A Basque cheesecake is traditionally served crustless and with no berry adornments, but I promise you’re going to fall in love with this rebellious version. I layer it with a cookie crust; I really like the spice in the Speculoos (Biscoff-ish) cookie and bright berries, which just make the mahogany top and lusciously smooth texture sing. You’ll notice the ingredients— like the cream cheese— are cold rather than at room temperature, so it won’t overbake in the hot oven as the top browns.
A lemon tart is a beautifully delicate dessert. It’s not too in-your-face but can certainly hold its own. A good lemon tart should have a well-pronounced lemon flavour but it shouldn’t be so tart that it makes you wince (as did my first few attempts of this tart). The silky, buttery filling is zingy and fresh and would be perfect for a springtime evening dessert. A lightly infused basil cream brings some fragrance and playfulness that keeps people going back in for a second or third slice. For a bit of extra frill, I like to blitz some leftover basil leaves in a food processor with caster sugar and sprinkle it on top.
For this tart, you can use either forced rhubarb in the early part of the year, which is pink, tender and sweet, or the typical garden rhubarb from late spring onwards, although you may need to add a little more sugar when marinating the stems. For me, both are delicious.
It will be completely un-shocking that my visit to Japan was more cake-centric, less fish-focused. I ate the flooffiest pumpkin doughnuts, elegant apple shortbread cookie sandwiches, silky coffee caramel flan and cheesecake. At the tiny pastry shop Equal Pastryshop, I ate a strawberry shortcake whose perfection made me want to hang up my apron, because if such baking beauty already exists in this world, then my efforts are futile.
The Japanese shortcake is their refined version of the American shortcake and is layers of dairy-rich sponge, cream and strawberries. Eating it feels like hugging a puppy, the first day of t-shirt weather in spring and knowing you are loved all at once.
In 2017, when we were visiting our daughter-in-law Liv's family in Copenhagen, Eva, her mother, made a delicious meringue torte for us, similar to the schaumtorte of my childhood, a dessert the German part of my family served at Passover, but one that I always thought was too sweet. I loved that the hazelnuts and the dark bitter chocolate of Eva's recipe cut the sweetness of the meringue. Now it is part of our Passover Seder menu, though it also works beautifully throughout the year, especially for gluten-free friends. During the pandemic, when I was in New Orleans, I substituted local pecans for hazelnuts.
This recipe offers an elegant twist on the classic pineapple upside-down cake, a dessert that’s been made and reimagined for decades. The basic concept is simple: pour cake batter over slices of fruit and flip the cake after baking to reveal a beautifully caramelized layer of fruit—in this case, pineapple.
The batter in this version is uplifted with the addition of pink peppercorns and cardamom.
Those who know me know I’m an unabashed fan of stuffed-crust pizza. In fact, I included a recipe for one in my second cookbook. But as I get wiser with age and experience, I have started to think of things like, “Why just stuff the crust when you can stuff the whole thing?”
Held together with two layers of cheese, the prosciutto in this recipe tucks nicely into a pillowy focaccia dough. On top, wild ramps soften and char in the heat of the oven, creating a lovely, sweet onion flavor. If you can’t find ramps, feel free to use young garlic, spring onions, or your favorite pizza toppings. This focaccia is best served the day it’s baked.
Almond butter is pretty mild in flavor, but crisp almonds, chocolate, and punchy freeze- dried strawberries make these a special little snack. Feel free to substitute peanut butter or any other nut butter for the almond butter. If your almond butter is unsalted, add an additional pinch of salt to the dough. Toast the almonds in the oven while the bars are baking to save yourself some prep time.
I started making this rye focaccia while leading the Pastry and Bread program at Rossoblu in Los Angeles. I wanted the bread program to reflect the whole--grain heritage of Italy, and I loved making seasonal variations with fruit. Focaccia is also known as a salt cake, and I love cake with fruit. Here, we are celebrating a classic autumn variation of apples and onions, with some lemons to brighten the whole affair. Feel free to change out the toppings as the seasons change! This dough is extremely forgiving and a great place to build shaping confidence. Focaccia is great served warm alongside dinner or enjoyed cold as the ultimate sandwich bread stuffed with your choice of fillings. I also love it sliced thick and grilled with olive oil. Keeps for a week at room temperature, wrapped in a tea towel. Replace the honey with molasses to make the recipe vegan.
This is my version of a flourless orange cake which I love to eat. It’s based on a classic Italian whole orange cake that is traditionally flourless (and gluten-free), relying on eggs to bind it, and whole oranges (pick seedless varieties) boiled in water until soft, then puréed. Polenta (cornmeal) lends a beautiful golden colour and the cake utilises a whole orange to provide a wholesome orange flavour! The skin contains a huge amount of aromatic oils that impart their beautiful citrus flavour and a hint of bitterness, and the pithy skin contains large amounts of fibre and pectins. Use a gluten-free baking powder to keep it gluten-free.