Some may think of graham crackers as a childish food. And I suppose they are. I remember sitting around diminutive work tables in elementary school, with a Dixie cup full of apple juice and a teacher’s assistant placing graham crackers on the paper napkin in front of me. I loved the snack then, and I love the snack now. Graham crackers are still one of my go-to snacks when nothing else sounds good. Slathered with peanut butter, they can’t be beat. And I only could imagine that they would be superlative when homemade.

I went home, and did a quick Google search for graham cracker recipes, only to find that today’s graham crackers aren’t even made with graham flour. Sweetened with honey, and made golden with brown sugar they sounded like they were delicious biscuits, but not necessarily wheaty treats. I held the package of graham flour in my hand, dusty and the color of a morning cup of coffee with too much milk, and decided to simply substitute some of the all-purpose flour for graham flour.

They were delicious, and like I had guessed, far superior to the packaged crackers of my youth. With the addition of the graham flour, they were coarser (in a good way), and more substantial– the perfect afternoon snack. I left some plain, and dipped the rest in Belgian milk chocolate. The richness of the chocolate played nicely off of the gentle sweetness of the cracker.

The following recipe makes quite a few crackers. And the dough remains fresh in the refrigerator for quite a few days. In fact, I made two batches. The first recipe I rolled and cut by hand into more conventional rectangles. Later, I used a biscuit cutter, and made dainty circles– either way you do it is fine.

Graham Crackers
adapted from Nancy Silverton

1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup graham flour
1 cup dark brown sugar, packed lightly
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
7 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into one-inch cubes
1/3 cup honey
5 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract

In the bowl of a food processor, combine flours, brown sugar, baking soda, and salt. Pulse until blended. Add the butter, and continue to pulse the food processor until a coarse meal is obtained.

In a small bowl, mix the honey, milk, and vanilla extract. Add to the flour mixture , and pulse until the dough barely comes together. The dough will be soft and quite sticky. Place on a well-floured piece of plastic wrap. Flatten the dough into a rectangle, one-inch thick. Wrap dough, and chill until firm, at least 2 hours or overnight.

Divide dough in half, and return one half to the refrigerator. On a well-floured surface, roll out the dough to 1/8 inch thick. Dough will be sticky, use plenty of flour. With a pairing knife cut rectangles 2 by 3 inches, or use a round biscuit cutter. Place crackers on a parchment-lined cookie sheet and chill dough for 15-20 minutes in the freezer. Repeat process with the other half of the dough.

Adjust the racks in the oven the upper and lower third. Preheat to 350 degrees. Remove the crackers from the refrigerator, and poke several times with a toothpick or skewer to ensure flatness of the cracker upon baking.

Bake for approximately 20 minutes, rotating the baking sheets at 10 minutes to ensure even baking. Remove from oven, and place on a rack to cool. If desired, dip cool crackers in milk chocolate, melted in a double boiler.

But as the years progressed, sugar, and I, with our very own close personal relationship, began to wear him down. Brian still does not lap up pools of chocolate sauce, or partake of enormous slices of cake, with the buttercream whipped into icy peaks, on a regular basis; but a biscuit or a cookie, an ascetic slice of apple galette, or a dish of coffee ice cream is now enjoyed at the end of dinner. (He has not caught up with my consumption of dessert after each meal, save breakfast, but I have a lifetime to work on him.)

With this little bit of background information, you can imagine my surprise about his proclamation in favor of these little desserts that I whipped up with ingredients that I had on hand. The yumming and mmming continued as Brian poured a bit of fresh cream on top of the pudding, letting it sink down into the chocolatey porridge. My husband is always one of my biggest fans in the kitchen, thanking me wholeheartedly for each meal, and doing up all of the dishes diligently– but even I was aghast at his gusto. What had become of my dessert dilettante?

Then I remembered: Brian meet Nigel Slater; Nigel, Brian. It is no secret that I am a die-hard fan of Mr. Slater. His recipes are beautiful, unfussed-with charms, and his book, The Kitchen Diaries, demonstrates the philosophy that just about anything that is pleasing and delicious can make up a meal. Nigel ate these puddings on Valentine’s Day, and although I had them about six weeks too early, I’m surely glad that I did.

With just a handful of ingredients, and only two mixing bowls, when throwing the ingredients together, I started to wonder how they would taste. But upon baking, the aromatic smell of chocolate melting in the oven told me that these little puddings, dark and brooding, would be divine. With a crisp shell, and the look of a fallen soufflé, the pudding was light– almost airy in consistency. And the flavor was just right– not too over-the-top, nor too rich. The puddings called out for a bit of unwhipped cream to make the whole mess even more of a treat.

