easy dessert recipes

Rye Blueberry Galette

Better at Home: Recipes for Big Nights In by Colu Henry

Food & Wine and New York Times Cooking contributor Colu Henry collects her signature relaxed-but-impressive recipes that are perfect for cozy nights in.

Better at Home is the essential cookbook that makes every meal feel special, perfect for food lovers yet approachable for any home cook.

Colu Henry’s life, split between Hudson, New York, and Nova Scotia, always revolves around gathering friends at the table. Her cooking is about joyful, stress-free meals that never sacrifice sophistication. After years in the hospitality industry, she’s learned one thing: Most meals are simply better at home.

Inside, you’ll find playful twists on cocktails like Fizzy Negroni Pompelmos and Amaro Spritzes; snackable bites such as Italian Shrimp Toast, Fried Sausage-Stuffed Olives, and Roasted Eggplant Dip with Toasted Seeds; and deeply satisfying vegetarian sides like Butter Rice with Roasted Tomatoes and Herbs, Braised Snap Peas with a Bit of Cream, and Golden, Crispy Leeks with Melted Gruyère.

And, of course, the soulful soups, stews, and pastas Colu is known for: Cappelletti en Brodo with Mortadella Meatballs, Lentil Stew with Pork and Crispy Walnuts, and an Early Summer Pasta with Torn Noodles, Mascarpone, and Hazelnuts. Plus, crowd-pleasers like Calabrian Chili and Pickled Pepper Braised Pork and Roast Chicken with Lemon, Fennel, and Crispy Pecorino Potatoes. (more…)

Salted Caramel Walnut Tart

Rustic French Cooking Made Easy: Authentic, Regional Flavors from Provence, Brittany, Alsace and Beyond , Salted Caramel Walnut Tart, Photography by Audrey Le Goff and Karly Schaefer.

This collection of 60 unbelievably easy, delicious recipes represents the best of essential French home cooking, with an amazing variety of dishes from traditional regional cuisines.

Leave haute cuisine to fussy French restaurants, and dive into simple, comforting classics. Audrey Le Goff, founder of the blog Pardon Your French, dispels the myth that real French cooking is tricky and complicated. Home cooks interested in the popular French approach to cooking for health and happiness, will delight in these authentic, approachable recipes, while devoted French cooking fans will discover delicious staples rarely tasted outside of the French family kitchen.

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FAMILY RECIPES: Etelka’s Cocoa Chiffon Cake

I’ve come to realize that many of us have been bequeathed a cherished family recipe. Be it simple or elaborate to prepare, it’s a dish so fiendishly delicious that it is the unmistakable star of the family meal, whether celebrating triumphs, comforting woes, or keeping family traditions alive. Withholding such heirloom recipes from the world seems almost cruel. Hence, I am championing the family recipe. I will entice the people in my universe to share favourite, nostalgia-infused family recipes, and I will give one of them centre stage in this very space on a monthly basis. In the end, we are all family, and these recipes represent the legacies of our shared passions. This month’s post is written by my good friend Eva. Enjoy!

Etelka’s Cocoa Chiffon Cake
By Eva

The grand finale of every family birthday dinner was THE CAKE. My mother, Etelka, always served her signature Chocolate Chiffon Cake. Festooned with tiny, lit candles, it was ceremoniously placed before the celebrated one as the room broke into a full-throated, charmingly off-key rendition of “Happy Birthday.” (We are not a family of gifted singers.) A hasty, silent wish, a quick whoosh to blow out the candles, and then bliss ensued as the cake was sliced, handed around and savoured.

The cake’s appearance underwent a few metamorphoses over the decades. Sometimes it was rectangular, at other times round, depending on the baking pans my mother had on hand. The cake’s magic lies in its ratios rather than its aesthetics. It has just enough cocoa and sugar to give chocolate lovers their fix without overpowering its rich texture, a combination of moist, delicate cake and silky icing.

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