The Meaning of Life, these days, it’s a pretty loaded topic. Watching life unfold, it’s hard not to wonder why people do things to each other. Unless I’m missing something, we’re all in this together and it seems in everybody’s best interest to try to make things work, which is how recipes are: You take a bunch of disparate ingredients, mix them all together, and the result is better than the sum of its parts.

Most baking books follow a familiar pattern—a mix of baking tips, recipes, and in some cases, headnotes before the recipes, and chapter openings that explain the recipes and give some background about them. (Except in France, where recipes don’t have headnotes, which may be true elsewhere?)

Helen Goh is a trained psychologist who became a baker and pastry chef, and in addition to being one of the principal recipe developers for Yotam Ottolenghi, co-authored the books Sweet and Comfort with him. Helen has talked about the way baking has helped her manage her anxiety - and unlike other anti-anxiety prescriptions, baking has no unpleasant side effects. Others know her as the creator of what’s been dubbed the World’s Best Chocolate Cake…

That, and over a hundred other recipes, are in Baking & the Meaning of Life: How to find joy in 100 recipes, a book about sharing, giving, and receiving. I’ve got my eye on the Favorite Orange Cake (page 159) made with whole oranges and topped with a dreamy-looking, zesty orange icing, an airy Pandan & Coconut Chiffon Cake (page 185), and Crisp & Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies (page 70).

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The book also prompted me to make Helen’s Anzac Cake, which appeared in a newspaper a number of years ago, and I never got around to making it. Topped with the flavors of Anzac Biscuits—coconut, oatmeal, and golden syrup—how could one not?

As readers may have read in a recent newsletter (Feb 2026), I’ve been on a tear, cleaning out my freezers and kitchen cabinets…

I’m pretty sure that’s another anti-anxiety activity that doesn’t have any bad side effects, except maybe some guilt that you’ve let so many things get ignored or pushed back to the rear of your cabinets.

Back there, I found all sorts of odds and ends that I’d amassed over the last few years, including this smoked sugar I bought in Scotland. At the time, I wrote about it - “How could I not?” Then it languished in my kitchen cabinet for a couple of years before I finally found a place to use it.

In addition to everything from Sicilian pistachio paste to salsa negra in my cabinets, I’ve also got a problem with preserving things. I just can’t let anything go to waste. (If anyone knows what I can make with a quart jar of pickled samphire, let me know!)

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Often in the summer we’ll head to the south of France and this year, the woman who runs the farm stand in the village had a wooden crate filled with chile peppers. Almost everything else was sold out by the time we got there. Her produce is beautiful and it’s popular, but you need to have patience because once it’s someone’s turn, they need to spend some quality time catching up with her :) So you can’t be in a hurry.

While most of the other crates were empty when we got there a bit too late one morning, it looked like no one had touched the chiles. When I expressed interest, she put them all in a paper bag and gave them to me.

Score!

There were so many that I ended up pickling them, using my pickled jalapeño recipe, minus the carrots, red onions, and dried oregano.

Pickled Jalapeños recipe

The jar of pickled peppers has been in my refrigerator for a few months, and when I spotted a recipe in Helen’s book for Pickled Jalapeño & Cheddar Scones, I realize that this was their destiny. The recipe called for a generous amount of pickled chiles, and her recipe had come to the right place. (I also used that smoked sugar here, too.)

Living in France, I often have to modify recipes for what we can get here. I was emailing with a friend who wrote a Thai cookbook and mentioned how important substitutions are, when possible, because you want your recipes to be accessible to as many people as possible (or at least I do), while still preserving the basic integrity of them.

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The original recipe called for cheddar, but I decided to keep it French, since I was using French-grown chiles, and grated some mimolette, a cheese that was briefly banned in the U.S. but is now available.

Making Mimolette in France

As Helen notes, these scones are close to American biscuits, and let me tell you, they were soooo good. Even before baking, when I was mixing and rolling the dough, they already smelled amazing.

And after I baked them, the taste blew me away. They were spicy and cheesy and crispy and flaky. It was hard to resist breaking into one right when they came out of the oven because my kitchen smelled so good. Letting them cool slightly allows the cheese to firm up a bit, but they are absolutely heavenly eaten warm.

I’m sure there’s a snappier way of ending this post, but you’ll have to excuse me. I’ve got some biscuits to eat…

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Chile-Cheese Scones

Adapted from Baking & the Meaning of Life by Helen Goh

1 1/2 cups plus 1 tablespoon (220g) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting

2 teaspoons baking powder, preferably aluminum-free

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 1/4 teaspoons smoked paprika

2 teaspoons sugar

1 teaspoon flaky sea salt or 3/4 teaspoon fine salt

1 clove garlic, grated or finely chopped

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

6 tablespoons (85g/3oz) cold unsalted butter

5 tablespoons (70ml) whole milk

1/3 cup (75g) plain full-fat yogurt, plus 1 additional tablespoon for brushing the tops

4 ounces (115g) grated cheddar or mimolette cheese, divided

1 1/2 ounces (50g) drained weight, pickled jalapeños, blotted dry with a paper towel and finely chopped (you’ll have about 3 tablespoons of chopped chiles), plus 10 slices of pickled chiles

1. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, paprika, sugar, salt, garlic, and oregano in a medium bowl. Put the cold butter between two pieces of parchment paper (or plastic wrap) and whack it with a rolling pin until it’s about as thick as your thumb. Unwrap it and rip the butter into pieces, tossing them in the flour mixture. Using your fingers, smoosh the butter into rough 1/2-inch (2cm) flakes.

2. Refrigerate the bowl of ingredients for 30 minutes.

3. To assemble and bake the scones, preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC) and line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Remove the flour mixture from the refrigerator. Add the milk and yogurt, stir a few times with a flexible spatula, then add three-quarters of the cheese and the chopped chiles. Sprinkle the countertop lightly with flour.

4. Stir everything together until the dough starts coming together, then use your hands to gather the dough into a more-or-less cohesive mass. Transfer the dough to the countertop and shape it into a rough rectangle. Note: The dough will smell really good at this point.

5. Using a pastry scraper or chef’s knife, cut the dough into three rectangles (see the photos in the post). Pile the rectangles on top of each other, then press them down, forming a rectangle. Repeat the process, patting the dough into a rectangle, cutting it into thirds, piling them on top of each other, and pressing them down again into a rectangle.

6. With a rolling pin, roll the dough into a long rectangle measuring 10 x 4 inches (24 x 10cm). Cut the dough lengthwise in half, then cut it vertically, creating ten individual rectangular scones. (You could trim the outside edges of the rectangle to straighten them out before cutting the dough, if you want the scones neater. If you do that, gather the scraps together into a small mound and bake that alongside the scones, which’ll be a baker’s snack.) Place the unbaked scones evenly spaced apart on the baking sheet. Brush the top of each with a little yogurt, then top each with grated cheese and a thin slice of chile pepper.

7. Bake until deep golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes, but start checking them a few minutes before.* They’re done when they’re browned across the top and up the sides, and feel almost fully baked when you press the tops.

Serving: The scones are delicious on their own, or split in half and buttered. They would also be great for breakfast, served with scrambled eggs. You could cut them smaller (and reduce the baking time) to serve as appetizers.

Storage: The scones are best the day they’re made. They can be stored in an airtight container overnight at room temperature.

Chile Cheddar Scones

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*My oven has a silly (and annoying) feature: When you open the door to check something, the oven turns itself off unless you remember to press the "Start” button again. Whoever came up with that idea never developed or tested recipes. I’m now hyper-vigilant about it, since I’ve had to redo recipes while testing them.

I forgot to turn it back on while baking these but luckily I remembered less than a minute after I checked on them. Helen’s book says to bake the scones for 20 minutes, but you can check them a few minutes before. (And if you have the same oven that I do, don’t forget to turn it back on!)

Well, la gastro got me again. Because la gastro is so common here in the winter, and French is so complicated to speak even for native French speakers, the name gets shortened from gastro-entérite, or gastroenteritis.

Being densely populated, Paris is a petri dish for it, although some guests were in the French Alps last week, and four out of six of them got felled by it. So escaping to the mountains doesn’t ensure that it won’t find you there.

I had it about a month ago, and just got it again, which doesn’t seem fair, although as I recently heard a doctor say, viruses don’t care about your feelings.

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La gastro is very contagious and the best defense is washing your hands. (Hand sanitizers aren’t that effective against the virus.) Unfortunately, in a country where greeting someone involves shaking hands, and daily life entails holding onto poles in crowded métros, eating in restaurants and shopping at markets where multiple people have handled your food, and towels for drying your hands after washing them in some restaurants and cafés are shared with perhaps a hundred or more people*, you don’t need to look very far to see how (or where) you could have gotten it.

One thing about getting sick in France is that you have to plan for it. There’s no pre-prepared chicken soup, and supermarket soups are invariably veloutés or purees of vegetables.

I don’t know about you, but when I have an upset stomach, the last thing I want is a bowl of green soup, especially if you’re old enough to remember Linda Blair in The Exorcist. When things are coming out of you fast and furiously, you want a bouillon-based easy in, easy out situation. And certainly not anything green.

