Vanilla

Philadelphia-style ice cream is made with no eggs, so it can be mixed together in a New York minute. It gets it name because at one time there was a proliferation of dairy farms around Philadelphia. I’ve made this vanilla ice cream successfully with all heavy cream as well as with a mixture of cream and milk, and I like it both ways.

A wonderful revolution has taken place in America over the last decade: small local dairies have been sprouting up all across the land and many of them are producing heavy cream with rich, unmistakable, and honest-to-goodness flavor. Once you taste real cream, you’ll never want to use the bland ultrapasteurized stuff that has taken over supermarket dairy cases. For whipped cream, the freshest non-ultrapasteurized cream not only tastes the best, but it whips up much better. I highly recommend tracking some down. Make sure the cream is very cold before whipping, and if the weather is warm, chill the bowl and the whisk ahead of time.

I often serve small glasses of vin d’orange as a warm-weather aperitif. Anyone who enjoys Lillet is likely to enjoy this fruity and slightly bitter fortified wine. But be careful—it’s quite potent. To stay true to its humble Provencal roots, I use very inexpensive vodka and dry white wine. I’ve even made it with wine from a box—with excellent results!

I’ve seen fights break out among pastry chefs over what constitutes crème anglaise, so I’ll stick with the classic. This versatile custard sauce isn’t so rich that it overwhelms, but it is smooth enough to provide a creamy, luxurious component to desserts such as cakes and cobblers. Although not traditional, try a pour of crème anglaise in a bowl of fruit sorbet—the silken richness is a spot-on counterpoint to the icy scoop.

If there’s an easier candy out there, I haven’t found it. When I worked as a pastry chef, I think I made a batch of these every day. And since they’re so easy, why not? (Actually, I pretty much had to since I discovered all the other cooks in the kitchen couldn’t resist dipping into the container when I wasn’t looking.) Great nibbled on their own, these nuts are also good used in place of the toasted nuts in Chocolate Chip Cookies (page 188) and Robert’s Absolute Best Brownies (page 196), or in place of the almonds in Pistachio, Almond, and Cherry Bark (page 223). They can be chopped and folded into just-churned ice cream, or sprinkled on top of scoops of ice cream that are sauced with a ladleful of warm Rich Caramel Sauce (page 241).

This is the classic gingersnap: thin, crisp, with a spicy bite. For the best flavor, use very fresh spices. I grind my own cinnamon and cloves for these, and never, ever use preground black pepper. If you don’t have a pepper mill, shame on you. Go get one. Although not a pantry staple, coarse-crystal sugar—such as Demerara or turbinado—is wonderful embedded in the surface of each snappy cookie. I find it pretty indispensable for these cookies and use it for sprinkling onto many different baked goods before they go into the oven, so I always keep a tub of it in my kitchen cabinet.

I almost started an international incident when I put some pictures of my black and white cookies on my blog. People went ballistic because I didn’t include a recipe. The problem was that I didn’t know who to credit since my recipe is culled from a variety of sources. Like New York City, the spiritual home to these cookies, my sources and inspiration for them are the ultimate melting pot: a Seinfeld episode, an email from food maven Arthur Schwartz, a recipe from the legendary Zabar’s, and George Greenstein’s comprehensive tome, Secrets of a Jewish Baker.

This is the vanilla ice cream recipe that I’ve been using for over three decades, and I’ve not found one better. Some ask why I choose to use both vanilla extract and a bean. While I love the taste that the bean infuses into the custard, I find that a little extract boosts and brightens the vanilla flavor tremendously, so I use both. You can use any kind of vanilla you prefer: Bourbon is the strongest, Tahitian is more floral, or real Mexican (not the cheap stuff), which is a revelation if you haven’t had it.

I feel sorry for people who tell me that their mother’s cooking was terrible: I can’t imagine eighteen years of eating bad food. Fortunately, my esteemed lineage included a mom who was a fantastic cook. Unfortunately, though, she was lacking the baking gene, so cookies and cakes were few and far between. She did, however, make wonderful tapioca pudding, which she served warm in a bright-red ’60s-style glass bowl. She always added an entire capful of aromatic vanilla extract to the pudding, stirred in at the last minute. Being hopelessly nostalgic (especially when it comes to desserts), I can still smell it to this day. Of course, back then there wasn’t much fusion cooking going on, but nowadays Thai coconut milk is readily available, and I use it in my version of tapioca pudding. In addition to vanilla extract, I include a vanilla bean for good measure. I don’t have any children, but if I did, I would hope this pudding would be just as memorable for them as my mom’s is for me.

Glorias are a typical dessert in Veracruz. Traditionally, they use a syrup made from grosellas, a small red fruit similar to a red currant. Since it’s hard to find grosellas outside of Mexico (but by all means use them if you have access!), I used the syrup from the Raspado Rojo as a successful alternative. However, you can also use red currant marmalade by thinning the marmalade with a bit of water and cooking it over low-medium heat until you obtain a light syrup consistency (you can blend it if it’s chunky). I was quite surprised that I liked this concoction because I’d imagined it was going to be super sweet—but the ice helped balanced everything out.

This is the most versatile filling for many classic desserts. Using a fresh vanilla bean is the key to a great pastry cream.

This new-fashioned whipped cream makes any dessert just a little bit better. This is a great topping for ice cream treats or for use as a cake frosting or filling. To frost a large cake, increase this recipe by half; to frost and fill a cake, double the recipe.

Substituting evaporated skim milk for some of the cream reduces the fat yet maintains the richness of this classic dessert sauce.

This is my favorite frosting. It’s a real buttercream, rich and creamy, but not too sweet. It’s great on any cake or cupcake.

I’m a big vanilla ice cream fan, so I had to create a great-tasting, low-fat alternative to enjoy guilt-free. Use a fresh vanilla bean and thick, Greek-style yogurt for best results.

This is the real thing: real vanilla beans and real heavy cream reminiscent of old-time creamery blends. This is better than any store-bought premium brand—and it’s sugar-free. Here’s a tip: make your ice cream base the day before and refrigerate it overnight. The colder it is when you get ready to freeze, the better it will turn out.

This is a whole grain, sugar-free version of a classic sponge cake. It’s light, contains no butter or oil, and freezes wonderfully. You can make the pastry cream up to 3 days in advance.

The perfect birthday cupcake, these vanilla beauties can be decorated any way you like. Top them with confetti, decorating sugar, sugared violets, edible flowers . . . the possibilities are endless. My husband says they taste like a vegan Twinkie. I take that as a compliment.