Rachael Ray

My son loves loves loves anything cinnamon including candies, cookies (Snickerdoodles), coffee cake, muffins, cinnamon sugar sprinkled on his toast, over vanilla ice cream, on top of cupcakes, even a little cinnamon sprinkled into saffron rice (delish), or the leftover scraps of pie crust rolled spread with a little butter dusted with cinnamon sugar and baked off in little pin wheels. His most favorite cinnamon food form is the cinnamon bun. Whenever I pass a bakery that has a specially tasty looking cinnamon bun I snap it up for Nick. With my daughter off to college I’m no longer cooking for 2 kids and looking to make the food flavor compromise by trying to make 1 thing they will both like, [...]...

The kids and I went apple picking last weekend in upstate New York. We stayed in the summer home of  a friend of mine (and fellow dessert lover), in the heart of miles of apple orchard country. I had to pick up a few of Jessica’s(daughter) friends at colleges along the way from my start point in PA where Jessie attends college, so I needed orchards closer than our usual jaunt to Hicks, way way upstate. So we went picking in the Catskills instead of the much further north Adirondack/Green mountain border. My friend’s home sits literally in an orchard, soooo beautiful during the day and Icabod Crane creepy at night. I packed up and brought along breakfast (Sat & [...]...

I love to create birthday parties for kids at home, the possibilities are endless and the time with your kids is priceless. The tradition of having my kid’s birthday parties at home every year started from necessity, Jessica’s and Nicholas’ dates of birth are, Jan 1, and Aug 13 respectively, and all the fun spots and party venues were either closed or booked solid so I became a home party master. At Jessie’s party this Jan(she turned 18 and is heading off to college), I listened as she and her friends talked,(at what I thought would be my last homey get together with this gang), about which weekends they would all be home from college and able to get [...]...

Don’t ya just love cake. Think about it gang, of all the diverse foods, flavors, cooking styles, spices, herbs, and seasonings in every culture in the world past or present, there is at least one food all cultures share, CAKE ! Everyone can probably say they have an aunt, grandmother, mom, friend or someone whom when thinking of them instantly brings a memory of a great, best ever cake. Cake is royalty and muffins and cupcakes are the little princes and princesses. You find it ornately decorated and at the center of every important celebration, b-days, weddings, graduations, anniversaries, religious events, holidays, reunions, retirements, family gatherings (you get the picture). I have found recipes for simple cake type foods from [...]...

A friend asked me for a pizzelle recipe recently, so I went digging through my arsenal of recipes(30+ years worth), to find I actually had 6 recipes that I had made notes on like yummy, extra yummy, good fast and easy, etc. It’s been a while since I’ve made pizzelles so I decided to refresh my memory and skill before I passed on a recommendation. All pizzelle recipes are basically the same, eggs, flour, sugar, butter, baking soda, and flavoring, but I think there is a real significant improvement in the taste when 3 eggs are used instead of 2. Let’s start with a basic recipe that I like and we’ll go from there. Ingredients: 3 eggs 3/4 C brown sugar 1/2 C butter, [...]...

With the exception of fresh fruit, my sister Rachael rarely if ever eats anything sweet. Sugar’s not the greatest building block for the body but don’t ya just crave a taste now and again? Well, not my sister-she eats extremely well and never craves sweets. I’d like to have inherited her sweetless gene, but I go weak in the knees at just the sight of a dark Belgian chocolate or freshly baked Franzipan, and my favorite, most relaxing past-time and hobby is baking. But but but but, there is one sweet my sis usually won’t pass up, and that’s a really good brownie. Her favorite is the classic Catherine Hepburn brownie-all moist, chewy, fudgy, and loaded with walnuts-more nuts than brownie, just baked walnuts [...]...

Years ago, when our kids were small, a few close friends and I  started  a monthly dinner  party for “just us” grownups. As hectic as the holiday  season always was, we decided to replace gifting each other with a monthly therapy session complete with a 5-course dinner we share in preparing. I’ve taken my turn with the main meal but most often I’m asked to create the appetizer and dessert courses. Everyone gets, gives, bakes, and buys cookies, cakes, pies, etc. during the holidays so in an attempt to change the standard “coffee and cookie” holiday dessert at our holiday “therapy dinner”, I decided to set out what used to be on the table after dinner when I was a kid. An [...]...

For me ‘09 was the “year of the pie”, every holiday season my friends (my guinea pigs) expect to receive frequent deliveries at their door steps of pies, strudels, tarts, tortes,  basically  the result of my mad scientist experiment on whatever fruit or veggie I fresh-picked at some farm, orchard, or grove on the weekend. No matter what I did to the filling, the crusts on my creature creations were always basically created the same way - mix very icy cold ingredients and bake very very hot. Well this changed in ‘09 for me when I became obsessed with experimenting with the crust, after vacationing with my mom in the south of France. I [...]...