Newcomers to France, from America, are surprised to find that store-bought bouillon or stock isn’t readily available in liquid form, as it is in the States, where whole aisles of the supermarkets are devoted to a range of stocks sold in quart cartons. In France cubes of stock are commonly used, from brands like Knorr, and Maggi. Ultra-processed hasn’t become a keyword in France yet, but I’ve yet to make the transition to them.

I’m not sure what people in France do when they get sick, but if you can drag yourself to the grocery store, or can manage a trip to both the butcher and the produce store, you can make a poule au pot.** This “chicken in a pot” requires little hands-on work, and is easy on the system, one that I’m doing my best not to upset any further.

There are fancy ways to make a poule au pot, such as one with a sauce suprême made with crème fraîche, egg yolks and butter, or this one, with 14 ingredients. Or this one with chicken stuffed with a farce (stuffing), which you’re welcome to tackle if you’ve got the fortitude for it.

There may be a definitive version of poule au pot, but I’m too zonked to track it down, nor am I up for a battle with the authenticity police. And I’m definitely not up for*** stuffing a chicken, or making or eating cream sauce.

The good thing about making this dish is that you don’t need store-bought stock as cooking a whole chicken gives you a lovely, rich broth. And while not part of the French culinary canon, since Manischewitz has not made it to France, there’s no matzoh meal at the supermarché.

Another Poule au pot

Yes, you can buy pain azyme and grind it yourself, but that also takes strength, so it’s a no-go. My neighbor who owns a deli in Brooklyn is out of town. Otherwise I’d ask him to bring some matzoh balls over. I’d be pretty surprised if he didn’t have some matzoh meal squirreled away.

Poule au pot

Armed with my shopping list, after Romain came back from the store, I placed the free-range chicken in a pot. I added enough cold water so it covered about three-quarters of the chicken, then added some salt as well as a chopped leek and three carrots cut into thick batons. Fortunately we have a garden so I grabbed a few sprigs of thyme and tied them in a bundle to add to the pot, as well as two bay leaves.

Garlic is used very discreetly in French cuisine; with the exception of aïoli, which technically is Provençal - and some in Provence may argue that that’s not French cooking, that it’s Provençal. (Once again, I’m not looking for a fight. I’m just being diplomatic.) Few, if any, poule au pot recipes in French call for ail — doing an online search, the only ail I found in poule au pot recipes was in the word volaille, which means chicken.

I added four minced cloves of garlic, which the authenticity police may not approve of, and even Claude AI was baffled by the request. And into the pot that went, as the health benefits of garlic outweigh any cultural conflicts.

Everything was simmered over very low heat with the lid ajar for about 90 minutes, until the chicken was very tender. About halfway through the cooking, I used tongs to pull the thighs away from the breasts to help the broth get more infused with flavor. (That may not be scientifically provable but I have a feeling that it does.)

Once the chicken was cooked, I fished the pieces out with tongs and put them in a bowl to cool. When cool enough to handle, I shredded the meat and put it back in the pot. And that’s it.

If you want to add rice or noodles****, as I did, it’s best to cook them separately and add them to individual servings right before serving, or they’ll get soggy. Fresh dill is an add-on that’s no common in France, but Romain likes it (as do I), and picked some up at the store. It adds a nice flavor to the soothing soup.

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*Many restrooms in France, such as those in restaurants and cafés, have a cotton towel on a hook for people to dry their hands on after washing them. That may save paper, but to me, seems to defeat the purpose of washing your hands. Although perhaps the feeling is that is everybody is washing their hands, before drying them on the towel, the towel isn’t harboring any germs or viruses.

**You’ll find recipes for soupe de poulet and soupe au poulet, that are basically variations on poule au pot, which further complicates things — especially the two different prepositions for the same soup. As mentioned, French is hard…even for the French.

***Sorry about any typos.

***Like Manischewitz matzoh meal, Goodman’s egg noodles haven’t made it to France yet. But egg noodles (pâtes aux œufs) are the best with this dish.

Since 2015, Lauren Collins, staff writer for the New Yorker, has called Paris home. The author of When in French: Love in a Second Language, Lauren moved from Switzerland to France with her French husband and still writes for the New Yorker, continuing their tradition, which includes writers such as A. J. Liebling, Anthony Bourdain, Calvin Trillin, John McPhee, and Adam Gopnick, of outstanding food writing and reporting on food-related topics.

When in French by Lauren Collins

Her articles have ranged from subjects such as the controversial French tacos, spelled with an “s,” even though it’s just one; Les Grands Buffets, the all-you-can-eat buffet restaurant that’s the hardest reservation in France (in my experience trying, it’s the hardest in the world); and the elusive El Mordjene Algerian hazelnut spread, a cult favorite that’s nicknamed “beige gold,” which was banned in France.

Lauren has also written on the wonders of Japan’s fake foods, as well as “Where should I go?” a service that provides Americans and other visitors with “insider” French experiences, such as fulfilling the request of a client who wanted to be invited to a party in a French person’s home.

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Recently Lauren reviewed the just-published memoir of former Président Nicolas Sarkozy’s brief time in prison, titled How Nicolas Sarkozy Survived Twenty Days Behind Bars, a book that received a mixed reception in France. In her newsletter , she titled her story The Rush Job Memoir That’s Topping the French Charts. Oh, and she got to meet Omar Sy!

In the podcast, we discuss how these stories came to be, as well as how things have changed in France since Lauren’s moved here, and what it’s like being a journalist in France. As I do with Paris-based guests on my podcast, I asked Lauren to share some of her favorite addresses in the city for dining, which she was happy to do.

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Lauren’s recommendations are Le Récamier, Le Soufflé, Chez Carrie, Enni Udon, Magnolia, La Joie, and Rosario, as well as Finkstuebel in Strasbourg. In the podcast, she explains why they are her favorites.

Enjoy listening in!

-David

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• Subscribe to Lauren’s newsletter, Lettre Recommandée

• Read Lauren’s articles in The New Yorker

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I don’t really subscribe to anything being called the “best” because, A) It’s subjective, and B) Things change, and what’s great today may be gone tomorrow.

As for the “experts,” I ran into a friend who’d judged the best baguette in Paris contest and shortly after, I stopped her on the street carrying a baguette from a different bakery. I asked why she didn’t go to the place she said was the “best” and she replied, “When you taste over a hundred baguettes, after the first few, it’s hard to taste the differences.” So even the experts don’t know - although I’ve never been asked to judge, so you might not want to listen to me either.

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Lately we’ve felt like we needed to do some self-care and while every country has its good points and bad, Japan gets it right when it comes to the loo. So we finally bit the bullet and got a Japanese toilet, which — thanks to the magic of plumbing — upgraded our WC into a business class experience. These days it’s nice, and vital, to do things that make us feel better whenever and wherever we can, but I can only eat so many French pastries. So the Toto, it ‘tis.

For a little escapism (in the rest of our apartment), like a lot of you, I watch streaming shows - including a steamy show - although I’ve had to skip finishing Season 2 of The Last of Us because of the violence, in spite of the presence of Pedro Pascal, who was also in Eddington, which is a thoroughly disquieting movie. I wanted to join the “in” crowd and watch The Pitt, but a parental guidance website listed the violence and gore as “severe,” so that’s off my watch list. And I did watch Heated Rivalry, which was hot and heavy, and I saw lot more action in those six episodes than I did during several decades in San Francisco.

I’ve also been trying to read more and have a stack of books I’m slowly making my way through. I’m in the middle of North Woods, which is brilliantly written, if a tad hard to follow if you put it down for a few days.

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Books I’ve recently finished were Impossible City, which takes a deep dive into the psyche of how Paris functions in the 21st century, and The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store, which the NYT described as “a murder mystery locked inside a Great American Novel.” I’ve got Quiet by Susan Cain on my docket as well as Picasso the Foreigner, a nearly six-hundred-page book about Picasso’s life in France and the conflicts he had with the country. Not to mention a bounty of new baking books that I’m anxious to start baking from.

I’ve also been revisiting some of my older cookbooks, especially classics that take me back to better times (gosh, I’m sounding old…) But reading Laurie Colwin, Richard Olney, and Marion Cunningham are a balm. That also goes for Edna Lewis, who I wrote about here…

January was galette des rois season, the traditional King Cake in Paris, which is made with puff pastry and filled with almond cream. The other versions in the south of France are rings of brioche topped with crunchy pearl sugar, also called a brioche des rois.

Pâtissiers in Paris are going more and more “off script” and glowing up their galettes with everything from candied kumquats to roasted buckwheat groats, to pique people’s interest in them. Thankfully a lot of bakeries offer galettes by the part, as a whole galette for the two of us is a commitment. And if I’d ever hope to look like those dudes on Heated Rivalry, I’d need to dial down the galettes. But I’m afraid that bateau has passed…

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One thing about having plumbers come by is that it gives you a chance to discover, um…nooks and crannies that haven’t been cleaned in a while. The plumbers had to move our refrigerator, so I took that as an opportunity to take everything off the shelves, above and around it, and give them a good cleaning. A few weeks ago I cleaned out my freezers, which gave me the courage to tackle my kitchen cabinets, which are filled with condiments; honeys and oils, vinegars and salts, spices and seasonings, and vanillas, canned chiles, jars of chili crisp, misc. sauces from here, and more.

