Sweet | Sillypants

pastry station, gusto ristorante e bar american, feb. 12, 2006

I was just checking out this (sort of but not that old) picture of the pastry station at ‘Gusto,’ in a basement off Greenwich Ave in NYC. For about a year this was my corner of the universe!

When I moved to Los Angeles I went to see executive, superstar pastry chef Sherry Yard because friends in New York told me she was [...]

Pumpkin Pie from thanksgiving

Pumpkin Pie I learned in cooking school:

24 oz. all purpose flour, 8 oz. sugar, 1 ½ t. baking powder, 1 t. salt, 8 oz. butter worked throughout until it disappears, and 5 eggs to bring it all together into a mass of dough and chill it 1 hour. If you are in a really dry [...]

apple anonymous

Apple (pie) Anonymous

This particular pie (above) is decorated with a sophisticated, ‘falling leaves’ pattern, but my mom has been known to decorate the tops of pies with strange, free form, cut-out blobs of dough she says are turkeys, and little blobs of dough she claims are ’turkey poops’….I know. Whacky enough to share, right. Moral is, feel free to [...]

grappa truffles

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8 oz. cream

Pinch of salt

3 T. (1 ½ oz.) grappa

1-2 oz. invert sugar – (honey or, glucose syrup)

Chop the chocolate and hold in a bowl off to the side.

You just have to get the best, most badass chocolate you [...]

making cannoli

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shells:
7 oz. flour
2 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon cocoa powder
a pinch of salt, pinch of ground coffee, pinch of cinnamon
1 fl. oz. oil
1/2 fl. oz. vinegar
2 fl. oz. red wine

Bring dough together by hand, combining wet ingredients with dry-
wrap in plastic, [...]

dried blueberry zaletti

I used to make these at Gusto Ristorante e bar Americano for the cookie plate. I learned the general idea of how to make them from Nick Malgieri during my time at ICE. We talked biscotti when he found out I worked evenings for Jody Williams over at Giorgione. This is my summertime version, which, are [...]

Tiramisu

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Place in a heatproof metal or glass bowl:

10 egg yolks, two pinches of salt, 1 cup of sugar, ½ cup of Kahlua.

Place the bowl over the mouth of a saucepan containing a two or three cups worth of water [...]

apple crostata

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I made this dessert for the annual fourth of July buffet, held by Alan Greenspan and Andrea Mitchell at the Federal Reserve. Washington D.C. is a great (as in, interesting, fun, dramatic,) place to work with a fantastic catering company, as I did, and the [...]

Whoopie

Ready-set-Whoopie: oven set to 375’

Sift:
1 cup sugar, 2 cups flour, 5 ½ T. cocoa, 1 t. baking soda, 1 t. baking powder, and ½ t. salt

Then add and mix to combine:
½ c. shortening (that’s right. Pretend it’s the great depression, when this recipe was first made and get out the Crisco – now they even [...]

Roasted Pineapple

Roasted Pineapple
Using pink peppercorns, ginger root, and one vanilla bean (cut in half)

First, make a syrup by boiling water and sugar in a medium saucepan. Go 8 cups of water to 3 cups of sugar, and bring to a boil, letting the sugar dissolve and the mixture boil about 5 minutes. Skim any scuzz that [...]

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