Ingredients

Per egg white:

• 1/4 c sugar
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 c chocolate chips
• pinch salt

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 F.

2. Beat eggs to soft peaks.

3. Add sugar, vanilla, and salt. Beat to stiff peaks.

4. Fold in chocolate chips.

5. Put lumps on a silpat-or-parchment-covered baking sheet.

6. Put baking sheet in oven and TURN THE OVEN OFF.

7. Leave in the oven overnight. DO NOT OPEN THE OVEN DOOR. You want the lingering heat to bake the cookies. Don’t check on them until morning.

8. If something went weird and the cookies feel too sticky in the morning, just turn your oven on to its lowest setting for a bit until they dry out enough. This doesn’t come up often, but it occasionally has for me in older apartments with some ovens in some weather or who knows.

Ingredients

• 4 oz chevre
• 4 oz bittersweet chocolate
• 2 tsp safflower (or other neutral) oil
• Maldon (or other crunchy) sea salt

Directions

Roll the chevre into small spheres and spread them out on a parchment paper covered baking sheet. Put them in the freezer and allow them to freeze.

The oil lets you cheat on tempering the chocolate. It helps stabilize the crystal structure, and keeps the chocolate from blooming even when it hasn’t been tempered.

Gently melt the chocolate with the oil, stirring it until all lumps are gone. Let it cool a bit.

Dip the chevre spheres into the chocolate and put them back onto the parchment paper to set. Sprinkle a bit of crunchy salt on top of each one after it is dipped – act fast, though, because the chocolate will set very quickly!

Store in the fridge. Serve cold but not frozen.

Ingredients

for the crust

• 2 C flour
• 1/2 C almond meal
• 1/2 C sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 C butter (slightly softened, but still cold)
• 1 egg
• 1/2 tsp vanilla

for the filling (and no, this section doesn’t have precise measurements)

• Sour cherries, rinsed and pitted
• Flour or corn starch
• Dark brown sugar
• Almond extract
• Vanilla extract
• Salt
• Cinnamon
• Booze (I prefer wishniak (a sort of cherry liquor), but kirsch or amaretto or whiskey or rum or whatever you like will work just fine)

for the crumblies

• 1/2 C flour
• 1/4 C sugar
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/3 C butter

Directions

Mix together the dry ingredients for the crust. Add the butter and mix or squish together by hand until the dough reaches a texture like bread crumbs. Add the egg and vanilla and mix until the dough just starts to come together. Slam it against a hard surface to remove the air bubbles, as you would if working with clay. Form it into a squat, chubby cylinder, and cut the cylinder in half so that you have two disks. (Or into smaller chunks, if you prefer smaller pies.) Wrap each disk separately in plastic wrap. Refrigerate them for at least half an hour, and up to twenty-four hours. Alternatively, you can stick them in the freezer and they’ll keep for a few months. This makes enough dough for two reasonably large tarts (or more smaller ones).

Preheat the oven to 425° F.

Prepare an aluminum foil lined baking sheet. (Or several!)

Take one chunk of dough out of the fridge at a time. I like to roll out my dough between floured layers of waxed paper, to keep my rolling pin clean and make it easier to flip it as I go. Every few moments, just gently remove the wax paper and sprinkle on a bit more dough to keep it from sticking. When it’s about 1/8″ thick, flip it out onto a prepared baking sheet.

You’re going to build a really haphazard filling right on top of the dough, keeping about 1.5″-2″ clear around the edge.

First, the sour cherries. Squeeze as much liquid as possible from the cherries before piling them on top of the dough – no matter how much liquid you remove, you’ll still end up with too much remaining. I promise. (Save the liquid you squeeze out – you can use it to make syrup for soda!)

Next, sprinkle on some flour or corn starch to help absorb the liquid. A nice dusting over all the cherries should do just fine. You really can’t go wrong here. Then sprinkle on a light dusting of cinnamon as well.

Drizzle a few little dashes of vanilla and almond extracts over the cherries.

Heavily sprinkle brown sugar over the cherries next. My brown sugar tends to solidify, so more often than not I use a knife to just slice the brown sugar over the cherries. I use rather a lot, but it’s just a matter of taste. Sour cherries are more flavorful than sweet ones, and you add a lot of sweetness with ice cream at the end anyway.

