French Silk Pie

In high school, for one brief day, I fancied myself a pastry chef. There was no reason for me to believe this bold statement; this was four years before I discovered a passion for baking (and six years before I baked professionally). Even so, as a friend and I were sitting bored on the couch on a Saturday afternoon, I imagined inventing new recipes couldn't be that hard. Up until this point, my only experience with baking was with box mixes, but I didn't let this simple, though glaring, fact deter me.

Not when I was craving strawberry pie, anyway.

My friend and I set out to engineer our own strawberry pie from scratch. For the crust, we pulled out butter, flour, and sugar, wildly throwing amounts into a mixing bowl without regard to measurements (or consulting a real recipe). The dough was greasy and sticky but, with a little elbow grease and a lot of flour, we managed to roll it out into two round circles. It wasn't perfect, but it gave us the confidence we needed to move on to the next step. See? I told you this wouldn't be hard, I remarked to my friend.

We grabbed a package of frozen strawberries for the filling. I wondered how I could elevate the simple pie. Chocolate, I thought wistfully. Chocolate covered strawberries were delicious, so shouldn't they be delicious in a pie? I relayed this to my friend and she agreed. Though unusual, we had high hopes for our little pie. We filled the bottom crust with filling, but, as the juice from the thawing strawberries pooled in the bottom of the pie pan, we thought it may need something more. Would marshmallows soak up the juice? Maybe. We threw a few in for good measure and sealed the top crust with the remaining dough.

As it baked in the oven, the house began to swirl with wonderful scents of butter and strawberries affirming our sincere, but completely wrong belief that baking could be done without recipes or any honest knowledge of how ingredients interact to create sinful treats. The first warning sign came when the top crust held the unusual shape of the marshmallows that jutted out from beneath, leaving us to wonder if the marshmallows simply weren't melting. The second warning sign came when the top crust was completely browned only twenty minutes into the oven. Did pies bake in only twenty minutes?, we wondered. Maybe. We pulled the pie from the oven, let it cool for an agonizing length of time, and finally cut into our masterpiece.

The pie immediately sunk. Once the first piece was removed, the strawberry juice began to pool in the bottom of the pan. Our marshmallow trick hadn't worked, it seemed. We hesitantly took our first bites. Though the top crust was overdone, the bottom crust hadn't even begun to bake, leaving raw dough to form the base of the pie. The strawberries were good, but the chocolate flavor wasn't right and the hint of marshmallows was really too much. My friend managed two bites before tossing it out; I managed three.

It seems we weren't quite the pastry chefs we imagined. Despite this obvious setback, I have gotten much better at baking and inventing recipes since then, thank goodness. This French Silk Pie is a little dream, completely worth the effort of putting it together and waiting for it to emerge from the refrigerator in it's subtle, but charming glory.

French Silk Pie is a classic for good reason. A flaky pie crust is filled with a seemingly impossible smooth chocolate mousse and chilled until the mousse sets and the flavors develop. The chocolate mousse is just rich enough for this pie to taste sinful and chilled enough to make for a fitting summer dessert. Topped with whipped cream and chocolate curls, this is a pie to share with the boys (and girls) in your life.

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Chocolate Cherry Cake

A month ago, I was unprepared to take on vegan baking. As a traditional baker (and purveyor of butter and cream), it was a sincere challenge for me to alter everything I thought I knew about baking. I complained about it loudly to anyone who would listen, as I scraped attempt after attempt into the trash. It wasn't that I didn't do enough research before creating recipes; I simply didn't have the experience with vegan baking to make the recipes my own.

I was unreasonable and, as a few of you pointed out, unfair to take my frustration with my own inadequacy at vegan baking out on a lifestyle choice. For this, I apologize.

After two weeks of struggled baking, a switch finally clicked. The cakes and cookies that came out of the oven no longer went into the garbage can, but were proudly shared with family and friends. My goal to create vegan recipes that did not use hard-to-find or unusual ingredients was becoming a reality and I couldn't be happier. The recipes were not only dairy-free and egg-free, but absolutely delicious in their own right. It was an inspiration.