Over the past few years, my kitchen has turned into a collection of cabinets of curiosities…

I don’t know what to do with everything — candied yuzu peels, Birnendicksaft (pear butter from Switzerland), smoked sugar that I got in Scotland - how could I resist?, apricot and plum kernel oils, pistachio paste, white truffle sauce, preserved lemon, and pine bud syrup, which I have two bottles of.

An Italian friend said a drop of the pine bud syrup is excellent in a Martini, but I haven’t made a Martini in a while, although considering the state of the world, I probably should start making them again. It’s hard to complain about having too much food, especially when others aren’t as fortunate to be in the same situation as many of us are, but figuring out how to use ‘em up adds more projects and recipes to my roster* and my goal for 2026 is to go outside at least once a week.

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But one thing I never can have enough of is jam. So when I saw these bergamots at the store, I couldn’t resist buying some to (…yes, I know I don’t need any more projects…) make marmalade.

The name is a bit confusing in France as they often label sweet lemons as bergamots, which they’re not. True bergamots, likely a cross between a lemon or citron and Seville sour oranges, are highly perfumed and mostly valued for their aromatic peels. In the last few years, the variety of citrus available in Paris has greatly expanded. I used to comb the city looking for citrons, happy to find them wherever and whenever I could, and recently, I saw them in my local supermarket.

Candied Citron recipe

When I saw bergamots at my local produce store, I rifled through the box and plucked out three of the nicest-looking ones to make some marmalade. For those who say they “don’t like things too sweet,” bergamots lean toward the bitter side, so this marmalade is for you.

If you can find them, I rinsed and dried mine (which weighed 1 1/2 pounds/700g), trimmed off the stems, and quartered them. My bergamots had just a few seeds, but if yours have more, tie them up in a piece of cheesecloth, making a little sack full of seeds, and cook them with the marmalade, which’ll add extra pectin to help thicken the marmalade.

Slice the bergamots as thin as possible and put the pieces in a big nonreactive pot and cover with cold water. Bring to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer until the pieces are translucent, about 6 minutes. Drain them and put the drained bergamot pieces back in the pot. Add 2 1/2 cups (500g) granulated sugar and 1 quart (1L) water, plus the little packet of seeds, if you have them, as well as a pinch of salt. Put a small plate in the freezer for testing the marmalade later.

Bring the mixture to a full boil, then reduce to a low boil, cooking the mixture until the syrup between the pieces of bergamots are as thick as maple syrup. Remove from the heat and place a small spoonful of marmalade on the chilled plate, then return it to the freezer for a few minutes. Take it out and nudge the marmalade with your finger; it won’t wrinkle like other preserves but will be thick enough to stand up on its own. If not, cook the marmalade more, testing it again, until it’s the right consistency. Most preserves set between 218-220ºF (103-104ºC).

For this marmalade the temperature will be about 215ºF (101-102ºC) when done. Spoon the marmalade into jars and refrigerate until ready to eat. This’ll give you two jars of marmalade, which is what we’ve been eating for breakfast the last few weeks, and has certainly brightened up our winter mornings.

If you can’t find bergamots, there are other citrus marmalade recipes here:

My Jam and Preserves recipes

Romain and I did a little Made in France shopping this month, stopping by La Trésorerie, a store that’s fun to visit in Paris. If you’re into housewares, it’s a must-stop. (Note: I’ll be doing an event there next spring for the release of my new chocolate book. I can’t wait!)

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We picked up an old-fashioned broom, a wood-handled bottle washing brush, and…while not French, I couldn’t resist this petite Toyo Japanese toolbox, since “someone” is always, um…borrowing my tools, and not returning them. The bright red metal makes it hard to swipe : )

I’ve also been transitioning our storage containers to glass and want to support worker-owned Duralex, which has been struggling to survive. That’s what happens, I suppose, when your products are so well made that people don’t need to replace them. So I invested in new storage containers. The great thing about glass, while heavier and more expensive, is it doesn’t retain odors like plastic does.

I want Duralex to succeed and wish they’d “think outside the box” and do some fun collaborations with French designers, like Orangina did with Matali Crasset.

Unfortunately they weren’t made by Duralex and break rather easily, so I pick them up whenever I see them at flea markets. But if Duralex wants to make some glasses with me, I’m up for it.

-David

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Links I’m Liking…

-How a BIC pen became a symbol of France. (Engelsberg Ideas)

-27% of French adults say they would like to move out of France. So if you want to come, there may be more room… (Gallup)

-I talked to Saveur for their Amused Bouche questionnaire and shared the Marjolaine recipe from Ready for Dessert. (Saveur)

Get Ready for Dessert!

-20,000 pieces of tableware from top restaurants in Paris up for sale, Feb. 6 and 7. (La Vaisselle des Chefs)

-Lots of mixed feelings about a new documentary on the rise and fall of Jeff Smith, aka, The Frugal Gourmet. (I Bid You Peace)

-Is fleur de sel really worth its salt? (Taste)

-Need boxes in France? This organization in France resells used cartons and packing materials. (Carton Plein)

-Doesn’t look like alligator is on la carte, but clothing brand Lacoste opens a café in Paris. (Sortir à Paris)

-$25 million in debt, Food52 files for bankruptcy. (AdWeek)

-Speaking of money, it’ll cost you $1500 to eat at Noma in Los Angeles. Update: All meals are sold out. (Eater LA)

-”Jodie in Paris” - Jodie Foster’s connection to France goes all the way back to her childhood. (NYT/article unlocked)

-European cities start cracking down on rolling suitcases. (MSN)

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Things I Like

I’m okay not preaching to people about what produce to buy since most of you are adults and can make your own decisions. But I recently took notice of science finding a link between pesticides and Parkinson’s disease and thought that was worth sharing, and new findings say that high-fat cheese and cream may reduce the risk of dementia. So I can relax about all the cheese we eat in France. Whew!

Plastic wrap is one of those necessary evils in the baking world. Fortunately there are more and more eco-friendly alternatives. Lately I’ve been using silicone covers that are microwave safe and many can even go in the oven. (Check the manufacturer’s advice. You don’t want your leftover macaroni and cheese served under a blanket of melted plastic or silicone.)

I picked up some silicone lids and have been loving them for covering bowls and reheating food. They’re wonderful and reusable, and mine (shown above) have a handle so you don’t get a steam burn peeling it off the bowl, as you can get with plastic wrap. I got mine at a kitchenware shop in Japan but I know they’re for sale in other countries. I use my lids almost every day and, like my new glass storage bowls, they’ve been a great investment.

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*A classic, and understandable, response might be to tell me to “Make ice cream!” which I do with lots of my baking projects when I’m testing recipes, and end up crumbling brownies that didn’t quite work, or candied nuts I’ve been working on, to fold into ice cream. However, I just cleaned out my freezer(s) and am not keen on filling them up again. But yes, I do have a recipe for plum kernel oil ice cream. So that’s on my docket…

We’ve been eating out more and more since so many new places, or at least new to me, are popping up. Some have been really good and others, not so much. When I’m eating out with friends, I’ll often ask at the end of the meal, “Would you come back?” That, to me, is one barometer of me recommending a place. Another is, “Would you have fun there?” Here’s a mix of restaurants I’ve been to recently in Paris that I liked. A few come with caveats, which are mentioned…

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I feel like so much is going on in the world that it’s just too much to take everything in. Sometimes I wake up in the morning and feel like I’m in a whole new world, as I did today.

In the arc of my life, I went from washing dishes, to working as a line cook, then to rolling dough and peeling apples in restaurants, to where I am now. I never felt like I had imposter syndrome because I feel like I’m just continuing to do what I’ve always done: peel apples, bake cookies and cakes, and yes, I still wash dishes. While there’s no word for “home baker” in French, that’s who I am now. Being at home has its advantages, but I do miss working in restaurants with other people, some from vastly different cultures, and others with backgrounds similar to mine.

I’ve worked alongside people who’ve shared with me how, in their country, everything got taken away from her family — their house, their money and savings, and their business — and they came to the United States to make a new life for themselves. Another fellow had crossed the Pacific Ocean on an overcrowded boat, a voyage that took several months, and many people didn’t make it. It’s incredible what humans can do and overcome. It was so different than my life and I couldn’t imagine doing what they did. But they did it.

Recently I opened up my copy of The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis. The granddaughter of a freed slave, she and her seven siblings grew up in Freetown, a Virginia community founded by other freed slaves that was composed of eleven families. The book reflects on a different time and a seemingly gentler place, and she bucolically recounts her childhood, skimming cream from crocks of milk to churn into butter, making jelly from wild grapes, and wine from dandelion blossoms, as well as beer, from persimmons. There was also the weeding of corn fields, gathering hickory nuts to make cookies, pickling wild mushrooms, hand-churning ice cream, and enjoying her mother’s homemade liver pudding, made after the hogs were butchered.

