The Book: Katie Quinn Davies of What Katie Ate has been one of the world’s most celebrated, successful food bloggers. Although she doesn’t post as much as she used to, when she does, it’s always a treat for the eyes – and for the tastebuds, if you get the chance to cook her food instead of just drooling over the photos. Her first, eponymous cookbook, was hugely popular and now, her second book, What Katie Ate on the Weekend has just launched in the US. The book is distinctively hers – Katie’s signature photography and writing style fills each of the 310 pages of the book. Her photography style – which is a bit metallic, with high-contrast editing, off-center styling, and strong shadows – is one of the few that I can recognize before seeing the photographer’s name. Her writing, too, is specific to her – verbose and friendly, as if writing a long and warm letter to a friend she hasn’t spoken with in a while. The two come together beautifully in a book that is quirky, warm, and playful, scattered with images and phrases from old advertisements, fun typography, and of course, delicious recipes. The food in What Katie Ate on the Weekend has a universal appeal – pancakes, crispy chicken tacos, burgers, chili, brownies, etc. – but everything is dressed up just enough to make it feel special. It’s casual food, easy to prepare and to serve to friends during weekend gatherings.

The Food: I feel a bit guilty about defaulting to something as simple as a self-saucing pudding to showcase this book, especially when there are so many beautiful and creative savory recipes included. But I was reading this book on a chilly, rainy Sunday afternoon, after an exhausting and emotionally overwhelming week, and nothing sounded better than melty, gooey, chocolate. Perhaps in the end, it’s appropriate for a book called What Katie Ate on the Weekend… as in fact it was exactly what I needed to close out my weekend. This is perhaps not the most memorable or special warm chocolate cake in the world, but it is really easy, and really chocolatey, and probably one of the better ways to satisfy an urgent chocolate craving. It’s a one bowl affair, and any baker will have all the ingredients on hand, meaning it’s only about 35 minutes from conception to digging into a piping hot bowl of gooey chocolate pudding with quickly melting ice cream. There won’t be leftovers.

Recipe Shortlist: Chocolate and Sour Cherry Hotcakes; Chorizo Rosti with Duck Eggs and Anchovy Mayo; Smoked Trout, Egg, and Potato Salad with Cider Mayo; Crispy Chicken Tacos with Creamy Slaw; Lamb Shank Pie; Truffle Beef Burgers with Creamy Mushrooms and Pancetta; Pretzels with Chocolate and Sea Salt; Double Chocolate Brownies with Salted Butterscotch and Cherries

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Disclosure: I received a review copy of What Katie Ate on the Weekend from Penguin Random House, but I was not otherwise compensated and all thought and opinions are my own.

Self-Saucing Mocha Pudding

Recipe from What Katie Ate on the Weekend. Serves 4.

• 2/3 c. AP flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 4 TBS cocoa powder
• 1/3 c. light brown sugar
• 1 1/2 TBS espresso coffee
• 7 TBS milk
• 1 egg
• 3 TBS butter, melted
• 1 1/2 TBS creme de cacao or chocolate liqueur
• ice cream, to serve

For the sauce:

• 1/3 c. brown sugar
• 4 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp espresso instant coffee powder
• 1 c. boiling water

1. Preheat the oven to 400°F. Butter a 4 cup capacity souffle mold or baking dish and set aside.
2. Sift the flour, baking powder, and cocoa into a large bowl and whisk to combine. Whisk in the sugar. Add the espresso, milk, egg, melted butter, and creme de cacao and stir to thoroughly combine. Pour into the prepared baking mold and place on a rimmed baking sheet (important to catch drips).
3. Mix the dry ingredients for the sauce (brown sugar, cocoa powder, and espresso instant coffee powder) together in a small bowl. Scatter evenly over the top of the batter, then pour the boiling water over the top.
4. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the pudding has risen and the sauce is bubbling up around the sides. Serve warm with ice cream.

Reprinted by arrangement with Avery Books, a member of Penguin Group (USA) LLC, A Penguin Random House Company. Copyright © Katie Quinn Davies, 2015.