Even though my vegan challenge is over, I confess I haven't gone to the store to buy butter or eggs just yet (gasp!). When I find myself faced with a warm oven, I don't feel like I'm done creating and experimenting with vegan recipes. Over the next couple weeks, you might spot a few more popping up (and I think you'll fall in love with them as much as I did).

Recently, I had several pounds of cherries resting in the refrigerator. They were an impulse buy at the market when I saw the price tag had considerably dropped. I ate my way through half the sweet fruit before I realized they were going to go bad before the rest would get eaten. One of the downsides to living alone is that when you buy pounds of several varieties of fruit at once, there is no conceivable way you'll be able to eat them all by yourself (note to self: lesson learned). With a chocolate craving in the back of my mind, and a love for cherries and chocolate, a cake seemed to be in order.

I honestly could have eaten half of this cake in a single sitting. It seems only fair to advise you, this cake should come with a warning label.

This Chocolate Cherry Cake has a rich, chocolate base with sweet, bursting cherries. The cherries are folded into a basic chocolate cake batter before rising delicately in the oven and the final cake is topped with a dark, decadent chocolate glaze. Use high quality chocolate for the best flavor. I love to eat this cake chilled from the refrigerator, but it can be enjoyed warm or at room temperature. This cake is simple to garnish and aims to impress.

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Vegan Brownies

I am perpetually in the pursuit of a good brownie. There is something about the rich, dense chocolate fudge texture that I dream about after a good meal. It's a craving that follows me around as I mix up a batch of waffles for breakfast or it tucks me into bed with a bowl of ice cream at night. Every few months the brownie bug bites and I find myself in the kitchen with batter up to my elbows trying to create the next great brownie.

Sometimes I succeed and the results are beautiful.

Sometimes I don't succeed. I often keep those moments to myself, a private moment to mourn as I take a fork after the brownies that didn't live up to my expectations. Earlier this month, I had lofty goals of making a delicious vegan brownie to share with you. Brownies often use a substantial amount of butter for flavor and eggs to set the brownies into the classic texture we know and love. There would be a challenge, but after a little research into vegan substitutions and comparing vegan recipes side-by-side, I was certain I would succeed.

After an hour of interrogating the internet for information, I set off to make what I was certain to be the next great vegan brownie.

Hot from the oven, the smell filled the house with a fantastic aroma. I dug in with a fork before allowing the brownies to cool to a palatable temperature. The first bite made me crinkle my nose in disgust. After all of my hard work, it seems I had managed to create the world's worst brownie. It was thick, cake-like, and stuck to the roof of my mouth like paste. I gave up on vegan brownies, believing them impossible to create.

Even so, my craving for a good brownie didn't falter. A few weeks later I found myself back at the kitchen counter with a wild idea. Remembering these chocolate avocado cupcakes, I channeled the idea, using ripe avocados with a few other healthy ingredients (and tossing in a few chocolate chunks for good measure). When I pulled these out of the oven, my avocado-hating, box-mix-brownie-loving sister and I managed to finish off half a pan of the brownies before they could even cool off.

Perhaps the moral of the story is that sometimes you need to throw research out the window and trust your own baker's intuition instead. Or, maybe it's that vegan brownies can actually be delicious and you should give them a try to taste them for yourself. I think I like the second one better.

These vegan brownies are rich and dense like chocolate fudge. A surprising mix of good-for-you ingredients, including whole wheat flour, olive oil, and avocados, come together to create a relatively healthy brownie that makes you believe dreams can and do come true. Don't be wary of the avocado; it may be an unusual addition, but the flavor is completely masked by the cocoa and chocolate chunks.

Please do not over-bake these brownies or they will end with a texture similar to cake. In fact, I urge you to under-bake the brownies just so the middle sets and the batter is no longer runny. There is nothing in these brownies you couldn't eat raw (in fact, much of the batter disappeared before the pan made it to the oven) so don't be frightened to take the brownies out of the oven before a toothpick inserted into the center comes out completely clean.

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