As a kid back in Virginia, I became obsessed with Jell-O cheesecake mix. There were two packets in the box: one packet held the graham crumbs that you made into a crust following the recipe on the side of the box. I used to throw that packet out and go straight for the jugular: the cheesecake filling.
See, the graham crumb packet called for milk, some margarine, a bit of salt, and a pinch of sugar. Made with the skim milk found in my house and “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!” or another lame butter alternative, it always tasted like a dull, soggy mess. So I didn’t waste my time. I was a young cook, with no real knowledge of the subtleties of ingredients and their flavors. I just knew what tasted good and right, and, conversely, what was gross. But I didn’t know how to make something taste better: how to sharpen flavors or refine recipes within the realm of sweet, salty, or buttery. It wasn’t until years later that I honed these skills.
Salted caramel stole my heart in the early nineties, when it really made its way into mainstream media with its buttery-sweet start and buttery-salty finish. A dream come true, and a case study for me in terms of the power of ratios when dealing with my favorite ingredients. That balance is what I identify with first and foremost, even today.
During my twenties, I spent a lot of time learning about food, reading cookbooks, experimenting with recipes, and gaining a better overall understanding of certain ingredients, such as the difference between graham crusts made with milk or heavy cream or melted butter. It turns out there was more than one way to make a graham crust, and it didn’t require a Jell-O cheesecake mix.
Ten years later, I had a kitchen of my own, and I decided it was high time I came up with my own graham crust recipe. The perfect ratios of salt, sugar, and melted butter were the foundation, I knew. But I wanted my crust to stick out even more. I had discovered the power of milk powder earlier while experimenting with milk crumbs in the basement at Ssäm Bar. And at that point, I was putting milk powder in every baked good, just to see what might happen. In the graham crust recipe, it added an amazing depth of flavor and a chewiness to the final product that I just loved.
To this day, the graham crust passes my snack test. Whenever anyone has a tub of it out on a prep table, I swoop in, scoop some into my hand, and snack away, happy as ever.
MAKES ABOUT 340 G (2 CUPS)
190 g graham cracker crumbs
1½ cups]
20 g milk powder
[¼ cup]
25 g sugar
[2 tablespoons]
3 g kosher salt
[¾ teaspoon]
55 g butter, melted, or as needed
[4 tablespoons (½ stick)]
55 g heavy cream
[¼ cup]
1. Toss the graham crumbs, milk powder, sugar, and salt with your hands in a medium bowl to evenly distribute your dry ingredients.
2. Whisk the butter and heavy cream together. Add to the dry ingredients and toss again to evenly distribute. The butter will act as a glue, adhering to the dry ingredients and turning the mixture into a bunch of small clusters. The mixture should hold its shape if squeezed tightly in the palm of your hand. If it is not moist enough to do so, melt an additional 14 to 25 g (1 to 1½ tablespoons) butter and mix it in.
3. Eat immediately, or deploy as directed in a recipe. The crust is easiest to mold just after mixing. Stored in an airtight container, graham crust will keep fresh for 1 week at room temperature or for 1 month in the fridge or freezer.
MAKES ABOUT 550 G (1 PINT)
¼ recipe Graham Crust
[85 g (½ cup)]
220 g milk
[1 cup]
2 gelatin sheets
160 g heavy cream
[¾ cup]
100 g glucose
[¼ cup]
65 g sugar
[⅓ cup]
40 g milk powder
[½ cup]
1 g kosher salt
[¼ teaspoon]
Powdered gelatin can be substituted for the sheet gelatin: use 1 teaspoon. In a pinch, substitute 35 g (2 tablespoons) corn syrup for the glucose.
Toasting the graham crust before steeping deepens the flavor of the milk.
Instead of a whisk, use a hand blender to mix the ice cream base.
1. Heat the oven to 250°F.
2. Dump the graham crust onto a parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pan and spread it out evenly. Bake for 15 minutes to toast it lightly and deepen its flavor. Cool completely.
