I had sugar w/zest for a 1.5 x recipe, so cut my square-round into 14 pieces. Great flavor – we each tasted two pieces, just to confirm. I’ve left myself a note that using plain yogurt plus orange marmalade works just fine. These rise in the oven to double their original height, and are nicely moist. I’ve kept out 4 for breakfast tomorrow (or bedtime snack tonight), frozen the rest.
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Thank you for letting us know that Medrich specifies Dutch process cocoa powder in this book.
In her earlier book, Cocolat, she states that she prefers natural cocoa. I always have Dutch process cocoa on hand, but I never have natural.
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Oh yeah, I was surprised because in her ingredient notes in the back she specifically says she likes Dutch process cocoa for its flavor (as well as richness and color) in the recipes and like you I had known of her preference for natural cocoa. It’s possible that because this is a low fat book the Dutch process cocoa’s less acidic flavor worked better when she was developing the recipes.
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The book preceded her association with Scharffen Berger Chocolate Co. Then there was a shift to natural cocoa, I’m under the impression that the association is no longer in effect.
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But Cocolat, in which she apparently states a preference for natural cocoa (as she does in some later books) was her first book, predating Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts. My money’s on Shelleybean’s supposition that it’s tied to the lower-fat recipes.
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Medrich’s book, Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts, predates Chocolate and the Art of Low Dat Desserts.
In Cocolat: Extraordinary Chocolate Desserts she expresses her preference for natural cocoa powder.
She was writing recipes for scharffenberger at one time, I’m not agreeing/disagreeing, just stating a fact.
In case people here want to try a recipe from Alice Medrich’s, Chocolate and the Art of Low Fat Desserts, here is a Sweet Potato and Dried Apricot cake that David Lebovitz posted on his blog. I’ve made it and it’s delicious m.
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I recently posted asking for gluten-free baking advice - you might find some other ideas there!
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That recipe is very similar to Italian pignoli cookies, but I’d wonder about the almonds flaking off (or the chocolate getting messed up). The pignolis stick to the cookie and are unlikely to suffer from travel.
My friend uses this recipe which has a tiny amount of flour (you can sub GF AP or rice flour), but others use zero flour (eg this or this).
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Thank you!! I make an Italian Pignoli cookie at Christmas! I realized that her birthday is at the end of April: think that I will try the NYT almond flour CCC. And thanks to this group, I have quite a few more gluten-free recipes to try!
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Tried out this cheesecake which is made with a shortbread crust, ganache layer, cheesecake, and lightly sweetened yogurt topping. As is often the case, some trial and error with the baking temp when converting a European recipe made with a different oven with bottom and top heating elements and convection. This needs to be baked at 400° in my oven. The crust is patted into the pan and refrigerated, then the ganache is poured and the whole thing frozen for 20 minutes. Cheesecake fillings gets poured on top, and into the oven. When the cheesecake is browned and still jiggly, on goes the yogurt topping for a 10-15 minute bake. I could barely wait for this to cool, so I had a still gooey slice. The slice pictured here came later after I stuck it in the freezer for a little bit.
Even with a blonder crust than ideal, this thing is AMAZING and I can’t wait to bake it again. I only made half as I often do for a first try. Next time I’m doing a full version. It’s so delicious. Sweetness is perfect, the layers complement each other really well, and it’s really very easy.
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I baked honey muffins yesterday that were a big hit with both of us in the house. Lots of honey in the batter and I topped it with a crumble mix. I put some cardamom in it and it complements the honey flavour really well.
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Lemon-blueberry scones, modified from an Epicurious recipe for lemon-poppyseed scones.
In addition to omitting the eggs, I swapped the equivalent of 1 c. of dried, wild blueberries for the poppyseeds. I’m finding I much prefer dried fruit in a scone over fresh – to my taste the scone-like texture holds up better without the added moisture brought by fresh fruit.
I made a half-batch for six smallish scones, topped with a lemony glaze.
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I’m not a cheesecake fan in general, but I’m intrigued that they can be cheese specific. Havarti?? I’m sure my mother (who loved cheesecake) never ate anything but Sara Lee.
It’s a Basque cheesecake that contains a small amount of semi-cured cheese to give it some extra flavor. Basque cheesecake can be a bit mild in flavor since it’s made with a fair amount of cream, vs a higher proportion of cream cheese and ingredients like sour cream.
Something like Monterrey jack or Colby would also be good. In the first post I made on it I mentioned using a semi-cured cheese that contains sheep’s milk and that worked well because it’s a small enough amount that you cannot make out that it’s sheep’s milk. Havarti is much cheaper, though, and just as effective, so I switched to that.
This time I used a little kefir cream I had as part of the cream portion, too.
I’ve seen cheesecakes with edam and cheddar and I imagine they would taste similar.
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