Karen DeMasco's Devil's Food Cupcakes

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I still remember the first time I ate a Karen DeMasco cupcake. It was back in the days when I worked in a lofty office on the 11th floor of a building near Union Square. I had a corner office with hardwood floors and beautiful views of all the water towers of the area (and a very sweet boss who for some reason worked in the smaller office). I'd ordered lunch that day from 'Wichcraft, a soup and a half sandwich, but when the bag arrived - to this day, I'm not sure why - they'd also included a little plastic container holding one almost-black cupcake, thinly glossed with chocolate icing.

I was and am not a cupcake person. I have never liked buttercream and the aching sweetness of most cupcakes just sent me soaring into shaky-hands territory every time I ate one at an office birthday or baby shower. Nah, I prefered the inside-out cookies from City Bakery (now sadly defunct, the cookies, not the Bakery) or a little pot of Kozy Shack rice pudding for an afternoon sweet snack. Then suddenly, unexpected and alluring, nothing other than a cupcake sat before me. But it wasn't covered in an inch of frosting and it didn't look saccharine at all. I put it aside and ate my lunch, glancing over at the cupcake every once in a while, as if making sure it was still there, hadn't evaporated like a tiny little leprechaun.

Eating it was sort of mind-altering. It was tender as can be, the softest, most delicate crumb I'd eaten in a cupcake, or cake, for that matter, but with the gutsiest, deepest, darkest chocolate flavor ever. I sort of couldn't square the two away in my head together for a while. The thin chocolate icing cap was a textural pleasure and then, poof, suddenly in the middle of the cupcake, I alighted upon a bubble of whipped cream that I wasn't expecting at all. It was, hands down, the best cupcake of my life. Nothing even came close. After that, nothing really deserved to be called cupcake either.

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It was for that recipe alone that I couldn't wait for Karen to publish her book. And a few years later, namely, a few weeks ago, I went into the kitchen to bake the first batch of "my" cupcakes.

(Now, let's just all take a moment here and acknowledge that this home baker would never be able to exactly replicate something that a trained pastry chef made on a daily basis. Plus, the exalted memory of a single cupcake eaten over four years ago was going to be tough to live up to. Lastly, I was an idiot and didn't buy a pastry bag with a metal piping tip like I should have. Don't be an idiot.)

The batter for the devil's food cake is relatively easy. You make a cocoa paste, a mixture of the dry ingredients and then a wet mix with creamed butter and sugar, buttermilk and eggs. All three are folded and blended and mixed together until you have a gorgeously creamy, shiny batter. I wanted to spackle my kitchen with this batter, wanted to use it as a face mask, wanted to sculpt a statue out of it. It was so tactile and whippy and glossy.

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The batter baked up nicely into dark, domed cakelets. A warning: Whatever you do, don't let these overbake, even for a minute. Err on the side of underbaking rather than overbaking.  It'll make the difference between a moist, tender cupcake and a rather hohum-ish one. The tester shouldn't be entirely clean, but don't let it come out covered in raw batter either.

The rest of the preparation can be pretty fun, granted you have a proper pastry bag with a metal tip. Remember? I didn't, so the rest of my afternoon was spent with a Ziploc bag, a plastic spatula, a paring knife, a bowl of whipped cream, and lots of sweaty, angry cursing. I'll leave it at that. If properly armed, your metal pastry tip gets inserted into the bottom of the cupcake and you squirt cream filling into the cupcake until pressure on the top of the cupcake lets you know you've filled it to capacity. Easy!

The best part, as far as I'm concerned, is dipping the cupcakes into their shiny cap of chocolate ganache. If I was Queen of the World, I'd make a decree banning buttercream frosting for eternity and make the thin, elegant, shiny slip of icing (chocolate, lemon, what-have-you) de rigueur for cupcakes. The original recipe has you use corn syrup in the ganache for stability, but seeing as corn syrup costs something like 10 bucks a bottle here, I left it out with fine results.

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Oh, and how did they taste, you're wondering? It's pretty hard to go wrong with a dark chocolate cupcake, tender with buttermilk, fragrant with vanilla and chocolate, a creamy white filling, and that dark bitter top. They're wonderful as far as cupcakes go and were eaten with wide-eyes and professions of love and astonishment.

Did they measure up to that one cupcake consumed at my desk in New York all those years ago? They didn't, of course. But how could they, really? That cupcake was an unexpected gift, a memory frozen in time, a reminder of my old life that will always be suffused with golden light. I will never, ever forget it.

Devil's Food Cupcakes with Cream Filling 
Makes 14-16 cupcakes
Note: The recipe makes for more filling than you'll need and more batter, too (hence the adjusted yield noted in the line above, as opposed to the original recipe). You can bake the cupcakes in batches if you have only one muffin tin, or use small ramekins lined with paper liners. As for the leftover whipped cream filling, eat it for dessert? The ganache topping is meant to be generous, so that you can easily drag your cupcakes through it once or twice for a good, shiny cap.

