Quite Possibly The Best Christmas Cookies. Ever.

I rarely claim to offer the "best" recipe for anything, but there are two items that I'm pretty confident about: apple pie and Christmas cookies.

I can't take credit for these marvelous cookies. They came to me by way of my mother, from her friend Susan Christensen, as part of a cache of recipes printed in Courier New font onto white paper and stapled into a packet. I don't know where Susan got them, but I assume that they were handed down over the years through her family. Our packet is now covered in egg white and slicks of chocolate and other varied kitchen detritus, as any well-loved recipe should be after many years of service.

The Christensen Classic Cookie Collection, as it is so called, includes eight or nine recipes, including Tea Time Tassies, Icebox Cookies, Almond Crescents, and Miniature Pecan Pies. My favorite has always been the English Toffee Squares. They are simple, unfussy, utterly indulgent, and they freeze and ship well. They are divine with a cup of tea. They are nearly impossible to flub.

Over the years I've adapted the Christensen recipe slightly. I've switched from light brown sugar to dark and from Hershey's bars to fancier chocolate, as well as adding fleur de sel, which provides a nice counterpoint to the cookies' sweetness.

I make several batches of English Toffee Squares every year, serving them at my Christmas party and packing them off to my father, grandfather, godfather, and this year at least, to my boss. I really believe that in each of these cases, handmade sweets are just about the best present I can give.


So, for all of you sitting at home or at work wringing your hands about yet unpurchased Christmas prezzies, my advice is to buy a a few pretty cookie tins and some ribbon and make these cookies (one batch will fill 2-3 tins). You will probably be done baking before you would get through the checkout line at Best Buy. Plus, Best Buy doesn't let you lick the bowl.


English Toffee Squares
Adapted from The Christensen Classic Cookie Collection

Makes 30 large cookies

1 cup unsalted butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
2 cups flour
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
12 ounces good milk or dark chocolate (Scharffen Berger, Valrhona)
1 cup chopped pecans
Fleur de sel or Maldon's Sea Salt for sprinkling

1. Cream well together butter and brown sugar, then add flour, egg yolk, and vanilla.

2. Spread evenly on an 11x17 baking sheet and bake for 15-20 minutes in a 350 degree oven (until lightly brown).

3. Scatter chocolate on top and return to oven for 1 minute to melt. Remove from oven, spread chocolate evenly, and sprinkle with chopped nuts.

4. Let cool slightly then sprinkle with fleur de sel. Cut into squares while still warm.

Yep, That Just About Sums It Up

Christmas Party As Viewed By Hostess, December 10, 2010

Well, the annual Christmas party is now over. It came and went in a blur, partially due to the freely flowing Gruet and mulled cider (spiked with Brandy to toxic levels by my own hand), but mostly as a side-effect of playing hostess. I should just admit it up front: I'm never going to have meaningful conversations when I'm putting on a cocktail party for sixty. It might as well be a law of physics. There are always fires to put out -- hopefully not literal ones -- but empty glasses, that inevitable guest foundering alone in a corner, gougeres on the verge of burning. One day maybe I'll have people to refill the empty dip bowl and replace the toilet paper...but, as The Viking never ceases to remind me, that won't be anytime soon.

Last week I gave you a preview of some of the party treats that had already been baked. Below is a continuation of the series.

This year, for the first time, I made masala-spiced popcorn. It wasn't exactly a blockbuster, but I think it could have been if I was a little more liberal with the butter. Since it was very, very cheap (less than $10 yields gallons of it) and beyond easy to make (pop corn; add butter, spices, salt), I think it's a recipe worth perfecting.

The above represents my first foray into paté, and I'm quite proud of my maiden effort. The number one thing that I learned about making paté is that you probably shouldn't, if you'd like to continue enjoying eating it with the same abandon. This one is made from chicken liver, and the secret ingredient that lends it sweetness and depth of flavor is caramelized onion. The not-remotely-secret ingredient that makes it taste so rich: butter.

These raspberry macaroons look far better than they tasted. I love a good macaron, and this is not one of them. The recipe called for the delicate little cookies to be filled with store bought raspberry jam. I knew up front that that couldn't be a formula for success, and I had the best intentions of making my own raspberry filling. I had the ingredients in hand but at the critical moment -- which had to have been about 11 PM on Wednesday night -- I wimped out. All the talk of food mills and pectin and candy thermometers was too much for me. I used store bought jam instead, and the final product turned out sickly-sweet and only weakly reminiscent of raspberries.

