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.

Bite by Bite: Nourishments & Jamborees by Aimee Nezhukumatathil

   

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.

Aimee Nezhukumatathil shares the foods of her life, food by food, bite by bite, and, in the process, tells the stories of her life. 

Some of the foods are exotic to me and I've never seen these: Pawpaw, lumpia, bangus, lychee, jackfruit, mangosteen, kaong, gyro, leche flan, halo-halo.

Some of the foods are foods I have heard of, but I've never cooked or baked with: Mango, mint, crawfish, gyro. 

Some of the foods are foods I have cooked with once: Risotto.

Some of the foods are foods I use often: Rice, pineapple, cinnamon, blackberries, vanilla, black pepper, apples, bing cherry, Concord grape, maple syrup, butter, waffles, sugarcane, coconut.

Some of the foods are so familiar to me that I actually grow them in my yard and cook with them all the time: Tomato, onion, watermelon, pecan, figs, potato.

Here's a recipe I make that uses several of these foods. You can choose to leave out any of the ingredients you don't like.

My Mom's Homemade Granola

Oats     Coconut     Sesame seeds

Sunflower seeds     Pecans     Walnuts

Vanilla     Cherries (dried)     Cinnamon

Maple syrup     Almonds (sliced)     Honey

Oil     Cranberries     Raisins

Mix together oats, coconut, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds, pecans, walnuts, almonds in a huge pot. Add oil and honey and vanilla and maple syrup and cinnamon and stir well. Put onto rimmed cookie sheets and bake at 325 degrees F for about an hour, turning and stirring several times to get a nice brown bake. Put the baked mix into storage containers and add in cranberries and raisins and cherries. Granola can be frozen. 

My mom would collect and refill our granola storage container every year as her Christmas gift to us. Even though she passed away fifteen years ago, I can still see my mom's faded blue letters: Deb and Jim's Granola Jar. Every time I make granola, I think of my mom.

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.

Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey by Felicity Cloake: Book Beginnings on Fridays, First Line Friday, The Friday 56, and Book Blogger Hop

Today's Featured Book: 

Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey

by Felicity Cloake

Genre: Nonfiction

Published: June 2, 2022

Page Count: 383 pages

Summary: 

If there’s one thing that truly unites Britain, from Aberdeen to Aberystwyth, St Ives to St Pancras, it’s an obsession with breakfast.

We all have an opinion on the merits of brown sauce versus ketchup on our morning bacon sarnie. In this eagerly awaited follow-up to One More Croissant for the Road, the nation’s favourite taster-in-chief Felicity Cloake sets off on a cycle trip of condimental proportions to investigate and celebrate the legendary Great British Breakfast. Travelling the length and breadth of the UK to establish once and for all what makes a perfect fry-up, she rates them on criteria from the crispness of the bacon to how long they keep her pedalling. But a woman cannot live by All Day Breakfast alone, so as well as recipes for the Savoy's Omelette Arnold Bennett and proper Scottish porridge, she lavishes her attention on the regional specialities she encounters along the way, from a desi breakfast in Birmingham to a Greggs Geordie stottie cake. This is a freewheeling gastronomical tour like no other.

 

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.

Many people spent 2020 homeschooling their children, or trying to work at the same kitchen table as their four flatmates. I spent it holed up with a taciturn cairn terrier and a huge map of the UK.

Cloake, Felicity. Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey, 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. 

Gulping down muddy instant coffee and gummy malt loaf, I try not to think about the county’s vertiginous villages and stunning cliffs; such things, so pleasingly dramatic on foot, hold less charm on a fully laden bike with an angry hamstring. Beggars can’t be choosers, however, and having decided to take on one of the country’s most popular tourist destinations during a half term when it’s all but impossible to go abroad, and a fortnight before the G7 summit in Carbis Bay, I must pay the price in pain. We have beds at Gemma’s parents’ house in Falmouth, and by hook or by crook, that’s where we’ll be this evening. What time this evening, however, is less clear.

Cloake, Felicity. Red Sauce Brown Sauce: A British Breakfast Odyssey, p. 56.  Kindle Edition. 

I loved reading Felicity Cloake's journey around France on a bicycle, sampling French food on the way, One More Croissant for the Road. I've always wanted to read Cloake's book, Red Sauce Brown Sauce, but it took some time for it to become available on our library's Hoopla audio. But I finally borrow it, and when I started listening, I realized quickly that I needed to actually read Red Sauce Brown Sauce; I was not familiar (What the heck is black pudding?) with British breakfast jargon. Happily Red Sauce Brown Sauce was discounted on Kindle to 1.99 this week, and now I'm able to look up the words as I read along, and Google pictures of the food Cloake is talking about. I'm astounded at what the British consider a traditional breakfast. Apparently 71% like baked beans with their eggs (!) and Cloake has ongoing discussions with those she meets about whether folks prefer red sauce (ketchup) or brown sauce (some kind of Worcestershire concoction) with their breakfast. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day, so I may come away from reading this book with some new inspiration for my breakfast menu.

