Good morning, friends- care to take a little trip with me? One that starts with butter and flour, and meanders through strawberry fields bordered by chocolate woods, perhaps dusted with a little sugared snow? Come along then, we’ll be travelling photojournalist-style.

Wonderful, yes? Well, you’d think. Though I hate to admit it, every now and then my culinary instincts can lead me astray. I get so excited about an idea or recipe that I’m snapping photos and writing blog posts in my head before said dish is even out of the oven, so convinced am I of its imminent success.

These mini galettes sure tasted wonderful, though. The strawberry and ricotta filling was perfectly moist and not too sweet, and the touch of cocoa added a certain warmth and depth. It was the texture of the pastry which was off; adapted from this Smitten Kitchen recipe, the promised soft and flaky dough turned out more limp and soggy. It was heartbreaking to have these beauties fall apart in my hands, especially since pastry is usually one of my kitchen strengths.

Still, I believe this journey deserves a do-over, which is why I’m offering you an adapted recipe here. A bit more chocolate flavour, a lot less moisture and some tweaked instructions and I believe these galettes could be a winner. But a disclaimer: if they don’t work for you, forgive me. I’m still an amateur tour guide, after all.

• Chocolate, Strawberry and Ricotta Galettes
• crust adapted from Smitten Kitchen
• makes 4 x 5″ galettes
• For the pastry:
  1 1/4 cups flour
  3 Tbs. cocoa powder
  2 Tbs. sugar
  1/8 tsp. salt
  113g (1 stick) cold unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
  1/4 cup sour cream
  2 tsp. lemon juice
  2 Tbs. ice water
  
  For the filling:
  1/2 cup ricotta
  1 egg, divided
  1 Tbs. sugar
  zest of half a lemon
  2 cups washed, hulled and roughly chopped strawberries
  1 tsp. water
  icing sugar, for dusting
• 1. To make the pastry, mix together the flour, cocoa, sugar and salt in a large bowl. Add in the cubed butter and work together with a pastry cutter or your fingers, until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.
  
  2. Whisk together the sour cream, lemon juice and ice water in a small bowl and pour 3/4 of it over the flour mixture. Mix together with a fork or wooden spoon until the mixture begins to come together; you may need to add more of the liquid, but do so drop by drop. Gather the pastry into a ball and wrap tightly in clingfilm; refrigerate for at least 1 hour.
  
  3. After an hour, remove the pastry from the fridge and divide it (using a scale, if you want to be exact) into four equal pieces. Wrap these individually in clingfilm and return to the fridge for another 30 minutes.
  
  4. Preheat the oven to 200°C/400°F. To make the filling, mix together the ricotta, egg yolk, sugar and lemon zest in a small bowl.
  
  5. When they’ve re-chilled and the oven is hot, remove one of the pastry balls from the fridge. Roll out on a well-floured piece of parchment to a 7″ round and top with 1/4 of the ricotta mixture and 1/4 of the strawberries, leaving a 1″ border. Carefully pull up and fold the pastry around the top of the galette, then transfer the galette to a lined baking sheet. (If this is too difficult, you could trim down the parchment paper and move the whole thing to the tray.) Repeat with the other 3 pastry pieces.
  
  6. Mix the egg white with 1 tsp. of water and brush over the top of the pastry. Bake the galettes for about 30 minutes until the pastry is dry to the touch and the filling is bubbly. Cool completely on a wire rack before dusting with icing sugar and serving.

I’m not terribly fond of cute things. Babies, puppies and Emperor penguins notwithstanding, I tend to prefer modern, rustic or retro aesthetics over twee and girly. The same goes for the food I make, which is why this is the first time in my year-plus of blogging that I’m posting a cupcake recipe.

Why start now, you may wonder. Why jump on a bandwagon that’s arguably already on its way to the car park of passé trends? I claim coercion: the strawberries made me do it. There’s just something about those plump little fruits, with their fat bottoms and bright blush, that compels me to celebrate their beauty.

