Baking

Olive oil cakes are a traditional Italian treat; this one is unusual in that it uses whole oranges and lemons, not just their zest. This barely sweet dessert—a sophisticated amalgam of heady olive oil, aromatic fruits, and toasted almonds—will win you friends wherever you serve it. Be sure to use good-quality olive oil in this recipe. I prefer a Tuscan blend with a bit of peppery bite to give the cake an interesting dimension. I love serving this cake with whipped crème fraîche that has been lightly sweetened.

When an occasion calls for an indulgent dessert, Charlie Trotter’s chocolate bread pudding should be on the short list. Chef Trotter makes bread pudding glamorous, enriching it with bittersweet chocolate and topping it with crunchy handmade praline. By any measure, it’s a “wow” dessert.

Of all the sublime dishes that chef Nancy Oakes prepared during the 1997 Workshop, it is her warm gingerbread cake that has entrenched itself at Cakebread Cellars. The San Francisco chef says that the basic recipe is her grandmother’s, although Chef Oakes sometimes dresses it up with a ginger syrup. Brian serves it often in the fall, sometimes with a scoop of honey ice cream or just a dollop of softly whipped cream. As dark as milk chocolate, this fabulous cake is moist, spicy, and not overly sweet. Don’t worry if it sinks a bit in the center as it cools. Once it is cut, no one will notice.

The chocolate cookies that Ritz-Carlton chef Rob Wilson made for the 2009 Workshop delivered two surprises: tiny nuggets of chopped dark chocolate and little bursts of fleur de sel, a coarse French salt extracted by hand from seawater. The salt, although unexpected, seemed to heighten the chocolate flavor. Chef Wilson used cake flour to make the cookies especially tender. He served them with Crème Fraîche Sorbet (page 186), but vanilla ice cream would complement them as well.

Our homemade ice-cream sandwiches get raves when we serve them for lunch at the Workshop. We assemble them with cake instead of cookies to make them easier to eat. You can use any homemade or store-bought ice cream, but this caramel-banana–chocolate chip invention from pastry chef Marcel Desaulnier, who participated in the 1989 Workshop, is beyond delicious.

When you marry a pastry chef, you don’t have to perfect your baking skills, says Ben Barker, who participated in the 1990 Workshop. That’s why Chef Barker—whose wife, Karen, is a pastry authority—limits himself to simple “beach cottage desserts,” like this cornmeal cake. It’s a homespun, old-fashioned dessert that you can adapt to any summer berries. The sabayon dresses it up for company. Don’t be surprised by the unorthodox method—it really works.

Florida chef Oliver Saucy, who attended the 1995 Workshop, tosses the peaches in his fruit crisp with crystallized ginger—a nice touch. Serve warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or a dollop of whipped cream. Tapioca flour thickens the peach juices without making them cloudy or imparting a floury taste. If you can’t find it, purchase pearl tapioca and grind it fine in a spice mill or coffee grinder.

Compared to cheesecake made primarily with cream cheese, this rendition of the American classic is notably light. We make it with Cowgirl Creamery (opposite page) fromage blanc, which is lower in fat than cream cheese, plus ricotta and mascarpone to enhance the texture. A thin layer of Cowgirl Creamery crème fraîche blankets the top. The result is an easy, elegant, lemony dessert to serve in slender slices with a fruit accompaniment, such as sugared berries, a raspberry sauce, or the strawberry-rhubarb compote suggested here.

For large parties, it’s useful to have a repertoire of easy hors d’oeuvres that guests can enjoy standing up, with no plate or silverware. Winery chef Tom Sixsmith developed these tender biscuits for the wine and food program at our Visitors Center, where guests can sample appetizers designed to complement our wines. The toasted walnuts in these savory biscuits and the blue cheese butter inside help soften the tannins in our robust hillside Cabernet Sauvignon. To save time, we make the biscuit dough in large batches, cut out the biscuits, and freeze them unbaked. Then we bring them to room temperature and bake them as needed so our guests have warm, buttery biscuits with their red wine. You could also serve them as an accompaniment to a green salad or a vegetable soup.

With the addition of rich chocolate ganache, the Devil’s Food Cake you’ve now mastered can go from everyday fabulous to over-the-top decadence. This recipe for a 6-inch cake is perfect for a romantic date night or a small, formal dinner party, although it can easily be doubled for a standard three-layer 8-inch cake or two-layer 9-inch cake. The ganache here has a subtle hazelnut flavor, but by simply substituting other flavorings for the hazelnut liqueur, you have a wealth of other options. Take note: Icing your cake with ganache will be slightly more difficult than with icing because the consistency of the ganache is a bit thinner until it sets, and if it becomes too cold, it will be hard to spread. Be patient as the ganache cools. If you spread it too soon, it will be challenging to accumulate a thick enough layer on the cake. Once the ganache is spreadable (the consistency of ordinary icing or peanut butter), work quickly in icing your cake. If the ganache gets too cold and thick, it will begin to crack and pull apart the cake as you try to spread it. If that happens, just reheat the ganache over a double boiler until it becomes malleable again.

