Second because there are free prints in this post that you can download and print as a little gift from my studio to you; and the third because this is still a list of my favorite things.

This is the time of year for lists, not shopping lists, but lists of virtually everything else – lists of the most important world events, top fashion trends of the year, the biggest storms, the sexiest man, the best movies, the most popular celebrities, the most reviled despots, the biggest disasters, the best selling books, and even a list of  top time-wasters.

Print Winter Tree

With these lists as inspiration, I’ve compiled my top ten list of food favorites for 2010, and in a nod to Mr. Letterman, they are listed in reverse order of delight. To celebrate the New Year, I’ve created four prints that celebrate the seasons of the year. They can be downloaded and printed by clicking on the links below each image.

#10 Butter Poached Rhubarb – Combining the best of Julia Child, butter, and the best of James Beard, cream, I melted a stick of butter in a skillet, sprinkled in one cup of granulated sugar and cooked it for about five minutes. When the sugar had begun to caramelize and turned a light brown, I added four cups of rhubarb, cut in two inch slices, shook the pan vigorously to coat the rhubarb and cooked it until it was starting to fall apart. I took the pan off the heat, stirred in two tablespoons of dark rum, and transferred the rhubarb to a bowl set in an ice bath to stop the cooking. Topped with List Entry #4, whipped, it made a gorgeous dessert. This would be closer to #1 if fresh rhubarb were available from my garden year round and if this recipe were not loaded with sugar, butter and cream.

#9 Carrots – I’ve been eating lots of carrots this year, in soups, salads, in fritters, cakes and muffins. Organic carrots, scrubbed and slow roasted with salt, pepper and olive oil complement most any meal. Any leftovers can be mashed with a bit of mayo and garlic and spread on toast for lunch or a rustic hors d’oeuvre.

Print Spring Tree

#8 Cappuccino – Alas, this is one thing on my list that I don’t make in my kitchen; but, the adventure of searching for a café and finding a perfect cappuccino with just the right amount of foamy milk on top merits a place on my list.

#7 Recipe Police – When I wrote about the absence of fish in my pot of chowder I boldly proclaimed that the recipe police would not come to my kitchen to give me a ticket. Little did I know that a Recipe Policeman, in the form of a phone call from an anonymous reader, would phone me and issue a warning that I had neglected to add thyme to the pot. I got away with a warning but I have been careful to add thyme to chowder since then.

#6 Pasta with Raisins and Pine Nuts – So simple, so quick, so delicious! While I waited for the pasta water to come to a boil, I sauteed one clove of garlic in a large frying pan with one tablespoon of unsalted butter and one tablespoon of olive oil. When the garlic had softened but not browned, I added a quarter of a cup of pine nuts. When the nuts where toasted, and the pasta was al dente, I drained the pasta, reserved a quarter of a cup of pasta water, added the pasta, generous handfuls of chopped flat leaf parsley and raisins, and a splash of the pasta water to the pan. I topped the pasta with the mere suggestion of ground cinnamon. Finito!

#5 Chickpea Flour – I discovered that I could make a crisp flatbread by baking in a 450º oven a batter of one cup of chickpea flour, one and a half cups of water and a teaspoon of salt in a cast iron skillet with three tablespoons of oil. Seasoned with salt and a bit of curry powder, an ho-hum soup and toast dinner was transformed into a praise-worthy meal.

Print Summer Tree

#4 Heavy Cream – My favorite comes from local dairies and is not ultra-pasteurized. I like it on oatmeal with brown sugar, whipped, with no sugar added, as frosting on deep, dark, moist chocolate cake, and as a cold topper for broiled apricots, (a treat I learned from my dear friend Didi).

#3 The Open Air Market in Ortigia, Sicily – Chatting with Angelo Cappucio about fish for dinner, choosing blood oranges, smelling the smoky roasted artichokes, sampling wild strawberries, olives, salami and chocolate from Modica is the best way to figure out “What’s for dinner?”

#2 Making Cheese in Sicily – Near the top of my list is the morning I spent in the cheese shop in Ortigia, making cheese with Andrea Borderi. I was welcomed into the small kitchen in the back of the shop, wrapped in an apron and put to work. I learned how to cut, ladle and knead curds as we made ricotta and mozzarella. I make a simple breakfast of a bowl of ricotta cheese, topped with a drizzle of Vermont honey and slices of orange when I’m wishing I were in Sicily.