For the cupcakes:
3/4 cup plus 1 1/2 teaspoons unsweetened cocoa powder
3/4 cup cake flour
2/3 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon baking powder
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 1/4 cups plus 2 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
5 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temperature
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons buttermilk
3/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. Preheat the oven to 350F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners, if you have more than one 12-cup muffin tin. Otherwise line a standard 12-cup muffin with liners and then line small ramekins (if you have them) for the remaining batter.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk the cocoa powder and 1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons warm water to form a paste; set aside.

3. In another bowl, sift together the cake flour, all-purpose flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

4. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, mix the brown sugar with the butter on medium speed until they are well combined with no pieces of butter visible. Add the cocoa paste, making sure to use a spatula to get all the cocoa paste into the mixer bowl. Once this is well combines, add the egg and egg yolk. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula. In three additions each, add the buttermilk and vanilla extract, alternating with the flour mixture.

5. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling them 3/4 full. Bake, rotating the tins halfway through, until the cupcakes spring back to the touch and a tester inserted in the center of a cupcake comes out mostly clean, 20-25 minutes. Invert the cupcakes onto a wire rack, turn them top side up, and let them cool completely.

For the cream filling:
1 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons confectioners' sugar
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1. To make the filling, combine the cream, confectioners' sugar, and vanilla extract in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Beat on medium speed to soft peaks, about 4 minutes. Put the cream into a pastry bag fitted with a small piping tip. Using a paring knife, make a small cut in the bottom of each cupcake, through the paper, to insert the tip of the pastry bag. Insert the tip of the pastry bag about 1 1/2 inches into a cupcake. Gently squeeze the bag while holding the fingers of your other hand over the top of the cupcake. When you feel a slight pressure on the top of the cupcake, stop filling. Repeat with each cupcake.

For the ganache:
4 ounces semisweet chocolate, chopped
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tablespoons light corn syrup (optional; I didn't use this)

1. To make the ganache, put the chocolate in a small mixing bowl. Combine the cream and the corn syrup, if using, in a small saucepan and bring to a boil. Pour over the chocolate right away, and stir slowly until all of the chocolate melts and the ganache is silky and shiny.

2. Carefully dip the top of each cupcake in the ganache, tapping gently to remove the excess. Return the cupcakes to the wire rack to let the glaze set up, at least 30 minutes.

3. The cupcakes can be kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 3 days.


Karen DeMasco's Carrot Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting

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Hoo-ee, folks. I've had a rough couple of days. The mean reds or the deep blues, or whatever you want to call them, got me in their bony little claws and shook me around for a few days, making me feel useless and despairing and generally not fit to get up out of bed. (I did get out of bed, though. I even managed to get dressed, a minor success.)

I hate it when that happens.

I had a girlfriend in town from New York this weekend and when I saw her walk out of the gate at the airport, I swear she had New York City pixie dust floating around her, glittering in the early morning Berlin light. That pixie dust reached my nostrils and suddenly my weird mood was a full-fledged case of heartaching homesickness. 

Story of my life. Literally.

When that happens, I try to keep putting one foot in front of the other, reminding myself that this too shall pass, that it'll just be a few days before the fog dissipates and I can see my life again, this one that I chose, and everything will make sense again. But it's always easier said than done. Maybe you know what that's like? When you try to talk some sense into your self and your self just buries her head into her arms and sobs?

Anyway.

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Let's talk about cupcakes. Cupcakes always make people smile. Babies always make people smile, too, or at least this person. So I went to a co-ed baby shower a few weeks ago and brought a whole army of cupcakes along, chocolate, cream-filled ones and these spicy, carrot-flecked ones. A lot of Germans don't really know how to deal with cupcakes, so my little guys just stood rather forlornly (beautiful! but forlorn) in the corner of the table for a while, while the guests dug into their slices of homey, familiar, German apple cake instead. I felt sort of sad for my little cupcakes, so misunderstood, so alone. Then Max decided to break the ice.

"These are really good", he said, or that's what I think he said, in any case. There might have been some mascarpone cream frosting obstructing the way. Yeah, yeah, I thought. You're just trying to make my ignored cakelets feel a little better about themselves. Sweet, but I see right through you. Then someone else came up to me, the grandmother-to-be, actually, with half a cream-filled cupcake in her hand and a wild look in her eyes. She seemed to agree with Max, but her mouth was full, too. After that, the cupcakes got a lot more popular.

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The recipe comes from Karen DeMasco's The Craft of Baking, which is also the home of my favorite cashew brittle of all time and other wonderful little things, like apple cider jellies, for example, or bittersweet chocolate meringues. The batter is easy thing to whip up, since it's oil-based with a touch of sour cream, no butter to cream in sight. Grating the carrots is a little bit harder. The batter, all folded together, looks almost pink in the right light. It's pretty.

