Lindacakes

My favorite way to do this is to roast a combination (must have beets, eggplant, onion, carrots at least). Then warm up a nice fluffy pita like the kind you get stacked in a bag at Costco. Then put a generous amount into the pita, top with goat cheese, and fold in half. Wow, is that good.

That is a tarte tatin pan.

I am curious how you compare this recipe to Tartine's Gingerbread Tiles. The first book, the recipe is googleable.

Ooooo! Thank you!!!

In the Cleveland area, it was Hough's Bakery. There are Web sites that have recipes that reportedly came from Hough's, which no longer exists. Always white cake with white icing. The standard came with beautiful icing flowers which could be customized (I want sweet peas . . . ). Then there were birthday theme cakes. One year I had Raggedy Ann and I was in heaven. My family still thinks of this as special-occasion cake (white with white icing and icing flowers) and it comes from a local bakery. It still sticks because my adult favorite is angel food made from scratch or anything egg white heavy, like a Pavlova.

OK, that's cheese from the can!

Would you mind sharing this recipe? I love turkey and I love it with gravy. And I love it even more with any kind of sweet potato that's been highlighted with butter, brown sugar, orange zest, etc. I do actually like marshmallow with it and will buy some high end marshmallows and eat it that way upon occasion. Along with this, one needs cranberry sauce. I grew up with the can, but I make my own. I can do nicely with this. One year I made the blow out because everyone at work was making me feel somehow diminished with their tales of a thousand and one dishes and a dish. I hated it and will never do or participate in that again. I adore the simple pared down Thanksgiving with a glass of wine watching the fall shadows witch around on the wall. I can also skip all that and make a pan of my mother's bread, celery and mushroom stuffing, let it sit a day and refry it with gravy. Best eaten in pajamas.

Thank you for the mincemeat recipe, that is actually really quite easy . . . I would love the Swedish gingerbread recipe. I need to get started making the comparative recipes if I expect to have a winner in time for Christmas baking. The cherry crop was lousy this year. It's been bad (at least the availability of fresh sour cherries) for several years running. No candied cherries for me, it will have to be dried. Has anyone tried the ones King Arthur is now selling? They look decent.

I tend to prefer cock eggs. They have a stronger taste, harder shell, exceptional ability to bind cakes and cookies, and are generally superior in every way to the thin, overly feminine and emotional hen eggs.

I want to know more about these folded sheets from Costco . . . When I was a kid, my mother had this amazing waxed sandwich paper leftover from her own mother/childhood that she used on my sandwiches. The paper was white, with printed pattern, and waxed. It made beautiful sandwiches and I still dream of it.

Cheesy old cookbooks. My favorites. I don't file them together, I file them with the subject. Louis Degouy's Ice Cream book with David Lebovitz's.

I'm looking for the perfect gingerbread/ginger cookie to give as Christmas gifts. I liked Tartine's gingerbread tiles, I might do that again.

I want to try some new fruitcake cookies. I have one I love, but I want to try the ones other people love. Curious about the brand of mincemeat used, or do you make your own? An English friends likes Sainsbury's which you can find (!) in Key Food in New York.

Andie, very distressing news to hear. All those activities are the joy of cooking. I hope that you get it fixed and back in the swing soon.

Eek, those look good. Thank you for posting.

The granola is very good, it has pecans and coconut, I think. Quite addictive, I actually can't buy it. You might as well strap it to my face like a feed bucket.

I'll have to try it. It is very likely very good -- the chocolate croissants are. You take them out of the freezer at night, and in the morning the dough has risen and you bake them fresh. Really can't be beat.

I have a hundred year old citron half in my fridge, I will cut it and steam it.

Absolutely stunning pictures, thank you. I guess I need a meat grinder. The attachments for Kitchen Aids are fairly easy to get hold of, do you know anything about them? I mean the old, all metal ones, from eBay.

I do a lot of salads with dried fruit and nut combinations. Lynne Rosetto Kasper turned me on to candied orange peel in salads, and candied orange peel and hazelnuts is especially good. Candied lemon works, too.

Excellent ideas, thank you. Andiesenji, can I ask why use a meat grinder rather than a food processor? Do you plump the fruit or otherwise prepare it before you grind it? Do you press it into a baking dish, like a 9 x 13? Do you let it set before forming the balls? Maida Heatter’s California Fruit Bars 1 generous cup of dried fruit – apricot, fig, date 4 large eggs 1 pound box brown sugar (2 1/4 cups) 1/4 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon vanilla 2 cups sifted all-purpose flour 7 ounces (2 cups) walnut halves Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a jelly roll pan with foil and butter it. Cut dried fruit into small pieces. Steam over simmering water for 15 minutes. Uncover and set aside. In a 3 quart saucepan beat eggs, add sugar and mix. Place over medium heat for 10 to 15 minutes. Stir and scrape until sugar melts. Remove from heat. Add salt, vanilla and flour one cup at a time. Whisk until smooth. Stir in fruit, then nuts. Pour evenly into pan and smooth. Bake 15 minutes until golden brown with a shiny top. Cool, cut and wrap individually.

I love dried fruit and nuts. Fruitcake, of course. Chocolate bark. Maida Heatter's California Fruit and Nut bars. Granola. What do you do with them?

I love wax paper. I use it for many of the reasons already stated above. One that was not mentioned is wrapping cookies. I learned this from Maida Heatter: You take two cookies and put their flat sides together. Then you wrap the pair in a piece of wax paper. You can keep them like this, but it's especially good for mailing cookies. I mail a lot of cookies and I always do this. I actually cut the wax paper into squares and fold it neatly and tape it shut. It makes the food taste better. My mother made the best fudge, so good I can't really eat any others. And she cut her fudge in nice thick squares and wrapped each piece in a perfect square of wax paper. When my brother got married, he insisted that his wife do the same because it was such a central experience for him. I never sift anything without doing it over wax paper. The flour glides off of it into whatever you are pouring it into. Like many other people, I only use parchment for lining baking sheets.

I'm curious as to why you are choosing to make your first cake using these two particular recipes . . . Are you interested in just learning how to make a cake so that you can have some fresh homemade cake or are you looking to challenge yourself? If you are just interested in learning and having cake, I would recommend making a simple cake in a small pan, like an 8 x 8, at least until you feel confident. You don't even have to work with icing at first. This gives you an opportunity to learn how to measure, how to mix, how to judge doneness. You can dress a cake with a simple glaze or powdered sugar. I wouldn't start with Rose Levy Berenbaum. I would recommend Maida Heatter. She has a cake book that is actually a compilation of cakes from her other books. Maida's tastes are more straightforward and her instructions are basic. You can't go wrong with a Maida Heatter recipe.