If we can cook it, you can cook it!

Category: Summer Desserts

Bittersweet Chocolate Raspberry Tart from Nick Malgieri’s “The Modern Baker”

Bittersweet Chocolate Raspberry Tart from Nick Malgieri’s “The Modern Baker”

Our Godchild hit a major milestone this month. Olivia graduated cum laude from Poly Prep Country Day School in Dyker Heights, Brooklyn. For four years she has left her home on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and  travelled to school, a considerable journey.  There…

Rhubarb Pound Cake from Melissa Clark in The New York Times

Rhubarb Pound Cake from Melissa Clark in The New York Times

From Melissa Clark: “This tender Rhubard poundcake has slivers of vanilla-poached rhubarb running across the top and shot through the center, adding a tangy sweetness to the buttery crumb.” The annual arrival of Rhubarb at our local Bridgehampton farm stand is always cause for Andrew…

Four Generation Peach Pie with Coconut Meringue Crust from Food 52

Four Generation Peach Pie with Coconut Meringue Crust from Food 52

This weekend begins what is always called “The Unofficial Start of Summer”.  Never mind the Equinox is over three weeks away and it’s been horridly cold and rainy this month.  Nevertheless, this is the weekend that New Yorkers give up their weekends in the city…

Dorie Greenspan’s Classic Fruit Tart

Dorie Greenspan’s Classic Fruit Tart

This dessert is a showboat.  It looks like it came straight from Paris’ best patisserie.  And indeed its inspiration did.  It was Dorie Greenspan’s introduction to French pastry, an all-strawberry version and the first pastry she tasted when she first set foot in France.  It…

David Lebovitz’ Summer Frangipane Fruit Tart

David Lebovitz’ Summer Frangipane Fruit Tart

        Picture your favorite summer stone fruit—cherries, peaches, plums, nectarines, fresh apricots, pluots*– sumptuously emerging from a rich almond cream, their colors a promise of their juicy interiors, a perfect summer pleasure in a perfect buttery crust and there you have it: A great dessert…

Andrew’s Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

Andrew’s Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

         One of the great joys of summer is that Andrew is back at the beach and back into baking.   It’s not that we don’t have temporary bursts of wonderful cakes, pies and cookies at other times of the year, but in Summer he settles…

Peach Cherry Slab Pie adapted from Martha Stewart

I must confess that I am more than a little put off by the name of this remarkable pie.  I mean really?  “Slab” as in cold, stone slab or “slab of meat” both of which are less than appetizing and have little or nothing to…

Blueberry Crostata with Lemon Ice Cream

Blueberry Crostata with Lemon Ice Cream

Photo Courtesy of Fine Cooking Magazine. All rights reserved. Once again, I am sharing one of Andrew’s great summer desserts.   Surely one of summer’s great pleasures are its fruits and berries, especially when they are local.   And what can compare to any fruit dessert coupled…

Pluot Upside-Down Cake adapted from Fine Cooking

           What is a “pluot”?, you may well ask. It’s the Labradoodle of fruits.  Actually it’s more like a Cockapoo or even a Maltipoo in size. The Pluot is a plum and apricot hybrid bred first in California in the 1800s.   Initially it…

Alice Medrich’s Plum and Almond Tart

Oven and Camera Ready! Vanilla Ice Cream on the side is highly recommended When you have a blog to write, you tend not to repeat recipes once you have made them.  You’re pretty well under the gun to cook something you’ve never tried before simply…

Martha Stewart’s Cornmeal Berry Sheet Cake

 There’s a twitter feed called “Drunk Ina Garten” written by someone as a parody.  And every time I post an Ina Garten piece, the guy who tweets it picks up on it in about five minutes flat, re-tweets it and I get tons of hits…