Recipes Blog

Recipe for Mexican wedding cookies from Sweet Paris by Frank Adrian Barron

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

This perfectly gorgeous book is filled with lovely cakes and sweets. Curl up and read about them, then after your armchair trip to Paris, run into the kitchen and bake! Today’s recipe is for a cookie that deserves to be on your dessert platter all year long. Next on my list: Gâteau Orangette, a marvelous chocolate cake with candied orange peel; Pain d'épices (Alsatian gingerbread); and a savory cheese board. 

Enter the Giveaway of: Sweet Paris by Frank Adrian Barron and Zabar's Classic Sweets & Coffee Bundle on Instagram (Beginning on Sunday, 7/10 - check back then!)
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Recipe excerpted with permission from Sweet Paris by Frank Adrian Barron (HarperCollins)

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Recipe for Cheese Blintzes with Blueberry Sauce from Zabar’s: A Family Story, with Recipes by Lori Zabar

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

Grandma Lilly Zabar left me an enormous pile of dessert dishes and ice cream bowls. Every Sunday, my large and still growing family gathers around the table for lunch, and we fill those dishes with dessert, often birthday cake, Lilly’s blintzes, or my cookies. Whenever Lori Zabar shared a meal with us, she would reminisce about her summer birthdays, celebrated with cake in those very dishes. 

We lost our dear Lori a few months ago, but she left us with countless memories of her smile and her laughter, and this book, her memoir of the Zabar family and the store. We will miss her forever.

Portrait of Louis & Lillian Zabar

From Zabar’s: A Family Story, with Recipes by Lori Zabar. Copyright © 2022 by Lori Zabar. Excerpted by permission of Schocken, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

Enter the Giveaway of: Zabar’s: A Family Story, with Recipes by Lori Zabar on Instagram (Beginning on Sunday, 5/8 - check back then!)
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Recipe for millionaire's shortbread from a good day to bake by Benjamina Ebuehi

Cookbook review by Tracey Zabar

This lovely book will inspire you to go into the kitchen and bake. The millionaire's shortbread was a hit with everyone in my family. Next on my list: potato & cauliflower curry pie; cherry & coconut tahini cake; and chocolate & fig bostock.

Recipe excerpted with permission from a good day to bake by Benjamina Ebuehi, published by Quadrille

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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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