Torn Plum Browned-Butter Cake by Alison Roman

I’ve loved every single one of Alison’s desserts. But this cake, in a neck-and-neck tie with Alison’s Key Lime Pie, wins the Gold Medal. Impossibly buttery, dense but not heavy, bursting with sweet juicy plums, and sprinkled with crunchy sugar. When it comes to describing food, I try to avoid terms like “guilty pleasure,” but I’m not sure how else to talk about eating this cake. It was so perfectly rich that it felt… sinful? No, heavenly? Let’s go with heavenly. 

Flavor besides, the effort required is minimal. It starts with greasing a 9-inch cake pan. Then, melting butter (there’s a LOT of butter – 1.5 sticks to be exact!) in a small pot until it starts to brown. This took about 6 minutes for me. Then I let it cool. 

In the meantime, I whisked the dry ingredients including powdered sugar, salt, GF All-purpose flour, almond flour, and Xanthan Gum. Then I added and whisked in 5 egg whites and maple syrup, (I was out of honey), until there were no lumps to be found. Once the butter cooled, I folded that into the batter as gently as possible before pouring the batter into the cake pan. 

I loved tearing the plums with my hands instead of using a knife. Call it childish, but playing wtih your food is a lot of fun. I made sure to choose really ripe plums at the store for maximum sweetness and ease of tear. I plopped (yes, plopped) the plum bits onto the batter and sprinkled everything with demerara sugar. The cake baked for 42 minutes, with one rotation at the 20 minute mark. The key to done-ness was the deeply browned edges, which ended up being my favorite part. And oh, it was heavenly. 

106 recipes cooked, 119 to go.

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Caramelized Honey with Figs and Ice Cream by Alison Roman

Caramelized figs kind of happened to me. I wasn’t planning on this dish this week, but a box of fresh figs showed up in the front-of-store display at Trader Joe’s and I knew there was no looking back. 

Here is my personal opinion about fresh figs: I want them to have more flavor than they do. They’re just sort of mildly sweet and nothing else. I want them to be tangy, part sweet and part sour. Instead, they’re just sort of... there. Which, now that I think about it, makes sense. I’ve always felt this way about fig newtons too. 

Anywho, this recipe is super simple and takes few ingredients. It does help to have a functioning dominant hand, though, which I sadly could not supply. (I recently injured my wrist at a golfing range and I don’t want to talk about it.) Good thing we made this at our friends’ home because Madeline is a phenomenal fig-slicer, as pictured. 

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First step is to caramelize the honey, aka heat it over medium heat for several minutes until bubbling and a dark amber color. Then add butter, vinegar, and a pinch of salt, like you would to a normal caramel. The figs get added, cut-side down for a moment or two before removing from heat and tossing them to coat in the caramel. Scoop onto some vanilla ice cream, and you’re good to go! I chose the soy vanilla ice cream from TJ’s, and hardly noticed a difference from regular ice cream.

For the small amount of effort it took, it was quite good. However, I wanted the figs and honey to have more complex flavors. More white wine vinegar (or lemon juice) would have helped. Maybe more salt. Maybe figs will never fully do it for me, and that’s okay. If you’re a fig newton lover, then this recipe is absolutely for you. 

101 recipes cooked, 124 to go.

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Rhubarb-Almond Galette by Alison Roman

Growing up in California, I had no idea of the sour power of rhubarb in desserts. I had no idea what rhubarb even looked like. But now that I know, I never want to live without it. Especially rhubarb paired with almond paste. Oh, baby. 

This was my first time purchasing rhubarb and almond paste, and I needed help finding both. Almond paste was tucked away in a tiny box in the dessert aisle next to the sweetened condensed milk. Rhubarb was tucked away in the vegetable section because, surprise!, it’s a vegetable. It looks like extra long, red celery, and I bought 2.5 pounds of it, just like Alison told me to. 

To make the galette, I first prepared the pie crust, which instead of using Alison’s The Only Piecrust, I made another disk of King Arthur’s gluten free pie crust. I was much more confident this time, thanks to coaching from Margaret for the Buttered Raspberry Hand Pies. I also gained assurance from the fact that galettes don’t need to look perfect – they can be misshapen and have craggy edges and no one will care, least of all me. 

While the pie crust chilled in the fridge, I cleaned and sliced the rhubarb into thinner 4” to 6” pieces. Two and a half pounds of rhubarb is a lot of rhubarb, so this took a bit of time. 

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I rolled out the pie crust as far as I could without letting cracks form – about a 12” by 14” cir-rectangle (I made that up). Taking chunks of almond paste, I flattened them to thin disks in my hands (it got a bit sticky!) and arranged them to cover the dough with a 2” border on all sides. Then I laid out the rhubarb… about two-fifths of it actually. I have no idea how Alison can fit all that rhubarb into one galette, but I could hardly fit a pound. I’ve still got the remaining rhubarb in my fridge, which will likely become a cake soon. Or jam. 

I folded the pie crust edges over the galette and sprinkled the top with sugar. Once again, I used less than the recipe called for – a fourth cup instead of a third. 

The rhubarb galette was the perfect balance of tart and sweet. A fresher, butterier take on a sour patch kid, if you ask me. I can’t wait for next year’s rhubarb season. 

This dessert accompanied other Alison recipes for another All-Out Alison meal: 

  • Grilled Artichokes with Preserved Lemon Yogurt (Side)

  • Grilled Branzino with Lemons All of the Ways (Entrée)

  • Rhubarb Almond Galette (Dessert) 

  • Served with a side salad and roasted potatoes

100 recipes cooked, 125 to go.

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Buttered Raspberry Hand Pies by Alison Roman

I love pie, but I rarely make it. Pie crust is intimidating, primarily because it deals with very cold butter that must remain very cold whilst being cut, massaged, rolled, re-rolled, and rolled one more time. Pie crust requires knowing when to stick it in the fridge to keep the temperature right, and how to roll it out without creating any cracks. It’s a delicate balance of precision and intuition. 

Pie crust is kind of like golf. It can take years to become a consistently average golfer. A strong golf swing requires the right form, nuance, and attention to detail. So does making a pie crust. 

I cannot claim proficiency at golf or pie. Which is why I asked my friend Margaret to make this recipe with me while she was in town. Margaret knows pie crust like an old childhood friend, and her guidance was crucial to this process. She also helped me find a Gluten-Free pie crust recipe from King Arthur, which we used instead of Alison’s pie crust recipe. (Note: we skipped the ClearJel step in the recipe.)

Hand pies look like more buttery, sophisticated versions of Uncrustables. You know, the pb&j sandwich with sealed edges? A childhood dream! The process boils down to creating the crust, then the filling, then assembly, and finally, baking. 

I won’t go into the step by step of making the dough – that’s what the link above is for – or the filling. Instead, I’ll share some process photos below. Then keep reading for final thoughts! 

The filling of the pies consists of raspberries, lime zest, and sugar. Margaret and I agreed that the center tasted a bit too tart for our liking. If we make hand pies in the future, we may try using cherries, or adding some apple to the raspberry to balance out the sourness. Apricots would be nice, too. 

The hand pies were delicious, but I haven’t decided whether they were worth the hours of work. I loved the activity because I made them with a friend, but I doubt I’d have the desire or patience to bake hand pies alone. 

All of Alison’s recipes involving pie crust use her “The Only Pie Crust” recipe, which is listed in both cookbooks. But due to my gluten aversion, I asked Margaret to make the pie crust for me and write a guest post about it! More to come from Margaret. 

93 recipes cooked, 132 to go.

Upside-Down Apricot Tart by Alison Roman

I love when a dessert makes me look a more skilled baker than I really am. Puff pastry will do that for you. It’s a store-bought, frozen sheet of thinly layered pastry dough. Painstakingly simple to use, but boy, does it look sophisticated. Puff pastry covers the bottom of this tart. The other side is half-cut apricots covering the bottom of a cake pan filled with a simple honey caramel. Looks like a mosaic, but requires far less finesse. 

I started by prepping the apricots, cutting them in half length-wise, so they were ready to place in the caramel as soon as it was ready. Alison says to use “1lb. apricots (5-6 apricots),” but I ended up needing about 1.15 lbs (10-12 apricots) to fill my cake pan. Alison must have access to really big apricots. 

The caramel made me a little nervous. I don’t have a ton of experience making it, so I’m not the best judge of color and viscosity. Thankfully, I was on the phone with my pal Margaret while I made it, and she coached me on what to look for. My caramel was taking longer than Alison’s instructions, but Margaret assured me that working towards the dark amber color is more important than the amount of time it takes to get there. Once the caramel seemed thick enough and gave off an amber hue, I poured it to cover the bottom of a 10-inch cake pan. You can use a 9-inch pan, too. 

I quickly placed the apricots, cut-side down, over the caramel. Then I loosely covered them in the puff pastry sheet. I trimmed the edges so it came up about an inch on the inside of the pan. According to Margaret, the key here is a loose draping of the pastry, as if it were a blanket and you were tucking the apricots in for a nap. Let the blanket lightly rest over the fruit. Tucking them in too tight will only make ‘em uncomfortable and want to burst out of bed. 

The pan bakes for about an hour total at two different temps – the higher one to bake the pastry, the lower one to bake the fruit. I made this tart a few hours ahead of serving so the caramel hardened in the pan before I could flip it over. To remedy, I stuck the pan back in the oven at 375 for 5 minutes. The caramel loosened and the tart became easy to flip onto a plate. I covered the top with toasted, chopped pistachios and served it on its own. Ice cream or whip cream would have done nicely, but I didn’t have the energy. Plus, the tart on its own is perfectly wonderful. 

Just a friendly reminder that June is apricot season. Trader Joe’s sells them by the pound for $3.29! If you’re planning to make this recipe too, may I suggest you make it in the next two weeks? 

Oh, and feel free to call me if you want to chat about the color of your caramel! 

86 recipes cooked, 139 to go.