with Greg Patent, Award Winning Cookbook Author
The first time anyone tastes something new, the moment can become etched in memory. This is true, of course, if it’s a “Wow, I want more of that” event or possibly quite the opposite. My Wow Moment happened in Hawaii when I bit into a…
I happen to love homey, old-fashioned desserts. And in the winter I often bake a batch or two of Lemon Squares. A few days ago I found a huge display of blood oranges at my market and decided I’d try substituting their juice and zest for the lemons. I’ve always loved drinking blood orange juice with breakfast, a habit we got into when living in Italy. At the time, our two sons were very young, and during the winter in Naples we had a contest each morning to see which of us had the glass with the reddest orange juice. We’d each select uncut oranges from the bowl and either my wife or I would be the designated squeezer.
Brownies are as American as apple pie and if I had my way they’d be our national cookie. I always bake a batch for the Fourth of July. The first published brownie recipe using melted chocolate in the batter appeared in 1906, so the cookie…
Butterscotch, cooked sugar with butter, is always a winner in my book. There’s just something about sweet, toasty, butteriness that makes it irresistible. In the recipe here, I’ve paired it with crunchy roasted peanuts in a blondie version of a brownie. And the combination is,…
These are best served cold. Store the pan of baked bars in the refrigerator and cut and dust them with powdered sugar just before serving. If you want to make lemon or lime bars, substitute either for the lilikoi juice.
I tasted these bars for the first time a few years ago on a visit to Hawaii’s Big Island. They have a buttery brown sugar shortbread cookie base packed with toasted macadamia nuts, a layer of caramel that bakes into the shortbread layer, and a generous topping of bittersweet chocolate.