Simply Recipes Food and Cooking Blog

Pâte brisée (pronounced paht bree-ZAY) is a standard all-butter pastry dough used for making pies and tarts.

With the substitution of almond flour for part of the wheat flour, this recipe makes a truly special pie crust for sweet pies. It is adapted from a recipe in Oprah Magazine.

This week's Christmas cookie is presented to you by guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic. ~Elise When I was a child my parents hated me enough to put me into a table manners class called Ms. Etiquette. I learned...

Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic. ~Elise The first time I had amaretti was in the Piazza San Marco in Venice. I stumbled upon a small cart selling a variety of ornate confections. Yet amongst all the...

It's as if our carrot cake and our apple cake decided to get together and have babies. (What really happened is that my father wanted to make a great 3-layer spice cake from Sunset magazine for the 3rd time in...

Almost every Sunday morning growing up, my father would make a huge apple coffee cake for us after church. Recently I pulled this recipe from the Boston Globe; they had it listed as an apple cake for the Jewish high...

Every year for the past 6 or 7 years, my father has served this apple cranberry pie at some point over Thanksgiving weekend. He found the recipe years ago in Bon Appétit magazine (Oct, 1998). This year we've modified the...

With apple turnovers, the biggest decision one needs to make is how to do the pastry crust. If you use an already prepared frozen puff pastry or folded pie crust, the apple turnovers will be a snap to make, they...

July marks the beginning oJf the apple season here. The brightly striped Gravensteins are the first to ripen. And when they do, we spend weeks making homemade applesauce and apple butter. As our freezer is now packed with applesauce, and...

Please welcome Simply Recipes guest author Garrett McCord who brought us some of the best baklava we've ever tasted. ~Elise Have I ever mentioned that I'm a baklava addict? It's true, I have a problem and should be taken to...

The best recipes come tried and true from friends who begged them from other friends and so on and so on. That's the wonderful thing about sharing recipes - the more good recipes we share, the better we all get...

If time and waistline permitted, I could wake up every morning to the smell of fresh muffins baking in the oven, especially these banana nut muffins. This recipe is based on our popular banana bread recipe, with a little less...

Can be prepared in 30 minutes or less. A favorite family ritual growing up was apple coffee cake on Sunday mornings. My dad would prepare it for his six greedy kids, all of us begging for him to pile on...

"I have the best blackberry muffin recipe!" my friend Suzanne announced to me a few weeks ago as I was musing out loud that I was looking for a good muffin recipe. Suzanne and I have been friends since we...

Please welcome Simply Recipes guest author Garrett McCord who shares with us his favorite blondie recipe. Blondies are often called brownies without chocolate which I find silly; blondies are a dessert with their own unique deliciousness and personality. Whereas brownies...

Hanging out with my dad is like living in a test kitchen. Dad's baking experiments are the bane of anyone's low carb diet. One must have formidable willpower to resist his creations, and fortunately for my taste buds, I don't...

We made this lovely gâteau a few days ago with some fresh blueberries now in season. Although the cake was delicious, I'm beginning to think that fresh blueberries are best eaten fresh. If we can't tell the difference after cooking...

There are three things I have a hard time resisting - my dad's tapioca pudding, Belgian dark chocolate, and freshly baked blueberry muffins. Muffins are not as easy to get right as one might think. Too dry, too dense, to...

When blueberries are in season, what better to do with them (other than eating them straight from the basket) than make blueberry pie? Blueberries have been found to be a "superfood", so good for you that you should go out...

Come late spring, our boysenberry vines start giving up their berries, a few cups a day. What to make with them? Boysenberry cobbler. Quick and easy, this recipe produces a delicious cobbler, a formidable blow to any low carb diet...

Come late May and early June, my mother's boysenberry vine comes alive with fruit. Boysenberries look like blackberries, but are actually a cross between blackberries, loganberries, and raspberries. As such they fruit much earlier in the season than blackberries, and...

Ever wonder what the difference is between scones and biscuits? The light, sweet scones enjoyed in England are nothing like the heavy, somewhat dry scones we usually have here in the states. They are more like our biscuits, but sweet...

This Italian apple torte is easy to make, and delicious. Cooking the apples first helps concentrate the flavor and remove moisture, so the cake doesn't get soggy. The lemon zest, although only a half teaspoon is used, is an essential...