And who knew? Apparently Felicity Cloake has gone on yet another foodie bicycle excursion, Peach Street to Lobster Lane: Coast-to-Coast in Search of Real American Cuisine. And this book, too, was heavily discounted on Kindle this morning. I may have to read this book next.

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.    

Which genre are you eager to jump into more next year, and what draws you to it? (submitted by Billy @ Coffee-Addicted Writer)

I want to get back to reading more fantasy and science fiction. I haven't read much of either of these genres since I was in my twenties, so I eagerly welcome suggestions!

Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love by Samin Nosrat

    

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.

Good Things: Recipes and Rituals to Share with People You Love by Samin Nosrat

I shall start with Good Things by Samin Nosrat.

How could I resist Good Things? I am a fan of making a daily list of good things, and I have posted my Three Good Things each week since the pandemic.

Samin Nosrat begins this cookbook with an intro where she philosophizes about recipes. Nosrat writes, "For as long as I've been cooking, I've had a complicated relationship with recipes---I could never escape the feeling that each was an attempt to capture, quantify, and define the ineffable." And I love the way she puts this: "I've always thought that a cook's relationship to a written recipe is akin to the way a musician relates to notes on a page." And, further, Nosrat says, "...I do believe that the practice of cooking is another way to touch infinity." Beautiful, right?

Person after person has asked Nosrat to share her favorite recipes. She knows that good cooking is not about "mindless repetition," but about "being completely present with an experience as it unfolds." At last, she has heeded their requests and created this book.

The recipes are, in general, simple, with a few ingredients and a few steps.

I bookmarked these recipes I want to try later (and I’m linking them here for easy future reference): Ricotta Custard Pancakes; Sarit’s Ashura Cereal; Spaghetti Cacio e Pepe; Creamy One-Pot Pasta with Ricotta and Peas (similar); Sky-High Focaccia; and Sparkling Banana Bread.

I decided to make Sparkling Banana Bread from Nosrat's book.

Three things I like about the Sparkling Banana Bread recipe:

1. This recipe uses five bananas in one small loaf. That’s one thing I like about it right away: the recipe uses a lot of bananas. I thought I was ordering four bananas from Kroger’s last week, but apparently I accidentally ordered four pounds of bananas.

2. You make this bread in a 8 x 8 inch square pan. That’s another thing I like about this bread. It cooks better.

3. You put two whole bananas on top. I like this because it gives the bread a lovely appearance.

Ingredients

Banana Bread

• 1½ cups all-purpose flour

• 2 tsp kosher salt

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp baking powder

• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

• 1¼ cups well-mashed ripe banana (about 3 bananas)

• ¾ packed cup dark brown sugar

• ½ cup neutral oil

• ½ cup buttermilk or sour cream, at room temperature

• 1½ tsp vanilla extract

• 2 large eggs, at room temperature

Topping

• 6 tbsp granulated sugar

• 1½ tsp ground cinnamon

• ½ tsp flaky sea salt

• 2 very ripe bananas, halved lengthwise

Directions

Yield: Makes 1 8" x 8" square

Make Banana Bread

• 1. Adjust oven rack to upper-middle position and preheat to 350°F. Coat 8″ square baking pan with nonstick cooking spray. Line with parchment sling and spray parchment.

• 2. In large bowl, whisk together flour, kosher salt, baking soda, baking powder and cinnamon.

• 3. In medium bowl, whisk together mashed banana, brown sugar, oil, buttermilk, vanilla and eggs until evenly combined.

• 4. Stir banana mixture into dry ingredients and mix to combine, making sure to incorporate all dry flour at bottom of bowl.

Make Topping and Bake

• 1. In small bowl, combine granulated sugar, cinnamon and flaky salt.

• 2. Pour batter into prepared pan and let pan drop from height of 3″ onto countertop a couple times to release any air bubbles that might have gotten trapped inside batter. Sprinkle topping in thick, even layer over batter, then gently place banana halves, cut-side up, atop batter, cutting into pieces as needed to make fit.

• 3. Bake for 50 to 55 minutes, until toothpick inserted around halved bananas emerges clean.

• 4. Let cake cool in pan for 10 minutes, then transfer to wire rack to cool completely before slicing. (Alternatively, leave cake to cool in pan and serve it directly from there.)

• 5. Wrap and store at room temperature for up to 3 days.

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.

The Best Things I've Ever Baked

I am a baker.

It's in my blood.

Both my grandmas were bakers.

I love to bake.

I am hoping that my g-kids will carry on with the baking tradition.

Here are my favorite blog posts about the best things I've ever baked...

The Pioneer Woman vs. Grandma

The Amazing Dessert I Always Make at Christmas

The Perfect Bread Recipe and It's from France (Of Course!)

Chicago Deep Dish Pizza

Sablés au Citron: French Lemon Shortbread from Paris Sweets by Dorie Greenspan

The Art of the Pie: A Practical Guide to Homemade Crusts, Fillings, and Life

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookies in the World

Uff da! Norwegian Fattigmands!

π: Texas Master Naturalists Celebrate Pi (Pie?) Night

The Last Year I Decorated Christmas Cookies With My Mom

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.