Recipes By Yossy Arefi
145 recipes found
Oreo Icebox Cake
This simple, no-bake dessert is perfect for any chocolate lover. Chocolate sandwich cookies are enrobed in fluffy whipped cream enriched with a bit of vanilla and sugar. The whipped cream has a generous amount of cream cheese, which helps balance the sweetness of the cookies with a little tang. The cake requires very little prep and a long chill time, which makes it perfect for a party. You can assemble the entire thing the day you plan to serve it, or even two days before the celebration. You can make this in just about any 2-quart dish with a flat bottom; an 8-inch square pan or 9-inch round pan works perfectly.
Cookies and Cream Icebox Cake
This simple, no-bake dessert is perfect for any chocolate lover. Chocolate sandwich cookies are enrobed in fluffy whipped cream enriched with a bit of vanilla and sugar. The whipped cream has a generous amount of cream cheese, which helps balance the sweetness of the cookies with a little tang. The cake requires very little prep and a long chill time, which makes it perfect for a party. You can assemble the entire thing the day you plan to serve it, or even two days before the celebration. You can make this in just about any 2-quart dish with a flat bottom; an 8-inch square pan or 9-inch round pan works perfectly.
Peach Ricotta Cake
Peaches are one of the very best things about summer, and this cake celebrates them two ways, with chopped pieces folded into the batter and wedges fanned out to decorate the top. The batter is enriched with ricotta for moisture and a generous amount of lemon zest for brightness. This cake is beautiful enough to serve at a party and can be prepared and baked in less than an hour. If fresh peaches aren't looking good at your market, you can substitute the same weight of any other fresh stone fruit. (If summer fruit isn't available, you can even use a 12-ounce package of frozen sliced peaches; just be sure to thaw the slices fully and pat them dry before adding them to the batter.)
Lemon Zucchini Bundt Cake
It seems like everyone has a glut of zucchini in the summer, and this is a great way to make a dent in that pile of produce. This simple cake batter has a hint of cinnamon and a generous amount of lemon zest, and the finished cake is coated with two layers of lemon glaze for a crackly, sweet and tart finish. The classic Bundt shape and its long shelf life makes this the perfect cake to have on your counter for both afternoon snacks and unexpected guests all season long.
Sour Cream Baked Doughnuts
You’re a mere 25 minutes away from freshly baked sour cream doughnuts when you make them at home. The vanilla and nutmeg in the batter make them taste like your favorite store-bought cake doughnuts, but you can actually enjoy these fresh doughnuts warm, when you make them in your kitchen. Melted butter gives them a rich flavor, and sour cream ensures that the crumb is tender and moist. Enjoy them plain, or with a heavy dusting of powdered sugar. Because these doughnuts taste best the same day they are baked, this recipe only makes a half dozen, but if you’re feeding a bigger crowd, you can simply double the recipe to make a full dozen, baking the doughnuts in two batches.
S’mores Layer Cake
This cake is a labor of love, but you can make all of the individual parts ahead of time, and the finished dessert truly tastes like a bite of old-fashioned s’mores. The base is a deeply chocolatey sour cream cake that stays soft and moist for days. The cake layers are sandwiched together with toasted marshmallow buttercream and graham cracker crumbles. The sweet and salty graham crumbles, made from graham cracker crumbs that are mixed with sugar and melted butter and then baked, add crunchy texture to the cake and make a terrific garnish, too. You will need a kitchen torch to toast the meringue for the buttercream, but it’s totally worth it for that iconic, deeply caramelized marshmallow flavor.
Sugar Cookie Bars With Berries
Draped in frosting and adorned with festive berries, these sheet-pan cookie bars are fit for a party. Browned butter and cream cheese give the cookie depth and richness, plus a pleasantly chewy texture. The fluffy vanilla frosting is a canvas for whichever berries look best at the market. If you like, dust the fruit with a bit of powdered sugar just before serving for a little extra flair. The cookie and frosting can both be prepared the day before your celebration, but you’ll want to assemble and dress with the berries the day you plan to enjoy this dessert. For the cleanest slices, use a long, sharp knife and gently cut through the berries and cookie base.
