The Smitten Kitchen Classroom Wishlist Project 2024 kicks off today! Help out in any way that you are able; there is no purchase of crayons or books too small to make a difference. You can read all about the project here:
I was shocked to learn this morning of the passing of Julie Powell, the original food blogger. Cooking through Julia Child's books, she made Child relevant to a new generation, and wrote about cooking in a fresh, conversational, this-is-my-real life tone that was rare back then.
Fun news! J. Kenji Lopez-Alt and I are starting a podcast next month with
@radiotopia
in which we get to obsess over recipes (so you don’t have to). Hope you listen and love it!
I want this to be the last recipe for pumpkin bread you'll ever need: towering with a crisp cinnamon-sugar lid that's impossible not to pick off in deeply satisfying bark-like flecks. It's also one-bowl and uses a full can of pumpkin in a single loaf.
This is the kind of recipe that leads us to buy too many bananas for the express purpose of letting them soften to the point that we have no choice but to make more Double Chocolate Banana Bread.
The best french fries I make at home are also the easiest, thanks to this method which requires no peeling, soaking, twice-frying, deep-fry thermometer or even temperature monitoring. It wants to be part of our weekend agenda.
New: Cabbage cooked slowly in salty buttery chicken drippings until charred at the edges and caramelized throughout is the real star of this deeply cozy and rewarding three-ingredient roast chicken inspired by
@hels
.
Hundreds of recipes in the Smitten Kitchen archives lean heavily on pantry staples like rice, grains, dried beans and lentils, and more. These are 39 (and counting) of my favorites. If we must be hunkered down, I say we do so as deliciously as possible.
This is the happiest cake I know how to make, all butter, sugar, vanilla, and confetti. If you are celebrating this weekend like we are, I hope it’s exactly as colorful and jubilant as this. 💫
New: Crisp, buttery, and marbled hamantaschen, triangular filled cookies for Purim or for everyone who knows how amazing little chocolate-vanilla cheesecake cookies will be. The recipe and method couldn't be simpler; I can't wait to see how yours come out.
Off-topic! I wrote about work, kids, and the economy today in the
@nytimes
. But you know I wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to talk about pie or cake, right?
Some fun news! This month I start as columnist for
@bonappetit
with a focus on cooking for kids without descending into a steady diet of halved grapes and chicken nuggets. The first column is in the November issue, on newsstands now, and online.
One part cheese danish, one part berry pie, all in an easy galette, this is basically one scoop of ice cream short of making all of our warm weather dessert hopes and dreams come true. I think you know what needs to be done.
New: Potatoes and leeks slow-baked in cream with a burnish of cheese and fine crunch on top are the perfect welcome to gratin season, which is not a thing, I absolutely just made that up, but really should be for colder weather and short days ahead.
Craving shortbread incessantly after watching Ted Lasso last winter, I made them 50 ways before landing on this, my forever recipe for tender, buttery, perfect-every-time, low-fuss shortbread. S2 starts tomorrow and I know just the snack...
Everyone needs one exceptional jelly doughnut recipe in their life, and this is mine: golden edges, a slightly stretchy crumb, all generously powdered but still not terribly sweet. Hanukah is often celebrated with fried food; don't miss these.
New: The perfect homemade hash brown patty: crisp and so fuss-free, it's almost baffling. This is my absolutely favorite raft for an egg, or the base of a salad-y lunchtime avocado "toast" -- I hope you're inspired!
New: Every craggy edge and erratic angle of these restaurant-style potato nuggets get perfectly browned and transcendently crunchy with this cooking technique. That's it; that's the sell. Now, go make them blissfully and forever yours.
This pizza is covered with only potatoes, onion, olive oil, salt, and pepper but tastes like so much more than the sum of its parts. Not yet sold? From the oven, it looks and tastes like potato chips.