To make a strawberry cupcake you have two options, the first of which is to purée some fresh berries into a rose-coloured liquid and add this to the batter. This gives the cakes a lovely pink colour and strawberry scent, but all that extra liquid can impede the rise, necessitating the addition of extra dry ingredients. Subsequently, I’ve yet to find one that actually tastes like strawberries.

The second option is far simpler: stir in some chopped fresh fruit to the batter, and call it a day. Simple enough, but something that (until now) I’ve balked at doing. My aversion to mushy, cooked-fruit desserts is well-documented here. Though there are exceptions to the rule, it still stands; give me an apple scone or fruit cobbler, and I’m bound to turn my nose up. I’d always assumed that a fruity cupcake would be no different.

How wrong I was. Perhaps my tastes are evolving, or perhaps my love of strawberries is strong enough to withstand such textural objections. I have suspisions that the mascarpone frosting may have something to do with it; when each bite is full of such luscious creaminess, who cares about a fruity chunk or two?

Besides, did you see what I did with the mint leaves? Say it with me now: awwww.

• Strawberry Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting
• cupcakes adapted from 52 Cupcakes, frosting from British Larder
• makes 12 large cupcakes
• For the cupcakes:
  1 1/2 cups flour
  1/2 cup caster sugar
  2 tsp. baking powder
  1/2 tsp. baking soda
  1/4 tsp. salt
  57g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm chunks
  2 eggs
  1/2 cup milk
  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  1 cup washed, hulled and roughly chopped strawberries
  
  For the frosting:
  60g unsalted butter, at room temperature
  130g mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
  80g icing sugar
  6 of the prettiest strawberries you can find, hulled and halved lengthwise
  12-24 small mint leaves
• 1. Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F. Prepare 12 muffin cups with papers, if using. (I have silicone trays and usually don’t bother with the papers, but might if I was making these again- the fruit makes them delicate.)
  
  2. Mix together the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a stand mixer or with an electric beater- just to blend and aerate the mixture. Add the butter chunks and beat briefly until they are just coated with flour. (I know it seems bizarre to have chunks of butter at this stage, but it will come together.)
  
  3. Whisk together the eggs, milk and vanilla in a small bowl. Add to the dry ingredients in three additions, beating after each one. You will notice that the liquid and beating cause the butter to almost immediately soften and blend in to the batter. Finally, gently stir in the strawberry pieces.
  
  4. Divide the mixture between the muffin cups and bake for 17-20 minutes. This cupcake shouldn’t colour much, but will feel firm when lightly touched on top. Remove from the oven and allow to cool on a wire rack.
  
  5. While the cupcakes cool, make the frosting. Cream the butter on its own until quite soft, then add the mascarpone and beat together until just blended. Sift in the icing sugar and quickly combine until it comes together smoothly- you don’t want to overwork this frosting, or the mascarpone may separate. Scrape into a small bowl and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes before using.
  
  6. When the cupcakes are completely cool, frost with the chilled frosting, using any method you like (both rustic and piped methods work with this frosting). Top each cupcake with a strawberry half and a few mint leaves.

What is your favourite cookie? No, I don’t mean cookie recipe (though I’ll take those, too), but your favourite commercial cookie. That four-letter word is one us home bakers are reluctant to utter, but let’s be honest with ourselves- everyone’s got one.

Or, if you don’t have a favourite shop-bought biscuit now, perhaps you did when you were little? As a kid, my pick was Dad’s oatmeal cookies; a mature choice, it occurs to me now. Sure, I enjoyed the odd Oreo and flirted with Fig Newtons, but I loved the buttery crunch of Dad’s. (The fact that they were also my own Dad’s favourites always seemed fitting to me, too.)

