The reason I have been delinquent in posting for the last 4 months is that I am 4 months pregnant!  After two miscarriages last year, we are so thrilled to share this news. We cannot wait to meet our little guy (or girl!?!) and have our lives forever changed. In the meantime, all those pregnancy hormones have messed with my love for food. All I seem to eat these days is cereal. Life cereal. Raisin Bran. Cheerios. Frosted mini-wheats. I have a whole arsenal of cereals to eat because so far cereal has been the one thing guaranteed to taste good any time of day or night. Everything else has been hit or miss, and new recipes are *never* exciting these days. It’s challenging to blog about the new foods that I’m eating when those new foods are simply a new brand of cereal!

My appetite still isn’t what it was, but I did manage to eat some fish today, so that’s promising! While things are on the up-and-up, I’m back with a tweak on one of my favorite recipes: apple pie. I love making apple pie, but I love even more the idea of a personalized apple pie. Here I take my favorite apple pie recipe and cook it in small pots for individual servings. The best part? Layer the tops with cute cookie cutter shapes to match the seasons!

This recipe was originally posted in December 2009. I thought it needed an image makeover and the recipe is so amazing that I am re-posting it so that those of you who are new to the blog are aware of how important it is to make this. Immediately.

This aptly named dark chocolate mousse may be the death of you, but it’s oh, so worth it. I gave a dish to my mom yesterday to take home. She wrote me an email today asking me never to do that again. She takes one bite and then completely loses self control around this amazing dessert. And it’s no wonder. This recipe is from Cooks Illustrated – and boy do they know how to make a mean chocolate mousse.

Before we begin, there is an important note for people who are not familiar with the recipe term to “fold one ingredient into another.” By this, they are saying DO NOT MIX and especially don’t use a whisk. You’ve worked to get lots of air into your egg whites or whipping cream because those trapped air bubbles are what make mousse so light and fluffy. You don’t want lose those air bubbles, so when it comes time to add something that has been aerated to the chocolate, use a rubber spatula and literally pretend you are folding one part of the chocolate over to another. At first you’ll feel that all you’re doing is making a big mess (because honestly, you are making a big mess!), but as you keep gently folding one corner of your chocolate over to the opposite side, you’ll notice the chocolate mixture becoming more silky. End result – a mousse that feels light and fluffy!

dark chocolate mousse

8 oz bittersweet chocolate
2 tbsp cocoa powder (preferably Dutch-processed)
1 tsp instant espresso powder (I don’t like the taste of espresso… if you’re in the same boat, DO NOT omit this! Just use 3/4 tsp instead)
5 tbsp water
1 tbsp brandy
2 large eggs, separated
1 tbsp sugar, divided
1/8 tsp table salt
1 cup heavy cream, chilled (plus extra to make homemade whipped cream to dollop on top!)

Melt chocolate, cocoa powder, espresso powder, water, and brandy in microwave, stopping after each minute to stir the contents. Once the chocolate is melted, set aside.

Whisk egg yolks, 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar, and salt in medium bowl until mixture lightens in color and thickens slightly, about 30 seconds.

Pour melted chocolate into egg mixture and whisk until combined. Let cool until just warmer than room temperature, 3 to 5 minutes.

In clean bowl of standing mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat egg whites at medium-low speed until frothy, 1 to 2 minutes. Add remaining 1 1/2 teaspoons sugar, increase mixer speed to medium-high, and beat until soft peaks form when whisk is lifted, about 1 minute. Detach whisk and bowl from mixer and whisk last few strokes by hand, making sure to scrape any unbeaten whites from bottom of bowl.

Using whisk, stir about one-quarter of beaten egg whites into chocolate mixture to lighten it; gently fold in remaining egg whites with rubber spatula until a few white streaks remain.

In now-empty bowl, whip heavy cream at medium speed until it begins to thicken, about 30 seconds. Increase speed to high and whip until soft peaks form when whisk is lifted, about 15 seconds more.

Using rubber spatula, fold whipped cream into mousse until no white streaks remain.

Spoon into 6 to 8 individual serving dishes or goblets. Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate until set and firm, at least 2 hours. (The mousse may be covered and refrigerated for up to 24 hours.) Dollop with freshly sweetened whipped cream before serving.

Once in a while, I bake foods that I know that I won’t like. These lemon bars are among them. I just don’t love lemon enough to eat gobs of it in one dessert. A sprinkle of zest here or a dash of juice there is fine, but almost any food that is centered on lemons will not be on my top 10 list. Or even my top 20. That said, baking foods that I don’t like presents an interesting challenge: how do I judge if they are good? I have extremely high standards, so I wanted to know if these bars were worth blogging about. My friend Joy is a lemon-bar lover famous for her own lemon bar recipe. She says these are great, which means that if you like lemon bars, you’ll love these.

These would be super cute wrapped up in brown paper squares and gifted to your loved ones. Just put a piece of waxed paper under the lemon bar or else the butter from the shortbread layer will seep into your brown paper. I speak from experience here.

This recipe is from Chicken and Egg, an absolutely gorgeous book that everyone should flip through. The pictures and layout are stunning and the recipes are simple and approachable.

Computer woes are the bane of my existence. The easy viewing & printing feature that used to be included on my posts has now vanished. I hope to see it again sometime soon!

for the crust: 

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/3 cup cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened and cut into 1/2-inch pieces

for the filling: 
4 eggs plus 2 yolks
1 cup granulated sugar
3 tbsp all purpose flour
3/4 cup fresh lemon juice (about 3 large lemons)
1 tbsp grated lemon zest

powdered sugar for sprinkling

To make the crust: Preheat the oven to 350F. Butter a 9×13-inch baking pan or coat with nonstick cooking spray. Beat together the flour, powdered sugar, cornstarch, and salt in a large bowl with an electric mixer at low speed. Add the butter and beat until it’s distributed throughout and the mixture is moist and crumbly. Sprinkle over the bottom of the baking pan. With lightly floured hands, press the dough into the bottom of the pan to form a crust. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and immediately reduce the oven temperature to 300F.

To make the filling: While the crust is baking, whisk together the eggs and egg yolks in a medium bowl until blended. Add the granulated sugar and flour and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the lemon juice and then the lemon zest. Pour the filling over the hot crust.

Bake the lemon bars at 300F for 15-20 minutes, or until set. Cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into 24 bars, and sprinkle with powdered sugar just before serving.