Sweet Alchemy: Dessert Magic by Yigit Pura with Photography by Frankie Frankeny

   

I have a lot of cookbooks in my TBR, and there is nothing my husband loves more than for me to cook. To inspire me, I took photos with 24 cookbooks I have and I've prescheduled one post a month for the next two years. I'll plan to link up with In My Kitchen, hosted by Sherry's Pickings, and Weekend Cooking, hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker). To further inspire me, I've created a Cooking/Baking Challenge for me for 2026 in which I read and bake from and post about one cookbook a month.

February's choice is Sweet Alchemy, written by Yigit Pura with photographs by Frankie Frankeny. 

Full disclosure: Frankie is my cousin!

Sweet Alchemy: Dessert Magic

by Yigit Pura

with photographs by Frankie Frankeny

This is a gorgeous cookbook, full of recipes that will surprise you and take you to your happy place. It's perfect for Valentine's Day.

I've been trying to make the world's best chocolate chip cookies for about forty-five years, so how could I resist this recipe by chef Yigit Pura? 

The recipe has a couple of ingredients I've never used before. I was surprised to find both Maldon sea salt and vanilla paste at my local Kroger's. Dark chocolate is out-of-this-world expensive here (almost $10 US for a bag that cost less than $5 a year ago), so I subbed in my personal favorite, milk chocolate.

This is the recipe:

moist chocolate chunk cookies with flake sea salt

210 g/11/2 cups all-purpose flour 

5 g/1/2 tsp baking soda 

3 g/1/2 tsp kosher salt 

345 g/12 oz 64% to 70% dark chocolate 

1/2 vanilla bean or 6 g/11/2 tsp vanilla bean paste

145 g/2/3 cup unsalted butter at room temperature 

115 g/1/2 cup plus heaping 1 tbsp granulated sugar 

115 g/1/2 cup packed light brown sugar 

100 g/2 whole eggs 

5 g/2 tsp Maldon sea salt 

Preheat the oven to 325°F (165°C). Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Sift the flour, baking soda, and kosher salt over a large bowl or piece of parchment paper; set aside. Break the chocolate into 1/4- to 1/2-in (6- to 12-mm) pieces, divide into two equal piles, and set aside. Split the vanilla bean in half lengthwise with a paring knife and then use the knife to scrape the seeds from the pod. Discard the pod or reserve for use in another recipe for added vanilla flavor. In a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, at high speed, combine the butter, the seeds scraped from the vanilla bean or the vanilla bean paste, and both sugars; beat until fully combined and the color begins to change to a lighter shade of yellow. (Do not overwhip.) As soon as the color starts to change, slow the speed of the mixer and add the eggs; beat until fully incorporated. Add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Add one pile of the chocolate and mix until just combined. 

Use a #24 scoop to scoop 2-in (5-cm) balls of the dough onto the parchment paper–lined baking sheet. Sprinkle each cookie with a small amount of the sea salt, and stand a piece of chocolate up in the top of each ball. Bake for 5 minutes, turn the pan 180 degrees, and bake for another 5 minutes, until the center is gooey and the edges are crispy. 

As soon as you take the baking sheet out of the oven, slam it against the counter to remove any air bubbles and encourage gooey, not doughy, cookies. Use a metal spatula to set the warm cookies on a cooling rack, and let cool for 5 to 10 minutes. 

Sweet Note from the chef: I like my cookies flat and gooey instead of doughy and filled with air. The trick to getting them this way is to not whip too much air into the batter and to smack the baking sheet against your counter just after removing it from the oven.

Pura, Yigit. Sweet Alchemy: Dessert Magic, pp. 52-53. Kindle Edition. 

My assessment?

Yes! The sea salt flakes and vanilla paste add an intensity of flavor to the cookies. They may be the secret to the amazingness of this recipe. 

These fresh eggs from my daughter-in-law's chickens also added to the rich flavor.

This could be it...the world's best chocolate chip cookies.

Now I shall share these cookies with all the people I love and see what they think!

Be a part of the friendly In My Kitchen (IMK) community by adding your post at Sherry's Pickings each month - everybody welcome!  We'd love to have you visit.  Tell us about your kitchen (and kitchen garden) happenings over the past month.  Dishes you've cooked, preserves you've made, herbs and veg. in your garden, kitchen gadgets, and goings-on.  And one curveball is welcome - whatever you fancy; no need to be kitchen-related. The link is open from the first of the month to midnight on the thirteenth of the month, every month.