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In the past two years I’ve participated in several recipe development challenges hosted by Marx Foods, an online company that sells specialty meats (think alligator, kangaroo, and frog), truffle products, mushrooms, unique pantry goods, and lots of other culinary goodies.  The first challenge I participated in was the four-part “Ridiculously Delicious” challenge they hosted last winter, for which I made dill and feta stuffed cucumber cups, spicy cherry-chocolate souffles, and a trio of wasabi-centric recipes using fresh wasabi.  Then, this summer, I participated in the dried chile challenge, and made a smoky-sweet adobo and corn frittata, which I very much enjoyed.  And now it’s time for another challenge!  This time around the challenge is to make a sweet recipe using fregola – an ingredient I’d never even heard of until this month.  I have yet to win one of these challenges, but maybe this will be my lucky recipe.

Fregola is a toasted Italian pasta, similar in size and shape to Israeli couscous.  I could eat couscous all day every day, so I was super excited to try another version of it.  To be honest, I didn’t like the fregola as much as I like regular old couscous – it’s very chewy and has an almost tapioca-like consistency – but it was still an interesting new addition to my kitchen.  Along with the sample of fregola, Marx sent a handful of other goods to inspire a sweet fregola creation – whole vanilla beans, star anise, and saffron.  The contestants were required to use at least one of the extra ingredients along with the fregola.  Almost immediately upon signing up for this contest I knew that I wanted to create a fregola fritter, something that played on arancini – the delicious cheesy fried risotto balls made with leftover risotto which I seem to be eating a lot of lately.  So I made a fregola pudding using milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, honey, and vanilla, and then, after a brief rest in the fridge, fried it up into fritters.  To cut the grease and add another level of flavor, I made a batch of Gourmet’s grapefruit and star anise salad.  My mom and I make this salad every year on Christmas morning, and it’s my favorite part of Christmas breakfast without fail.  Even when there’s vanilla bean coffee cake, maple-turkey sausage patties, and pomegranate mimosas – that should tell you something about how delicious it is.  It was the perfect complement to the slightly sweet, chewy fritters, and the syrup soaked right into them.  I’ll be enjoying the leftovers for breakfast for the next few days (and not even feeling that bad about it – thank you, grapefruit).  I think this is the original recipe that I’m most proud of – I guess there’s something to be said for keeping it simple.

Sweet Fregola Fritters with Star-Anise and Grapefruit Compote

Grapefruit compote recipe from Gourmet.  Makes 5 large fritters.

• 1 c. fregola
• 3 c. milk
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg
• 1/4 c. honey
• 1 vanilla bean
• canola oil for frying
• 2 grapefruits
• 1/4 c. water
• 1/4 c. sugar
• 3 whole star anise

1. In a large saucepan mix together fregola, milk, cinnamon, nutmeg, and honey.  Scrape out seeds from vanilla bean and add to the mixture along with the pod.  Bring to a gentle simmer and cook, stirring frequently (be sure to scrape any milk skin off the bottom to prevent from burning) for 20-30 minutes, until pasta has just a bit of chewiness left and milk has boiled down to create a thick fregola pudding.  Remove the vanilla bean pod and refrigerate mixture for 1 hour, or until cool.
2. In a small saucepan, dissolve sugar in water, and add the star anise.  Bring to a gentle boil and cook for 5 minutes to create a thin syrup.  Peel the grapefruits and remove their segments, placing in a medium bowl.  Squeeze any excess grapefruit juice into bowl as well.  Add the star anise syrup to the grapefruit mixture and set aside.
3. Heat a 1/2 inch of canola oil in a large saucepan over medium-low heat.  When oil is hot, form the fregola pudding into 5 patties about 3 inches in diameter and 1 inch thick, and gently fry for 5 minutes on each side, until golden brown.  Fregola mixture should stay firmly together when formed into patties by hand.  Drain fritters on a paper towel and serve warm, with the grapefruit compote served on the side.

