So I was a bit surprised when Eli, after bounding down the hall and into our bed Christmas Eve morning, said “This dinner is going to be my favorite!” Tony asked, “What are you looking forward to most?” And Eli responded, “Christmas after it!”

Well, who can blame him? And when I asked what he wanted for dinner, he listed stuffing and gravy, so that’s pretty much what we ate (oh, and some brussels sprouts and chard and caramelized onions and roast potatoes… but that’s another story). For dessert, I was planning just to offer up a plate of Christmas cookies, but this is where Eli had a specific idea: raspberry pie.

Ben, by then cuddled in bed with us, too, and thoroughly steeped in the contemporary food ethos, worried, “Are raspberries in season?”

No, but raspberry jam is always in season, and we even had some homemade jam made by a friend. Raspberry jam tart it was.

I poked around online awhile and took most of my inspiration from David Lebovitz’s recipe but I had cold butter, not soft (and didn’t see the point in softening butter only to refrigerate the resulting tart dough until cold enough to use). So I pulled my Joy of Cooking off the shelf and followed Irma’s lead. I did borrow Lebovitz’s idea of reserving some of the dough to make an easy top crust, though instead of rolling it into a log, chilling and slicing it, as he does, I pressed mine flat and cut out some Christmasy stars. I predict you’ll see this tart on my table again at Valentine’s Day, topped with some hearts.

This recipe makes enough dough for an 8″ tart (bottom crust and top decorations); if you have a bigger tart pan, it’s easy to scale up.

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1/4 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons of cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 large egg yolk
1 1/2 cups of raspberry jam
1-2 tablespoons of coarse-grained sugar

Preheat the oven to 400.
Butter and flour the bottom of an 8″ tart pan with a removable bottom.

Whisk the flour, sugar, salt, and lemon zest together in a bowl or in the food processor. Add the butter and work in with a fork or pulse in the food processor until the mixture makes coarse crumbs. Add the egg yolk and mix until the dough just starts to come together in a ball.

Reserving about 1/3 cup of dough for the topping, pat most of the dough evenly into the bottom of the tart pan, letting it come up the sides a little bit. Spread with jam. Set aside momentarily while you make the topping.

Taking the reserved dough, press or roll it out on a floured counter or between sheets of wax paper until it’s about 1/4″ thick. Cut into desired shapes, freehand or using cookie cutters. Arrange the shapes on top of the jam, sprinkle them with the coarse-grained sugar, and bake until the crust is golden and the jam is bubbling a bit, 20-25 minutes.

This weekend we went to a holiday party where a friend was mixing a drink he calls The Grinch, which really is anything but (unless maybe you’re around the person who drank them the day after…)

A Grinch is basically a Grasshoppper made with vanilla ice cream  instead of cream and garnished with a peppermint stick and crushed candy cane sugar on the rim.  I actually didn’t drink them, sweet drinks not being my thing, but Kory did, and I can vouch that they’re sort of fun.

We made the Christmas Kidtini version for the kids the next night: a mint chip shake + green food coloring, garnished with candy canes and red sugar on the rim.

We still haven’t made the milk punch, or any cookies, or candy…but we are slowly but surely finding some Christmas spirit.

by Caroline

Glaze. Glaze is one of those words that makes me try a recipe, and the combination here of “caramel” + “glaze” got me, even though it is really just one small component of that recipe. But this glaze is so good I might just start making it to spread on things other than cake.

This recipe is from Merrill Stubbs, at the fabulous Food52, and I didn’t change a thing.

Applesauce Cake
Serves 10

For the cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon finely ground black pepper
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 1/2 cups unsweetened (preferably homemade) applesauce
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla

For the caramel glaze:
4 tablespoons butter, cut into chunks
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/3 cup heavy cream
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
3/4 to 1 cup sifted confectioners’ sugar

Heat the oven to 350 degrees and butter and flour a 12-cup Bundt pan. Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, pepper and spices and set aside. In a large mixing bowl or the bowl of a standing mixer, beat the eggs with both sugars until light. Mix in the applesauce, oil and vanilla until smooth.

