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Blond Chocolate, Tahini and Sesame Truffles

There are quite a few recipes in The Artful Baker that would be perfect for your Thanksgiving table, such as the Peel-to-Stem Apple Pie or the Deeply Pumpkiny Pumpkin Cheesecake, but in case you’re pressed for time or would like your guests to leave with a handmade gift, here’s a great recipe that requires only 15 minutes of active work.

There have been many crazes in the food blogosphere over the last decade, and I am surprised that blond chocolate wasn’t one of them. Technically, blond chocolate is not a designated category. It is essentially caramelized white chocolate, which is nothing new, but Valrhona was the first to produce a stable couverture version. Frédéric Bau, the founder of L’Ecole du Grand Chocolat Valrhona, is the mastermind behind Valrhona Dulcey, the first couverture blond chocolate. It has a toasty, buttery, biscuit-like flavor, with a final hint of salt, akin to a freshly baked croissant dipped in dulce de leche.

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Pistachio and Matcha Sablés from The Artful Baker

I can’t believe the accolades I’ve received for the Sour Cherry & Almond Upside-Down Cake recipe video from The Artful Baker! I’m thrilled to hear that you liked it so much and very excited to share the second video. This one is for Pistachio and Matcha Sablés, cookies I gifted to my baking hero, Nick Malgieri, the first time I met him in İstanbul.

One look at the photo below and you’d think I’d baked intergalactic cookies to welcome guests from hundreds of light years away and arranged them in a bowl straight from The Jetsons, just so that they’d feel right at home.

That was not my intention, but now that I think about it, if you had told me that aliens were sending representatives to all the countries of the world and asked me to come up with a cookie that represents Turkey, this is exactly what I would have baked. It is a cookie version of one of Turkey’s delicacies, fıstık ezmesi (“pistachio paste”). That said, it has an ingredient that is alien to the world of Turkish desserts: matcha—powdered green tea made from leaves that have been shade grown, deveined, destemmed, and stone milled.

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The Artful Baker is out!

The Artful Baker is finally out for you to bake from! I’ve been waiting impatiently for this day to arrive for almost two years now!

It feels like yesterday, but I started working on the Turkish edition of The Artful Baker over 7 years ago. Following four and a half years of hard work, it was published in 2014. Right after the book tour and then a short vacation in San Francisco, I started working on the English edition. I still can’t believe I was able to finish it in 18 months. Thanks to my dear friend Rachel Berman Boller, who you’ll meet in person if you can make it to one of the book tour events in San Francisco, all the recipes I and my army of Turkish recipe testers worked on for years were tested with U.S. ingredients. The majority of the recipes worked in her kitchen just as greatly and we were able to finalize those that needed a few tweaks within the deadline.

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