Ginger Chicken and Rice Soup With Zucchini
A simple base of aromatic garlic, ginger, bay leaf and turmeric flavors this cozy and nourishing chicken soup. Tender chicken, zucchini and chewy brown rice provide bite and substance, and simmer together at the same pace. The rice will swell and soften in the broth as the soup sits, and you can cook it longer than called for to give this soup more of a stewy or even porridge-like texture, depending on your preference. Add more water or stock to thin the broth as needed if reheating. Serve with a drizzle of chile crisp or a squeeze of lemon and sprinkle of fresh cilantro.
Giant Strawberry Turnover
This showstopping strawberry turnover is like your favorite toaster pastry, writ large and ready to share. It’s also easy to achieve with flaky layers of store-bought puff pastry, and a jam-enhanced strawberry filling means that it will be delicious even if your berries aren’t top notch. The final flourish is a buttery vanilla glaze, which is just sweet and rich enough to make this giant turnover look beautiful and feel extra special. It’s the perfect centerpiece for a festive brunch and is sure to wow any guests.
Cherry Almond Scones
All you need is a bowl and a baking sheet to make these buttery, fruit-filled scones (no rolling pin required!). Bringing the dough together with a fork and then gently folding it in half helps to avoid overmixing while creating tender, flaky layers. Toasty almonds and a sprinkle of sugar give these scones a crisp exterior, while cherries provide pops of sweetness and color. Fresh or frozen cherries work equally well, so you can make them any time of year.
Cheesy Baked Gnocchi With Spicy Tomato Sauce
A stellar weeknight meal starter, shelf-stable or refrigerated gnocchi is combined with a zippy tomato sauce to make this deeply comforting one-pot meal. Stir in as much crushed red pepper as your family and friends can handle, then top the whole thing with a blanket of melty mozzarella, umami-packed Parmesan and bright basil. If you keep Calabrian chile paste on hand, it makes a great substitute for the crushed red pepper, as does harissa.
Lemon Layer Cake With Cream Cheese Frosting
This soft and moist lemon cake is doubly lemony, thanks to lemon juice and lemon zest, and is soaked in a tangy lemon syrup to further boost the flavor. These cake layers bake up nice and flat, so you don’t even need to worry about trimming them. The cream cheese frosting comes together easily with two simple tricks: Start by blending the powdered sugar with the butter until thoroughly smooth before adding the cream cheese, and be sure to use room-temperature cream cheese so it incorporates easily. (Firm cream cheese can lead to overbeating and liquidy frosting.) Practice your piping skills by using a little bit of the frosting and a star pastry tip to pipe a few rosettes around the border of the cake. If you’d prefer not to pipe, thinly sliced lemons make a lovely garnish all on their own, too.
Chocolate Pretzel Shortbread
In this sweet and salty shortbread, finely ground pretzels replace a portion of the flour to deliciously toasty effect. Use any style of salted pretzels you have on hand; just make sure to finely grind the pretzels until they are the texture of almond flour for the best results. (If the ground pretzels are too chunky, the shortbread will not hold together.) Bittersweet chocolate chips add richness to this simple cookie, but any type of chocolate chips will do the job. Slice the baked shortbread with a very sharp knife to reduce crumbling.
Sausage and Barley Soup With Greens
This simple, satisfying soup relies on sausage as its flavorful base. Start by cooking raw sausage, rather than precooked links, since it generally has better texture and flavor for soup. Pearled barley adds heartiness and a wonderful chewy texture. Stir in a handful of greens at the end, plus a little vinegar for brightness, and you have a cozy meal in less than an hour of mostly hands-off time. To make this soup gluten-free, you can substitute French green lentils for the barley. If you are making it ahead of time, wait to add the greens until you’re ready to serve to preserve their bright, fresh flavor.
Chocolate Irish Cream Cake
In this rich but balanced dessert, two layers of moist and soft chocolate cake are sandwiched together with a ribbon of rich, creamy dark chocolate ganache infused with Irish cream, then frosted with a light, fluffy Irish cream buttercream. This cake keeps well at room temperature for a few days, so feel free to make it in advance of your next celebration. It’s worth noting that the Irish cream liqueur does not get cooked, so it will retain its alcohol content.
Red Velvet Cookie Bars
These bar cookies have all of the flavors of your favorite red velvet cake, in a cute, compact form that is quick and easy to make. Their flavor and texture falls somewhere between a vanilla sugar cookie and chewy brownie. A generous layer of fluffy cream cheese frosting is a tangy and delicious cap to the bars, but feel free to reduce the frosting as you like. Enjoy these at room temperature or cold from the refrigerator. The food coloring in the recipe brightens their warm, chocolaty tone, but you can add extra for a more vibrant hue.
