When a friend has a birthday, I am usually the person who gets volunteered to bake the cake. I usually agree and ask the birthday boy or girl to tell me what kind of cake they want. I’ll try and come up with the desired flavor and type of cake and have found some very good cake recipes this way. Last year, other than the plain old white cake with vanilla buttercream frosting or chocolate cake with chocolate frosting, I made a Boston cream pie, a flourless chocolate cake and red velvet cake. I’m still working on a good red velvet cake recipe, if you have a good one, let me know.

I also usually bake the cake for my own birthday and I have one recipe that I’ve been making since I first found it in the March 2004 issue of Fine Cooking. It’s a lemon flavored white cake with a lemon curd filling and a lemon buttercream frosting. If you’ve been paying attention at all, you probably could have guessed that my favorite cake would be lemon. You probably also could easily understand that one of the things I love about the recipe is that the white cake uses only egg whites, but the lemon curd filling puts the yolks to use so there is no waste. I do love that kind of efficiency. The cake recipe by itself is a winner, light and moist and lush, so if you’re not a big fan of lemon, you could also do this with lime or some other fruit flavor or just make the cake vanilla flavored and make the frosting vanilla, but double it and use it in between the layers. There are lots of possibilities.

triple-lemon layer cake (adapted from Fine Cooking)

• 2 1/3 cups cake flour plus a little extra for the pans
• 2 3/4 t baking powder
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 T lightly packed finely grated lemon zest
• 3/4 cup unsalted butter, softened, plus a little more for the pans
• 1 cup whole milk
• 5 large egg whites, at room temperature
• 1/4 t cream of tartar
• 1 recipe lemon curd for the filling (see below)
• 1 recipe lemon buttercream frosting (see below)

Position a rack in the middle of the oven: heat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8×2 inch round cake pans. Sift the cake flour, baking powder and salt together into a medium bowl. Pulse 1/4 cup of the sugar with the zest in a food processor until well combined.

In a large bowl, beat the butter and lemon sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 1 1/2 minutes. Add the remaining 1 1/2 cups sugar and beat until smooth, about 1 1/2 minutes. Beat in a quarter of the milk just until blended. On low speed, add the flour mixture alternately with the milk in three batches, scraping the bowl with a rubber spatula; beat just until blended.

In another large bowl, beat the egg whites with an electric mixer (with clean beaters or the whip attachment) on medium speed just until foamy. Add the cream of tartar, increase the speed to medium high and beat just until the whites form stiff peaks. Add a quarter of the whites to the batter and gently fold them in with a whisk or a rubber spatula; continue to gently fold in the whites, a quarter at a time, being careful not to deflate the mixture.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans. Smooth the tops with the spatula. Bake until a pick inserted in the centers comes out clean, 30-40 minutes. Let cool in the pans on a rack for 10 minutes. Run a knife around the inside of the pans and carefully invert each cake out onto the rack. Flip them right side up and let cool completely.

With the palm of one hand pressed on top of a cake layer, cut each in half horizontally, using a long serrated knife. Put on of the four cake layers on a serving plate, cut side up. With an offset spatula or a table knife, spread a generous 1/3 cup chilled lemon curd on top of the cake layer. Lay another cake layer on top, spread it with another generous 1/3 cup curd, and repeat with the third cake layer, using another 1/3 cup lemon curd. Top with the fourth cake layer.

At least a few hours before serving, spread a thin layer of frosting on the cake, filling in any gaps as you go. This is called a crumb coat. Chill until the frosting firms up, about an hour, and finish frosting the cake with the rest of the frosting.

lemon curd

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter
• 3/4 granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup fresh lemon juice
• 3 T lightly packed finely grated lemon zest
• pinch salt
• 6 large egg yolks

Melt the butter in a heavy medium saucepan over medium heat. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the sugar, lemon juice, zest and salt. Whisk in the yolks until smooth. Return the pan to medium-low heat and cook, whisking constantly until the mixture thickens, 5-8 minutes. To check if the curd is thick enough, dip a wooden spoon into it and draw your finger across the back of the spoon; your finger should leave a path. Don’t let the mixture boil. Immediately force the curd through ha fine sieve into a bowl using a rubber spatula. Cover and refrigerate until ready to use.

buttercream frosting

• 1 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
• 2 T lightly packed finely grated lemon zest
• 3 1/2 cups sifted powdered sugar
• 2 T fresh lemon juice
• 1 T cream

In a medium bowl, beat the butter and lemon zest with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the powdered sugar in batches and beat until light and fluffy. Add the lemon juice and cream and beat for 1 minute.

