Nuts | Gourmandistan

“Vintage” burnt sugar cake with maple cream cheese frosting updated with pecans, salty chocolate

November 23, 2015 by Steve

Michelle recently picked up a copy of Julie Richardson’s Vintage Cakes from a bookstore remainder table. Richardson, a baker in Portland, Oregon, based many of the book’s recipes on a trove she found when taking over the 50-year-old bakery building she now occupies. Others come from old cookbooks and corporate marketing departments. It’s a charming book. This particular burnt sugar cake dates from “before the days of vanilla and almond extracts, gaining its deep flavor from burnt sugar syrup.” Richardson paired the […]

Categories: Baking, Cake, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Nuts, Recipes

Sometimes you feel like a dark chocolate almond coconut bar, sometimes you don’t

May 5, 2015 by Steve

Those outside of America may be unaware of either Almond Joy® or Mounds® candy bars. This means they are also unaware of the “sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don’t” debate that would have torn America apart decades ago if not for shelf after shelf groaning with other candy options. Rest assured, however, there is a divide over which bar is best, which remained alive in Gourmandistan until Michelle created a delightful compromise. Both Michelle and Steve chose the coconut treats quite […]

Categories: Brownies, Candy, Chocolate, Coconut, Cooking, Food, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Pecan Kumquat Tarts spring from salad, parking shortage

April 1, 2015 by Michelle

These lovely bits of sweet and citrus began with a recipe from Tartine, a bakery in San Francisco we were unable to visit last time we were there because there was no place to park, a problem the wonderful city is still figuring out how to manage. They also arrived because of a salad Michelle told Steve about some time ago. Steve remembers it had lentils and/or cabbage and citrus, but as she described its potential deliciousness, Michelle took exception to the inclusion of raw citrus peel. Asked what he […]

Categories: Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Kumquats, Nuts, Pies & Tarts

Relative temperature in raspberry jam shortbread brownies

March 14, 2015 by Michelle

The baseline is clear: these brownies are very, very good. But at what temperature? Starting with some seedless raspberry preserves left after a cake proved disappointing, Michelle decided jam might be delicious if layered between shortbread and brownies. Adapting an Alice Medrich recipe, she produced a marvelous combination of crispy short crust, fudgy brownie topping and tartly sweet jam in between. Fairly simple to make, Michelle thinks they would likely work with other jam flavors such as apricot, cherry or strawberry. After sampling a bit of the very rich brownies, […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Recipes

Distinctive desiccation dazzles in apricot, date and nut loaf

March 8, 2015 by Michelle

While we still await our area’s first bits of fresh fruit (please hurry, strawberries!), we have made a nice discovery: apricots from Apricot King Orchards in Hollister, California, a farm in the northern part of the state that ships exceptionally good apricots as well as a number of other dried fruits. (Don’t worry, folks. Unlike many you read these days, this is not a sponsored post.) We’ve long searched for a good source of California apricots, which we find more flavorful than […]

Categories: Apricots, Breakfast, Dates, Food, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Fighting frosty weather with fennel, radish, citrus and pistachio salad

February 20, 2015 by Michelle

It’s been an overall mild winter in Gourmandistan, and we’re certainly not in the same boat as those unfortunates in Boston. Lately we’ve even seen tiny signs (increased egg laying, daffodil buds inching above the soil) of spring waiting to arrive. However, we’ve also recently suffered a bit of Arctic frigidity. The Siberian blast has frozen our creek, dumped several inches of snow, and at the moment promises to chill and maroon us possibly until early March. So while we understand that […]

Categories: Fennel, Food, Nuts, Orange, Radishes, Recipes, Salad

Soar, salty bittersweet: salted peanut brownies

January 26, 2015 by Michelle

Once again in the midst of a dreary Gourmandistan winter, Michelle decided she had to have something sweet. Steve tried to tempt her with a crispy Gold Rush apple, as he has found a local grocery still stocking the locally-grown fruit (though they may not last long now that Steve knows about them). While Michelle did momentarily consider tarte tatin, it wasn’t what she really wanted. A can of salted Virginia peanuts some friends brought over during the holidays gave her an idea, however—and salty peanut brownies with peanut butter icing […]

Categories: Brownies, Chocolate, Cooking, Desserts & Sweets, Food, Nuts, Old cookbooks, Recipes, Vegetarian

Sandwiching a little history into peanut butter & Concord grape jelly cookies

October 12, 2014 by Steve

Along with its partners, peanut butter and sliced white bread, Concord grape jelly is an American staple, a symbol of something completely familiar and unsurprising. Which is why Steve was so delighted to find out that the original name for it was “Grapelade,” and the stuff became popular after it was included (along with cigarettes) in WWI ration kits. According to the Concord Grape Association (whose members “process more than 90% of the Concord grapes processed annually in the United States”), Concord […]

Categories: Cookies, Cooking, Food, Fruit Desserts, Grapes, Jams & Preserves, Nuts, Recipes, Vegetarian

A pecan Patronus, surprisingly from the school of dark tarts

May 8, 2014 by Michelle

Before the Harry Potter police descend on Gourmandistan like a pack of Dementors at a Quidditch match, let it be said that Gourmandistan understands Patronus charms are not usually uttered by pecans. But we do feel pecans need some protection. Too often well-meaning kitchen wizards whip up pecan pies, imprisoning the nuts in sickly sweet sugar goo that sucks the soul from the nut. Especially if we’re shelling them ourselves, we Gourmandistanis want our pecans to be the star when we use them. […]

Categories: Cooking, Food, Nuts, Pies & Tarts, Recipes, Vegetarian

Gourmandistan

A fabled land of farmers, farm shares, fancy (and not so fancy) restaurants, family meals, food projects and more.

Category Archives: Nuts