Blog Posts by Epicurious.com

by Lauren Salkeld, Epicurious
















Ombre cakes are all the rage on Pinterest, and my younger, more stylish sister Alex requested that I make one for her birthday. What's an ombre cake? Well, it's a traditional white cake with white frosting that's been strategically dyed to create an ombre effect. In other words, it's the cake shown here. Google "ombre" and you'll find it's also a trend in hair and nails.

See more: Healthy Comfort Recipes for Any Day

Alex chose blue for her ombre color and she wanted the cake to be tall, so I baked two standard layer cakes to get a total of four separate cake layers, each one tinted a different degree of blue. Obviously the outside mimics the inside, so the bottom is a darker, brighter blue that becomes progressively paler as it moves up the cake. To accomplish the different colors I kept it simple, using one, two, three, or four drops of blue food coloring paste, depending on the cake layer or frosting batch. And since there were two whole cakes to

With a decadent chocolate glaze and sprinkle of flaky sea salt, this Rosh Hashanah classic gets a fresh new take from Gourmet Live's Kemp Minifie
by Lauren Salkeld, Epicurious
Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, is a time to reflect on the past and to look toward the future, and honey has long played a significant role in the holiday, symbolizing the hope for a sweet year ahead. While challah and apples are dipped in the sweet nectar, honey is also often baked into a rich, delicious cake. For this year's celebration, we've updated the classic cake, giving it a modern spin.

To reinvent this traditional Jewish treat, we turned to Kemp Minifie, resident recipe guru at Gourmet Live and former executive food editor of Gourmet magazine. Minifie baked the honey cake in a Bundt pan-honey cakes are often presented as simple loaves, but a Bundt pan makes the cake more festive and more symbolic. Similar to shaping challah into a circle at Rosh Hashanah, baking a round honey cake signifies the

A Sweet and creamy classic to break the fast on Yom Kippur
by Sarah Kagan, Epicurious
After a day of fasting on Yom Kippur, it's traditional to mark the end of the holiday with a breakfastlike dairy meal. Gentle and comforting on empty stomachs, dishes such as blintzes fit the bill. This recipe is a classic-a rich, creamy filling enhanced by a topping of lightly sweetened fresh blueberries. The crêpe-like wrappers can be made and filled a day ahead, so the only steps that need be done at the last minute are frying the blintzes and making the sauce.

Cheese Blintzes with Blueberry Sauce
Epicurious

YIELD: Makes 12 blintzes

The filling of these classic cheese blintzes gets its perfect consistency from a mix of cottage and farmer cheeses. The latter, a drier version of cottage cheese, is available at most supermarkets. A simple blueberry sauce tops off the dish. If blueberries aren't in season, frozen berries can be substituted. Use unsweetened, and do not defrost them before combining

What to know about honey for Rosh Hashanah and beyond
by Epicurious
Honey is an ancient ingredient in Jewish New Year celebrations; a lovely culinary symbol of the sweet year ahead. So this holiday season, why not give it center stage by serving several interesting varieties for your guests to taste? In the following excerpt from her book, Jewish Holiday Style, author Rita Milos Brownstein explains the basics. We've also added a brief primer on different types of honey.

HONEY BASICS
Why Honey is Kosher

Stump your kosher-conversant friends with the fact that honey is the only kosher food that comes from a nonkosher animal. The reason for this? The bee is concentrating flower nectar into honey for the hive-honey is not a product of the bee's body. [However, note that some unfiltered varieties of honey are not kosher due to small amounts of other materials present. If this is of concern to you, consult a religious authority for more information.]

How to Handle Honey

Temperature is

by Jennifer Iserloh, Epicurious

Part of a healthy eating lifestyle involves substituting highly processed foods for healthier options whenever possible-so when it comes to white flour, here are some of the options for baking with whole grain flours.

Stone Ground Stone ground wheat usually comes from red winter wheat and is a coarser ground compared to other types of flour. Its primary use is for breads, but doesn't work well in cakes or cookies as it can be tough.

See more: Healthy Comfort Recipes for Any Day

Pastry Flour
Pastry flour is a type of wheat flour that comes from spring wheat and is a softer flour compared to stone ground. It works well in cookies, bars, and pies and is a great choice for making over your favorite cookie.

White Whole Wheat Flour White Whole Wheat Flour is milled from a softer form of wheat called "spring white" that is better for tender baked goods. Nothing is added, nothing is taken away during the grinding process and it has a finer texture compared to

by Sara Bonisteel, Epicurious
When it comes to cheese storage, chances are, you're doing it wrong.

Lou Di Palo, of Di Palo Fine Foods in New York's Little Italy, offered his advice on storage for cheeses like Parmigiano-Reggiano and Grana Padano at a tasting last week.

"You've got to understand that cheese-not processed cheese, but cheese-is living, and it's going to go through stages," Di Palo says. "As soon as the cheese is cut, it's immediately oxidizing."
See more: Healthy Comfort Recipes for Any Day

Tip 1: Start With a Freshly Cut Piece of Cheese
"Never buy a cheese that's pre-cut and has been sitting for a day or two days out in the refrigerator," Di Palo says. "Ask always to have it cut for you fresh."

Tip 2: Change That Plastic Wrap
"Do I like to store cheese in it? It certainly preserves the integrity of the cheese. It doesn't let it oxidize. But it's got to be changed frequently, and I mean frequently," Di Palo says. "Plastic wrap has got to be changed really every time

by Tanya Steel, Epicurious

Make it a chili nightSchool has started, I've put away my white clothes, and I've seen the first local apples at the farmer's market. All signs point to the fact that Fall is here, no matter the weather, and summer's more relaxed days are behind us yet again. For me that now means running out of my Times Square neighborhood office, jumping aboard a commuter train home, and walking in the door an hour later to be greeted by two six-foot boys growling for dinner. I have little time before all hell breaks loose because they are "hangry," as Epi's executive editor Siobhan Adcock calls it. What do I do? Be organized and systematic, and think like a speed cook. Here are my five go-to fall dinners that are made in a flash.

Meatless Monday: We only eat meat once or twice a week, but Monday is always meatless because on Sundays I go to the farmer's market and want to use up some of the produce. Thus I usually make a curry-in-a-hurry, with a fast veggie saute, adding turmeric, curry

After tasting 20 pies, we found a winner and 3 others we'd gladly eat again
by Carolina Santos-Neves, Epicurious

Pizza lovers have very particular tastes. Some folks want the crust to be thick and chewy, others like it cracker-crisp. Some demand abundant amounts of gooey cheese, while others prefer plenty of tomato sauce. To each their own. But we think there are a few key factors on which we can all agree.

The ultimate pie cannot be soggy. It needs some structure and resilience. The tomato sauce must not be one-dimensional, too salty, or watery: It should show some sweetness, and be reasonably thick and full of body. The cheese needs to have elasticity, but not be rubbery. Finally, we gravitate towards pies that don't require a stack of paper napkins to absorb grease.

To find this king of pies, we tasted a total of 20 frozen cheese pizzas (no other toppings allowed). The variations were nearly endless. Some were marketed as having a blend of three cheeses or more, several as