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Tapioca reminds me of my dad.  I’m not really sure why, as it’s been years since I’ve had it other than the sort-of-questionable snack pack version.  But I have this extremely hazy but pleasant memory of sitting in my kitchen when I was really little, about four or five, before we’d remodeled our house, watching my dad make tapioca, and then sitting on his lap and eating it.  I think I remember eating it a lot, asking for it all the time, it being my special treat, but then again, I’m not really sure.  And I don’t know whether he made it from scratch or from a box.  In any case, it’s a warm and fuzzy sorta thing.

I’ve been meaning to make homemade tapioca for a while, but I can never find the pearls anywhere.  Then, last week, Trev and I went on an adventure to the Asian market, and shelved somewhere amongst the dried mushrooms and packages of vermicelli and bottles of sesame oil I found stacks of tapioca pearls.  I bought a pack for 99 cents, and now I have tapioca, and the key to the warm, comforting custard I remember so fondly.

Since yesterday was National Tapioca Day, I thought I’d finally make some pudding in celebration.  However, I got lazy, so today we’re celebrating day after National Tapioca Day.  Close enough.  In searching for a recipe I found a huge variety of ways to cook it, most of them with intimidating instructions like “cook, stirring constantly, for two hours.”  Two hours is not an amount of time I want to spend stirring tapioca.  Or anything else for that matter.  So I cobbled together my own recipe, and it ended up taking less than an hour to make.  I was surprised at how quickly the milk and tapioca mixture became custardy – it only took about 15 minutes, whereas I’d read reviews on recipes complaining that the tapioca had never thickened, even after hours of cooking.  I’m guessing that how quickly the pudding comes together depends largely on the type of tapioca used – how fresh it is, how long it takes to dissolve, etc.  Mine began to dissolve even in the pre-soak, which is apparently a good thing.

I’m feeling a little under the weather, and the end result made me feel a little better, placing this recipe solidly in the “keeper” category.  A few notes: most people prefer tapioca cold, but I like to have mine warm, straight out of the pan.  It’s good either way.  Also, this recipe contains raw egg whites, which are only heated slightly during the cooking process.  Personally, I’ve eaten enough cookie dough in my life to be OK with raw egg (and I hate recipes with unequal numbers of whites and yolks), but if this makes you uncomfortable, you could replace the egg whites with half a cup of heavy cream, whipped, and then folded into the pudding in place of the egg. Enjoy!

Cinnamon-Vanilla Tapioca Pudding

• 1/2 c. large pearl tapioca
• 3 c. whole milk
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 3 whole cinnamon sticks
• 2 egg yolks
• 2 egg whites (or 1/2 c. whipping cream, see note above)
• 1/2 c. + 3 TBS sugar
• 2 tsp. vanilla extract

1. Soak tapioca pearls in 2 cups cold water for at least 2 hours.  Drain, but do not rinse.
2. Bring milk, salt, and cinnamon sticks to a gentle boil in a medium, heavy bottomed sauce pan.  Reduce heat and add tapioca pearls.  Cook, stirring constantly, over medium heat until tapioca pearls are translucent and milk has thickened into a custard.  This may take anywhere from half an hour to an hour, depending on the type of tapioca you are using.
3. Separate eggs.  In a medium bowl, whisk together yolks and 1/2 cup of sugar.
4. In a different, medium bowl, whisk whites until beginning to stiffen.  Add remaining 3 tablespoons of sugar 1 tablespoon at a time, whisking in between additions.  Beat whites until fairly stiff.
5. Temper egg yolks: when tapioca has thickened, slowly pour a thin stream of custard into egg yolks, whisking yolks vigorously at the same time.  Continuing pouring custard and whisking until you have poured about a cup of custard into yolks.  Then, still whisking, pour the yolks and custard back into the main custard pot.  Continue to cook pudding for about ten minutes, stirring frequently.
6. When pudding is done cooking, remove from heat and stir in vanilla.  Then, gently fold in egg whites until fully incorporated.  Pour into serving dish and refrigerate until serving time.  Garnish with cinnamon and turbinado sugar.

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