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Thanksgiving is a tricky holiday for me when it comes to desserts. My family wants traditional desserts, but I find them boring and want something new.

We've finally figured out a good compromise. My sister-in-law makes the pies, which she's really good at, and that frees me up to make something different.

That something - which can work for a sweet snack earlier in the day, for the meal itself or for later in the long holiday weekend - often includes apples.

Lately, I've been roasting them. I got the idea from the savory chefs at Farallon . They toss potatoes lightly with olive oil and salt and spread them in a single layer on a hot baking pan. Cooking them on a preheated pan gives them added crispness and color.

I thought why not take this into my pastry world and apply the same principles with apples with sugar?

To find which apples would work best, I tested nine varieties: SweeTango, Fuji, Golden Delicious, Ambrosia, Braeburn, Pinata, Pink Lady, Gala and Honey Crisp. While they all tasted good, their flavor varied, and I found the Ambrosia, Braeburn, Pinata, Pink Lady and Honey Crisp the best for my recipes. These bright red apples also looked the best once baked.

Source: San Francisco Chronicle

by Anna

Happy Martin Luther King Day! To celebrate, I’ve been making some of our favorite southern foods, including angel food cake.

We love angel food cake, but I don’t make it often enough. Part of the reason is I never know what to do with the 12 leftover egg yolks, and the other part is that I can never find my angel food cake pan – the one with the removable bottom and legs. To solve the problem, I decided to try baking it in loaves.

First, I made a couple of versions using small 3×5 inch loaf pans. The first recipe got thrown out because it was too eggy, while the second version was just right. In fact, it was so good that both loaves were gone in a day, and while I like cakes to disappear quickly, that was a little too quickly.

So for the next cake, I doubled the mini-cake recipe and used a regular 9×5 inch loaf pan. Perfect! Of course it would have been better if I’d lined my pan with foil. The cake would not come out, which is why angel food cake pans have removable bottoms. We were able to lift one serving at a time out of the pan, but next time I’d line the pan with foil and peel it off, which is what I did with the very tiny loaves I’d made previously....

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by Anna

My grandmother didn’t enjoy baking, but every year she made the best angel food cake. Covered with her famous seven minute icing, she’d serve it with peppermint ice cream for the ultimate combination of temperatures and textures. The leftovers were even better, because after a day or two the icing would crust over and flake off to reveal the creamy, slightly grainy interior. At the time, I never noticed or cared that it was a fat free dessert (without the ice cream, of course), but these days that just adds to the appeal.

So that’s my explanation as to why I’ve never made angel food cake chocolate, because it falls into the small category of desserts where I don’t miss it. But since I’ve been experimenting and have discovered that the loaf pan size is perfect for our family and doesn’t use up all the eggs, I decided to try it.

It’s interesting. I still feel partial to the vanilla, but Fuzz loves angel food cake as much as I do and will get a kick out of this as an after school snack. Plus it’s nice being able to serve cake with berries and whipped cream as a snack and feel good about it.

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