Using a spatula, fold in the dry ingredients, being careful not to over-mix. Pour the batter into the prepared pan and bake for about 45 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Cool the cake for 10 minutes in the pan on a rack before turning it out and cooling completely on the rack — make sure the cake is not at all warm before you make the glaze.

TheRunawaySpoon wisely advises that you put a piece of foil or paper under the cooling rack to catch any drips before you start the glaze. Put the butter in a medium saucepan with the brown sugar, cream and salt and set over medium heat. Bring to a full rolling boil, stirring constantly. Boil for one minute exactly, and then pull it off the heat.

Leave the pan to cool for a couple of minutes, and then gradually whisk in the powdered sugar until you have a thick, but pourable consistency (you may not need all the sugar). If the mixture seems too thick, just add a splash of cream to thin it out a little. Immediately pour the glaze over the cake, moving slowly and evenly to cover as much surface area as possible. Let the glaze set before serving the cake.

Last week’s CSA fruit share brought us pounds and pounds of Seckel pears, beautiful brown pears ranging in size from a large cherry to a more traditional fist of pear. I’ve never cooked with Seckel pears before and I found lots of recipes that feature them peeled, cored, poached and then crowning a tart, their stems poking up: gorgeous, but way too much effort for me right now.

I considered pear bread, but with my parents in town, I wanted to make something new. So, I poked around some more and eventually found this terrific cobbler recipe, which uses dried blueberries and cornmeal biscuits. A winner! The biscuits are so good, this recipe’s worth saving just for them, but the combination of crunchy cornmeal biscuit, sweet pear and tart dried blueberry is really fabulous.

For the biscuits:
1 cup all purpose flour
2/3 cup stone-ground cornmeal (medium grind)
1/4 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon coarse kosher salt
6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes, plus 3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
2/3 cup chilled heavy whipping cream

Pear filling:
6 pounds firm but ripe Seckel pears, Taylor Gold pears, or Bosc pears, peeled, cored, cut into 1/2- to 3/4-inch pieces (about 12 cups)
1 cup apple juice
1/4 cup fresh lemon juice
3 tablespoons cornstarch
1 teaspoon (scant) coarse kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) chilled unsalted butter, diced
1 1/2 cups dried wild blueberries (9 ounces)
Vanilla ice cream

For biscuits:
Whisk flour, cornmeal, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, and 1/2 teaspoon coarse salt in large bowl. Add chilled butter; rub in with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Add cream; stir just until moistened. Gather dough together; form into 8-inch-long log. Cut log crosswise into eight 1-inch-thick rounds. Spread 3 tablespoons sugar on plate. Dip 1 cut side of each biscuit into melted butter, then dip buttered side in sugar. Place biscuits, sugared side up, on platter; sprinkle any remaining sugar over top. Cover and chill.

For pear filling:
Preheat oven to 375°F. Butter 13x9x2-inch glass baking dish. Place pears in large bowl. Add next 5 ingredients; toss. Let stand 10 minutes, tossing occasionally.

Transfer pear filling to prepared dish. Dot with diced butter. Cover dish with foil. Bake until pears are almost tender, about 50 minutes. Remove dish from oven; stir dried blueberries into pear filling. Place biscuits atop filling. Continue to bake uncovered until filling is bubbling thickly, biscuits are pale golden, and tester inserted into biscuits comes out clean, about 35 minutes longer (biscuits may look cracked). Cool 30 minutes. Serve warm with ice cream.

Over the weekend I went on a juicing binge brought on by an unexpected CSA delivery, which brought us an extra melon,which brought our household total to 3 ripe melons. Usually its no chore to eat one in a day, but all three of these beauties weren’t going to wait. So I brought out my Breville juicer, which is the only thing in my life I’ve ever won, and which is a pretty great machine. It’s lightning fast and powerful, and we do use it all during citrus season.  But because it takes an awful lot of (often expensive) produce to make juice, and I don’t love cleaning the pulp, I don’t use it regularly.   Most days, I’d much rather hand an apple (or plum or carrot) to the kids and just say, “Eat.”  But when I met my husband, he drank all sorts of juice and smoothies, and this was long before Kris Carr (who, for the record, I think is pretty terrific. I contributed to her site here.)   So in the spirit of economy and nostalgia, I broadened my juicing repertoire.

