Sometimes a recipe fails. What to do? My luscious coffee cake, laden with garden raspberries, rosy rhubarb and toasted hazelnuts nestled too snugly into the baking pan and came out in fits and starts. Broken. But essentially excellent. Too good to waste. That was never an option. So, I got myself some fresh berries, whipped up some heavy cream, and basically assembled a deep dish extravaganza which we scooped up hungrily with spoons.

I had it in my mind that I could also incorporate a tiramisu concept into this creamy creation. I took my mangled cake and cut it into bite sized morsels. I tossed these morsels with some strong, sweetened coffee before laying them in layers in my pretty bowl, aiming for an almost pudding-like softness to the dessert. Trifle is usually spiked with liquor and tiramisu is coffee-laden, so it was not too bizarre to combine the two techniques. The result, moist, flavourful cakey layers sandwiching some lovely thick cream and fresh strawberries. A perfect and decadent finale to a dinner with friends. An overnight rest in the fridge melded the flavours so the dessert was just as great the next day. It didn't last much beyond that.

Take a baking mistake and turn it into something else. There is no recipe to give you. Broken cake plus cream and fruit equals a trifle. Use a nice sherry on a sponge cake or sweetened espresso on a chocolate cake for some oozy moistness. Use real whipping cream that you whip yourself and sweeten it gently with icing sugar just before it is at its billowy best. Annoint it with some pure vanilla essence. Some nice combinations could include mandarin oranges with orange zested cream and a vanilla sponge cake, or raspberries with a chocolate cake and mocha cream. Cherries and kirsch with cream and white cake would be elegant and sublime. Use what you have. Build a dreamy, creamy, layered dessert in a glass bowl for all to see what lies inside. Chill and scoop. Heavenly.

Have fun playing with your food with help from these books:

In my low tech practice of the culinary arts, mastering a lattice pie crust ranks pretty close to an apex of achievement for me. So, I am mightly proud of this autumn fruit pie that I assembled with an assortment of market produce: nectarines and plums, apples and strawberries, cherries and the last stalks of my garden rhubarb. Smelling divine and looking pretty stellar, this pie caps off a vegetable-centric dinner of pasta with homemade fresh tomato sauce, sauteed garlic-scented Swiss chard from my garden and a golden, crisp oven-roasted cauliflower spiked with grated parmesan cheese. But it is the pie that drew gasps of appreciation, the buttery crust topped with crunchy crystals of raw sugar and the filling holding itself together with thick fruit. I enjoy the casual creativity that spawns a pie like this, searching my fridge drawers for stray apples, strawberries and stone fruit, using what I have, turning a mis-matched collection into a cohesive dessert.

Now that I have witnessed the marvel of a multi-fruit pie, I realize that it is precisely the hodge-podge that accounts for this success. Sometimes an all-apple pie comes out too dry, the sliced apples never really melding into a soft, dense filling, the loose pieces falling hither and thither as you cut your slices. I don't know about you, but I like my pies to retain a wedge-like cohesiveness when cut. No loose juice for me, spilling all over the crisp crust and allowing sogginess to prevail. This is the other main pitfall of pie making, a filling that is too wet and doesn't hold together. Those juicy peaches just leeched too much liquid, or you didn't assess the amount of starchy binder correctly. We have all been there and don't really want to see the re-run. In truth, a recipe will not rescue you. No one other than you, in the moment, can assess how juicy your fruit is, how sweet it tastes and whether the binder you are using is adequate. My advise is this: if you want your fruit pie to hold together, use your senses and follow these guidelines:

• Use a mixture of fruit to allow for some juice, some texture, some softness, some sweetness, some tartness, lots of colour and contrast. Some of the fruit will soften into a paste, perfect for binding the fruit mixture together. Some morsels will remain whole and distinct, a good thing in a pie where mush is not quite the look you are going for, where distinct morsels of fruit suspended in some softness are a better goal.
• Add sugar to taste. Recipes are mere suggestions. There is such a wide spectrum of sweetness in fruits. Only you, with your particular fruit, can know how much sugar to add. Sometimes it is hard to know what a mixture will taste like once it breaks down and cooks in your oven. The allure of pies lies in this mystery. Taste the unbaked fruit mixture, guess and wait and see! This doesn't sound like much of a tip, but it's the truth. There is always an element of sweet surprise when you cut into a pie.
• How much binder do you need? I use flour in my fruit pie fillings, so this is what I will speak about. You will think this odd, but I keep adding flour until I feel that the fruit has an almost gluey feel to it. I know this sounds strange, but it really works. I do not measure, but if I did, I wouldn't be surprised if I used almost a cup of flour in my fillings. Mind you, I make gigantic 10-inch pies piled high with fruit, at least 8 cups worth of chopped apples, peaches, plums, berries, pears, etc. Remember that the more flour you use, the more sugar you may need to add to counterbalance it. Stir in the flour so that it disappears and taste the fruit to see if it is still sweet enough, after your flour is in. As you stir in your flour you will start to see the starch thickening the juices in your bowl. I cannot give you a more precise instruction than this. I distrust pie recipes for this reason. You must use your senses to adjust the sugar and flour in your filling. Don't be afraid to keep adding flour if the fruit is really wet and not starting to feel dense. I have never read about this method anywhere, but my pie successes are undeniable. The fruit holds together as if in a magic suspension, solid yet not sludgey, no gluey, sticky stuff to speak of, just a nice, clean wedge of fragrant, moist fruit when you cut the pie.
• Start with a double crust pie, and graduate to a lattice design once you are comfortable with the whole pie-making idea.

I WILL give you a recipe for my butter/cream cheese crust, delicious enough to win fans on its own merits, plus it bakes up golden, crisp and flakey. Make the crust first so that it can chill and rest while you prepare your pie filling.

Cream Cheese Crust:

1/2 pound unsalted butter, cut into pieces; 1/2 pound light cream cheese, cut into pieces, 2 cups all-purpose flour; 2 tbsp. sugar.

In a food processor, pulse butter, cream cheese, flour and sugar until you have small pea-sized pieces of butter. Continue to process just until the dough clumps around the blades or holds together when pinched with your fingers. Carefully remove the dough from the processor bowl, form it into two balls, one slightly larger than the other, and wrap them well in plastic wrap. Refrigerate while you prepare the fruit for the filling. Makes enough for a large double-crusted 10-inch pie.

Fruit filling for a 10-inch pie:

2 tbsp. plain, fine breadcrumbs, to sprinkle over the dough; 8 cups of mixed fruit, cut into bite sized morsels; 3/4 cup granulated sugar or more if needed; 1/2 cup flour or more if needed; grated zest of 1 lemon; 1 tsp. ground cinnamon. Combine fruit, sugar, flour, zest and cinnamon. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if necessary. If the mixture starts to look weepy and wet, add in flour by the spoonful. You should have a mass of chopped fruit that feels a little bit "gluey", but not too much so.

To assemble your pie:

The larger disc of dough is for the bottom crust. Unwrap it. On a floured surface, roll your dough into a 12" circle, about 1/8" thick. Fold it in half and then fold again into quarters. Gently lift this folded crust into a buttered 10-inch pie pan, placing the point of dough directly in the centre. Unfold your dough and gently fit it into the pan. Leave the dough hanging over the edge. Prick the dough all over with the tines of a fork and sprinkle the breadcrumbs over it to help absorb some of the liquid from the fruit.

Arrange your fruit mixture evenly in the pie plate, mounding the centre a bit higher. Compact the mixture by tapping on the fruit with the back of a spoon. On a floured surface, roll out the other disc of dough for your top crust, roughly 11" in diameter and 1/8" thick. Fold it in half and then in quarters and lay it over the fruit, with the point in the centre. Unfold the dough and trim the edges of the top and bottom crusts if needed so that they are matched up, overhanging the edges of the pan slightly. Pinch the top and bottom crusts together and fold them upwards to seal. You may press them together with the tines of a fork or pinch into a crimped design. Cut two or three slits in the top crust. Brush with milk or cream and sprinkle with raw sugar to create a sparkly, crunchy crackle effect on the top of your crust.

To Bake Your Pie:

Bake the pie in the lower part of a 375 F oven for about 50 minutes or until the crust is deeply golden and the filling can be seen bubbling through the slits. Let cool to room temperature before serving. If you must cut into the pie before then, the filling may be a little bit loose.