Weekend Cooking was created by Beth Fish Reads and is now hosted by Marg at The Intrepid Reader (and Baker). It is open to anyone who has any kind of food-related post to share: Book (novel, nonfiction) reviews, cookbook reviews, movie reviews, recipes, random thoughts, gadgets, quotations, photographs. If your post is even vaguely foodie, feel free to grab the button and link up anytime over the weekend. You do not have to post on the weekend. Please link to your specific post, not your blog's home page. For more information, see the welcome post.  

For more photos, link up at Wordless Wednesday, Comedy Plus, Messymimi's Meanderings, Keith's Ramblings, Image-in-ing, Soul and Mind and So On, Wild Bird Wednesday, and My Corner of the World.

Love That Dog!

Where the Red Fern Grows by Wilson Rawls

Henry Huggins by Beverly Cleary

Because of Winn-Dixie by Kate DiCamillo

Old Yeller by Fred Gibson

Sounder by William H. Armstrong

Marley and Me by John Grogan

A Dog's Life: Autobiography of a Stray by Ann M. Martin

A Dog So Small by Philippa Pearce

Lassie Come-Home by Eric Knight

Dogtown by Katherine Applegate

Love That Dog! by Sharon Creech

Top Ten Lists from the Past about Love

♥♥♥Love Stories I Love♥♥♥

159 Love Books I Have Read

Romance Books I'd Recommend to People Who Don't Like Romance Books 

Best Love Stories in Books You'd Never Call Romance Novels 

Eleven Favorite Love Stories in Books

Love Stories for People Who Gag on Romance Novels

Love Stories I Love (and Hate)

Top Ten Romances That Would Make It In the Real World

Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and the Bookish in June of 2010 and was moved to That Artsy Reader Girl in January of 2018. It was born of a love of lists, a love of books, and a desire to bring bookish friends together. Each Tuesday That Artsy Reader Girl assigns a topic and then post her top ten list that fits that topic. You’re more than welcome to join her and create your own top ten (or 2, 5, 20, etc.) list as well. Feel free to put a unique spin on the topic to make it work for you! Please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own post so that others know where to find more information.       

The Sunday Salon: Three Basketball Wins, a Classics Club Spin, and Reading a Book a Day

 

Welcome! We are delighted that you joined us here at the Sunday Salon. 

What is the Sunday Salon? 

The Sunday Salon is a spot to link up and share what we have been doing during the week. It's also a great opportunity to visit other blogs and join in the conversations going on there. 

With all the snow in East Texas and with schools closed and roads closed, we were not sure we would be able to make it up there, but everything opened back up and we got to visit with our family and see the grandkids play basketball over a long four-day weekend. It even warmed up enough for us to go outside and hang out for a while. 

It was cold and I read a lot last week. I finished seven books - four five-star books and three four-star books. 

What I Read Last Week:

Grand Hotel by Vicki Baum (Classic)

What Mad Universe by Frederic Brown (Science Fiction)

The Remarkable Ordinary: How to Stop, Look, and Listen to Life 

by Frederick Buechner (Spirituality)

Miss Eliza's English Kitchen: A Novel of Victorian Cookery and Friendship 

by Annabel Abbs (Historical Fiction)

The Circuit: The Graphic Novel by Francisco Jiménez (Memoir)

All the Blues in the Sky by Renée Watson (2025 Newbery Winner)

Fireworks written by Matthew Burgess and illustrated by Catia Chien (2025 Caldecott Winner)

What I'm Reading Now:

The Brothers Karamozov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Classic)

Native Nations: A Millenium in North America by Kathleen DuVal (History)

Little, Big by John Crowley (Fantasy)

The Classics Club has issued the announcement of the Classics Club’s 43rd CC Spin.

What is the Spin?

It’s easy. At your blog, before next Sunday, February 8th, create a post that lists twenty books of your choice that remain “to be read” on your Classics Club list.

This is your Spin List.

You have to read one of these twenty books by the end of the spin period.

On Sunday, February 8th, The Classics Club will post a number from 1 through 20. The challenge is to read whatever book falls under that number on your Spin List by Sunday, March 29th. 

Let's see who can make it the whole way and finish their spin book!

I have a lot of books to read on my latest Classics Club list. Let's see where the needle stops.

So here is my list.

1. Coronado's Children: Tales of Lost Mines and Buried Treasure by J. Frank Dobie

2. The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes

3. Lost Horizon by James Hilton

4. The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley

5. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes by Robert Louis Stevenson

6. Bevis: The Story of a Boy by Richard Jefferies

7. The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

8. Brendon Chase by B. B.

9. Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy

10. In the Mountains by Elizabeth von Arnim

11. Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis

12. The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

13. The Song of the Lark by Willa Cather

14. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula LeGuin

15. The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh

16. In a Summer Season by Elizabeth Taylor

17.  Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

18. Stowaway to Mars by John Wyndham

19. A Lost Lady by Willa Cather

20. Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino 

Have you read any of these?

