These cupcakes, taken to Montreal for the birthday party of a two year old, were deemed, “the best he’d ever had” by the birthday girl’s father. This was not a fluke. I’ve been making this carrot cake for as long as I can remember, and it’s so good that it converts people who swear they don’t like carrot cake.The recipe originally came from the Silver Palate cookbook (which I just learned originally came out in 1982, just like me!), though this version may have been modified somewhere along the way. 

Since these cupcakes were Montreal-bound in January for a toddler’s birthday, I thought the snowman cupcake liners from KAF were particularly apt. They were another Hanukkah present from my sister-in-law, who always picks out good ones.

Carrot Cake from Silver Palate

Preheat oven to 350ºF

Combine: 

2 c. flour

2 c. sugar

2 t. baking soda

2 t. cinnamon

Add: 

1 c. corn/vegetable oil*

3 large eggs, lightly beaten

2 t. vanilla

When combined, add: 

1 1/3 c. carrots, grated**

1 c. walnuts/pecans, chopped***

1 c. coconut****

3/4 c. canned crushed pineapple

Fill cupcake liners or greased and floured cake pans about halfway with batter. It rises quite well. 

Bake ≈ 30 minutes (cupcakes) or 1 hour (cake) / till done— when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. This recipe makes enough for two 9” layers or 36 cupcakes of a reasonable size. 

* The best carrot cake I ever made was for my twenty-eighth birthday. Instead of corn/vegetable oil, I used coconut oil. AMAZING. If possible, I highly recommend doing this. 

** For the most part, measuring ingredients isn’t really my thing. I look at carrots, decide how many I want to use/have on hand, and grate them up. Sometimes it’s enough. Sometimes, like with these cupcakes, I don’t bother to check my fridge before starting the batter and then have to go raid my mother’s fridge only to find that she is also out of carrots and then have to once again drive to town and steal a carrot from the bakery. Sometimes. But it always works out in the end. 

*** Since I’m mildly allergic to walnuts, I only use pecans. And with this particular batch of cupcakes, I omitted the nuts completely— a birthday party with nearly 20 toddlers on hand is bound to have a nut allergy or two. Instead, I threw in a handful of thompson raisins. 

**** Instead of using the nasty sweetened shredded coconut they have in the baking aisle of every grocery store, do yourself a favor and get unsweetened desiccated coconut. If you really want to step it up, toast it before using. The flavor is infinitely superior and the smaller pieces make it disappear in the batter, adding a nice texture but not standing out as ribbons of too-sweet white stuff. 

For lunch today I had molten chocolate cake with vanilla bean gelato. It was ridiculously delicious: hot chocolate cake that is cooked just enough on the outside to contain the liquid center until you open it up with your spoon, and cold vanilla gelato right there next to it. A perfect combination.

At an old pastry job, I had these cakes on the dessert menu. On more than one occasion a guest sent word back to the kitchen proclaiming this cake to be Better Than Sex. Whether you believe that or not, having some of these on hand on your fridge to bake off as-needed is nothing short of genius. This is something I used to do regularly and am pretty happy with my decision to return to after a five-year hiatus. 

I modified a recipe in The Gourmet Cookbook, where they have it paired with a coffee creme anglaise. Since coffee is one of my least favorite tastes in the world, I just pretend I can’t see it on the page. Here is the original cake recipe from the book: 

Individual Molten Chocolate Cakes

Preheat oven to 400ºF. Brush molds (6 each of either 4-ounce baba au rhum molds or 4-ounce ramekins) with melted butter. Dust them with sugar, tapping to eliminate excess. 

Melt in metal bowl set over saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth: 

7 T. unsalted butter, cut into pieces

3 1/2 oz bittersweet chocolate, chopped

Remove bowl from pan and cool slightly.

Whisk together in a medium bowl: 

3 large eggs

6 1/2 T. granulated sugar

Whisk in: 

1/3 c. all-purpose flour

1/8 t. salt

Pineapple upside-down cake is kitschy, a throwback to far before my time (I was born in 1982). But it is also delicious, a timeless classic. Inverting the still-hot cake pan onto a serving plate and pulling the pan off is a magical moment— the cake falls out of the pan and the buttery sugary goo from the bottom oozes onto the plate. If you serve up a piece of this cake it will make the recipient smile. 