Britain, it seems, has slightly fancier tastes than mine: the Custard Cream is this nation’s favourite biscuit. For those of you on the other side of the pond, this classic cookie consists of two vanilla biscuits sandwiching a thick layer of custard cream. Delicious for dunking into tea, its broad appeal works on children and pensioners alike.

Despite its popularity, I hadn’t seen a recipe for homemade custard creams until I received a copy of Nigella Lawson’s Feast for Christmas last year. But of course- if anyone was going to take a British classic and put a homespun spin on it, Nigella was.

It’s a relatively simple recipe, but you’ll have to hunt down some custard powder if you want to make it. What I don’t suggest is trying to do anything fancy with the shape; this dough can be tricky to handle and frilly shapes or decoration (as I attempted here) can result in er, rustic looking biscuits.

But still, they taste great; the biscuit is short and not too sweet, and the custard filling is rich and creamy. While I doubt these could ever replace my beloved Dad’s, at least now I can enjoy their taste, without suffering any of that pesky shop-bought guilt. The best of both worlds, then.

• Custard Creams
• adapted from Feast by Nigella Lawson
• makes 14-20 sandwich cookies, depending on size
• For the biscuits:
  175g plain flour
  3 Tbs. custard powder
  1 tsp. baking powder
  3 Tbs. caster sugar
  100g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
  1 egg
  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  up to 1 Tbsp. milk
  
  For the custard cream filling:
  100g icing sugar
  1 Tbs. custard powder
  50g unsalted butter, softened
  1 tsp. boiling water
• 1. To make the dough, pulse the flour, custard powder, baking powder and sugar together in a food processor until blended. Add the butter and pulse until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs. (If you don’t have a food processor, use your fingers, or a hand blender.) Add the egg and vanilla extract and mix until the mixture comes together in a smooth bowl. If it’s still too dry, add the milk a drop at a time until it’s moist enough. Gather the dough into a ball and wrap tightly in clingfilm; let rest in the fridge for at least 20 minutes or as long as 48 hours.
  
  2. Meanwhile, make the custard cream filling. Mix the icing sugar and custard powder in a bowl, then blend in the butter with an hand mixer. Add the boiling water and blend until smooth. Set aside until ready to use (you may want to put it in the fridge if it’s a warm day).
  
  3. Just before you’re ready to bake the cookies, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Roll the dough out on a well-floured surface to a thickness of about 4mm. Cut out your biscuits with a cookie or pastry cutter, and place on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake for 12-15 minutes until just golden at the edges, then remove to a rack to cool completely.
  
  4. When the biscuits are cool, sandwich them together with approximately 1 tsp. of filling, using a small spoon. Store in an airtight container.

This post is the first in a series I’ll be writing on food, social stereotype, and the cultural context in which they coexist. Ok, not really. But I do need to get some stuff off my chest.

I think most people who know me would agree that I’m not a hippie. I’m not all that spiritual, I’m into material possessions, I wear a lot of black. As a kid, I once spent two weeks at a hipppie-esque summer camp and hated it. The food was weird, everyone was wearing tie-dye and my cabin counsellor didn’t shave her legs. (My parents ignored my tearful phone calls home and pleas to “get me away from here”. I lived.)

But even in the face of all that evidence, I have my niggling doubts, compounded by the fact that my boyfriend occasionally likes to tease me by calling me a hippie in an affectionate (at least I hope it’s affectionate) way. Since that summer at Camp Hell-on-Earth, I’ve become a vegetarian. I’m also an eco-nag and a self-confessed tree hugger. I occasionally listen to Ani Difranco. Could I be a hippie?

The clincher, of course, is these date squares. Made with oats and whole wheat flour, these are exactly the kind of thing you’d expect to find at some kind of commune bake sale, between the hemp seed bread and the tofu cheesecake. The second I pulled these from the oven, I worried my fate as hippie was sealed.

Of course, one batch of date squares does not a hippie make. Luckily for you; these are delicious, and I’d hate to think anyone was missing out because of some misguided fear. And if you are a hippie, don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone.

