What’s not to love? A sweet and salty pretzel base, fresh strawberries barely held together with their own juices, and a whipped coconut cream topping. This is something I remember eating during the peak of hot Nebraska summers. I always tried to scrape more than my fair share of the salty pretzels on the bottom.
If bread pudding is mostly bread, it makes sense that the better your bread, the better the pudding. I usually make my bread pudding with challah, the way Luther liked it best. For this book, I decided to mix things up a little. This recipe uses raisin-cinnamon bread for that hint of spice I love. The big secret, as with all bread pudding, is to use stale bread; otherwise, it will disintegrate in the custard.
As I said in the introduction [of Desserts LaBelle], “Sweet Talk from Patti,” sweet potato pie is in my blood. Any and every sweet potato pie I make is compared to the OG: Chubby’s version, which was also the inspiration behind my dear friend Norma’s recipe. (It’s in my first cookbook, LaBelle Cuisine. If you don’t have the book, last time I checked the recipe was also online.) Why I can’t leave a good thing alone, I don’t know. This is my current rendition, which starts with Chubby’s pie and throws in some new tricks, too. If you have been boiling sweet potatoes for your pie, try the microwave method here. It is a lot quicker.
Canned pumpkin puree adds a bit of subtle flavor to these muffins, but more important, it also makes the muffins ultramoist.
Banana bread was always a staple in my mom’s kitchen when I was growing up. Over the years, I have riffed on her recipe in dozens of ways: adding chocolate chips, nuts, or spices; swinging from quick bread to cake; icing or dusting it with confectioners’ sugar. Then, about a year ago, I decided to play with the idea of a banana upside-down cake, topped with banana slices and salted caramel, which both soaks into the cake and drips all around it when the pan is inverted. That little idea turned out to be a total keeper. Here it is.
These homemade grahams are buttery and crisp, with an incredible depth of flavor thanks to earthy whole wheat flour and the mellow maltiness of golden syrup—a type of light molasses.
Instead of gritty powdered sugar, this tangy frosting starts with a light vanilla custard made from fresh milk and eggs. That keeps it thick and creamy, but not too rich—perfect for slathering over my Red (Wine) Velvet Cake.
A hot-milk sponge cake made a good base in our Boston Cream Pie recipe because it didn’t require any finicky folding or separating of eggs. Baking the batter in two pans eliminated the need to slice a single cake horizontally before adding the filling. We used butter to firm up our pastry cream, and we added corn syrup to heavy cream and melted chocolate for a smooth glaze that clung to the top of our Boston Cream Pie and dripped artistically down its sides.
Sonker has spent too much time in the shadows. We wanted to give this Appalachian original its due.
Most recipes call for using a stand mixer, but we found this counterproductive to our goal of chewy, dense cookies because the mixer beats air into the dough. Instead we make our dough by hand, melting the butter for easier mixing.