Not pictured here are two lovely dips: an avocado green goddess dip with crudites, and a roasted red pepper and feta dip with toasted flatbreads. Oh, and a cheese plate. I never did take pictures of any of them.

This Danish almond cake was only modestly popular with party guests, but I think that it suffered unfairly in comparison to its richer, showier fellow hors d'oeuvres (those English Toffee Squares are such sluts). I can report that it is absolutely unbeatable with your morning coffee or afternoon tea.

Danish almond cake is something that my mother used to make at her Christmas parties when I was a toddler, back in the [decade redacted to protect the innocent]. Luckily for me, she has always kept a notebook in which she records each party that she hosts, what was served, who attended, and how the various dishes were received. Thumbing through the notebook over Thanksgiving I saw the Danish almond cake with a note reading "A big hit!" and I decided to take it for a spin. The recipe comes from a little book who's name escapes me, but that I remember as old, non-commercial, and flimsy enough looking to make me feel like the recipe was a real find.

Danish Almond Cake

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups flour
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
3 teaspoons almond extract
1/3 cup boiling water

For glaze:
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 Tablespoon cocoa
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 drops almond extract
3 teaspoons warm water

Cream butter and sugar until fully combined. Add eggs and mix well. Gradually add flour sifted with baking powder and salt. Beat thoroughly. Add almond extract and boiling water. Mix well. Pour into greased 9 or 10 inch spring-form or tube pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes, reduce to 325 for last 30 minutes. Cool 10 minutes and remove from pan. Pour glaze over the cake, spreading it over the surface of the cake and letting it sink into the crumb. Decorate with whole blanched almonds.

Christmas Entertaining, The Prequel

Welcome to my first, and oh so belated, Christmas post. I hope that it is the first of several to be crammed into the next two weeks.

Yes, I am a nut for the holidays. The infectious songs, shiny ornaments, the old movies, claymation TV specials, the smell of pine, the cooking, entertaining, merry-making, carol-singing, present-wrapping, and even better, present-unwrapping. At what other time of year do people actually trample each other outside malls in a quest to buy toys? It's magical. I even love, in a certain way, the frenetic pace of things as our social lives go on steroids at the same time as we're scrambling to make year-end professional deadlines. In December, I am virtually always working, drunk, hungover, or some combination of the three. Glorious.

One of the tent poles of my holiday season for six years running has been a Christmas cocktail party. I tend to go a little bit overboard. I know this. Last year there was a Croquembouche involved, and meringue mushrooms. Before our 2008 party I asked The Scribe, my then roommate, if he was looking forward to co-hosting the event. He nodded unconvincingly, so I pressed him. "I'm scared," he said in a small voice. "I'm scared that I'm going to mess something up."

I believe that when you've realized that you posses some undesirable character trait, you have two options: you can apologize for yourself and try to reform, or embrace it as one of your defining quirks. I chose the latter. I told him that fear was a powerful motivator and suggested that he not touch the jar of creme fraiche ripening on the counter.

Now I live with The Viking, and he has taken over the role of 'supporting male roommate' with true aplomb. He refers to me as 'her majesty' and mostly stays out of my way, swooping in at key moments to take out the trash, say, or taste-test the pate in my moments of personal doubt ("Yummy! You're so clever. Who knew livers could taste this good.").

This year's Christmas party is happening tomorrow night. There will be a full report after the fact (including food shots and casualty figures for wine, beer, and liquor consumed) but for now, some previews of what I've baked so far. Isn't it amazing what can happen when you take photos in natural light?

Gougeres (aka french cheese puff thingies), from Alain Ducasse's recipe, are an annual Christmas party fixture.

Kourabiedes, a Greek cookie flavored with clove, from my mother's recipe.

My go-to Christmas cookies: English Toffee Squares.

As soon as I discovered that a Sugar Plum was a real thing (containing no real plum, but lots of dried fruit, ground nuts, and spices), I had to make them. They might be the most underrated Christmas treat out there.

