Pumpkin Tart

I was such a huge fan of the chocolate tart I made a few weeks ago that I decided to adapt the recipe to pumpkin for Thanksgiving. And not only was my creation delicious, but it was sturdy too! This little tart managed to survive a frantic cab ride to Grand Central, a crowded train ride to Connecticut, and a car ride to my house in the trunk, all without a single crack. The store-bought pastries I brought to Thanksgiving last year were destroyed within about ten minutes of leaving my apartment. Major improvement.

This was so good. The crust/filling ratio is higher for this tart than it is for pumpkin pie, but otherwise, the recipe is exactly the same. So, if you want to make a pie, just double the filling and it should fit perfectly. You shouldn't have to change any measurements for the crust part of the recipe, it easily makes enough to fit a pie dish. Yum!

Pumpkin Tart

INGREDIENTS:

For crust:
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
1 large egg
2 tbsp water

For filling:
1/2 of a 15 ounce can of pumpkin puree
1/2 of a 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk
1 egg
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp cloves
Pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place flour, sugar, salt, butter, one egg, and water in a food processor. Pulse until blended into one large ball of dough.
3. Roll dough out on a floured surface, into an approximately 12" circle. Roll the dough up onto the pin and lay it on top of a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.
4. Press the dough into the pan so it fits into all the edges, particularly on the sides of the tart pan. Trim the excess dough from the edges of the pan.
5. Refrigerate the tart dough for 10 minutes.
6. Remove the tart from the refridgerator, and line the inside of the tart with aluminum foil. Place pie weights (or dried beans, or rice) in the foil.
7. Bake for 30 minutes (the tart is easier to bake if you place the tart shell on a cookie sheet).
8. Remove the tart from the oven and remove the foil and pie weights. Return to the oven and continue to bake for another 3-5 minutes, or until the tart's edges are is golden, but not browned. Place on a counter or table to cool the tart shell.
9. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.
10. In a medium saucepan, on low heat, heat the pumpkin, salt and spices for 2-3 minutes. Add sweetened condensed milk, and heat to a scald (bubbles around the edges of the pan but not boiling).
11. Remove from heat and whisk in egg, until blended.
12. Pour the filling into the cooled tart shell and bake 25 minutes, or until the filling is set but still wobbly. Allow to cool, and serve.

Serves 8.

Cinnamon Crème Brûlée

Crème Brûlée is one of those ubiquitous dessert items that you see on just about every menu in New York. Because of that, I pretty much assumed that it would be easy to make. And it is, for sure, but it takes a while to cook and then chill in the refrigerator. I wouldn't whip this up for myself on a random weeknight, but it's a good dessert if you're having a dinner party, because it requires you to to make it in advance. Just be very, very careful if you're trying to blow-torch the tops after a few glasses of wine!

I own a crème brûlée blowtorch. I'm vaguely puzzled by that fact, because this weekend was the second time I've ever made crème brûlée in my life. But it was on sale, and I was talking to the most persuasive salesperson at Williams Sonoma ever. She was all, "oh, you'll be surprised how much you use this. You can even use it to grill cheese on sandwiches!" And I was all, "oh, that's a great idea! I've always wanted to eat untoasted bread with melted cheese on top, thanks to my blowtorch." So, I bought it.

If you don't have a crème brûlée mini-blowtorch, you can use your oven broiler (or toaster oven, actually). Which is actually how normal people melt cheese on their sandwiches. Sigh.

Cinnamon Crème Brûlée

INGREDIENTS:
2/3 cup heavy cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp sugar
2 large egg yolks
Additional sugar, for topping

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. In a medium saucepan, heat the cream, vanilla and cinnamon to a scald (small bubbles around the edge of the pan but not boiling). Remove from the heat and set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, whisk together sugar and the egg yolks until pale in color.
4. Whisk in the cream to the egg yolks a little at a time. Pour the liquid into 2 ramekins.
5. Place the ramekins into a large pan, and fill the pan with warm water halfway up the sides of the ramekins.
6. Bake just until the crème brûlée is set, but still wobbly in the center (about 30 minutes).
7. Refrigerate the ramekins for at least 2 hours and up to 2 days before serving.
8. Before serving, dust sugar on the tops of crème brûlée with sugar, and melt sugar with a crème brûlée torch or over broiler. Serve!

