Let me be clear, this is not meant to be braggy, but matter-of-fact.
I make INCREDIBLE buttermilk biscuits. Tiny towers of fluffy layers, gorgeously golden. crackly crust on top, tender within. The perfect vehicle for everything from more butter to a whole breakfast sandwich, I spent a full winter perfecting them in college, and it shows.
This past year plus that we’ve spent at home, one of the things that has brought me peace is baking challah. I don’t pretend to be more observant than I am- I bake, often weekly, not always timed freshly for Shabbat, but for joy of cooking and eating, for cultural connection. And in many ways, my baking routine has become meditative for me.
I was talking with my girlfriend Cassandra last week, who is also an immigrant, about where this trend of perfectly iced sugar cookies came from. It wasn’t a thing when we were kids, but now business has boomed and there are so many talented makers crafting the most beautiful cookies! I’m no artiste, so this post isn’t about those kind- if you are looking for artwork and perfection I can recommend my friend Jen in Los Angeles or learning through the World Cookie Summit. These are easy, yummy sugar cookies, plain and simple.
I’m breaking from my typical positive attitude to start this post with a complaint: I’ve tried so many other cream cheese frosting recipes, and I’m perpetually disappointed (I’m cringing just thinking of the flour fiasco I got up to on Ashe’s birthday this year. ) As I did on his birthday, I always wind up relying on my go-to cream cheese icing, and it’s past due time I shared it on here.
I could be more modest as I say this, but the fact remains- I make some killer chocolate chip cookies.
Most frequently, I use Sally’s baking addiction’s recipe– it’s speedy (because it uses melted butter) and consistently delicious. It makes huge cookies- I prefer them slightly smaller, about 2 tablespoons each. If you are loyal to specific chocolate chip cookie recipe, do you, by all means, but keep reading for my tips for the yummiest chewy chocolate chip cookies!
I’ve struggled with sleeplessness since high school, and am a total night owl. I sometimes work or read until the wee hours of the morning, but more often than not, midnight finds me in the kitchen. We do mostly homemade sweets around here, so sometimes I’m getting ahead on the next day’s to-do list- gotta keep dessert stocked! But most of the time I’m just relaxing and recipe testing, so I wanted to share a few of our recent favorites.
This s’mores pie was rich and creamy and delicious. David doesn’t love dark chocolate the way I do, so I used half dark and half milk. I thought it was perfectly sweet that way, but it’s not supersweet like actual s’mores- some more or or even all milk chocolate will get you there. And seriously, if you haven’t made homemade marshmallow yet, you need too- it’s much easier than it looks!
Deb over at smitten kitchen mentioned that Chef Suzanne Goin served this brown butter and hazelnut confection as her own wedding cake, and I totally see why now. I adore the flavor of brown butter, and it balanced perfectly with the moreish texture of the nuts and the ganache draping. The cake came together quickly and disappeared from the cake plate in the same fashion. I’ve more hazelnuts in the fridge, so I’m certain it will have a return engagement one night soon.
I’m totally on a cream puff kick. In all honestly, we’ve had them two nights in a row, and I’m not even embarrassed by that- they’re damn delicious. I’ve been using Dorie Greenspan’s pâté à choux recipe (currently reading her Baking Chez Moi), filling them with a mix of vanilla custard and freshly whipped cream, dipping or drizzling them with ganache, and devouring by the plateful.
Elaborate birthday cakes are the norm around here, as is replacing candles with fireworks. David mentioned wanting a pb&j inspired cake this year, so I ran with that one night. I stacked peanut butter cake with strained strawberry jam, then slathered it with fluffy brown sugar-peanut butter frosting, another slick of jam, and chopped salted peanuts. It was enormous (too big for the cake bell) and phenomenal.
And the better the cake, the better the cake shake! Leftover cake into shakes is one of my very favorite revamps, and I love mixing up different flavors. This version included pb&j cake, strawberries, peanut butter, vanilla ice cream, malted milk powder, and a healthy splash of amaretto. Sometimes I even get fancy… like whipped cream and a slice of cake on top.
I guess you could say night times are good times in the Coe kitchen.
loveRavayna
Carnival season is hands-down my favorite time of year, and king cake is one of those confections I just can’t say no to. Whether classic cinnamon swirl, cream-cheese-filled king cake or a traditional French galette des rois, it’s probably having a date with my mouth.
We were fortunate enough to have a dear friend ship us a king cake from the legendary Manny Randazzo’s, and it totally hit the spot. Most years, I wind up making several king cakes throughout carnival season- this recipe from Sucré, on Magazine Street, is my go to, and Randazzo’s and Sucré are by far the best king cakes available by mail. but i have a serious affinity for the French king cake, or galette des rois… la Boulangerie makes my favorite in town.
But, according to #12 of my #16in16, this is the year of taking on those intimidating cookery projects. So after a brief foray of pricing out having galettes de rois shipped, it was game on. As luscious as this pistachio-and-citron version from Gontran Cherrier (who makes my very favorite croissants in Paris) looks, I decided to save that and focus on the traditional French almond frangipane filled confection. I worked with Clotilde and David Lebovitz‘s recipes, adapting them and making the frangipane from scratch.
I didn’t trust myself and my limited artistic talent to provide even decorative cut work, so lots of overlapping salad plate tracings did the job with style. It’s super important to flute and seal the edges properly so that the frangipane doesn’t bubble out. And make sure your egg wash doesn’t drip down the sides- it will inhibit the pastry’s puffing. With traditional king cakes, you’d bake in a ceramic fève, or insert a plastic baby into the baked king cake. Here though, I went super old-school and baked in a whole almond (and was a total five-year old and stole it from David’s slice to claim the carnival queen title.)