• Oaty Date Squares
• adapted from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea by Rose Carrarini
• makes 16-24 squares
• 400g dried, pitted dates
  240ml water
  1 tsp. vanilla extract
  200g rolled oats (+ 30g for topping, optional)
  150g whole wheat flour
  1/2 tsp. baking soda
  1/4 tsp. salt
  150g unsalted butter (+ extra for greasing)
  110g dark brown sugar
  2 Tbs. golden syrup
• 1. Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Prepare a baking tin (8×8, 9×9 and 8×13 all work fine) by buttering and lining it with parchment. Set aside.
  
  2. Roughly chop the dates and combine with the water in a small saucepan. Simmer over a very low heat until the water is absorbed and the dates have the consistency of a thick paste. Stir in the vanilla and set aside.
  
  3. Blitz the oats (except for the 30g for topping) in a food processor or spice grinder briefly; you don’t want a uniform consistency, but rather some fine oat flour, some whole flakes and some in between bits. Mix the oats with the flour, baking soda and salt in a large bowl.
  
  4. In another saucepan, melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup together until just combined. Pour over the oat mixture and stir until everything is well-coated and crumbly.
  
  5. Press just over half of this mixture into the prepared baking tin, ensuring an even layer. Over this, evenly spread the date mixture. “Crumble” the remaining oat mixture evenly over the top of the dates (this is easier than spreading it) and gently press down. With buttered hands, sprinkle and pat the remaining 30g of oats down on top of that.
  
  6. Bake the squares for 30-35 minutes until golden brown and firm to the touch. Let cool completely before cutting, with a very sharp knife, into squares.

Sometimes, only chocolate will do.

Though I’ve never been as enamoured of chocolate as some, this was my thinking last Friday. Andrew and I were going away for the weekend to visit his newly-relocated parents, and I was having some difficulty coming up with a train-friendly meal for us. The nearly four hour trip up north, combined with the time frame (after work) and horrible train food made a gourmet, mobile picnic necessary.

The savoury items were easy: a Thai noodle salad, some Italian beans and a squash, feta and olive dish. But what to nibble on after, with our boiling hot and obscenely large train teas? I needed something substantial, portable and delicious.

Enter these cookies. From my much-loved Nigella Express, they deliver a triple chocolate hit: melted chocolate, cocoa powder and oodles of chocolate chips. The recipe make 12 giant cookies with an intense chocolate flavour. If that much chocolate seems a bit much for you, you can even freeze the unbaked blobs of dough to bake at a later date.

I don’t often post recipes as-written here, preferring instead to adapt or create my own. But I didn’t think these cookies need much tweaking, so this here is Nigella’s recipe, almost completely straight-up. The dough would also be delicious with white chocolate chips or nuts.

• Triple Threat Chocolate Cookies
• adapted from Nigella Express by Nigella Lawson
• makes 12 large cookies
• 125g dark chocolate, chopped
  150g plain flour
  30g cocoa
  1 tsp. baking soda
  1/2 tsp. salt
  125g unsalted butter, softened
  65g dark brown sugar
  50g castor or white sugar
  1 tsp. vanilla extract
  1 large egg
  300g dark chocolate chips or chopped dark chocolate
• 1. Preheat the oven to 170°C/335°F. Prepare two baking sheets by lining with parchment paper.
  
  2. In a small saucepan over low heat (or in the microwave, on in a double boiler), melt the chocolate until smooth. Set aside to cool slightly. Sift together the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt into a small bowl. Set aside.
  
  3. In a large bowl, cream together the butter and two sugars with a hand mixer (or use a stand mixer). When light and fluffy, add the melted chocolate, and beat until just combined. Add the vanilla and the egg and beat until smooth. Mix in the dry ingredients in two additions, then finally fold in the chocolate chips.
  
