Posts Categorized: Baking and Sweets

Absolute Value (or…A Note About Splurging)

In the mid-90s, my father and I worked two blocks away from each other — he was on 47th and Third, and I was on 45th and Third, toiling away at my first Big City job while simultaneously trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life. We’d regularly meet for lunch — at sushi bars, bagel… Read more »

Some Winning Holiday Rituals

Let me just start out by saying there was some science behind figuring out the winner of DALS’ First Annual Holiday Ritual Contest. I poured through the 50+ submissions (thank you everyone!), selected my favorites, then read each finalist aloud to my daughters — separately, so they couldn’t influence each other. They were responsible for grading each submission, with A+… Read more »

The Candy Roll-Out

Halloween Night: Eat until face falls off Lunch next day: Two candies After dinner: Four candies Tuesday lunch: One Tuesday after dinner : Three Wednesday after dinner: Two Thursday after dinner: Two Friday after dinner: One Saturday at any point: One Sunday: Done* *Parents should find ways to surreptitiously either eat a good portion of the candy themselves, or throw… Read more »

Friday Round-up

…to have family dinner: When my kids are 16 and 15 (instead of 8 and 7) and we are dealing with friendship dramas, SATs, sexting episodes, and God only knows what else (Parents of teen-agers: please refrain from telling me what else) dinner will be so firmly established as my family’s 6:30 Magnetic North, that my kids’ hormone-raging, eye-rolling, parent-resenting… Read more »

Get Your Game On

The party officially began at 6:00 and ended at 8:00, but at 5:58 I had already checked my watch twice, counting down to its finish. Why do minutes feel like centuries during birthday parties in your own house? Or at least they do for me. But its sorta like having a baby, I guess. Because I forget the pain as… Read more »

Guaranteed Crowdpleaser (For the Under-10 Set)

It’s a miracle if I bake something from scratch even once during the course of my child’s birthweek. And if I’m going to do it, it’s going to be Rosa’s Mud Cake for the actual birthday party. But for the classroom party? No chance. A few years ago I debuted this Dunkin Donut Cake at school and was actually embarrassed… Read more »

Apple Gazette

A few years ago my coworker Alex was describing a friend of his — let’s call her Anya. While Alex sat in Anya’s kitchen he watched as she removed a homemade pie crust from the freezer, rolled it out, peeled and sliced a few Cortland apples right into the middle of the dough, sprinkled them with cinnamon, butter, sugar, nutmeg…. Read more »

Vegetable Hater Special

My 3-year-old nephew Nathan is not a big fan of vegetables. Or the idea of eating in general. I spent a few days and many meals with him on vacation last month and watched as his dad — my brother — agonized over each crumb that did and didn’t go down the hatch. Annie’s Mac & Cheese is pretty much… Read more »

Outsourcing the Family Recipe

Guest Post By Claudia Heilter, former news producer, mother of Arlo, 6 and Lois, 4. I’ve been wracking my brains on ways to pass along my Hungarian roots to my children. I speak the language but found it a bit too tricky to teach them. My husband doesn’t speak it and my parents live 2,000 miles away in Western Canada. It only… Read more »

Summery, Vegan, Dairy-free, Delicious. Sings, too.

Riddle: It’s summer. Fourth of July weekend to be specific. You’re assigned dessert. What do you bring to a party to feed seven grown-ups and seven kids, one of whom has a dairy allergy? In my mind, only one answer: Cobbler. But wait: Butter + Dairy Allergy = Not the Nicest Thing to Do And: Cobbler – Butter = Not… Read more »

I’ll-Miss-You Granola

This might also be called “Thanks-for-having-me” Granola or “Congratulations” Granola or “Just-Because” Granola. Because once you taste the crazy good olive-oil infused concoction — as I did at my friend Melissa‘s house — you will want to make it for everyone you know for every occasion. So far, mason jar after mason jar has been filled with it and given to… Read more »

S’more Pie

Let me just say that I was not proud of my google history last Thursday — how exactly does one justify spending a solid 30 minutes on keyword searches like these: homemade marshmallow fluff marshamallow fluff from marshmallows marshamallow fluff recipe marshamallow fluff recipe using marshmallows how to make marshmallow fluff without corn syrup You get the picture. But I… Read more »

Working Mom Redemption (aka, The Cookie Playdate)

When I was an editor at Real Simple a few years ago, and then later at Cookie, I won the lottery. The working mom’s lottery. After years of fist-pounding and squeaky-wheeling, I was granted a four-day work week. Not four days in the office, then one working from home. That fifth day — Wednesday, then later Friday — was off…. Read more »

Monogrammed Pot Pies

The girls flipped when I made these mini chicken pot pies for them a few weeks ago. The lettering was purely by accident — I had leftover scraps of dough, so I rolled the trimmings into a little worm, then scripted initials and words out of it. It just so happened I was making chicken pot pies from leftover roast… Read more »

Money in the Bank

Yesterday, I spent about 10 minutes making this free-form cherry pie. The cherries are jarred Morellos from Trader Joe’s but the homemade crust is Martha Stewart’s pate brisee, which had been sitting in the freezer and which, in my opinion elevates just about anything it wraps itself around to levels of unparalleled pastry brilliance. For the past few weeks every… Read more »

Rosa’s Mud Cake

It’s hard to even count how many different shapes and sizes Rosa’s Mud Cake has taken over the past three decades. That’s it up there, in a heart shape underneath frosting and an army of m&ms for Phoebe’s Valentine-themed birthday party a few years back. It was also the cake I used for Phoebe’s birthday “beach cake” and the dessert… Read more »

Grandma Catrino’s Biscotti

I never knew my grandmother (she died when my mom was 14), but my mother’s beautiful nieces (and fellow soulmates-in-cooking), Kay and Maryanne were nice enough to send me a bunch of Grandma Catrino’s recipes a few years back including the biscotti one above. This story alone would have been enough for the recipe to earn a time-honored place in… Read more »