Here is a delicious autumn nut tart that you can make with practically any mixture of nuts. Just make sure you get the freshest nuts possible - from your local farmers market, or from the bins at stores with high...

We love the carrot cake recipe from the Silver Palate cookbook. However, each bite is enough to send a normal person into sugar shock. So here is our recipe with the sugar level much reduced.

If you are looking for a special pie for the holidays, this is it - a light pumpkin pie with beaten egg whites folded into the pumpkin custard, spiked with rum, set in a gingersnap cookie crust, and covered with...

When I first encountered Clotilde Dusoulier's fabulous Chocolate and Zucchini website, I thought to myself, "How wonderful, the ingredients of my favorite cake!" My grandmother taught me how to bake when I was very young, and later when I was...

Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who shares his recipe for some of the best cupcakes we've ever had. ~Elise Most coconut cupcakes are often a bit too dense and flavorless in my opinion, often presenting bland...

One of the great blessings of living in California is our abundance of produce year round. Walnuts are in season, as are navel oranges. Buy an orange and squeeze it fresh to get the best juice for this recipe (grate...

Quick and easy cream cheese frosting brought to you by guest author Garrett McCord, the cupcake king. ~Elise Cream cheese frosting is a baking basic. It's perfect for practically any cake and any leftovers are great dolloped onto some freshly...

Apple season means apple pies, and my favorite are those apple pies packed with apples, not overly sweet, and with a buttery crust. The problem with baking thick apple pies is that the apples shrink as they cook, leaving a...

As long as I've known my friend George he has been an enthusiastic bread maker. George lives in Carlisle, Mass, and when I go out there to visit his daughter and grandchildren George often has a freshly baked loaf of...

My friend Suzanne's daughter Audrey (age 10) loves to cook. The last time I was there to visit, Audrey presented me with one of these fabulous cookies. Here's what she has to say about them... "I wanted to make these...

These ginger almond biscotti boast ginger and toasted almonds, as well as cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and all spice. Perfect for dipping in coffee.

No cookie says Christmas more than a gingerbread man cookie. It's been thirty years since I last made gingerbread men, and it took all weekend to get this recipe right. After starting with a truly terrible recipe from a 1974...

"I can't wait for you to get here Elise. We can cook! We can make pies and cakes and cookies and more yummy things," exclaimed my young friend Alden as we were talking on the phone last week. Between Easter...

Ginger snaps are just about my favorite cookie in the world, next to oatmeal raisin. So imagine my delight in finding this recipe from a woman who got it while interviewing for at job at Chez Panisse. They are thin...

Many people are sensitive, some extremely so, to gluten - a protein found in wheat, rye, and barley. Shauna of Gluten-free Girl has a whole blog devoted to gluten-free cooking (with recipes and gorgeous photography, by the way). As someone...

I've been going through our family's stash of recipes and came across my grandmother's oatmeal cookie recipe. She passed away a few years ago at age 97 (she was born in 1899). It's funny how just seeing her handwriting conjures...

Finally. A green chile cornbread that is moist, flavorful, and filled with corn and chiles. I've been experimenting for a couple of years now and believe we now have a winner. Do you like green chiles? I grew up eating...

What to do when your 8-year old nephew comes to visit? Make pizza, of course! Well, not of course, actually. I didn't think of it until we exhausted Sorry, Monopoly, and gin rummy. But it did turn out to be...

Around ten years ago I took a vacation in Ireland, spending days driving in and around Western Ireland. I still have vivid memories of bright green hills, muddy bogs, sheep with the scariest eyes, massive downpours, happy raucous pubs, learning...

I've been experimenting lately with lemon ginger muffins, looking for just the right recipe. Unfortunately, with all the heat we've been having around here lately, my experiments took a hiatus for a couple of weeks. Who wants to turn on...

Guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic brought these blondies over the other day, a variation of the blondies he made a few months ago. They were outstanding. They lasted all of 20 minutes. My father is still waiting for...

I love lemon poppy seed muffins. This recipe is based on the same Cook's Illustrated master muffin recipe on which I based our blueberry and lemon ginger muffins. The balance of flour, leavening, eggs and yogurt results in a light...

My father and I have been experimenting with lemon tart recipes for a year, without much success, by the way (until now). First there was the disastrous lemon tart from the New York Times, described so well by Deb of...

