Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
You might remember this cake from the chocolate spelt pound cake. Originally, I had wanted to do the kamut version, but couldn’t find any kamut flour. During a weekend trip to Portland, OR, though, I stumbled upon some in Whole Foods. When life hands you kamut flour, [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
I grew up on burnt chocolate pudding that came out of a box. Back before there was instant chocolate pudding, there was the chocolate pudding that you actually had to cook on the stovetop. I remember my mom standing in front of the stove, stirring away, muttering. [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
I hadn’t planned on making these muffins, but every time I flipped through Pure Dessert, I kept stopping on this recipe. Muffins just didn’t seem exotic enough to try. But they have raspberries. And chocolate. Really, it was only a matter of time before I caved.
The batter [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
This is actually two recipes in one. First, you make a batch of Desire’s Brioche dough. But instead of making traditional brioche loaves, you roll the dough out and spread a filling of muscovado sugar and cinnamon on it, then roll the dough up and cut it [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
Linzer tortes are a favorite Austrian or German holiday pastry. In it’s classic configuration, a buttery, almond-based dough sandwiches raspberry jam. I haven’t tried many linzer tortes (there are also cookie variations), so I wasn’t sure what to expect with this one. It had two things I [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
In the headnotes to this recipe, Medrich warns that these bars are tangy, and boy, is she right! These aren’t for those people who just want a hint of lemony sweetness.
At first, I was skeptical about whether or not I’d like these bars. I tasted the lemon [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
This recipe is a version of Medrich’s Kamut Pound Cake. I originally wanted to try the version with kamut flour, but I couldn’t find any. And since I still had a bag of spelt flour from the grains cookbook, I decided to go in that direction. Besides, [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
This cake is one of the best things I’ve ever eaten. And, more importantly, Bryan agrees. Since the man has a compulsive need to disagree with me over everything (snort), the fact that he agreed means this cake is truly something special.
I made the cake the day [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
I pride myself on my caramel skills. Every year around Christmas, I start making caramels. Chocolate caramels, cinnamon caramels, coffee caramels, mocha caramels, orange caramels, and on and on. Depending on how generous I’m feeling (and how many I can hide from Bryan), some of those caramels [...]

Currently cooking out of Pure Dessert by Alice Medrich.
“Oh my.”
That was pretty much all I could think of when I bit into a square of these deep, dark chocolatey brownies. The texture was some where between cakey and fudgey, moist but not dense and crunchy from cacoa nibs. They were so good that Bryan and [...]