Print Fall Tree

#1 Contact from Friends – I am cheered and delighted when I hear from friends, whether old or new, by email, telephone and even snail mail. It doesn’t matter if the message is lavish praise, a complaint, or a correction – you are there, reading what I write, cooking what I cook, improvising, improving recipes and sharing your discoveries. You bring me joy. Thank you and please stay in touch.

There are many desserts, called puddings in Britain, with names that are charming and inscrutable enough to require translation.
Here’s my guide to British Puddings:

Cabinet Pudding or Chancellor’s Pudding – This traditional steamed,  molded pudding, made from a combination of bread or sponge cake and dried fruits, is usually served with a sweet custard sauce.

Clootie Dumpling – Dumplings made with flour, breadcrumbs, raisins or currants, suet, sugar, spice, milk and, sometimes, golden syrup. The dough is wrapped in a floured cloth, placed in a large pan of boiling water and simmered for a couple of hours before being lifted out and dried in front of a fire.

Duff – A steamed pudding, traditionally served on Christmas Day, it originated in medieval England and is also known as plum pudding or plum duff.

Figgy Duff – It resembles white Christmas pudding but contains figs. It may be baked, steamed, boiled or fried and is known primarily because of the familiar request, “Now bring us some figgy pudding,” in a Christmas carol.

Jam Roly-Poly, Dead Man’s Arm, and Dead Man’s Leg are all names for a traditional dessert invented in the early 19th century. It is a flat, suet pudding, spread with jam, rolled up like a jellyroll and steamed. It is called Shirtsleeve Pudding when steamed in a shirtsleeve rather than a pudding bag.

Spotted Dick –A steamed, suet pudding, containing dried fruit, usually currants, commonly served with custard. The spotted refers to the dry fruit and Dick may be a corruption of the last syllable of the word pudding or a corruption of the word dough. This sweet treat is also known as Spotted Dog.

Sussex Pond Pudding - A rich dessert made by encasing whole lemons, butter and sugar in a wrapper of suet pastry. It is either boiled or steamed for several hours. If currants are added, this dessert is known as Kentish Puddle Pudding or Kentish Well Pudding.

Toffee Sticky Pudding, also known as Sticky Toffee Pudding, is a steamed or baked dessert consisting of a moist sponge cake made with dates, topped with a warm toffee sauce and finished with a cloud of whipped cream. It is my favorite pudding because I can remember its name, I can make it in the oven without using a shirtsleeve or any other strange equipment and it doesn’t have any suet in it. I made it on Sunday to share with six friends for Charles’ early birthday celebration. Here’s a recipe for the cake and a second recipe for the toffee sauce that makes it a sticky pudding:

I served slices of still-warm cake with warm toffee sauce and a dollop of whipped cream. Sticky Toffee Pudding is one of the reasons that my Nana sang “There’ll always be an England, and England will be sweet!” 

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Locust Creek by Kathy Fiske

Saturday was a quiet day – laundry and leftovers. The rain that woke us on Sunday was heavy but not alarming. By noon, friends had moved their computers out of a riverside studio in their house on the bank of the Ottaquechee River. When Charles and I crossed the Quechee covered bridge just after noon, the river was high and roiling but still within its banks.

Three hours later, we gathered with friends, neighbors and strangers at the base of the covered bridge and watched in awe as the river pounded everything in its path. Propane filled the air; the river’s fury was stupefying. We lost power in the early evening.Monday morning we set out to see how we might help. The three bridges that we rely on were all closed, although two still spanned the rivers they crossed, access to them had been washed out. The third was declared structurally unsound. The only way out of our village was up an unfamiliar road, across a soccer field, through the elementary school parking lot and onward. I’ve had a hard time settling down to complete anything all week.

On Saturday, we were delighted to be distracted from the flooding, by a potluck, surprise, birthday party where we shared good food, lots of hugs, a few tears and compassionate conversations. When I told Kathy, a fellow painter, cook and volunteer, that I was having a hard time figuring out what to write about she said, “It’s been a stone soup week in Vermont, write about that.” Stone Soup is a folk tale in which hungry strangers persuade a town to feed them. They begin with a pot of water, a fire under it and a stone in it. We certainly had plenty of water and stones and lots of strangers. I hadn’t made stone soup but had been part of a group of people who were combining skill, generosity, muscle power and tenacity to bring hope to a community. “But,” I whined, “I don’t have a recipe to write about.”  Kathy gave me hug and said, “Write about the apple cake you brought tonight.” What a wise friend.