3. Transfer the cooled graham crust to a pitcher. Pour in the milk and stir. Let steep for 20 minutes at room temperature.
4. Strain the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl. The milk will drain off quickly at first, then become thicker and starchy toward the end of the straining process. Using the back of a ladle (or your hand) wring the milk out of the toasted graham crust, but do not force the mushy graham crust through the sieve. Discard said mush.
6. Warm a little bit of the graham milk and whisk in the gelatin to dissolve. Whisk in the remaining graham milk, the heavy cream, glucose, sugar, milk powder, and salt until everything is fully dissolved and incorporated.
7. Pour the mixture through a fine-mesh sieve into your ice cream machine and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The ice cream is best spun just before serving or using, but it will keep in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
MAKES 15 TO 20 COOKIES
When I was a baker at a conference center on Star Island, twelve miles off the coast of New Hampshire, I learned to make this kind of cookie from one of the best bakers I know, Mandy Lamb. She would put different ingredients in the cookie each day or each week and have people try and guess what the random secret ingredients were.
Because we were on an island in New England, when storms blew in, we were trapped. No one traveled to the island, and, more important, no boats with food on them came our way, either. We had to get creative and use what we had on hand. We might not have had enough chocolate chips to make chocolate chip cookies, but if we threw in other mix-ins as well, the seven hundred some guests would never notice the shortage of one ingredient—and the cookies would always feel brand new, because they were different every time. I found after many batches that my favorite compost cookies had my favorite snacks in them: chocolate and butterscotch chips, potato chips, pretzels, graham crackers, and coffee (grounds).
Compost cookies always turn out great in my mother’s kitchen because she infamously has a hodgepodge of mix-ins, none in great enough quantity to make an actual single-flavored cookie on its own. My brother-in-law calls them “garbage cookies”; others call them “kitchen sink cookies.” Call them what you want, and make them as we make them at Milk Bar, or add your own favorite snacks to the cookie base in place of ours.
225 g butter, at room temperature
[16 tablespoons (2 sticks)]
200 g granulated sugar
[1 cup]
150 g light brown sugar
[¼ cup tightly packed]
50 g glucose
[2 tablespoons]
1 egg
2 g vanilla extract
[½ teaspoon]
225 g flour
[1⅓ cups]
2 g baking powder
[½ teaspoon]
1.5 g baking soda
[¼ teaspoon]
4 g kosher salt
[1 teaspoon]
150 g mini chocolate chips
[¾ cup]
100 g mini butterscotch chips
[½ cup]
¼ recipe Graham Crust
[85 g (½ cup)]
40 g old-fashioned rolled oats
[⅓ cup]
5 g ground coffee
[2½ teaspoons]
50 g potato chips
[2 cups]
50 g mini pretzels
[1 cup]
In a pinch, substitute 18 g (1 tablespoon) corn syrup for the glucose.
For the “coffee grounds” in this cookie, we tested the recipe with freshly roasted and ground artisanal coffee from Stumptown as well as with crap-tastic coffee grounds that you can find just about anywhere. We discovered that it doesn’t make a difference what kind you use; the cookie is delicious every time. Just make sure you don’t use instant coffee; it will dissolve in the baking process and ruin the cookies. And, above all else, never use wet, sogalicious grounds that have already brewed a pot of coffee.
We use Cape Cod potato chips because they aren’t paper-thin, and so they do not break down too much in the mixing process.
1. Combine the butter, sugars, and glucose in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the egg and vanilla, and beat for 7 to 8 minutes. (See notes on this process.)
2. Reduce the speed to low and add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix just until the dough comes together, no longer than 1 minute. (Do not walk away from the machine during this step, or you will risk overmixing the dough.) Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
3. Still on low speed, add the chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, graham crust, oats, and coffee and mix just until incorporated, about 30 seconds. Add the potato chips and pretzels and paddle, still on low speed, until just incorporated. Be careful not to overmix or break too many of the pretzels or potato chips. You deserve a pat on the back if one of your cookies bakes off with a whole pretzel standing up in the center.
