Sweetwater's Donut Mill, Kalamazoo, MI

As featured in Saveur Magazine's Top 100.

Clockwise from upper left: Black Forest, Mounds, Orange Juice, Peanut Butter Cup, New York Cheesecake, Caramello, Chocolate Cloud, Snickers




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Just Desserts

Just desserts. That seems to be all that came out of my kitchen this past weekend. With two potluck invitations in store for Saturday and Sunday evenings, I opted to take the sweet route for each.

Saturday night was a farewell party for a friend heading off to start a new life in Chicago. As I combed through my cupboards, I was happy to find the exact ingredients to make Baklava: honey, walnuts, phyllo dough, butter, and spices were all I needed to throw together the simple, yet flavorfully complex, Mediterranean dessert.

I found a recipe on epicurious.com, which came from the July 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine, and adapted it slightly. Rather than use the lemon rind as called for in the recipe, I went with what I had handy in the produce drawer: clementines. The clementine rind gave the baklava a seasonal slant and a subtle orange-y fragrance. Also, I halved the amount of syrup called for in the original recipe, and found it to be more than sufficient. Finally, for a more attractive presentation, I reserved some walnuts and ground them finely, for sprinkling on top of the baked baklava after the syrup has been poured over.

BAKLAVA (adapted from Gourmet magazine, July 2009)

• Filling:
• 3 1/4 cups walnuts, chopped + 1/4 cup walnuts, finely ground, for topping
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1 pound package phyllo sheets, thawed
• 1 1/2 cups butter, melted

Syrup (quantities have been halved from the original recipe):

• 1 cup sugar
• 3/4 cups water
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1/8 lemon, peel only (I used an equivalent quantity of grated clementine rind)
• 1/2 clove

Preheat the oven to 375°F.

Mix together the chopped walnuts (reserving ground walnuts for topping), sugar, and spices and set aside.

As you work, keep the sheets of phyllo covered with plastic wrap to keep them from drying out. Place 1 sheet of phyllo on the bottom of a jelly roll pan (12-inch x16-inch). (Alternately, I used a glass baking dish, 9.5" x 15". A standard 9" x 13" glass dish will also work). Brush the dough lightly with melted butter. Repeat this process until there are 8 sheets of phyllo in the pan.

Sprinkle two-thirds of the nut mixture onto the phyllo sheets.

Place 4 more sheets of phyllo on top of the nuts, brushing melted butter between each sheet.

Place the remaining one-third of the nut mixture on the dough.

Layer the remaining sheets of phyllo on top of the nuts, brushing melted butter in between each sheet. Brush the top sheet with butter as well.

Trim the edges so that they do not stand above the level of the dough.

Cut the pastry into 2-inch squares (I cut them into diamonds), making sure not to slice through the bottom layer of phyllo dough. Leaving the bottom layer uncut will allow the syrup to soak in more efficiently.

Bake at 375°F for 25–30 minutes or until the top layer of the phyllo takes on a light golden brown color.

While the dough bakes prepare the syrup. Combine all of the ingredients and bring to a boil. Remove the clove and lemon peel.

Remove the pan from the oven and immediately pour hot syrup over the baklava. Sprinkle with reserved, finely ground walnuts.

Before serving allow the baklava to stand at room temperature until cooled. Slice through the bottom layer of phyllo dough and serve.

On Sunday night, we launched a monthly cooking club with a handful of foodie friends. The theme for our inaugural dinner was comfort food, and I volunteered to take on dessert. Todd had spied a recipe in the May 2009 issue of Bon Appetit, and decided he wanted to tackle it: Mile High Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream. It was included in an article featuring updated versions of favorite diner desserts, along with Peanut Butter Banana Cream Pie and S'mores Dark Chocolate Pudding among others. I decided I would take my underused, but much appreciated, ice cream maker for a spin and make an accompanying ice cream to go alongside. Knowing the chocolate cake would likely be terrifically sweet, I remembered a recipe I'd seen in the March 2008 issue of Bon Appetit for a Buttermilk Ice Cream. I figured its promise of a tangy, yet sweet and creamy, flavor would provide a perfect foil for the cake.

With a few tweaks to the recipe--not to mention a change in who'd be doing the baking (namely, me)--the cake had only a fair outcome. It was not nearly chocolaty enough, and the texture was not as moist and tender as I wished. However, my decision to use a less complicated buttercream recipe other than the one given did save time without compromising flavor. I'm going to continue to seek out a better recipe for the cake; however, the "mile-high" concept, layered with buttercream and dripping with gooey chocolate ganache, is one that I'll definitely follow in future efforts.

Meanwhile, the ice cream was creamy and unctious and, with the tang of the buttermilk and addition of clementine rind, indeed balanced the sweetness of the cake. It was a fairly pricey effort, however, as the recipe called for the use of notoriously costly creme fraiche in addition to buttermilk and heavy cream. I'm certain there's a less expensive version out there--perhaps I'll give it another shot in the future. Rather than post recipes at this point, I'll only post photos of the cake and ice cream for now. As I devise an alternate combination of recipes, I'll be sure to provide them here.