Recipes By Melissa Clark
1476 recipes found
Lemon Snacking Cake With Coconut Glaze
With a poundcake-like texture and zippy lemon flavor, this tender treat is loaded with grated citrus zest and topped with a sweet, mellow coconut frosting. Like many snacking cakes, it’s easily whisked together without a mixer, and quick to bake. Perfect as an afternoon pick-me-up, it goes as well with a glass of milk as it does with mugs of coffee, tea or hot cocoa.
Frosted Holiday Sugar Cookies
Whether you're making Santas or dreidls, shamrocks or bunnies, this foolproof cookie and royal icing recipe is the only one you need. Don't skip chilling the dough after rolling it out. It really helps the cookies keep their shape while baking. And if you'd like to frost the cookies very generously, consider doubling the icing amounts below.
Double Apple Pie
This recipe is a keeper. Gently spiced with cinnamon, tinged with brown sugar and loaded with apple butter, it’s as deeply flavored as an apple pie can be, all covered with a buttery wide-lattice top crust. Although it’s at its most ethereal when baked on the same day you serve it, it’s still wonderful made a day ahead. (Don't let making your own pie crust intimidate you: our pie guide has everything you need to know.)
Lemon Poppy Seed Poundcake
This lemon poppy seed poundcake is summery and quick to make, and perfect for a picnic. One tip: cut up the poundcake before the picnic but leave it in the baking pan. It makes it easier to transport, and the pan protects it, too. Then serve it on its own, with ripe berries, and let the ants enjoy the crumbs.
Honey Apple Pie With Thyme
This recipe elevates the standard American classic into something a little loftier: two types of apples, swathed in a caramelized glaze of honey and thyme, tempered with a bit of ginger and salt. Don't be intimidated by making crust – our pie crust guide will step you through everything you need to know.
Bittersweet Chocolate Ice Cream
From the perspective of a home cook, egg-free ice creams are simpler than custard-based ones, and more foolproof. You don’t have to worry about tempering the yolks, or fear curdling. A few spoonfuls of bourbon soften the texture of the ice cream, which otherwise would freeze rock solid.
Tamarind Cream Pie
With its bright, fruity acidity and a bittersweet depth, tamarind makes for an especially complex cream pie that’s a bit like Key lime, but with a molasses-like edge. This is a good dessert to prepare ahead: You can bake and chill the pie up to 3 days ahead, then add the whipped cream and orange zest up to 6 hours before serving. Keep the pie refrigerated until just before you cut it.
Salty, Spicy Vegetable Soufflé
Overseasoned or overcooked vegetables gain new life from being folded into unseasoned eggs to make a frittata, quiche filling or soufflé.
Pear-Pomegranate Pie
In this welcome departure from the traditional apple pie, a combination of Anjou and Bosc pears are caramelized in a mixture of pomegranate molasses and butter, then combined with a smaller portion of fresh, uncooked pears. The whole glorious mess is then dumped into an all-butter crust and baked until tender. The happy result is a pie that's soft and sweet, tangy and toothsome, and oh so good. (Don't let making your own pie crust intimidate you: our pie guide has everything you need to know.)
Lemon Angel Food Cake With Preserved Lemon Curd
Adding preserved lemon juice to lemon curd is the brilliant brainchild of Samantha Kincaid, the pastry chef of the restaurant High Street on Hudson. It adds a complex brininess to what can be an overly sweet citrus custard. In this recipe, the curd is lightened with a little whipped cream and used to frost and fill a lemon-flavored angel food cake. It’s a stunning dessert that’s bright, rich and light all at once.
Spinach Dip With Garlic, Yogurt and Dill
Lemony, garlic-laden and full of chopped herbs and Greek yogurt, this ultra-creamy spinach dip is a fresher, tangier take on the retro kind made with dehydrated soup mix. It’s best to take the cream cheese out of the fridge at least an hour ahead so it can soften; otherwise you can heat it in the microwave for a few seconds to soften it up. Firm, cold cream cheese won’t mix into the dip as easily. Serve this with any combination of cut-up vegetables, crackers, toast and sturdy chips.
Blueberry Pie With a Cornmeal Crust
This recipe came to The Times from Diana Scott-Sho of the Luscious Little Dessert Company in Yonkers. A picture of this pie prompted many an email from readers asking where they could get the recipe. What sets this pie apart from the usual summer berry is twofold. First, there’s the nubby cornmeal crust, nearly as sweet as a cookie but still flaky. Second, there is the blueberry syrup drizzled on the top. This was a genius move on Ms. Scott-Sho’s part. Rather than just letting the overflowing sugary juice fossilize on the baking sheet, she spoons it while still bubbling hot over the top of the pie. Not only does this make cleanup slightly easier, it adds a completely different textural experience. You get the jammy, juicy fruit, the crisp crust and then the syrup, which thickens into something akin to soft fruit leather, and far tastier.
