Orange Sage Olive Oil Cake

Orange Sage Olive Oil Cake

With all the flavor of a pound cake, this lighter variety has a wonderfully springy mouthfeel. I love to pair herbs with desserts and found orange and sage to be a gorgeous match, but you can play with the combinations to suit your preferences- perhaps grapefruit with rosemary, or lemon and thyme, lime and black pepper even.

This is not an overly sweet cake, and it pairs nicely with a simple vanilla ice cream, plain whipped cream that allows to orange to do all the talking, or with a simple piece of dark chocolate or almonds. And like so many baked goods, this cake is exceptional the day after it’s baked.

Classic Chocolate Chip Cookies

Dorie Greenspan’s recipe that she’s been making for decades. As she says, “If they look like Toll House Cookies, it’s because that recipe, the mother of so many chocolate-chippers, was my starting point.”

Pistachio Paste

Like a cross between pistachio butter and marzipan, this thick and flavorful pistachio paste can be used on its own as a spread or as a base for colorful pistachio desserts.

Polenta Cookies with Rosemary and Olive Oil

Polenta Cookies with Rosemary and Olive Oil

If you serve these cookies warm, the limonene terpene in the fresh rosemary will fool your taste buds into thinking they’re lemon cookies even though there’s not a drop of lemon in them. The air-dried cookies made me think of eating pre-packaged powdered doughnettes (except way the heck more flavorful [and healthy!]).

Banana Oat Muffins

Banana Oat Muffins

This muffin recipe is not your standard sweet, dense banana bread.  The crumb on these muffins is light and fluffy thanks to the oat flour, and the sweetness is minimal. They toast up beautifully and are lovely with a little smear of butter.