This Rocky Road Cupcake has a surprising marshmallow center that provides a yin-and-yang contrast to the dense chocolate icing. For a more daring, sweet-and-salty version, try using chopped Smokehouse almonds instead of the traditional toasted ones, or top the cupcakes with chopped salted peanuts. Once you’re comfortable with the technique of filling a cupcake, you can use other fillings, such as chocolate mousse, Nutella, fruit curd, or a favorite custard, to create other flavors.

Mini cupcakes are a chic, modern-day petit four; they have become a favorite for cocktail party desserts. Although they look equally elegant passed on a tray or displayed on a table, they are more whimsical and less stuffy than traditional options, such as mini fruit tarts or truffles. At Tribeca Treats, the flavor combination of s’mores is one of our most popular: The fluffy Marshmallow Icing perfectly balances the dark chocolate cake. You can also substitute sweetened white coconut for the graham cracker crumbs and you have another great classic treat, the “Snowball.”

The base recipe for our chocolate cake is the easiest cake recipe I know. It’s an oil-based (as opposed to butter-based) recipe, so, just like boxed cake mixes, it can be mixed by hand in one bowl. For that reason, it is a favorite of mine to make at a vacation home or anywhere that I’m not sure about what mixers or baking equipment will be available. Once baked, this batter results in an airy, spongy cake with a rich chocolate flavor. It tends to rise a lot in the oven, especially in the center, so the cake layers will always have to be trimmed to make the layers flat before they are iced. Accordingly, be careful not to overfill the cake pans or cupcake wrappers.

City dwellers, and anyone else who feels that he or she doesn’t get enough time in front of a campfire, can still enjoy the taste of s’mores with these cookies, which cleverly combine the graham cracker–marshmallow–chocolate trifecta. What they lack in the crispy char of the toasted marshmallow, they more than make up for in their ability to be made in advance. They are also one of the most versatile cookies in this book as far as being appropriate for all occasions. Bring them to a family reunion, use them as a butter-up-your-boss gift, serve them with petit fours at a formal affair, or just keep them in a jar at home to treat yourself.

Imagine taking a bite of the edge of a cheesecake, with a chunky piece of crust on your fork and a thin layer of the sweet-and-sour cream cheese filling gracing the crust. Now imagine having that flavor in a bite-size version that you can pop into your mouth by hand. These sandwich cookies are like mini inverted cheesecakes (by “inverted” I mean more crust than filling). The cream cheese icing, which adds a tanginess to the cookie, can be made with or without cinnamon. The sugar in the cream cheese icing acts as a natural preservant, so the cookies can be left at room temperature in an airtight container for a week.

These cookies are just as tasty eaten plain as they are in any of the variations in this chapter. Steps 6 through 12 of this recipe outline how to bake them on their own for a snack. If you are using the dough for another recipe in this chapter, stop at step 5.

The lime version of the buttermilk cookie is a tart, refreshing treat—perfect for a summer day. You can also easily substitute lemon or orange for the lime; all are especially welcome at brunches or tea parties. This recipe directs you to spoon the icing over the tops of the cookies, but if you like the playfulness of the rounded bottoms from the Mini Black and White Cookies (page 77), you can flip them over and ice the bottoms using the same technique.

This cinnamon-glazed cookie is French toast in cookie form—a breadlike texture with cinnamon-sweet flavor. You can add chopped candied pecans by sprinkling them onto the cookie after it’s iced but while the icing is still wet. This recipe directs you to spoon the icing over the tops of the cookies, but if you like the playfulness of the rounded bottoms from the Mini Black and White Cookies (page 77), you can flip them over and ice the bottoms using the same technique.

The black and white cookie is a New York institution. The version found in almost every corner deli is about three times the size of these, but this smaller one is popular for parties because it’s more manageable to eat in a social setting. At Tribeca Treats customers frequently order them as favors for weddings or black-and-white color-schemed events. Traditionally, the icing is applied to the bottom, or flat side, of the cookie. Doing so helps you create a neat delineation between your chocolate and white icings. Having the rounded side as the bottom also adds a topsy-turvy playfulness when plating them.

Baking sweet peanut butter icing into the top layer of the brownies brings more depth to both flavors and is another way to highlight the ever-popular peanut butter and chocolate combination. These rich treats are a resounding hit at tailgate parties and make a comforting get-well gift for a peanut butter–loving friend.