pear and hazelnut muffins

We all know that muffins teeter precariously on a razor-thin line that divides the food categories of “Acceptable for Breakfast” and “Nope, This Is Dessert” and one must maintain firm boundaries during the breakfast hours lest the day that follows devolve into a full-on bacchanal of Resolution decompensation that ends with one passed out amid scatters of Cheetos, ketchup packets and French fry grease with a side of cronut.

Thus, when I come upon a new muffin recipe — or in this case, when my son is told to pick a recipe for us to make from a new book, and he predictably chooses the thing that most resembles cake — I immediately assess the list of ingredients and label them accordingly:

Whole grains and oats = breakfast!
White flour = cake.
An egg or two = breakfast!
Lots of eggs = cake.
Natural sweeteners = breakfast!
White sugar = cake.
Unsaturated fats = breakfast!
Butter = cake.

And so this goes until the marks in each category can be tallied and a determination can be made as to whether we can pull this off during the breakfast meal. The Pear-Hazelnut Muffins from Megan Gordon’s beautiful new book, Whole Grain Mornings, came out clearly in the breakfast camp with oats, whole wheat flour and nuts and might have even remained there, had my husband not planted the idea in my head that pears (breakfast!) and hazelnuts (breakfast!) might go especially well with … chunks of chocolate. (Oops.)

I’m sorry, Megan, I know you tried to steer our mornings wholesome with this book; it just didn’t stand a chance with the likes of us.

So, maybe we had them for dessert last night instead, but I have no regrets. These muffins have a few more ingredients than my beloved blues, but there’s a complex flavor I hadn’t remotely expected from something as usually forgettable as a muffin — grated pear, toasted hazelnuts, vanilla, butter, oats and, yes, chocolate chunks tangle together in a nubby, crunchy muffin that actually tastes amazing even a day and two after it’s baked. Not that I had one for breakfast today. (Please don’t tell my son?)

Thank you: For making yesterday’s Facebook Chat an overwhelming success — that was really fun! I tried to get to as many questions as I could throughout the afternoon and evening as well, but have a bunch to go. I’ll get to them as I find pockets of free time. Feel free to catch up right here, if you wish. Please forgive errors of grammar and spelling — that was a lot of fast typing for a couple hours! [1/15/14 Smitten Kitchen Facebook Chat]

One year ago: Lentil Soup with Sausage, Chard and Sizzling Garlic
Two years ago: Buttermilk Roast Chicken
Three years ago: Baked Potato Soup
Four years ago: Poppy Seed Lemon Cake and Black Bean Soup + Toasted Cumin Seed Crema [still my favorite accompaniment to a taco night!]
Five years ago: Light Wheat Bread
Six years ago: Our Favorite Chocolate Chip Cookies
Seven years ago: Leek and Mushroom Quiche

Pear and Hazelnut Muffins
Adapted from Whole Grain Mornings

This book is a delight, creative, seasonally-sorted recipes through the lens of whole grains. I made these first (preschooler’s choice!) but have already bookmarked Bacon and Kale Polenta Squares, Strawberry Oat Breakfast Crisp, Vanilla and Cream Steel-Cut Oats Porridge, Creamy Breakfast Rice with Honey-Poached Figs and Pistachios and Zucchini-Farro Fritters, to give you an idea of what will await you when you buy the book. It’s nothing short of what you’d expect from the creator of Marge Granola.

This recipe, however, I tweaked it a bit, mostly because it used many bowls and I wanted it to use fewer. A bunch more notes: This calls for 1 cup all-purpose flour and 1/2 cup whole wheat (pastry flour was recommended) but I think it can be tweaked with any flour mix your prefer, be it mostly whole wheat or white whole wheat, or a gluten-free mix (Sprouted Kitchen smartly recommends 1/2 cup each of oat, almond and brown rice flour). I (always) think you could brown the butter. Yogurt thinned with a little milk could replace the buttermilk, as could coconut milk with 1 tablespoon lemon juice added, and coconut oil or olive oil could replace the butter, just to give you a few ideas. The bittersweet chocolate chunks were not necessary, but they were not regretted either.

Yield: Theoretically, 12 muffins, but I got 16.