Here’s how I made a Vermont Apple Cake for Townsend’s birthday party:

 Vermont Apple Cake

Charles, accompaied by our puppy Gracie, filled a basket with apples from our tiny orchard of heritage apple trees. I peeled, cored and finely chopped apples to make four cups, added a quarter of a cup of orange juice to the apples and set the mixture aside. For the dry mixture, I used a whisk to combine three cups of all-purpose flour, two teaspoons of baking powder, half a teaspoon of kosher salt and half a teaspoon of nutmeg in a medium bowl. I combined a quarter of a cup of milk, a quarter of a cup of orange juice and two and half teaspoons of vanilla in a small bowl and set it aside.

I used an electric mixer to soften half a cup of unsalted butter. When it was fluffy, I added one cup of sugar and continued beating for five minutes. When the mixture was light and fluffy, I added four eggs and beat well after each addition.

To make the batter, I stirred a third of the dry mixture into the butter/egg mixture, added half of the milk mixture, then added another third of the dry mixture, the remaining milk mixture and finally the last of the flour. I spooned half of the batter into a ten-inch tube pan that I had smeared with butter and dusted with flour. I topped the batter with half of the apple mixture, added the remaining batter and then added the rest of the apple mixture. I topped the apples by sprinkling on two tablespoons of light brown sugar before I put the cake into the oven that had been preheated to 350º. After baking for an hour and ten minutes, the cake was golden, beginning to pull away from the sides of the pan and a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake came out dry. I cooled the cake for ten minutes before I removed it from the pan.

The cake took longer to bake than I had expected and we were late for the party so I poured two tablespoons of dark rum into a small plastic bag and added enough confectioners’ sugar, about half a cup, to make a glaze. I finished the cake at the party by cutting off a corner of the plastic bag and drizzling the glaze on to the cake.

Dinner was wonderful but paled by comparison to the kindness and support of friends in unsettled times. Thanks, Kathy.

You can see more of Kathy’s work here.

Download and print cake recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Peach Pie with Cardamom and Rum Caramel

I preheated the oven to 425º. Lined a nine inch pie pan with pastry, used a fork to prick the sides and bottom of the crust and used a pastry brush to coat the pastry with lightly beaten egg white. I baked the crust for ten minutes, until it was golden, and removed it from the oven.

I peeled and sliced seven large peaches, about five cups, combined them with three tablespoons of corn starch, two tablespoons of all-purpose flour, half a teaspoon of ground cardamom, the zest and juice of half a lemon and a pinch of kosher salt.To make the caramel, I combined half a cup of sugar, a quarter of a cup of honey and two tablespoons of water in a small saucepan. I cooked it over medium heat, stirring until the sugar had dissolved, boiled the mixture, swirled the pan occasionally, until the mixture was the color of amber. I removed the pan from the heat, added three tablespoons of unsalted butter and one tablespoon of dark rum and stirred to combine.

I put the peaches into the pre-baked crust, poured on the rum caramel mixture and topped the mound of peaches with a lattice crust. I used a pastry brush to coat the lattice top with egg white, sprinkled two tablespoons of sugar onto the lattice topping, put the pie onto a foil lined baking sheet and put it in the oven. After it had baked for twenty minutes, I lowered the temperature to 375º and baked the pie for thirty minutes more, until the crust was golden brown and the filling was bubbling.

Two pies, one with a streusel topping and one with a lattice topping. I liked the creamy custard in the first and the rum and the cardamom gave the second a more complex, less sweet zing. I can’t decide. I think I’ll make a peach crumble with almonds and crystallized ginger – I hope the market hasn’t run out of peaches.

Download and print pie recipe with an ingredients list here.