Who says strawberries have a monopoly on shortcake desserts? Mid summer is the season for many varieties of blackberries, which are delicious served over biscuits with whipped cream. Sweet and juicy marionberries are native of Oregon, but we found some...

Molasses spice cookies are sort of like ginger snaps except bigger and chewy. The recipe for these cookies comes from Cook's Illustrated's The Best Recipe cookbook. Here's a hint on preparation - don't reduce the amount of sugar, the cookies...

Elise's neighbor Andrew enjoys one of Garrett's monster cookies. Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who is sharing some of his favorite cookie recipes with us here on Simply Recipes. ~Elise Monster cookies. Ultimate Chippers. Super Cookies...

My mother has been praising our neighbor Mrs. Adams' pound cake for many years. My mother is a self-described cake person ("There are cake people and there are pie people. I'm a cake person.") who gets dreamy eyed just thinking...

From the archives. One of our favorite cakes for the season that I first posted here over five years ago! ~Elise When it's apple season here in Northern California, we are picking and processing daily from our trees (3 trees...

So, my favorite cookies in the whole wide world are these oatmeal raisin cookies. Could be because my grandmother used to bake them with me when I was little. I got to lick the bowl (they don't let kids do...

It's that time of year again, apple season. Our trees are practically raining Granny Smiths. In anticipation of a long apple season we have begun to experiment with apple pies; this recipe is our current favorite. What makes it special...

When we first came across this recipe in Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine we had to try it out. We've made it several times now, and everytime with great results. It's sort of a cross between a coffee cake and...

Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord who brought these cookies over today. They lasted about a second and a half. ~Elise Generally, I stick to ice creams and sorbets come summer, it just gets too hot out to start cranking...

Please welcome guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who shares his dead-easy palmiers cookie recipe with us. ~Elise Sometimes I just want a quick cookie. Something simple, yet flashy, with very little work on my part. A quick rendezvous...

Every year around this time, we anxiously await the arrival of a package from my dad's friend Fred. What we crave is a loaf of the most wonderful fruitcake, packed with dates, raisins, and glazed cherries, a raisin bread on...

My friends know me well. They know if they invite me over and I see that they have bushels of fresh-picked peaches just waiting for a home that I will offer my own kitchen counter space to take some of...

I learned something new today: peanut butter cookies are my mother's favorite cookie. I had no idea. Dad, however, won't eat them. Go figure. Peanut butter cookies are one of my favorite cookies; they remind me of school. They were...

This pear pie by guest author Garrett of Vanilla Garlic scored major points with my parents. Great pie! ~Elise Every once in a while I see a recipe in a magazine at the doctor's office or in the reception room...

Most pecan pie recipes I've found call for 2 cups of sugar - one cup of corn syrup plus one cup of either granulated or brown sugar - which results in pies so sweet they can give you a sugar...

Holiday cookie season is in high gear with another one of guest author Garrett McCord's delicious cookies. We ate these right after the photo was taken, super chocolate-y! ~Elise If this cookie doesn't capture the seasonal taste of Christmas, then...

The big dilemma for those of us who like to cook but don't always have the time to do everything perfectly is whether to attempt to make our own pie crust or to buy a frozen store bought version. Most...

A few weeks ago I noticed branches from a neighbor's persimmon tree hanging far over a wall, dropping persimmons on the sidewalk. Naturally, I went home and returned with a step stool, so I could retrieve a few other persimmons...

Hachiya persimmons can bake up into a delicious, moist cake that is almost a pudding. This recipe takes only a half cup of added sugar and uses the sweetness of the persimmon pulp.

This pineapple upside-down cake is one of my father's favorite recipes (he'll look for almost any excuse to make it). The cake is wonderfully dense, with a slight almond flavor and with sweetness from caramel and pineapple. Dad has recently...

Guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic brought 2 dozen of these cookies over today. We inhaled them. ~Elise Almost all of the pistachios grown in America are produced right here in California (we’re a lucky state, we are). It’s...

What to do with Santa Rosa plums? One easy and absolutely delicious possibility is plum cobbler. This was so good, we're making it again tomorrow. (Have to do something with all these plums!)

My father should have a t-shirt that reads "I've never met a dessert I didn't like" or in this case, "Got Plums? Will Bake". His baking endeavors might not always look their bakery best (please don't ever ask him to...