First, I chopped up the watermelon and passed it to Ella, who had a great time feeding it to the maw of the machine. It happened so fast I didn’t get a picture of the juicing or the juice, but believe me when I say there is nothing more refreshing on a 90 degree day than ice cold watermelon juice.

Then, we went to work on the melon, which I chilled and served after dinner with a spoonful of vanilla yogurt and a strawberry garnish.  Kory and I thought it was great. The kids, not so much.. But I saved their portions and the melon soup made a great, drinkable breakfast for me the next morning as I made the kids pancakes.  I think the soup would work nicely as an appetizer, too, served in  little shot glasses with a  garnish of creme fraiche (or greek yogurt) and some cubed, fried pancetta. I will get back to you on that.

For now, if you have any quickly ripening produce, I suggest the juicer.  I am going to get to work on those tomatoes soon.

Also: I’d love to know: what do you juice?

A friend of mine reviews reviews for websites; you read that right: if you write a product review of an item you buy online, chances are she or one of her colleagues will vet your review before it is published, checking for inappropriate language, slander, and other no-no’s. But even acceptable reviews are often riddled with punctuation and grammar errors, and I often think of my friend, waging a lonely, one-woman battle against misplaced modifiers and comma splices. The excerpts she posts on Facebook every day — especially the ones with grammatical errors that introduce unintentionally hilarious meanings (think, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”) — make my day.

But it’s got me thinking about recipe-writing and reviewing. I use recipe websites all the time, and often use the reviews to guide my choices, but I’m always amazed (and kind of amused) at the reviews that say something like “This cake was terrible!! I cut the sugar by 50%, replaced the butter with pureed prunes, and used wheat germ and ground flax instead of white flour; it was so dry! it wasn’t nearly sweet enough! I won’t ever make this again!!” (Online reviewers always use multiple exclamation points). Yes, well, serves you right, I think.

I adapt recipes, and I do often cut sugar or replace shortening with ground flaxseed meal, but usually not until the second time around. It doesn’t seem right to tinker until I really understand what the recipe’s doing. And when I tinker, I’ll let you know so that you can make your own decisions about the changes.

The chocolate zucchini cake recipe I made this week from Epicurious has a raft of reviews and for some reason this time they really drew me in. As usual, a number of reviewers simply praised the recipe; others (helpfully) explained changes they made and their result; others criticized the recipe after make unsuccessful changes; and then — my favorite — others told off the critics who had made ill-advised substitutions:

“Yep, if you start making substitutions, don’t blame the recipe.”

And even better:
“Did anybody actually make THIS cake???? By the time you make all the substitutions and revisions, it’s not the same cake. Who gives a rat’s behind about what everyone did to alter the cake, just RATE THE DAMN THING! Whooo, now that i got that off my chest, yes, I do feel better. Incidentally, the cake I made using THIS recipe, was fabulous.”

I have to agree. I made this cake and it is good.

Most summers we go a little nuts for ice cream. I have two ice creams makers (traditional and soft serve) and it’s not been unheard of for me to whip up a batch of ice cream at least once a week.  Caroline makes more than her share of  ice cream in the summer, too.

But this year, we were gone most of the summer. We did come back with some great food memories and at least one amazing recipe, but we didn’t do a whole lot of summer cooking. In fact, I missed the farmers market this summer more times than I’ve missed it in the past ten years combined.   Thankfully, it’s warmer than ever here (which is usually the case every September where we live) and summer produce is still at its height. This has meant a lot of grilling, a lot of tomatoes, a lot of dinners outside, and, finally, finally, ice cream.