  4. Using an ice cream scoop or large spoon, spoon large dollops of dough (about 1/4 cup each) onto the lined baking sheets. Be sure to leave about 3″ between each cookie, as they will spread. Don’t flatten the cookies.
  
  5. Bake for 9-11 minutes until cookies have just darkened at the edges and feel slightly soft on top. Let cool completely before eating.

In my experience, there are two kinds of people: the shedders and the hoarders. Shedders like to live simply and modestly. Too many possessions weigh them down, and spring cleaning is like Christmas come early to them. Hoarders, on the other hand like to be prepared, and can often be heard uttering the phrase “But I might need this some day”.

For the most part, I’m a shedder. I might keep boxes of old journals for sentimental reasons, but I still love a good life edit. My closet, bookcase and flat all get a good once-over several times a year, and anything no longer useful or attractive (to me) goes. Seriously, the Oxfam around the corner has done well by me.

But my kitchen is a whole ‘nother story. Rather than adopting the European practice of shopping daily, living in London has only made it clear to me how North American my shopping habits are. At any given time, my cupboards are home to four to six kinds of nuts, three varieties of seeds, three types of lentils, four kinds of beans, three different flours, three sugars and seven different pasta shapes. I love the freedom of knowing that it’s in there, ready to be made into dinner/granola/cookies/ what have you at a moment’s notice.

But every now and then my core personality takes over, and I begin to cook in what I call “cupboard-clearing mode”. This economical setting can result in the delicious, the inedible, or the bizarre. The most recent bout (thankfully) leant to the former, with these Brown Sugar Biscuits. Made in an attempt to use up the Chipits Skor Toffee Bits I found in my stocking last Christmas, these cookies feature one of my favourite flavour combos: chocolate, caramel and salt. A posher version of my Salted Caramel Brownie Cookies, they were inspired by the photo of this recipe from The Kitchn.

The biscuit base, adapted from a Nigella recipe, is neither too sweet not too rich, just a perfect base for the trio of flavours on top. Use good quality chocolate and flaky Maldon sea salt and the toffee bits become more than a novelty baking item. Of course now I’ll probably have to go out and buy more of them, completely working against my original intention. Oh well, at least I can’t hoard these cookies- they don’t last long enough!

• Brown Sugar Biscuits with Chocolate, Toffee and Sea Salt
• adapted from How to be a Domestic Goddess by Nigella Lawson
• makes about 6 dozen 1 3/4″ cookies; more or less depending on size
• For the biscuits:
  175g unsalted butter, softened
  100g brown sugar
  100g caster sugar
  2 large eggs
  1 tsp. vanilla
  400g flour
  1 tsp. baking powder
  1 tsp. salt
  
  For the tops:
  150g dark chocolate
  1-2 tsp. heavy cream (optional)
  toffee pieces, for sprinkling (about 1/2 cup)
  sea salt, for sprinkling (about 1 Tbs.)
• 1. To make the biscuit dough, cream together the butter and sugars in a stand mixer or with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, followed by the vanilla, beating for 30 seconds or so after each additon.
  
  2. Mix together the flour, baking powder and salt in a smaller bowl, and add to the wet ingredients in three additions. Gently beat or stir to combine.
  
  3. Separate the dough into two discs, wrap each tightly in clingfilm and put in the fridge for at least one hour. (At this point you can also choose to freeze one, which works well.)
  
  4. After an hour, preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Take one disc out of fridge and roll it out to a thickness of 1/2 cm on a generously floured surface. (Leave the other in the fridge until you need to use it.) Cut out any shapes you like and place them, 1/2″ apart, on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake cookies for 8-10 minutes until barely golden on the edges. Cool completely before decorating.
  
  5. Melt the chocolate in a small saucepan over low heat, with the cream if using. (It’s not strictly necessary, but I find that it guards against seizing and makes me less nervous.) Using the back of a small spoon, spread a little chocolate on the top of each cookie before sprinkling with the toffee pieces and a little sea salt. Allow chocolate to harden completely before eating.

