Chocolate Chip Bourbon Blondies

I sometimes forget how wonderful blondies are. In the bar cookies category, they are frequently over-shadowed by their showier relatives, the brownie family, and don’t get much attention. But a

good blondie is a wonderful thing – moist, chewy, and loaded with nuts and chocolate chips. They are more subtle than brownies, with the same deep caramelized brown sugar flavor that you find in 

classic chocolate chip cookies. A shot of bourbon really perks them up, as does the addition of toasted walnuts and good quality chocolate chips (I love Ghirardelli’s 60% cacao morsels, which are 

available in many supermarkets).  If you want to bump up the chocolate factor even more, you could glaze them with a little ganache, or just increase the morsels to ¾ cup. But that might be moving too close to the neighbors, those spotlight-hogging Brownies.

Flourless Chocolate Cake with Caramel Whipped Cream

I’m ready for a new year – 2012 had more than its share of bad stuff in it and it’s time to move on. Lots of folks start off the new year with a diet, but diets don’t seem to take with me. I find I’m

 better off eating normal food and just cutting down on my portions. Eating rice cakes with cottage cheese on top just makes me sad. So, in the spirit of eating real (read: indulgent) food, here’s 

an ideal recipe: a really rich flourless chocolate cake, a small sliver of which is guaranteed to satisfy anyone with a hankering for something chocolaty. I serve it here with a Caramel Whipped

 Cream, which is basically a caramel sauce combined with softly whipped cream and then whipped to firm peaks. The cake is an adaptation of one that appeared in The Cake Book, my Chocolate Valentine Cake, which is baked in a heart-shaped pan. And that’s appropriate, because you’re going to love it. Happy New Year!!

‘Tis the Season Eggnog Cheesecake

Oh, Eggnog! For most of the year I don’t give it a thought, but when those holiday decorations start going up and the Christmas tunes start playing, all of a sudden I begin to crave that thick, rich, boozy treat. And, inevitably, it starts to find its way into my desserts. 

Eggnog is the meeting of nutmeg and booze, and what a meeting it is. To capture the essence of eggnog, the nutmeg absolutely must be freshly grated – don’t use that pre-ground dead stuff in a jar  – and the booze can be dark rum (my fave), brandy or bourbon, as you 

prefer. Here I’ve featured the combination in a rich cheesecake that’s idea for a holiday dinner. The crust is made with cinnamon graham crackers, and is just the thing for the rich eggnog filling. The trick to achieving a perfectly textured cheesecake – creamy and 

very smooth – is two-fold. First, once you’ve made the cake batter, pass it through a fine-mesh sieve right into the crust. This ensures there won’t be any little globs of undissolved cream cheese in the cake. Second, place the springform pan into a slightly larger pan to insulate it from the water bath. With this trick, you’ll never have another soggy crust. So, go ahead, indulge a little. ‘Tis the season, after all.

Holiday Chocolate Pot de Crème

Chocolate Pot de Crème (“pot of cream”, en Français) is one of my all-time favorite desserts, chocoholic that I am. Rich – very rich – and ultra-creamy, I think of it as chocolate pudding on steroids. It 

makes an indulgent and festive dessert for a holiday meal, especially when served with a flavored whipped cream (a must to cut the richness of the custard). I like to top it with coconut, peppermint or 

cacao nib whipped cream. For the coconut cream, I just infuse hot cream with unsweetened coconut (about 2/3 cup for 1 ½ cups cream) for 20 minutes or so, then chill and whip with some sugar. For the peppermint cream, just add a bit of peppermint extract along with some sugar

before whipping. For the cacao nib cream, give it the same treatment as for the coconut cream, using ¼ cup nibs for 1 cup cream. For the pot de crème, do use a really good chocolate, such as Guittard or Valrhona – it makes all the difference!