Scientist and inventor Dr. George Washington Carver, the child of a Mississippi slave, believed peanuts, sweet potatoes, and science could free Southern farmers from poverty. Cotton had exhausted the soil of the Deep South, and at Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute (now Tuskegee University) in southeastern Alabama in the early twentieth century, he showed farmers the benefits of planting sweet potatoes. They were well suited to Alabama, and he worked to grow demand by developing 118 products made from them, including flour, vinegar, molasses, ink, rubber, and even postage stamp glue.
And, of course, he cooked with them, slicing them into this tantalizing pie where, with spices, molasses, and cream, they cook down inside the flaky pastry. When you fork into a bite, it’s a bit like pie and a bit like your favorite sweet potato casserole. This recipe is adapted from The Historical Cookbook of the American Negro (1958).
This cake is a showstopper, and a perfect ice cream treat to serve around the holidays. There is much room for interpretation, however, and any of the No-Churn Ice Cream flavors (below) can be swapped in for everyday afternoon ice cream cake snacking. (I particularly like replacing the pumpkin with the coffee-flavored ice cream.)
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.