Don't be shy about making pie! It's a bit of a project, admittedly, but well worth it. If sweet, fresh fruit and a crisp, buttery crust are pleasure points for you, you will be amply rewarded.

With the season's frost settling on the ground this crisp morning, I pulled out my cozy arsenal of autumn spices and whipped up these gorgeous cookies, filling the kitchen with warm aromas. I am that quick to adapt to the cooler weather. Why wait? It's never a bad idea having moist, crackled gingersnap cookies on hand.

I am of the mind that more is better here when it comes to spice. And fresh ginger adds a big kick to an already punchy cookie, a bright, peppery, deep essence. Lots of cinnamon is used along with cloves, allspice and cardamom, and even a jolt of espresso powder, a melange with personality that will leave your tongue practically singing. Partner these with strong, fragrant tea and a tart apple and you have yourself a mid-afternoon snack to remember.

In truth, these cookies have served me well other times of the year, such as summer time, besides a scoop of good vanilla bean ice cream and a bowl of raspberries. I enjoy these on a dark winter morning with a steaming cup of coffee and a banana. Some would say a glass of milk makes the perfect partner. Any time is the right time for a great cookie. Whether destined for a party platter to share with friends or for solo munching in your kitchen, reading the newspaper, this is a cookie to keep in your tool kit and pull out all year round.

There are many gingersnap cookie recipes out there. I have tried and tasted MANY of them. This is the one I love the most, a kicked up and slightly modified version of the old stand-by from Joy of Cooking. Why does it work? Butter. Demererra sugar, with its rich flavour and dark butterscotchy feel. Lots of spice. Some whole wheat flour for old-fashioned wholesomeness and a hint of wheat. Molasses for chewiness and flavour with deep resonance. A roll in some granulated sugar, resulting in glistening crystals and a pleasing crunch. And careful baking, paying attention to not overbake these beauties, leaving them with a crisp outer shell that yields to a moist interior. With the signature crackles one comes to expect in a gingersnap, I offer you the best one I have ever met. Oh, you may have noticed from my photo that my cookies are huge, a handful of sugar and spice. I used an ice cream scoop to form tennis ball sized rounds which I then rolled in granulated sugar and flattened slightly with the palm of my hand. These larger cookies may need a minute or two longer in the oven.

Gingersnaps Recipe adapted from the 1974 Edition of The Joy of Cooking

3/4 cup butter, softened; 2 cups granulated sugar; 2 eggs, beaten; 1/2 cup molasses; 2 teaspoons white vinegar or fresh lemon juice; 2+3/4 cups all-purpose flour; 1 cup whole wheat flour; 1+1/2 teaspoons baking soda; 2 teaspoons ground ginger; 1 tbsp. fresh grated ginger; 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon; 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves; 1/2 tsp. ground cardamom; 1 tsp. instant espresso powder (optional).

Pre-heat your oven to 325 degrees F. Cream butter and sugar until creamy and smooth. Add eggs, one at a time, and mix until blended. Mix in molasses and vinegar or lemon juice and blend well. In a separate bowl, combine flours, baking soda, gingers, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and espresso powder if using. Stir well and add to wet ingredients. Mix just until the flour mixture is well incorporated and you have a cohesive dough. For cookies that are perfectly round, chill dough for at least 2 hours or overnight.

Form dough into 3/4 inch balls. Roll each ball in granulated sugar and place 2" apart on a greased cookie sheet or cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Flatten cookies slightly with the palm of your hand. Bake for about 12 minutes, until the edges are set and the top is crackled. For giant cookies, form dough into 3" balls, roll in sugar, flatten and bake for about 15 minutes. Do not overbake if you like some chew to your gingersnap.

Makes a big batch of small cookies or about 10 large 4-inch cookies.

Indulge in the joy of baking cookies:

What are those sparkly crystals adorning those stunning chocolate cookies? Fleur de sel. Ha ha ha! When you stop laughing, consider this. A fudgey, gooey biscuit grows up and puts on a sprinkling of fine, pure salt as a study in contrasts. You've seen it on fancy chocolates. You put it on grilled fish. It's the reigning queen of salt and, yowzer, does it do wonders for this cookie! Fleur de sel is the surprise ingredient in this fine offering and I urge you to give it a go.