This is also the cake that I make every year on December 1st for a very dear friend who is no longer with us, for his birthday. But this year I was so (understandably) distracted by losing my father that I didn’t realize the date until nearly midnight. So I baked it the next day, instead. Michael wouldn’t mind, he’d just be happy I made his cake for him. And even more pleased that I served it for dessert after a dinner that included challah and matzoh ball soup. 

Upside-Down Cake (from Time Life Cakes)

Preheat oven to 375ºF

Melt in cake pan: 

4 T. butter (half a stick)

1/2 c. brown sugar

stir in: 

1/4 t. nutmeg

After removing from heat, arrange fruit (in this case pineapple slices) in bottom of pan.

Sift/whisk together: 

1 1/3 c. cake flour

3/4 c. sugar

1 3/4 t. baking powder

1/4 t. salt

Beat in till softened: 

3 T. butter

Add, beating for two minutes: 

1/2 c. milk

Add, beat one more minute: 

1 egg

1 t. vanilla

Bake ≈35 minutes, or until a toothpick is clean when you insert it. Let cake cool on a rack for a few minutes, then invert it over a flat serving plate with a lip, removing the pan and basking in the glow of your beautiful kitschy cake. 

Notes: I skip the nutmeg when using pineapple. Instead of using cake flour (which I don’t keep in stock) I use AP; sometimes I even throw in a little whole wheat flour. It’s never been a problem. Because you are adding it to the dry ingredients, you absolutely want to use softened butter for the batter. If you’re not into pineapple, use a different fruit— plums, apricots, peaches… any stone fruit would be great. Or berries. But me, I stick to pineapple with this one. 

This is about a non-traditional (for most people) Thanksgiving food. 

Chopped liver is not a sexy food. It’s not even something I’d be expected to eat, given that I really don’t eat animals. But there are exceptions. This is another food that my father held dearly. When we gather as an extended family for Thanksgiving and Passover, chopped liver makes multiple appearances. It is eaten by all ages. Even those of us who give gefilte fish wide berth will smear a little chopped liver on bread or matzoh. Among my dad’s cousins there are different versions, learned from the previous generation.

Since he isn’t here to do it himself, I made my father’s chopped liver this year. It is very simple and is quite good on bread. I borrowed the chopping bowl and chopper from my mother— the chopper originally belonged to my grandma Bea— and used ingredients from three farms around here. The livers are from Amee Farm, from turkeys raised by my friends and whose purchasers were not interested in the giblets; onions are from Golden Russet Farm; eggs are from my neighbors at River Bend Farm. 

David Segal’s Chopped Liver

Hard boil eggs ahead of time.

Bake livers on foil until just barely still pink in the center, adding liquid released by livers to the bowl.

Chop onion and saute over low heat with a little turkey fat and/or butter until translucent.

Chop all ingredients by hand in a wooden bowl until they come together in a consistency you like. (Our part of the family likes a slightly course hand-chopped finished product, other people use a food processor. David Segal was not a fan of the food processor as a kitchen tool in general or a means of making chopped liver specifically.)

Salt to taste. 

David Segal was a sneaky little man and he liked to have two bowls of chopped liver. That way he could have one hidden, tucked away in a refrigerator where it wouldn’t be found. It was his way of making sure he got to have some before it was all eaten by the cousins. If he wanted to bring out the second bowl to share he could, but he didn’t have to. I’m his girl, so even though I made a smaller batch than he would have (I only had two livers to work with) I still split it between two bowls. 

Every year for as long as I can remember, we’ve had two very different kinds of cranberry relish at Thanksgiving. One is made entirely of fresh fruit with a little bit of maple syrup, something I’ve been making since I was small enough that I had to drag a chair across the kitchen to climb onto the counter and sit there beside the blender.  My mother makes the other one, which is cooked and best made a few days ahead of time so the flavors can develop. Here are recipes for both: 

Fresh Cranberry Relish

Combine in a blender, working in batches and mixing together in a large bowl: 

1 lb+ fresh cranberries

flesh of one pineapple

2-3 oranges, peeled

2-3 apples, cored

When all fruit has been blended and stirred together, add to taste:

maple syrup

Cranberry Chutney (I consider this my mother’s recipe, though it originally came from her stepmother)

