from The Paris Café Cookbook: Rendezvous and Recipes from 50 Best Cafes, by Daniel Young
Ingredients
For this recipe you must put bay's association with stews and stocks out of your mind. The flavor of the fresh leaves is full of sweet spice. When I was dining at a small restaurant in Sussex, England, I had a wonderfully subtle bay leaf custard for dessert, and I learned there is a long history of bay being used to flavor sweet custards or rice pudding before vanilla was widely available. I like to use both. Fresh bay gives the custards a warm comforting flavor with hints of nutmeg and citrus and perfectly complements the crisp caramelized topping. Most important, it's subtle enough to be respectful of this classic dessert's simplicity.
Ingredients
The chocolate dessert of the nineties, these little cakes are baked to a crisp outside and a warm, melting center that acts as sauce. The recipe makes eight servings, and one key to success is leaving the batter to stand overnight. Then the cakes must be baked just long enough to hold a shape while the center remains soft. Don't worry if they overbake and set firm; they are still the very best of chocolate puddings.
Two kinds of chocolate, dark cocoa, intense vanilla and coffee, and a crunch of almond turn a fine chocolate cake into an opulent one.
From The Italian Country Table: Home Cooking from Italy's Farmhouse Kitchens by Lynne Rossetto Kasper (Scribner, 1999). © 1999 Lynne Rossetto Kasper. All rights reserved.
Simplicity and lightness define these sunny little treats, which are easy to make and even easier to eat, especially with chilled, homemade lemonade or hot tea or coffee. They are inspired by the Easter Week Yoemem, or Yaqui, in "the House of the Sun."
Its tender, golden crumb makes this cake a good foundation for a sort of unstructured strawberry shortcake.
Of the many preserves made by my grandmother, one of the few made also by my mother was pickled peaches. Every summer mother made two or three large jars, and we generally ate them during the Christmas holidays. When I was first married, I, too, put up pickled peaches. These wine-infused pickled pears are a more elegant preparation, and I think more versatile.