Snack

Maple syrup adds a new layer of sweetness to this delicious twist on the classic French dessert.

We've fallen hard for Scotch eggs—the gastropub staple— cooked eggs swaddled in sausage meat, then breaded and fried. Sorry, doc, now we're making them at home.

Use very soft, ripe, heartshaped Hachiya persimmons rather than the smaller, firmer Fuyu variety. If you can't find Hachiyas, substitute 1 cup of canned pumpkin. Stir any leftover purée into yogurt for a sweet breakfast.

Talk about addictive. My director of creative development, Greg Brainin, created these, and I can't get enough of them. For a double dose of heat, fresh chile slices cling to the fiery sauce on the crisp wings.

These cookies are also delicious made with dried cherries instead of cranberries.

Using a culinary torch is the best way to caramelize the sugar into a candy shell, but you can also make this old-school breakfast treat using your broiler.

These New Orleans classics will satisfy a serious sweet tooth.

These really do look and taste like their gluten- and dairy-laden counterparts. Just don't expect quite as many nooks and crannies.
It is extremely important to use masa harina for this recipe. Though it is a corn product, it is completely different from cornmeal and masarepa (produced specifically for arepas although I still find that the masa harina arepas are must tastier). Masa harina is traditionally used to make corn tortillas and tamales but can make arepas as well. The more coarsely ground cornmeal is used to make corn bread and corn mush.

I'm surprised and delighted by the number of sweets and desserts that I have been able to come up with sans flour and dairy. With this one I had help. Our good friend Dr. Nersessian—a very good cook—came up with the first version of this to give me a dessert without the bad things. I have fiddled with it a bit. It has been a great success with all who have tasted it. A chocolate version follows.

This recipe would not be possible without the late Bette Hagman and her book The Gluten-Free Gourmet Bakes Bread. She was innovative and to be respected. I made a few changes to avoid artificial ingredients, but the credit is hers. The bread also makes great toast. French Meadow Bakery makes a similar good loaf, available online and in speciality stores.

My life is all about banging things out, getting things done, moving fast—but sometimes a detour from the fast lane can be a good thing, even for me. Years ago, Gwen and I were on our way home from a road trip to the Canadian Maritimes when we were forced off the highway by some epic construction. We ended up on a wandering road that took us through a charming series of dying industrial towns. There was not much to see... and definitely nothing to eat. But then, in Fall River, Massachusetts, right at the border of Rhode Island, we stumbled across culinary gold: an old gas station converted into a root beer stand. The owner, a retired A&W root beer guy, was behind the counter; all he served was root beer in frosted glasses. Our root beer came with a long lecture about chilling the glass, not the root beer itself (that kills the taste). We sat at a broken-down old picnic table and sipped. I'm all about root beer, and that roadside glassful was the best I ever tasted. This recipe is my stab at bringing that taste to cake—because the only thing better than root beer is root beer plus cake. There's a mad-scientist component to this recipe: when you whisk the baking soda into the molasses and root beer, there's going to be some crazy bubbling up going on, straight out of sci-fi. Don't worry: it's completely normal.

You only have to make marshmallows once to see how ridiculously easy they are to create. You'll be tempted to keep that fact to yourself, though, when your friends freak out over them. Go ahead, let them think you spent the day making these tender, airy squares of fluff, when it really only takes about 15 minutes of fun in the kitchen. To avoid stickiness, try to make marshmallows on a dry day.

Nothing smacks of the holidays quite like one of these peppermint marshmallows melting in a cup of hot chocolate!

A cobbler is the easiest way to get to something similar to a pie—meltingly tender and juicy fruit with a crusty topping—without having to make, roll out, and crimp pie dough. Biscuit dough, in general, is easy and fast to assemble, but the cream dough below is a real cinch because you don't even have to blend butter into the flour mixture; you just pour in heavy cream and stir, then pat it out with your hands. A round cutter is your default shape but feel free to rummage through your cookie cutter collection for something fun, such as a leaf or diamond.

Chocolate Espresso Sauce is a flavorful accompaniment to ice cream, fruit, or our favorite Bomboloni.

Bomboloni—small round Italian doughnuts—is almost as much fun to say as they are to eat. It's like a party in your mouth when you repeat the word, which you will be doing over and over between bites of these balloon-light spheres of the tenderest yeast dough. Bomboloni are the new hot item on restaurant menus these days, and you'll instantly understand why when you taste your first. It won't be your last, that's for sure, which is why we've accompanied them with three different sauces for dipping. Each is delightful on its own, but if you want to go all the way with all three, you'll find they play well together, too.

Clementine Sauce is a flavorful accompaniment to ice cream, fruit, or our favorite Bomboloni.

I love apples. I have this recurring dream where I leave the stress of the restaurant world behind and start a cider house, making exquisite hard cider. I start at sunrise and I finish in the mid-afternoon and retire to the farmhouse to cook a dinner for Mary and the girls. Apple brown betty is like a crisp made with bread crumbs. It's a wonderful dessert that is so simple and so rewarding in results. This is a good one for roping the kids into helping. Those apples aren’t going to peel themselves. Zabaglione is also known in France as sabayon. It is a custard-based dessert, cooked with a dessert wine. I stabilize mine with whipped cream and serve it cold, whereas in Italy and France you often see them served warm. Kind of like an eggnog in heaven.