You may not realize this, but it is the magic of salt that gives foods the tastes we come to love. "Salt is the single most important ingredient in cooking and the single most powerful tool for improving the flavour of food" says Mark Bitterman in his book Salted - A Manifesto on the World's Most Essential Mineral, With Recipes. Think of that tomato and the heights to which salt can elevate its tomato-ness. Or pan-fried potatoes and the lingering memory of the crispy, browned bits basking in a little sea salt. Baking requires salt for maximum flavour too, as you can see in all sweet recipes. Salt rounds out flavours and makes everything taste better. So, why not celebrate it and let it shine a bit more? And, in doing so, let's bring out the gold standard, fleur de sel, harvested from the sea by hand into crunchy beds off of the coast of France. Fleur del sel is light, flaky, pure and it will anoint your food with a finishing touch that will last in your memory, a clean bright waft of sea air. In these cookies, fleur de sel sits inside the dough as well, permeating the mouth with an even more punchy chocolate experience, and then dotting the tongue with a final, pleasant reminder.

The proliferation of food writing means that cooking and baking ideas spread and mutate and morph. This cookie is a stellar example. New York baker extraordinaire Dorie Greenspan took inspiration from Parisian pastry chef Pierre Herme. I, in turn, take my lead from Dorie, trusting her inclusion of salt crystals to bring midnight dark chocolate to greater heights. But, she rolls her dough into logs and slices cookies for baking, where I add a few drops of cold coffee to moisten the dough to allow for forming balls. My result is a crispy/chewy, crackled, salted beauty, the little crevices allowing for a peak into the deep heart of this chocolate sensation. This is what it means to create in the kitchen, tweaking, thinking, adapting, following, altering, modifying, enriching. I took this devilishly delicious cookie to where I wanted it, where the dough held together for me and allowed me to form uniform, round mounds of rich decadence. Where Dorie's dough felt dry and crumbly to me, I tweaked her recipe and made it work my way. All the flavour Dorie promises is there, the salt exalting our senses in a playful surprise.

Dorie calls these World Peace Cookies because her neighbour Richard Gold, upon tasting them, claimed that a daily dose is all that is needed to ensure planetary peace and happiness. Imagine if we could really test that concept.

Fleur de Sel Chocolate Cookies
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's recipe for World Peace Cookies

1+1/4 cups all-purpose flour; 1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder; 1/2 tsp. baking soda; 11 tbsp. unsalted butter, at room temperature; 2/3 cup packed light brown sugar; 1/4 cup granulated sugar; 1/2 tsp. fleur de sel or 1/4 tsp. fine sea salt; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; approximately 2 tbsp. cold coffee, enough to moisten the dough so that it holds together when pinched; 3/4 cup bittersweet chocolate chunks or chips.

Sift flour, cocoa and baking soda together. In a large mixing bowl beat butter on medium speed until soft and creamy. Add both sugars, salt and vanilla and beat for 2 minutes more. Add dry ingredients and pulse mixer at low speed about 5 times to prevent the flour from flying around. Mix for about 30 seconds more, just so the flour disappears. If mixture appears dry and crumbly, add coffee a teaspoon at a time until the dough holds together when pinched.

Chill dough in the fridge overnight, wrapped well in plastic wrap. When you are ready to bake the cookies, centre a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat oven to 325 F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone mats. With a tablespoon, scoop out balls of dough and roll in your hands until rounded. Place about 2 inches apart on cookie sheet and flatten balls slightly with the palm of your hand. Bake one sheet at a time for about 12 minutes or until set at the edges, puffed and crackled, but still soft. Cool on a rack and store in a covered container.

Let Dorie Greenspan be your capable and inspiring guide in the kitchen:

Here they are, the innards of my cheesecake laid out for you to scrutinize. The layers are clearly visible, my new go-to crust of shortbread cookie dough over which sits a smooth and luscious lemony cheesecake. Then there are the raspberries, thickened into a sweet sludge singing of fresh fruit. It all works very well, every element playing its part in the symphony of joy happening in your mouth.