My old copy of The Joy of Cooking lists a recipe for thumbprint cookies and says that they are called puits d’amour, or wells of love, in French. I have asked many French friends and none of them had ever heard of these cookies, still I like the name and the sentiment behind them. During a recent food-centered conversation, a friend asked me, "What do you like to cook most?" It took me not a second to reply, "I like to cook food that makes people happy." So often, the food that makes people happiest is attached to memories. Comfort food we call it. I know what my sister craves when not just her belly, but also her soul needs feeding, it’s tuna on toast, people, the most humble of meals. For my younger brother, it’s sugar cookies with a thick layer of frosting. With me, it’s usually meatloaf or macaroni and cheese, but lately, these cookies have been pulling the nostalgia strings.

This is the first year in a long time that I made thumbprint cookies without my friend Matilda. We made them together for years for her to take to school for a holiday cookie exchange, I would make the dough, she and I would roll them into little balls and I would take her little thumb and push it in to make the well for the jam. We would make a double batch, one with raspberry centers and one with apricot and split them. I’m missing her and her parents very much; we shared many great meals and memories together this year. Here are our cookies; now that you have the recipe, maybe you’ll make them and remember me. Happy Holidays everyone!

puits d’amour (wells of love) or thumbprint cookies

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/2 t grated lemon rind
• 1 t vanilla extract
• 2 cups sifted flour
• 1 cup toasted almonds or hazelnuts, ground
• 1/2 cup jam

Cream together butter and sugar; incorporate egg, lemon rind and vanilla. Mix in flour then almonds. Chill dough 1 hour or overnight. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Roll dough in 1" balls and place on ungreased cookie sheets. Make a well in the center of each round and add a dab of jam. Bake until lightly golden, about 8 minutes. Makes approximately 4 dozen cookies.

I really didn’t set out to bake up a horde of cookies of northern European ancestry this month, really I didn’t. I was just looking for one thing, a recipe for speculoos, the Belgian spice cookie. But then I stumbled on the banket and the jan hagels and breezed my way through batches and batches of them; I also made a series of thumbprint cookies and then realized I had somehow digressed from my original plan. I realigned myself and looked into it again and here we are with another cookie recipe and I’m really hoping that you (and your waistline) will forgive me, but I must tell you that this latest recipe is also a keeper and really easy, like the last one, and you should be like my sister was with the jan hagels and get up from your desk, leave your computer and make these. Right. Now.

Speculoos are a traditional Belgian holiday cookie, but once you try them, you might be as surprised as I was to realize that these are windmill cookies (without the windmill). Also called speculaas in Dutch, my very old edition of Joy of Cooking also has a recipe for speculatius cookies. All of these names are probably derived from the Latin word, specula, meaning mirror, because it’s traditional to roll them out and cut them into shapes or use a mold to press them into elaborate images of saints, especially St. Nicholas. One more thing that I love about this recipe is that it has no eggs, so I was able to give some to my niece, Jessica, who has an egg allergy. She’s also a really picky eater. They won her full approval.

speculoos, speculaas or speculatius cookies

• 1 lb (4 sticks) butter
• 2 cups dark brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sour cream
• 1/2 t baking soda
• 2 t cinnamon
• 1/2 t ground nutmeg
• 1/2 t ground cloves
• 1/2 t ground ginger
• 4 1/2 cup flour
• 1 cup sliced almonds

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Cream butter and brown sugar with a hand mixer (or a stand mixer), add sour cream. Sift together flour, soda and spices and add to butter and sugar mixture. Stir in nuts. Form dough into 2 inch high and 4 inch wide rectangle. Wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least one hour or overnight. Cut into slices (thinner for a crisp cookie, thicker for a cookie with more chew) and bake for 10 to 12 minutes.

Honestly, I’m still searching for a recipe for speculoos, but I’m taking the road less traveled on my way to making them. I keep getting distracted. Other things keep tempting me, calling my name. First it was the Dutch letters, then I made some thumbprint cookies last weekend for a couple of parties; this time it’s Jan Hagels, my new crush. Crisp, lush, shortbread-like pan cookies, flavored with a hint of cinnamon and almond extract and topped with almonds and sugar. What is there not to love?

