Atlanta etc.: Marilyn Wolf's Food Blog and Restaurant Blog

I discovered the Baker's Candies outlet in Greenwood on a drive through the country. These candies are local favorites. The store is huge with a very wide variety of candies going well beyond their truffles. I walked away with several types of candies. A hidden gem was the Scooter's chocolate espresso truffles, the perfect blend of chocolate and coffee.

I was in the mood for something rich in the evening. My thoughts turned to caramel whisky sauce. I started by melting and browning some white sugar, then added butter. The next step was to add some whisky. Both attempts caused the sauce to seize up, leaving a mass of congealed caramelized sugar floating in a sea of liquid. Nonetheless, I managed to get enough sugar into the butter and whisky to make a very nice sauce for ice cream. I will clearly need to experiment more to find ways to minimize the seizing. In the mean time, I enjoyed my delicious mess. Eating one's mistakes is a critical skill in cooking.

A meal at Wilderness Ridge ended with one dessert for each person, all delicious.

I had some extra defrosted peaches and decided to make a cobbler. Based on the recipe in the King Arthur Flour cookbook, I mixed up the very simple batter. I poured the batter over the peaches in a square pan. Thirty minutes later, I had this beautiful pan. I let the cobbler cool, then whipped some cream and enjoyed. Cobblers provide just enough topping to go with the fruit to create a very satisfying dessert.

A casual drive around Lincoln led me to this charming spot. C & L Dairy Sweet is a callback to earlier, simpler times of both motoring and food. This tiny shed is surrounded by green. Seats and tables allowed folks to eat and enjoy. The smell of burgers was extremely tempting but I ultimately decided on this cone. Chocolate was out in the swirl machine so I ended up with a swirl of banana and vanilla. I carefully licked my cone as I enjoyed the green and watched the cars go by.

After ordering poached pears several times, I decided to try to make them myself. I picked up a few pears at the store. I peeled one, split it into two pieces, and cored it. I boiled it for about 20 minutes in water, sugar, and a little bourbon. After cooking the pears, I let them cool while I boiled down the syrup a little more. Some whipped cream finished them off. The result was good, but my pears weren't as ripe as they should have been. I tried again with another pear a few days later and the result was much softer. This dish works well with several poaching fluids: straight syrup, syrup with wine. Its simplicity adds to its elegance. And it doesn't take a lot of effort.

Marchesi is located in the historic part of Milan near the castle. This jewel box of a building caught my eye immediately. This display of pastries confirmed that Marchesi was my sort of place. The tea room was a delight, a reminder of an earlier time when life was less hectic and people took time to enjoy simple things. I ordered this pastry and an espresso, which were both superb. I believe that this was a layered pastry; I was intrigued by the note in the menu explaining that their croissants are sourdough. Hmmm, I guess I will have to return to be sure I have sampled their entire menu.

Lemon custard seemed like a wonderful use for some lemons I found at the grocery store. I started by squeezing the lemons and grating off some lemon zest. I then mixed together the ingredients, which include flour. Not having made a lemon custard before, I wasn't expecting flour to appear on the ingredient list. I put the mixture in ramekins and steamed them. The result was very tasty, nicely tart without being overwhelmingly so. The flour gave the custard a different, slightly cakier texture than other types of custards. It was very pleasing but it didn't hold up for very long. If you make this style of custard, be prepared to enjoy it quickly.

Have a dozen too many eggs? Perhaps a pound-and-a-half of butter is clogging your refrigerator? Why not let these ingredients clog your arteries instead? Just make them into cupcakes with buttercream icing. I used the yellow cake recipe from the King Arthur cookbook. First, I creamed the sugar and butter. I then incorporated the eggs (four, plus two yolks) and flour. For the liquid, I used some buttermilk I had in the refrigerator. I loaded the batter into cupcake cups... ...and twenty minutes later I had cupcakes. The icing was based on the neoclassic buttercream from The Cake Bible. I boiled a combination of sugar and corn syrup. I beat a half-dozen egg yolks to a lemony yellow. I then beat the boiling syrup into the eggs using my trusty hand mixer. After adding the butter and some baking chocolate, I had this rich, glossy icing. I let the cupcakes cool for a little while, then I applied the icing. The next morning, I used those eight egg whites for...

I've been thinking about banana pudding for awhile. When I decided to make a batch, I thought about skipping the vanilla cookies entirely but I ultimately came to my senses. I went all the way and made my own cookies. I based my vanilla cookies on the sugar cookie recipe from the King Arthur cookbook but with some substitutions: butter for the shortening and heavy cream for the buttermilk. The result was a spheroid cookie that was also pretty dense. The heavy cream was a little too thick for this purpose and didn't let the cookie flatten out in the oven. I thought about making another batch with something a little thinner but I ultimately decided to use them in the pudding. For the pudding, I used the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook substituting heavy cream for milk. I heated the cream and sugar, then used it to temper the egg yolks. I cooked the cream, egg yolks, butter, and cornstarch until thick. When it was ready, I coated the bottom o...

Greece is a late-night country. Restaurants often don't open until 8 PM and people stay out late into the night. Of course, people need pastries, too. So after dinner, Loukia and Dimitrios took me to Caravel to pick up some sweets. Customers came through the door in a steady stream while we were there. Caravel's selection is very broad---this is only one of 4 or 5 cases. They carry pastries, ice cream, and chocolates, among other things. I was lucky enough to be bestowed with this treat, which I always think of as the shredded wheat thingy. The texture is part of the attraction of this pastry, particularly the thin, sharp strands drenched in honey. It was very tasty and just the right size.

I was in the mood for a cake but, quite frankly, I didn't want to spend forever making one. I started with the classic yellow cake recipe from The King Arthur Cookbook. To prepare, I cut paper rounds for the bottoms of the cake pans. Mom used to cut these out of paper bags from the grocery store. Of course, that was back in the twentieth century when grocery stores put your groceries in paper bags. I creamed together the butter and sugar for a good five minutes. I mixed in the eggs and buttermilk. After some time in the oven, I pulled out these three eight-inch layers. After they cooked, I soaked them in simple syrup. My next step was the chocolate ganache. I poured Guittard baking chocolate coins into boiling heavy cream. I normally use Alton Brown's proportions but I decided to try Ina Gartner's. The result was much stiffer, even with some added cream. As a result, I spread the ganache rather than pouring it on. The result looked like this. I realized ...