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.

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.

Baking with Dorie: Cheese Puffers

It is Paris Sweets: Great Desserts from the City's Best Pastry Shops: A Baking Book that first made me fall in love with the cookbooks of Dorie Greenspan. I took a batch of her Sablés au Citron to a family get-together (back when we had such things) and I got a whole series of requests for my recipe. (My post about making Sablés au Citron is here.)

Now I'm enjoying Baking With Dorie: Sweet, Salty, & Simple. This book marks thirty years of cookbookery for Dorie. To make this cookbook, she spent three years working on the kinds of recipes she loves most: recipes that are simple, use basic ingredients, and have deep flavors and complex textures. She focused on creating recipes that are flexible, that allow the cook to play with them. And she built surprises into as many of the recipes as she could. 

Doesn't that sound fun? 

And here's a lovely quote from Dorie in her introduction to the book:

"This is my fourteenth cookbook, and it arrives exactly thirty years after my first. A lot has changed over those decades, but not the joy I get from baking. That's constant and unfailing. If you're a baker, you know exactly how I feel. If you're not, the sweetest thing I can wish you is that you become one. Bake something and share it. It might change your life. It changed mine."

Dorie shares recipes for what she calls The Daily Bread (a fairly simple white bread that can be made every day); brioche (her favorite bread, and mine); babka; biscuits; Lemony Yogurt Muffins (the next thing I'm trying from this cookbook); cakes; cobblers; French Riviera Lemon Tart (on my list to make soon); Peanut-Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paris Style (how can I resist that?); biscotti; pies...Let's just say that if you can bake it, there is probably some fresh version of it in this book.

The first thing I tried is Dorie's Cheese Puffers.

Cheese Puffers

3 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into 12 pieces

1¼ cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

½ teaspoon fine sea salt

A few grinds of black pepper

Pinch of cayenne pepper

3 large eggs

1 cup milk, at room temperature

4 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

3 scallions, trimmed and finely sliced or chopped

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F.

If you have a cast-iron muffin tin, put it in the oven when you start to preheat it and melt the butter in the cups a minute before you’re ready to add the batter. Check puffers after 15 minutes in the oven.

Center a rack in the oven and position another rack just below it. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees F. Have a baking sheet lined with foil or a baking mat and a muffin tin at hand. (If you’re using a cast-iron pan, put it into the oven now; see above.) Put the baking sheet on the lower rack — it will be your drip catcher.

Drop one piece of the butter into each muffin cup; set aside (see above if using a cast-iron pan).

Working in a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, black pepper and cayenne.

In another bowl or a large measuring cup, whisk the eggs and milk together. Using a flexible spatula, stir the liquid ingredients into the dry, then blend in the cheese and scallions. Be thorough, but don’t be overzealous.

Put the muffin tin into the oven and as soon as the butter has melted, remove it and brush the butter around the sides of each cup with a silicone or other pastry brush. Using a big cookie scoop or a spoon, divide the batter among the cups and immediately return the tin to the oven.

Bake for 20 to 23 minutes, or until the puffers are tall and golden. The butter will be bubbling around them and a tester inserted into the center of one will come out clean. Transfer the tin to a rack, run a table knife around the edges of each cup and pop the puffers out. Serve immediately.

Storing: These are meant to be eaten as soon as they’re baked, but if they must wait for a few hours, quickly reheat them in a hot oven.

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where you can share new words that you’ve encountered, or spotlight words you love.  Feel free to get creative! It was first created by Kathy over at Bermuda Onion and is now hosted at Elza Reads.

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.

Cookbook: Secrets of Great Second Meals: Flexible Modern Recipes that Value Time and Limit Waste

What might I be called? Some would say thrifty. Others might call me economical. I've even been called cheap (in a good way, I think). 

All of these are true. I know how to live big on very little.

Secrets of Great Second Meals is perfect for someone like me. 

Look at the opening paragraph of the book: 

"Hey, have you checked your refrigerator today? Are there any enticing offerings chilling in there? Some rice from takeout the other night? Maybe a few chunks of rotisserie chicken? Or half a bundle of herbs you bought a few days ago and need to use soon? That stuff is golden: those odds and ends are the seeds of your next glorious meal."

I like this, too: 

"I take uncommon delight in putting together memorable meals out of the morsels in my refrigerator: it's creative work with just a hint of virtue embedded in it."

Some important ideas author Sara Dickerman shares: the secrets of great first meals; how to reanimate (her word) stored food; and when to throw things out.

Here are some facts I learned:

1. The number-one source of leftover chicken in the country is probably supermarket rotisserie chicken. But it's easy to make something similar for your own leftover chicken.

2. Always throw fruit that's on the brink of over-ripeness into the freezer---especially bananas.

3. Look this one up if you often have bits and pieces of leftover cheese: fromage fort.

4. Cook in batches large enough for a future meal, and then recombine them in a different manner for a different meal. Cook simply the first time and add complexity later.

5. A dozen eggs in the house is the best possible setup for a delicious second meal.

6. How do you make something out of nothing? The author shares egg moves, soup moves, salad moves, and carb (bread, tortillas, pasta, rice, or potatoes) moves. 

7. The author notes that she tries to "rethink the classic casserole mentality." For example, "no canned soup was injured in the making of this cookbook."

Okay, but what about recipes, I can hear you ask. Does this cookbook have recipes? Judge for yourself:

Black Bean Tacos with Mushrooms and Scissor Salsa

Meatball Frittata with Mozzarella and Tomatoes

Mustard-Kissed Chard and Gruyère Galette

I love to read cookbooks that inspire my creativity like this one. 

For more wordless photos, go to Wordless Wednesday.

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.