2 small-medium firm pears
6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, melted and cooled slightly (plus more for cups)
2/3 cup (125 grams) natural cane sugar, such as Turbinado, light brown or granulated sugar
1 cup (240 ml) buttermilk
2 large eggs, lightly beaten
1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
3/4 cup (75 grams) rolled oats
1 cup (125 grams) all-purpose flour
1/2 cup (60 grams) whole wheat flour
3/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom, which I replaced with 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg, which I replaced with 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup (120 grams) toasted hazelnuts, coarsely chopped
1/2 cup (85 grams) bittersweet chocolate chunks (optional)

Heat oven to 425°F. Butter a standard 12-cup muffin tin or line it with papers.*

Peel (if you so desire, can be skipped) pears, then halve and core them. Grate pears on the large holes of a boxed grater into a large bowl. You should have about 1 cup grated (although I ended up with 1 1/2, opting to meet the recipe halfway and used 1 1/4 cups). Stir in melted butter, sugar, buttermilk, eggs and vanilla until combined.

In a separate bowl, stir together the oats, flours, baking soda, baking powder, spices, salt, all but 1/2 cup coarsely chopped hazelnuts, and chocolate chunks, if you’re feeling extra indulgent. Gently fold this dry ingredient mixture into the wet batter until just combined; do not overmix.

Fill muffin cups almost up to the top and sprinkle with the reserved 1/2 cup hazelnuts. Place muffins in oven and immediately reduce the heat to 375°F. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, or until the tops are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of muffins comes out batter-free.

Cool muffins in pans for 10 minutes, then transfer to a cooling rack. Muffins will keep for 2 days at room temperature in an airtight container.

* Unsolicited plug: Just bought these for the first time, which were wonderful at keeping the muffins from sticking to the paper.

chicken phở

Last week, when the polar vortex, something that ought to be a frozen rum cocktail with an umbrella on top, but is sadly anything but, had begun to descend its icy grasp on all parts of the U.S., I made the best pot of soup of my life.

I realize I said the same — well, I technically called it “the best thing I ate in December” — about last Monday’s soup and that you think I’m being a bit melodramatic and that I need to go to some sort of calm-down-it’s-just-soup rehab for superlative abuse, but you’re only thinking that because you haven’t made this yet. Because while Monday may have been all about the parmesan brodo, by Tuesday night, we were all, “brodo who?” as we dug into bowls of intensely flavored broth with huge tears of succulent chicken and a tangle of rice noodles, topped with everything from scallions to mung bean sprouts, slivers of jalapeno and crispy-fried shallots, basil and cilantro and heady splashes of lime juice, hoisin and garlic-chili sauce that nothing will ever be right without again.

Goodbye, Jewish grandmother chicken noodle soup; we had a good run.

Hailing back to the early 20th century, phở is a noodle soup with meat and herbs that’s a popular street food in Vietnam, often eaten for breakfast. It’s commonly made with rare-cooked thin strips of beef (often cooked right in your piping hot soup bowl), but I was less familiar with chicken phở, which is not terribly unlike traditional chicken noodle soup if chicken soup was acidic and crunchy/sweet/spicy/herbal/fermented/complex all at once. Right, so basically what they have in common is chicken and noodles.

However, especially if you are new to pho, it’s important not to get overly distracted by the “fixins,” no matter how perfect of a contrast they provide, and this is because the broth of the phở is really the most essential thing. The rich and complex broth — often with flavors from charred onion and roasted ginger to star anise, Vietnamese cinnamon to even black cardamom, coriander, fennel and cloves — is the everything, and while it may take a bit of time, it’s the ideal too-cold-to-go-outside afternoon project and will pay you back tenfold, filling your home with the most outrageously warming aroma, making the wait for spring absolutely bearable.

T-Minus 2 Days: Smitten Kitchen Facebook Chat! Pull up a chair! This Wednesday, January 15th from 12 to 1 p.m. EST on the Smitten Kitchen Facebook Wall (a top post will announce it; leave your questions in the comments) we’re starting something new, regularly scheduled open-invitation Ask Me Anything-style Q&A sessions that I’m hoping will both help me ease up inbox strain (i.e. I could answer your question immediately, rather than letting it fall into an inbox queue) and give us some off-site time to chat as fluidly as possible. I hope you can stop by. Whee!