I’m not sure how many kids today would enjoy liver pudding, or doing chores, but her writing is so evocative that I could imagine them.

Miss Lewis, as she was later called, grew up and eventually moved to New York City where she was hired as a chef, a rarity for a Black woman in those days. She began as the chef at Cafe Nicholson in 1948, then later in life, in 1988, became the chef at Gage & Tollner when she was 72 years old.

In between, she did everything from pheasant farming and catering to teaching cooking classes. She was prodded by editor Judith Jones, who edited Julia Child, Madhur Jaffrey, James Beard, and Jacques Pépin, to write her now-classic book, The Taste of Country Cooking. It’s so beloved that there was a 30th anniversary edition of the book, and coming soon is a 50th anniversary edition. (For a more complete picture of Edna Lewis, there are some in-depth biographies of her here, here, and here.)

By the time I met Edna Lewis, her hair had turned a ravishing grey color and she wore it tightly pulled back, which emphasized her striking features. She was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen, and I was fortunate enough to meet her and have her sign a copy of her book to me. After she passed, her likeness was featured on a U.S. postage stamp.

I recently decided to clean out my freezers. Yes, freezers, plural, and I’m hoping to tackle my kitchen cabinets next. In one cabinet I have a little jug of sorghum molasses from who-knows-when. Maybe when I made Sorghum ice cream with sorghum peanut brittle? Every time I come across it, I think, “I need to use this.” It gets brought to the front of the cabinet, waiting for its turn, then eventually gets pushed towards the back again.

But when I saw that Edna Lewis had a recipe for Warm Gingerbread with Sweetened Whipped Cream in the book that called for “1 1/2 cups sorghum molasses”* — finally, I’d found just the right place, and time, to use it.

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The molasses that many of us know is made from sugar cane or sugar beets. Sorghum is a grass that arrived in America from Africa. It became widely grown and used in the American South, although sorghum syrup (as it’s also called) is not as widely known, or as available, as cane sugar molasses, which is a shame because it’s really tasty stuff.

Sorghum molasses has a tangier, more complex flavor than standard baking molasses, which is called light or mild molasses. It falls between those and blackstrap molasses; the latter is very intense and too assertive for most baked goods.

When I was revising Ready for Dessert, I noticed the most prominent molasses brands in the U.S. have changed how they labeled molasses, which gave me a bit of anxiety, trying to explain them to my dear readers, so I asked a friend coming over from the States to bring them all to me so I could taste them myself. Because that’s who I am.

Get Ready for Dessert!

Brer Rabbit, one of the major brands, sells three types of molasses: Blackstrap, Mild Flavor, and Full Flavor. The blackstrap was very strong and bitter. I didn’t taste a big difference between the Mild and Full Flavor molasses, but they recommend the Full Flavor for baking and the Mild as a sweetener. Grandma’s sells Original and Robust molasses. The latter isn’t called blackstrap but tastes like it.

Molasses isn’t used much here in France, but mélasse is available in natural food stores and is very strong, similar to blackstrap molasses. So if I have to use it, I’ll cut it with honey. In the UK, there’s treacle, and here is how it compares to molasses.

American Baking Ingredients in France

The first gingerbread that I made from the book turned out quite dense, as you can see above. It tasted great (Romain loved it…), but the texture wasn’t what I was expecting. So I made it again without the 1/4 cup of oil, which I used in place of the lard** that the recipe called for, and it came out beautifully. And we’ve been snacking on it all week.

Edna Lewis’s final book, published in 1988, was titled In Pursuit of Flavor, which echoed something my grandmother, who was from the same generation as Miss Lewis, complained about. She couldn’t tell if it was because she was getting older, but to them, food had less flavor than it did when they were growing up. However, there’s no denying that this gingerbread is packed with flavor. And like Miss Lewis’s words, the warm spices and flavor of the rich, bittersweet molasses hark back to a different time, one of civility and grace — and getting a taste of both of those can’t be beat.

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Edna Lewis’s Gingerbread

One 8-inch (20cm) cake; ten to twelve servings

Adapted from The Taste of Country Cooking by Edna Lewis

Like many snack cakes, this one is made in a square cake pan. If you don’t have an 8-inch (20cm) square cake pan, according to this (calculated by someone better at math than me), you can use an 8-inch (20cm) round cake pan with a little math. I haven’t tried it but I’m fairly certain you could bake it in a 9-inch/23cm round cake pan if that’s all you have. It may come out thinner and you might have to adjust the baking time up or down. Just go by the toothpick test to test for doneness, which is invariably accurate. You may find the texture of this cake to be denser than other gingerbreads. (If you’re looking for a lighter gingerbread, my ginger cake recipe is lighter, and made with fresh ginger.)

Do make sure to give the batter a good whisking if you see any little lumps in it. They won’t dissolve during baking, so you want to make sure there aren’t any before you pour the batter into the pan.

2 cups (280g) all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder, preferably aluminum-free

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon ground (dried) ginger

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup (250ml) water

8 tablespoons (4 ounces/115g) unsalted butter, room temperature, cubed

2 large eggs, at room temperature

1 1/2 cups (480g) molasses (see notes in post)

Butter an 8-inch (20cm) square cake pan. Dust the inside with flour and tap out the excess. Cut a piece of parchment paper into a square to line the bottom.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC).

In a large bowl, whisk or sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt.

Heat the water until it’s very hot in a small saucepan. Remove from the heat and add the cubes of butter. Stir until the butter is melted, then stir the water and butter mixture into the dry ingredients. Mix in the eggs one at a time, stirring until smooth, then mix in the molasses. If the batter is lumpy, whisk the batter briskly until it’s completely smooth and lump-free.

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan. Bake the cake until it feels set in the center and a toothpick inserted into the middle of it comes out clean, 35 to 45 minutes.

Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack. The cake can be served warm or at room temperature. To remove the cake from the pan, run a knife around the outside of the cake to separate it from the cake pan, then tilt the cake out of the pan. Peel off the parchment paper, then place the cake on a serving platter.

Serving: Edna Lewis served this cake warm with whipped cream, which she made by whipping 1 cup (250ml) of heavy cream with 2 tablespoons of sugar and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract. Modern tastes might reduce the amount of sugar in half.

Edna Lewis's Gingerbread Recipe

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*Although I see some websites refer to it as sorghum molasses, it’s often called sorghum syrup.

**Lard isn’t commonly used in baking in France. It’s available in supermarkets, called saindoux, and is mostly used for greasing the griddles when making crêpes.

If I told you that today’s recipe is for dried-out brownies, I wouldn’t blame you if your finger was hovering over the keyboard, ready to click away. Look, I like soft, moist, chocolatey brownies as much as the next guy. (Perhaps even more.) But this is one of the most surprising recipes I’ve come across, and one that I wasn’t expecting to like as much as I did.

It’s from a new book, 108 Asian Cookies by whose subtitle will likely resonate with quite a few of you: Not-Too-Sweet Treats from a Third-Culture Kitchen, and I was intrigued by the idea of Asian cookies.

Flipping through the book, I found that quite a few of the recipes are variations of Western favorites, which is where the third culture comes in. There are Linzer cookies accented with yuzu, Lace cookies get drizzled with miso caramel, Thai basil perfumes Chocolate sandwich cookies, and Red velvet brownies are spiced up with doubanjiang, Chinese fermented bean paste.

I’d bookmarked a few recipes but the Chocolate brownie brittle with candied walnuts stood out, partially because I had all the ingredients on hand, and partially because I’m drawn to crispy foods, even when the moniker is applied to brownies. I couldn’t imagine how a crackly, uber-thin brownie could satisfy my chocolate cravings. I like very dark chocolate desserts yet wasn’t sure something as thin as a coin could give me the same pleasure as a dense, chewy brownie. But I was proved wrong.

My first reaction to them, coming out of the oven was, “Um…okay…” The brittle looked like dried-out shards of chocolate batter.

Then I took a taste and wow — was that good!

Like a number of recipes in the book, this one called for a tablespoon of Japanese whisky in the brownie batter and a tablespoon of miso in the glazed walnuts. I’m not sure if I could discern a difference if I omitted that small amount, or maybe my palate isn’t as acute as other people’s. But you can take matters into your own hands and Kat offers up bourbon as an alternative to the Japanese whisky, which I didn’t have on hand (but I’ve got plenty of other whiskys), and I do have white miso, which I swapped for the red miso called for in the walnuts. But I also tried the candied walnuts with soy sauce in place of the miso, which works, too.

I tend to use dark cocoa powder (Valrhona or Cacao Barry extra brute) when I bake because I don’t believe you can have too much chocolate flavor. But when you use it, things’ll come out darker, and you risk people seeing your pictures and saying, “Hey, that’s burnt.” I’m not sure if comments like that are meant to be helpful, or what. But if you don’t know what you’re talking about, it’s probably best not to say anything.