New: A stunning, layered, open book of a cinnamon sugar scone makes your home smell like fall bliss, even if the weather hasn't gotten the memo, and can be made in one bowl, quite quickly, right now.
A one-bowl, really intense, perfectly crumbed hit of chocolate that doesn't require a special occasion to bake, just, perhaps, a Sunday. It's even better over the next couple days; Monday and Tuesday you thank you.
A small-diced salad heaped on a great swirl of hummus to be scooped with grilled pita wedges is the only thing I want to eat for the rest of the summer. With a few chocolate ice cream sandwich intermissions, for balance and stuff.
This week, I learned what apparently everyone else already knew: frozen french fries are terrible. Lesson learned, I'm back to this easy method -- no peeling, no preheating oil, no twice-frying, and it uses a fraction of the usual oil -- lucky, lucky me.
It is always the right season to bake giant white beans as if they were ziti -- vegetables, a robust sauce, and a finish with bronzed, melty cheese. Did I forget to mention that we serve them with garlic bread? I hope that sweetens the deal for you, too.
This is it, the best zucchini bread I've ever made and I hope the last recipe you'll ever need. It's tall with a craggy, crunchy top, has a significant amount of zucchini inside, can be mixed in one bowl (with a fork, no less).
Crisp-edged, soft within, finished with a faint crunch of sea salt, and absolutely puddled with chocolate -- oh, and no resting time or advanced planning required, so you could be eating yours very, very soon.
Strawberry Summer Sheet Cake, one of my all-time favorites, now as a talkie demo! 🍓 I don’t think I’ve ever uploaded a video but it seems overdue. Recipe:
This six-layer stacked cheesecake, part chocolate, part coffee, is so, so much less complicated than it looks. I think it's got Saturday Night Baking Project written all over it, don't you think?
If having a bowl of spiced winter vegetable soup for dinner sounds too austere, may I recommend sinking a buttery, herbed broiled gruyere mega-crouton in it? It works every time, around here at least.
Closer to apple latkes than traditional breakfast pancakes, these fritters make us glad we always bring home too many apples from the market. It makes a lot, so halve the recipe or thank yourself tomorrow when you have a cozy breakfast all ready to rewarm.
New: Custard Slices from a new cookbook from
@TheBoyWhoBakes
that you need not have the skills of a Bakeoff winner to make, promise. Think of the custard slice like a rustic mille-feuille -- for everyday, but still elegant enough to feel a little festive.
New: I thought chocoflans -- one part chocolate cake, one part flan, plus a little oven magic -- were best left to more talented bakers, but I couldn't resist the one in a new cookbook from
@ChicanoEats
. It's perfectly delicious and absolutely do-able.
New: My spin on blissful lemon potatoes. Crisp at the edges and almost melting in the center with pan juices that reduce to a sticky, intensely flavored concentration. Finish with herbs and eat exactly like this, or as a side to a bigger meal.
You, yes you, can make a braided, bronzed, and burnished loaf exactly this easily at home. This is my forever recipe, and because it makes two loaves, you’re in for the weekend french toast of your dreams. Recipe:
I want this to be the last recipe for pumpkin bread you'll ever need: towering with a crisp cinnamon-sugar lid that's impossible not to pick off in deeply satisfying bark-like flecks. It's also one-bowl, uses a full can of pumpkin in a single loaf.
New: This summer I finally figured out how to make cacio e pepe, one of my favorite dishes, as good at you’d have in Rome, that is with only cheese, pepper, pasta, water, and not one other thing, and we cannot let the summer end until you do too.
I bought some gorgeous potatoes (yes, I just called potatoes gorgeous) this week and it means I am overdue to make this wildly simple pizza again that comes out of the oven and looking and tasting like it's covered in potato chips, i.e. lucky, lucky us.
Buttery, tender, yeast-raised spirals are infused with fresh orange zest and filled with an almost jammy brown sugar cranberry caramel taste like November perfection. Fall weekends are 100% better with these in them.