Do you recommend any of these?

And the spin stops on...2!

The Weary Blues by Langston Hughes!

Full disclosure: If you thought my #2 was Far From the Madding Crowd,

it was, but I really, really wanted to read some Langston Hughes

right now, so I switched it.

What I Posted Last Week Here at Readerbuzz:

The Sunday Salon: Bookish

Book Covers with Cool Typography

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

I'm off to a good start with my yearly challenges.

I began to list 3 Good Things every day during the pandemic. Now I've established a regular routine of writing down my 3 Good Things. Here are 3 Good Things from last week:

Good Thing #1:

Wyatt's team won!

Good Thing #2:

Annie's team won!

Good Thing #3:

My son, Jon, is coach of Annie's team,

so he also got a win this weekend.

Weekend linkup spots are listed below. Click on the picture to visit the site.

        

I hope you will join the linkup for Sunday Salon below.

Native Nations: A Millennium in North America by Kathleen DuVal: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

   

Today's Featured Book: 

Native Nations:

A Millennium in North America

by Kathleen DuVal

Genre: History

Published: April 9, 2024

Page Count: 735 pages

Summary: 

Long before the colonization of North America, Indigenous Americans built diverse civilizations and adapted to a changing world in ways that reverberated globally. And, as award-winning historian Kathleen DuVal vividly recounts, when Europeans did arrive, no civilization came to a halt because of a few wandering explorers, even when the strangers came well armed.

A millennium ago, North American cities rivaled urban centers around the world in size. Then, following a period of climate change and instability, numerous smaller nations emerged, moving away from rather than toward urbanization. From this urban past, egalitarian government structures, diplomacy, and complex economies spread across North America. So, when Europeans showed up in the sixteenth century, they encountered societies they did not understand—those having developed differently from their own—and whose power they often underestimated.

For centuries afterward, Indigenous people maintained an upper hand and used Europeans in pursuit of their own interests. In Native Nations, we see how Mohawks closely controlled trade with the Dutch—and influenced global markets—and how Quapaws manipulated French colonists. Power dynamics shifted after the American Revolution, but Indigenous people continued to command much of the continent’s land and resources. Shawnee brothers Tecumseh and Tenskwatawa forged new alliances and encouraged a controversial new definition of Native identity to attempt to wall off U.S. ambitions. The Cherokees created institutions to assert their sovereignty on the global stage, and the Kiowas used their power in the west to regulate the passage of white settlers across their territory.

In this important addition to the growing tradition of North American history centered on Indigenous nations, Kathleen DuVal shows how the definitions of power and means of exerting it shifted over time, but the sovereignty and influence of Native peoples remained a constant—and will continue far into the future.

 

BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY is hosted by Rose City Reader. What book are you happy about reading this week? Please share the opening sentence (or so) on BOOK BEGINNINGS ON FRIDAY! Add the link to your blog or social media post and visit other blogs to see what others are reading.

Happy Friday and welcome to the FIRST LINE FRIDAY, hosted by Reading is My Superpower! It’s time to grab the book nearest to you and leave a comment with the first line.

Native North Americans made history for tens of thousands of years before 1492.

DuVal, Kathleen. Native Nations: A Millennium in North America, p. 1. Kindle Edition.  

THE FRIDAY 56 is hosted by Anne of Head Full of Books. To play, open a book and turn to page 56 (or 56% on your e-reader). Find a sentence or two and post them, along with the book title and author. Then link up on Head Full of Books and visit others in the linky. 

For the O’odham, it is their himdag, their way of life. Himdag “involves relations between people, the land, and all creation.” People are supposed to share with one another according to what they have, especially the necessities of food and water. Giving away a surplus is an investment. As the Tohono O’odham history textbook Sharing the Desert explains, “This sharing of goods and food then created a debt that was expected to be repaid whenever the others had a surplus….When one family or village helped another, they did so knowing that when they needed help, they would receive it from their neighbors.”[

DuVal, Kathleen. Native Nations: A Millennium in North America, p. 56. Kindle Edition.  

I've always been curious about Native Americans. I learned little about them when I was in school. Native Nations won a Pulitzer Prize in 2025. It's a big book of 725 pages, so I will be reading it for a while, but, though I'm just a few chapters in, I'm already learning a lot.

The purpose of THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is to give bloggers a chance to follow other blogs, learn about new books, and befriend other bloggers. THE BOOK BLOGGER HOP is hosted by Ramblings of a Coffee Addicted Writer.    

What drives you to read books? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer)

I do not know. How do you explain this?