The Banana Bread That Almost Was

In many places around the world, it's customary after a birth for friends to bring along gifts of food. It's something nice that people do for each other not only to relieve some of the burden from discombobulated new parents, but as an expression of love and a pleasant reminder that "Hey, we're all in this together."

Of course, not in New York City. Now maybe that's because good delivery food is so easy to come by, or maybe it's because no one knows how to cook here, but I think it's largely because in NYC we're not all in this for each other, we're all in it for ourselves, or else we would live somewhere different and less anonymous, rude, and frenetic.

Our friends The Bomber and The Bomber's Husband just had their first baby, Maxwell, and I am going to meet him today. I intended to bake banana bread to bring to them -- really, I did -- but instead I stayed too late at work last night and then made the last-minute decision to attend a drinks reception for The Viking's prep school. If this sounds tedious, then you do not know The Viking's prep school. Going to a drinks reception adds up to mingling with people with names like Hugo Cadogan Finchley-Armitage and Richard Frederick von Wriothesley (pronounced: Risley) , all of whom are wearing ties and socks that mean something and are several measures wittier than the wittiest Americans I know. It's like walking into a staged production of Right Ho, Jeeves!, and opportunities like this one are not to be missed. But, as a result, now I'm just another one of those selfish New York people who doesn't bring anything homemade to new parents.

I've already seen pictures of baby Max, and he's a real dreamboat. I'm not just saying that. The truth is, some babies are ugly -- of course not your baby, reader, but some babies. I've seen babies who look like Vladmir Putin, Luciano Pavarotti, and Yoda. I know that it would be social suicide to indicate this to new parents but I do I feel that saying every baby is cute really takes something away from the babies who actually are cute, in the same way that "participation trophies" take something away from the person who really did win the 100 meter dash or had, without a doubt, the best original limerick of anyone in her fourth grade class. I'm just saying.

Back to the banana bread. I know it's not as fun to talk about a hypothetical banana bread as an actual one (and even less fun if you're The Viking, because hypothetical banana breads do not taste great with a cup of tea), but the recipe I had in mind last night was a really, really good one from Cook's Illustrated. I first made it in August, which is when the above picture was taken.

I love Cook's Illustrated. While the rest of us are groping around in the dark trying to get it right, Cooks applies not only the scientific method to cooking but also actual science, referencing things like sodium receptors and osmosis and fermentation and other terms that you have not thought about since a final exam when you were 14. Cooks Illustrated is the unfashionable yet clever lab partner who methodically completed the experiment while you spend all period "borrowing more sodium carbonate" from the cute soccer players one bench over. The main innovation in their banana bread is that they evaporate off some of the water from the bananas to pack flavor into the bread without making it soggy and dense. I can't vouch for it being the best banana bread in the whole wide world, but it's incredibly moist, crumbly, and addictive, and I for one will look no further for my banana bread needs.

You can get the recipe for the "Ultimate Banana Bread" here. Unless you're The Bomber, her husband, and Max, in which case you'll probably get the Ultimate Banana Bread sometime next week.

I'm Stearing Clear Of Heavy Machinery

Hello from soggy England! I'm in no condition to be writing right now, having spent the past 13 hours in transit, having slept for only 2 or 3 of those hours, and having taken a dose of over-the-counter sleeping medication too small to put me to sleep but just large enough to partially incapacitate me. Nonetheless, I'll try my best to string a few sentences together, because I really am so behind in telling you about last weekend's kitchen antics.

Last Saturday night we had The Viking's cycling team over for cocktails on the terrace. For them, it was a rare opportunity to socialize in a spandex-free environment; for me, it was a chance to attach faces to names and to corroborate The Viking's dubious-sounding claim that when he leaves the house at 5:45 every morning, it really is to ride a bike in circles around the park and not to hold up convenience stores or do drug deals or similar.

A cycling team is the perfect audience for an eager cook, consisting of the sort of stringbeany, twitchy men that need to eat almost constantly just to keep up with their raging metabolisms. Aside from the typical spread of assorted party foods (chips, dips, cheese plate, whathaveyou) I had two homemade items: roasted tomato, mozzarella, basil and brioche 'sliders,' and peanut butter and Concord grape jam sandwich cookies.