4. Using a 2¾-ounce ice cream scoop (or a ⅓-cup measure), portion out the dough onto a parchment-lined sheet pan. Pat the tops of the cookie dough domes flat. Wrap the sheet pan tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least 1 hour, or up to 1 week. Do not bake your cookies from room temperature—they will not bake properly.
5. Heat the oven to 375°F.
6. Arrange the chilled dough a minimum of 4 inches apart on parchment- or Silpat-lined sheet pans. Bake for 18 minutes. The cookies will puff, crackle, and spread. After 18 minutes, they should be very faintly browned on the edges yet still bright yellow in the center. Give them an extra minute or so if that’s not the case.
7. Cool the cookies completely on the sheet pans before transferring to a plate or an airtight container for storage. At room temp, cookies will keep fresh for 5 days; in the freezer, they will keep for 1 month.
MAKES 1 (6-INCH) LAYER CAKE, 5 TO 6 INCHES TALL; SERVES 6 TO 8
1 recipe Carrot Cake
55 g milk
[¼ cup]
1 recipe Liquid Cheesecake
½ recipe Milk Crumb
1 recipe Graham Frosting
special equipment
1 (6-inch) cake ring
2 strips acetate, each 3 inches wide and 20 inches long
1. Put a piece of parchment or a Silpat on the counter. Invert the cake onto it and peel off the parchment or Silpat from the bottom of the cake. Use the cake ring to stamp out 2 circles from the cake. These are your top 2 cake layers. The remaining cake “scrap” will come together to make the bottom layer of the cake.
layer 1, the bottom
2. Clean the cake ring and place it in the center of a sheet pan lined with clean parchment or a Silpat. Use 1 strip of acetate to line the inside of the cake ring.
3. Put the cake scraps inside the ring and use the back of your hand to tamp the scraps together into a flat even layer.
4. Dunk a pastry brush in the milk and give the layer of cake a good, healthy bath of half of the milk.
5. Use the back of a spoon to spread half of the liquid cheesecake in an even layer over the cake.
6. Sprinkle one-third of the milk crumbs evenly over the cheesecake. Use the back of your hand to anchor them in place.
7. Use the back of a spoon to spread one-third of the graham frosting as evenly as possible over the crumbs.
layer 2, the middle
8. With your index finger, gently tuck the second strip of acetate between the cake ring and the top ¼ inch of the first strip of acetate, so that you have a clear ring of acetate 5 to 6 inches tall—high enough to support the height of the finished cake. Set a cake round on top of the frosting, and repeat the process for layer 1 (if 1 of your 2 cake rounds is jankier than the other, use it here in the middle and save the prettier one for the top).
layer 3, the top
9. Nestle the remaining cake round into the frosting. Cover the top of the cake with the remaining frosting. Give it volume and swirls, or do as we do and opt for a perfectly flat top. Garnish the frosting with the remaining milk crumbs.
10. Transfer the sheet pan to the freezer and freeze for a minimum of 12 hours to set the cake and filling. The cake will keep in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
11. At least 3 hours before you are ready to serve the cake, pull the sheet pan out of the freezer and, using your fingers and thumbs, pop the cake out of the cake ring. Gently peel off the acetate and transfer the cake to a platter or cake stand. Let it defrost in the fridge for a minimum of 3 hours (wrapped well in plastic, it can be refrigerated for up to 5 days).
12. Slice the cake into wedges and serve.
MAKES 1 QUARTER SHEET PAN CAKE
My mama is a busy, busy woman. If she were baking this cake, she would probably opt to buy preshredded carrots from the grocery store. She likes baking shortcuts and, in this case, it’s quite possible she doesn’t know where her box grater is (or if the handle is still attached to it).
