This is a last-minute party dessert, for when you want to make a big Valentine’s splash, but there isn’t much time. The ingredients are available at just about any grocery store, and the whole thing took less than an hour. First, I made a big pan of brownies, baking 3 brownie mixes together in one baking sheet. I cut 3 large hearts out of the pan, frosted them lightly with premade chocolate frosting – just enough to make the sparkly […]
Want to make an awe-inspiring home-cooked dinner for two that will leave your Valentine reeling with delight? This meal is so fast and easy that even if you usually use your oven to store shoes and your refrigerator as a beer locker, you can still put this all together with minimum of time, effort and kitchen equipment. The trick is to take shortcuts that don’t diminish taste, put a personal twist on basic dishes to impress your date with your […]
We’ve reached the point in frozen January when even the smallest thing is cause for celebration. When I read that today was the birthday of Lewis Carroll, the author of “Alice in Wonderland,” it seemed like the perfect opportunity to make some old-fashioned Victorian tea party sweet – and what’s more Alice-ish than lemon tarts? I love everything to do with the folklore of Alice in Wonderland, the sideways manner of looking at the world, the whimsicality and gentle oddness […]
This is a dessert that will blow your guests away. Basically, it’s a four-inch sphere of thin chocolate filled with chocolate mousse, resting on a bed of praline sauce and – here’s where it gets interesting – topped with hot melted caramel. The hot caramel melts the chocolate sphere, and the whole thing collapses into a warm chocolate-caramel-pecan confection that will transport even the most rigid dessert deniers into sighing lumps of happiness. (Have you noticed how people deny themselves […]
I wanted to write about Mamie Eisenhower and her famous “million dollar” fudge. As it turns out, every foodie and their precocious child has written about this fudge, but Mamie Eisenhower deserves a shout-out, because she was an especially good first lady, and a great hostess. She was an enormous asset to Dwight Eisenhower as he rose through the ranks of the military. Their home was thrown open to so many officers over the years that it became known as […]
