While Magnolia Bakery may be known for their cupcakes, thanks to Sex and the City, I will always go to the original NYC Bleeker St. shop for their banana pudding. I love getting a little carton to-go and enjoying it at the little park just across the street. Recently, I was craving this signature NYC dessert, so I whipped up a batch using the recipe from the new cookbook.
I make the Original Plum Torte from Marion Burros, every summer. It’s so simple to whip up and incredibly satisfying to snack on, no wonder it has over 17,000 reviews. I like Italian plums but any stone fruit (see my apricot version) or even berry, would work well. I did make a few small adjustments to the recipe, including using a smaller size pan (9″ instead of 10″) so the cake has a bit more depth and macerating the fruit first before placing in the batter so they get a head start on developing flavor.
I’ve always preferred eating cherries fresh, but this cherry clafoutis convinced me that they are delicious baked as well. When I worked at Williams Sonoma, we hosted a special dinner at Chef Dominique Crenn’s now-closed Petit Crenn in San Francisco. The menu was full of French classics like salade nicoise, ratatouille, and finished with a cherry clafoutis that I still remember to this day. The dinner was 6 years ago. I dug a giant spoon into the warm dish, revealing a glorious custard-y bake, dotted with the largest Bing cherries I had ever seen.
I took a two-hour train ride from Paris to Beaune, a town is situated in the wine-making region of Burgundy. I made the weekend trip to take a day-long cooking class at The Cooks Atelier. The charming school is run by mother-daughter team Marjorie Taylor and Kendall Smith Franchini. There’s a wine shop on the ground floor, kitchen on the second and dining area on the third. It’s a truly idyllic place and I had so much fun prepping and eating a menu of French classics. One of my favorite dishes was the comforting, savory cheese soufflé.
I know what you’re thinking… LEFTOVER croissants? Who has those? Well, bakeries sometimes do at the end of the day, and typically, they use the leftover croissants to make almond croissants. A pretty spectacular round 2 bake, in my opinion. I opted to do a savory twice bake, inspired by the ham and cheese croissant, my favorite morning bakery treat.