I’m not going to lie. I’ve bought preshredded carrots, and the results weren’t one bit terrible. But at the farmers’ market, they’ve got yellow carrots and purple carrots and orange carrots that actually taste like something. And they will make your cake better if you use them.
115 g butter, at room temperature
[8 tablespoons (1 stick)]
120 g light brown sugar
[½ cup tightly packed]
100 g granulated sugar
[½ cup]
2 eggs
40 g grapeseed oil
[¼ cup]
200 g flour
[1¼ cups]
4 g baking powder
[1 teaspoon]
1.5 g baking soda
[¼ teaspoon]
1.5 g ground cinnamon
[¾ teaspoon]
5 g kosher salt
[1¼ teaspoons]
225 g shredded peeled carrots (2 to 3 medium-sized carrots)
[2½ cups]
Pam or other nonstick cooking spray (optional)
1. Heat the oven to 350°F.
2. Combine the butter and sugars in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the eggs, and mix on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl once more.
3. On low speed, stream in the oil. Increase the mixer speed to medium-high and paddle for 4 to 6 minutes, until the mixture is practically white, twice the size of your original fluffy butter-and-sugar mixture, and completely homogenous, with no streaks of fat. Don’t rush the process. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. On very low speed, add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Mix for 45 to 60 seconds, just until your batter comes together and any remnants of dry ingredients have been incorporated. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
5. Detach the paddle and remove the bowl from the mixer. Dump the shredded carrots into the bowl and, with a spatula, fold them into the batter.
6. Pam-spray a quarter sheet pan and line it with parchment, or just line the pan with a Silpat. Using a spatula, spread the cake batter in an even layer in the pan.
7. Bake the cake for 25 to 30 minutes. The cake will rise and puff, doubling in size, but will remain slightly buttery and dense. At 25 minutes, gently poke the edge of the cake with your finger: the cake should bounce back slightly and the center should no longer be jiggly. Leave the cake in the oven for an extra 3 to 5 minutes if it doesn’t pass these tests.
8. Take the cake out of the oven and cool on a wire rack or, in a pinch, in the fridge or freezer (don’t worry, it’s not cheating). The cooled cake can be stored in the fridge, wrapped in plastic wrap, for up to 5 days.
MAKES ABOUT 230 G (1 CUP)
One of our favorite things to do is to make a frosting with an unexpected flavor. For this one, we puree graham crust down to a liquid form and then paddle it into whipping butter with a little seasoning.
85 g butter, at room temperature
[6 tablespoons]
15 g light brown sugar
[1 tablespoon tightly packed]
10 g confectioners’ sugar
[1 tablespoon]
0.5 g ground cinnamon
[½ teaspoon]
0.5 g kosher salt
[⅛ teaspoon]
1. Combine the graham crust, milk, and salt in a blender, turn the speed on to medium-high, and puree until smooth and homogenous. It will take 1 to 3 minutes (depending on the awesomeness of your blender). If the mixture does not catch on your blender blade, turn off the blender, take a small teaspoon, and scrape down the sides of the canister, remembering to scrape under the blade, then try again.
2. Combine the butter, sugars, cinnamon, and salt in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, and cream together on medium-high for 2 to 3 minutes, until fluffy and speckled yellow. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula.
3. On low speed, paddle in the contents of the blender. After 1 minute, crank the speed up to medium-high and let her rip for another 2 minutes. Scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula. If the mixture is not a uniform pale tan, give the bowl another scrape-down and the frosting another minute of high-speed paddling.
4. Use the frosting immediately, or store it in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 1 week.
MAKES TWELVE TO FIFTEEN 30 G (1 OUNCE) BALLS
Our most successful new offering in 2010 was our cake truffles, spawned entirely from leftovers. We had once served slices of cake to order, but after hemming and hawing with our endearing staff of counter employees over the correct way to slice and serve a multilayered cake, we decided to get smart. Helen and Leslie were the catalyst behind convincing me to make cake truffles with all of our leftover cake and cake layering scraps. Now, instead of committing to a whole slice of cake, you can get a bite or two or three.