Serves two.

Vanilla Meringues

I am a little bit of a sugar addict, and not surprisingly, these are one of my favorite desserts. And since I moved to New York, I've been on a quest to find good meringues. I've had an occasional almost-success (the pavlova at Balthazaar is delicious, although not quite what I was looking for), but it's largely been a devastating failure. Too often they're made with some strange flavoring, coloring, or (worst of all) nuts, which is most certainly not what I'm looking for. So I knew I had to learn to make my own.

Unfortunately, I attempted this recipe twice and completely failed. I was attempting to beat the eggs and sugar myself with a whisk, and I think I just don't have the arm power. Rather than being light and fluffy, they were soup-like in the bowl and completely flat on the baking sheet. So, I caved and bought a hand mixer, which I can already tell is going to be a wonderful addition to my little kitchen. If only because now I can make these every single night...

Vanilla Meringues

INGREDIENTS:
2 egg whites
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups sugar

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 200 degrees.
2. In a glass or metal bowl, whip egg whites and vanilla until foamy.
3. Pour in sugar slowly, while continuing to whip the egg whites.
4. When the mixture becomes stiff, stop mixing (if you can turn the bowl upside down without the meringue mixture falling out, that's stiff enough)!
5. If you have a pastry bag, transfer the egg white mixture into it, and pipe the meringue out onto a baking sheet coated in wax paper. If not, just spoon the meringue out in large dollops.
4. Bake for 1 hour at 200 degrees.

Makes about twelve large meringues.

Classic Chocolate Tart

I can't believe I made this! It looks like something I'd buy from a bakery or be served in a restaurant, not something I could actually create, from scratch, in my own kitchen! But this recipe taught me a number of things.

First, I will never buy a frozen pie crust again. Baking a crust isn't hard at all!

Second, buying "pie weights" is totally unnecessary. I knew I would have some adequate substitute in my kitchen, and, not surprisingly, I did. I used uncooked brown rice, but I know (from the Food Network) that you could also use dried beans. Either way, just let them cool down afterwards, and those are your homemade "pie weights" from now on. Excellent!

Third, I blended the dough for the crust in my food processor, and itwas perfect. How much easier can you get? I just stuck the butter, flour, sugar, salt, egg, and water inside the mixer, and two minutes later it was blended into a solid ball of dough. This definitely my mixing method-of-choice from now on!

Anyway, without further adieu, the recipe! But first, here's how the crust looked before baking. Yum!

Classic Chocolate Tart

INGREDIENTS:

For crust:
1 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, cold and cut into pieces
1 large egg
2 tbsp water

For filling:
1/2 cup light cream
1/2 cup milk
8 ounces chocolate chips (about 2/3 of one 11.5 oz bag)
1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 full egg, plus one egg yolk


DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Place flour, sugar, salt, butter, one egg, and water in a food processor. Pulse until blended into one large ball of dough.
3. Roll dough out on a floured surface, into an approximately 12" circle. Roll the dough up onto the pin and lay it on top of a 9-inch tart pan with a removable bottom.
4. Press the dough into the pan so it fits into all the edges, particularly on the sides of the tart pan. Trim the excess dough from the edges of the pan.
5. Refrigerate the tart dough for 10 minutes.
6. Remove the tart from the refridgerator, and line the inside of the tart with aluminum foil. Place pie weights (or dried beans, or rice) in the foil.
7. Bake for 30 minutes (the tart is easier to bake if you place the tart shell on a cookie sheet).
8. Remove the tart from the oven and remove the foil and pie weights. Return to the oven and continue to bake for another 3-5 minutes, or until the tart's edges are is golden, but not browned. Place on a counter or table to cool the tart shell.
9. Lower the oven temperature to 325 degrees.
10. In a medium saucepan, heat the cream and milk to a scald, but not a boil, over low heat.
11. Remove from heat and stir in the chocolate chips. Whisk until blended.
12. Whisk in the sugar and salt until blended. Whisk in one full egg and one additional egg yolk, until blended.
13. Pour the filling into the cooled tart shell and bake 25 minutes, or until the filling is set but still wobbly. Allow to cool, and serve.

