Category — Holiday + Special Occasion Recipes

Last night I had an esteemed guest for dinner–the mayor of Palo Alto, Sid Espinosa. With his impressive pedigree, I was expecting someone very business-like and maybe even a little straight-laced… but he took one bite of these brownies and started saying utterly obscene things about them. This blog is strictly PG and I want to make sure he comes over for dinner again, so I’m just going to leave it at that.

Another esteemed guest emailed this morning and referred to me as “maker of the most wonderful brownies known to man.”

Simply put, I don’t think I’ll ever make another kind of brownie. I think you’d be hard pressed to find a brownie that tastes better than these!

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By far the most popular article on this blog is the Super Tall Amazing Rainbow Birthday Cake, a tippy, teetery, monstrosity of a cake. Attempting that sky high cake is not for the faint of heart, so I wanted to figure out an easier way to create rainbow cakes. I bring you the latest in rainbow cakery, baked in a jar to show off all the pretty colors.

Cakes in jars are great for a picnic or to bring to someone’s house, since they’re completely sturdy, sealable, and portable. Rainbow cakes in a jar are also the perfect treat for all your unicorn friends.

“What’s that, magical horsie? Oh, you’re very welcome, it was my pleasure. I hope you enjoy your cake.”

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Note: this was the most-searched recipe on my previous blog, so I’m re-posting it here. It’s one of my earliest blog entries–from about 3 years ago–so the pictures are a little less polished than usual! They actually look like they were taken with Hipstamatic, which wasn’t invented yet, which is kind of weird. The cake is still a hit, though. -KM

When my older sister was about 9, my mom made her this legendary multi-tiered cake that was all white on the outside but with each layer of the cake being a different color of the rainbow, arranged, natch, in rainbow order. I re-created a similar cake about 4 years ago when my niece Leila turned 5, with a chocolate outside and a strong structural resemblance to the leaning tower of Pisa. Yesterday my other niece Mitra turned 5, and got her very own rainbow cake, thanks to the combined efforts of my sister and I. [Read more →]

Christmas is almost here! Yay. That means it’s gingerbread time. Every year we have a theme party, which last year resulted in the Gingerbread Casbah. This year the theme is “Christmas in Summer” so we took Santa to the Southern Hemisphere with a Gingerbread Christmas cabana!

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Around Christmastime, there is no shortage of sweet treats to be had in our house. Leading up to Christmas Eve, my mom and I spend a few days in the kitchen filling plates and trays and bowls with a panoply of sweet treats. Whether your sweet tooth demands caramels, fudge, cookies, or candies, we have generally got it covered. My brother-in-law Steve has fond memories of highly specific treats from his childhood, so in the spirit of giving, I try to comply with his candy-coated Christmas wishes. One thing he loves to have at Yuletide time is Bourbon Balls. It’s amazing how crushed Nilla Wafers, melted chocolate and some booze rolled into a ball combines into such a taste treat! Use good quality bourbon and watch them disappear. Since Steve is a tequila lover, this year I think I’ll make half the batch with Añejo in place of bourbon.

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My parents travel a lot, and on a trip to the UK last year, my Dad became obsessed with Thornton’s toffee. He went through several bags that were supposed to be gifts, and started ordering it on the internet at exorbitant prices. I looked around for recipes that might approximate the taste and texture, and last Christmastime we replaced our old standby toffee recipe with this one from Epicurious.

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One of the most searched and clicked recipes on this site is Robert’s Chilaquiles. That means that a lot of people have had the benefit of my friend Robert’s wonderful recipe for chilaquiles, which makes me ¡muy feliz! Robert’s recipe for this Mexican breakfast treat involves layers of fried tortilla triangles, scrambled eggs, chorizo, cheese, and a spiced tomato sauce. However, after spending a long weekend in the neighboring Mexican towns of Puebla and Cholula, we kind of got hooked on chilaquiles verdes–made with a green tomatillo sauce in place of the red.

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For about 4 years, I have been using a recipe adapted from David Chang’s recipe for short ribs that was printed in the New York Times. (This was in 2006, before David Chang and Momofuku were super famous–at that time I didn’t even know who he was.) It is one of my favorite recipes for a dinner party and everyone loves it, but I felt like I was in a bit of a rut. I needed something spectacular to christen my new and much improved kitchen, so I decided to go with a Thomas Keller recipe for short ribs.

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My friend Laura likes chocolate cupcakes with vanilla frosting. I told her husband I would surprise her with a very special version of that flavor combination so I made her some homemade Hostess cupcakes. These are fun because they look like a boring chocolate cupcake with shiny glaze, but they have a surprise inside- a big yummy blob of vanilla frosting!

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As you know Easter was last weekend, so this post will actually not be useful to anyone for approximately 381 days- but I don’t really care because I don’t blog for money or anything, and I took nice pictures and if I don’t write down what I did I will surely forget. I’ll try to remember to re-post this in a more timely manner next year. Until then… allow me to “resurrect” the Easter spirit (ba-dam-cha.) I’m here all week, folks.

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