Combine in saucepan and simmer for 5 minutes: 

1/2 c. dried apricots, finely chopped

1/2 c. brown sugar, firmly packed

1/2 c. raisins

1 c. water

Add and simmer 10 minutes: 

3 c. fresh cranberries (one bag from grocery store)

1 tart apple, peeled, cored, and chopped

1/4 c. diced crystallized ginger

When all of the cranberries have popped open, add: 

1/4 c. lemon juice

1/2 t. hot pepper flakes

Like I said, this one is best if made ahead of time. But it’s also delicious immediately, so don’t be deterred. Just like my father would have, my mother bought beautiful Vermont cranberries this year. It’s sort of silly how pretty they are. 

Thanksgiving is a big deal in my family. Not the actual holiday, but the meal. More on that later.

For the moment, I just want to share a recipe with you. But first, a note about bread. My family eats a lot of bread. We love it. Eat With Bread is something said at nearly every meal we eat together. We are not afraid of carbs, or wheat, or gluten. Nor of butter. You will not find margarine in our refrigerators. We eat real food made with real things, and apologies are not made for this*. We eat bread. 

In 2008 I came up with these rolls for Thanksgiving. I’m not sure if they’re something my brother specifically asked for, or if he just liked them so much that in my mind I make them for him. But I do: these are the rolls I make for my brother. I’m sharing this with you ahead of time, without photos of my proces or the finished rolls, because they are delicious and well worth the work. 

Rich Buttery Dinner Rolls (makes ≈36 rolls)

Warm/melt over medium-low heat: 

• 1 c. yogurt
• 2 c. milk
• 1/2 c. butter

Remove from heat, let cool a bit, then add: 

• 2 T. yeast
• 3 T. sugar (or 2 T. maple syrup)
• 1 T. salt

Last Saturday, as everyone was bracing themselves for a blizzard, I went into major productivity mode in my kitchen. One of my projects was pumpkin pie. The motivation? I wanted pie for breakfast. If you’ve been reading for a while, you already know how I feel about pie. There are breakfasts that are great— pancakes (with beaten egg whites folded in), challah strata, oatmeal— but pie feels decadent. As I’ve mentioned before, I use red kuri squash for baking pumpkin anything/everything. Pie is no exception. Upon discovering I was out, I called my mother to see if she had a can of sweetened condensed milk I could have. She said yes, so while I was picking that up from her house I also got a small pie dish so I could bake one for her, too. 

Here is my mother’s pumpkin pie filling recipe. It’s amazing. 

Liquify the following in a blender, doing it in two batches if need be: 

2 large eggs

2 c. cooked + mashed pumpkin

3/4 c. brown sugar

1 1/2 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. ginger

1/4 t. cloves

1/4 t. nutmeg

1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk

(This being me I obviously added extra cinnamon and ginger. And because I was filling one 9” pie plate plus another smaller one, I also used more squash and an extra egg. At other times I’ve baked this pie using maple syrup in place of brown sugar. This is the best sort of recipe: reliable, flexible, and forgiving.)

Pour filling into your prepped pie crust and bake at 350ºF for ≈50-60 minutes. 

I made these cupcakes for my mother’s intermittently-annual Pumpkin Party. It’s basically a total cute overload: little kids go out into the pumpkin patch searching for pumpkins, accompanied by knife-wielding adults, and harvest pumpkins and squash. Each child’s name has been scratched into the skin of one pumpkin ahead of time, and then healed over, so there is a special pumpkin for each kid. There are tractor rides and photo ops out the wazoo. And pumpkin cupcakes. That’s where these came in. This is one of my mother’s recipes. 

Pumpkin Cake

Cream together: 

1/2 c. butter

2 1/4 c. sugar

Beat in: 

3 large eggs

1 c. mashed cooked pumpkin or squash

3/4 c. sour cream

1/4 c. ricotta 

[I used 1 c. yogurt instead. With the exception of cheesecake, that’s a substitution I nearly always make— mostly because I keep yogurt in my fridge at all times but not the others.]

