If you’re not familiar with Texas sheet cake, the holiday season is a terrific time to get to know it. It’s a delicious way to make dessert for a crowd in no time at all, and the flavor is unique: it’s not a brownie, and it’s not really a cake. It’s more like a chocolate pecan tray bake that has an indefinable end flavor that reminds me of a malted milk ball. They’re one of those treats that immediately makes […]
When I was growing up, my grandmother was friendly with another farming family who had orchards full of apples, pears, and stone fruits. It was a rite of fall for my mother and I to go to Schenks’ to buy apples, cider, and Italian plums for plum dumplings. We would walk past their farm stand to the apple cooler; its giant, maple-fronted steel door opened slowly, like a bank vault. Inside, the metallic fragrance of cold apples enveloped us, as […]
One of the original desserts of early American cooking was hasty pudding, or, as it was sometimes known, Indian pudding. (You may remember that hasty pudding is mentioned in the lyrics of the Revolutionary War song, “Yankee Doodle.”) Made with cornmeal, eggs, milk, and whatever spices a cook had on hand, it was sweetened with molasses or maple syrup. Later versions added ice cream, or candied fruit. This is my updated take on hasty pudding, based on recipes found in […]
These red hot cinnamon candy apples always remind me of Halloween, a carnival, or the state fair; they’re a great bit of twentieth century Americana, and easy to make if you have a candy thermometer and a box of cinnamon red hots. I added red food coloring and a tiny touch of black food coloring to get that go-to-hell shade of red. The tiny candy apples are similar to the tiny caramel apples I made last year: https://www.americas-table.com/recipes/mini-caramel-apples-2, or you […]
Serves: makes 2 dozen Prep time: 1/2 hour, plus two hours to chill dough and 20 minutes to bake