An old-school recipe for a chocolate cupcake spookily swirled with cheesecake. No frosting on top, and no frosting needed, which means you get to enjoy these that much sooner.
New: A sunny, simple, lemony Italian tea cake flavored with the most incredible texture -- firm and almost crunchy at the edges, rich and plush within. The glaze, applied directly onto the hot cake, makes it look like a doughnut.
I am so disappointed that the magazine where I had a column for two years treated its BIPOC employees so poorly and knowingly, deliberately, tokenized and underpaid them. Whether or not
@bonappetit
takes this opportunity to rebuild from the ground up is on them. 1/3
I spent the last few weeks talking to 14 current and former Bon Appétit staffers who are people of color. They described a toxic, racist workplace where former EIC Adam Rapoport was just the tip of the iceberg.
Don't let anyone tell you that only fruit pies are welcome in the summer. The cold, richness of homemade chocolate pudding in a crisp, buttery pie shell with a raft of whipped cream on top makes a commotion heretofore unseen since strawberry met rhubarb.
New: It took me 14 years, but I wrote up everything I keep (or try to) in the Smitten Kitchen, from the flours to the butters (yes, plural), to the utter chaos of our freezer. I hope you find this helpful as you plan your next grocery run or order.
Lacy crepes layered with vanilla bean pastry cream and topped with caramelized sugar as if it were a crème brûlée, this is an absolute dream of a celebration cake and one my favorites I've ever made for my own birthday (which is today!).
A deeply chocolaty, fluffy and perfect one-bowl cake that just happens to be dairy- and egg-free. I like the subtle, earthier quality olive oil imparts in chocolate, especially when flecked with sea salt.
Two perfectly-sized molten chocolate cakes that take under 15 minutes to both mix and bake, are flourless, mixed in one bowl, and use ingredients you probably have around are, almost without question, the very most perfect dessert for a cozy New Year's Eve
I am forever inspired by the work of
@wckitchen
. Here is a link to donate, which will help their efforts feeding those who are fleeing Ukraine right now:
From our
@WCKitchen
team on the border of Ukraine and Poland: 1,700
hot meals of chicken, rice & veggies served here tonight! This is a 24-hour crossing and refugees from Ukraine are streaming through all night. This is just a start to WCK efforts on the ground!
#ChefsForUkraine
My mom's apple cake is an avalanche of apples, a tiny bit of batter, and a cascade of cinnamon baked into a hulking mass of September awesomeness that everyone will demand you make again and again. It's also dairy-free and gets better the longer it lasts.
Happy Ted Lasso Day! After watching the show, I craved shortbread incessantly and I made them 50 ways before landing on this, my forever recipe for tender, buttery, perfect-every-time shortbread cookies from three ingredients with virtually no fuss.
The last banana bread recipe we will ever need has a towering height and a crunchy top that will be hard not to lift off in one giant tile and swiftly coat the underside with salted butter. The inside is plush and perfectly-crumbed, but never squidgy.
My newest
@bonappetit
column is about the foods I always thought kids would take to vs. the ones they actually do . It includes a recipe for sheet pan chicken meatballs with charred broccoli that, by some miracle, everyone likes.
New: I think these raspberry streusel muffins might be the best muffins I have ever made. They're perfect: hefty, moist, lemony, not too sweet, and absolutely tie-dyed with a constellation of raspberries inside.
Good morning! Are you new here? Welcome! SK is a 14yo food blog with a single goal: I want to help you find your new favorite thing to cook. Do you like cookbooks, too? I've written two! I'm a bit biased, but I think they make awesome gifts. To learn more:
New: A tender, stretchy, yeast-free flatbread that gently puffs with an inner accordion of layers. It took me about 5 years to get these right and we think they were absolutely worth the wait.
This pumpkin bread is towering and craggy with a crisp cinnamon-sugar lid that's impossible not to pick off in deeply satisfying bark-like flecks. It's also one-bowl and uses a full can of pumpkin in a single loaf. It improves October weekends.