The cupcakes bake up into light little things with a gorgeous texture and a nice balance of spices. But what makes these really special is the frosting. Eschewing a more classic cream cheese frosting, Karen has you whip together mascarpone and heavy cream and crème fraîche, flavoring this loose, floppy mixture with vanilla and fresh lemon peel. It's sort of like a lemon fool, but instead of eating it out of a bowl like a louche 17th century English countess, you pile the cream on top of the cupcakes, the higher the better.

Oh, who am I kidding, you will end up eating it out of the bowl like that countess. (Because no matter how high you pile, there will be leftovers, don't worry.)

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Mascarpone and whipped cream are a lot subtler than cream cheese and I wondered, as I licked the bowl, if the frosting would work with the cupcakes. But later on at the party, when I finally tried a cupcake myself, I realized how perfect the combination was. The lemon peel coaxes out the spices and the cloud of cool, slighly sour, sweet cream is the perfect foil to the tender little cakelet.

Happy Monday, everyone. One foot in front of the other, nice and easy. Here's to a good week.

Carrot Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting
Makes 14 cupcakes

Cupcakes:
1 pound carrots (about 5), peeled
1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup Demerara sugar
1/2 cup grapeseed oil
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk

Frosting:
1 cup mascarpone
1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup crème fraîche or sour cream
2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Finely grated zest of 1 lemon

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners, and line 2 more cups in a second muffin tin.

2. Grate the carrots using a food processor fitted with the shredding blade, or the medium holes of a box grater. You will need a total of 2 1/2 cups.

3. In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, baking powder and baking soda.

4. In a large bowl, whisk together the Demerara sugar, oil, sour cream, and vanilla. Add the egg and egg yolk and whisk to combine. Add the flour mixture and whisk until just combined. Using a spatula, fold the carrots into the batter. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, filling them about three-quarters full.

5. Bake, rotating the tins halfway through, until a cake tester inserted into the center of a cupcake comes out clean, 20 to 25 minutes. Invert the cupcakes onto a wire rack, turn them top side up and let them cool completely.

6. To make the frosting, combine the mascarpone, cream, crème fraîche, sugar, salt, vanilla and lemon zest and beat on medium speed with an electric whisk or mixer until the mixture becomes thick, about 5 minutes. (The frosting can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge for up to a day. Let it come to room temperature and whisk together if necessary before using.) Using a metal spatula or a butter knife, spread 2 to 3 tablespoons of the frosting over the top of each cupcake.

7. The cupcakes can be kept in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 3 days.


Tartine's Panforte with Candied Quince

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It is a lot, I know, to expect you - in this mad December rush - to slow down and candy your own quince. Forgive me, will you? It's just that I believe in you! I know you can do it. I know you can find the time. And furthermore, I know it'll be worth it.

Besides, candying quince isn't even all that hard. In fact, I think tracking down the quince is the hardest part (well, that and trying to core it, but never mind). You should also candy your own orange peel, if you can't find any at the grocery store (one of the charms of living in Germany: chopped candied orange peel at any old grocery store). But that's even easier than candying quince. Promise. Cross my heart!

See, what we're making is panforte. Strong bread, if you want to know the literal translation. But what panforte really is is a deep, dark nut-and-fruit confection, warm with spice, the low, sweet chew of dried plums and candied quince, all wrapped up in a cocoa-tinged, citrus-peel-flecked, honeyed batter and baked until almost black.

It's a lot of work, it's true. But what you get in return will sustain you, I promise. If the Benne Wafers were the instant gratification cookie of the holiday season, this panforte is the long, slow, steady burn.

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Panforte is a traditional Italian sweet meat, cut into thin little wedges (you'll need a very sharp, very heavy knife - it's dense) and served after dinner around Christmastime. It's chewy and crunchy, not too sweet and keeps for weeks, if well-wrapped. So the way I see it, it makes for pretty great presents, if you can bear to part with what you've made. All you need is willpower, parchment paper and a bit of butcher's twine for artful wrapping and bows, and you'll have yourself some very grateful friends.

I love how panforte is both restrained and a little luxe. It's the kind of dessert that makes you feel virtuous, after all that roast goose, and elegant, with nut-studded blackish wedges lying insouciantly on little gold-rimmed plates.

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Pardon all the wonky light in these photos, but we've not had much sun in Berlin these past few weeks. In fact, it hasn't done much else but snow lately, giving everything in my kitchen a rather blueish hue. But the heavy gray lid over the city doesn't feel as oppressive as it will in a few months. Right now, it's kind of cozy. We gather indoors with friends, drink tea, crunch through homemade cookies, light candles, and prepare for the holidays. In a few months, the lack of light will feel interminable. Today, it feels just right.

It's better for baking, anyway, when the sun isn't shining and you have every right to wile away the day in your kitchen.

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There's little that's complicated about making panforte. In fact, other than good ingredients, you just need to be able to work quickly at crucial moments and have a little bit of muscle in your upper arms, a little bit of elbow grease.

Besides the candied quince and orange peel, you need a nice assortment of dried fruit. The original recipe, from the first Tartine cookbook, calls for dates, but says that you can use any type of dried fruit, just as long as the total amount is about 25 ounces. Since I have a burning love for prunes (and think their bright, juicy flavor works particularly well with cocoa and citrus zest), I used equal amounts of dates and prunes, plus a bunch of raisins instead of the original currants (one of the few dried fruits I really just don't dig, with their weird crunchy little selves).

You also need a whole bunch of toasted nuts - pistachios, hazelnuts and almonds - which bump this firmly into luxury territory, but it's affordable luxury, I think. The kind I can get behind.

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After you toast the nuts and dice up all the fruit and zest the citrus, you toss this all with flour and cocoa and a whole mess of spices, including ground coriander, black pepper and what seems like an enormous amount of nutmeg.

To make the syrup that will bind these dusty nuggets together, you melt together sugar and honey until they bubble and froth without boiling over. Here's a good look at how the syrup should look when you're ready to pull it off the stove. And this is where you need to work quickly. The syrup, boiling hot, will hit the nuts and fruit and then, in a heartbeat, turn to what feels like hot tar. Arm yourselves, therefore, either with plastic gloves or a very heavy-duty plastic spatula and move quickly. Mix the syrup into the fruit and nuts well, moistening every last bit and making sure that no powdery streak of flour remains. If you do this well, you can skip your weight-bearing exercises for the day! Up and at 'em, folks.

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Then scrape this mixture, fragrant and nubby and far too hot for dipping a finger in and tasting, into a parchment-lined springform pan and bake it in the oven until set. What's difficult at this point is not over-baking the panforte. Since the batter is so dark to begin with, it's hard to tell if it's starting to burn. Trust your nose, your oven thermometer and the kitchen timer.

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This brick-like confection will cool and settle and then you can unmold it from its baking pan and cover it with a snow-like dusting of confectioner's sugar before cutting it into wedges and parceling them up. You will find yourself sneaking little tastes here and there, little nibs and nobs of the panforte that get nicked under your knife, trying to track down each individual flavor but becoming overwhelmed by the goodness of the whole. You'll cut a wedge to keep for yourself and then, later, you'll curse yourself for not making it a bigger one. Your mouth will tingle with spice.

As you can tell, I've fallen hard for this panforte. I'll be making it for many Christmases to come. Do you what to know just how hard I've fallen? So hard that I'm throwing in the towel on the cookie production for the year. Nothing's going to top this baby.

So, like I said, get to finding that quince! Time's a-wasting.

Panforte with Candied Quince
Makes 32 half-inch slices
Note: You can use any type of dried or candied fruit, in any combination, as a substitute for the fruits in the recipe as long as the total amount is about 4 1/2 cups (25 ounces).

Candied orange zest
3 large, unblemished oranges
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar

1. Remove the zest from the oranges: Run a zester from the top to bottom of the orange, cutting the zest into thin strips (avoid the pith). Repeat with the remaining fruit. Reserve fruit for another use.

2. In a medium, heavy saucepan, cook the water and sugar over medium heat. Bring to a boil, stirring, until the sugar dissolves. Add the zest, lower the heat to medium-low, and cook at a gentle simmer until the zest strips become tender and semi-translucent, about 30 minutes.

3. Remove from the heat and pour into a heat-proof container. Cool completely, then store the zest in the cooking syrup in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 month. You should have about one-half cup (3 ounces) of candied zest.

Candied quince
1 1/2 cups water
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 large quince

1. Peel the quince, slice it in half, remove the core and cut the fruit crosswise into one-fourth-inch slices.

2. In a medium, heavy saucepan, combine the water and sugar over medium heat, stirring with a spoon, until the sugar dissolves. Add the fruit, reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook at a gentle simmer until the fruit is semi-translucent, about 45 minutes.

3. Remove from the heat and pour into a heat-proof container. Cool, then store the fruit in the cooking syrup in an airtight container in the refrigerator. You'll have about 1 cup (8 ounces) of fruit.

Panforte
1 recipe candied quince, strained and coarsely chopped (8 ounces)
1 recipe candied orange zest, strained and coarsely chopped (3 ounces)
1 cup dates, pitted and coarsely chopped (5 ounces)
1 cup prunes, pitted and coarsely chopped (5 ounces)
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons Zante currants (4 ounces)
2 tablespoons grated orange zest
1 tablespoon grated lemon zest
1 cup lightly toasted unsalted pistachios
2 cups well-toasted hazelnuts
2 cups well-toasted almonds
2/3 cup flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Freshly grated nutmeg from 1 1/2 nutmegs
3/4 teaspoon ground coriander
3/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 teaspoon ground cloves
3/4 cup honey
1 1/3 cups granulated sugar
1/4 cup powdered sugar

1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. Butter a 10-inch springform pan with 2- or 3-inch sides, line with parchment paper, and butter the parchment, making sure to butter the sides of the pan well.

2. In a large mixing bowl, combine the candied quince and orange zest, dates, currants, orange and lemon zest, and all of the nuts. Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, coriander, pepper and cloves over the fruits and nuts. Mix well. Set aside.

3. In a deep, heavy saucepan, combine the honey and granulated sugar over medium-high heat. Stir gently with a wooden spoon from time to time to make sure that no sugar is sticking to the bottom of the pan. Bring to a boil and cook until the mixture registers 250 degrees on a thermometer, about 3 minutes. The mixture will be frothy and boiling rapidly.

4. Remove from the heat and immediately pour over the fruit-and-flour mixture in the bowl. Stir with a wooden spoon to incorporate the syrup thoroughly with the other ingredients. The mixture may seem dry at first, but it will come together once it is well mixed. (If you have rubber gloves, it is easier to mix with your hands than with a spoon.) Work quickly at this point; the longer the mixture sits, the firmer it becomes.

5. Transfer the mixture to the prepared springform pan and smooth the top with a rubber spatula dipped in water. Bake until the top is slightly puffed and looks like a brownie, about 1 hour. Cool in the pan on a wire rack for 30 minutes. Run a knife around the edge to loosen and turn out of the pan and cool completely.

6. With a fine-mesh sieve, sift the powdered sugar over the top, bottom and sides of the panforte. Lightly tap it over the counter to shake off excess sugar. It will keep, well wrapped, in a cool, dry place for up to 2 weeks, or indefinitely in the refrigerator. To serve, slice into quarter- to half-inch slices.


Amy Scattergood's Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes with Fried Sage

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I am, shall we say, a little distracted these days. I'm leaving for Germany in a little less than three days. And I'm not coming back until the first days of January. That's the longest vacation I've taken in a good bit and I'm sort of agog at the prospect of so much (badly-needed) time off. Time to see old friends, show more bits and pieces of Berlin to Ben, figure out where and when we're getting married, have my mom cook me dinner, spend time with my family, literal and figurative, and simply be in my hometown. I've missed it so much this year that Heimweh turned into a perpetual ache in my chest. I'm ready to be rid of that.

And though I'm not sure if this is entirely related to my distraction, my luck in the kitchen lately has been abysmal. Almost funnily so, though if you'd seen me yesterday, attacking an innocent pizza that had soldered itself to the baking stone in less than 25 minutes and was thus burned to an absolute crisp, rendering our casual late-afternoon lunch a blackened, unpleasant mess, you might have handed me a towel to mop my brow and commanded me to go take a walk around the block. Happy to oblige, thanks!

Not to be outdone, there was also a lackluster savory rice pie that I loved when my stepmother made, but that ended up a bland, insipid, tragic waste of Carnaroli rice when attempted in my own kitchen, and the unforgettable pickled endives that had such promise, but were a deeply unpleasant combination of sweetness, bitterness and spice that was not meant to be eaten by anyone, at least not anyone in my home.

Kitchen disasters, please be gone, would you?

But Christmas comes early this year: a holiday dinner tonight with friends, a liquid dinner of cocktails tomorrow, one meal airborne over the Atlantic and then - boom - I'm absolved of the rest of the year's meals. Strangely enough, I'm sort of pleased. I think my kitchen and I need a break. (Oh, except there's this one amazing soup I have to tell you about before I leave...).

I'm bringing my camera cable with me to Europe, since I'm going to be (finally!) documenting the annual Springerle bake-off with my friends Joan and Ann, and Ben's first encounter with a Currywurst (it might not happen, but I'll try - and in any case, after years of loyalty to the stand at Wittenbergplatz, it's time for me to branch out and try Konnopke's. Are there any Berliners out there who want to weigh in?). Then, best of all for you hungry folks, I'll be in Brussels for the last week of my holidays with my family who never fail to introduce me to some kind of stellar food. Last year, I brought back the focaccia di patate; this year, who knows? It will be delicious and I will share it: that is my solemn holiday promise to you.

Oh! And these potatoes! Well, for those of you for whom Christmas is not Christmas without mashed potatoes, and for those of you who find leftover mashed potatoes - formed into patties and fried, for example, or eaten cold from the fridge - to be your own personal nirvana, this is the recipe you must make this year. It is, in a word, insane.

After all, not only is there browned butter and fried sage (dreamy!) but there is Greek yogurt, too. Luscious, I tell you, and pleasingly different without being weird. Also, it makes mountains of mashed potatoes. Mountains! That is not an exaggeration. You will be inundated with thick, creamy, tangy, herby mashed potatoes. The good thing is they're so easy to keep eating, day after day. Croquettes, potato soup, shepherd's pie - is there anything that cannot be done with these leftovers? I have yet to find out.

Brown Butter Mashed Potatoes with Sage
Serves 6 to 8 with leftovers

3 pounds baking potatoes, scrubbed, skin on, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
24 fresh sage leaves
1 cup whole milk
3/4 cup plain Greek yogurt
1 1/2 teaspoons sea salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the potatoes in a large pot or Dutch oven and cover with cold water by at least half an inch. Cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Lower the heat and simmer until tender, about 15 minutes.

2. While the potatoes are cooking, heat the butter over medium-high heat in a medium skillet. When it begins to foam, add the sage leaves and gently fry until crisp, 2 to 3 minutes. Remove with a slotted spoon, place on a paper towel and reserve. Continue to cook the butter until it's golden brown and nutty, watching so that it doesn't burn, an additional 1 to 2 minutes. Remove from heat and reserve.

3. In a small saucepan, heat the milk over medium-high heat just until hot, careful that the milk does not boil. Remove from heat and reserve in a warm place.

4. Drain the potatoes and place them into a large bowl. Using a masher, mash the potatoes to the desired consistency. Stir in the hot milk, yogurt, salt and pepper and browned butter, making sure to get all the dark butter solids. (Recipe can be prepared to this point a day in advance; refrigerate the potatoes tightly sealed and keep the sage in a tightly sealed container at room temperature.)

5. Garnish with the fried sage and serve. (If you have refrigerated the potatoes, gently reheat the mashed potatoes before serving, thinning if needed with additional milk. Garnish and serve.)


Sara Levine's Duck Rillettes

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Our next recipe reviewer, Lynn at Spoon & Fork, sacrificed herself for the sake of the duck rillettes from the chef at Vertical Wine Bistro in LA. And I, for one, am quite glad she did.

"So my fiance and I are plopped on the couch in a duck fat-induced food coma.

Wow.

The duck rillettes were pretty fabulous. We ate them on top of toasted baguette slices, along with a salade nicoise. The spread turned out really creamy and delicious. The flavor was terrific, although we were just the tiniest bit bummed that the Dijon mustard flavor was so strong, because we felt like we didn't taste as much of the duck as we'd like. Next time I might tone that down a bit.

And there definitely will be a next time: our food-loving and Francophile friends would love these as a pre-dinner snack with a glass of wine or Champagne. It's a lovely dish for entertaining. A little decadent for a regular Sunday dinner, but hey, this was an assignment! The recipe was easy to follow.

Finding duck legs that weren't confit, on the other hand, was a little tougher. After a, uh, wild duck chase (ha) I eventually found them at Todaro's on 2nd Avenue and 30th Street. They were from Long Island. Meanwhile, the man at the meat counter at Garden of Eden on 23rd Street went in the back of the store and filled up a container of duck fat for me.

 The procedure was simple. You rub the duck with herbs and spices (the recipe was a little unclear about some things; for instance should the parsley be chopped or left in whole leaves? I left it whole. Is the mint dried? I figured yes). You refrigerate it, loosely covered, overnight. Some fat drains out during that time. You sear the duck in a dutch oven, add veggies, then wine, and let it reduce. It goes into a very low oven with chicken stock for about 3 hours, and then you set to work emulsifying the meat with melted duck fat and mustard. At that point, though, the consistency isn't quite right for spreading on bread--too gooey. I put the rillettes in three small custard cups, and after about 20 minutes in the refrigerator they were ready. 

I definitely recommend this for a dinner party. You'll get about 45 servings from the whole recipe. I'm freezing one cup--will let you know how that turns out."

Okay, duck rillettes are all fine and well, but what's this about the butcher at Garden of Eden filling up containers with duck fat? Somehow I'm stuck on that alluring detail.

Oh, also, Lynn - what did you do with that miraculous-sounding braising liquid (Step 3)? I'm having visions of some kind of stewy soup of rice and asparagus built off that base of braising liquid and let me tell you: the meal of roasted asparagus and scrambled eggs with ramps that I've been looking forward to all day suddenly seems a whole lot less interesting now.

Duck Rillettes
Makes about 2 cups

2 duck legs
2 tablespoons kosher salt
1 small bay leaf, broken
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped thyme
1/4 cup parsley leaves
1/4 teaspoon peppercorns
1/4 teaspoon coriander
1/4 teaspoon mint
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 white onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
2 cups white wine
2 cups chicken stock
1 cup duck fat
1/4 cup Dijon mustard

1. Place the duck legs on a rack on a baking sheet and rub them with the salt, bay leaf, thyme, parsley, peppercorns, coriander, mint and sugar. Cover loosely with a sheet of parchment paper and allow to cure for 24 hours in the refrigerator.

2. Heat the oven to 250 degrees. In a large heavy-bottomed Dutch oven, sear the duck legs in one tablespoon of canola oil over medium-high heat until you get a bit of color, about 2 minutes. Add the onion and carrot and sauté until softened, 7 to 8 minutes. Add the white wine and reduce by half, about half an hour.

3. Add the chicken stock and braise the duck legs in the oven, covered, until the meat is tender and falling off the bone, about 3 1/2 to 4 hours. (If it begins to bubble, turn down the heat.) Allow the meat to cool, then remove from the braising liquid; the braising liquid can be reserved for another use such as for a soup base.

4. Remove the meat from the bone and place it in a bowl. Place the bowl of duck meat on top of a bowl of ice.

5. In a small pan, heat the duck fat over medium-low heat until it's melted. Slowly pour the duck fat over the duck meat, using a fork to emulsify the duck meat with the duck fat until fluffy and smooth. Add the Dijon mustard and adjust seasoning to taste. Transfer to a serving dish or container; the restaurant serves rillettes in a French canning jar.


Regina Schrambling's Salmon Rillettes

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I don't know about you, but all I want to do in January is snuggle up on the couch wearing woolly socks, with a pot of soup on the stove and a movie on the television. Maybe, too, some low-intensity creative projects and quiet reading, but that's it. The hyper-insanity of December leaves me so exhausted that I'm quite relieved to not leave my cozy living room for a while, with the windows all fogged up and candles burning blurrily in the corner of the room.

But we can't exactly hibernate until the buds come out and the birds chirp again, can we? It wouldn't be much fun in the long run. Instead I invite people over, figuring that the equation's not half bad: we ply our friends with good food and plenty of wine and in return, they don't make us venture out into the chilly evening - at least not for a while. Everybody wins.

Planning the menu for an evening like that is always a bit of a challenge. Cooking for two is a cinch, cooking for four is pretty easy, cooking for six starts to get a little hairy, and by the time you get to eight whole people it's tough to keep your head on the ground. You don't want to be stuck in the kitchen the entire day, making things that are too time-consuming, too complicated, too harrowing. The larger the group, the simpler the food should be.

But I do like to choose recipes that I wouldn't get to make ordinarily - it is a party, after all. So I pull out the binders that have appetizers and hors d'oeuvres recipes tucked away in them - roasted, spiced chickpeas or pickled shrimp or home-cured olives - and I pore through them, delighting in my choices. The recipe I alighted upon last weekend was one that I'd actually meant to make at Thanksgiving - salmon rillettes.

Now doesn't that trip just beautifully off the tongue? Rillettes, rillettes. Ree-yett. We don't eat much salmon around here - Ben doesn't like it and since there are so many other types of fish that we both really love, I'm happy to forgo salmon most of the time. But this recipe had lodged itself in my mind ages ago (briefly supplanted by Thomas Keller's somewhat more complicated version) and I just couldn't shake it. Ben would have to eat olives instead.

It's such a lovely little recipe: you very briefly cook wild salmon in vermouth (or wine, as I did), then mash it up with smoked salmon, chopped chives, lemon juice and creme fraiche. The fresh salmon tempers the smoky stuff beautifully and the creme fraiche gives it some elegance without getting goopy or rich. The few drops of hot sauce are a genius touch - the heat sasses the rillettes right up. No Plain Jane pate here, move along now. The mixture is bright and flavorful, improves with a few hours in the fridge, and best of all, can be arranged on good bread by your guests.

I read somewhere once (was it Laurie Colwin? No. Someone else. Who, though?) that a good dinner party can always be guaranteed if you enlist your guests' help in the kitchen just after they arrive. It keeps them busy, so you can finish up whatever else you're still working on without having to worry that they're all standing around in the living room feeling bored, and it keeps your stress levels down, because now at least someone else is dealing with the hors d'oeuvres and you can stop worrying that the whole meal is going to hell in a hand basket in about three seconds flat.

Arm them with a glass of champagne while they're at it, and who knows - they might even want to come back next time.

Salmon Rillettes
Serves 8 to 10

2 cups dry vermouth or white wine
1 bay leaf
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt
4 white peppercorns
8 ounces fresh wild salmon, skinned and boned, cut into 1-inch cubes
8 ounces wild smoked salmon, minced
3 - 4 tablespoons crème fraîche (or more to taste)
4 tablespoons chopped chives, divided
4 tablespoons lemon juice (or more to taste)
Hot sauce to taste
Salt and white pepper to taste
2 ficelles, thinly sliced

1. Combine the vermouth or wine, bay leaf, sea salt and peppercorns in a nonreactive saucepan and bring to a simmer. Add the salmon cubes and cook 15 seconds exactly. Remove with a slotted spoon and drain well, then place in a mixing bowl.

2. Mash the salmon cubes with a wooden spoon until chunky-smooth. Add the smoked salmon, crème fraîche, 2 tablespoons chives and the lemon juice and mix well. Taste and add the hot sauce, salt and pepper. Add more lemon juice and/or crème fraîche if you like. Chill 1 hour to meld flavors. Makes about 3 cups.

3. Return to room temperature before serving. To serve, spread on ficelle slices and sprinkle with the remaining chives.


Pichet Ong's Squash Pie

 

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I'll just start this post by saying that, after taking a few bites of this squash pie last night, my friend Andy put down his fork and said, "This is the best dessert I ever ate." He then picked up his fork again, and through bites said I could quote him, in fact that I must. So there you have it, readers. This pie blew Andy's mind.

It's pretty darn good, I'll say. I was going to make it for Thanksgiving, but my father took one look at the cream cheese in the ingredient list and put the kibosh on it right quick. (Who knows - he's a bit of a mystery.) So instead I saved it for the dinner party we had last night and it was a resounding - nay, stunning - success.

The recipe comes from the now-defunct The Chef column that used to run in the The New York Times. I miss that column. You too? I got so many good recipes from it, like a chicken liver sauce from Judy Rodgers and a Breton butter cake from Gabrielle Hamilton. (I'm still waiting for Gabrielle's memoir with recipes to be published, by the way. This year, I think!)

Pichet Ong, he of P*ONG and The Sweet Spot, delivered the recipe for the squash pie. It's thick with cream cheese, flavored strongly with cinnamon and nutmeg, and nestled in a completely addictive crust that you should commit to memory for any number of other things, like cheesecake or banana cream pie or key lime pie (though I still think this Grape-Nuts crust version via Gemma takes the cake (groan) for that).

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The pie is silky and creamy and really, really easy to make. A crumb crust is a joy to make, an uncomplicated antidote to all those hand-rolled pie crusts of the holiday season. Plus, it means you'll end up with a few extra graham crackers knocking around in your cupboards, which is a very good thing indeed.

Also, though the recipe calls for a Kabocha squash to be steamed and peeled and pureed, canned pumpkin works beautifully here. Yes, Kabocha would have been lovely, all sweet and dry and tasty, but Pichet himself says that butternut squash and cheese or sugar pumpkins (which is what are usually found in those cans - remember to only buy the "pure pumpkin" ones, not the cans that are labeled "filling"!) are a good substitute, so cut those corners, come on.

Lastly, with no brandy in the house (I know! A crying shame. But you might not have any either, so let's be brandy-less together.), I substituted a splash of pure vanilla extract. It perfumed the pie ever so subtly.

Whatever you do! Make sure you serve this with creme fraiche. (You like how I did that, told you how to make your own, and then told you how to use it all up? You're welcome! A pleasure, really.) The cold, slightly sour cream cuts the sweet richness of the squash pie just perfectly and rounds out the flavors a bit. I'd say, honestly, that the pie just isn't right without it.

So serve up the pie, let your guests do the dolloping, then sit back, put your feet up, and let the compliments just wash over you. After all, wouldn't you, too, like to be responsible for the best dessert someone ever ate?

Squash Pie
Serves 8

For the filling:
1 medium kabocha squash, about 3 pounds, or 2 1/2 cups of canned pumpkin (skipping the steps below for roasting and pureeing the squash)
10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
3/8 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg (about 1/4 of a nutmeg)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 tablespoons brandy or 2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract
2 eggs at room temperature

For the crust:
3/8 cup (2 ounces) walnuts
1/2 cup packed, light brown sugar
3/8 cup graham cracker crumbs (about 7 crackers)
Grated zest of 1 lime
3/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground ginger
3/8 teaspoon salt (I'd use less salt next time, just 1/8 of a teaspoon)
1/4 cup (2 ounces) unsalted butter, melted
Crème fraîche, for serving (optional)

1. For pie filling, bring an inch of water to a boil in a large covered pot fitted with a steamer basket or rack. Put in squash, cover and steam, replenishing water as needed, until fork tender, about 1 hour. Turn squash over halfway through steaming. Set squash aside until cool enough to handle.

 

2. Heat oven to 325 degrees. For crust, place walnuts on a baking tray, and toast in oven, stirring once or twice, until fragrant, about 15 minutes. Let cool. Reduce oven temperature to 300 degrees.

3. In a food processor, combine walnuts with a few tablespoons brown sugar and pulse a few times, until nuts are coarsely ground. In a large bowl, whisk nuts with graham cracker crumbs, remaining brown sugar, lime zest, spices and salt. Pour melted butter over this mixture, and mix with your fingers until butter is distributed. Press evenly into a 10-inch glass pie plate. Bake crust until lightly browned, about 12 minutes, then set aside. Keep oven at 300 degrees.

4. When squash is cool, cut it in half and scoop out seeds and pulp. Scoop squash flesh into a measuring cup until you have 2 1/2 cups.

5. In a food processor, process cream cheese with sugar, spices and salt until light and smooth. Scrape down bowl, add squash and process until smooth. Mix in brandy and then eggs, one at a time. Finish mixing with a rubber spatula.

6. Place pie plate on a baking sheet and scrape filling into crust. Bake until just set in center, about 1 hour. Let cool, then serve topped with crème fraîche.