Here is a label for cookies very similar to those I so foolishly ate. Not to overstate the obvious, but there are a lot of ingredients listed that you and I don't cook with.

When we make our own desserts, we don't use chemicals that keep our treats fresh for 10+ months, so the desserts need to be made just before we eat them in order to taste great. Preparing a dessert the day before is fine, and for something like a tiramisu or cheesecake where the flavors need to blend, two days before can be even better. But when you make something a week early and "pop it in the freezer" (even homemade ice cream) it will simply not be as good.

I became convinced of this when I took a platter of tiny cupcakes to an event at my church. The cupcakes had been in the freezer for a couple of months, but had been made from scratch and well-wrapped and frozen as soon as they'd cooled. I'd topped them with my daughter's fresh homemade strawberry buttercream, which is a topic for it's own post - it's unbelievably good. But after the event, several of my cupcakes had gone uneaten, and many more were in the trash (most with the buttercream licked off). I might have had a different result had I brushed the tops of the cupcakes with simple syrup before frosting them, but once I tasted the leftovers, I knew: their time in the freezer had left them with an off-putting, stale flavor.

I would hate for anyone to feel bad about taking a homemade dessert to a party or event, but you might consider making a simple dessert rather than concocting something complex in advance and freezing it. Alternatively, prepping the ingredients - toasting the nuts, combining the dry ingredients, etc. in advance will make quick work of the actual recipe when you do make it. Since the cupcake incident, I've learned that freezing leftover cake batter (instead of a baked cake) can work well: seal in a ziploc, squeeze the air out and freeze flat. Once it thaws (about 4 hours at room temperature for sandwich-sized ziplocs), you can clip off one corner of the bag and quickly fill cupcake pans. In the case of my sad little cupcakes, preparing new cupcakes from a boxed cake mix would have also been a substantial improvement.

Here are a few quick and simple desserts:
​Almond Cake (15 minutes plus cooking time)
Apple Crisp (20 minutes, including peeling the apples, plus cooking time)
Chocolate Fudge Brownies (5-10 minutes  plus cooking time, allow 3 hours to chill)
​Chocolate Mousse (10 minutes plus 1 hour to chill)

A plate of fresh-made chocolate chip cookies are always a hit, and will taste amazingly better than purchased cookies or those made from pre-made dough. My favorite recipe uses butter flavored Crisco - hardly a health food - but because the butter-flavored Crisco is actually dairy-free it can be made vegan by using vegan chocolate chips (Trader Joe's chocolate chips for example) and substituting almond milk for the milk. For extra deliciousness, sprinkle each cookie with a pinch of kosher salt before baking.

Dessert has only one purpose: to taste fabulous. If it fails at that one thing, it's not worth eating.

Sweet dreams,

Chris

If you would like to hear about all my recipes, tips and adventures in cooking, go to www.ucancook.net and enter your email on the right side. Alternatively, email me at [email protected] and I will set you up!

When I was about 9 or 10, I discovered the wonders of Bisquick. Amazing stuff, it could be used to make biscuits, dumplings, oven-fried chicken, pancakes, muffins and best of all waffles. Hot, fresh and drowning in 2% maple syrup and real butter (I'm from Wisconsin), they were everything my little carb-loving heart could desire. My family was of like mind, and tucked into them right along side of me, praising my delicious creations.

Fast forward to a 2013 vacation on Nantucket with my family. My brother and sister-in-law, foodies (among many other delightful characteristics) from Seattle, prepared waffles one morning. Their recipe was not Bisquick, but a throwback recipe, "Marion Cunningham's Yeasted Waffles", the winner of a best-of-breed waffle contest on the Blog Orangette which is run by a Seattle restaurateur. Drenched in real maple syrup, not only did they taste fabulous, but the process of making a simple batter at night and cooking it in the morning was appealing as well.

The only problem with these delicious waffles is that the recipe, which dates from the early 1900's, was designed to be made in an old-school waffle iron, producing a rather flat waffle, and like almost anyone who has purchased a waffle iron in the last 20 years, I have a Belgian waffle iron, which makes tall, fluffy waffles. So my delicious yeasted waffles were coming out all flat on one side. Now it's simple enough to turn them over before serving (who among you hasn't given your kid a grilled cheese sandwich burnt side down??), but I wanted to completely fill the waffle iron with fluffy deliciousness.

So here is the secret to the best waffle you will ever eat, without having to serve it bad-side-down: whip up the egg whites and fold them in.

One note: to me, one of the things that make this recipe so attractive is that you prepare it the night before with a minimum of effort and expend even less effort to add two eggs in the morning and make fresh waffles. If you prefer less effort, you should absolutely make the original recipe - it's fabulous. And if you are a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed morning person who wants an adventure in cooking, by all means, separate the eggs, whip the egg whites and fold them back in. You will be delightfully rewarded for your extra work.

Tastefully yours,
Chris

On a bitter cold night, there is nothing better than sharing some serious comfort food with a group of friends. The problem with much comfort food however is that it takes a good deal of time and planning to prepare. Now, I have no problem spending two days to make a couple of loaves of sourdough bread or a really intricate chocolate torte, but we are all looking for simpler ways to entertain. For that, I'd like to raise up a child of the 70's, the humble fondue.

I'll bet that most of you could - either by asking your parents or visiting a well-stocked antique store - lay your hands on a fondue pot. If those sources fail you, Amazon will provide. The question is, what can you do with it? I want to share two fondue recipes that will have you swapping stories over bubbling pots of cheese and chocolate in less time than it take to text your friends and invite them over.

A word about fondue forks: you can make do without them. For cheese fondue, you can substitute long toothpicks or thin italian breadsticks, and for chocolate, marshmallows speared on tiny pretzels sticks work much better than a fork, and the long toothpicks work well for dried fruit or poundcake. That said, if you get your hands on some of the wooden handled, color-tipped forks, go wild! Just don't put them in the dishwasher - the 70s were all about hand-washing.

To start your fondue party, serve a salad following my "magic salad" rule of one fruit, one nut and one cheese (suggested combinations are with the recipe). Serve with a simple vinaigrette - given the main course and dessert, you will want to start on a lighter note.

​Now that the holiday rush is over and the decorations put away, isn't it wonderful to spend an evening with friends? I mean seriously, what else is there to do this month? You really don't need a reason; last fall, I invited friends over and we shared a bottle of good wine to celebrate one's job loss, another's awful job and the third quitting her job. It was fabulous.

But when such lovely occasions arise, the question - if you're hosting - is what to serve? My main housekeeping strategy is one I call "lowering my standards" (I got this good advice from my mother), but even I need to clean the place when people are showing up, and this all takes time. This is where a "back pocket dessert" really comes in handy. A true back pocket dessert should be able to be produced in 15 minutes or less including hands-on time and cleanup, made with stuff you already have in the house and taste fabulous. Now my staples may be different than yours, but I'd like to share one of my favorites: Almond Cake. This delicious cake has only 7 ingredients: almond flour, butter, eggs, sugar, almonds, almond extract and flour. Obviously this is not good for anyone with a tree nut allergy, but for the rest of us, it's great! The ingredients mix in one bowl, and aside from the chore of cutting a circle of parchment to put in the bottom of your cake pan, the cake is in the oven in about the time it takes to preheat it - and your friends will swoon over this dessert. It tastes like marzipan made into a crispy, buttery cake; you can even add some liqueur or top it with sliced almonds and sugar (as in the photo above) if you want to take it to the next level.