Ben Starr

The Ultimate Food Geek

Category: Desserts

  • Candied Ginger

    Every tried to buy candied or crystallized ginger in the spice rack at the grocery store?  It is ridiculously overpriced…a single small bottle can cost upwards of $10, which is silly because you can make your own for about $10 a POUND. To get started, you’ll need: 1 pound of fresh ginger root To make…

  • Pumpkin Gingerbread Cookies

    Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin.  It’s not just for pie.  These delicious cookies are rather decadent…chewy, moist, and exploding with pungent ginger flavor.  I recently baked hundreds of these with Michael Chen from MasterChef Season 3 for a third grade class at a local middle school during an assembly about seasonal cooking.  You might think kids would…

  • Guava and Cream Cheese-Stuffed Pumpkin Muffins

    It finally got cool in Dallas, and even though it’s still mid September, pumpkin season is calling me.  One of my local markets finally started stocking sugar pumpkins (I didn’t get any planted in time in my garden this year), so I stocked up yesterday and made some puree.  And since I have a friend…

  • Strawberry Shortcake

    This is that quintessential American summertime dessert, and when strawberries are in season and my garden is overflowing with them, we have shortcake several times a week.  It’s such an easy dessert to make…I can turn out a shortcake with 5 minutes of effort and 20 minutes in the oven. Strawberries are really the feature…

  • Pumpkin Caramel Tiramisu

    Tiramisu is Italian for “Hey you, pick me up!”  Traditionally it’s a layered dessert of tiny cakes called ladyfingers soaked in espresso, and mascarpone (an Italian cream cheese pronounced “MOSS-car-PONE-eh” and NO OTHER WAY).  You know me, and I find a way to put pumpkin in everything, so this is my VERY special version of…

  • How to make “calaveras” or Mexican sugar skulls without meringue powder

    The net is an incredible place, because 10 years ago, if I wanted to make “calaveras,” which are those sugar skulls that kids and lovers give each other for the Mexican holiday El Dia de los Muertos (the Day of the Dead), how on earth would I have figured out how to do that without…

  • Cheesecake Swirl Brownies

    My friend Chef Dan was at my house the other day and said he wanted to make us his legendary cheesecake brownies.  When we went to the store to get the ingredients, he led me to the boxed cake mix section of the grocery store, and I steered him right back into the car to…

  • Bacon White Chocolate Chip Cookies

    Yes, yes…  I know.  “Bacon in a dessert?  GROSS!” I used to say the same thing, until my good friend Ross Strickland said on New Year’s Eve, “What we need tonight are some bacon white chocolate cookies.”  And for the past couple of years, all I hear about when I’m on the coasts is bacon…

  • Chocolate Covered Hazelnut Toffee

    A video tutorial is at the bottom of this recipe. I make this popular Christmas candy each year as easy, non-materialistic gifts. One batch will make 8-10 small present bundles, just wrap them in colored cellophane, tie it with some ribbon, and you’ve got a gift that will make mouths water with jealousy!  It will…

  • “Perfect” Pecan Pie (with NO CORN SYRUP option!)

    For those of you who don’t want the BETTER option of my Pumpkin Bourbon Pecan Pie recipe, here is a purist’s recipe for Pecan Pie, perfected: CRUST Feel free to make your family butter pastry recipe, but this is how I do it: 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour (I use unbleached flour) 1 tsp…