I was really worried about the brioche (this might be an overstatement. I really worry about the fact that I don't contribute to a 401k; I was somewhat nervous about the brioche.). I've never made it before and, well, given my track record with breads, I think I had legitimate cause for concern. Luckily the rolls came out of the oven soft and fluffy, and if not tasting exactly like the brioche that I'm used to, they did at least taste good. The 'sliders' (for the record, I think the word 'sliders' sounds trendy and ridiculous but I don't know what else to call these. Sandwiches? Canapes? I don't know.) were summery and fresh, wholesome without being heavy, which is exactly what I was going for.

As for the cookies: I have nothing but good things to say about the jam-making experience. I've been told before that "there's nothing to it," but only by the same type of people who say that there's nothing to knitting and there's nothing to refinishing your own furniture, so people who apparently have a higher threshold for tedious projects than I do. But there really is nothing to making jam. You heat the fruit with some lemon juice and sugar, strain out the juices, and then simmer the fruit juice on its own for 10 minutes or so. Then you wait for it to cool. That's it! And you have jam that is so, so much better than the store bought stuff.



When I saw Concord grapes at the greenmarket last week my mind immediately landed on jelly, and from there it drifted to peanut butter. Ergo peanut butter and jelly sandwiches -- hold the bread. I thought that they would be perfect for the gaggle of small children in attendance, but in the end it was their moms and dads that oooo'd and aaaahh'd over the cookies with a plainly nostalgic glow.



On a different subject, but before I forget it, sad news about our tomato plants: after having almost perished while we were in Morocco and then made a miraculous recovery, this week the tomato plants were stricken by tomato hornworms that have managed to eat every last leaf and most of our ripening fruit within a space of 72 hours. The Viking has had his eye on those tomatoes for over a month and is indignant; I don't really care about the tomatoes and mostly just mind being outsmarted by an invertebrate. This gardening stuff is hard.

The Best Apple Pie You've Never Baked

The Viking always gives me a hard time about Labor Day. In America, unlike anywhere else in the world, we bookend summer with the two holiday weekends of Memorial Day and Labor Day. It’s all very neatly delineated: summer is over after the holiday weekend. That's it! It’s Tuesday, September 7, everybody out of the pool. Trade your white trousers for corduroys, put away the grill, close up the summer house. To those who did not grow up observing Labor Day, this exactitude of seasonal change (two weeks before the seasons technically change, no less) seems silly.

But the thing is, somehow fall always does manage to arrive right on cue. Yesterday morning on the way to the train station in East Hampton, it was 55 degrees, mist was rolling off the fields, and we stopped for three families of wild turkeys to cross the road. The light has changed. The air has become dry. The first apples, a half peck of Mackintoshes, arrived in this week's CSA box and I baked my first apple pie with them this weekend.

You probably know by now that I am not fond of New York summers. Maybe I'm doing something wrong but I don't like the sultry heat, the purposelessness, and most of all the Manhattanite diaspora that seems to occur each June through August. But fall! -- poignent, elegant, fall -- is my favorite time of year. It's a time for making stews, watching the leaves change, and take bracing, bare-sleeved runs in the crisp mornings.

Maybe this is why the delineating line of Labor Day has so much significance to me, far more than turning the corner from one calendar year into another on December 31. New Years always seems arbitrary, a dividing line between snow and gloom and...more snow and gloom. But Labor Day marks the transition between summer insouciance and fall industriousness. It's the start of the harvest.

Today feels like the right time for reflection and resolutions. Here are some of mine:

-Go to bed by 11 PM, not 1 AM, on weeknights
-Learn to bake the perfect bread
-Drink more water and less coffee
-When people introduce themselves to me, attempt to remember their names
-Finally begin training for that half marathon that I’ve been threatening to do
-Write handwritten thank-you notes
-Learn to sharpen my own kitchen knives

As I mentioned earlier, this weekend I celebrated the start of fall with a homemade apple pie.

Given that my father grew up on an apple farm, I've eaten a lot of apple pies in my day. Apple crisps, buckles, crumbles, tarts, and galettes too, but mostly pies. My grandmother was almost never without one in the house, and while I know that her pie apple of choice was the Mutsu, somehow no one has been able to track down her recipe. It definitely did not pass down to my father: when he made pies for us as kids, he used storebought crust and a simple filling of apples, sugar, and a little cinnamon. Those pies tasted wonderful to me because they were made by dad, but by the time I was a teenager I started looking for my own version.