For the first try (shown farther above), the brownie brittle came out quite dark due to the cocoa powder and looks almost burnt, but wasn’t. 😅

Get Ready for Dessert

The next time I gave it a go with regular Dutch-process cocoa powder (Bensdorp), below, and they came out a little lighter. (Note: I took the pictures on different days and the light here changes almost by the hour. So there are some differences due to that, too.)

In addition to the rich chocolate color, the chocolate flavor came through loud and clear. The chocolate chips scattered about gave it an extra boost of chocolate, and the lightly savory nuts were just as delicious on their own as they were on the brittle…and thankfully the recipe makes extra, so you can toss them into a winter salad. Baker’s Bonus: A few of the nuts may fall off the brittle when you break it up, with the caramel fused to the batter, which are especially tasty to snack on.

Bravo to Kat for introducing me to this brittle. Not only that, but friends who came by and grabbed a bite loved it too. I’m not a fan of the word “addictive,” but I’m going to use it here because in this case, I know what I’m talking about and won’t shut up about it.

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Chocolate Brownie Brittle with Candied Walnuts

Adapted from 108 Asian Cookies: Not-Too-Sweet Treats from a Third-Culture Kitchen by Kat Lieu

This chocolate brownie brittle has lots of chocolate flavor, even though the batter has only 2 tablespoons (12g) of cocoa powder. The chocolate chips on top also dial up the chocolate flavor, but I’m a sucker for anything with candied nuts on it as well, and this brownie brittle ended up checking lots of boxes for me.

Cocoa powder FAQs

In her book, Kat calls for Japanese whisky in the brownie batter, and red miso with the candied nuts. I tinkered and tested it with various ingredients and substitutions, and if you don’t have red miso, you could use white miso or soy sauce, or leave it out and just stir in a good pinch of salt when mixing in the nuts with butter and sugar. For the Japanese whisky (or bourbon) in the brownie batter, I made it with a teaspoon of pure vanilla extract, and it came out very well, but a tablespoon of rum or brandy would work too.

I also gave the recipe a go with pecans in place of the walnuts, which work just as well. Whichever you use, you’ll end up with more candied nuts than you’ll need for the brittle; leftovers can be tossed in a winter salad or enjoyed as a snack.

Candied walnuts

2 cups (220g) whole shelled walnuts

1/4 cup (50g) sugar

2 tablespoons (30g) unsalted butter, cut into small cubes, at room temperature (very soft)

1 tablespoon red or white miso (optional, see headnote)

1/3 cup (40g) toasted white sesame seeds

Brownie brittle

1/2 cup (60g) all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons (12g) unsweetened Dutch-process cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

Pinch of salt

2 large egg whites (1/4 cup), at room temperature

1/2 cup (100g) sugar

4 tablespoons (60g) melted unsalted butter

1 tablespoon whisky or 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract (see headnote)

1/2 cup (85g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate chips

Flaky sea salt, such as Maldon or fleur de sel

To make the candied walnuts, preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

Put the walnuts in a medium saucepan, cover them with water, and bring the water to a boil (this reduces their bitterness). Drain the walnuts very well in a strainer, shaking off as much excess water as you can. Put the walnuts in a medium mixing bowl and add the sugar, cubed butter, miso (if using), and sesame seeds. Stir vigorously until the butter and sugar are melted and the nuts are well coated.

Spread the nuts and any liquid on the prepared baking sheet. Bake for a total of 18-20 minutes, stirring the nuts every 5 minutes, making sure that you mix in the nuts from the edges of the pan, which will start browning first, toward the center, so they all toast evenly. When done, the nuts should be lightly browned. There may be some syrup on the pan when the nuts are finished. If so, stir the syrup into the nuts as they cool so it coats the nuts, which’ll firm up as the nuts cool.

(The nuts can be made a few days in advance and kept in an airtight container at room temperature.)

To make the brownie brittle, reduce the heat of the oven to 325ºF (160ºC). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone baking mat.

In a small bowl, whisk or sift together (if the cocoa powder is lumpy) the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt. In a separate medium bowl, whisk the egg whites until they just start to hold their shape when you lift the whisk, but are still a little sloshy; don’t beat them until stiff.

Whisk the sugar into the egg whites in four additions, then stir in the melted butter and whisky or vanilla. Fold in the dry ingredients with a flexible spatula. Spread the batter on the prepared baking sheet so it’s in a thin, even layer (a small, offset metal spatula works best for this). You want to end up with a rectangle that measures about 14 x 10 inches (35 x 25 cm). Top the batter with about 1 1/4 cups (115g) of the walnuts (or more, if you want) evenly spaced over the top, then the chocolate chips.

Bake the brittle until it’s baked through and crispy, 20 to 25 minutes. Remove from the oven and let cool on the baking sheet, then sprinkle with flaky sea salt and break into shards.

Storage: The brittle will keep for 3-4 days in an airtight container at room temperature.

Chocolate Brownie Brittle With Candied Walnuts

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108 Asian Cookies

Moving to a foreign country has been in the news a lot lately. But it isn’t always what people expect it to be and it’s not always easy, which I can attest to. (Although it may have been a little easier for me if my name was George Clooney.)

When I see the phrase “Live like a local!” I wonder if people really want to go to city hall to renew visa paperwork or change their internet provider in a foreign language, which in America requires you to just drop off your modem at your provider’s nearest storefront, while in France, it’s a six-month affair. And, you have to pay to quit.

I’ve learned a lot living here after nearly twenty-five years and while moving from one country to another poses challenges wherever you are, France has a lot of unspoken rules of conduct and etiquette, and it’s not known for its “ease of use”…shall we say. Although I was stunned when a very nice woman from the citizenship office called me to say that I made a mistake on one of my forms and wanted to confirm that it wasn’t right so that she could change it for me. France has a way of surprising you.

Some people who come here have a hard time adjusting. So much so that an organization, the Franco-American Community Center in Paris, used to have a program called Bloom Where You’re Planted, a one-day event with speakers to help newcomers learn about, and integrate into, life in Paris.

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Topics covered were health care questions, cultural issues, mental health, accounting and taxes, and immigration issues. For some reason they asked me to speak, perhaps to lighten the mood?…which I did by talking about some of the goofy things that happened to me, or that I did, so people would feel more at ease in their new home and realize that they weren’t the only ones going through a challenging transition.

After I spoke, I took questions from attendees and found out that some people didn’t want to be in Paris. (In spite of what you see on social media, moving abroad can be very lonely, no matter how many pictures people post of croissants.) In some instances their spouses were transferred here, so they had to move their whole family (and lives) abroad. Many were baffled at cultural differences. Others, like me, were at transition points in their lives and looking for a new beginning or somewhere else to settle. Somehow, we all ended up here.

Some had had bad interactions, such as a curt shopkeeper, or they’d been shoved out of the way on the métro. It was especially hard on them because they couldn’t talk to their friends about their emotional difficulties since people would invariably say, “But you’re in Paris!” This was before Emily in Paris arrived, but if anyone expects Paris to be like that, please let the rest of us know where all those hot French guys, who somehow speak perfect English — are.

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For a country with a reputation for being slow to change, France has certainly been changing in several ways. The restaurants have gotten a lot better, and more diverse, since the days of gloom and doom, when French cuisine was in decline, coffee was referred to, in French, as jus de chausette (sock juice), and chain bakeries (yuck) were being pitted against artisan boulangeries.

People who don’t live in France often don’t like to hear that France is changing, but change isn’t bad, especially when things change for the better. Sure, no one has figured out how to keep the electronic kiosks at customs at Charles de Gaulle airport in working order, which makes you miss the few humans who worked at the kiosks before. (Even though that never seemed enough, either.) Nor has the repairman come to fix our heat; only two of the eight radiators in our apartment are working right now. (This week the temperatures dropped below freezing.) And rather than a Joyeux Noël message from my accountant, she sent me a request for loads of paperwork…on Christmas Eve. Bah humbug, or however you say that in French. (They do have Père Fouettard, who punishes children who are bad with a whip. But no word if they have someone like that for heating repairmen who don’t show up.)

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On the other hand, we do have over 1000 kilometers (620 miles) of bike lanes in Paris, which is credited for cutting pollution in half. There’s a new wave of chocolate boutiques in Paris, and we’re in the middle of a bread renaissance, with more and more boulangeries baking great-quality bread, often with heritage grains and slow fermentation methods.

Almost a decade ago, in “Challenging the way the French think about bread,” baker Alice Quillet of Ten Belles bread remarked that when they opened, French people were outraged they didn’t make baguettes. But with the marge (profit margin) on a baguette averaging 8 to 10 centimes, it’s no wonder that some bakeries aren’t keen on making or selling them.

While I love a good baguette, I’m really excited about what bread bakers are baking up in Paris right now. As bakery owner Benoît Castel recently said, “We’ve never eaten such good bread as we are right now”…and I agree.

Bakeries in France are considered a vital part of life in France and during the Covid lockdowns, bakeries were exempt, as they were considered “essential” businesses. (As were tobacco stores.) Bread is considered a right in France, hence the low prices for baguettes, which range from about €1 - €1,60 ($1.20 - $1.90), although the owner of Du Pain et des Idées shocked people by charging €4 for a croissant and €4,30 for a chocolatine (pain au chocolat), around three times what other bakeries charge, arguing that the price of the ingredients and the labor justified the price.