This recipe is my new addiction, and one of the best ice creams I’ve ever made. Come spring, we can’t get enough panna cotta, and this recipe is its high summer equivalent. I came to it because I had some leftover buttermilk and a lot of strawberries.   Technically, of course, panna cotta is not a flavor, but a method of cooking (it means “cooked cream”). But this ice cream is the cold, summer version of our our favorite buttermilk panna  cotta, and you do cook the cream, so panna cotta ice cream it will remain.  But it doesn’t matter what you call it as long as you make it.  This is a nearly perfect ice cream: not too sweet, perfectly creamy, and it won’t completely exhaust your egg supply.

Panna Cotta Ice Cream with Warm Strawberry Sauce

For the ice cream (makes 1 quart)

• 1 cup whipping cream
• 6 large egg yolks
• 1/2 cup bakers sugar*
• 1 cup cold buttermilk

For the strawberry sauce (serve 4)

• 1/2 pint fresh strawberries
• 1-2 tablespoons water
• 1 heaping tablespoon bakers sugar

1. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl until well blended.
2. In a saucepan, gently heat the cream and sugar, whisking until the sugar is just dissolved.
3. Transfer half of the cream to the egg yolks and whisk to lighten yolks and blend.
4. Pour yolks and cream back into the saucepan and heat, stirring gently, until the mixture is thick enough to coat the back of the spoon.
5. Strain into a large bowl. Add the butter milk and stir to blend well.
6. Chill the buttermilk cream mixture several hours–or preferably overnight.
7. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to manufacturers directions.
8. Just before serving make the Strawberry Sauce:

• Hull and quarter the strawberries.
• In a small saucepan, combine strawberries, water, and sugar.
• Heat gently until a thin glaze develops and strawberries are slightly soft.
• Remove from heat, let cool slightly, and serve warm over ice cream.

*Note: I’ve taken to using bakers sugar for my ice cream, which is a very fine grain sugar. It measures the same as regular sugar, but it dissolves much more easily. For ice cream, this means you need less heat, and therefore have less chance of scrambling the eggs.

After the earthquake and tsunami last spring, I checked in with all my people in Japan and quickly, happily heard back that everyone was ok — except for Yuka. As a reporter for Reuters, she travels a lot, and we’ll go ages without contact, but still, it weighed on me, and I was hugely relieved when she emailed that she’d be in town this week. I wanted to make something special for dinner, but with a day full of back-to-school activities, I didn’t have a ton of time.

Enter my daily Food52 email with this peach tart recipe from Amanda Hesser. She had me at “To make it all you need is a knife, a bowl, and some kind of pan.” A tart without finicky requirements? Yes, please. This recipe is easier than pie: it’s as easy as cake. Get a bowl, gather ingredients, stir, slice, bake. It was ready to go into the oven before the oven was hot enough to bake it. And any recipe that makes it easy for the kids to help is a winner in my book, too:

Whenever members of my family get together, we eat, and if we’re going to be visiting each other for a few days, we count up the meals in advance and start planning what we’ll cook and eat together (we have already, despite having more important things to do, begun emailing a little bit about Thanksgiving).

My Dad doesn’t do too much cooking, but when we gather at my parents’ home, he plays an important role in our food conversation by telling us what’s coming from the garden or what he’s got stocked in the freezer, also letting us know when some food is producing at oppressive levels (at the moment, ripening peaches cover every flat surface in the kitchen, the wood stove, and one spare bed) or whether we need to clear out last year’s frozen whatever-vegetable to make room for this year’s crop. It’s kind of like walking into an episode of Iron Chef, the one-ingredient cooking challenge, except I get lots of ingredients, and no stop clock. It’s great.

At my parents’ last week, one of the products to use was rhubarb, and my Mom had already emailed me a recipe from the New York Times in anticipation of my visit. I am a big fan of upside-down cakes, as you might have noticed; I’ve posted recipes for ones with cherries and pears (with a terrible picture), though I think my favorite is still this apricot upside-down cake, which I picture here. They are usually pretty easy, always moist, and have that great caramelized sugar-crust edge. I have to admit, this one is a bit fussier than what I would make just for my own family, but for my Mom — who taught me how to bake — anything. And besides, it’s completely delicious.