But it gets better. If you thought that the previous recipe for Dutch letters with its making of a pastry, rolling it around almond filling and shaping it into letters looked a little too much like work, this one is for you. It’s the easiest dessert I’ve made in a long time. It literally only took me fifteen minutes to put this together and get it in the oven. Next time you need something quick and easy for a dinner party, make these and serve them with some ice cream.

Jan Hagels (pronounced Yahn Hoggles), translated literally from Dutch means Jan Hails. The only way I can make sense of this name is to imagine Jan the Dutch boy crying out with pleasure as he bites into of one of these. My old Betty Crocker cookbook also calls these John Hall cookies. As with so many traditional recipes, the why and wherefore of their name is elusive; I’m sure nobody remembers the original Jan or John or why his name is associated with this particular recipe, but these are the standard cookie in many Dutch households, the thing you make from what you already have in your pantry, and I can see why because they are so simple and so satisfying.

Jan Hagels cookies

• 1 cup butter (2 sticks), softened
• 1 sugar
• 1 egg, yolk and white separated
• 1/2 t vanilla
• 1/2 t almond extract
• 2 cups flour
• 1 t cinnamon
• 1/2 cup almonds, roughly ground in food processor with 1/4 cup sugar

Pre-heat oven to 325 degrees. Cream together butter and sugar with hand mixer (or stand mixer). Mix in egg yolk and extracts. Add flour and cinnamon and mix just until combined. Place dough in a jellyroll pan (a baking sheet with sides) and press mixture evenly over pan to a depth of about 1/8 inch. Depending on the size of your baking sheet, you may not be able to cover the whole pan bottom, just push the dough into three sides and shape the remaining side to form a rectangle. Brush the dough with egg white, sprinkle on the almond sugar mixture and press it into the dough to help it adhere. Bake for 30 minutes or until top is slightly browned. Cut into 1×3 inch rectangles while still warm.

Have you ever gone in search of something and found something else entirely, something you had no idea you were looking for but that exactly fit your hidden craving? This hasn’t happened to me very often, but this time I’m really excited about it. I was looking for a cookie recipe. Not just any cookie recipe, but a spiced cookie recipe from Belgium that is made for St. Nicholas day, December 6th. This is traditionally the day that kicks off the holiday season and I decided that rather than make dozens and dozens of cookies for Christmas later in the month, I wanted to make some cookies now, some more next week and another batch or two the week after that so we can spread out the fun (and the calories).

I started looking for a good recipe for these Belgian cookies, called speculoos, and I did a search for St. Nicholas cookie recipes and instead came up with a Dutch pastry called banket or Dutch letters. Everywhere I saw it mentioned there were statements about this being the best cookie ever, about how this is always the first treat to disappear, about it being the thing that inspires people to trek all the way to places like the Jaarsma Bakery in Pella, Iowa, because Dutch bakeries aren’t that easy to find. With so many accolades, I started wondering what the fuss was about and had a look at the recipe.

It’s essentially an unsweetened piecrust dough rolled out extra thin, filled with a mixture of almond paste, sugar and eggs, rolled up and brushed with cream, milk or egg whites and sprinkled with sugar. Once rolled together, you can either leave them as straight sticks and bake them that way, or the rolls can be shaped into letters. Because these are for St. Nicholas day, they are often formed into the letter s (Sinterclaas in Dutch).

They are often also shaped into the first letter of people’s names or used to spell out Christmas greetings.

You could use them to spell anything at all really.

After reading about how the dough turns all flaky and puff pastry like, I was skeptical, it really looked like regular old pie crust to me, but wow, just flour, butter and water come together in an almost magical way here and the not-too-sweet pastry showcases the rich almond filling really well.

There are several names for these pastries. Dutch letters is used when you shape them into, duh, letter shapes. They are also called almond letters, almond banket or banket letters. Banket is a Dutch term for pastry, it actually means banquet and refers to the fact that pastries would have been set out after a meal on a table and the name transferred metonymically from the thing it would have sat on to the thing itself. Banquet is a word from French meaning small bench. It’s like the word pâté, which originally referred to the dough that meat or other ingredients were wrapped in but eventually came to refer to the filling. My favorite example of metonymy, replacing a term with one that is in close proximity, is when people say about a guy that he likes to "chase skirts," when everyone knows that it’s not really the skirt that he’s after. In any case, call these what you like, once you try them, you’ll also call them delicious.

banket or Dutch letters

for dough

• 2 cups flour
• 1/4 t salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, chilled and cut into small pieces
• approximately 1/2 cup cold water