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I feel spoiled and it’s easy to get blasé about having access to good bread. Some favorite bakeries I frequent: Landemaine, Poilâne, Terroirs d’Avenir, Brigat’, Sain, Ten Belles, Archibald, and Mamiche, which is the only place in Paris that I’ll wait in a line that long. And no, I don’t have any clout or get any special favors — like getting to jump the queue — around here.

As another example, I put my name on the waiting list in early December for a panettone from Christophe Louie. I’ve been a fan since he started making them and visited his private workshop, which he kindly gave me a tour of, before he opened his own bakery in the Marais. I put my name on the waiting list to be notified when more would be available but didn’t get any notifications. I was in the neighborhood and stopped by to see if my charms could move me up a few notches.

No dice. (Although I don’t wish a visit from Père Fouettard on him.) So I got a panettone from Brigat’, which was excellent, even though a Debbie Downer online tried to dampen my excitement, saying there shouldn’t be any almonds on a panettone. I couldn’t bring myself to pick them off and throw them away.

In spite of it being a little chilly around here, we’re also doing our best to make it through winter and Romain keeps reminding me that, as of last month, the days are now (supposedly) getting longer.

I’m not packing up my gloves, scarves, and down comforter quite yet, but am enjoying winter cooking. One of my favorite things to make when it’s cold out is braised duck. A lot of French cooking involves braising, cooking foods at a gentle simmer until they’re tender and succulent, like this one.

There’s nothing more foolproof than braised duck legs, which are actually thighs…as Debbie D. might point out. But if someone wants to take on the English language, and all the quirky translations, be my guest. Like, why is an entrée in French a starter, whereas in American English, it’s the main course? I also once tried explaining to Romain that in English, green beans cut on the diagonal are called “French-cut.” I got a perplexed look, similar to when I offered him a pretzel filled with peanut butter from a bag a friend brought me over from the States.

The most challenging part may be finding the duck thighs. But if you can’t find them, you could use chicken and swap out white wine for the red, which would probably work better with the milder-flavored chicken. You’d also want to reduce the amount of time since chicken cooks faster than duck.

I have a braised duck with prunes recipe here that I braise in the oven…

Braised Duck recipe

…but this time around, I cooked them on the stovetop. I seasoned the duck thighs with salt and pepper, and browned them in a bit of oil, skin side down. If you’re thinking ahead, salting the duck a day or two in advance improves its flavor.

Once browned, remove the thighs from the pot, add a splash of decent red wine from a bottle, scrape the delicious bits off the bottom of the pan, then add the duck back, along with the rest of the bottle of wine. I like to add thyme, bay leaves, garlic, and orange peel, but you can use whatever you’d like.

Add enough water to cover the duck thighs (if cooking chicken, add enough water to cover them halfway). Bring the liquid to a boil, then reduce it to a very low simmer and cook gently, covered, until the thigh meat is very tender. Figure about three hours. I did add some peeled pearl onions and cubes of rutabaga an hour before the duck was done.

The duck can be cooked the day before, then cooled and refrigerated, which allows you to skim off excess fat before rewarming it. But it can be enjoyed right away, or kept in the braising liquid for an hour or so, until you’re ready for dinner. It’s good with mashed potatoes, if you’re not adding root vegetables to the pot, or wide noodles.

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January is the most challenging month in Paris, with the cold weather keeping most of us inside, and everyone is missing the days when we could sit on a café terrace and have a glass of wine. Smoking must make people hardier than I thought since les fumeurs remain steadfastly outside in sub-zero temperatures, puffing away.

We did get to warm ourselves by a fire for my birthday, which came at the end of December. A lot of businesses close in Paris that week so people can take a break, which is nice, although our favorite places are also closed, which makes going out for dinner a little challenging. So we headed out of town. You can read a bit more about where we went, below…

- David

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Le Doyenné

To end the year, we celebrated my birthday at Le Doyenné, the beautiful restaurant and guesthouse owned and run by chef James Henry and chef Shaun Kelly, who’s in charge of the potager (garden), located about 45 minutes from Paris. I’ve been meaning to go since they opened, but somehow never found the right time or date to have dinner there. But when I noticed a room available on my birthday, I booked it, along with a table for dinner.

We arrived by car in the late afternoon, just as night was getting ready to fall, and took a walk through the gardens before dinner. Most of the garden was in repose, with hardy vegetables like mâche, kale, cabbage, and Brussels sprouts holding their own in the cold. Shaun gave me a tour of the various rooms and cold chambers in the kitchens where winter squash were stored; berries, seaweeds, and other fermentations were doing their things in glass jars; charcuterie was drying; and bread was rising for the restaurant. (James worked at Tartine in San Francisco and Ten Belles in Paris, and is known for his breads.)

After our walk we curled up on the sofa with glasses of wine by the fireplace, until the sommelier stopped by with the wine list to ask us what we wanted to drink with dinner. We mostly drink white wines these days, but for a change, she helped us pick a nice red wine that was from a favorite producer in the Jura. It was great to see a wine list with good wines at a range of prices, from €39 to several hundred, and the list leans heavily into low-intervention (or natural) wines.

Then we moved to the cathedral-like, glassed-in dining room, which was a bit chilly when the sun went down (I would have taken my dinner by the fire!). Dinner began with a parade of hors d’œuvres, which included two thin slices of incredibly good charcuterie; fresh scallops sitting on a dab of raw cream, with pickled wild mushroom juice and bits of Meyer lemon on top; as well as an array of crudités, raw vegetables that had been picked that day from their garden. We loved everything.

The next course was an onion tart made with pink onions from Roscoff, in Brittany, and wild mushrooms, held in place by a little ricotta, with a sauce spiked with the lightly oxidized wine from the Jura, vin jaune. Following that were a few slices of barely cooked dorade with seaweed, spinach, and pomelo. (Their citrus comes from a producer in the south of France.)

Then we had a flavorful plate of duck (yes, duck is popular in France in the winter…), which came with radicchio and squash from the garden, and a gratin dish of pommes boulangère, slow-cooked, well-bronzed potato slices. We skipped the optional cheese course since it was a lot of food and went right to dessert, which was a chestnut tart - and included a candle - as well as Jerusalem artichoke ice cream, made with topinambours from the garden, and ruby grapefruit sorbet.

After herbal tisane by the fire, we headed to bed, and woke up to a spectacular breakfast buffet that featured everything from housemade croissants and ham and cheese pastries, mini canelés, apple-quince sauce, yogurt and granola, to thin sliced ham from their cellar, smoky grilled bread with some of the best butter I’ve ever tasted, along with homemade bitter orange marmalade, fresh carrot juice, and lots of dark coffee.

It was quite an experience and I was sorry that I had waited so long to go. Le Doyenné is quite a special place and while so many places are boasting about their farm-to-table fare, it was reassuring to be somewhere where the connection and commitment were direct and immediate, and real.

After hitting the boutique, where they wrapped up a loaf of bread for us to take home — the butter, unfortunately, wasn’t for sale — we headed back to Paris.

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If you want to go, you can get to Le Doyenné from Paris by taking the RER C, then a taxi or Uber for the short trip (about 5 minutes, they said) to the restaurant. Or you can get a taxi or Uber for making the trip from Paris if you don’t have a car. (I checked the Uber app while we were there to see the price, which was €45 one-way on a Sunday afternoon, but prices fluctuate.) They have detailed instructions for getting there here.

If you go for dinner, which lasts around 2 1/2 to 3 hours, it’s probably best to either stay the night or get a ride back to Paris. It’s possible to do lunch as a day trip. Rooms run between €265 and €340 per night, which includes a fantastic breakfast. It’s a bit of a splurge, but if it’s your birthday, maybe you can justify it? ☺️

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Lastly…

Maybe I’ve saved the best for last? (Or buried the lede…) But I’ve got a new book coming out this spring, a completely revised version of The Great Book of Chocolate. When I first wrote TGBOC in 2004, there were maybe three bean-to-bar chocolate makers in the United States, and now there are over two hundred. So much has changed!

You can now get high-quality chocolate chips and cocoa powders at supermarkets, and there’s a huge variety of chocolates available at every price point. And some companies are even experimenting with non-cacao chocolate substitutes, which I tested and wrote about in the book, along with my results baking with them. As an added bonus, I include a beautifully photographed chapter and guide on where to find the best chocolates in Paris.

The information about chocolate has been completely brought up-to-date, and I added lots of new recipes to the book. They include a rich dark Chocolate olive oil spread with flaky sea salt, Individual warm chocolate cakes with runny, salted butter caramel centers, Triple (or quadruple) chocolate cookies, Vegan chocolate marshmallows (don’t turn your nose up - they were approved, and loved, by a French policeman!), Turkey mole, and a sophisticated Chocolate Negroni from the world’s best cocktail bar.

I recast and revised the other recipes, such as the Chocolate-cherry buttermilk scones and a decidedly French Gâteau au chocolate, as well as the Homemade rocky road and the ultra-dark Mocha pudding cake.