Over the past decade I've tried every recipe I could get my hands on, and the one I use now is a slightly adapted version of one that I originally found in Saveur. It is the best apple pie I have ever eaten. And yes, you DO need to make the crust from scratch.

Classic Apple Pie

Serves 8

For the crust:
2 1/2 cups flour, sifted
2 tbsp. sugar, plus more for sprinkling
1 tsp. kosher salt
18 tbsp. very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 egg, lightly beaten

For the filling:
6 apples, preferably Mutsu, Bramley, or a mixture of Cortland and Granny Smith, peeled, cored, and cut into 1/4" pieces
3/4 cup sugar
3 tbsp. flour
2 tbsp. apple cider vinegar
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. kosher salt
1/4 tsp. freshly ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. freshly ground ginger

1. To make the crust: Combine flour, sugar, and salt. Add butter and work with hands until the flour resembles coarse meal flecked with pea-size pieces of butter. Continue to mix with hands, sprinkling in a total of 6–8 tbsp. of ice water one tablespoon at a time, until the dough begins to hold together. Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface, divide in half, and form 2 dough balls. Flatten each dough ball slightly to make a disk. Wrap disks in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.

2. Heat oven to 425˚. Roll out each disk of dough on a lightly floured surface into 12" rounds. Fit 1 round of dough into a 9" pie plate.3. To make the filling: In a large bowl, combine apples, sugar, flour, vinegar, cinnamon, salt, ginger, and nutmeg. Transfer filling to the pie plate, brush edges of pastry with some of the egg, and top with remaining pastry round. Trim edges with a knife and crimp with your fingers. Brush top of pastry with remaining egg and sprinkle with a little sugar. Using a knife, make 4 slits in pastry top and poke with tines of a fork.

3. Transfer pie to oven and bake for 20 minutes. Reduce heat to 350˚ and continue baking until crust is golden brown and a knife inserted into one of the slits slides easily through apples, about 40 minutes more. Transfer to a rack and let cool for 2 hours before serving.

A Glut of Mirabelles

Mirabelle. What a great name for a fruit.

Mirabelle comes from the Latin word mirabilis, which mean wondrous. This was not my first impression of the yellow plums that bear that name, but in light of the flattering reputation, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt.

You see, for the past two weeks, my CSA box has included a quart of these small, firm, buttercup-yellow UFOs (Unidentified Fruitlike Objects). I could tell that they were probably a type of plum, but no plum that I had ever seen before. They were also too sour to eat as a hand fruit -- at least to my taste -- so I stuck them in a big Ziploc bag in the fridge and vowed to find some other use for them.

And there they sat. And sat. And sat. As of yesterday (12 days after the first batch arrived), they were still firm and fresh smelling, and I decided that their time had come.



A little bit of research revealed that these bright yellow plums are known as Mirabelles, and they are a regional delicacy of Lorraine. If Wikipedia is to be believed, 90% of the Mirabelles harvested become jam or eau de vie, and from what I can tell the other 10% are dropped directly into CSA boxes: nearly every reference to them on the interweb was some message board poster overwhelmed by the number she got from her CSA and wondering what the hell to do with them all. So, my position was far from unique.



I'm not set up with jam-making equipment (though I'd like to be!), so I needed to take a different route. I decided to try a tart. If all went according to plan it would be the perfect, summery dessert for our friends The Diplomat and The Free Spirit, both of whom were joining us for dinner last night.



I used a standard pie crust and surrounded the fruit in creamy custard (note: this tart can be made with any stone fruit; if you are using peaches or nectarines, slice them into segments rather than halves). The final result was a particularly...well...tart tart, in which the Mirabelles had softened and mellowed into a lovely, yolk-colored puree. The Viking and our two guests were big fans of the flavor but if you're like me and want a sweeter finish, sprinkle the top of the tart with sugar five minutes before removing it from the oven, and/or serve it with sweetened whipped cream. It'll be mirabilis.



Mirabelle Tart

Serves 8

For the crust:
1 stick butter
1 1/4 c. flour
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp sugar
2 - 4 Tbsp ice water


For the filling:
18 oz. Mirabelles, halved and pitted (*can be substituted for small purple plums, apricots, sliced peaches, or sliced nectarines)
2/3 c. cream
1/3 c. flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg
1 Tbsp butter

1. Mix together flour, sugar, and salt. Cut butter into 15-20 pieces and while still chilled, work into flour mixture until mixture resembles a course meal. Add water a tablespoon at a time until dough just holds together. Form into a disk and chill 1 hour.