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My peach extravaganza began by dropping three peaches into boiling water for a minute, then immersing them in cold water, slipping off the peel and slicing them into two bowls. I added a squeeze of lemon juice and a rounded teaspoon of sugar to each bowl and invited Charles to share a mid-afternoon snack in the garden. Perfection!Time to move onto peach pie. The lattice vs. streusel debate had me thinking. I remembered a recipe for a sour cream apple pie with a streusel topping and decided to adapt it. Here’s how I did it:

Sour Cream Peach Pie

I preheated the oven to 400º and lined a nine-inch pie pan with piecrust. I used a whisk to combine two-thirds of a cup of sugar, two tablespoons of all-purpose flour and a pinch of kosher salt in a large mixing bowl. I added one cup of sour cream, one egg, half a teaspoon of vanilla and half a teaspoon of nutmeg. I peeled and sliced six peaches, about two cups, and added the peaches to the sour cream mixture. I poured the fruit mixture into the unbaked piecrust, baked it for ten minutes at 400º, reduced the heat to 350º and baked the pie for thirty minutes more.

While the pie baked, I made streusel topping by combining one third of a cup of sugar, one third of a cup of flour and four tablespoons of unsalted butter.

I took the pie out of the oven, raised the heat to 400º, sprinkled the streusel topping over the pie and baked it for fifteen minutes more.

I did a bit of peach research while I waited for the pie to cool. I learned that Chinese mythology tells of peaches that conferred longevity to all who ate them. One of Japan’s noble heroes was said to have been born from an enormous peach. In Korea, peaches are seen as the fruit of happiness, riches and honor.

Download and print pie recipe with an ingredients list here.

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By doing all the preparation the day before his arrival, the flavors in the berry fool had time to develop and the cookie dough was ready to be sliced and baked when we got back from the airport.We have a tradition of playing word games on car trips. We haven’t been together since our time in Sicily and have lots of catching up to do, but, when we ran out of news and needed a game to help pass the miles, I challenged Matthew and Charles to name the six basic cookie styles. I wondered if either of them had ever heard of icebox cookies? Almond-browned butter cookies will be a great introduction to the icebox cookie category. Here’s how I made the dough:

Almond-Browned Butter Icebox Cookies

I put one cup, two sticks, of unsalted butter into a saucepan over medium heat. The butter melted, foamed up and began to gurgle. I reduced the heat and stirred the simmering butter. After cooking for about eight minutes, the butter was golden and had a mild, nutty scent. I removed the pan from the heat and stirred in two cups of packed, light brown sugar.

I combined three cups of flour, one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and a quarter of a teaspoon of salt on a piece of waxed paper. I used a mini food processor to finely chop one cup of blanched almonds and added them to the flour mixture. I beat two eggs into the butter sugar mixture and then stirred in the flour almond mixture.

I divided the dough into thirds, shaped each third into a log, wrapped each log in plastic wrap and put them into the fridge. The dough will be ready to slice and bake when it has become firm – a minimum of a couple of hours. Since I didn’t bake the cookies till the next day, the dough had a nice, long rest. When we got home, I preheated the oven to 375º, cut one log of dough into quarter-inch slices, and baked the cookies on a lightly greased baking sheet for six minutes, until they were just set. They became crisp as they cooled. Over the next few days, I replenished the cookie jar with freshly baked cookies in less than ten minutes with virtually no mess to clean up.

Download and print cookie recipe with an ingredients list here.

On to the fool! The earliest recipe for fool dates to the seventeenth century and calls for fresh gooseberries but it’s the twenty-first century and I had fresh strawberries and frozen black berries in the fridge so I made berry fool. Here’s how:

 Berry Fool

I used a mini food processor to puree half a cup of sliced fresh strawberries and half a cup of frozen black berries. I combined the berry puree with two tablespoons of sugar and half a cup of sour cream. I beat half a cup of cold, heavy cream until stiff peaks formed, and used a spatula to fold the whipped cream into the berry/sour cream mixture, covered the bowl with foil and put the fool into to the fridge to await Matthew’s arrival. The fool thickened as it rested.

A bowl of berry fool, freshly baked cookies and a wiggling, fuzzy Gracie, our new puppy, made for a homecoming filled with love.

We did play cookie trivia and although Matthew and Charles weren’t able to give the “proper” names for all of the cookie styles, their list was creative – spoon for drop, knife for bar, fork for molded, syringe for pressed and cutter for rolled. Neither of them knew about icebox cookies until I served the still warm cookies with the lovely, pinky–purple berry fool.