You can choose to follow the recipe, or get crazy, without our guidance, using leftovers to concoct your own. Don’t limit yourself to carrot cake; you can use any cake scrap and any leftover fillings, crumbs, or crunches. Chocolate Chip Cake scraps with Fudge Sauce and ground Peanut Brittle couldn’t be anything but a success.
The basics for cake truffles are as follows:
The base: Cake scraps, the fresher the better. We stick to one flavor of cake scraps at a time.
The binder: This can be the additional milky soak from a cake assembly or a moist filling, curd, or sauce. Depending on the moistness of the cake base, we use more or less binder. We have recipes, but there is always a range for the binder.
The shell: To seal in freshness and flavor, we roll each truffle in melted chocolate. The melted chocolate also serves to glue the crunchy coat onto the outside. We use Valrhona 72% dark chocolate or white chocolate, depending on the flavor of the cake truffle.
The crunchy coat: Finely ground crumbs or crunches work best, but we’ve even been known to use toasted yellow cake crumbs.
300 g Carrot Cake scraps
[3 cups]
25 to 50 g Liquid Cheesecake
[2 to 4 tablespoons]
½ recipe Milk Crumb, finely ground in a food processor
90 g white chocolate, melted
[3 ounces]
Steps 3 and 4 are easiest when you have a buddy: one person coats the cake balls in melted chocolate, the other tosses them in the milk crumbs.
1. Combine the carrot cake scraps and 25 g (2 tablespoons) liquid cheesecake in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and paddle until moist enough to knead into a ball. If it is not moist enough to do so, add up to 25 g (2 tablespoons) more liquid cheesecake and knead it in.
2. Using a soup spoon, portion out 12 even balls, each half the size of a Ping-Pong ball. Roll each one between the palms of your hands to shape and smooth it into a round sphere.
3. Put the ground milk crumbs in a medium bowl. With latex gloves on, put 2 tablespoons of the white chocolate in the palm of your hand and roll each ball between your palms, coating it in a thin layer of melted chocolate; add more chocolate as needed.
4. Put 3 or 4 chocolate-covered balls at a time into the bowl of milk crumbs. Immediately toss them with the crumbs to coat, before the chocolate shell sets and no longer acts as a glue (if this happens, just coat the ball in another thin layer of melted chocolate).
5. Refrigerate for at least 5 minutes to fully set the chocolate shells before eating or storing. In an airtight container, the truffles will keep for up to 1 week in the fridge.
MAKES 1 (10-INCH) PIE; SERVES 8 TO 10
¾ recipe Graham Crust
[255 g (1½ cups)]
125 g 72% chocolate
[4½ ounces]
85 g butter
[6 tablespoons]
2 eggs
150 g sugar
[¾ cup]
40 g flour
[¼ cup]
25 g cocoa powder, preferably Valrhona
[3 tablespoons]
2 g kosher salt
[½ teaspoon]
110 g heavy cream
[½ cup]
You can decorate the pie with a sprinkling of confectioners’ sugar. To plate this pie with a VIP look, use a spoon or an offset spatula to smear a little Fudge Sauce in a circle toward the center of the pie and garnish a small outer circle with Chocolate Crumbs.
Warm the graham crust slightly in the microwave to make it easy to mold.
2. Dump 210 g (1¼ cups) graham crust into a 10-inch pie tin and set the remaining 45 g (¼ cup) to the side. With your fingers and the palms of your hands, press the crust firmly into the pie tin, covering the bottom and sides of the pan completely. Wrapped in plastic, the crust can be refrigerated or frozen for up to 2 weeks.
3. Combine the chocolate and butter in a microwave-safe bowl and gently melt them together on low for 30 to 50 seconds. Use a heatproof spatula to stir them together, working until the mixture is glossy and smooth.
