California Coffee Roll, a strange recipe indeed, yields a sort-of cheese danish, with a pleasing lemon flavor. It's very easy and delicious. But did I say strange? Like many vintage hand-written recipes, much is left to the imagination and, while this one includes instructions, they don't make particular sense. For example, yeast is used, yet there's no rise time called for.  But, most importantly, the recipe worked and the result is really, really good. Its proud (her name appears twice on the card) author is Mary Gentilcore from Niles, Ohio.  Let's get started by making the fi ..read more

Luella Walters is right -- these cookies could be eaten every day, as they are truly delicious and worth every calorie.  Other than that, I have no idea why Ms. Walters bequeathed them such a name. They have rice krispies and coconut, two ingredients I don't consider "every day" ones. They are also unusual in that they call for both butter AND oil -- and plenty of both.  And, typical of vintage recipes, these aren't overly sweet. but still rather addicting. In fact, this is one of the few things I've baked that I, ahem, overindulged in.  These cookies are very easy to make. T ..read more

Do you have fear of frying? I overcame mine a few years ago with some -- as it turned out, unnecessary -- reassurance from a nearby fire extinguisher. And a whole new world opened. Frying is easy, quick and adds so much flavor and texture to ordinary ingredients.  And by ordinary, I mean things you probably already have in your pantry or refrigerator like eggs and flour. It's a good way to incorporate fruits and vegetables into one's diet! I recently discovered two ears of corn lurking in my fridge from an overly ambitious farmer's market trip at the same time I found a vintage recipe ..read more

About a decade ago, I was asked to bring a birthday cake to my dear (and now sadly departed) friend Suzanne Wasserman's 50th birthday party at the Bridge Cafe. So I baked a nine-inch red velvet layer cake. Imagine my dismay when I arrived at the party and realized that this single cake would need to feed about 40 guests.  (I had another frosted cake at home -- I was selling them at the time and always made two -- but couldn't convince my teenage son to bring it to the restaurant.) Throughout the dinner I fretted about the scarcity of dessert but by some absolute miracle the staff manag ..read more

Are you watching season two of Netflix's Ozark?  I am, sort of. It's so contrived and crazy, but hard to get off the rollercoaster. The lives of Marty (Jason Bateman) and Wendy (Laura Linney) are so frenetic and stressful, one wonders why criminals (most of whom are very smart) just don't get regular jobs. Ozark Pie (probably named for the geographic region of its origin) is a simple apple confection, and not really a pie at all. It's just that it's baked in a pie plate.  It is more than the sum of its parts. Favorite son-in-law loved the brown sugar -- but there's no brown sugar ..read more

Until a few days ago, I was an apple fritter virgin. Seriously, I'd never tasted one, always pointing to Boston creme or glazed donuts at the donut shop.  But looking to turn my surplus of new crop apples into something yummy, I decided to try my hand at these treats. I was delighted to discover how easy and delicious they are -- the gratification is nearly instant! These are old-fashioned, modest fritters. There is but one tablespoon of sugar in the entire recipe; the sweetness is derived from the apples. The DH, an apple fritter lover from way back, prefers the supersized and froste ..read more

I'm back! After a really long hiatus (insert life-got-in-the-way excuses here), I'm thrilled to present the easiest, most delicious honey cake ever. And just in time for Rosh Hashanah. Honey cake, the traditional holiday dessert to symbolize a sweet new year, has a deservedly bad reputation. It's often dry and dense. Even my grandmother's version was nearly inedible without a gallon of milk to wash it down.  And she was a fabulous baker.  This recipe, however, is a winner.  It is one of hundreds of recipes gifted to me a few years ago by the legendary Arthur Schwar ..read more

As a child, I adored Laura Ingalls Wilder's "Little House" books, her romanticized memoir of life on the western frontier in the late 19th century.  Just how romanticized these are I discovered in a wonderful new book, Prairie Fires: The American Dreams of Laura Ingalls Wilder by Carolyn Fraser. Let's just say it wasn't all Pa's joyful fiddling and endless fields of wildflowers.  Wilder's books spawned many offshoots, a television series and a book of recipes among them. I've made Molasses on Snow Candy from The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walter and, a few weeks ago, ins ..read more

Wednesday was a snow day in NYC and, while "working from home," I used my "lunch hour" to whip up this delicious gingerbread. It's not from a vintage recipe; you can find wonderful vintage gingerbread recipes here, here, here and here. It is modern but is thisclose to my favorite gingerbread, from a magazine recipe clipped 30 years ago, and long since misplaced. I wasn't planning to write about it, but when my children (who, ironically, don't care for sweets) declared it was the best thing I'd baked, I felt compelled to share.   This gingerbread cake is very, very easy to make (yo ..read more

This Family Chocolate Cake recipe is not my family's -- it belongs to the Wenzel family whose son Ryan worked for me a few years ago. It was passed down from Ryan's paternal grandmother and the go-to cake for all family birthdays. After he shared the recipe, I baked one for his farewell party. Although it was delicious, and a big hit, I never got around to blogging about it. Until now. We celebrated my niece Jessica's birthday last weekend because it happened to fall on Honeyball Day, our family tradition where we make strufoli, an Italian confection from my husband's childhood. I'm not a f ..read more