This is the best time of year for fruit, especially berries.  My original idea for this was a giant strawberry shortcake, but biscuits only last a short while before getting too soggy.  So for the base, I made a yellow cake with lots of lemon zest and filled it with strawberries and whipped cream.  Not a bad start, right?  To keep it light (tasting), I frosted the whole thing in more whipped cream and covered it in more berries and berry and almond flowers.

Raspberry Shortcake with Lemon Curd

Our Easter this year was a more quiet celebration--but no less fun or tasty.  For dinner, I roasted a chicken with some oranges and scallions.  There was also sauteed tofu with ginger and honey, mashed potatoes, carrots, deviled eggs, and a spinach salad.  And then for dessert, mostly after finding what are apparently elusive at Whole Foods this week--fresh raspberries (though clearly I've bought a lot lately)--I made raspberry shortcakes with lemon curd.  Flaky, slightly sweet biscuits were layered with chantilly cream, lemon curd, and then piled with raspberries.  It's hard to go wrong with that combination really.

Chocolate Mousse Cake with Raspberries

The Passover baking challenge isn't that you can't use flour--there are plenty of desserts that don't include flour.  But so many of them end up heavy with too much almond or matzo meal or too fudgy chocolate creations.  And it's not that they're not good, but after a big meal, sometimes you don't want something quite as dense.  This cake is impressive in its height, with hints of Grand Marnier cream and raspberries peeking out from between the layers.  And when you slice into it, it's surprisingly soft and light, like mousse, but still deeply chocolatey.  I've made moussse cakes before, but this recipe, from Smitten Kitchen, has the great suggestion of freezing the delicate layers when they're cool, so they're easy to handle when you put the cake together.  This also means you can do the more involved part of the cake on one day, and then just put it together a few hours before dinner, and the frozen layers will help keep things cool as they defrost. 

Chocolate Mousse with Raspberries

This is one of my most favorite combinations of all time. Rich, dark chocolate combined with whipped cream and fresh raspberries? Oh yeah. I have to keep telling myself it's much harder to make than it is (really easy), so I don't find myself alone with an entire batch of this and a spoon.

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Thanksgiving Just Desserts

After the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and squash, there's not always a lot of room for dessert on Thanksgiving. Still, I usually make three or four pies and cakes so we can have choices. But this year, thinking more is better, and having more people over, I made seven desserts. Yes, seven--it's not like I made 19 pies or anything. From front to back, we had classic apple pie, raspberry key lime tart, pumpkin chiffon pie, carrot cake, chocolate-cranberry-pecan pie, apple crumble cake, and mocha buttercrunch pie. Possibly it was too much ... but I don't think so. One day later, and there's not too much left.
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Storm the Gates

In salute to Bastille Day and the end of the French Revolution, I made crepes for dessert tonight. The crepes were filled with raspberry jam, fresh raspberries and peaches, and a dollop of cream. A few toasted almonds were sprinkled on top.


Before that we had quiche, along with a big green salad and cantaloupe. The quiche was made with eggs, milk, spinach and fontal, a semi-soft cheese. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

A Very Berry Fourth

Happy 4th of July! We celebrated the holiday with family, food, and fireworks--an excellent combination. The dessert above is a lemon cake filled and topped with whipped cream, strawberries, raspberries, and blueberries. Patriotic--and so tasty.



We grilled out (chicken sausage and veggie burgers) and also had corn on the cob, green beans and both carrot and potato salads.



And SwimmerGirl made lime snowcones.



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Raspberry-Apricot-Almond Danish

I made this pastry for a brunch we had today. Because I had the dough already made, leftover from a previous experiment, it was pretty easy to put together before everyone arrived. I took the dough out of the freezer, went to pick up some bagels, came back and rolled it out, filled it with raspberry and apricot preserves and a ground almond mixture, closed the braid, let it rest for 30 min., and then baked it for 20 min. Relatively quick and extremely tasty, and there's now only a sliver of it left.

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Valentine's Macarons

Happy Valentine's Day! This year I decided to tackle a project I've been talking about for over a year, possibly two. Macarons are sweet, almond and meringuey cookies that are filled with any number of good things. I made two kinds: one pale pink filled with raspberry preserves and one creamy white filled with dark chocolate ganache. The thing about macarons is that they are a process to make and, with the almond flour, not cheap either. I knew this going in--and they lived up to that. I think I used every mixing bowl around as well as every surface. Also, the cookies are delicate, and breakage will occur. While I don't plan to make these again immediately, I still came away with plenty of cookies and even just the unfilled broken shells are good to munch on.

