desserts Archives - A Way To Garden

cookies, snacking cakes, pies & more: 5 new books to bake by, with ali stafford

margaret — Sat, 28 Nov 2020 20:13:13 +0000

YES, APPARENTLY more people gardened in 2020 than ever. And even before the holiday season was upon us, as it suddenly is, everyone was baking more than ever in this oddball year, too—and it seems publishing baking cookbooks at a prodigious rate as well. So today we’re going to virtually bake together, or at least talk baking—like whether you should blind-bake that pie crust before filling it, plus ideas for goodies from cookies to snacking cakes, too. When Alexandra Stafford, author of the book “Bread Toast Crumbs” and creator of the website alexandracooks.com, has visited the podcast before in recent years, we’ve usually talked vegetable cookery or soups, because we’re both big soup-makers. But 2020 is no normal year. And so what the hell? Let’s bake. Plus: Comment in the box at the bottom of the page for a chance to win one of the books we’re featuring—all five will be given away here to five readers. Then head over to Ali’s website for a chance to win each book, too (details below). Read along as you listen to the November 30, 2020 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future […]

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skins-on applesauce to freeze, can, and share

margaret — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 15:38:40 +0000

MY FAMILY CALLS IT ‘PO SAUCE, with the “po” representing the last syllable of the word “apple,” the way my beloved niece pronounced it when she was small. One fall weekend, as I hurtled by to give a lecture out their way, I met my brother-in-law at Exit 9 off I-90 to deliver the first load of Pink ‘Po Sauce that started life on my century-old trees. Sigh of relief: 11 quarts and 5 pints moved from my freezer to theirs. Another day that year, my friend Katrina filled the back of her car with my apples, heading home to cook them up, and many neighbors have been the recipients of boxes of apples, apples and more apples, too. It’s applesauce time, and here’s how that goes: Bountiful rains put regional 2013 apple crops—including fruit on my handful of ancient trees that I do not spray (that’s a 40-foot-wide one out back, above)—at bumper levels. The 2015 season didn’t feature much rain, but the apples were crazy-plentiful, after a 2014 when I had almost none. In 2016, almost a total bust, after a non-winter and a very dry whole year. Neighbors with old trees had none, either; I bought several […]

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clafoutis batter, universal solvent of fruit dessert

margaret — Fri, 02 Aug 2019 08:44:42 +0000

I DON’T BAKE MUCH THESE DAYS, BUT IN ANOTHER LIFE I was the Queen of Pie (and even baked all my bread, too). Even though I rarely cut or rub cold butter into flour for a crust any longer, I’ve found a shortcut to homemade fruit dessert that’s served me faithfully since I hung up my rolling pin. No surprise that I attribute the find to my old friend Martha Stewart, who taught me many things—including clafoutis, a simple, custardy backdrop to the peaches that are looking good around now. I love clafoutis (kla-foo-tee), a humble French concoction that’s like a Huffy-Puffy or Dutch Baby or German pancake–whatever you call it, that’s my favorite Christmas-morning food. But the clafoutis is sweeter and has fruit inside. If you have 3 cups of fruit and some kitchen basics like milk and eggs and flour, you can make this dessert very last-minute, even just as you sit down to eat the main course, another selling factor. Easy, yet quite impressive. Though clafoutis is traditionally made with cherries, as it was in the recipe Martha shared in her must-have 1995 cookbook, “The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Every Day” (affiliate link), I’ve come […]

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