A small-diced salad heaped on a great swirl of hummus to be scooped with grilled pita wedges is the only thing I want to eat for the rest of the summer. With a few chocolate ice cream intermissions, for balance and stuff.
New: This week's lunch inspiration is from that irresistible viral recipe from the Finnish food blog Liemessä. Feta, tomatoes, garlic, and chickpeas roast in olive oil until everything blisters and softens. The mixture is a dream to scoop onto flatbread.
A layered open book of a cinnamon sugar scone makes your kitchen smell like absolute bliss. These can be made in a single bowl, quite quickly, right now -- lucky us.
New: Chickpeas are braised in broth and olive oil with zucchini until they're plump and almost falling apart, then we stir in pesto, burrata, and parmesan and scoop the whole blissful lot onto grilled bread and repeat again weekly for the rest of summer.
Homemade Bailey's-style irish cream has basically 3 ingredients and takes 5 mins to make and it’s so good, you’ll never buy it again. Bottle it up for delivery at the doorsteps of some very lucky friends and family in this socially distant holiday season.
The blueberries are here! Let's sprinkle them with lemon sugar and burrow them between slices of buttered bread and pour a vanilla custard over it and bake it until the top is crisp and bronzed and the center is luxe, fancy weekend french toast for all.
The blueberries are here! Let's sprinkle them with lemon sugar and scatter them between slices of buttered bread and pour vanilla custard over it and bake it until the top is crisp and bronzed and the center is luxe, all for perfect weekend french toast.
Everyone needs a perfect recipe for blueberry crumb cake, or at least everyone who loves blueberries and cake. This, tweaked from the late, great Maida Heatter, is mine.
This six-layer stacked cheesecake, part chocolate, part coffee, is less complicated (one-bowl cookie layers, one-bowl cheesecake, everything bakes fast) and even more wildly delicious than it looks.
This is clutter free carrot cake: no raisins, nuts, pineapple or piped buttercream carrots on top, just thick slices to toast and slather with salted butter for the happiest afternoon snack. Just let me know what time to show up.
I always thought, once my first child was in elementary school, I would delight in taking part in bake sale fundraisers. This is my jam! Instead, I dread them, writes
@smittenkitchen
This cookie contains everything great about brownies (crackly exterior, plush, fudgy interior, distraction-free chocolate) in a one-bowl scoopable dough and it's scientifically proven (trust me, I'm definitely a doctor) to make Wednesday nights better.
This is the happiest summer cake — bronzed with a faint crunch at the edges, tender to the point of pudding-ness in the center, dotted with jammy berries, and welcome wherever you get to share it.
A tiny bit of biscuit-like cake. A staggering pound of fresh strawberries on top. In the oven, the berries collapse into jammy puddles. Trust me, it's not strawberry season until we’ve made this cake.
For the first day of summer, my favorite simple summer pasta, just a heap of zucchini cooked until it has melted into a puddle of butter and garlic, laced with a little heat, then tossed with basil, parmesan, and spaghetti:
A towering, craggy pumpkin bread with a crisp cinnamon-sugar lid that's impossible not to pick off in deeply satisfying bark-like flecks. It's also one-bowl and, much to my delight, uses a full can of pumpkin in a single loaf. It improves October weekends.
Do you have an everyday chocolate cake in your life? You know, a one-bowl, really intense, perfectly crumbed hit of loaf-shaped chocolate that doesn't require a special occasion to bake, just, perhaps, a very cold and snowy day? This is mine.
This is the most epic, show-stealing cheesecake I know how to make, with ground chocolate in the crust, a fudgy Kahlúa-spiked ganache on the bottom and top, plus hints of brown sugar, nutmeg, and rum throughout. And it feeds a crowd.
Thick, tender peanut butter cookies with both peanut butter and dark chocolate chips and a glittering edge of fine sugar inspired by those at a bakery downstairs from an old apartment.