It took time for me to let go of the graham crust so often seen in cheesecakes and now that I have moved on, there is no going back. I love the sturdiness a cookie dough provides, allowing easy cutting and lifting, no crumbly detritus scattered on every plate. This cake cuts like a dream, with clean, crisp edges and nice delineations between the layers, each segment standing on its own merit and merging into a delectable whole. Also, the shortbread base can carry so many flavour possibilites, from toasted coconut to lemon, vanilla, chocolate or hazelnut, a lovely cookie foundation from which your cake rises up and gets noticed. Every ounce of your being is urging you to do it!

Raspberry Lemon Cheesecake from Wanda's Pie in the Sky

Makes one 10-inch cake, serving 12-14 people

Crust: 3/4 cup cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces; 1+3/4 cup all-purpose flour; 1/4 cup granulated sugar; 1/4 tsp. salt; 1 tsp. grated lemon zest; 1 egg, slightly beaten.

Filling: 1+1/2 pound cream cheese at room temperature; 1+1/4 cup granulated sugar, divided; 1 cup sour cream; 5 large eggs, at room temperature, separated; 1 tbsp. all-purpose flour; 1 tsp. pure vanilla extract; 2 tsp. grated orange zest; 1 tsp. grated lemon zest; 2 tbsp. fresh lemon juice.

Topping: 1/2 - 1 cup granulated sugar, depending on the sweetness of the raspberries; 2 tbsp. cornstarch; 1 tbsp. fresh lemon juice; 2 tsp. grated lemon zest; 1 pound raspberries.

Using a food processor or pastry cutter, process or cut the butter with the flour, sugar, salt and zest until mealy. Add egg and mix just until mixture begins to come together. Divide dough in half, wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for 20 minutes.

Preheat oven to 375 F. Roll out one piece of dough into a 10-inch circle. Place it onto the bottom of a buttered 10-inch springform pan and chill for 20 minutes. Roll out the remaining pastry into a strip 3-inches wide and line the sides of the pan with it, overlapping the bottom crust slightly. Trim the pastry just to the top of the pan. Chill while preparing the filling and topping. Reduce oven temperature to 350 F.

Using an electric mixer, beat the cream cheese, sour cream and sugar until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Add egg yolks, flour, vanilla, zests and lemon juice and beat until very smooth. Beat the egg whites with the remaining 1/4 cup sugar until soft peaks form. Fold into cheese mixture and turn into the prepared crust. Bake for 15 minutes then reduce oven setting to 225 F and bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes, or until the cake is no longer shiny. Chill for at least 8 hours or overnight before slicing and serving.

For the topping, combine sugar and cornstarch in a medium saucepan. Stir in the lemon juice and zest. Mix until smooth and gently stir in the fruit. Cook over low heat, stirring occasionally, until the fruit releases some juice. Increase the temperature to medium and cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture thickens and begins to boil. Cook for 1 minute, stirring constantly but being careful not to crush the fruit. Taste for sweetness and add more sugar if needed. Cool slightly before pouring over the chilled cheesecake. Chill thoroughly before removing the cake from the pan or slicing. Store refrigerated in a closed container for up to 4 days.

Tips from me to you:

• It really is important to have the cream cheese and eggs at room temperature to avoid lumps and achieve maximum creaminess in your final product.
• I modified the crust technique by just pressing the shortbread dough onto the bottom and up the sides of the pan. I also pre-baked it for 7 minutes at 350 F to make sure it crisped up nicely. You can see from my golden edged bottom crust that this was a good idea. Haven't tested this the other way, Wanda's way.
• True confession: I did not separate my eggs and everything worked out just fine, though Wanda's technique probably yields a fluffier result. I don't mind my cheesecake a bit dense, but if it is fluffiness you seek, separate your eggs.
• I find that light cream cheese bakes up beautifully and has better texture than regular cream cheese. The regular stuff feels somewhat sticky and heavy to me.
• Blueberries could also work well as a topping, using the same technique and measurements. If your topping feels too loose, mix another tablespoon of cornstarch with a tablespoon of cold water and add to the cooking fruit to thicken it up a bit more. My topping held together almost like a solid layer of pure fruit, which was nice, but it is perfectly OK to have a topping that is somewhat looser, oozing down gently over your slices of cake.
• And, finally, you can freeze this cake!

This may, truly, be the cheesecake of your dreams. It will satisfy a hunkering for a thick, gooey, sinfully rich, soul-satisfying dessert like nothing else I can think of. More inspiration for decadence can be found here: