I had the pleasure from learning how to make challah from former Bouchon Bakery chef Nick Bonamico. He is now creating amazing things at Dandelion Chocolate in San Francisco. Way back when I was producing Facebook Lives (remember those?) at Williams Sonoma, we invited Chef Nick to demonstrate a round challah, one of the bakery’s bread offerings during Rosh Hashanah.
This cookie recipe comes from the Paris bakery-cafe Mokonuts Bakery. It is a newly opened sister shop to the restaurant Mokonuts that is on the same block and is one of my favorite reservations. Yes, I specifically say reservation, because it’s tiny inside, seating maybe 20 diners at most, so I highly recommend booking ahead. The menu changes daily, including the fresh-baked trio of cookies offered for dessert. For one of my meals, I had Vietnamese coffee with orange, cherry leaf with sesame and chocolate buckwheat. Her signature cookie flavors are now made for the bakery, including: miso peanut butter, black sesame tahini and chocochunk (shown in the photo above). Enjoy as is or a la mode.
I just finished making this mincemeat filling for the first time, so this is still a work in progress, until I bake off the pies at holiday time. However, I tasted the filling after it cooled and I thought it was delicious and can only imagine how it will be once the alcohol has had time to mellow over the next couple of months. It’s nicely spiced, but not overly strong and the sweetness is there but again, subtle and balanced from the alcohol and the citrus juice.
Originally tested and written for the Williams Sonoma Taste Blog, March 2020
There’s nothing like fresh scones slathered with butter and jam, so we made sure to get our fill of the classic teatime treats during our recent trip through the Irish countryside with our friends from Tourism Ireland and Bake from Scratch Magazine. We traveled south from Dublin to County Cork, the culinary capital of Ireland, to spend the day at the renowned Ballymaloe Cookery School. We toured the sprawling 100-acre organic farm and made scones in one of their four full-service kitchens.