Place flour and salt into bowl of food processor and pulse once or twice to mix, add butter and pulse until mixture resembles course crumbs (if you don’t have a food processor, use a pastry cutter). Add water a little at a time just until dough comes together. Turn dough out onto a sheet of plastic wrap, flatten it out into a rough rectangle and fold it onto itself in thirds (like a business letter). Chill at least two hours before using.

filling

• 8 oz. almond paste
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 t almond extract
• 1/4 t vanilla extract

Place ingredients into bowl of food processor and pulse to combine (if you have no food processor, you can mix them together in a bowl using a wooden spoon). Place filling into the center of a piece of plastic wrap and chill at least one hour before using.

assembly and baking

• 1/2 cup cream
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup powdered sugar

Preheat oven to 375 degrees and line two baking sheets with parchment paper. Cut filling into sixteen pieces and roll it between your hands to make ropes (if it sticks, use some powdered sugar on the filling and on your hands). Cut dough into sixteen pieces and roll to a rectangle about 5-6 inches long and about 1-1/2 inches wide with a thickness of about 1/8 inch. Place filling in the center of the dough, fold the short ends of dough over the filling and roll up jelly roll style. Shape the dough into letters and place on lined baking sheets at least one inch apart. Brush with cream and sprinkle with sugar. Bake for 20-25 minutes until cookies are golden brown.

If you are looking for something out of the ordinary to make for dessert and you really don’t want a lot of fuss, I suggest you sit up and take notice of this one. It’s easy to put together at the last minute, doesn’t require lots of difficult to find ingredients and is more elegant than your average after dinner sweet stuff. It’s also not too sugary.

What I was after in developing this recipe was a replica of the kind of slice of apple tart that you can buy in French pastry shops, full of tart apple flavor, not overly saccharine and just a little bit browned, even a tad burnt on the tips of some of the apple slices. It took me a few tries, but I think I nailed it. Do not be tempted to sprinkle on extra sugar or add in some cinnamon, if you want that kind of apple pie, go here.

While I’ve made my own puff pastry, I understand that not everyone has the time or the inclination for that endeavor. If you do, start here. For the rest of you, just buy some pre-made puff pastry, a couple of yellow delicious apples, some unsweetened applesauce, an optional egg yolk and either apple or apricot jelly. That’s right, just five ingredients and no additional sugar will get you a guaranteed crowd pleaser. I promise.

tarte aux pommes (French apple tart)

• 1 rectangle or square of purchased puff pastry (I used Trader Joe’s, but Pepperage Farm is good too and a bit bigger, so I recommend it if you want a bigger tart)
• 2 small yellow delicious apples, peeled and sliced very thinly
• 1/2 cup apple sauce
• 1/3 cup apple or apricot jelly, warmed
• Optional: one egg yolk mixed with 1 t water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place puff pastry on a baking sheet either lined with parchment paper or lightly buttered. Spread apple sauce on top of pastry, leaving at least one half inch of pastry all around. Line the top of the apple sauce with rows of apples. Brush tops of apples with apple jelly, being careful not to get much of it on the edges of the pastry (this would inhibit the puffing that will happen in the oven). Optional: for a golden look on the edges, brush a small amount of egg yolk mixture on the exposed pastry, being very careful not to let it drip down the very edge of the dough (again, this is to ensure that it will puff up during baking). Bake in pre-heated oven for 25-30 minutes or until top of tart is golden brown and the tips of the apples are even a little darker. Cut into rectangles and serve warm or at room temperature.

Serves 6-8

We have a winner for our name that ingredient contest. Congratulations Aaron, you correctly identified my brother’s harvest of hops. I’ll send you a jar of La Salmandra dulce de leche, some Fran’s smoked salt caramels from Zingerman’s and a jar of my own mix of ras el hanout – this is a North African spice mix, the term means top of the shop in Arabic, it’s a combination of the best spices a shopkeeper would have available. Just get in touch with me and let me know what your address is and I’ll get your package in the mail. Ken will use the hops later this year to make beer. Hopefully, he’ll let me help him and I can document it for you.

Today we’re putting on a party for my best friend, Nancy. What was going to be 30-40 people has morphed into 60-70. Luckily the plan for tapas and other Spanish food is easily expandable to feed more people. Here’s the menu.