A swirly assembly of buttery, crisp pastry rosettes in a vanilla-flecked custard that is way simpler to make (7 ingredients, 6 of which I bet you already have) than it looks. Perfect for brunch or dessert; I hope you get to treat yourself to it this week.
"Brisket"-braised chickpeas -- that is, with all of the flavors of my favorite meaty braise -- with not a speck of brisket involved. This vegan dish is a perfect cozy and hearty holiday main.
My hope is for this to be the last banana bread recipe we will ever need. It has a towering height and a crunchy top that will be hard not to lift off in one giant tile and swiftly coat the underside with salted butter.
Why do baked goods so often celebrate lemon, orange, or lime, but rarely grapefruit? This 2007 cake felt defiant at the time, but remains a beloved January fixture in my kitchen, perfectly crumbed and not too sweet with a ruby red glow.
These cookies went viral for good reason: they're amazing. Made with salted butter (a lot of it -- you're welcome), chunks of chocolate, then rolled in crunchy sugar, they're perfect for hibernating until the weather starts to behave again.
Halfway to molten inside with a shattery lid, they sigh and dent a little when unmolded, as if the weight of it all is too much to bear. One-bowl, hand-whisked with 4 ingredients, they need nothing, not even a shake of powdered sugar, to taste like stars.
Towering pumpkin bread with a crisp cinnamon-sugar lid that's impossible not to pick off in deeply satisfying bark-like flecks. It's also one-bowl and uses a full can of pumpkin in a single loaf. It’s perfect for October weekends.
This recipe is a love letter to homemade ricotta but also my favorite way to serve it in the summer, that is with whatever vegetables and bread look good, grilled. It's great for potlucks, host gifts, and it's also the warm-weather light meal of my dreams.
Mario Burros's 1983 plum torte is an 8-ingredient, 4-step cult classic in which a mass of plums are coated with cinnamon sugar and baked into a pancake-like batter, where they melt into jammy puddles and you definitely don't want to miss it.
A dead-simple cake ladled with a just-cooked sea salt-flecked toffee/butterscotch sauce is the stuff dreams are made of. This is the only winter dinner party dessert we'll ever need.
Everyone needs a perfect recipe for blueberry crumb cake, or at least everyone who loves blueberries and cake. This, tweaked from the great Maida Heatter, who passed away on Thursday at 102 wonderful years old, is mine.
A swirly assembly of buttery, crisp pastry rosettes in a vanilla-flecked custard that is way simpler to make (7 ingredients, 6 of which I bet you already have) than it looks. Perfect for brunch, lunch, or dessert; I hope you get to treat yourself.
The wildly decadent salted caramel crushed pretzel chocolate chunk blondies I never know I needed but replaced my original favorites immediately, possibly forever.
Closer to apple latkes than traditional breakfast pancakes, these fritters make us glad we picked too many apples again this year. It makes a lot, so halve the recipe or thank yourself tomorrow when you have a cozy breakfast all ready to rewarm.
New: Two perfectly-sized molten chocolate cakes that take under 15 minutes to both mix and bake, are flourless, mixed in one bowl, and use ingredients you probably have around...
A sunny, simple, lemony Italian tea cake with the most incredible texture -- firm and almost crunchy at the edges, rich and plush within. The glaze, applied directly onto the hot cake, makes it doughnut-like. You’re going to be so glad you baked this.
New, Ruffled Milk Pie: A stunning assembly of buttery, crisp pastry rosettes in a vanilla-flecked custard that is way simpler to make (7 ingredients, 6 of which I bet you already have) than it looks.
My husband's favorite Thanksgiving dessert is (shockingly) not bourbon pumpkin cheesecake or even chocolate pecan pie but this: a buttery tart shell filled with fresh cranberries, cooked until collapsed in a salted butterscotch sauce with crunchy almonds.