Apples have caramel. Strawberries have chocolate. I think that peaches should have dulce de leche. Actually, I think that a lot of things should have dulce de leche, but I’ll stick to peaches for the moment. All fruits have other flavors that pair well with them, and although fresh fruit is a treat all on its own, it’s nice to have the option to make things a little more decadent. White peaches are one of my favorite summer fruits and I have a bounty of them. A little experimentation brought me to the combination of white peaches and dulce de leche, which turns out to be a fantastic way to enjoy peaches as a snack or simple dessert.
The soft dairy notes of the dulce de leche really brings out the floral notes of fresh peaches, adding a nice complexity to a simple combination. And even though the dulce de leche has quite a bit of sugar in it, it is not too sweet for the peaches – by which I mean that it neither covers up nor mutes the natural sweetness of the peaches in any way. Instead, the darker caramel flavor creates a background to showcase the peaches
As much as I enjoy cookies and milk, I have to admit that I tend to lean towards cookies and coffee. I tend to drink more coffee than milk, although I do put steamed milk into my coffee when I’m making lattes and such, and it’s hard to beat the way that hot coffee can soak into a dunked cookie – especially when chocolate chips are involved.
This variation on an oatmeal cookie brings the cookie and the coffee together, infusing some espresso right into the cookie dough. I used instant espresso powder in this recipe because it’s an ingredient I always have on hand and it gives a great, bold coffee flavor to things. Instant coffee powder will work, too, but might not have quite as strong a flavor. Coffee extract, if you have it, is a good substitute for the instant espresso powder and is also a great way to boost the overall coffee flavor in the cookie if you want to go stronger.
These cookies are quite buttery, so they bake up to be a little bit thinner than some other oatmeal cookies. The trick to getting them to turn out just right is to make the balls of dough smaller than you might otherwise (smaller than I usually do, anyway) and flatten them slightly with your fingertips or a spoon before baking so they bake and spread evenly. The cookies are slightly chewy in the center and very tender overall. The coffee flavor isn’t too assertive and serves to highlight the flavor of the chocolate chips.
+Continue Reading
In the simplest terms, cocoa butter is the fat in chocolate that makes it melt in your mouth and in your hand. It is a plant fat from the cocoa bean that has a melting point that is just around body temperature (somewhere around 95F, give or take a few degrees, actually), meaning that it is a solid at any temperature below that point and a liquid at any temperature above it. It is this property of cocoa butter – even more than the flavor of cocoa/chocolate itself – that makes chocolate so irresistibly unique in texture. By itself, cocoa butter has a yellowish white color to it. You won’t see it on its own too often, but if you have ever seen chocolate “bloom,” or develop a whitish tinge to it, it is usually the cocoa butter rising to the surface of the chocolate after having been through a rapid change in temperature (from hot and melting, to cold, to put it in very simple terms).
You can buy cocoa butter online and use it to make your own chocolates. It can also be added to some types of frosting to keep it firmer at room temperature, since it is a little sturdier than butter is at temperatures above 70F and has very little flavor of its own.
I must have had my mind on cupcakes after hearing about the world record setting cupcake the other day, because when I walked into Williams-Sonoma this week, one of the first things that my eye was drawn to was Nordicware’s Great Cupcake Pan. This pan is pretty new and seems to be another take on the Giant Cupcake Pan made by Wilton, which has been around for awhile. It bakes a large cupcake-shaped cake in two pieces – the frosting and the cake base – which can be assembled and decorated any way you like.
Like all Nordicware pans, this one is heavy duty and made of cast aluminum with a nonstick finish on the inside. The cupcake that it makes seems to be a little bit smaller than the Wilton version, and even though I personally like the swirl on the top a lot, the Wilton pan is a bit less expensive, so you might want to take that consideration if you’re in the market for a cake pan like this one.
I really like that flavor and the texture of my cream cheese bread pudding, as it’s slightly firmer than many bread puddings and has a hint of cheesecakiness to it. It’s almost like having two desserts in one. I decided to take advantage of the cheesecake angle of the dessert and play with the flavors in the dish a little bit. Strawberries, for instance, are a popular topping for cheesecake, so they seemed like they would be a good match in the dish in terms of flavor. Bread pudding is a dish that can handle a lot of extra moisture, too, so even though fresh strawberries can become slightly watery during baking in some dishes, it didn’t seem like it would present any problem with the bread base of this dish.
In the finished dish, both the strawberries and the bread pudding both held up beautifully in this recipe, resulting in a dessert that tasted like a rich, moist strawberry shortcake with a hint of strawberry cheesecake to it. It definitely showcases the strawberries against the milder vanilla and cream flavors in the background. I used fresh strawberries to make this bread pudding, but frozen strawberries can also be used. If possible, I would let the frozen berries thaw for a little while to allow some of the liquid to drain off of them and to make them easier to slice. Large, whole frozen berries are a bit too large for this recipe and could make the bread pudding a little bit mushy.
Serve this bread pudding with a little bit of whipped cream. It can be served while it is still warm from the oven (it should cool for a little while before serving, however), but it also tastes great when chilled, so it can easily be made in advance. The bread pudding should keep, covered, in the fridge for about 3-4 days.
+Continue Reading
