Vanilla

A pretty, elegant scone, these are equally delicious with or without the glaze.

Who would guess that this super-rich and thick chocolate frosting is vegan? Frost over everything, or simply eat it with a spoon, like I do.

Speckled with vanilla beans and dried figs, these light and delicate cupcakes make a sophisticated end to a lovely meal, or a satisfying accompaniment to afternoon tea. Try these plain or with Vegan Buttercream (page 95).

These are my go-to cupcake because they’re great with any frosting.

Sandy’s mom, Margie (aka Marge), has a passion for bread pudding and is a self-proclaimed connoisseur. This is the only bread pudding out of a pile of test recipes that Marge gave her stamp of approval, noting it was the richness of the vanilla custard that won her over. Go ahead and try it. Marge approves!

You may as well commit this recipe to memory because I guarantee you will return to it when you’re looking for that little something extra to add to recipes in this book and beyond. You’ll use it to dunk donuts, drizzle it on Wonder Buns, even slather it on pancakes.

Creamy, light, and sweet—you’ll want to smother this all over pretty much everything. Way overeager one ambitious morning, I even tried it in a cup of coffee. Please do not do that. It is, however, perfect on just about anything else.

Although replacing the sugar in the donut recipe with agave nectar takes the crunch factor down a level, these are equally as important to your breakfast arsenal. If you still want that crispiness and are open to experimenting, try switching out the agave for coconut sugar (helpful substitution suggestions on page 24!). Either way, you can’t go wrong. The donut here is shown topped with the Agave-Sweetened Chocolate Glaze (page 124).

I don’t think I’m alone in my ever-so-slight embarrassment about being a fan of the Nilla Wafer. They are like the frozen burritos of cookies: You don’t particularly crave them, yet every time you’re checking out at the grocery store, there they are. They get eaten. And not because they’re the only things available; it’s because they are sneakily delicious. This is a tried-and-true cookie icon, no matter what anyone says.

I grew up as that weird kid who disliked frosting and cake in general. But if it meant I could get one of those massive Valentine’s Day cookies in the window at Mrs. Fields, I was willing to endure any amount of frosting, icing, or similar childhood misery. You can use any cookie recipe in this book to make this fantastical creation, obviously, but I went ahead and developed a third chocolate chip version (in addition to the bakery standard in the first book and the Chips Ahoy! in this one) to mimic what is found in Mrs. Fields’s venerable kitchens. It’s big and it’s bold and it’s buttery. It’s practically a Toll House cookie, if that helps you imagine.

Who can resist a madeleine? They are so charming, so fair—so impossibly French. These Proustian delights have always appealed to the buttery fringes of my soul, and they’ve always acted as the perfect foil to the rebellious and messy attitude of my first love, the American chocolate chip cookie. Plus I get to whip out my handy madeleine tray, which I cherish wholly and completely. Get yourself one and be the envy of your baby girl’s bake sale.

For the longest time, I might have been the only person in the tristate area completely oblivious to the beautiful oversize black-and-white cookies found in every bodega from Brooklyn to the Bronx. Have you had one? Me, I was never allowed because of my food sensitivities, of course. So when I went to the kitchen and started brainstorming ideas for iconic cookies, this was one of the first ones I tackled. Prepare to be bathed in the sweet comfort of vanilla-chocolate overload.

The slightest whiff of cinnamon and melted sugar is likely to send any lady into a nostalgic reverie for the food court of her youth. Today this recipe commands center stage at the bakery whenever we fire up a batch—no small feat considering the competition of fragrant apple muffins, nutty cornbread, and dozens of other aromatic samplings. You’ll find that BabyCakes NYC’s Wonder Buns have everything you’ve been missing for so long: that subtly sticky chewiness, the spicy pockets intermixed with the sweet streaks of joy, a dense but layered texture that is the stuff of dreams.

My sister Sarah, the planet’s most outrageously particular eater, once told me: “I would rather starve than eat something that isn’t a symphony in my mouth.” As I would gladly eat a toupee if my blood sugar sank low enough, people like Sarah are like Martians to me. This cake is the perfect bridge between you and the Sarahs in your life. When I finally had the chance to offer her a slice, she took a bite, shut her eyes, raised a finger like a conductor’s baton, and began humming Beethoven’s Fifth. No joke. I’ve really become partial to the strawberry filling, but on occasion, at Sarah’s request, I substitute both blackberries and blueberries. Stay creative.

Did you notice that all my cupcake recipes yield 24? With so many cupcakes (is 24 really a lot?), you might, theoretically, have a few left over. Those little leftover treasures are the secret behind my most brilliant invention: the crumb. Crumbs consist of either an unfrosted cake or an unfrosted cupcake broken down and treated with additional flavoring. In most cases, you’ll be using cupcakes, which aren’t all that sweet on their own and are thus the ideal blank canvas. You’ll find the vanilla-based version to be the most versatile crumb of the three I’ve included. You can add your favorite spices to tailor it to your taste; just don’t add more than 2 teaspoons of the spice you choose, or it will overpower the cake you’re baking.

I’m all for mindful eating—scanning each and every nutritional label, chewing each bite of food twenty times before swallowing—but we all know there comes a time when we want to slide into a pair of elastic-waisted pants and go to town. When that urge arises, I, for one, succumb. Composed of three of the bakery’s most popular items—frosting, brownies, and cookies—this extraordinary layered cake is an indulgence that would make even the lovely Paula Deen blush. Right with you, Ms. Deen!

The trick to cooking quinces is to maintain their fragrance and delicate flavor while you coax them into tenderness. Gentle poaching is an ideal way to achieve this goal. Use poached quinces interchangeably with poached pears. They’re great with chocolate, with cheese, or with walnuts and arugula as a salad. If you’ve saved vanilla pods from other recipes, use them here in place of fresh beans.

This is it: pure vanilla flavor in a nice, creamy ice cream.

I use a lot of vanilla beans in the restaurant, and I always reuse the pods, rinsing and drying them before storing. Sometimes they become a garnish (see page 186), but often I use them to make this perfumed sugar.

I make this garnish with the vanilla pods I have left in the restaurant from other desserts. I’m not giving quantities here, since it will all depend on how many vanilla pods you have on hand. (The photograph is page 178.)