What was once a slender volume on chocolate has grown into a full-size book with beautiful new photographs from award-winning photographer Ed Anderson with food styling by George Dolese and Elisabet der Nederlanden.

Pre-order The Great Book of Chocolate

You can pre-order The Great Book of Chocolate at your favorite independent local bookstore 😍 or online at Bookshop, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.

It’s almost the end of 2025 and I can probably guess that you’re feeling a bit like me right now. Somewhat overwhelmed as the year draws to a close. A little tired, but with enough enthusiasm for the current and upcoming holidays and parties. It was nice to get away to Japan before the sprint to the finish. And I am hoping Santa puts a Japanese WC under our tree. Okay, we don’t have a tree…but maybe I’ll get one for my birthday, which is a few days later.

We’re staying put this year. A friend offered his house on a sunny French island, where the temperature is currently 80ºF (27ºC), but Air France wanted €3000 ($3500) for each of us to get there, squished into an airline seat for the 13 1/2-hour flight, so we took a pass. Home is pretty nice around the holidays so I’m not too upset. Even better, lots of people leave Paris to visit family in their maisons sécondaires, so it’s rather quiet. We are going to do an overnight out in the countryside, which is my birthday treat to myself. (Although Romain is coming along too!)

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One of the best things that happened this year was I released a new book. Writing a book is a two-year project, from getting all the recipes tested and written, to taking the photos and designing the final book. I was really fortunate to have an excellent group of people working on the project: my main editor, the copy and production editors, proofreaders, and book designer, as well as the two remarkable food stylists and food photographer who came to Paris for three weeks to shoot the book. Thanks team!

I’m planning on making either the Marjolaine or the Lemon semifreddo from the book for Christmas dessert. My little Meyer lemon tree in our backyard only has one lone, ripe lemon on it — except I just noticed bird had attacked it 😟 — but I spotted Meyer lemons at a new, produce-oriented grocery store near me (you can also get them in France here), and scooped them all up.

So need to decide which one to make…or should I make them both?

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It’s been really nice to see such enthusiasm for my book, Ready for Dessert, and I thought I’d share a roundup on where it’s been.

And….I just want to also take a moment as this year draws to a close to thank everyone who is a paid subscriber to the newsletter. Making the switch from an ad-supported platform to a reader-supported one has been the right decision, and I like how this has become a comfortable community, rather than just a website of people clicking by.

So thanks to everyone of you who subscribes to the newsletter — free and paid — and looking forward to keeping in touch in 2026!

(If you’d like to upgrade to a paid subscription, you can do so here.)

Also…thanks for everyone who featured Ready for Dessert in their newsletter and in print. A few newsletters are partially paywalled but you can read the interviews and Q & As on most of them without (or before) subscribing:

Get Ready for Dessert!

• Baking Cookies with David Lebovitz ( / Between the Layers)

Anne Byrn: Between the Layers

Baking Cookies with David Lebovitz - No. 369

IN THE WORLD OF FOOD WRITING, some people cook, some people write, and some folks do both…

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4 months ago · 24 likes · 14 comments · Anne Byrn

• David Lebovitz on Boring Headnotes, New Editions, and the Cookbooks That Got Away ()

Cookbookery Collective

David Lebovitz on Boring Headnotes, New Editions, and the Cookbooks That Got Away

My first idea for this week’s headline was to say I had a mystery guest, copy over a few lines from his Substack, and then let everyone guess who was joining me. I was pretty confident that the vast majority of Cookbookery Collective subscribers would recognize…

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6 months ago · 75 likes · 28 comments · Jenna Helwig

• Bartending legend Jeffrey Morgenthaler shares his copy of Ready for Dessert…

  (Don’t forget to make his amazing recipe for eggnog this year! He even has a non-alcoholic version, too.)

@jeffmorgen

Jeffrey Morgenthaler on Instagram: "Most of you know I love to …

• Chocolate Mousse and Amaretti Cookies from Ready for Dessert. ( / partial paywall)

ZoëBakes Newsletter

Chocolate Mousse and Amaretti Cookies

David Lebovitz is a pastry unicorn. He started his career in the 1980s, right on top. There are few American restaurants as respected as Chez Panisse, where he was pastry chef. It has a legacy for excellence and innovation. Alice Waters may have been the visionary who started the restaurant, but people like David Lebovitz kept it humming and delicious. He was famous in food circles before the internet made it possible to go viral. He was creating desserts that put him on the map, when maps were still made of paper. I knew of him, respected his work and never dreamed we’d someday meet and become friends…

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6 months ago · 411 likes · 82 comments · Zoë François

• Food Writing is about Giving, says David Lebovitz. ()

  Dianne Jacob's Newsletter

  Food Writing is about Giving, says David Lebovitz: Giving Recipes, Giving People Food

  For anyone who doesn’t know (maybe one person?), David Lebovitz has a prolific food writing career, starting in 1999. In 2003, he moved to Paris, after working at Chez Panisse as a pastry chef. Since then, David has written several cookbooks and hundreds of blog posts and newsletters about baking, cooking and the humorous side of life in France…

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  5 months ago · 47 likes · 3 comments · Dianne Jacob

• Are you Ready for Dessert? ( / partial paywall)

Susanality

Ready for Dessert?

A number of new fall books have washed up on my doorstep while I am quite frantically trying to finish my own! Sharing recipes with all of you here is the best excuse I know for cracking them open and taking them for a spin. Otherwise, I would never have time…

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6 months ago · 17 likes · 13 comments · Susan Spungen

• Q & A and Tangy Lemon Frozen Yogurt ()

  The Jewish Table

  Tangy Lemon Frozen Yogurt

  Hello! This week’s recipe is available to all subscribers of The Jewish Table. But most recipes for dishes like Tomato Soup with Cheesy Latke Croutons and Black & White Doughnuts (plus the entire recipe archive) are only for paid subscribers. Don’t miss out! Upgrade to a paid subscription to The Jewish Table…

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  4 months ago · 21 likes · 31 comments · Leah Koenig

Also check out:

• The HelloFrench Holiday Gift Guide (HelloFrench)

• How to make that restaurant dessert at home? Ask this guy. (NYT/article unlocked)

• Holiday Gift Books (WSJ/ possible paywall)

And I chatted with France24 about French cuisine…

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Croquants

About 60 cookies

Adapted from Ready for Dessert

A reader recently wrote to me about the recipe for Croquants (page 251) in Ready for Dessert, wondering if the one teaspoon of batter per cookie was correct. I assured her that was the right amount; the cookies are meant to be small, about the size of a silver dollar. In France, cookies of this size might fall under the moniker of croques-télés, which refers to snackable candies or sweets that you might eat while watching television.

Before I moved to France, I bought these little French cookies by the bagful when I’d find them in the U.S. They were expensive but were everything I wanted in a cookie: crispy, crunchy, nutty, and a touch salty. While I can now buy them in France, they’re easy to make. You just stir the ingredients together, plunk little dabs on a baking sheet, and bake them.

It’s important to chop the nuts in large pieces, roughly the size of small peas. Even though the nuts will take up seemingly precious space in the little teaspoon you’re measuring the batter with, the batter will spread quite a bit and it’s nice to bite into big pieces of nuts when eating these cookies.

Oh, and yes, you can bake them a little larger. Feel free to do so, if you wish. They’ll probably need an extra minute or so in the oven, until they’re golden brown across the top. But I’d never say no to more of anything, when it comes to cookies.

1 cup (200g) sugar

5 1/2 tablespoons (50g) all-purpose flour

1/4 cup (60ml) egg whites (from about 2 large eggs), at room temperature

Pinch of salt

3/4 cup (90g) almonds or hazelnuts, toasted and very coarsely chopped

Preheat the oven to 400ºF (200ºC). Line two baking sheets with parchment paper. (Silicone mats tend to steam cookies a bit, so I prefer to use parchment paper for these.)

In a medium bowl, mix the sugar, flour, egg whites, and salt until well combined. Stir in the chopped nuts.

Drop level teaspoons of the lumpy batter, evenly spaced apart (about 2 inches, 5cm), on the baking sheets.

Bake the cookies, rotating the baking sheets in the oven midway during baking so they bake evenly, until the cookies are light golden brown all the way across the top, 10 to 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and let the cookies cool on the baking sheets.

Storage: The batter can be stored in the refrigerator for up to one week before baking. The baked cookies are best, and crispiest, the day they are made, but can be stored in an airtight container for up to 3 days.

Croquants

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I don’t think I’ve ever had a Thanksgiving dinner in Paris that was the same from year to year. One year a friend hired a chef and dinner was served all plated up, in the kitchen. Another year I volunteered to make Thanksgiving dinner and ended up cutting the turkey into small pieces and braising it. Since I was cooking for twenty+ people, that was the only way a turkey would fit in my French oven, which at the time was so small that I could barely squeeze a chicken into it.

Another year I was staying with friends in Provence and we were shocked when the bird that we pre-ordered from the local butcher came already stuffed, by the butcher. I was tempted to scoop his out and cook the bird with the stuffing mix we’d already prepared, but he’d done such a beautiful job of sewing it up with butcher’s twine that we cooked the turkey as is, and it was incredible.