4. Combine the eggs and sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whip together on high for 3 to 4 minutes, until the mixture is fluffy and pale yellow and has reached the ribbon state. (Detach your whisk, dunk it into the whipped eggs, and wave it back and forth like a pendulum: the mixture should form a thickened, silky ribbon that falls and then disappears into the batter.) If the mixture does not form ribbons, continue whipping on high as needed.
5. Replace the whisk with the paddle attachment. Dump the chocolate mixture into the eggs and briefly mix together on low, then increase the speed to medium and paddle the mixture for 1 minute, or until it is brown and completely homogenous. If there are any dark streaks of chocolate, paddle for a few seconds longer, or as needed. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
6. Add the flour, cocoa powder, and salt and paddle on low speed for 45 to 60 seconds. There should be no clumps of dry ingredients. If there are any lumps, mix for an additional 30 seconds. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
7. Stream in the heavy cream on low speed, mixing for 30 to 45 seconds, just until the batter has loosened up a little and the white streaks of cream are fully mixed in. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
8. Detach the paddle and remove the bowl from the mixer. Gently fold in the 45 g (¼ cup) graham crust with a spatula. (These crumbs will add little bursts of flavor and texture into the pie filling.)
9. Grab a sheet pan and put your pie tin of graham crust on it. With a spatula, scrape the brownie batter into the graham shell. Bake for 25 minutes. The pie should puff slightly on the sides and develop a sugary crust on top. If the brownie pie is still liquid in the center and has not formed a crust, bake it for an additional 5 minutes or so.
10. Cool the pie on a rack. (You can speed up the cooling process by carefully transferring the pie to the fridge or freezer directly out of the oven if you’re in a hurry.) Wrapped in plastic, the pie will keep fresh in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
MAKES 1 (10-INCH) PIE; SERVES 8 TO 10
Our grasshopper pie is like a brownie pie that got drunk on crème de menthe.
1 recipe Brownie Pie, prepared through step 8
1 recipe Mint Cheesecake Filling
20 g mini chocolate chips
[2 tablespoons]
25 g mini marshmallows
[½ cup]
1 recipe Mint Glaze, warm
You’ll need less than a full recipe of brownie pie filling. Save the excess brownie batter that won’t squeeze into the pie and bake it in cupcake molds!
1. Heat the oven to 350°F.
2. Grab a sheet pan and put your pie tin of graham crust on it. Pour the mint cheesecake filling into the shell. Pour the brownie batter on top of it. Use the tip of a knife to swirl the batter and mint filling, teasing up streaks of the mint filling so they show through the brownie batter.
3. Sprinkle the mini chocolate chips into a small ring in the center of the pie, leaving the bull’s-eye center empty. Sprinkle the mini marshmallows into a ring around the ring of chocolate chips.
4. Bake the pie for 25 minutes. It should puff slightly on the edges but still be jiggly in the center. The mini chocolate chips will look as if they are beginning to melt, and the mini marshmallows should be evenly tanned. Leave the pie in the oven for an additional 3 to 4 minutes if this is not the case.
5. Cool the pie completely before finishing it. (You can speed up the cooling process by carefully transferring the pie to the fridge or freezer directly out of the oven if you’re in a hurry.)
6. Now the pie needs to be Jackson-Pollocked with mint glaze. Make sure your glaze is still warm to the touch. Dunk the tines of a fork into the warm glaze, then dangle the fork about 1 inch above the bull’s-eye center of the pie.
7. Transfer the pie to the fridge so the mint glaze firms up before serving—which will happen as soon as it’s cold, about 15 minutes. Wrapped in plastic, the pie will keep fresh in the fridge for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
MAKES ENOUGH FOR 1 GRASSHOPPER PIE
We tried, tried, tried to make this work with our liquid cheesecake—one of our mother recipes and one of my favorite things to eat and cook with—but the finished pie just wasn’t right. So we came up with this work-around.