Download and print Berry Fool recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Trillium and Bloodroot Kathy Fiske

Tea Art by Barbara Bartlett

Our group is Art Wise Women and you can see more by clicking on this link or by going to www.ArtWiseWomen.blogspot.com.

After we have caught up with tales of travel, news of children and grandchildren, wild animal sightings and gardens, we talk about new projects, successes and failures in our studios and upcoming shows;  we move on to more philosophical topics like ‘dealing with isolation as an artist’, ‘where to find inspiration’, ‘what does it mean to be an artist’.

At our last meeting, I realized that one of my favorite creative activities takes place in my kitchen rather than in my studio. Baking a cake for a dinner party is filled with artistic decisions: What will it look like? What will it taste like? How will I decorate it? The process ends with a plate, empty except for a few sweet crumbs and the anticipation of the next gathering when I will happily offer to bring dessert.

Recently, I wanted to make a cake that would welcome our friends who had returned to Vermont after spending five months in Australia. A hummingbird cake sounded just right. I assumed that since there were lots of hummingbirds in Australia that a hummingbird cake had to be Australian. My research quickly revealed three facts:

• There are no recorded sightings of hummingbirds in Australia;
• Hummingbird cakes are a specialty of the American south; and,
• It’s called a hummingbird cake because each bite makes one hum with delight.

Undaunted by these facts, I made my version of a Vermont hummingbird cake for the party. Here’s how I did it:

Hummingbird Cake

I preheated the oven to 350º, buttered two nine-inch round cake pans, lined the bottoms of the pans with waxed paper, buttered the paper and dusted the pans with flour. I tapped out the excess flour and set the pans aside.

I sifted together three cups of all-purpose flour, one teaspoon of baking soda, one teaspoon of ground cinnamon, one teaspoon of ground ginger and half a teaspoon of kosher salt into a medium bowl. I used a stand mixer to combine one cup of canola oil, two teaspoons of vanilla extract and two cups of sugar. After beating the oil/sugar mixture for two minutes, I added three eggs, one at a time, beating between each addition and then beat the mixture at medium speed until it was pale and fluffy. It took about three minutes.

I used a wooden spoon to combine three cups of mashed banana, an eight-ounce can of crushed pineapple, drained, one cup of chopped pecans and one cup of unsweetened, shredded coconut and then stirred the fruit/nut mixture it into the oil/sugar/egg mixture and then stirred in the flour/ spice mixture. I divided the cake batter between the two prepared pans and baked the cakes until they were golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake came out clean. It took about forty minutes in my oven. I cooled the cakes in the pans, on a rack for fifteen minutes and then used a knife to loosen the edges of the cakes them before I tipped them out onto racks to cool completely. While the cakes cooled, I made creamy, cream-cheese frosting.

Creamy Cream Cheese Frosting

I used an electric mixer to combine eight-ounces of room-temperature cream cheese, two tablespoons of light brown sugar and one teaspoon of vanilla extract. When the cream cheese mixture was fluffy, I added one pint of heavy cream and continued beating until the mixture formed stiff peaks.

I put one layer of the cake on my favorite party-cake platter and used a spatula to spread a quarter inch layer of frosting on to the cake. I topped the frosting with the second layer and frosted the sides and top of the cake with the remaining frosting. I used white woodruff blossoms and purple violas to decorate the frosted cake.

When I presented the cake to our friends as “Flowers in the Snow, Proof that Spring and Friends Do Return,” I didn’t share what I had learned about Australia and humming birds – but now they know. Since that party, I have found recipes for kangaroo cakes, opera house cakes and platypus cakes. I wonder if any of them will be as yummy as the hummingbird cake?

Download and print Hummingbird Cake recipe with an ingredients list here. 

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Invented in 1948, it uses nitrous oxide as a propellant for a mixture of cream, sweeteners and stabilizers and was a definite step up from its predecessor, a cream substitute made with vegetable oil, called Sta-Whip.

The chocolate whipped-cream cake I chose from an upscale bakery for my seventh birthday was my cream epiphany. It was covered with real whipped cream, without nitrous oxide, corn syrup, artificial flavor, monoglycerides, or carrageen. I’m not implying that at seven I was an informed foodie, however, even then I knew that heavy cream, beaten until stiff with was sublime.