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Thanksgiving is a holiday that’s traditional, of course, for Americans (Canadians have their own Thanksgiving), but French people don’t really “get” it. And to make the meal, you have to go on a scavenger hunt, tracking down all the fixings, like cranberries (nope, the airelles at Picard aren’t the same thing…let’s not pretend that they are), sweet potatoes (hold the marshmallows, at least for European guests), Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix, and whole turkeys, which you often have to pre-order, and if you live in an upscale neighborhood, they can cost a small fortune.

It’s a holiday about gathering around the table with familiar foods and turkey is not high on most French people’s list of things they prefer to eat. That said, the dinde fermière, heritage free-range turkeys, in France are delicious. But once Romain discovered stuffing (la farce), he was hooked.

This year I was invited to a dinner and was tasked with making an American dessert by my French-American hosts. Since the theme was américain, I decided I should use American ingredients and dug into my stash of King Arthur flour, Guittard cocoa powder, aluminum-free Whole Foods baking powder, and Arm & Hammer baking soda to make my dessert.

American Baking in France (Ingredients)

At the top of the stack of books that came out this fall is ’s new one, Dorie’s Anytime Cakes. I had bookmarked her recipe for portokalopita, a Greek orange cake that I fell in love with in Tinos, but a cake made with filo dough didn’t seem like a T-Day dessert. So I’m saving that for when someone invites me over for a Greek dinner. Hint hint…

I have a few devil’s food cakes in my repertoire but was intrigued by Dorie’s because it’s baked in a bundt pan, which is also très américain (although there are kugelhopf pans in France). I have a few bundt pans I brought back from the States and decided to use the one with the deep and intricate design.

Get Dorie's Anytime Cakes

Devil’s food cake is historically made with natural cocoa powder, which hasn’t been Dutch-processed with an alkaline ingredient, so is generally used along with baking soda as a leavening agent. The reaction of the two can give the cake a reddish hue,* hence the name of the cake. Dorie recommends using Dutch-process cocoa powder in her recipe, so I stuck with that. To stay in the rouge vein, I used Guittard cocoa rouge cocoa powder, which has a reddish hue, but feel free to use your favorite cocoa powder here, Dutch-process or natural.

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While Romain watched me gather the ingredients for making the cake, he wondered why I was putting the dry ingredients in a sieve. I told him it was to disperse them, especially the lumpy cocoa powder.

When I lived in San Francisco, I was a member of the Bakers Dozen group, an informal association of bakers and people who like to bake at home.

At one of our get-togethers (which were heaven, being in the company of a hundred other bakers who loved to talk about things like sifting for an hour), the late baker Marion Cunningham, who was never shy about offering her opinion, chimed in with: “Well, do you have to sift is like asking: ‘Do you have to wear shoes?’”

Which is a good question.

A few years ago I ran into an acquaintance at a local bakery. When we took out our phones to exchange contact info, I looked down and noticed that he wasn’t wearing shoes. Kinda perplexed, I asked him about it and he said that he stopped wearing shoes a few years ago. I wondered aloud if he was concerned about all the grit and glass, not to mention the 💩 on the sidewalks, and he said it didn’t bother him.

And as for shoes, I’m going to continue wearing mine in Paris. And here, I did sift.

I baked the cake in my stylish bundt pan, which, woe was me, didn’t want to let go of the cake. (I can’t say I blame it…) That’s the trouble with some of the more intricate bundt pans; they look cool but don’t work for every cake.

Get Ready for Dessert!

So I remade the cake in a less-complicated bundt pan and it released just fine. I happened to be texting my friend George that day, who was one of the food stylists for my book Ready for Dessert, and he told me that he uses Bak-Klene on intricate bundt pans and nothing ever sticks. He graciously had left me a can of it, but I forgot about it in my cupboard. Next time.

(Some bakers make a baker’s goo, mixing together flour, vegetable shortening, and vegetable oil, and use that to grease cake pans. I haven’t tried it but apparently it’s a game-changer.)

Dorie’s book lives up to its name and is filled with recipes that you’ll want to make anytime. The cake was a hit, and you don’t need to wait until Thanksgiving to enjoy it. You can be an angel and make it for your friends or family whenever the mood for an all-American chocolate cake hits.

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Devil’s Chocolate Cake

10-12 servings

Adapted from Dorie’s Anytime Cakes by

When you assemble the cake, you might think that the cake pan doesn’t seem filled with enough batter when you put it in the oven. But it will rise considerably while it bakes. Like most chocolate desserts, err on the side of underbaking rather than overbaking. Check the cake before the recommended baking time.

If you don’t have a bundt pan, a tube pan with smooth sides and a hollow tube in the middle will work. As mentioned in the post (thanks George!), the best pan coating is baker’s nonstick spray, the kind that has flour in it, such as Baker’s Joy or Bak-Klene, which is available at Webstaurant, Amazon, and Williams-Sonoma. Nordic Ware recommends not using regular nonstick spray on their bundt pans, which causes buildup and degrades the coating.

Dorie recommends topping the cake, after it’s glazed, with rosettes of whipped cream and either maraschino or amarena cherries, or chocolate sprinkles or shaved chocolate. I kept it squarely in the chocolate direction but if I wasn’t bringing the cake to a party, I’d serve it with ice cream.

For the cake

1 1/3 cups (180g) all-purpose flour

1/2 cup (45g) unsweetened cocoa powder, preferably Dutch-process

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon baking powder, preferably aluminum-free

1 teaspoon kosher or sea salt

10 tablespoons (140g, 5oz) unsalted butter, at room temperature

1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar

1/2 cup (100g) packed light brown sugar

3 large eggs, at room temperature

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

2 ounces (60g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped and melted, but kept warm and fluid

1/2 cup (125ml) whole milk, at room temperature

1/2 cup (125ml) very hot dark coffee (you can use instant coffee mixed with boiling water)

4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, finely chopped (or use mini-chips)

For the glaze

4 tablespoons (60g, 2 ounces) unsalted butter, cut in small pieces

4 ounces (115g) bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons light corn syrup

To make the cake, spray the inside of a 10-cup bundt pan with baker’s spray (see the headnote), or grease it with butter or shortening, making sure to get it into all the crevasses, then dust the pan with flour, tapping out the excess.

Preheat the oven to 350ºF (175ºC).

Sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt into a medium bowl.

In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or by hand, beat the butter and sugars on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 4 minutes. Stop the mixer midway and scrape down the sides to make sure the ingredients are mixing evenly.

Turn the mixer down to medium speed and add the eggs one at a time, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides. Once the eggs are incorporated, mix in the vanilla and melted chocolate.

With the mixer on its lowest speed, add one-third of the dry ingredients, then half of the milk. Add half of the remaining dry ingredients, mix in the rest of the milk, then mix in the last of the dry ingredients. With the mixer still on low speed, mix in the very hot coffee. Remove the bowl from the mixer and stir in the chopped chocolate by hand with a flexible spatula.

Scrape the batter into the prepared cake pan. Rap the pan gently on the counter a few times and smooth the top. Bake the cake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out almost clean, with moist crumbs attached, about 35 minutes, but check it at the 30-minute mark, or before.

Let the cake cool on a wire rack for 10 minutes. Unmold the cake on the wire rack and let cool completely before glazing.

To make the glaze, place the butter, chocolate, and corn syrup in a medium bowl. Place the bowl over a small saucepan of barely simmering water, stirring it occasionally until the butter and chocolate are melted and the mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and let cool for a minute or two to thicken slightly, enough so that it can be spooned over the top of the cake, but not too runny that it will all run down the sides and off the cake.

Pour or spoon the glaze over the top of the cake, using a butter knife or offset metal spatula to encourage it to flow down the sides.

Storage: The cake can be stored for up to two days at room temperature, if well-wrapped.

Devil's Chocolate Cake Recipe

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*When I was in pastry school here in France, one of the chef-instructors said to add a little red food coloring to chocolate batters to enhance the color of the chocolate. Just an FYI.

Addendum

Just a footnote here on bundt pans. These are the two that I own:

The one on the left is an oldie, but goodie that I bought at a stall at the market in Paris. The one on the right is a newer on from Nordic Ware. I had trouble getting it out of the one on the right, and used the one on the left for the cake in this post.

As mentioned above, my esteemed food stylist friend says that he always uses a baking spray with flour in it on bundt pans, and they pop out easily. That was echoed a few days ago when I was talking to baking expert Brian Hart Hoffman, founder and editor-in-chief of Bake from Scratch magazine, who shared that sentiment and said to always use baking spray with flour in bundt and fluted pans, not regular non-stick spray.

Confession: I may have used non-stick spray on the pan on the above right a few times, as well as run it through the dishwasher - another no no, which may be why cakes stick in it sometimes. Nordic Ware has a video about how to wash a bundt pan.

As a treat, Brian brought me two of the cake pans he designed for Williams-Sonoma, below, so I can start afresh with my shiny new fluted tube pans. And this time, I’ll treat them right!