Baking

The most important element in making pizza or calzones is the dough. In this recipe, I give you instructions for making it all in one day. But usually I like to let my dough rise slowly in the refrigerator overnight: it develops much more complexity and flavor. This dough is good for calzones and focaccia as well.

Italian cheesecake is one of the easiest Italian desserts to make, and, yes, one can add raisins, orange, or pine nuts. But I recall my grandmother’s simple version, made from goat’s-milk ricotta with minimal sugar, and it was delicious. In America, the cream-cheese version, of much smoother consistency, is common, but an Italian will willingly partake of the crumbly consistency of ricotta cheesecake, any time.

A group of us here laughingly call Molly Stone “the Cake Bitch of Savannah, Georgia”! This girl knows what she’s doing; her wedding cakes are incredibly divine. They are moist and bursting with flavor. The only thing bigger and better than her cake is her personality. I love you, Molly.

Hands down, this is Michael’s favorite cake. It’s a sweet, scrumptious memory of the days when his mother, Carmel, would bake it for him. In the Groover household, it was a family tradition that on your birthday you chose your favorite cake. Michael remembers this cake becoming his favorite at age five, and his request has not changed to this day. So naturally this just had to be his groom’s cake.

No electric mixer needed here—just mix in a bowl by hand.

In the restaurant, we serve our guests hot cheese biscuits and hoecake cornbread at lunchtime, but at dinner we swap out the hoecakes for these wonderful melt-in-your-mouth corn muffins.

This bread kicks traditional monkey bread’s butt! It’s the best.