One year ago: Gnocchi in Tomato Broth
Two years ago: Buckwheat Baby with Salted Caramel Syrup
Three years ago: Pizza with Bacon, Onions and Cream [Tarte Flambee]
Four years ago: Barley Risotto with Beans and Greens
Five years ago: Squash and Chickpea Moroccan Stew and Almond-Vanilla Rice Pudding
Six years ago: Lemon Bars, Crunchy Baked Pork Chops, and Pickled Carrot Sticks
Seven years ago: World Peace Cookies, Salade Lyonnaise and Artichoke Ravioli<

Chicken Phở
Absolutely perfect as printed from Vietnamese Home Cooking, but with extra notes added

This is adapted from a cookbook I’m greatly enjoying by Charles Phan of the famed Slanted Door. I feel like it could take years to soak it all in; it’s transporting in all the ways that a good cookbook should be. But what makes it great is recipes like these, which are standing ovation material: every cooking time nails it; the seasoning is perfect, right as written on the page; and true to its book title [“Home Cooking”] it’s absolutely doable for a home cook. More than doable; prepare to put this on regularly weekend rotation all winter.

The broth here is fairly simple (wonderful for beginners) but you should feel free to add any of the extra spices that sound good to you. Star anise is considered especially fundamental to phở. It’s typically served with a plate full of fixings including lime wedges, Thai basil, cilantro, slivers of jalapeno, mung bean sprouts and crispy shallots. You will probably see some chili-garlic sauce, Sriracha and hoisin nearby. If this sounds overwhelming to procure, do not sweat it; just get what you can or what sounds good. The beauty of phở is that it’s all about the broth, and one as good as this will taste dreamy even without a single bean sprout on top. Besides, Phan himself advises that “The trick is to add a little bit of each item as you eat your way through the bowl, not to dump them in all at once. You want the herbs to maintain their fragrance, the bean sprouts to stay crunchy — it’s all about aroma and texture, and if you add too much too soon, you’ll end up with black herbs and soft sprouts, which defeats the whole purpose.”

Serves 6

Broth
2 unpeeled yellow onions, quartered
Three 1/2-inch-thick slices of unpeeled fresh ginger, smashed
4 quarts cold water
3 pounds chicken bones or chicken wings
One fresh 3 1/2-pound chicken, quartered
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 teaspoons sugar
Additional spices (optional): Cinnamon, star anise, black cardamoms, coriander seeds, fennel seeds or cloves
1/4 cup Asian fish sauce
1 pound dried rice noodles, a linguine shape (bánh phở) if you can find them

Garnishes
1 large scallion, thinly sliced
1 pound mung bean sprouts
1/2 cup torn basil leaves, Thai basil if you can find it
1/2 cup cilantro leaves
2 limes, cut into wedges
2 jalapeños, thinly sliced
Asian chili-garlic sauce
Hoisin sauce
Crispy shallots, recipe follows

Char onions and ginger: Heat the oven to 400°F. Put the onions and ginger on a lightly oiled baking sheet and roast for 30 minutes, or until softened and lightly browned. [Alternate idea suggested in the comments: If you have a gas range, just char them a bit over a flame. It would save a lot of time.]

Cook the chicken: Fill a large stockpot with the water and bring to a boil. Add the roasted onions and ginger, and the chicken bones or wings, quartered chicken, salt, sugar and any of the optional spices and bring to a boil. Lower the heat to moderate and simmer until the chicken is cooked, about 30 minutes.

Remove the chicken and finish the broth: Using tongs, transfer the quartered chicken to a plate and let cool slightly. Remove the meat from the bones and refrigerate. Return the skin and bones to the stockpot and simmer for 2 hours longer. Strain the chicken broth into a large soup pot and cook over high heat until reduced to 12 cups, about 15 minutes. Stir in the fish sauce; adjust to taste.

*Prepare noodles: In a large bowl of warm water, soak the noodles until pliable, about 20 minutes. You can also prepare the noodles according to the package instructions, if they differ. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a boil. Drain the noodles, then add them to the saucepan and boil over high heat until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain well. Divide the noodles between 6 large bowls and sprinkle with the scallion.

