Tag Archives: Baking & Dessert

Dutch Alpe d’HuZes Apple-Oat-Pie

Home Cooking, , , , , , ,

Name: Mieke Kamps
Class Year: 1978
Country of Residence: the Netherlands

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

My former neighbor Alletta used to make this delicious pie for birthdays. She gave me her recipe and I continued to make it for the Dutch Alpe d’HuZes beat-cancer-cycling-training of some women friends of mine. In order to raise money for cancer research every year some 5000 Dutch people go to the French Alpe-d’Huez mountain to cycle it up and down once, twice, three, four, five or ultimately six times in one day! The Dutch word for six is “zes” hence they call the event ‘Alpe d’HuZes’, in short ‘AD6’. Since the start of the Alpe d’HuZes-event in 2005 the Dutch cancer society; KWF has received some 10-12 million euros every year from Alpe d’HuZes!!!  So, go for it!

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Clafoutis (Baked cherry custard)

Regional/Traditional, , , , ,

Name: Paula Sullivan Souloumiac
Class Year: 1980
Country of Residence: France

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

Growing up in New Hampshire, much of our summer fruit was shipped up from warmer climates boasting shorter winters. This included cherries, which, back then, were rare, expensive, and delicious. I remember my mom coming home from the grocery store with a bag of cherries. She would divide them into three bowls: one for my brother, one for my sister and one for me. My love for cherries started there.

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Cranberry Orange Sweetbread

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Name: Corinne Morgan
Class Year: 2013
Country of Residence: United Kingdom

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

This is a recipe that was created by my great great grandmother and has been passed down through my mother’s side of the family, which has not had a son in 5 generations, so this recipe has always passed from mother to daughter. I made this recipe for a recent board gathering for the Mount Holyoke Club of Britain, where it was very popular. Upon telling my mother and grandmother about the great reaction to the recipe, they laughed and admitted to it also being their go to recipe whenever they needed to bring a food item to a gathering. Hopefully, this recipe can one day become your family’s old reliable as well.

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Maple Syrup Sweetness Overload Pie

Regional/Traditional, , , , ,

Name: Anita Pion Selec
Class Year: 1988
Country of Residence: Bosnia Herzegovina

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

This pie is known as “sugar pie” to French-Canadians and it gives baklava a run for its money with sweetness!  This recipe has been in my family for over a hundred years.  There are many versions of this made in French-Canadian homes.  This is the simplest and the sweetest.

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Peanut Butter & Chocolate Oats

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Name: Mitchelle Ajida
Class Year: 2008
Country of Residence: UK

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

Zimbabweans love peanut butter. We can add it to just about any meal. Peanut butter rice, with peanut butter chicken or peanut butter beef. Peanut butter in our collard greens, on our bread and in our porridge. Peanut butter is a staple. This recipe combines the peanut butter heritage with my life in Europe as I try to keep a taste of home whilst making new breakfast favorites for my international friends.

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Cheesecake with Fresh Berries

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Name: Silvia Maulini*
Class Year: 1980
Country of Residence: The Netherlands

* Silvia is one of this competition’s judges, so this recipe will not be considered – it’s simply delicious, and needs to be shared!

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

I have always found most (American) cheesecake recipes rather daunting and alarmingly rich in fats and cream. A few years ago, my daughters and granddaughters gave me a wonderful new cookbook by Cees Holtkamp, whose patisserie in the center of Amsterdam is a true monument to high quality pastries and cakes. His simple, not exceedingly fat and apparently foolproof recipe for cheesecake immediately caught my attention. It seemed too easy to be true, but Cees’ cheesecake turned out to be amazing and it has now become a classic at our family birthday celebrations. This is the cake that has been requested by all family members for our first physical gathering after the lockdown period: I can’t wait to bake a few of them!

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Wilma Flinestone’s Chocolate Cake (and/or the Paleo Cake)

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Name: Rossella Di Palma
Class Year: FF 1999
Country of Residence: Italy

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

I wanted to make a cute cake for a friend’s birthday: it had to be good looking, easy to make, unusual and easy to personalize. Its flat shape was ideal to place, on the top, a printed image of his dog.  At the party, people were originally suspicious about the cake ingredients, but everybody ended up enjoying it. This cake is grain free and gluten free.

I adapted a recipe I found in “Il Libro d’Oro del Cioccolato” which suggested 300 g of carrots and 150 of sugar.

Note: adding a bit of fresh ginger might be interesting.

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Eggplant & Ginger Jam

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Name: Rossella Di Palma
Class Year: FF 1999
Country of Residence: Italy

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

I like ginger a lot and I sometimes eat jam but I do not like it when it gets too sweet. Years ago I found a recipe online that intrigued me. I made several jars and passed the recipe on to relatives and friends, but it was still too sweet. I then completely forgot until last year, when I felt the urge to make some again. Googling online I found another recipe and I further adapted it.

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Homemade Bread (with kefir based sourdough)

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Name: Rossella Di Palma
Class Year: FF 1999
Country of Residence: Italy

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

Since the lockdown started, Italians began baking bread at home. This quickly made impossible to find brewer’s yeast and high quality flour. I do not normally eat bread, but since my mother does, I wanted to try to make bread at home, with a bread machine first and baking it in the oven later.  Given the fact I could not find any yeasts at the supermarket, I decided to try using the kefir I grow daily.

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Pīrāgi (Bacon Buns)

Regional/Traditional, , , , ,

Name: Katrina Strikis
Class Year: 2010
Country of Residence: USA

Why is this recipe great? What’s its backstory? 

Pīrāgi are small bacon and onion pies which originate from the Baltic state of Latvia. They are baked in large batches and served year round, but especially at every large gathering and festival. I’m from the USA but my family on both sides emigrated from Latvia, so I grew up baking these in the kitchen alongside my grandmothers at every holiday. Each household has their own variation of the recipe so it’s able to be tweaked (one of my grandmothers included SPAM in her recipe), but however you make them, your kitchen is guaranteed to smell amazing!

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