Serves 8.

Oh, and this is also my entry for Waiter, there's something in my... topless tart!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

If this doesn't sound decadent, I don't know what would. But, more importantly, it's a prepare-ahead dessert. So crucial. After appetizers and wine and a full dinner, who wants to put effort into serving dessert? Enter the pumpkin cheesecake, which you cleverly prepared the night before your dinner party. Add some vanilla ice cream, and everyone goes home happy.

I used neufchâtel cheese, rather than cream cheese, because I can't help myself, I have to make everything just a little bit healthier. I guarantee none of my friends will notice. As a bonus, neufchâtel is softer and much easier to cream together with sugar than regular cream cheese.

I haven't tasted this yet, because it's for my guests tonight, but I did try a little of the batter and it was wonderful. One thing you can't see from the picture: it's a double-layer cheesecake. The bottom layer is plain cheesecake filling, and the top layer is the yummy pumpkin cheesecake mixture that you see in the photo above. Hopefully this will look particularly impressive when I cut into it!

Pumpkin Cheesecake

INGREDIENTS:

2 8 ounce containers of neufchâtel cheese

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla extract

2 eggs

1/2 cup pumpkin

1 tsp cinnamon

Pinch of nutmeg

Pinch of cloves

Graham-cracker crust (store bought)

DIRECTIONS:

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

2. Cream together the neufchâtel cheese, sugar and vanilla. Add the eggs one by one once the cheese is blended.

3. Pour one cup of the cheese mixture into the graham cracker crust, and spread evenly.

4. Blend the pumpkin, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves into the remaining batter. Spread in an even layer over the plain-cheesecake mixture.

5. Bake for 25 minutes, stop while filling is still slightly wobbly.

6. Refrigerate overnight, and serve!

Serves 6-8.

Cinnamon White Chocolate Fudge

This is my first time making fudge! And I don't own a candy thermometer, so it's a little bit of a cheat recipe. When they first came out of the refrigerator, they tasted a little bit like vanilla caramels, which gave me the idea for wrapping them in wax paper. Either way, they're really good, and very easy to make!

The best moment, by far, of the entire endeavor was watching my dog Coco try to figure out what on earth this concoction was. I couldn't stop myself from taking a picture!

Cinnamon White Chocolate Fudge

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups Ghirardelli white chocolate chips
Almost 1 can sweetened condensed milk (14 ounces) (pour out two tablespoons)
2 tbsp butter
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla
Pinch of salt

DIRECTIONS:
1. Place chocolate, condensed milk, and butter in a microwave-safe container.
2. Microwave for two minutes, remove, stir, and add cinnamon, vanilla and salt.
3. Microwave for 90 seconds, remove, and stir.
4. Microwave for90 seconds, remove and stir. Mixture will be bubbling and scary looking. That's ok.
5. Pour mixture into a greased baking dish. Refrigerate until fudge is set.
6. Once fudge is set, cut into one-inch squares.

Optional Step 7: Cut each one-inch square in half, forming a rectangle. Wrap each candy in a 3"x3" square of wax paper, as demonstrated below:

Makes about 20 one-inch squares, or 40 smaller rectangles.

Pumpkin Soufflé

You couldn't imagine a lighter, more delicious fall dessert -- I'm quite proud of these. And I'm excited to keep experimenting with soufflés -- they're so beautiful, and now that I've gotten over the initial intimidation (all that egg-separating! all that whisking!), they're definitely going to become one of my go-to dishes!