Give these puddings a try. Even the non-dessert lovers or the Brians that you are cooking for will love them.

Hot Chocolate Puddings
from The Kitchen Diaries

serves 4-5

7 ounces dark fine-quality chocolate
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2 ounces butter
2 heaping tablespoons chocolate-hazelnut spread

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly butter four (or five) small, ovenproof ramekins.

Break chocolate into small pieces, then melt in a double boiler. Meanwhile, separate the eggs, putting the yolks in a medium-sized mixing bowl with the sugar. Beat until thick and creamy. Place the egg whites in a large bowl, whip until airy and almost stiff.

Stir the butter into the melted chocolate. When the butter has melted, add the chocolate-hazelnut spread stirring to combine. Fold the chocolate mixture into the egg and sugar, then carefully fold in the beaten egg whites. Be careful not to overmix, but make sure there are no streaks of egg white that are unincorporated.

Scoop the mixture into the buttered ramekins and place on a baking sheet. Bake for 15-20 minutes. Pudding should rise a bit, with the tops being cracked with the centers remaining molten. Should you open one too early, or would like it more baked, these puddings can simply be popped back into the oven.

Perhaps it is the shape of the doughnut, that pleasing circular form, that begs for constant thought. It is the ideal form– symmetrical from all angles, but also a continuous surface. You can start at one point on the doughnut, travel a circuitous path, and end up right back where you started. That is if you did not munch your way through this path. And with the hole, the doughnut is a circle, wrapped within a circle. What could be better than that?

When one starts to contemplate various types of doughnuts, and various types of glazes, toppings, and fillings, the possibilities grow exponentially, making the mind reel. I will be waiting in an endless line at the post office, the type of line that seems to just exist, adding more and more patrons to the end while never really eliminating any patrons from the beginning. It is the sort of line that makes me want to shoot myself in the foot. My mind wanders to doughnuts as of late, and I begin to list the permutations. There are raised, and cake, those filled with creme and those filled with jelly, chocolate glazed, iced and sprinkled. I have never, in all of my doughnut eating years, run into a chocolate raised doughnut. Not a plain raised with chocolate glaze, but a chocolate raised doughnut. Why is that? And then the line that I am waiting in actually begins to move, and I am in a better mood because of my doughnut reverie.

But when it comes down to it, the simple, homemade raised doughnut comes closest to my ideal, and apparently to others too. I made a batch of these doughnuts and brought them with me to drinks with friends. And, I couldn’t have been more popular. Yes, a dirty martini and a glazed doughnut, I am told is the perfect combination. The doughnuts were delicious, light and yeasty, just barely glistening with oil. The glazes were simple yet flavorful, just hardening slightly to obtain that sugary shell.

As I watched my friends so pleased to have a taste a true Americana, I knew that I had made the perfect treat. I might have been the only one in that crowd of people that thinks about fried dough incessantly, but I was not alone in my love for a little bit of sugar and grease.

Glazed Doughnut

Recipe found here. This recipe makes a lot of doughnuts, so share them with friends, and you too will be very popular.

I used the listed recipe for vanilla glaze, but substituted vanilla paste, with real vanilla bean seeds for the vanilla extract. For the chocolate glaze I used this recipe:

Chocolate Glaze

4 ounces semi-sweet chocolate
3 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 cups sifted confectioner’s sugar
3 tablespoon water

In a double boiler, melt chocolate and butter until liquid. Slowly add in the sugar, stirring well after each addition. Add the water until desired consistency is reached. Glaze should be smooth and viscous.

Dip plain doughnuts into glaze, then allow to dry slightly on a wire rack before serving.

The Pavlova is one of those desserts that is only read about in novels set in the turn of the 20th century. Clarice, the young traveller, gazed across the linen table cloth with a longing desperation at Antonio, who firmly grasped his silver spoon, and with utter obliviousness to the torrent of thoughts in Clarice’s head, plunged it into crisp Pavlova, adorned with stiff whipped cream, and mounds of fresh berries. You get what I mean. And I guess it must be fairly clear that I don’t read much from the early 20th century. But with the first of the spring berries showing their rosy faces at the market, I felt the need to celebrate. So I made a chocolate Pavlova with this recipe from The Joy of Baking.

Relatively simple to make (if you can make meringues, you can make a Pavlova), and impressive when presented to a table full of hungry guests, this dessert however does require fairly strong nerves from the cook. Meant to have a crisp and crackly outer shell, with a sweet and marshmallow-like interior, picking the meringue shell up from the baking rack and placing it onto a serving dish, all in one piece, poses a bit of a shattering problem. But never fear, a Pavlova isn’t truly a Pavlova unless it is first mounded with cool whipped cream. And whipped cream can hide a multitude of sins.