2. Preheat oven to 350 degree. Butter 9 - 10" tart pan. Roll out crust and press into tart pan, discarding any extra dough. Arrange Mirabelle halves, rounded side up, to fill pie crust.

3. Mix together sugar, egg, and cream. Add flour. Pour mixture into tart crust.

5. Bake for 35 - 40 minutes. Let cool at least 20 minutes before serving.

Take Me To Your Freezer

Q: What is the item pictured above?

A: If you guessed "a Martian communication device" or "a prop from a Michael Crichton film," you are incorrect. It is, in fact, the Play & Freeze ice cream maker.

It was given to me for Christmas several years ago and has languished in disuse ever since, waiting for that special moment when I have the urge both to play and to freeze something simultaneously.

The Play & Freeze's big chance came this weekend thanks to a brutal heatwave and 48 hours devoted to being a homebody. For the past two days I have been absorbed with cooking, home improvement projects, working my way diligently through the Neverending To Do List, and keeping up with the Tour de France (there is nothing, nothing, quite so satisfying on a hot day as lying splayed out on the couch with a breakfast pastry and watching a gaggle of men with 1% body fat scramble after each other up a 10% incline). In yuppie terminology this is known as "recharging." I spent the weekend recharging.

In the course of my ongoing battle to get my kitchen into some semblance of order, I came upon the Play & Freeze. As any of you who live in a New York apartment know, every possession must pull its own weight. That square foot being used by the Play & Freeze could be a salad bowl. It could be a copper roasting pan. The Play & Freeze simply cannot go on taking up space without proving its utility.

So, I decided I would put it to the test with a batch of ginger ice cream.

I heated 2 cups cream, 2 cups whole milk, and a few slices of peeled fresh ginger in a saucepan over low heat. As soon as bubbles started forming around the edges, I stirred it for five minutes.



I removed it from the heat, fished out the ginger slices, and stirred in 2/3 cup sugar. I waited for the mixture to cool and then added 2 tablespoons of minced preserved ginger.



After a couple hours of cooling in the fridge, the time came to load my ice cream mix into the Play & Freeze. Into the other end of the ball went ice and 8 Tbsp of course (preferably rock) salt.



The instructions call for the ball to be kicked, spun, rolled, tossed, what have you, for 10 minutes. Then you open up the ice cream container, scrape down the sides, and continue with the playing for another 10 minutes.



After the allotted time had passed, I scooped the ice cream into chilled beer mugs and topped it with apricots and sugarplums.



Play & Freeze Pros:
-A carbon-neutral way to make ice cream
-If ever put in a situation with children, this may be a successful way to distract and subdue them
-Twenty minutes tossing ball makes you feel like "you've really earned this ice cream"



Play & Freeze Cons:
-Twenty minutes tossing ball makes you feel like "you've really earned this ice cream"
-Ice cream comes out just barely frozen, and melts almost immediately upon removal from ball (especially if put in anything but chilled glasses, then forget about it); would never serve this to guests
-Only makes enough for 2-3 servings anyway

In summary, the Play & Freeze is the ice cream equivalent of an Easy-Bake Oven: a toy which produces a result that's edible, but no substitute for the real deal. So, I'm giving this baby a thumbs down. Do not buy yourself a Play & Freeze. If ever you decide that it's really a good idea to own your own ice cream maker, you can get one that works at the touch of button for like $50 (and in that case, you should definitely try the above ginger ice cream recipe).

The Viking, if you're reading this: I'm already shopping for a new Le Creuset, now that we have the space.

Cherry Clafouti, Take One

I don't remember loving cherry clafouti as a little kid, but I'll take my mom's word for it that I did. Apparently, she used to make it for me so often that the particular page in her copy of Mastering The Art of French Cooking is dog-eared and stained. She even showed it to me last weekend, and didn't seem at all irritated that countless hours in front of the oven had been squandered on her forgetful daughter. I think I would have been.

