Baked Alaska

02/08/2023

Baked Alaska is a retro dessert that deserves a place in every home baker’s repertoire. Like any dessert constructed from ice cream, it is fun to make, and provides ample opportunity for kids to join in. Baked Alaska can be assembled far in advance of a dinner party, and always…

Strawberry Heart Tarts

02/02/2023

These delicious and original tarts were one of the signature dessert offerings of The Commissary restaurant in Philadelphia. The Commissary was essentially an upscale cafeteria, where you picked up a blue tray and slid it along a brass rail to select your food. At the end of the line was…

Orange Pound Cake

01/24/2023

In the early days of The Friday Baking Project, I went to the recipe files looking for a citrus poundcake. I found several but this one, handwritten in batches of one, two and four cakes stood out for two reasons. One, only much-loved recipes were usually that well-documented and second,…

Crème Brûlée Tart

01/19/2023

I first learned of CrÃ¨me BrÃ»lÃ©e Tart while working in the pastry department at Sign of the Dove in the 1990’s. The time-consuming recipe involved whipping egg yolks to a thick ribbon stage, combining with cream, sugar, and vanilla bean, then cooking over a double boiler for over thirty minutes.…

Chocolate Hazelnut Cake

01/12/2023

Hazelnuts and chocolate are a wonderful flavor combination and on full display in this cake, inspired by a recipe of the same name from The Silver Palate Good Times Cookbook. In this version, I start with the fabulous Reine de Saba for the base cake, substituting hazelnut flour for the…

Maple Cream Pie

01/04/2023

Vermont takes its role as biggest producer of maple syrup in the United States seriously and syrup containers are proudly on display in many stores. So, while there over the holidays and working on the upcoming baking schedule I began thinking about a dessert incorporating maple syrup. On my return…

Cardamom Cake

12/22/2022

Cardamom with its unique taste and distinctive scent, is used extensively in Scandinavian baking recipes. Among them are Sweden’s Cardamom Buns (Kardemummabullar), Norway’s Christmas Bread (Julekake), and Finland’s Cardamom Sweet Bread (Pulla). And the most well-known, Denmark’s Danish Pastry (Wienerbr¸d). This simple yet delightful Cardamom Cake relies on that Scandinavian…

Christmas Ivoire

12/13/2022

This Christmas version of Ivoire et Chocolate incorporates the colors of the holiday into a beautiful dessert. It was inspired by a holiday cake design in the excellent book Cocolat (1990). Christmas Ivoire is a good example of taking a favorite cake and giving it a different look for a…