. It would go well paired with a stew, but it’s also very nice on a Saturday morning, hot from the oven and slathered with butter with a cup of tea alongside. Simply Recipes says that this bread dries quickly, so you should eat it in a day or two (ours was gone very quickly, but if you do get to this point, make bread pudding!) Ameir’s mom is part Irish, so I felt like I was doing some credit to his heritage by making this!

Note on flavoring: I made this with raisins, but without caraway seeds as the recipe recommends. If you’re going to make it sweet like this, add more sugar and some other flavoring to the dough (I added cinnamon inside and also sprinkled the top with cinnamon sugar.) If you’re going to make it savory, skip the raisins and add herbs (next time, I’m going to try it with rosemary in the batter and maybe cracked black pepper on top).

Click below for recipe
(more…)

Recipe taken from Smitten Kitchen, who got it from the New York Times. It was originally for a Clementine Clafoutis but she said that turned out horribly and suggested using cherries. I made two little ones instead of one big one. Clafoutis is a custardy-soft cake type dessert and the cherries work well with the custard. It was a little bit too “eggy” for me, so I might add more sugar and vanilla next time.

Click for the recipe (more…)