I’ll give you the lowdown and some of the recipes from the party in the next few days. For now, here’s my recipe for ras el hanout. Heidi calls for it in her recipe for coconut chocolate pudding. One of the desserts for the party is this pudding recipe turned into gelato by running it through an ice cream maker. The pudding is brilliant. I’ll let you know how they like the gelato.

ras el hanout (adapted from chow)

• 1 T ground allspice
• 1 T ground white pepper
• 1 T ground mace
• 1 T ground cardamom seeds (removed from their pods)
• 1 T turmeric
• 1 t crushed saffron
• 2 T ground cinnamon
• 1 T nutmeg
• 1 T ground ginger

Put all spices in a dry skillet over medium heat, shake gently from time to time until slightly browned and fragrant. Let cool and place in a jar with a tight fitting lid. Keeps for up to 12 months.

When it comes to fruit, it’s really hard to pick a favorite, but mangoes place high in my rankings. I love their juicy fleshiness, their peachy pine flavor. When I first used my ice cream maker, almost ten years ago, the first thing I made was mango sorbet with lime. Because of the smooth texture of mangoes, they are perfect for sorbet. When I first got my copy of The Perfect Scoop by David Lebovitz, I was really excited to try out his version. I’m not the only one.

So, I bought mangoes, pulled out the book and then, I don’t know, my mind wandered. I started thinking about the recipes he has for frozen yogurt. Blueberry, strawberry, vanilla. Everyone seems to be making them and raving. You see where this is going? Of course you do. I ditched the sorbet idea and instead used the frozen yogurt method on my mangoes.

The first time I made it, we ate it by itself in small bowls, one scoop at a time until it was all gone (well, I had one scoop at a time; somebody else may have had more). When I was planning for our trip a couple of weeks ago and needed to make a luscious dessert sans eggs (as you may recall my niece Jessica can’t eat them and it’s really not fun to serve a great dessert when your darling 6-year old can’t have any), I decided to kick it up a notch and used David’s recipe for salted butter caramel sauce and made some grilled pineapple (dipped in a mixture of brown sugar, lime juice and rum) to go with it. The mango frozen yogurt was a great foil for the pineapple, but the sauce, baby, really made it. By the end of the next day, my friends were drinking what was left of that caramel sauce, so make sure you have some people to feed if you make this, otherwise, be prepared to binge. I wrote to David and asked him if I could publish the recipe and he very generously agreed to it, but then I found it already written up elsewhere on Chubby Hubby, so look here for that recipe. I highly recommend The Perfect Scoop, it’s a brilliant book.

The last time I made this (so you all could see a picture of it), I didn’t have any limes, so I used the juice of half of a lemon, it may have been even better.

mango frozen yogurt

• 2 mangoes, peeled, pitted and roughly chopped
• 1 16 oz. container Greek-style frozen yogurt
• 1 cup sugar
• juice of one lime or juice of half of a lemon

Place ingredients into a blender and mix on high until smooth. Strain mixture through a fine mesh sieve (optional: it will give a slightly smoother texture). Chill, covered, for at least 1 hour or overnight. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker and want to buy one, see David’s post, Meet your Maker. If you don’t have space or money for another kitchen tool, see his Making Ice Cream without a Machine.

French toast is not French. I just needed to get that out of the way at the beginning, since that’s the recipe you’ll find below and the rest of this post is going to be a mish mash of family history and a small glimpse of the U S of A from the perspective of three French children. I’ll also tell you a little about our trip up north as they say here in Michigan, and because this site is about food, I’ll try to get around to telling you about some of the things we ate. In my last entry, I described my brother Ken as a shaggy dog story teller. I’m afraid that one might come back to haunt me with what follows.

I’m from one of those families where the door is always open, there’s always more room at the dinner table and a few extra people around was never a problem. This is how my parents ended up with three French women in their 20s staying with them in the summer of 1989. They were part of a group who had been lured to the states by a publishing company (whose name I won’t divulge) with promises of fast cash and fun in America. What they got was a cultish experience and virtually no greenbacks. And no place to stay. Can you believe they were told they could get a cheap room at the Salvation Army in downtown Detroit and survive on peanut butter? Friends of friends told them to knock on our door and they did and they stayed for three or four months. Laurence was one of them and the only one who has stayed in touch. That summer of ‘89, my mom advised ditching door-to-door book selling and found Laurence a job working (under the *cough* table) as a hostess in the fanciest restaurant in town. I was away for the better part of that summer, playing nanny for a friend, so I was there for only about a month of the French girl circus (which is a good thing, because they were in my bedroom). One of my memories of Laurence was that she had only one nice outfit that she fastidiously cleaned every day after work and put on again the next day. She must have confirmed all sorts of stereotypes her colleagues had about the French.