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Rise and Shine

Blustery and cold Sunday mornings call for a little something extra. This morning, with the temperature in the 20s and the wind chill at least 10 degrees lower, I made a treat from "Baking With Julia." This Danish pastry is flaky, and the recipe includes three choices for one of the two fillings and two choices for the second. I used four-berry preserves and a ground almond mixture, but there are many, perhaps less traditional, substitutions too.



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Peach-Raspberry Pie

Peach season is here, and one of my favorite ways to use them is in pie. This recipe is loosely based on a deep-dish cobbler from chef Rick Bayless. My filling uses about 3 lbs of fresh peaches and a generous handful of raspberries, along with sugar, ginger, and a little cornstarch to thicken. Just a slice ... - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Crepes with Raspberry Cream

On the 4th of July we took a picnic and watched the fireworks in the shadow of the National Cathedral. The night was clear and not as hot, and the fireworks were beautiful. And we had a perfectly lovely dessert to enjoy as we waited for the display to begin. The crepes are filled with raspberry whipped cream (heavy cream, a little sugar, and raspberries) as well as lots of whole berries both inside and out.

Black Raspberry Chip Ice Cream

Tart, sweet, and creamy, with slivers of semisweet Ghirardelli throughout. The recipe is based on one from ice cream guru David Lebovitz. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Things to With 5 Lbs of Raspberries

Raspberry limeade


Raspberry-lime jam


Grilled chicken marinated with honey, yogurt, raspberries and lime - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Raspberry Tart

We picked five pounds of raspberries, both red and black, today. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Christmas Cookies!

This year's Christmas cookies are done, and the kitchen is now closed. At least for a few days. And despite my plans to not go overboard this year, it's possible I did, though strangely there aren't many left at this point. As usual, there were a couple of regulars and a few new flavors, too -- I kept finding new recipes to try, but eventually even I had to call it quits. In the final tally, I made peach-raspberry linzers, shortbread snowflakes, chocolate-dipped espresso shortbread trees, soft ginger cookies, fleur de sel caramel, almond buttercrunch, chocolate chip-pretzel cookies, cranberry-oatmeal-chip cookies, and pecan bars with cranberries.

Chocolate-Raspberry Ice Cream

Continuing the ice cream and raspberry themes, tonight we made chocolate-raspberry ice cream. The recipe, from The Perfect Scoop, purees raspberries with the chocolate cream mixture, so the flavors are thoroughly combined. The result is a luscious, smooth dark chocolate ice cream with lots of raspberry flavor. We used half-and-half instead of heavy cream. Chocolate-Raspberry Ice Cream (based on the recipe in The Perfect Scoop) 1.5 c half-and-half 5 heaping Tbs unsweetened cocoa powder 2/3 c sugar 2 c fresh or frozen raspberries In a saucepan, combine the half-and-half, cocoa powder, and sugar, and cook til the mixture comes to a boil. Add the raspberries, cover, and let sit for 10-15 min. Then pour the mixture into the food processor, and blend til smooth. Strain the seeds out and then chill the liquid for several hours. When the liquid is thoroughly cold, pour it into the frozen ice cream maker base and let it run for about 30 min., or until frozen. Scoop the ice cream into a container and freeze so it can get a little harder before serving.

Triple Berry Cheesecake for a Party

We went to a party last night, and I brought a triple berry cheesecake. I covered the top of the cheesecake with (strained) black raspberry jam, a combination of fresh red raspberries and blackberries, and then a thin drizzle of caramel. The cheesecake recipe is originally from the Barefoot Contessa, but I used a ginger-pecan crust instead of graham crackers, light cream cheese instead of the regular, and Greek yogurt instead of sour cream.

Family Dinner

After a quick trip north for the weekend, we had some family over to visit last night. Dinner mid-week isn't always easy, but this menu was fairly easy to put together, giving us plenty of time to chat and catch up. The chicken, which has become a staple around here, marinated while the other things were made, and then it was grilled as we had drinks and snacks. We also had French potato salad, which is full of herbs, mustard and olive oil but no mayonnaise; roasted artichoke hearts with red peppers; a watermelon salad with olives; pineapple; and a big green salad and bread. Not shown is the homemade French vanilla ice cream we had for dessert, topped with warm black raspberry jam. Some added tiny (but rich) chocolate brownies ... yum. Somehow in the midst of all that goodness I forgot to take any pics ... and the ice cream is now long gone, alas.

More Raspberries

Ten pounds of raspberries go a long way, you know? In addition to the pie and ice cream, I've made black raspberry jam and frozen two quarts of red raspberries, with plenty left to top cereal or yogurt, or just eat out of hand. They never last as long as you'd like them to, though ... thus the freezing.