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature, more to grease pans
1 1/2 pounds rhubarb, rinsed and sliced into 1/2-inch cubes (about 4 cups)
2 teaspoons cornstarch
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar 1/2 cup light brown sugar
2 cups cake flour
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
Zest of 1 lemon, grated
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
4 large eggs
1/3 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons lemon juice.

1. Heat oven to 325 degrees. Line the bottom of a 9-inch springform pan with parchment paper. Butter the paper and sides of the pan. Wrap two layers of foil under the pan, and place it on a buttered baking sheet.
2. In a medium bowl, mix rhubarb, cornstarch and 1/2 cup granulated sugar.
3. Mix the brown sugar and 1/2 stick butter in a pan over medium heat. Whisk until smooth and bubbling, about 2 minutes. Sift together the cake flour, baking powder and salt.
4. Whip 2 sticks butter in a mixer with a paddle attachment for 2 minutes. With your fingers, blend the remaining 1 cup sugar with lemon zest until the mixture is uniform in color. Cream together with the butter at medium-high speed until it is light and fluffy, about 4 minutes, stopping to scrape down the bowl halfway through. Add the vanilla and mix well. Add the eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Mix in the sour cream, then the lemon juice. (It’s O.K. if the mixture looks curdled.) With the mixer set to low speed, add the flour mixture, 1/4 cup at a time, until well combined. Scrape down the mixer bowl in between the additions.
5. Pour the brown-sugar mixture into the cake pan, then spoon in the rhubarb and its juices. Spoon in the batter so it covers all of the rhubarb. Smooth out the top.
6. Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the top of the cake is firm to touch and a toothpick stuck in the middle comes out without any large, moist crumbs.
7. Place the pan on a wire rack, and cool for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the cake, place a plate on top of the pan and turn it upside-down. Release the cake from the pan while still warm or else it will stick.
Yield: 8 servings.

We’ve been feeling pretty celebratory around here since learning the terrific news that Shambhala Publications/Roost Books will publish our anthology, The Dish: Making the Meals that Make Your Family. It seems an appropriate time to give you a big cake bonanza: three recipes! all for chocolate cake! I hesitated briefly because I don’t have pictures of any of the cakes in question, they all went so fast. But you won’t need pictures if you make them yourself, will you?

Chocolate Carrot Cake is dense and moist, my favorite layer cake. It improves after a day or two, so it’s great to make ahead, and you can glaze it with chocolate or (my preference) make a triple batch of cream cheese frosting and use that as filling and frosting. The cake is not too sweet and it’s perfectly chocolately. Plus, the carrots make it healthy (or so I tell myself). My friend Liz (who has contributed an essay about frosting and farmer’s markets to this collection) gave me the recipe, which originally comes from a Martha’s Vineyard cafe. It is my go-to celebration cake and is also, in fact, the one Tony baked last week to celebrate my birthday.

Crazy Cake, also known as cockeyed cake or 6-minute cake, is lighter, but just as moist and chocolatey (especially if you make it with coffee, which brings out the chocolate flavor). It comes together in five minutes and happens to be vegan, which is occasionally useful. Kids like to stir it together because the vinegar and baking soda make a satisfying chemistry lab reaction, so we make this batter into cupcakes for all the kids’ birthday parties.

And finally, Smitten Kitchen’s Everyday Chocolate Cake is this summer’s happy new cake discovery. It is a perfect one-bowl, dark and satisfying chocolate cake. Making it in a loaf pan gives it a simple and sturdy everyday look, though I suppose there’s nothing stopping you from doubling the recipe, putting it in round cake pans, and frosting it. But try it as written, because who doesn’t need chocolate cake every day?

If you have these recipes in your repertoire, you will need no others.