Stand Mixer

Every February, when Garth’s birthday rolls around, I make this beautiful and delicious cake for him. Last fall, he made some sad statement like, “Only three more months until you make me that awesome German chocolate cake again!” I made the cake the next day. (I know, I’m a sucker.) I double the frosting recipe to frost the entire cake, because my husband likes extra frosting, but one recipe will frost the tops of the layers and do the trick just fine—unless you’re Garth, of course! If you have some left over, the frosting is also good spread on a graham cracker or on brownies (page 198). Okay, it’s also good right off a spoon!

My wedding to Garth was such a wonderful day! We wanted it to be a small, private event, and it was, made possible by the help of our friends and families. Everybody was happy to pitch in and help—everybody except my mom, that is, when I asked her to make the wedding cake! I know, it sounds crazy, but I knew she could do it. My mom taught school for twenty-five years, but there was a period in her life (when she had me, to be exact) when she needed to be home. To earn extra money for the family, she began baking and selling cakes for birthday parties and weddings. She resumed her teaching career when I started first grade and retired in 1991 to run my fan club. (She has since retired from that too, and has gone back to being just Mom.) She came out to Oklahoma the week before the wedding to make a wedding cake that I think turned out to be much bigger than she had been picturing, but it was simply stunning. She gave me the bride and groom decoration from her own wedding day, June 19, 1960, and it literally made the cake. My parents were very happily married for forty-five years, and the only thing that could have made my wedding day better would have been to have Daddy there. I think he was, though. He probably wouldn’t have had any wedding cake, but he would have enjoyed the fried chicken and the barbecue! My finished wedding cake took four electric mixers to make, but we’ve included the regular pound cake recipe here.

I’ve laughed a lot while writing this cookbook—and gotten very hungry! I laugh because most people consider these tasty meatballs the perfect small bite for a party or wedding reception, but I sometimes make them just to satisfy a craving! They are usually served cold, but when I make them at home, I serve them warm, right out of the oven, and they are awesome! So to answer the burning question, can you make an entire meal out of sausage ball appetizers? Yes!

I love cheese! I would eat a piece of Cheddar cheese over a piece of chocolate cake any day. That probably makes me a little weird, but if you love cheese like I do, you’ll love these cheese straws. My mom used to make them for baby showers and wedding receptions. In 1991, the year my career started to really take off, she made them for me to give as Christmas gifts to everyone who had been so supportive. We laughed about how these cheesy treats were baked in a small kitchen in Monticello, Georgia, and ended up on the desks of some of the biggest movers and shakers in Nashville.

To accompany the fine and fancy food at Holloway House, there has always been Sally Lunn bread. The recipe dates back to Colonial America, although history tells us there was actually no one named Sally. The words may be a corruption of sol et lune, French for sun and moon, probably used by French immigrants to describe the round shape of the buns, similar to brioche. Sunday suppers in Bloomfield wouldn’t be the same without it.

My mom use to take me and my brother to a pastry shop in a weird apartment building in Ottawa, and it had the best pastries. She would always choose the merveilleux. A meringue dessert is the best thing to make when you want to use up egg whites, after, say, an eggnog party! We make it every few weeks at the restaurant and pour hot chocolate sauce over the top at tableside. Everyone digs it.

We love éclairs, even the soggy ones with a crusty fondant. This is a recipe with many parts: the pâte à choux (dough) and the pastry cream are the constants, and then come the variations of fillings and toppings. It seems confusing, but it’s not; plus if you can handle the variations here, you’re adding a whole new level to your dessert repertoire. In terms of assembly, it’s best to make the pastry cream first, as it needs 2 hours to chill.

The financier gives you a failproof moist cake that will stand through the rigors of pâtisserie de cuisine. It is simple to make, which is a good thing for us at Joe Beef, with our limited space and no real pastry chef, and for the home cook. Keep in mind that baking is a science, and although we include volume measures here, weighing the ingredients is recommended. We use ornate wax paper tartlet molds. If you don’t have them or can’t find them, you can just fill muffin cups half full and you’ll get the same result. Serve the cakes with ice cream and sweet wine.

Our good friends Dyan Solomon and Éric Girard own Olive + Gourmando, a perfect luncheonette on Saint Paul West in Montreal’s Old Port. Their little shop is what we expect the coffee shop in the afterlife to be like: they’re detail fanatics and it’s no contest the best place for lunch in the city. When they first opened, they were bakers, and the place was a bakery with a few seats. They still make bread, but mostly to use in delicious sandwiches. The front counter is displayed with brioches, croissants, brownies, and fruit pastries, and they’re all killer. We thought they were insane when they decided to open in Old Port a decade ago. It was a barren ghost town of bombed-out buildings, seedy bars, and grow-ops. There were no people, much less hotels and tourist shops selling maple-sugar products and “raccoon” Daniel Boone hats actually made from Chinese skunks. Like us, Éric and Dyan don’t take anything too seriously (Dyan can tell you many stories of Fred’s practical jokes when they used to work together: her showing up at 6:00 A.M. to a fake “dead man” at the bottom of the stairs; Fred putting a scraped lamb shank in his shirt, saying he may have hurt his hand. . . .) They’re Montreal classics and were kind enough to hand over one of their most beloved recipes.

You know those cheap dinner rolls you eat at your grandma’s house on Sunday nights? The supersoft, semiattached kind you buy in plastic bags? These are those dinner rolls. The base of the recipe is mashed potato, so it’s important to start this recipe as soon as you’ve just finished making mashed potatoes. These are perfect to serve with a pulled pork sandwich or on porchetta.

Porchetta is something you want to eat lukewarm: work on it in the morning, cook it in the afternoon, take it out, and eat it an hour or so later. We’re aware that a traditional porchetta is a whole stuffed pig; this is our version and has little affiliation with the Italian classic. Because you wrap the pork belly around the shoulder, you need a pretty skinny piece of Boston butt. We buy a 5-pound (2.3-kg) shoulder, slice it lengthwise, and use half (freeze the other half for another time). This recipe may look labor-intensive, but it won’t be, especially if you get your butcher to do all of the trimming for you.

Graham crackers are the embodiment of nostalgia. I'd always been happy with the ones in the red box at the supermarket—until I tried our homemade ones. The difference in texture is immediately apparent. These cookies are less flaky and crumbly than the store-bought version, and they have a great snappy crunch. We also use a high-quality cinnamon, which has a nice spicy quality.

Move over cupcakes: You've had your time in the limelight but we've moved on. Sweets are far easier to eat when the frosting is between the two thin cake layers, not on top. It all comes down to proportions: whoopie pies exemplify the perfect ratio between cake and frosting. These pies, in particular, straddle the cake/cookie line. There's the slightest bit of crispness on the outside, which then gives way to impossibly tender cake and a perfectly balanced cream cheese filling. We bet you can't eat just one so you might as well make two batches (don't double the recipe).

Don't let the good looks of this eight-layer beauty fool you; it's easy to make. Bake 4 cakes (we used 9" round metal cake pans, but disposable ones work fine), then slice each in half. Finish with toasted coconut, a knockout garnish that's also forgiving— it'll mask a less-than-perfect frosting job.

This easy cake swaps out molasses for lighter-flavored sorghum syrup, a Southern staple.

This showstopper is a worthwhile project. Set aside some time 2 days ahead to make the components, then practice saying "Aw shucks, that was nothing!" to raving guests.

If you want to rein in this over-the-top recipe a bit, feel free to serve the cookies on their own.

Ground gingersnap cookies form the crunchy crust of this pie filled with layers of vanilla and chocolate custard.

This all-purpose bread makes great sandwiches and toast and is the basis for the Apple Caramel Monkey Bread . It was inspired out of necessity, for who among us doesn't need a great sandwich bread? This is a staple in my kitchen.

This challah has so many things going for it: the dough is very easy to work with, the braids are gorgeous, and the fine-crumbed texture is to die for. There’s just a little sugar in this egg-rich dough, which means it works just as well for sandwiches as well as for bread pudding. My favorite use is in French toast! You might want to save this recipe for a weekend, because the first step requires an overnight rest in the refrigerator—it takes a little longer but gives the bread a more complex flavor.