Chocolate and coffee – a match made in heaven. The roasted notes of the coffee give the chocolate a boost, a solid backbone, both perfectly accompanied by the rich flavour that comes from using dark brown sugar, packed full of molasses. To make sure both the coffee and the chocolate have their chance to shine, the two are heated together with the butter and milk, allowing the flavours to bloom. When choosing your coffee, you want to use something ground very finely, so the texture of the cookie isn’t gritty. And, if your instincts say this would be good with a little chopped chocolate added to the cookie dough, trust your instincts.
Brother Pedro Alvarez, a monk in his mid-twenties from Mexico, introduced his favorite dish to the monks at Saint John’s. Brother Pedro lived in a Russian Orthodox monastery in Mexico City before relocating to central Minnesota. But this isn’t a recipe he learned at the monastery; he learned it from his grandmother.
As is the case with recipes that travel, this tinga reflects not only its Mexican origins but also its current home in Minnesota. Tinga is typically slow-cooked, shredded meat—anything from beef to pork to chicken—layered with the flavors of chiles, onions, garlic, and tomatoes. Brother Pedro replaced the chicken with wild turkey from central Minnesota. None of the monks hunt, but they do welcome the bounty donated to them from hunters in the area. The honey is the monastery’s own and gives the dish a sweetness that provides the perfect counterpoint to the chiles. Tinga is comforting in the winter and fun for a summertime barbecue, too. Brother Pedro’s advice is to “take it slowly, let the house fill with the smoky aroma. It will bring everyone to the table.”
In 2017, when we were visiting our daughter-in-law Liv's family in Copenhagen, Eva, her mother, made a delicious meringue torte for us, similar to the schaumtorte of my childhood, a dessert the German part of my family served at Passover, but one that I always thought was too sweet. I loved that the hazelnuts and the dark bitter chocolate of Eva's recipe cut the sweetness of the meringue. Now it is part of our Passover Seder menu, though it also works beautifully throughout the year, especially for gluten-free friends. During the pandemic, when I was in New Orleans, I substituted local pecans for hazelnuts.
Starting out, I was always so scared to try out a Yule Log recipe – they always look so intimidating! But I encourage you to give it a go. Even if it ends up looking like a mess, it’ll still taste delicious! I tried something a little different with this Yule Log and added a line of frozen chocolate cremeux. It’s totally optional but it really elevates the dessert and helps you advance your skills.
This recipe is so light, not overly sweet or heavy. It’s a real showstopper for the Christmas table – the ultimate festive dessert.
Hot puddings are a great thing to make and eat in the cold weather, there is something so comforting and warming about them. Whether you enjoy this with cold ice cream, add more depth with some double cream, or just enjoy it on its own, this chocolate pudding has a lovely puddle of sauce at the bottom. The addition of cinnamon and cardamom would make anyone go for seconds.
Rich and decadent, the recipe for these luxurious cookies was the result of a visit to Café Ilio, an artisan chocolatier in northern Tehran, run by husband and wife team Sahar Hossein-Najari and Mehrdad Aghameeri. The pair spent six years travelling around Belgium, France and Italy, honing their craft, before introducing Iranians to the wonders of fine chocolate, incorporating traditional ingredients – like saffron, pistachio and cardamom – into a whole new world of truffles, macaroons, jams and cakes. Thanks to their winning combination of dark chocolate and sour cherries, these cookies are loved by adults and children alike.
I started thinking about about the waste from coffee because in a restaurant people drink a lot of coffee; you can end up throwing away a lot of coffee grounds. We decided to start cooking with used coffee grounds, and the dishes we came up with tasted just as good - with a rich dark coffee - as they would have using fresh coffee grounds. Just store the ground in the refrigerator in a sealed plastic container with enough space for air circulation.
Financiers are a French petit-four cake, traditionally made with brown butter and almond flour. Adding chocolate to the mix makes for a next-level brownie that we can’t get enough of. We wanted intense chocolate flavor so we ditched the bittersweet chocolate and went up on the unsweetened.
I don’t do well with compliments.When someone praises me or my baked goods, I usually try to brush it off. This never works, of course, and I’ve slowly gotten better at just graciously saying “Thank you.” But you can imagine my embarrassment when a mutual friend introduced me to Ruth Reichl, the famous food writer and former editor-in-chief of Gourmet magazine—and immediately my friend told her that not only was I writing a cookbook, but that I also made the best babka she had ever tasted! Ms. Reichl peered at me through her glasses as if she were sizing me up. Thankfully, she was very gracious and, sensing my discomfort, changed the subject, and we had a lovely conversation about New Zealand instead. But if I ever have a chance to meet her again, I’ll bake her this babka.
Dorie Greenspan: "What I know for sure is that everyone who has these cookies smiles and smiles are pretty powerful."