Finchly
 

After suffering through a lingering Indian summer, I can happily say that fall is alive and well in New York. While some agonize over seasonal affective disorder during the winter months, I belabor the stickiness and sweatiness of late summer. With open arms, I welcome the first cool breeze, the crisp air, and wrapping myself up in my favorite blanket. One of the many glorious perks of living in the northeast is apple season. The varieties are endless and in choosing, you can

I like to give new life to old ideas. Banana splits seem to have fallen by the wayside in dessert goals, sadly. This cookie revives the nostalgia of the banana split in a more compact, less melty fashion. The dough is unapologetically rife with bananas, the milk and white chocolates add richness, the crushed peanuts add crunch and saltiness, and the cherries round out the cookie with sweet tanginess. These cookies have a texture that is out of this world- a little cakey, a li

Florentines are traditionally a Christmas cookie but I love them all year long. Nothing compares to their insanely crispy crunch and deep caramel flavor. A seemingly delicate and unassuming cookie is actually the most highly addictive cookie I've ever had. Immediately after making these florentines, I sent them off to work with my husband because I just cannot even with these in my house. As the holiday season draws closer, I have no doubt that I will be making many rendition

Kuchen is how you say cake in German. The beauty of this kuchen recipe is that you can swap out the plums for pretty much any fruit you have on hand. This is also a great way to use up all that overly ripe fruit we find ourselves drowning in at the end of summer. The sweet and tender plums in this recipe play off the tangy ginger in the cake and create a perfectly balanced pastry. This is one of those anytime/anywhere kind of desserts- great for a morning coffee cake, an afte

Cherries and lime are such an iconic combination. Though normally found in a drink or a slushie, I've transformed the old-fashioned drink into a modern bundt cake. This cake is unreal. The crumb of the cake is perfectly tender and soft. Thanks to the abundant lime zest, there are little green flecks of lime zest running throughout the vanilla cake. The cherries are plump and juicy and balance the zeal of the lime. This cake is a show-stopper both in looks and flavor. I used t

I have a hard time making decisions. I want to try it all, taste it all, have it all. This is why cruise ship and Las Vegas dinner buffets are my thang- little bit of this, little bit of that. And donuts are no exception. Black and white donut holes allow me to remain comfortably indecisive and have both vanilla bean and chocolate glazes. The donuts themselves are light and springy cake donuts that melt in your mouth. It was battle royale between myself and my kids after this

Waste not, want not. This pie has roots in Shaker tradition where every square inch of every square inch is utilized. We are going to use the whole dang lemon in this pie excluding the seeds because that would be painful. Whole Lemon Pie has an insanely bold lemon flavor with a perfectly balanced custard texture. The crust is super flaky and compliments the creaminess of the filling. Since we are using the whole lemon, rind and all, you will end up with little chewy bites of

I'm baffled that tapioca isn't celebrated more often. Tapioca pearls are derivative from the cassava plant and I adore their chewy little bites. This recipe is so easy to throw together and can be made entirely from scratch or barely from scratch depending on your mood- no judgement here as I would eagerly order pizza for dinner every night if I could. If you're down and out in the ol' energy department, grab a store-bought pie shell of your choosing, whip up a box of instant

Strawberry lemonade all grown up and dressed up and fancied. Looks can be deceiving, though, because this dessert is so simple to put together. More or less a one-bowl dessert, the ingredients do all the work for you. While baking, a light and airy sponge cake forms on the bottom and a creamy, luscious custard sets up on top. TA DA! This delicate custard cake literally melts in your mouth and every bite is bursting with lemons and sweet strawberries. This is my riff on The

I'll happily take biscuits any way I can- plain, buttered, hot, cold, sweet, stuffed with cheese, you name it. And since we are blissfully waving goodbye to summer, our markets are overflowing with end of summer produce. These lovely biscuits are great for breakfast but also make an incredible dessert when sliced and served alongside fluffy whipped cream and sliced fruit. Nectarine Biscuits Bowl #1 310 gram all-purpose flour 1 tablespoon baking powder 1 teaspoon salt 1 tables

One of my favorite things to do is read old cookbooks. Whenever I get the chance, I scour thrift stores for used cookbooks that have been well-loved, well-used over the years. While sometimes it's not best to travel back in culinary time, ( I'm so glad we don't Jello-ize meats and vegetables anymore!), I often find inspiration to reinvent old classics. The truth is they're classics for a reason. One book I return to over and over again is The Joy of Cooking. Originally publis

By now, we all know that I'm a sucker for salty sweet. It's just SO good. And although I'm pushing thirty-six trips around the Sun, sometimes my taste buds like to act as if they're sixteen and raid the junk food aisle. Fun fact- one of my favorite books as a child was "The Berenstain Bears and Too Much Junk Food." I vividly remember reading the book over and over again just to drool over the illustrations of junk food- my mom was/is a celery-and-carrot-sticks-for-a-snack kin