Lest I con you into believing that I was an exceptionally sophisticated toddler, it's important to point out that a clafouti is little more than a really big fruit pancake, sprinkled with sugar. Not exactly challenging to the palette. We're not talking foie gras and sweetbreads here. Clafouti is also incredibly quick and easy to make and almost impossible to mess up.

Or, so I thought. This week I had a couple of pints of local cherries on hand and the burning desire to make a clafouti with them. What I did not have was the three eggs or the appropriate baking dish called for in Ms. Child's recipe; I had two eggs and a 12' cast iron skillet. So, I thought: what's the harm in using a different recipe? How bad could it be?



Wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. My clafouti was kind of an embarrassment, all lumpy and unevenly baked and not having risen like it should. Sure, it was edible, but it's a buttery, sugary carbohydrate. So that's not saying a lot.

A word to the wise: when Julia Child has a recipe for something, don't ask questions. Just make a habit of using it.

The trouble with written recipes is that they have a way of looking very official, whether they were written by Pierre Gagniere or some model/actress that the Food Network taught knife skills and put on TV. You must resist the urge to trust every recipe that crosses your path, because many are flat out bad: lazy, hastily done, misleading, inexpert. I know this sounds a bit like a Buddhist parable -- "believe nothing, not even what I tell you" -- but there it is. If at all possible, figure out a few culinary authorities whose judgment you trust and seek out their recipes. Julia Child wasn't perfect, but she had the good sense to learn time-tested preparations and write them down accurately.

I know Julie Powell has cornered the Julia Child market so I'm not going to elaborate any further on this point. I'm not going to give you the recipe for this either, because I wouldn't be doing you any favors. But I will remake it the Julia way one of these days and show you the difference.

I'll Bring Dessert.

I really don't know what keeps compelling me to volunteer to bring people dessert. I guess it just seems like the sporting thing to do when someone invites me to their house for dinner. Or lunch. Or cocktails. I'll bring dessert! It's a reflex. And no one ever seems to mind.

The thing is, I don't even really like baking, and it's always a much bigger time commitment than it should be to find the right recipe. I scour cookbooks, magazines, and websites, but almost everything I come across falls short based on one or more of the following deal-breakers:

-It's an all-day project, with 76 steps and requiring excursions around town for esoteric ingredients found at boutique chocolatiers or in the basements of Chinatown;
-It breaks the bank (see above re: chocolatiers);
-It's insufficiently impressive (oh ADMIT IT, if you're going to go to the trouble to make something from scratch you sure as shit aren't showing up with oatmeal raisin cookies);
-It requires fancy equipment like an immersion blender, kitchen torch, spring-form pan, parfait glasses, etc.;
-It relies on a seasonal ingredient that is not, in fact, currently in season;
-I would need to be a trained art handler to transport it in tact to its destination;
-It's meant to be served immediately out of the oven.

But after a lot of research and testing, I have come up with what I believe to be the ultimate go-to "I'll Bring Dessert" recipe: a baked lemon custard. It avoids all of the above pitfalls, and even happens to be reasonably healthy. The ingredients cost around $15, it takes me 30 minutes to prepare, and the only equipment needed is a hand mixer and a baking dish (I used an 8" souffle dish, but a square baking dish around that size would work too).


To give the dessert a seasonal touch I grab a garnish when I buy the rest of the ingredients -- recently I bought blackberries, mint, and whipping cream. You can improvise with different garnishes at different times of year: berries in the summer, dried fruits in the fall, shaved chocolate or chocolate sauce in the winter...you get the picture.

Baked Lemon Custard
Adapted from Bon Appétit, January 2006

Serves 6

3/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1 tablespoon grated lemon peel
4 large eggs, separated
3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 350°F
2. Butter an 8" souffle dish, or similar ceramic baking dish.
3. Using electric mixer, beat sugar, butter, and lemon peel in large bowl; beat in egg yolks.
4. Mix in flour in three additions alternately with buttermilk in two additions. Stir in lemon juice.
5. Using clean dry beaters, beat egg whites in medium bowl until stiff peaks form.
6. Fold egg whites into yolk mixture; pour batter into baking dish.
7. Bake until custard is set in center and beginning to brown, about 35 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool.

Can be made 1 day ahead -- cool completely, cover, and refrigerate. Transport in souffle dish then invert onto plate to serve. Accept praise graciously.