Stir or sift together and beat in: 

2/14 c. flour

1 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. cloves

1/4 t. allspice

1 1/2 t. baking soda

[If you’ve met my father, you already know I’m notorious for adding extra cinnamon to everything; it’s a very true accusation. I also added ≈1/2 t. ground ginger to this batter.]

Stir in just until blended: 

1/2 c. raisins

1/2 c. chopped pecans or walnuts

[I left these out because they were for the under-6 crowd (and their adults).]

Bake in 350F˚oven 50-60 minutes as a cake,  ≈25 minutes as cupcakes. Makes either one large bundt cake, two 9” layer cakes, or 36 cupcakes of a reasonable size. The cupcakes shown are topped with a rum-cream cheese-cinnamon icing and foliage sprinkles.

Another note: any time a baking recipe calls for pumpkin this or pumpkin that, I use Red Kuri squash. It has a very pumpkin-y flavor, but better and more so. Some people will use butternut, and that’s fine. But it always tastes like butternut to me. Red Kuri all the way. You’ll thank me. 

This morning I put on Mos Def and cut out a fat stack of sunhat pieces. Then, this afternoon, it was time to get down to business. Cupcake business. Birthday cupcake business. 

Since the birthday in question was a thirty-third, I obviously brought thirty three cupcakes— entirely too many for the number of people at dinner. But nobody ever complains about a surplus of cupcakes. These were chocolate cupcakes with a special cream cheese icing and rainbow nonpareils sprinkled on top. Special icing? Yes… I added splashes of maple syrup and single malt scotch. 

Have you ever had a batter or a dough that you just know is perfect, that is so smooth and supple that you just want to fill a room with it and go swimming or take a nap? This was one of those. There’s nothing quite like it. For the cake I used the Chocolate Butter Cake recipe out of Rose Levy Beranbaum’s Cake Bible, scaled down from what you’d need for a 3-tier wedding cake and with a couple other modifications. 

This will make either a two-layer 9” cake or 36 cupcakes. 

Preheat your oven to 350ºF.

Whisk together in smallish bowl, then allow to cool: 

1 c. cocoa powder

1 1/3 c. boiling water

Whisk together in separate bowl: 

4 large eggs

1 T. vanilla extract

When it has cooled down a bit, add 1/4 of the cocoa mixture.

In mixer bowl, combine: 

3 1/4 c. flour

2 c. sugar

2 T. baking powder

1 t. salt

Add:

1 c. butter (make sure your butter is genuinely soft, not just a little bit. This is important, because you are adding it to the dry ingredients. If it is not soft, you will wind up with lumpy batter. And nobody likes lumpy cake batter. )

When your dry ingredients + butter are combined well and about the texture of cornmeal, add the cocoa mixture and mix on low. Once the dry ingredients are moistened, beat at medium-high speed for 90 seconds to aerate and develop the cake’s structure. Scrape down the sides and add the egg mixture in three batches, mixing very well in between, and then give it another 90 seconds at medium-high speed. 

These will take ≈30 minutes for 9” pans and 20-24 minutes for cupcakes, but check them with a toothpick.

Today’s modifications: I added 1/2 c. maple yogurt  + 1/2 c. whole milk to the egg mixture, and used only 2/3 c. boiling water. On other days I’ve replaced half the water with rum, bourbon, or irish whiskey, and also half the sugar with maple syrup (the darker the better, preferably grade B). 

I even used my special cupcake liners, one of the things purchased with the gift certificate to King Arthur Flour that I got as a birthday present back in May. They look so good, it’s hard to go back to boring plain ones that stick to anything you bake in them.

And now my friends get to have cupcakes for breakfast!

Today’s hurricanning project: corn relish. The corn came from my neighbors up the road, the same people I get my eggs from. The rest of the vegetables are from our garden. I looked through Putting Food By and Pickles & Relishes and came up with my plan. I cut the kernels off of 18 ears of corn, and chopped up everything else into fairly small pieces. Into a pot went: 3 c. apple cider vinegar, 1 1/2 c. sugar, 3 T. pickling salt. I tossed the (raw) vegetables with 1 T. celery seed and 3 T. whole mustard seed (a mix of yellow and brown, which is what I used for pretty much everything), then poured the hot liquid in and mixed it all up. I tasted the relish, deemed it delicious, filled and lidded my sterilized jars, and processed them for 15+ minutes. 

