use real butter

Recipe: homemade orange milano cookies

It snowed this weekend. It.Finally.Snowed. I don’t mean a dusting of white stuff either, because when I say snow I mean “skiable” snow. At first it came down in big fluffy flakes all day Friday.

at first kaweah didn’t notice

then it started to accumulate on her schnoz

sniffing the air – winter is here!

There were some strong winds blowing which sent most of the snow into the next county for a couple of days. But Sunday morning we woke to a familiar glow through our windows – the glow of freshly fallen snow covering everything. It was 8°F and completely calm. Magical conditions. The snow was feathery and dry. I’ve been waiting since September (okay, really since May) to feel the familiar glide of skis on snow under my feet. I am recharged.

perfect snow

ski touring our local mountains

Two summers ago, Jeremy and I were in Washington state to visit with good people and backpack in Olympic National Park. We enjoyed an amazing lunch at Sitka and Spruce with my friend, Lara Ferroni. She told us about a book she was working on – making all of those favorite snacky junk foods of our youth from scratch without all of the junk. I told her I would love to see a copy when she was finished.

my review copy arrived in the post a few months ago courtesy of sasquatch books

Lara’s book was a traipse through my childhood memories of Twinkies, Chocolate Cupcakes, Ding Dongs, Oreos, Doritos, Goldfish crackers, Hot Pockets, potato chips, tater tots, and so much more. She manages all of these with normal ingredients and without preservatives, artificial colorings, or artificial flavors. In addition to the healthier recipes for these snacks, she provides gluten-free, as well as vegan, versions. At the back of the book she includes recipes for some basic pantry staples like confectioner’s sugar, sweetened condensed milk, marshmallow crème, and even sprinkles! I let Jeremy choose the recipe to make, since he was going to be eating them. He went with the Chocolate and Orange Wafers (aka orange milanos).

flours, powdered sugar, chocolate, salt, baking powder, butter, eggs, cream, orange (zest), vanilla extract

zest and juice the orange

sift the flours, salt, and baking powder

Lara gives lots of options on ingredients like white whole wheat flour, spelt flour, ground millet, all-purpose flour, and cake flour. I went with what I had on hand at the time (all-purpose and cake flours) for the cookies, but there is a good deal of flexibility so you can experiment with healthier mixes.

beat the powdered sugar and butter together

adding egg whites

beating in the orange juice

add the dry mix, beating until just combined

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: chocolate cassata cake

It’s cake season. This means that it is cool enough for me to want to turn my oven on. It means that it is cool enough that I am willing to work with chocolate. Even so, making a cake can fill me with dread and be downright frustrating at times – mostly because of elevation issues. I’m always keen to try new recipes, but hate the idea of wasting time, energy, money, and good wholesome ingredients on cakes that fail. A recipe tester, I am not. But this cake has been bouncing in my head since October.

let’s make some candied orange and lemon peels (lemons, orange, sugar)

slice the peel off

combine sugar and water to make a syrup

simmered peels (2 hours)

I have never had an authentic Italian cassata before. The only reason I knew anything about cassata was that I had made an adaptation from Marcel Desaulnier’s Death by Chocolate which involves yellow spongecake soaked in rum and layered with a shaved chocolate pastry cream rather than the traditional ricotta cheese filling. I read that Italian cassatas are commonly served around Easter. But when I had lunch at Pizzeria Locale last month, I saw cassata on the dessert menu and impulsively ordered it.

chocolate chiffon cake: oil, eggs, confectioners sugar, milk, flour, cocoa, sugar, almond extract

mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients (except egg whites and granulated sugar)

folding whipped egg whites into the chocolate batter

pour the batter in buttered pans lined with parchment paper

What arrived was a slice of chocolate cassata: chocolate spongecake with a creamy, almost buttery ricotta filling studded with pistachios, and all topped with a nice dark chocolate glaze. Brilliant. I had to attempt this at home – it was so lovely! I did a little research and decided to make a layer cake… because I am partial to layers. There would be four components: chocolate spongecake, ricotta cheese filling with candied orange peel, chopped pistachios, and shaved chocolate, a boozy simple syrup to soak the cake layers, and a dark chocolate glaze.

ricotta cheese, vanilla extract, grated chocolate, chopped candied citrus peel, pistachios, cinnamon, powdered sugar

adding vanilla

stirring in the pistachios, candied peels, and chocolate

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: seven layer cookies

Our neighbors are absent in summer because they run a camp in the wilds of Canada. It’s really too bad because we quite like these neighbors and their giant walking carpet of a dog (she’s such a lover). The kids return in late August when school starts, and then the mother comes back in September and finally, the father wraps everything up and returns in October. We see glimpses of one another in the driveways as summer transitions into autumn. It’s a busy time for us too with travel and work such that I make a point of going over to welcome them home. I can’t really walk over empty-handed, because… I can’t.

graham cracker crumbs, melted butter, coconut, butterscotch chips, chocolate chips, sweetened condensed milk, macadamia nuts

buttering the pan and lining with parchment paper (and buttering again)

So I’m flipping through my old notebook with my earliest recipes, looking for a certain cookie when these seven layer cookies caught my eye. This was a recipe from my days growing up in Virginia, something the ladies would bring to potlucks. It is sweet beyond all get out and is filed with the rest of my favorite “white trash” recipes. I hadn’t made these in over 20 years. I know this because Jeremy had neither heard of them nor tasted them before. Time to whip up a batch, no?

mix the melted butter and graham cracker crumbs

press into the bottom of the pan

These are the kind of treats that rot your insides, but are surprisingly snacky. That’s why I 1) haven’t made them in 20 years and 2) gave most all of these away. It’s foolproof too. I really don’t think anyone can mess this recipe up. If you do manage to mess it up, don’t tell me.

pour the sweetened condensed milk over the crust

layer the butterscotch and chocolate chips

**Jump for more butter**