5 Ninth's Cubano
The chef Zak Pelaccio went deep on the ubiquitous Cubano, and came up with this voluptuous, assertive sandwich of velvet-tender pork, salty cheese and crunchy, fiery bites of pickled jalapeño. It takes some time to make and assemble all the ingredients, but a fair amount of it can be done ahead of time and the result, served for a weekend dinner or afternoon feast, is deeply complex and endlessly delicious.
Almond Birthday Cake With Sherry-Lemon Buttercream
This is a layer cake with sophisticated flavors, fit for a grown-up’s birthday celebration but sure to be devoured by party guests of all ages. The cake itself is made with finely ground almonds, sour cream and a touch of lemon zest. The frosting is buttercream with cinnamon for spice and yet more zest. When you’re making the frosting, be sure to let the egg white mixture cool before adding the butter; the butter should not melt when it meets the whites, which would make for a greasy frosting. What you want is for the buttercream to be smooth and fluffy, an invitation to slice into the cake and take that first heavenly bite.
Fig-Olive Tapenade With Prosciutto and Persimmon
Adding chopped dried figs to tapenade lends a fruity note that contrasts with the briny Kalamata olives in this thick, garlic-spiked spread. Here, it’s served alongside silky slices of prosciutto and juicy persimmon to echo and round out those sweet-salty flavors. If you’re starting with soft, plump dried figs, you don’t need to soak them first. Just chop them up and add to the food processor with the olives. Leftover tapenade will keep for at least a week or two in the fridge, and makes a terrific condiment for sandwiches, or serve it with roasted chicken or meats.
Cilantro-Cumin Dip
Use this bright green, earthy mix as a dip for crudités or a dressing for heartier salad greens like radicchio, spinach, arugula, thinly sliced fennel, or a combination. It’s also terrific as a dressing, drizzled on a simple roasted or grilled chicken, meats or fish.
Classic Gougères
These classic gougères are cheesier than many others, with a crunchy, salty crust from a sprinkling of Parmesan just before baking. Take care to serve these straight from the oven when they are still hot and a little gooey in the center. If you want to make these ahead, you can freeze them after forming them into balls, but before baking (it’s easiest to freeze them directly on the baking sheet if you’ve got the freezer space). Then bake them while still frozen, adding a few minutes onto the baking time.
Queso Fundido With Chorizo, Jalapeño and Cilantro
Here is a magical recipe that works as well for a family dinner as for a football-watching spread: a pound of Monterey Jack melted over chorizo, jalapeño and cilantro, served with chips and lime. You’re welcome.
Smoky Paprika Cheese Skewers
Bathed in a ruddy paprika and shallot oil, and grilled until singed, these golden cheese skewers are a savory delight. You can make them with any kind of cheese that’s tolerant of high heat — also called grilling or frying cheese: Halloumi, queso panela and provolone are some widely available options.
Malted Milk Ice Cream Bonbons
Frozen malted milk balls pulverized with a rolling pin are the beginning of this dessert. Mix the crumbs with malted milk powder and roll in ice cream for a weeknight treat.
Twice-Baked Sour Cherry Pie
Here is an intensely buttery, crispy-crust pie that exudes loads of syrupy cherry nectar when you plunge in the knife. In a quirk of pie-making tradition, open-faced pies, like custards, chocolate cream or pumpkin chiffon, get the best crust — pre-baked shells that are flaky, crisp and golden. But fruit pies, baked with raw dough that is often pale and soggy, get short shrift. For a fruit-pie crust that is crunchy and flaky, with a buttery texture that absorbs the fruit’s juices without turning to mush, the secret is pre-baking the bottom crust, then adding the fruit, covering it with raw dough and baking it again.
Greek Goddess Dip
This Greek goddess dip is stunningly verdant and has a bright herby flavor. The Greek strain in this dressing comes from using dill in place of watercress. Make it and watch it do a disappearing act on vegetables, pita chips or whatever conduit you can dream up.
Apple Cranberry Slab Pie
A slab pie is nothing more than a regular pie writ large. Baked in a 9-x-13-inch pan, this pie feeds 24 but is easier to make (and to carry) than 3 separate pies. The filling was inspired by an e-mail from Pete Wells, our restaurant critic, who mused about his ideal Thanksgiving dessert; the brown sugar, ginger and rum give it a complex and more autumnal flavor than most apple pies. Serve with whipped crème fraîche and small glasses of good, aged rum. (Don't let making your own pie crust intimidate you: our pie guide has everything you need to know.)
Zahav’s Hummus ‘Tehina’
This recipe comes from Zahav, the chef Michael Solomonov’s Israeli restaurant in Philadelphia, which is known for its silky and wonderfully rich hummus. Garlic and lemon play small roles here; the indisputable co-stars are the freshly cooked chickpeas and the nutty tahini. While it’s well worth the effort to cook the dried chickpeas yourself, substituting a couple of cans of cooked chickpeas is perfectly acceptable.