Last, splash some booze over the whole mess. Rather a lot more than you did with the extracts. Definitely more of a splash than a drizzle, this time. Don’t panic. The alcohol will cook off, and it’ll be lovely.

To finish things up, make the crumbles by mixing together the non-butter crumbly ingredients and then cutting in the butter until the texture is, well, crumbly. Sprinkle over the cherries.

At this point, if you’re making pies in bulk for a parent who sulks if he doesn’t get enough pie each summer, you can just freeze your pie in his freezer and instruct him on how to bake it himself whenever he wants. That’s a bit silly, though. He always bakes and eats them all within the first week anyway.

Bake for 15 minutes, then lower the heat to 375° F and bake for another 30 minutes, or until it looks done.

Serve with vanilla ice cream for best effect.

Notes

I just use this crust dough for hamentaschen. Form into a log, chill, then slice circles. Put some jam in the middle of each circle and shape appropriately. I honestly don’t remember the right baking time, sorry - maybe 20ish minutes or so.

Ingredients

• 2 sticks (1 C / 8 oz) unsalted butter, cut into chunks
• 12 oz bittersweet chocolate, finely chopped
• 5 large eggs
• 1 C plus 2 tbsp sugar
• 1/2 C bourbon
• 1 1/2 tbsp flour

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 F with a rack in the middle of the oven.

2. Set up a deep baking pan with sixteen 4 oz ramekins set in it. Butter and flour the ramekins.

3. Melt the chocolate and butter together and stir together until smooth.

4. Beat the eggs with 1 C sugar until light and fluffy. It’ll take about 5 minutes on high speed in a Kitchenaid stand mixer.

5. Whisk in the chocolate mixture and the bourbon.

6. Stir the flour and 2 tbsp sugar together in a separate bowl. Whisk that into the batter as well.

7. Fill the ramekins to about 1/4″ from the top with the batter.

8. Pour boiling water into the baking sheet around the ramekins, such that it comes about halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

9. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until fully set. Remove from the oven and set to cool on a rack. Serve slightly warm, perhaps with strawberries and whipped cream.

Notes

adapted from Desserts by the Yard by Sherry Yard

Ingredients

• 1 C all-purpose flour
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 5 tbsp unsalted butter
• 1/2 C plus 1 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process)
• 2/3 C granulated sugar
• 1/3 C dark brown sugar
• 1/3 C low-fat plain yogurt (sour cream is an acceptable substitute here)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar (see note)
• Vanilla sugar (see note) and/or crunchy salt for dusting

Directions

1. Preheat your oven to 350º.

2. Whisk the flour, salt, and baking soda together, and set aside.

3. Melt the butter in a small saucepan. When it is all melted and sizzling, remove from heat and stir in the cocoa powder, and then both sugars. And then the yogurt, vanilla, and balsamic vinegar. Once that is mixed together nicely, add the flour mixture and stir it just until it is fully incorporated, trying not to overmix.

4. Measure out tablespoons of the dough about 1 1/2″ apart on baking sheets lined with parchment paper. Sprinkle vanilla sugar and/or a crunchy sea salt on top.

5. Bake for about 11 minutes, rotating the baking sheets from top to bottom and front to back halfway through.

6. When the cookies come out, they will look somewhat crackled on top, and terrifyingly soft. You will probably be convinced they are not yet done. Take them out anyway. Slide the parchment paper with the cookies onto a rack to cool – the cookies will harden as they cool, and then you will be able to remove them from the parchment paper.

Notes

1. Adapted from Bittersweet: Recipes and Tales from a Life in Chocolate by Alice Medrich. (I added the vinegar.)

2. I don’t buy expensive real balsamic vinegar. I buy several large bottles of inexpensive but tasty balsamic vinegar, pour them into a big pot, and simmer it all down until it is reduced to about 1/4-1/6 and is thick, syrupy, and coats the back of a spoon. Then I pour that back into one of the bottles and keep it in my pantry. This is a more economical and very tasty way to make do, and I highly recommend trying it out. Dave flees the room whenever I’m restocking our balsamic vinegar, though, because it makes his eyes sting as it simmers down, so be warned that you may want to open a window when you do it.

3. Vanilla sugar can be made in two ways. You can fill a small container with sugar and a vanilla bean, seal it, and leave it alone for a few days. Or you can grind sugar together with a vanilla bean in your food processor or spice grinder, then sift it to remove any big chunks. Either way works just fine.