Category: Sweet Recipes

Chefs, San Francisco, Summer, Sweet Recipes

Dominique Crenn’s Cherry Clafoutis

my re-creation of Dominique Crenn's cherry clafoutis


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.

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Summer, Sweet Recipes

Small Batch Ina Garten Flag Cake

The Ina Garten flag cake is a classic patriotic dessert, perfect for Memorial Day or Fourth of July. It’s easy to decorate red, white and blue with fresh summer berries and cream cheese frosting. Her recipe is meant to feed a crowd (20-24!), but I wanted a small batch size, and found the recipe easy to halve and even quarter. I share the conversion with gram measurements for the half size here, made in a casserole dish, the perfect potluck size.

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Chefs, Cookbooks, Sweet Recipes

Honey Cake Recipe from 20th Century Cafe


My favorite cake. That’s a pretty big statement to make but it’s true. I love the Russian Honey Cake from the former 20th Century Cafe in San Francisco. I’ve posted about it one, two, three … okay, many times. Tender honey cake is separated by luscious burnt honey and dulce de leche cream, for a total of 20 layers!

Every time I enjoyed a slice at the cafe, I told myself, I need the recipe. My wish came true when it was published in The New York Times. UPDATE: Pastry chef Michelle Polzine published a new version in her cookbook that I’m sharing here. I followed the instructions exactly and was very pleased with the results. The textures and flavors were spot on.

*This post uses affiliate links

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