andrew's Reviews
4 recipe(s) reviewed. Showing 1 to 4Sort by: Title 
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Ready for Dessert: My Best Recipes
By David Lebovitz
Ten Speed Press - 2010
Chocolate Chip Cookies : page 188
If you like nuts in your cookies, these are the chocolate chip cookies for you. They are quite nutty - he recommends 2 cups worth (I used walnuts and pecans), and very chocolatey, with 3 cups of chopped chocolate.
Interestingly, there's very little salt or baking powder. When I make these again I'm going to increase it beyond the 1/8 of a teaspoon he uses (!) and put at least 1/2 and likely closer to a whole teaspoon. I did find them a little lacking in salt, at least for my tastes.
Overall, a very credible chocolate chip cookie, and I did like these quite a bit, however if you're a purist, and expect only chocolate to adulterate your cookie, then these are not for you. If I had to choose, I'd still pick the New York Times recipe.
useful (2)
Date-Nut Torte : page 56
This is a good snacking cake if you like dates. I'm a big fan and bought a box of medjool dates recently so went looking through my cookbooks for something sweet to make with them. This is quite a simple recipe - two cups of chopped dates and a cup of toasted walnuts, baked in a simple cake batter with a hint of anise. It is dense enough to pass as a bar rather than a cake and I'm not sure why it's called a torte in the recipe, other than its denseness and nut content. Still, definitely tasty.
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Fresh Ginger Cake : page 42
I have a weak spot for ginger cakes of all sorts and this recipe finds that weak spot and blasts a hole in it wide enough to drive a... well you know what I mean. It's really good. Really, really good. But you have to like a bit of zing in your desserts.
It calls for 1/4 pound of grated ginger - none of these sad little teaspoons of the powdered stuff. And black pepper too - the first time I've used that in a dessert. It makes for a wet batter and bakes up beautifully, rising and cracking. The crumb is moist and tender and the crust (if a cake can have a crust) is a little chewy and sweet.
Recommendations: make sure your ginger is well chopped - I used a food processor to make sure it was in very small pieces, so they just melt into the cake. If you have kids or other family members a little sensitive to spicy foods, you might want to dial back the ginger and cut out the pepper. Both my daughters (5 and 7) tasted this and declined to have any more. My wife and I are now forced to eat the whole thing ourselves. Sigh.
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Gingersnaps : page 199
A very credible gingersnap. Not that these deviate very far from the standard gingersnap cookie, but he does have a few nice touches. As well as cinnamon, ginger and cloves, there is a good teaspoon and a half of ground black pepper.
David used this in his (fabulous) ginger cake, to good effect, and it is similar here, giving an extra zing to the cookies - you don't taste it at first, then there's a little kick after a few moments. Nice!
Also, the recipe suggests it makes 60 cookies, but I got 48, which is a change for a North American cookie recipe (usually it's the reverse). Perhaps his time in Paris is affecting his portion sizes?
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