My father gets a faraway look in his eyes when he remembers his Minnesota Czech grandmother's poppy seed pastries. Called "kolache" (koh-LAH-chee), "kolacky" (koh-LAH-kee), or how my dad pronounces it, koh-LAH-chkey, these Czechoslovakian yeast-based pastries can be filled with any...

Please welcome Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who is kicking off a series of cookie recipes as a guest author on Simply Recipes. ~Elise It's early fall here in Sacramento, and outside the proof is irrefutable. Low grey clouds crawl...

Double the recipe and make two loaves of pumpkin bread. Whenever we carve up a pumpkin for Halloween I'm always reluctant to throw the pieces out. We salvage the pumpkin seeds and roast them for a tasty snack, but what...

Have you ever gotten a tummy ache from eating too many cookies? I did with these pumpkin cookies from our guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic. Too good. ~Elise “What the heck?” cried out my roommate looking at the...

What I love about these quick bread pumpkin muffins is that they are so easy to throw together, and so hard to mess up. You can mix everything by hand with a wooden spoon, don't need an electric mixer. Baking...

Please welcome Simply Recipes guest author Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic. ~Elise Red velvet cake is classic Americana cooking with its roots in the south. Deliciously festive, moist, flavorful, and maybe a hint of playful tackiness it's a dessert that...

Please welcome Garrett McCord of Vanilla Garlic who ushers us in to Spring with this rustic rhubarb tart. ~Elise Early Spring, sadly, is a time of wanting. Where we pace back and forth, twiddling our thumbs, rolling our eyes, waiting...

Leave it to the lady with the tree to have some great recipes for apricots. My neighbor Pat (the one whose tree is raining apricots this week) suggested cooking an apricot pie on the grill and passed along a recipe...

I recently observed my friend Suzanne whip up a couple onion tarts for a family meal and was so impressed by the wonderful flavor of the caramelized onion, I decided to try my hand at it. I've deviated a bit...

Please welcome guest author and pastry chef Shuna Fish Lydon of Eggbeater, who shares with us her secrets for making snickerdoodles. ~Elise While people argue about where the name Snickerdoodle comes from, few people who love them waste time with...

This corn bread is packed with cheese, onions, and whole corn, and flavored with bacon drippings. Need I say more? Recipe courtesy of my friend Lynn R. of Newton, Mass., who I think adapted it from one in The Southern...

Several weeks ago, strawberries and rhubarb both began to show up in quantity at the store. Strawberry rhubarb pie is one of my favorite desserts on the planet. But it's a pie. And being a pie, it takes some work...

Rhubarb is one of those strange vegetables that acts more like a fruit - the bright pink rhubarb stems that is; the leaves are poisonous. Strawberry rhubarb pie is one of my favorite pies in the world; in fact everyone...

What better way to conjure up memories of the joys of youth than strawberry shortcake? Strawberry shortcake consists of sliced strawberries that have been macerated with whipped cream served over a white cake or biscuit. I'm from the camp that...

If one is going to take the trouble to make chocolate brownies, and incur the wrath of the Fat-god for eating them, one may as well make them right. Brownies from a box? No thank you. This is my dear...

My friend Suzanne served in the Peace Corps for two years in Kenya in the late Eighties. The Peace Corps at that time published a recipe book for their volunteers that provided a chocolate cake recipe that was special in...

My friend Suzanne performed an experiment with her family and me. She baked two pumpkin pies, one using the purée and recipe from a can, the other using purée she made from a ripe sugar pumpkin. Each of us received...

I've had so many friends rave about sweet potato pie that when I found a recipe for one I just had to try it. Given that I completely botched the first pie crust (forgot to chill it before baking it...

Happy Valentine's Day! Why should chocolate have all the fun? Here are some Austrian Linzer cookies with a red preserve filling that seem perfectly suited for the occasion. Enjoy. :-)

I still remember the first time I encountered zucchini bread as a teenager. I had a hard time getting my mind around the concept. At the time, zucchini was something my mom made me eat, and not anything you would...

Now that we are living in the land of zucchini plenty (our zucchini plant is well along in its mission of total garden domination) we have ample opportunity to try out zucchini recipes. I've been experimenting with muffins and have...