A few pieces of advice: First, obviously, do NOT open the oven while the soufflés are baking. Use your oven light, or just trust the clock. If you open the oven, they won't rise, and you'll have airy little underbaked cakes. Not that that's a bad thing! But if you want soufflés, once you open the oven, they're done.

Second, some recipes call for baking soufflés in a water bath. I don't use them, because I don't think it's necessary and also because it's kind of dangerous to use all that hot water when I have dogs that love to get really close to the oven. So feel free to omit that step with my explicit approval. Finally, you could make one big soufflé with this dish too. Just cook it in a larger soufflé dish for an additional two minutes.

Also, I have to say, the portion size for these are small. You could easily double the recipe, use eight-ounce ramekins (instead of four ounce) and have a more satisfying portion. The cooking time can stay the same.

Pumpkin Soufflé

INGREDIENTS:
3/4 cups milk
Pinch of nutmeg
2 large egg yolks
1/2 cup sugar
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
1/2 cup solid-pack canned pumpkin
4 egg whites
Extra sugar and butter for ramekins

PREPARATION:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. Butter 6 4-ounce ramekins, and coat them with sugar.
3. Whisk together egg yolks, pumpkin and 1/4 cup sugar. Whisk in flour until thickened evenly.
4. In a saucepan, bring milk and nutmeg to scalding over medium heat (just until little bubbles form at the edges of the pan), remove from heat.
5. Pour milk into the yolk mixture and whisk until blended.
6. In a metal bowl, whisk egg whites until very foamy. Add 1/4 cup of sugar in a slow stream, whisking constantly. Beat until egg whites form soft peaks.
7. Pour half of the egg whites into the yolk mixture and stir. Pour the new yolk mixture into the remaining egg whites, and fold until blended.
8. Pour batter into ramekins, bake immediately for 12 minutes.

Serves 6.

Oatmeal Currant Cookies

This is a great variation on oatmeal raisin cookies. They're so soft that they literally fall apart if you try to eat them straight out of the oven -- that's my kind of cookie. If you want them crispier, just add two minutes to the baking time.

However, unless you have 10-20 hungry people sitting around to eat these, I would cut the recipe in half. It makes a LOT of cookies!

Oatmeal Currant Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 stick unsalted butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup white sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups rolled oats
1/2 cup dried black currants

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In a large bowl, mix together the butter, brown sugar, white sugar, eggs, and vanilla until smooth.
3. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt to the sugar mixture.
4. Stir in the oats and raisins. Drop onto cookie sheets coated with cooking spray.
5. Bake cookies for 8 minutes until golden around the edges. Let them cool for 2 minutes, then remove from cookie sheets to cool completely.

Makes approximately three dozen cookies.

If you weren't already psyched to make this recipe, here's what the batter looks like:

Golden Raisin and Almond Biscotti

I was never a big fan of biscotti until I made these. Freshly baked biscotti are about a million times better than those packaged versions you buy at Starbucks. As far as I can tell, the main differences between biscotti and regular cookies are 1) the fact that you use olive oil (not butter or shortening) as the wet ingredient, and 2) that you bake them twice at a much lower heat, as opposed to popping them in the oven for a few minutes at a high heat, like regular cookies. That means that making these is a 1.5 or 2 hour endeavor, but they're worth it.

These would be great drizzled with dark chocolate, if you want them a little sweeter!

Golden Raisin and Almond Biscotti

INGREDIENTS:
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, plus 1 tablespoon for the almonds
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 eggs
1 3/4 cups flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup golden raisins
3/4 cup raw unsalted almonds

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
2. Chop almonds into small pieces.


3. In a saute pan, on medium heat, toast almond pieces in one tablespoon of olive oil for approximately 3 minutes, like this:



4. In a large bowl, mix together oil and sugar. Mix in the vanilla and eggs.
5. Add 1 cup of flour, then salt, and baking powder, then final 3/4 flour.
6. Mix raisins and toasted nuts into batter.
7. Divide dough in half. Form two logs on a parchment-lined cookie sheet (Note: Wetting your hands helps make molding the dough easier).
8. Bake for 35 minutes, or until logs are slightly golden. Remove from oven, cool for 10 minutes. Reduce heat to 275 degrees.