When you bake, who are you really baking for? You, your partner, kids, friends or co-workers? It has to go beyond your own enjoyment- unless you’re the type who can polish off a triple-layer cake in one sitting (and if you are, my respect and condolences).

I bake about once a week, primarily to keep Andrew and myself in teatime treats. While my repertoire includes everything from cupcakes to cookies and brownies to pie, Andrew and I have slightly different views on what constitutes a treat. For him, there must be one constant: chocolate. While I love 70%+ as much as the next girl, I can’t help but cast my treat net a little wider. Oats, toffee, citrus and fruit all sound great to me, too.

Lately, I’ve been especially loving anything almond-flavoured, and these almond, lemon and semolina cakes (adapted from my sister’s recipe) perfectly fit the bill. The crumbly texture comes from almonds and semolina (no flour at all!), and the insane citrus taste from a good dose of zest and juice. I might be the only one around here who likes them, but I’ll deal with the guilt since they’re so darn delicious.

Luckily for Andrew (and my conscience), they’re also almost gone by now. Oh, and I’ve got a pan of brownies chilling in the fridge.

• Mini Almond, Lemon and Semolina Cakes
• adapted from Citrus, polenta and almond drizzle cake from Let Her Bake Cake
• makes 12 mini cakes
• For the cakes
  150g unsalted butter
  150g sugar
  150g ground almonds
  3/4 tsp. baking powder
  1/4 tsp. salt
  2 eggs
  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  1/2 tsp. almond extract
  zest and juice of 2 lemons
  100g semolina (or use cornmeal; both will work, but texture will vary)
  For the icing
  75g icing sugar
  2-3 tsp. lemon juice
  To top
  2 Tbs. flaked almonds, toasted lightly
• 1. Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F and prepare 12 muffin cups with paper liners (not necessary if using silicone).
  
  2. Using a stand mixer or a hand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar until pale and fluffy. Add the ground almonds, baking powder and salt and mix until just incorporated. Beat in the eggs one at a time, and follow with the extracts, zest and juice. Finally, gently fold in the semolina.
  
  3. Divide the mixture between the muffin cases and bake for about an hour, until the cake tops are springy and just beginning to turn golden. Remove and let cool completely before icing.
  
  4. To make the icing, whisk together the icing sugar with as much lemon juice as necessary (add drop by drop) to make a thick but spreadable icing. When cakes are completely cool, spread about 1 tsp. of icing over each one with the back of a spoon, and sprinkle with a few toasted almonds.

It’s been cold in the UK this winter. Cold and snowy- two things the Brits are definitely not used to. Up and down the country roads are blocked, schools are closed and trains aren’t running. People are turning up the heat, bulk-buying at the grocery store and generally indulging in a spot of controlled panic. This Canadian is viewing it all with detached bemusement, but I can’t say the Dickensian weather isn’t affecting me; it’s influencing what I cook, after all.

I’ve been simmering soups, roasting veg and baking potatoes to see Andrew and me through the cold snap. Strangely, the most warming recipe I’ve made in recent weeks isn’t a hearty pie or a fiery curry, but rather a cookie. The British gingernut biscuit, though delicious, is a confusingly named creature- why “nut”? Gingersnaps- perhaps, ginger chews- most definitely, but there’s nothing nutty about these.

There is, however, something very, very hot about them. Or at least about mine- I use a good 1/2 teaspoon of cayenne pepper, so your throat remembers these long after your mouth has forgotten. If that doesn’t sound like your kind of cookie, just cut back on the cayenne; with a crispy first bite leading to a chewy centre, these are delicious with or without the heat. But until the weather around here warms up, I’m sticking to spice.

Note: As delicious as these cookies are, gingernuts don’t keep well. Best within a day or two of baking, they quickly become tough after that. Luckily, this recipe is easily scaled back, so make only what you need.