We’ve seen her on trips to Paris, but this summer she came back to visit for the first time and brought along her three children, Jean, Louis and Marie. I was once again reminded that I really wouldn’t mind having a child if it could be a French one. They help in the kitchen! They eat everything! They stay at the dinner table for hours with no complaints! They sit up straight - well, especially with their mother poking them in the back to remind them not to slouch over, I guess I’d have to be a French mother to have French children.

These kids were liking the soda and the beach and the big cars, but had lots of questions and some negative reactions. These are my favorites. On entering the house through the screened in porch Jean asked me, "Why all the screens on all the windows? Are there lots of bugs everywhere here? Don’t you get claustrophobic?"

At lunch after a crab salad stuffed tomato on Boston lettuce, Louis asked, "Can I help bring out the next course?" Poor boy, he thought that was just the starter and was expecting a roast and potatoes and then green salad and cheese and some sort of dessert. All he got were cookies and peaches.

Marie’s astonishment at not being understood by my nieces was charming, "They don’t know what babyfoot is? These Americans are crazy." I explained that while babyfoot is indeed a combination of two words in English, it is used in French to designate the game that here we call foosball. Hand smacks forehead.

Other highlights of the French monkeys include the following. Louis confided to me that he abhors smoothies. Jean’s zizi was hanging out of his bathing suit and Marie wouldn’t keep her suit on. She also complained about the fat on my arms.

Because Laurence and her brood lived for a time in England, they have good English skills, but not perfect. The biggest blooper of the weekend was when she asked my seven year old niece, "Jessica, give me a French kiss." You should have seen the look on that kid’s face. This obviously led to discussion of all of the things we call "French" here in the U.S., like French dressing, French fries, Frenched green beans and lamb chops, and Sunday’s breakfast, French toast. There’s a similar preparation in France, called pain perdu (lost bread, because you usually make it with the stale leftovers, this can sometimes be prepared like bread pudding as well). Laurence and her kids had never eaten it. "It’s peasant food," Laurence told us.

This is my niece, Jessica. After breakfast, we had a short rain storm and she’s pictured here belting out her rendition of singin’ in the rain. She was recently diagnosed with an allergy to eggs. It’s taken years for her parents to figure out why she was not interested in eating and why she’s in the smaller end of normal for her age. She seems to be thriving on her new egg-free diet. We’re trying to make meals with no eggs and that’s an awfully tall order for Sunday breakfast. I happened on a vegan recipe for French toast with a banana to replace the egg and thought we’d give it a try (I don’t remember where I read about it or I’d cite the source). The vegan recipe used soy milk instead of cow’s milk, so if you swing that way, feel free to make that substitution. If you like the flavor of bananas, you’ll love this one. We ate every last crumb. I’m left with a question. If there’s no egg, is it still French toast? Erik calls it monkey toast.

monkey toast (eggless French toast)

• 1 loaf white bread, sliced
• 1 banana
• 1 cup milk or half & half
• 1 t vanilla
• optional (and truly not French): a pinch of cinnamon or other flavoring of choice
• butter or cooking spray

Place banana, milk or half & half, vanilla and optional flavoring (if using) into a blender and mix until smooth. Place mixture in a shallow bowl. Heat skillet over medium-low. Place a small pat of butter in the middle of skillet or spray skillet with cooking spray. Take one piece of bread and soak it in the milk mixture, then put it in the skillet. Repeat with as many slices of bread as will fit in your skillet at one time. Cook until bottom of bread is golden brown, flip and brown the other side. You can put the finished slices on a platter tented with aluminum foil while cooking the rest, or dish them out to your monkeys as they are ready. Serve with butter and maple syrup.

P.S. We have my best friend Nancy to thank for opening her family lake house up to us for four days of swimming, boating, eating and general whooping it up. If you’d like to see more photos of our trip, they’re over here.

sweet tart concoction
make key lime gimlet sorbet
take cold little bites

(key) lime gimlet sorbet

• 1 cup key lime juice (or regular lime juice)
• 1 cup water
• 1 cup sugar
• 3 T gin

Combine ingredients and let sit, stirring occasionally until sugar dissolves. Chill for at least one hour or overnight. Freeze in ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s directions.