This filling is very deep in flavor and sweetness, only meant to be layered in a gooey brownie pie. Do not attempt to snack on it or use it in another recipe.
60 g white chocolate
[2 ounces]
20 g grapeseed oil
[2 tablespoons]
75 g cream cheese
[2½ ounces]
20 g confectioners’ sugar
[2 tablespoons]
2 g peppermint extract
[½ teaspoon]
1 g kosher salt
[¼ teaspoon]
2 drops green food coloring
1. Combine the white chocolate and oil in a microwave-safe dish and gently melt the mixture on low for 30 to 50 seconds. Use a heatproof spatula to stir the chocolate and oil together, working until the mixture is glossy and smooth.
2. Combine the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and stir together on medium-low speed for 2 to 3 minutes to blend. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
3. On low speed, slowly stream in the white chocolate mixture. Mix for 1 to 2 minutes, until it is fully incorporated into the cream cheese. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.
4. Add the peppermint extract, salt, and food coloring and paddle the mixture for 1 to 2 minutes, or just until it is smooth and leprechaun green. (You may need to scrape the bowl down once midmixing.) No point in making ahead—you don’t have any use for it otherwise and it will make it trickier to swirl in later.
MAKES ENOUGH FOR 1 GRASSHOPPER PIE
Make this glaze just before using it—it needs to be warm so that you can properly make a mess of the top of a pie with it.
30 g white chocolate
[1 ounce]
6 g grapeseed oil
[2 teaspoons]
0.5 g peppermint extract
[scant ⅛ teaspoon]
1 drop green food coloring
1. Combine the white chocolate and oil in a microwave-safe dish and melt the chocolate on low for 20 to 30 seconds. Use a heatproof spatula to stir the oil and chocolate together, working until the mixture is glossy and smooth.
2. Stir in the peppermint extract and food coloring.
SERVES 4
This was one of the first spring desserts we made for Ko. It is simple but somehow hits home in just the right way.
1 recipe White Peach Sorbet (recipe follows)
½ recipe Milk Crumb
Use the back of a spoon to schmear a quarter of the graham ganache into each of 4 bowls. Make quenelles or scoops of sorbet and set 1 in the center of each schmeared bowl. Sprinkle the milk crumbs over and around the sorbet. Serve at once.
MAKES ABOUT 150 G (⅓ CUP)
Combine the graham crust, milk, and salt in a blender and puree on medium speed until smooth and homogenous—it will take 1 to 3 minutes (depending on the awesomeness of your blender). If the mixture does not catch on your blender blade, turn it off, take a small teaspoon, and scrape down the sides of the canister, remembering to scrape under the blade, then try again. Use the ganache right away, or store in an airtight container in the fridge for up to 5 days.
MAKES ABOUT 450 G (1 PINT)
400 g ripe white peaches
[about 5]
1 gelatin sheet
Powdered gelatin can be substituted for the sheet gelatin: use ½ teaspoon. In a pinch, substitute 35 g (2 tablespoons) corn syrup for the glucose.
With all things fresh and seasonal, it’s always important to taste, taste, taste. Make the sorbet base to your liking with more glucose, salt, or citric acid.
Instead of a whisk, use a hand blender to mix the sorbet base.
1. Cut the peaches in half and pit them. Plop them into a blender and puree until smooth and homogenous, 1 to 3 minutes. Pass the puree through a fine-mesh sieve into a medium bowl. Use a ladle or spoon to press on the dregs of the puree to extract as much juice as possible; you should only be discarding a few spoonfuls worth of solids.
3. Warm a little bit of the peach puree and whisk in the gelatin to dissolve. Whisk in the remaining peach puree, the glucose, salt, and citric acid until everything is fully dissolved and incorporated.
4. Pour the mixture into your ice cream machine and freeze according to the manufacturer’s instructions. The sorbet is best spun just before serving or using, but it will keep in an airtight container in the freezer for up to 2 weeks.
