You could finish a supper of beans and burgers on a high note with this dessert, or bring it in to be the finale of a fancy dinner party.
Wine syrups are the answer to what you can easily have waiting in the fridge to tune up simple foods. A plate of fresh fruit, a scoop of ice cream or a store-bought brownie tastes a lot more interesting when drizzled with this syrup. It’s also pretty good on roasting chicken, lamb and especially pork. Brushed on grilling ribs, or yams—it’s really fine.
I adore the deceptive plainness of gingerbread. It is definitively unfancy, and yet the flavor is so rich, and its deep-toned tang so subtle. Here the tang is a little more emphatic, as sour cream and licorice-evocative Guinness give heady lift, but still this is — for all the treacly sugar and pungent spices — gentle and cozy-making, though almost alarmingly addictive.
Ingredients
Ingredients
Moist, dark, spicy, but not too sweet, this is classic gingerbread. The addition of black pepper has a historical hook: it was a common ingredient in gingerbreads of the past. We think it brings alive the other spices.
So much easier than apple pie and so much lighter, this tart will not be overkill after a celebration meal. It’s not the same-old, same-old apple pie. The tart’s rosemary leaves and lemon sugar (the trick of rubbing shredded rind into sugar) flavoring the apple slices, then a finish of cinnamon and olive oil sets it far apart from the usual. The best part is that because the tart’s so thin and crisp-crusted, you can bake it a day ahead and lightly warm the tart in the oven before serving.
In the early 1500s, Montezuma in his Mexico City palace drank chocolate daily, usually with red chile in it. Apparently the king knew that chile, in small amounts, amplifies and enriches the taste of chocolate. So does Jane Butel, the noted cookbook author and specialist in Mexican cookery, who generously provided the recipe from which this cake was adapted. At The Fort, it's a centerpiece of a birthday and anniversary ritual from which good-natured celebrants emerge with a photo of themselves in a horned buffalo or coyote hat.
I spent some time in Knoxville and got to know firsthand how pleasant the people are and how proud they are to maintain the tradition of the apple stack cake. Everyone knows it, and the routine that they follow to make and serve it is serious business.
Granita is the crunchy cousin to sorbet, more rustic, and for me, more satisfying.