#124 What's your favorite dessert?

Real dessert is a joy

historyfacts.com

I hate the way dessert is viewed in the mainstream. You shouldn’t feel guilty having a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream after a hearty meal. In fact, I’d argue dessert is part of the experience of the meal itself. And it’s been this way for thousands of years.

The earliest human beings used to snack on fruit-based pastes and it’s well-documented how the Romans enjoyed treating themselves to sweet wines and libum (cheesecake with honey).

Libum was a sacrificial cake sometimes offered to household spirits during Rome's early history. The recipe below comes from the Roman consul Cato's agricultural writings, which included simple recipes for farmers. Libum, sometimes served hot, is a type of cheesecake.

Even flan, which is incredibly popular in Latin America, is said to originate from the Romans themselves. Here’s a great recipe if you’d like to make a certified A tier dessert this week:

So of course, in typical Warkitchen fashion, we had to rile the Internet with a tier list based on pure vibes and unquantifiable personal taste. I know we forgot about key lime pie — please don’t cancel us but hey… that S tier is undeniable. Tiramisu is, in my eyes, one of the best desserts ever made. Cacao. Egg yolks. Mascarpone. Sugar. Coffee-soaked savoiardi. It’s so good it should be labeled a nootropic. Basque cheesecake has the best effort-to-taste ratio. It’s so easy to make, yet incredibly tasty.

We don’t even have to talk about ice cream… Real ice cream made with whole food ingredients is one of the best desserts you can have, and there are a thousand flavor permutations!

Dessert is a celebration. Not of gluttony, but of decadence. All you need for dessert to stay tasteful is the tiniest portions of naturally sweet things. Don't go for the 32 ingredient Oreo milkshake. Get a scoop of raw milk blueberry ice cream. Don't go for the triple flavor cheesecake without real cheese. Make a cute Flan this weekend. Real dessert takes the edge of a hearty meal yet it leaves you feeling good.

One of the most underrated desserts is a good mousse au chocolat. It’s so good you can have it on its own, or to elevate other desserts. When you make it with an authentic recipe, it feels potent. It’s really just a concoction of raw eggs, cream and cacao that leaves you feeling invigorated. If you’d like to make it yourself, here’s an easy recipe:

Caveat: Dessert, even when made with real, whole ingredients is nourishing, but not an excuse for you to drown yourself in raw milk and honey all day. You will get fat. There’s only so much you can increase your metabolism, the calories you’re downing will eventually show on the scale. This is why we always talk about balance. Who wants to eat ice cream all day anyway? It’ll lose its potency. You won’t appreciate it. Keep dessert portions decadent. They should always leave you wanting more.

One ingredient Honey Candy

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❋ THE VINEYARD BAKER TURNS FOCACCIA INTO ART

“We eat with our eyes—we’re not going to eat anything that looks bad,” says Teri Culletto, the Massachusetts-based bread maker known as the Vineyard Baker. Culletto has become something of an expert on the aesthetic aspect of food over the last couple years, as her eye-catching loaves of focaccia—each adorned with edible depictions of nature or her takes on famous artwork—have earned her internet (and Instagram) fame and led to the writing of a book on bread art (due out in April 2022.) La Cucina Italiana caught up with Culletto in the midst of her book deadlines to talk about the inspiration behind her “Van Dough” pieces and get some tips for creating our own edible works of art.

❋ APPEASING THE GODS, OR LET THEM EAT HONEY CAKE (ANCIENT ROMAN CUISINE)

Most of the very ancient Roman recipes that have been left to us tend to be a short list of ingredients and in some cases, a rudimentary and usually incomplete set of instructions. The ancient Roman cookbook, Apicius, is full of these sorts of recipes. A home cook of today would have no idea where to begin when it came to extrapolating these vague lists into something edible. I was relieved to discover that others had already done much of this interpretation for me. I began my cooking research by trying dishes found in cookbooks by historians such as Andrew Dalby, Ilaria Gozzini Giacosa, Sally Grainger, Mark Grant and Francine Segan. But it wasn’t long before my husband and I were testing out our own interpretations of foods such as roasted mushrooms, sweet and sour dill chicken and dessert treats like fritters.

One of the foods mentioned several times in my novel are honey cakes, which are offered up to the gods in thanks. I was intrigued by the idea of these cakes and how I could recreate them today. What were their origins? Why did the ancients offer up cakes to their deities?

❋ HOMEMADE SOURDOUGH CINNAMON BUNS

The homemade sourdough cinnamon rolls are by far one of the popular posts on the blog. However, I have to say these homemade sourdough cinnamon buns top the cinnamon rolls in, well, everything! They are simply amazing and are currently everyone’s favorite. They have a slight crunch on the top; the middle is super soft and light, bursting with cinnamon flavor; and for the finale, the bottom is slightly sticky, just enough to dip the crunchy tops in for that extra sweet cinnamon flavor. With a hot cup of coffee or tea, what is not to love and enjoy? Simply irresistible!

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