Finish and serve the soup: Add the reserved chicken to the broth and simmer until heated through. Ladle the broth and chicken over the noodles. Serve with the bean sprouts, basil, lime wedges, jalapeños, chili-garlic sauce, hoisin sauce and crispy shallots.

* Note: Phan has you cook the noodles separately in water, so they can be drained and used as needed. I believe he’s concerned about them overcooking in the soup pot. Theoretically, you could of course save time by cooking the noodles in the broth pot while the chicken reheats, however, the noodles are likely to make the broth cloudy, when ideal pho usually has a pristinely clear broth. [Thanks to everyone who mentioned the clouding issue in the comments.]

Do ahead: The broth can be made ahead and refrigerated for two days, a great way to divide up this recipe.

Crispy Fried Shallots

Why make so many? Phan says they’re an essential crispy, salty and sweet condiment in Vietnam, where they’re used in soups, on salads, in meatballs and even sprinkled on dumplings as garnish. Phan recommends that you twice-fry them, once at a low temp and a second at a higher one. I fudged this and just did it at higher one for less time, but they burned easily and I know his way is better, so am sharing this instead. I made about a quarter-recipe of this in a small skillet and wished we had more.

2 cups thinly sliced shallots (about 4 large shallots)
2 cups canola oil

In a small saucepan or large heavy skillet, heat the oil over medium-high until it registers 275°F on a deep-fry or candy thermometer. Add the shallots and cook, stirring frequently as they’ll want to cook unevenly, until light golden brown, about 4 to 8 minutes, depending on their thickness. Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

Increase the heat to high and place a fine-mesh sieve over a heatproof bowl. When the oil registers 375°F on the deep-fry or candy thermometer, add return the fried shallots to the oil and cook just until they are crispy and well-browned, about 5 seconds, watching carefully so the shallots don’t burn.

Pour the oil and shallots through the sieve to immediately stop the cooking, then transfer to shallots to a paper towel-lined plate to drain. Sprinkle with salt to season. Reserve the oil for another use. The shallots will keep, stored in an airtight container, for 1 day, but they’re best the day they are made.

gingerbread snacking cake

I have a few things to tell you about this cake today, and none of them at the outset sound terribly upbeat, but bear with me, cheer is nigh.

The first is that if you put this out in small squares, dusted with powdered sugar and in proximity to a hand-whisked bowl of lightly sweetened schlag at a packed tree-trimming party, one by one, the handsome revelers will fall upon them, take a big delighted bite, and then you might out of the corner of your eye note that cheer melting from faces into a brief pang of surprise as they realize that no, that was not a brownie, but an extremely dark and intense square of gingerbread cake. Oopsies?

The second is that yes, I know, I already have a gingerbread cake recipe on this site — what I still consider the Greatest Gingerbread of Them All — and that is still the one I make for every Christmas dinner I’m invited to. However, if there could be one bad thing about it, it would be that on a rare occasion, usually because it sat in the pan longer than it was supposed to or the baking winds were not in our favor that day, it does not like to come out of the bundt pan in one piece. Sometimes it comes out in several. Sometimes it leaves half the cake in the pan. Sometimes you’re trying to get it out of the pan a single hour before you have to be at a Christmas Eve dinner an hour twenty minutes away and you… you cry.

I think this would be a good time to state for the record that The Smitten Kitchen does not condone crying over cake. The Smitten Kitchen wants you to know that it’s going to be okay, that cake is delicious whether it’s in one piece or seventeen irregular ones that have been tossed in a bowl with whipped cream because of course you meant for it to be a trifle, sheesh. The Smitten Kitchen wants you to know that in all cases where cake brings one to the brink of tears, the cake is to blame, the cake is actually kind of a jerk, and you should just pour yourself a glass of ‘nog, go outside and catch some snowflakes on your tongue, and come back inside and have a good laugh about it because even if it’s not funny yet, it will be one day so you may as well pre-set the record straight.

Needless to say, these Smitten Kitchen “teachings” were not, in fact, in my head at the time so I didn’t remember any of this. What I did remember, however, was a Gingerbread Snacking Cake I’d spotted from Martha Stewart that week, a simpler cake, one served in little squares, one baked with a parchment paper liner to ensure that it always releases from the pan, and I suspected that I could throw it together in very little time. I melted the butter instead of softening and beating it. I fudged the steps so it was almost a one-bowl cake. It barely took 30 minutes to bake a half-recipe. And what came out of the oven was incredible — almost all of the lovely intensity and complexity of the great and grand Gramercy gingerbread in fewer steps with fewer beads of sweat on one’s forehead. And I have since then kept this recipe in my back pocket, not just for December emergencies and big December holidays, but for December itself, or anytime you crave a deeply spiced gingerbread cake but want a forgiving recipe with minimal fuss. It goes well with mulled wine, with lazy family afternoons and unfurrowed brows, like everything important should.

Gingerbread Snacking Cake
Adapted from Martha Stewart

This cake may not look like centerpiece material, but it is no less worthy of your full admiration. As written, it makes a maximum intensity (via fresh ginger and a full cup of molasses) gingerbread cake. For a moderate intensity gingerbread cake, skip the fresh ginger (I usually do because I’m a wimp) and swap 1/3 cup of the molasses with honey or golden syrup. If you can’t get molasses, use black treacle syrup.

I suspect it would also make a wonderful layer cake, maybe with eggnog filling and whipped cream for frosting. It can be baked in 1 9×13 pan or 2 9-inch round or 8-inch square pans. I cut it into 32 petite squares.

8 tablespoons (1 stick, 4 ounces or 115 grams) unsalted butter, cut into chunks, plus more for pan
1 cup water
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2/3 cup packed dark-brown sugar
1 cup unsulfured molasses
1 tablespoon freshly grated ginger (optional)
2 large eggs, room temperature, lightly beaten
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for pan
2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground or freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
Confectioners’ sugar, for dusting finished cake
Lightly sweetened whipped cream, essential for serving

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9×13-inch baking pan with parchment paper. Butter and flour parchment and sides of cake pan, or spray both with a nonstick baking spray.

Bring water to a boil in a medium saucepan (or large one, if you’d like to make the cake entirely in there) and add baking soda — it will foam up! this is fun! Let stand for 5 minutes, then stir in butter until melted. Whisk in dark brown sugar, molasses and fresh ginger, if using. Mixture is usually just lukewarm by now, but if it still feels quite hot to the touch, set it aside to 10 to 15 minutes to cool further before using.

Place flour, ground ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, salt and baking powder in a fine-mesh strainer or sifter so that you can sift them over the wet ones in a minute.

Transfer molasses mixture to a large mixing bowl if your saucepan isn’t large enough to make the batter in. Whisk in eggs until just combined. Sift dry ingredients over wet, then stir the wet and dry ingredients together until just combined.

Pour batter into prepared pan; bake for 30 to 35 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out clean. Transfer cake to a wire rack and let cool completely. Once fully cool, cut around cake to make sure no parts are sticking to the side and invert cake out onto a rack, then onto a serving plate. Dust with confectioners’ sugar and cut into squares. Please, promise you’ll serve this with lightly sweetened, softly whipped cream. They’re made for each other.

Do ahead: Whipped cream needs to be stored in the fridge, of course. Cake keeps at room temperature for up to a week in an airtight container. It gets better with age, just like you, babe.

sweet potato cake with marshmallow frosting

I hope you don’t mind me going briefly off-topic here. I know that the holiday week demands exclusive chatter about giblets and squash and all the things we can pour butter and cream into, but I had the best revelation this week and even though it’s about as revolutionary of a concept as, brr, it’s cold outside in November, I’m going to tell you about it anyway because that’s what I do here.

It began, as distress often does, on Sunday night when I should have been watching Homeland and going to sleep early. Instead, I was on the internet when I came across a gorgeous apartment only to look up from the laptop and see my own decidedly less gorgeous apartment sprawled out before me, and said, as I have a zillion Sunday nights before this one, “Why is this place such a MESS?” And continued, “Alex, look at this apartment on the web. Why can’t we do this? We have these to-do piles everywhere and whole weekends pass and we never get to them and uuuugh.” And my husband, he of few words but exceptional insight, said “We went to the Museum of Natural History today.”

“Huh?”

And then the obviousness of it hit me. It is amazing how easy it is to look around and react with frustration and stress, and so much harder to remember that, duh, the second we have free time that could feasibly be spent dealing with that pile of unfiled preschool art projects, weeding out the chipped glassware, steam-cleaning the carpets, hanging those pictures on the wall, we’d rather do anything else in the world. This is us; we chose this. We decided a long time ago to actively, consciously do everything in our power to keep our weekends clear of work and tedious tasks so that we may enjoy them as a family; to mentally sign off for 48 hours, so that on Monday, when real life returned, we’d be ready for it. The upside of this is that I love our weekends [our general rule is that we either must leave the city for a while or stay in it, but pretend to be tourists — Central Park and museums and ice-skating and hot cocoa]; the downside is that our home doesn’t look the way I want it to, as it hasn’t yet learned to fix itself up in our absence (rude).

Obviously, this is not to say that people with exceptionally pretty homes have weird priorities or no fun at all (they’re no doubt better at time management than we are, or less lazy), nor does it mean that because goofed off this weekend, we live in a sty*. Like I forewarned, this isn’t going to seem earth-shattering to most people. But since this clicked in my head on Sunday, I’ve found a delicious patch of mental calm, remembering that life as we know it is often the result a series of choices we’d make again in a heartbeat [indeed, I just auditioned this conversation with myself: “Deb, should we hang find a better place for those table panels this weekend?” “Meh, I was hoping we could walk over the Brooklyn Bridge.” See? I did it again.] thus we might as well embrace it in all of its imperfect glory.

This is less difficult to do when the “imperfect glory” in question is cake-shaped. I spent last week reconsidering Thanksgiving classics I’d regarded thus far with a healthy dose of skepticism, things like green bean casseroles and breakfast stuffing. I knew it was time to find a level of acceptance for the strangest of American Thanksgiving traditions, sweet potato casseroles with toasted marshmallows. I could never get my head around this dish — so sweet! so weird on a plate with turkey and gravy! — and so I just relocated it to what I consider its rightful place, the dessert table. Here, more than a pound of sweet potatoes burrow in a thick, insanely moist and lush spiced cake before being dolloped with toasted marshmallow frosting. It’s a little campy, sure, possibly outright strange (pumpkin cakes = acceptable, sweet potato cakes = suspicious seems the general logic of fall recipes) but to taste it is to hopefully be as converted as we were.

I hope that wherever you eat this week, your travels are easy, your stuffing is just the way you like it, and that you, too, enjoy your perfect-in-it’s-imperfect-glory holiday.

* I realize that I’ve probably worried some people, who now think that our apartment is crawling with vermin and dirty dishes, or that you’ll next see us on a Hoarders episode, so for the sake of honesty, here is my living room this very second, in all of its work-in-progress — thank you notes that need to be written, cookbooks that need to be read, board books that need to be packed up, crooked paintings on the wall, groceries that are waiting to be put away, piles of cookware that have spilled out of the kitchen — reality.

Thanksgiving recipes: My favorites are listed here, but if you think I’ve missed something, head to the search box (top left, under the logo) and type in the ingredient — I bet it’s here. Unless you’re looking for a whole turkey recipe… um, next year, I promise. [Thanksgiving Recipes]

Thanksgiving questions: As always, I am responding to questions left in the comments as often as possible (yesterday, I answered a record 54!), and will be checking for new comments throughout the holiday, so feel free to give me a shout if you run into trouble.

Sweet Potato Cake with Toasted Marshmallow Frosting

Please, don’t limit this cake to Thanksgiving. With or without the marshmallow frosting, this would be a fine fine layer cake (one layer is a grand 1 1/2 inches tall) for a first birthday or for that friend that insists they like pumpkin desserts but doesn’t know that they will actually prefer sweet potatoes. Why sweet potatoes? I suspect most Southerners already knew this, but they are so much better in baked goods than pumpkin, more creamy and dense, with more flavor and depth. Pumpkin is usually either often from a can of indeterminate date and origin, or has been tediously roasted and pureed and then sometimes reduced again, only to yield what (to me) often has just half the flavor of a sweet potato. Nevertheless, before it is asked, yes, you could use the equivalent amount of pumpkin puree here instead.

Serves 16 in approximately 2-inch squares

Cake
1 1/2 pounds sweet potatoes (about 2 to 3 medium or 2 large)
2 cups (250 grams) all-purpose flour
1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon (more to taste) ground ginger
Two pinches (more to taste) ground cloves
1/2 cup (1 stick or 115 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup (190 grams) packed light brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs

Frosting
3 large egg whites
3/4 cup granulated sugar
Pinch of salt
1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar (will help stabilize egg whites, don’t worry if you don’t have it)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Roast sweet potatoes: Heat oven to 375 degrees. Prick potatoes all over with a fork. Rest on a baking sheet. Roast for 45 minutes to 1 hour, turning once or twice, until soft. Let cool completely. Can be kept in fridge for up to 3 days, if baked in advance.

Make cake: Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Line the bottom of an 8- to 9-inch square pan with parchment paper, then butter the paper and sides of the pan. [If you trust your nonstick pan, you might be able to skip the parchment, but I don’t like to live on the edge when it comes to getting cakes out of a pan.]

Peel cooled sweet potatoes and run flesh through a potato ricer, or mash until very smooth. (Do not blend in a blender or food processor.) Measure 1 1/2 packed cups (about 12 to 13 ounces) from sweet potato mash; you may have a little extra, which you should warm up with a pat of butter and sprinkle of sea salt and not share with anyone.

Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices together in a medium bowl. In a large bowl, beat butter and brown sugar together with an electric mixer until light and fluffy, about 2 to 3 minutes. Add vanilla and eggs, and beat until just combined. Mix in sweet potato puree, then stir in dry ingredients just until they disappear.

Spread batter in prepared pan, and bake cake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 35 to 40 minutes. Let cake rest in pan for 5 minutes on a cooling rack, then invert onto cooling rack, and let cool completely. You can speed this up, as I always do, in the fridge.

Make frosting: Place egg whites, granulated sugar, a pinch of salt and cream of tartar in a heatproof bowl set over a saucepan of gently simmering water. Whisk mixture for 3 minutes, until whites are warmed and sugar granules feels mostly dissolved. Remove bowl from top of saucepan, then, with an electric mixer, beat egg white mixture on high speed until stiff, glossy peaks form, about 4 to 7 minutes longer. Add vanilla and mix until combined.

Frost and decorate: If you’d like to make huge, marshmallow-like dollops, spread a bit of frosting thinly over cooled sweet potato cake. Then, using a very large round piping tip (I have an almost comically large one with a 1/2-inch opening) or the corner snipped off a freezer bag, pipe large dollops of frosting all over thin frosting layer. If you’d like to skip the dollops, you can just spread the frosting, thick and swirly, all over.

Using a kitchen torch, lightly brown the dollops so that they look (and smell!) like toasted marshmallows.

Serve: At room temperature cut into squares. Cake keeps at room temperature for two days; any longer, I like to keep it in the fridge.

parsley leaf potatoes

As you may have noticed, as the week’s progressed, things have gotten simpler. We started with great ambitions — we will make a green bean casserole from scratch! We will trim the beans! make a roux! sauté the mushrooms! coat and deep-fry the onions! We moved onto my favorite stuffing made from torn baguettes, diced apples and onions and celery, three herbs, sometimes cornbread, sometimes sausage; it’s a two-pan ordeal. We slipped quietly into the simple weeknight savior, cauliflower and brown butter breadcrumbs. At the rate we’re going, I’ll have a boiled water recipe on the site by Monday. But somewhere between five-ingredient breadcrumbs and recipes that don’t need to be spelled out, there’s this, a potato recipe with only salt, butter and parsley.

Why slow down? If you’re like me, at the outset of a holiday, you’re brimming with ideas: dry-brined, braise-roasted and deep-fried turkeys! homemade stuffing from homemade bread! individual miniature pies for every person at the table. As the holiday gets closer — not unlike the progression of this week for me — real life begins to creep in. There are day jobs, flu-like symptoms, traffic jams and extremely dull things like dentist appointments doing everything in their power to interrupt. There are only so many hours in the day, and days left in which one can cook. There are only so many hours of those hours in which one can cook that they actually want to.