• Red Hot Gingernuts
• adapted from Breakfast, Lunch, Tea by Rose Carrarini
• makes about 40 cookies
• 240g golden syrup
  40g black treacle
  440g self-raising flour
  150g dark brown sugar
  1 1/2 Tbs. baking soda
  3 Tbs. ground ginger
  1/2 tsp. cayenne pepper (less if you don’t like spice)
  200g unsalted butter, cut into 1cm cubes
• 1. Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a small saucepan over medium heat, melt together the golden syrup and the treacle to hot but not simmering. Set aside to cool slightly while you get on with the rest of the dough.
  
  2. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, ginger and cayenne. Add the butter and work into the dry ingredients until the mixture resembles breadcrumbs; it is best to use your fingers for this step.
  
  3. Pour the (not too hot) syrup into the bowl and mix with a fork until everything comes together in a smooth, shiny dough. This won’t take long, as the residual heat from the syrup will help to melt the butter and bind everything together.
  
  4. Roll the dough into 1″ balls and place well apart on the prepared baking trays. Bake cookies for 10 minutes until barely browned on the outer edges; they will be very flat and crackled all over. Until cookies have cooled they are delicate and difficult to handle, so wait at least 5 minutes before removing to a cooling rack.

I was whipping up a batch of these last week (a much-needed treat after a particularly grueling couple days), when I realised that despite all the sweet things I’ve written about here- all the cookies, cakes, tarts and other treats- that I’ve never shared this go-to brownie recipe before. If I’m honest, brownies aren’t my favourite indulgence- Andrew is the chocolate fiend in this household. But if I’m gonna have them, they’ve got to be good.

When it comes to brownies, the word “ultimate” is vastly overused. As are “best”, “superior”, “most delicious”, “incredible” and so on. And no, I’m not about to insist that this brownie recipe really is the ultimate one- everyone has different criteria for judging a brownie’s worth, after all. I will say that if you, like me, enjoy a really dense, fudgey brownie, if you like a double chocolate hit in the form of melted chocolate and cocoa powder, if the idea of a brownie made incredibly moist with the addition of cream cheese sounds good to you, then there’s a good chance that this brownie recipe will become your ultimate one, too.

One thing I especially like about this recipe (besides everything above, obviously) is how adaptable it is. The basic version is delicious, but the possibilities for additions are truly limitless- chocolate chips, nuts, dried cranberries, swirls of various composition. It’s the latter I went for this time- a mix of peanut butter and cream cheese for a sweet but salty cheesecake swirl. And you’ve got to admit- that really does sound like the ultimate indulgence, doesn’t it?

Note: Since I prefer bake in weight (grams), that’s how I’ve shown the recipe below. If you prefer ounces or volume measures, follow the link to the original recipe- Rose includes all three!

• Ele’s Ultimate Brownies (Peanut Butter Cheesecake Swirl optional!)
• adapted from Rose Levy Berenbaum‘s Brownie Puddle Tart
• makes 16 large brownies
• Brownies
  200g unsalted butter
  85g dark baking chocolate (I try to use 70%+ cocoa solids), chopped
  50g cocoa powder
  225g caster sugar
  3 large eggs
  85g cream cheese
  1 tsp. vanilla extract
  70g plain flour
  1/4 tsp. salt
  
  Peanut Butter Cheesecake Swirl
  115g cream cheese
  85g peanut butter
  3 Tbs. caster sugar
  1 egg yolk
  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1. Preheat the oven to 160°C/325°F. Prepare a 8 x 8″ baking pan by buttering the sides, and lining the bottom and two sides with parchment paper.
  
  2. In a large bowl or medium saucepan, melt together the butter and chocolate. When it’s smooth, remove from the heat and whisk in the cocoa powder, sugar, eggs and cream cheese. Finally, stir in the vanilla, flour and salt. Spread the mixture into the prepared baking tin, and set aside while you prepare the cheesecake swirl (if using).
  