Since that birthday, if a chocolate cake isn’t frosted with real whipped cream, I don’t think it deserves to be called a birthday cake. As a young cook, the birthday cakes I made began as a cake mix, but as a young mother I decided that my sons deserved birthday cakes made from scratch. Our family’s traditional birthday cake is a rum infused, dark chocolate cake, slathered with whipped cream. The cream is still whipped by hand, but now I use a wire whisk instead of the hand-cranked mixer I used as a child.

Sunday will be my younger son’s birthday. If Matthew were living on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, I would make his birthday cake rather than sending this to his wife.

Dear Alison,

Here’s the recipe for Matthew’s birthday cake:

Chocolate Cake

Preheat the oven to 325º. Smear the inside of two nine inch cake pans with softened butter and line the bottom of each pan with a circle of waxed paper. Smear the waxed paper with more butter, dust the inside of each pan with a tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder and tip over the pan and tap out the excess cocoa.

Sift together two cups of all-purpose flour, one teaspoon of baking soda, half a teaspoon of cayenne and a quarter of a teaspoon of kosher salt and set it aside.

Melt five ounces of dark chocolate, (my favorite chocolate is  dark also called semi-sweet Callebaut),  in a double boiler.  stir until smooth and remove from the heat. Put one quarter of a cup of instant espresso or instant coffee in a two-cup glass measure, add two tablespoons of boiling water. Stir until dissolved before adding enough cold water to fill the cup to the one and half cup mark. Add half a cup of dark rum to make a total of two cups of liquid.

Use an electric mixer to combine one cup of room temperature, unsalted butter with one and a half cups of granulated sugar and half a cup of brown sugar. Add one teaspoon of vanilla and mix until well blended and smooth. Add three eggs, one at a time, beating after each addition.

Scrape down the bowl and beater before beating in the slightly cooled, melted chocolate. Use a spatula to alternately stir in a third of the flour mixture, then one cup of the coffee rum mixture, another third of the flour, the rest of the liquid and finally the remainder of the flour. Don’t worry if the batter looks curdled.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans. Bake until the tops of the cakes are springy, and a toothpick stuck into the center comes out clean. (It takes about thirty-five to forty minutes in my oven.) Cool the cake in the pan on a wire rack for fifteen minute before tipping it out to cool completely. It’s best to remove the wax paper while the cake is still warm.

Whipped Cream

I prefer organic, heavy cream, from a local dairy. I don’t like the cooked taste of ultra-pasteurized cream and don’t use it unless regular pasteurized cream is unavailable. Other than one birthday cake I made in Singapore, I have always been able to find pasteurized cream that has not been given the ultimate treatment. Make sure that the cream, the whisk and bowl, preferable a deep metal one, are very cold. (I put everything into the freezer for ten minutes.)

Put the bowl in the kitchen sink, with a damp tea towel under it so that it is stable, add the cream to the bowl, put on your favorite music and whip like mad until the cream is stiff. Stop before it turns to butter.

To assemble the cake, put one layer in the center of a cake plate, drizzle one tablespoon of rum or coffee liquor onto the cake. Top with half of the cream, put on second cake, add another tablespoon of coffee liquor or rum and finish with the rest of the cream. Add as many candles as necessary.

If you are having guests who would rather have a cake without liquor, you can substitute sweetened, cold coffee for the liquor in the batter and use apricot jam to moisten the cake.

We look forward to a belated birthday celebration of cappuccino and cannoli with you both at the Café Minerva in Sicily.

Love, C.

Download and print cake recipe with an ingredients list here.

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Here’s how I did it:

Molasses Pumpkin Pie

I used a whisk to combine three quarters of a cup of granulated sugar, one tablespoon of flour, one teaspoon of ground ginger, one teaspoon of cinnamon, half a teaspoon of ground allspice before I added a quarter of a cup of molasses, two cups of mashed, cooked pumpkin, three large eggs and one cup of light cream. I poured the pumpkin mixture into a nine–inch pie pan lined with an unbaked pie crust. I baked the pie in a preheated 400º oven for forty minutes until a knife inserted into the center of the pie came out clean.

I made the ginger whipped cream while the pie cooled. Here’s how:

Ginger Whipped Cream

I beat one cup of heavy cream until it formed stiff peaks and then folded in two tablespoons of minced, crystallized ginger. That’s it! The ginger flavor is stronger after the cream has been chilled in the fridge for an hour or two.

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