Less a sign of a failed career as a domestic diva, this is a healthy and balanced outlook. How are you going to enjoy a dinner party if you spend the whole of it in tizzy in the kitchen? How are you going to catch up with your family that traveled on planes and trains, through inclement weather and unfathomable traffic to spend time with you if you’re too exhausted by the time you sit down to do anything but reach for a Negroni? Does cranberry gelee with gingerbread creme really meet greater acclaim than back-of-the-can pumpkin pie? What ever happened to simple roasted potatoes?

In November 2003, Gourmet Magazine published a recipe for Parsley-Leaf Potatoes that have rarely gotten half the spotlight they deserve. No purple majesty, tri-colored miniature or even Yukon gold potatoes are enlisted to make these potatoes, just the Russets that most of this country simply calls “potatoes.” You’re not going to need extra virgin olive oil or goose fat, single-origin sea salt, shallots, minced herbs, lemon, mustard or self-enclosed packets of soft roasted garlic. There isn’t even any freshly ground black pepper. There is only salt and parsley leaves that are pressed flat against cut potato halves that roast in the puddle of melted butter for the better part of an hour until they are flipped over into a serving dish, the leaves and potato edges now crisp, golden and ready for a magazine cover. (Um, yours will be. I used my oldest, crustiest pan and mine look like, aptly, they’re ready for … this blog. Here’s someone who made them look prettier.)

Best of all, they’re so easy to make, with ingredients that I know you’ll already have around next week, that you can save your energies for crispy onions. Or pie. Or for changing out of your filthy apron and into your coziest sweater, because your work here is done and it’s time to join the fun.

Thanksgiving recipes: My favorites are listed here, but if you think I’ve missed something, head to the search box (top left, under the logo) and type in the ingredient — I bet it’s here. Unless you’re looking for a whole turkey recipe… um, next year, I promise. [Thanksgiving Recipes]

More Thanksgiving: I realized near the end of last week that I had five Thanksgiving dishes left to share with you, and wouldn’t it be fun to post each day this week about one? So, Monday was Green Bean Casserole with Crispy Onions, Tuesday was my favorite Apple-Herb Stuffing for All Seasons and Wednesday was Cauliflower with Brown Butter Crumbs. Thursday got the better of me, but today is crazy simple roasted potatoes, and Monday will hopefully be a fitting new dessert for your repertoire. I love these dishes too much to keep them from you any longer.

Parsley Leaf Potatoes
Adapted from Gourmet

I used Russets, but you of course can you any roasted potato (red or yukon gold) you prefer. When using Russets, the smaller, the better, for maximum creaminess when roasted. As the potatoes roast, the butter in the pan browns and then goes a shade dark — it might smell worrisome, but it will taste wonderful. If you’d prefer, however, you can replace half the butter with olive oil, which will reduce the darkening of the roasted sides. This recipe, uh, uses a lot of butter, possibly more than you need. I’ve gotten away with using just 2/3 of it (4 tablespoons), but I don’t usually bother limiting it. It seems the excess stays in the pan, and the potatoes have just enough to be buttery but not drenched.

Serves 8 to 12

3 ounces (6 tablespoons) unsalted butter
8 small-medium baking potatoes (about 4 pounds), scrubbed
16 fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves
Coarse salt

Heat oven to 450 degrees F. Place roasting pan in oven with butter; once butter has melted, just a minute or two later, remove pan from oven. Halve each potato lengthwise. Place one parsley leaf in the center of each cut half, then sprinkle cut sides generously with salt. Arrange face-down in pan with melted butter; try not to nudge them around or the leaves will move (as mine did) off-center. Roast potatoes for 35 to 45 minutes (depending on size) until tender. There’s no need to turn the potatoes over unless they get so dark underneath (this can happen with a thinner roasting pan or oven than runs hotter) that they risk overcooking before becoming fully tender; if so, just flip the potatoes for the remaining roasting time.

Serve immediately; cut sides up.