9. Cut logs at a diagonal angle (approximately 30 degrees) into 3/4" thick slices, like this photo:




10. Lay on sides on parchment cookie sheet. Bake approximately 9 more minutes, cool, and serve.

Makes approximately two dozen biscotti.

Snickerdoodles

These are my boyfriend's *favorites.* I have probably made them two dozen times. Snickerdoodles are basically just sugar cookies with a cinnamon and sugar topping, so it's a great sugar cookie recipe too. The only "trick" I can think of is to use a small tupperware bowl to dust the cookies with cinnamon and sugar. Rather than just sprinkling it on top, roll the cookies into balls and roll them in the cinnamon/sugar mixture, and then sprinkle some more on top. That way the cinnamon flavor permeates the whole cookie.

Snickerdoodles

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt

Additional white sugar and cinnamon for topping

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
2. Mix together the butter, Crisco, 1 1/2 cups sugar, eggs and the vanilla. Blend in the flour, lemon juice, baking soda and salt. Shape dough by rounded spoonfuls into balls.
3. Mix the sugar and cinnamon for the topping in a separate small bowl. Roll balls of dough in the mixture.
4. Coat a baking sheet with cooking spray, and place the balls about two inches apart. Sprinkle with additional cinnamon and sugar mixture.
4. Bake for 8 minutes. Let them cook for one minute on the baking sheet, and then transfer to tin foil to cool completely.

Adapted from a recipe at allrecipes.com.

Raspberry Squares

These were actually a little tricky for me, but they taste amazing. As my sister exclaimed after she ate one, "the crust tastes salty!" That 1/2 teaspoon goes a long way, but they're delicious.
I actually had to make the crust twice when I tried this originally, because I didn't read the recipe and tried to press it into the baking dish before adding the milk and eggs. Needless to say, that didn't work very well (flour + butter = lumpy mess before you add something to bind it together). Also, to "cut in" the butter, I literally pinched off pieces of butter from a stick until it was fully added. Yum.

Raspberry Squares

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon milk
3/4 cup raspberry jam

1 cup sugar
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups flaked coconut

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Stir together the flour, baking powder and salt. Cut in the butter until the lumps are smaller than peas. Mix in the egg and milk to form a dough.

3. Coat a 9x13 inch glass baking dish with cooking spray, and press the dough into the bottom. Spread a layer of jam over the crust.

4. In another bowl, cream together the sugar and remaining butter. Beat in the egg and vanilla then stir in the coconut. Spread evenly over the layer of jam.
3. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the preheated oven, or until top is lightly browned. Cool before cutting into squares.

This recipe is adapted from a version I looked at on allrecipes.com.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

I made these cookies for my birthday party last summer, when I hadn't really mastered cooking, but was a great baker (I'm still trying to remember the hybrid oreo sugar cookie recipe I mastered when I was eleven). This isn't my recipe -- I found it on allrecipes.com -- but it is my photograph. These cookies are delicious. Very thin and crispy, and not too sweet but very rich. If you're a serious chocolate person, give these a try.

One quick note: Hardly any single person owns one of those big electronic mixers. That can make baking really difficult, since it's nearly impossible to cream butter and sugar together with a spoon. My solution: wash your hands really, really well, and dig them right in there. A minute or two of kneading the sugar/butter mixture with your fingers will bind it perfectly. And then don't tell anyone that's how you did it!

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

INGREDIENTS:
1 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cocoa powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. In large bowl, beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla. Combine the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt; stir into the butter mixture until well blended. Mix in the chocolate chips. Drop by rounded teaspoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets.
3. Bake for 8 minutes in the preheated oven, or just until set. Cool for one minute on the cookie sheets before removing to cool completely.