Chocolate Cheesecake With Raspberry Swirl
Raspberry and chocolate are a classic pair in this rich and decadent dessert fit for a celebration. Use a high-quality raspberry jam for the most vibrant flavor. Baking the cheesecake at a low temperature until it is just set around the edges prevents cracks without the need for a water bath. Make sure to give the cheesecake plenty of time to cool, first in the turned-off oven and then on the countertop, then chill before serving. It keeps beautifully in the refrigerator for a few days, so don’t hesitate to make it in advance.
Chocolate Pound Cake With Strawberry Whipped Cream
This deeply chocolaty pound cake is simple to make but so much more than the sum of its very straightforward parts. Dutch cocoa lends its rich color and flavor to a cream cheese–infused pound cake batter. The cream cheese adds a tangy depth of flavor and gives the cake a soft, velvety texture. Make sure your butter, cream cheese, eggs and sour cream are at room temperature to ensure the cake batter emulsifies properly and bakes up tall and even. The cake is delicious on its own, dusted with a bit of powdered sugar and sliced into tidy slices, or with a dollop of perfectly pink strawberry whipped cream, which makes use of freeze-dried strawberries that are perfect year round.
Chocolate Raspberry Layer Cake
In this recipe, a rich and luxurious chocolate ganache enrobes an impressively tall chocolate cake with hidden layers of jammy raspberry filling punctuated by fresh berries. This cake is best served at room temperature so the chocolate coating is soft and easily sliced. If you like, you can also fill and frost the cake with chocolate buttercream instead of ganache; the buttercream is a bit easier to work with and less expensive to make. Fans of the combination of chocolate and raspberry may also want to consider this cheesecake.
Applesauce Coffee Cake
This warmly spiced, moist apple cake is the cozy breakfast, afternoon snack or dessert that dreams are made of. The top is covered with a generous layer of crumble that’s spiced with cinnamon or your favorite pumpkin spice blend and caramelized on the edges, which adds delicious toasty flavor and wonderful crunchy texture. The topping is at its most crisp the day that it is baked, but the cake stays soft and delicious for a few days when stored in an airtight container at room temperature. Brew a cup of tea or coffee, slice a piece of cake and enjoy these cozy flavors in any season.
Chocolate Cherry Magic Cookie Bars
Magic cookie bars, seven-layer bars and Hello Dolly bars are all variations on a theme: a buttery graham cracker crust topped with sweetened condensed milk, coconut, nuts and semisweet chocolate chips (sometimes with butterscotch chips thrown in, too). This version ups the chocolate factor by adding a bit of cocoa to the crust and lots of bittersweet chocolate to the topping. A sprinkle of dried cherries at the end adds a much-needed punch of bright, tart flavor, making these the perfect afternoon pick-me-up or lunchbox treat. Add a bit of flaky salt to the top to make these extra craveable.
Cookie Butter Blondies
Speculoos cookie butter elevates this otherwise simple recipe for blondies. Packed with brown sugar and browned butter, these cookie bars are rich, caramelly and chewy. Shredded coconut adds a bit of toasty depth that pairs beautifully with the lightly spiced cookie butter, and a generous amount of salt helps these blondies from being cloyingly sweet.
Vanilla Cake With Cookie Butter Frosting
Spiced speculoos cookie butter is delicious straight from the jar, and in this cake it makes the perfect addition to a quick and easy buttercream frosting. The plush dark brown sugar and vanilla cake is just as easy to make and is extra moist thanks to a generous amount of sour cream. This cake keeps well on the counter for a few days, loosely covered, although it’s so snackable you shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t last that long.
Stained Glass Cookies
These stunning cookies would be a gorgeous addition to any holiday cookie assortment, and they are not much more difficult than any roll-and-cut cookie. The cookie base is lightly sweetened and tender, thanks to powdered sugar and an extra egg yolk, and the glass-like centers are made from crushed hard candies that melt in the heat of the oven. Use a few different colors of candy for a tie-dye effect or single colors for a bolder look. Feel free to use any shaped cookie cutter you like — just make sure they are large enough that there is space to cut out a good-sized hole in the center. Featured in: Can You Find Awe in Christmas Cookies?