Some of these are intended for specific people already, a bunch will go into my cupboard. My cupboards, by the way, are getting mighty full… I’m pretty stoked about that. 

The rest of the cukes, the ones I sliced and salted, wound up being bread and butters. This is a result I’m very ok with, which is great since I made nine pints of them.

Brine: 4 c. apple cider vinegar, 3 1/3 c. sugar, 2 t. ground ginger, 1 t. ground turmeric

In each jar: 1/2 t. mustard seeds, 1/4 t. celery seeds

When packing the jars I layered the salted-and-drained cucumbers with thinly sliced onions grown by my mother. She is, of course, about to be the first beneficiary of yesterday’s canning project. Next up: finishing up that giant box of green beans. 

Do yourself a favor and get this book if you’re going to do any canning at all. It’s still around, affordable, and the best resource you’ll find on the subject. I use their Dilled Green Beans recipe as a base for most of my pickled vegetables, switching up the spices to work with what I’m doing. It’s flexible and reliable, two of my favorite qualities in a recipe. Here it is:

Dilled Green Beans (from Putting Food By, p 210)

brine:

3 1/4 cups vinegar (I usually do half white, half apple cider)

3 1/4 cups water

6 T salt

After boiling the jars to sterilize them, then packing the washed and trimmed green beans (it takes around 3 pounds to make 6 pints) into said jars, they have you add the following to each pint jar: 

1 clove garlic, 1 head of dill (or 1 t. dill seed), 1/4 t. cayenne pepper

Then you pour the boiling brine into the jars, leaving 1/4” headroom, lid them, and process them for 10 minutes in a boiling water bath. 

Beaten egg whites, folded into a batter, are virtually a guarantee that whatever you’re making will be amazing. Pancakes, corn fritters, cakes… you name it, stiffly beaten egg whites are an improvement. My mother says I’ve been beating egg whites since I was 4, sitting with one leg bent at the kitchen table, resting the copper bowl my parents were given as a wedding present in my lap, wielding a whisk as long as my entire arm. 

The other day I took a break between sewing projects and baked a poppyseed cake. It’s the same cake I made to go with my creamsicle gelato back in June, but this time I had the poppyseeds soaking in milk for an entire week. Normally the cake uses only egg whites, but I didn’t have anything I wanted to use the yolks in and can’t bring myself to waste them, so I threw them into the batter as well. This is a cake I grew up baking with my mother, and it’s a winner. Here it is: 

Combine and soak for at least two hours: 

3/4 c. poppyseeds

3/4 c. milk

Cream together, then add poppyseed mixture:

2/3 c. butter

1 1/2 c. sugar

(If using the egg yolks, this is when you should add them)

Add in 3 batches, alternating wet and dry: 

2 c. flour + 1 T. baking powder

1/4 c. milk + 1 t. vanilla extract

Fold into batter: 

4 large egg whites, beaten until stiff

Bake in butter and floured pans, either 20 minutes at 375º for two 9” pans or ≈ one hour at 350º for a large bundt pan. Lately I’ve been preferring the latter.

Challah! The best bread ever, and one that is so special to so many people that it pretty much blows my mind. When I was growing up, I made it with my mother every Friday. That weekly ritual is how I learned how to braid. It’s a recipe that feels genuinely good to share with other people, and one I have etched in my brain. 

And now it’s yours. 

Proof: 

1/3 c. warm water

drop honey

2 T. dry active yeast

Whisk together, adding the yeast mixture once it is foamy: 

6 large eggs

1/2 c. honey

1/4 c. oil

2 t. salt

2 c. warm water

Start adding flour (you can use entirely all-purpose, or a combination of all-purpose and high gluten, either is fine), switching from whisk to wooden spoon to kneading as necessary; all told it will take ≈11 cups.

When your dough is perfect and beautiful, put it in an oiled bowl, cover, and let rise in a warm spot for up to 1 3/4 hours; it will double in size. 

Punch down, knead for a few minutes, let relax. Then braid, brush with an egg glaze, sprinkle with poppy seeds, and give it another little rise while your oven preheats to 350ºF. 

Bake till golden brown on the outside and done all the way through, and then break warm bread in good company. Blessing is optional.