  3. For the peanut butter cheesecake swirl, whisk together all ingredients until smooth. Spread over the top of the brownie batter, and using a spoon or small spatula, swirl the two mixtures together.
  
  4. Bake for 30-35 minutes, until set and springy in the middle. Allow brownies to cool for 10 minutes in the pan, before removing to a wire rack to cool completely. Brownies are best after 24 hours, and get even fudgier if kept in the fridge.

When I was 17 or so, I caught whooping cough. There was an outbreak in several of my city’s primary schools, and I caught it from some kids I was babysitting at the time. On the surface, whooping cough isn’t all that bad. You cough a lot, you get a couple weeks off school- as highly contagious diseases go, it’s pretty great. The thing you probably don’t know about whooping cough (unless you’ve had it yourself) is that even after you’re not contagious anymore, even after you feel healthy again and go back to normal life, you keep coughing. For several months.

For me, this slightly annoying fact was complicated by my friend Maya, who thought it was just hilaaaarious that I’d been so inflicted. She took to softly, subtly, with the most innocent of faces, saying “whoop, whoop” whenever I coughed. For the rest of the school year. So not only was I that weird coughing girl (always a great label to have in high school, let me tell you), but I had a constant whooping echo, too. Thank goodness we didn’t have every class together.

I was reminded of Maya’s torturous teasing last month. She moved into a new apartment and emailed me to tell about the breaking in of her new kitchen. Appropriately enough, she’d made a batch of pumpkin whoopie pies. These festive fall treats were all over the food blogs last year with a contagiousness of their own. I remember thinking then that they looked delicious, but it took twelve months and a friendly tip to convince me to make them.

This week, after I’d peeled, cubed, steamed and puréed another pumpkin, I finally had an opportunity to. I opted to use Martha Stewart’s recipe, but added my own little tweak. I didn’t have quite as much pumpkin as the recipe called for (yes, I’ve been using it a lot- more pumpkin recipes are on their way), so I added in some cocoa powder for a bit of extra flavour. Chocolate and pumpkin? Whoop, whoop!

• Chocolate-Pumpkin Whoopie Pies
• adapted from Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Cream-Cheese Filling by Martha Stewart
• makes 6 pies (easily doubled, but these things are huge!)
• Whoopie Pies
  1 1/2 cups plain flour
  1/2 tsp. baking powder
  1/2 tsp. baking soda
  1/2 tsp salt
  1 tsp. ground cinnamon
  1 tsp. ground ginger
  2 Tbs. cocoa powder
  1 egg
  3/4 cup packed brown sugar
  1/2 cup vegetable oil
  3/4 cup pumpkin purée (from peeled, cubed, steamed and puréed pumpkin, or from a can)
  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  
  Cream Cheese Filling
  113g cream cheese, at room temperature
  57g butter, at room temperature
  1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
  1 cup icing sugar, sifted
  1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1. Preheat the oven to 175°C/350°F, and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cocoa powder. Set aside.
  
  2. In another bowl, beat the egg and brown sugar together with an electric beater until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes (or use a stand mixer). Add the oil, pumpkin purée and vanilla and beat for another minute. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and beat until just combined.
  
  3. Using a 1/4 cup ice-cream scoop or measuring cup, place large spoonfuls of the dough on the baking sheets, leaving about 3 inches between each one. Work quickly, as the batter will spread a bit. Bake for 15 minutes, until the tops are just springy to the touch. Remove to a cooling rack to cool completely before filling.
  
  4. While the whoopie pies cool, make the filling. Cream together the cream cheese and butter, adding the vanilla after they’re well combined. Sift in the icing sugar and cinnamon and beat to combine. Keep the filling in the fridge until you’re ready to use it.
  
  5. To fill the cookies, simply spread a few tablespoonfuls of filling on the flat side of one, and gently pair it with another, similar in size and shape. Whoopie pies should be kept in an airtight container in the fridge.