I modified this recipe slightly, adding less cocoa powder, and omitting the chopped chocolate entirely, because I wanted the dessert to only be tinged with chocolate. The concoction was ideal; the crunch of the shell and the delicacy of the interior contrasted with the richness of the strawberries and cream. Yum!

Now if only Clarice and Antonio were here to enjoy it with me…

And with this white trash culture, comes white trash cuisine. Last night I may have been munching on a salad of arugula, dates, and blood oranges, but last week, it was all about homemade chocolate bark made with– hold onto your hats– soda crackers. I guess you could say it’s a culinary dichotomy; a little bit of the good, mixed in with the bad, gives you light, salty-sweet chocolate bark.

I went to a holiday party last week (yes, I realize it is January, but better late than never) at a kindred spirit’s house, a girl with a similar background, but more so– her mother was once Miss North Dakota! She passed around a tray of this bark, that looks very much like English Toffee, adorned with a sprinkling of pecans. Everyone loved it. And I couldn’t get enough of the crispness, swathed in a caramel-like concoction, and the salty-sweet combination that has become so popular in baking now a days. She told me that the bark was not purchased at some tony sweet shop, that she had made it; and then she gave me the secret ingredient. Soda crackers! I was both enamored and aghast. But the recipe sounded familiar. My friend said that the recipe came from North Dakota, where it’s widely known about, and constantly made.

I dashed home, and poured through a family cookbook, and there the recipe was– soda cracker cookies. I couldn’t believe the brief list of ingredients, and how simple it was to make. Simply boil one cup of packed brown sugar, and one cup of butter for 2-3 minutes on the stove. Ready a lipped baking sheet, by lining with foil, and grease with a light film of vegetable oil. Pour the mixture over a single layer of soda crackers. The mixture should cover between 40-48 crackers. Bake the crackers in a preheated 375 degree oven, until the cracker begin to float on top of the syrup, about 5-10 minutes. Meanwhile melt one bag of milk chocolate chips (about 2 cups) in the microwave. When the crackers come out of the oven, pour the chocolate over, then sprinkle with some finely chopped nuts. I used pecans. Let the pan cool, and harden in the fridge if you’re impatient, on the counter if you’re not. Then break into manageably sized pieces, and heartily gobble up.

I can be a bit of a food snob. No canned vegetables, no casseroles, and I thought, no recipes that called for soda crackers or cracker crumbs. But maybe I will have to rethink that last rule. Because apparently people in the middle of this country have it going on.

Last weekend I was out with Brian, and we stopped in for a treat at Amy’s Breads. That is where I ate this sweet-affirming, all American goody, and my life has been forever changed. (Maybe I am being a bit dramatic, but these bars are that good!) Amy simply called them Coconut Dream Bars, but memories of a 7 Layer Cookie Bar that I ate as a child came flooding back to me. There was a restaurant that my family used to go to on occasion, it was known for it ginormous, split-worthy portions, especially desserts. They had a 7 Layer Bar, that was okay– a bit dry, almost too sweet with the inclusion of butterscotch chips, but good none the less. Amy’s bar was similar yet so much better; with a crumbly, buttery, graham crust, I knew that I could not rest until I too had found a recipe for 7 Layer Bars.

I ran home to the internet, and a quick search brought me to this recipe, and in turn brings me to unending happiness. Made with a fair amount of butter, two kinds of chips, shredded coconut, and topped off with a can of sweetened condensed milk (I mean, how bad can anything be with a topping like that?), these bars are definitely rich, and definitely sweet, but they are so good it is ridiculous. The smell emanating from my oven while the bars baked was divine, and enjoyed warm from the oven, with a cup of tea, nothing could be better. So get to it… make these bars. You won’t be sorry that you did.

The Red Velvet Cupcake minus the red food coloring, proved to be just the thing to cure my sweet tooth, all the while maintaining the rules of my finicky palate. A Red Velvet Cupcake is simply a butter-heavy batter, tinged with cocoa, giving the cake only a slightly chocolatey flavor. When baked up (minus the food coloring), the cake is moist and light, with just a hint of chocolate’s color and flavor. What is the opposite of Red Velvet? Well, it’s Brown Suede. And don’t ask me why.

Although I may be breaking with tradition– perhaps you are supposed to get rosy fingertips, and a shockingly pink tongue when eating your dessert. But if you’re anything like me, and do not desire the evidence of your dessert long after you have eaten it, then Brown Suede Cupcakes are the way to go.