The Recipes
Perhaps it’s the memory of my father’s bakery, but I have always been intrigued with the general concept of making my own desserts. I remember one particular dessert I had when I went with friends to the Magic Pan back in the 1970s. I had Crêpe St. Jacques for dinner, and that was great, but what came after was out of this world.
I don’t even know what the thing was called, but it was complex and involved a small hard brick of vanilla ice cream, wrapped in a hot crêpe, with a pour of hot bittersweet chocolate sauce, then a sprinkling of very cold curly milk chocolate shavings and toasted almond pieces on top. So, there was crunch and smooth, hot and cold, vanilla and hot chocolate, and it was nutty—it had cold sweetness countered by bittersweet heat with crunch. Conversation stopped, and the world went away.
I eat buttered toast upside down because it tastes far better that way.
I apply small amounts of cereal to milk instead of pouring milk over cereal that’s already in the bowl. This makes a huge difference because the cereal keeps its structural integrity throughout breakfast. You have to keep putting small amounts of cereal into the bowl, but it never has a chance to become soggy. It’s probably as effective as Clark Griswold’s Crunch Enhancer, the semi-permeable, non-osmotic, non-nutritive cereal varnish he invented in Christmas Vacation that coats and seals the flake, preventing the milk from penetrating.
To create the best screwdriver, use Cara Cara oranges; you’ll think you’ve died and gone to heaven.
All of these little things added to my catalog of food attitudes and caused me to speculate further on the possibilities inherent in creating my own concoctions from scratch, and the fact that my own father had, at one time, been the primary baker to an entire town only added to that.
Alicia and I like to watch America’s Test Kitchen and The Great British Baking Show. I had no idea there were so many different kinds of sugar. Some of the dishes go quite beyond my own efforts, and at some point, I’m sure I’ll try to create some of them.
Several years ago, I began experimenting with desserts. The recipes on the following pages include notes I’ve made over the years. I was learning to deal with an oven that didn’t operate at indicated temperature, a microwave that changed its tune over the course of an afternoon, and chocolate that wasn’t quite right. I experimented, increasing certain ingredients—we need a lot more peanuts!—and tried different brands, such as Guittard’s chocolate vs. Hershey’s. In some cases, I added one or two new ingredients like Cream of Tartar because I’d read of them being used in a similar dish.
I’ve walked many of my desserts up and down the streets of our little neighborhood, handing them out in little plastic containers to people I’ve gotten to know in my walks with Molly. I’ve taken them to gatherings of all sorts, including our local art gallery openings. Alicia and I have occasionally poured wine for the local patrons at these functions, and our dessert tray usually goes quickly (it may be why we keep getting invited). In any case, have fun—and wear an apron!
Links to my best recipes: