Recipes Blog

Recipe for Frosted Spiced Cookies from The Italian Bakery: Step-by-Step Recipes with the Silver Spoon

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

These festive holiday cookies will make your house smell heavenly. When I made these in the shape of gingerbread people, I had everyone bite the legs off first, so the cookies didn’t run away. Next on my list: a lovely ricotta and black cherry tart with chocolate; strawberry mousse on a pistachio sponge; and a date and apple cake. Oh, and a coconut cake with a layer of mousse. Happy baking!

Recipe excerpted with permission from The Italian Bakery: Step-by-Step Recipes with the Silver Spoon (Phaidon)

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Recipe for Candied Fruit Cake from French Pastries and Desserts by Lenôtre

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

Gaston Lenôtre was one of the great French pastry chefs of all time. This cookbook is an updated version of my tattered edition from the late 1970s. Try this simple cake, studded with candied fruit. When the filling was used up, I made another version in the book, with dried fruit and nuts. Next on my list: raisin rolls, made with brioche dough; strawberry Charlotte; and the adorably named Little Prince Cake with red currant jelly, for the littlest Zabar, three years old.

Reprinted with permission from French Pastries and Desserts by Lenôtre (Flammarion)

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Recipe for Snowman Cocoa Bombs from Cocoa Bombs by Eric Torres-Garcia

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

Cocoa bombs are spheres of tempered chocolate, with cocoa powder and little marshmallows inside. You place one inside a mug, and pour hot milk over. The bomb explodes, and there's your sweet treat. Buy the book for detailed instruction on how to temper the chocolate and fill the molds. What to make next? Perhaps the adorable dark chocolate reindeers with pretzel antlers or one with peanut butter and milk chocolate. I will sit in front of the fireplace and decide with a mug of this hot chocolate.

Recipe excerpted with permission from Cocoa Bombs: Over 40 Make-at-Home Recipes for Explosively Fun Hot Chocolate Drinks by Eric Torres Garcia, Ryland Peters & Small 2021. Photograph by Alex Luck © Ryland Peters & Small 2021

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Recipe for Chocolat Chaud from Fireside Food for Cold Winter Nights by Lizzie Kamenetzky

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

There is a gorgeous French onion soup that was calling my name, and a goulash too. But this French hot chocolate called louder. Next on my list: Swiss chard gratin; a Bubbe-worthy schnitzel; and Gateau de Savoie, a light, lemony cake, studded with bits of citrus peel and served with whipped cream and boozy cherries. Lovely.

From Fireside Food for Cold Winter Nights: More than 75 Comforting and Warming Recipes by Lizzie Kamenetzky, Ryland Peters & Small Photo: Nassima Rothacker © Ryland Peters & Small 2015, 2021

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Recipe for Banana & walnut bread from Banana Breads, Loaf Cakes, & Other Quick Bakes

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

There are lots of yummy banana bread recipes in this sweet cookbook, some with caramel or chocolate chips. I loved a clever version with passion fruit in the batter and dried banana chips topping the sweet icing of the finished cake. But start with this classic, studded with nuts. Next on my list: tea bread that is soaked with booze; Japanese sponge cake; and pain d’épices, a spicy cake that is way better than any gingerbread I have ever tasted.

Recipe excerpted with permission from Banana Breads, Loaf Cakes, & Other Quick Bakes: 60 Deliciously Easy Recipes for Home Baking, Ryland Peters & Small Recipe: Julian Day, Photo: Steve Painter © Ryland Peters & Small

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Recipe for Little Jam Flower Cookies from La Vita è Dolce by Letitia Clark, photographs by Charlotte Bland

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

These little morsels can be made in any shape for your sweetie. Buy the book for the jam recipe mentioned in the headnote. Next on my list: Torta della Nonna; Chocolate, pear, brown sugar and hazelnut cake; and the One True Apple Cake. What could be better?

Recipe excerpted with permission from La Vita è Dolce by Letitia Clark, published by Hardie Grant Books, June 2021

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Recipe for Peanut butter & jelly brownies from Brownies, Blondies, and other Traybakes (Ryland Peters and Small)

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

Peanut butter and jelly, great combination. Peanut butter and chocolate, even better. But, good grief, pb&j and chocolate? So good I can barely stand it. For your next month or two of baking, try this brownie goodie, then butterscotch blondies, then Bakewell slices, then gingerbread brownies, then pistachio, and then cherry. Finish with Brookies, which are an adorable cross between a cookie and a brownie.

Recipe excerpted with permission From Delicious Brownies, Blondies and Other Traybakes: 65 Delicious Recipes for Home-Baked Sweet Treats, Ryland Peters & Small, 2021

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Recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies from The Ultimate Book of Chocolate by Mélanie Dupuis, photographs by Pierre Lavelle

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

Here is a recipe for something delicious to start off a sweet year. This enormous book is a chocolate lover's dream. It contains step-by-step instructions, with illustrations and photographs, to guide you to make bonbons, tartlets, and an opera cake (Aunt Stacey’s favorite!) that is fancy dinner party-worthy. It also has very clear instructions on how to temper chocolate, which was the hardest thing I learned in culinary school. Today’s recipe is the simplest in the book—amazing chocolate chunk cookies.

Recipes excerpted with permission from The Ultimate Book of Chocolate by Melanie Dupuis, published by Hardie Grant Books.

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Recipe for Ricotta and Baby Pear Tart from Torta della Nonna by Emiko Davies

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

Turn your oven on when the weather starts to cool down. This tart with adorable baby pears is the first thing on my list. I plan to bake from it all fall and winter long. What to bake right after that—a hazelnut cake, or one with apple chunks and apricot jam swirls? Cinnamon cookies, or honey-scented almond biscotti? Chocolate cake sprinkled with the last of the summer’s berries or individual rice pudding tarts? What happy choices.

Recipes excerpted with permission from Torta della Nonna Emiko Davies, published by Hardie Grant Books

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Recipe for Smoked Salmon Niçoise Salad from The Complete Salad Book by America’s Test Kitchen

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

It’s so nice to have a big salad, with dressing on the side, in the fridge. Add some seared tuna, grilled chicken, or tofu, and you have a late summer evening’s meal. Next on my list: peach caprese; beet salad with spicy yogurt and watercress; farro with spring vegetables; and a steak salad with pear and pickled fennel. Then, on to the dressings—poppy seed and then creamy roasted garlic. First, try this salad, using smoked salmon instead of tuna.

Recipe excerpted with permission from The Complete Salad Book by America’s Test Kitchen

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