Ingredients
Preparation
loveRavayna
As much as I love latkes, I can’t eat them for 8 nights straight if I want to fit into my clothes. So I make a point of experimenting with and serving other foods with Jewish and Israeli foods as we celebrate Hannukah.
Having made several variations of chocolate babka in the past, Smitten Kitchen’s simplification of Yotam Ottolenghi’s krantz cakes are hands down the best. I decided to up the ante a notch by raiding/catching up on my Valrhona x Trader Joe’s chocolate calendar and including several different dark varieties, and it was a scrumptious life choice.
The cutting and twisting stage can be a little iffy, but refrigerating the dough to stiffen the butter makes all the difference. And as long as you get it into the pan in some fashion, it will rise up just dandy. And yes, I have to use a mug of water to humidify my microwave as a rising drawer- even in sunny SoCal, our house is an icebox.
I lose all self-control around this yumminess- that little pan of ends was history before I’d even finished glazing the loaves. With Hanukkah falling early this year, we’re celebrating the miracle of light as we prepare and decorate for our annual holiday open house, which we’re hosting this weekend.
The babka made for some scrumptious Hanukkah bush decorating fuel. The moist and tender brioche was swirled generously with melted chocolate, and warm slices paired perfectly with glasses of icy cold milk.
We don’t go too overboard with holiday decor. As much as I love the way it looks, I have limited patience for the untangling and wrangling, putting up and taking down, organizing and storing, and David even less so. My mom is a holiday superdecorator and I’m nowhere near her level, so I’m just grateful that she gifted us the majority of those gorgeous vintage glass ornaments.
But I loooooooveee the smell of a live tree in the house, so every year we wind up at the tree lot. It’s the same story, different year- I try and talk David into a 9 footer or the like, he laughs in my face. Then we inspect no less than a dozen (more reasonably sized) trees until I find the perfect one. And once we get it home, I’m hanging onto the mantle or teetering on the arm of the couch to perch the sparkly fleur de lis on the top.
There’s a lot of love on this little table. The chanukiah was a wedding present, and my mother in law crocheted the tablecloth as a gift for me. We collected the pinecones hiking in Big Bear during our 2nd wedding anniversary getaway, then cleaned and glittered them. I can’t help but smile when I see it all- it’s simple but special.
David got me a new MacBook Air last month, and his new camera body arrived a few weeks ago. Since we’re already using and loving our big gifts this year, we’re exchanging smaller treats each night. Some are useful, like the previous night’s Restoration Hardware foot duvets (graphite for David, grey for me), some are indulgent, like these gorgeous rose gold and brown abalone Kendra Scott earrings, and some are silly, like the box of practical jokes and disguises David proceeded to open.
With all the travel I’ve clocked this year (24 round trips in 2015) it’s been really amazing to have put up the suitcases for the year. To just spend some time around the house, making it fun and festive, just gives me all the warm and fuzzy feelings.
loveRavayna
For as long as I can remember, I have been really into rainbow cookies. As a child, I was notorious for raiding cookie platters at parties to have all the rainbows for myself, and for going straight-up Cookie Monster if lucky enough to find myself unattended with a plateful or bakery box. Some things never change- I’m still obsessed and David is now, too. The kosher bakery in my mom’s neighborhood makes my absolute favorite ones, (White Plains Bake Shoppe if you happen to be in NYC suburbs), and I always scarf them when I’m visiting… And fly back to LA with a box too. But I can’t exactly fly cross country for cookies, and I have never, not once, found these on the west coast, which is a travesty.
So when faced with a craving one day, I went on a recipe hunt. I came across one for a rainbow cookie cake from Adam Roberts, and the game was on, y’all.
I’ve bumped up the almondy goodness a bit, and frankly, it’s freaking delicious. It’s dense (in the best possible way), but super tender. It’s certainly rich, but semisweet chocolate and quality preserves keep it from being overly sweet. It’s a regular on the celebration rotation, for birthdays and holidays, and the leftovers, if any survive, keep beautifully in the fridge- the ganache gets even more decadent.
I always need to level my cakes to stack them evenly. Here, I layered the cake tops with homemade preserves, just as I did the proper cakes, then used a biscuit cutter for some darling little mini cakes. We had some happy neighbors this night.
Rainbow Cookie Cake
(adapted from the Amateur Gourmet)
Ingredients 
Preparation
This toasted cereal is a favorite around here. Chock full of nuts, seeds, and fruit, it’s gently spiced, not-too-sweet, and totally crave worthy. I love including jars in care packages and gift baskets, and I generally double, if not triple, the recipe when I’m making a batch.
I have a tendency to snack on this muesli by the handful- I can’t help myself! I also keep it simple- bowl, milk, spoon. It makes a scrumptious topping for hot cereal, the perfect textural contrast. And most mornings, a bowl of greek yogurt, homemade preserves, and this muesli is David’s first breakfast.
One of my favorite things about this recipe is that it’s infinitely adaptable to mood, taste and pantry contents. Use whichever nuts and fruits you’d like. I’m sharing my current favorite mix, but every blend I’ve tried has quickly vanished from the pantry. Let me know your favorite variations!
Toasted Fruit and Nut Muesli
adapted from The Garden of Eden (via Whole Living October 2012)
Ingredients
