A sour cream mocha cake with espresso frosting on a cake stand with a slice cut from it.

Sour Cream Mocha Cake

With its deep dark chocolate smack and intense espresso buzz, this mocha cake creation ought to have a minimum age requirement.

An apple pie with a Cheddar crust in a red pie pan cut into to show the Golden Delicious apples inside.

Apple Pie with Cheddar Crust

Surprise family and friends with the savory jolt of a smattering of extra-sharp Cheddar cheese, baked straight into the crust, in contrast to the sweet apple pie filling.

Shrimp Risotto

Shrimp Risotto

Super-size-me shrimp stud this creamylicious risotto which takes its astoundingly complex taste from simple shrimp shells.

A few green cups filled with pistachio gelato with five pistachios beside.

Pistachio Gelato

An ethereally creamy, subtly sweet, wickedly pistachio-y gelato that derives its pure flavor from nothing more than the essentials.

A pink homemade sno ball--coconut-covered dome--on a white plate with two more sno balls in the back.

Homemade Sno Balls

Fashioned from chocolate cake, filled and frosted with meringue, and festooned in a feathery pink coconut boa, these sno balls are the real deal.

Four large chocolate chip cookies on a cooling rack with a hand reaching for on.

David Leite’s Chocolate Chip Cookies

We’re bewitched, thanks to this aged cookie dough–yes, aged COOKIE DOUGH–that indulges us in an adult cookie with notes of rich butterscotch and bitter dark chocolate.

Deep-Dish Brioche French Toast

Deep-Dish Brioche French Toast

The last thing you need to worry about tomorrow morning is breakfast. With this brioche French toast, you assemble it today, let it sit in the fridge overnight, and tomorrow slide it in the oven. By the time gifts are open, breakfast will be on the table.

Three glasses of glogg (mulled wine) with orange slices and cinnamon sticks.

Swedish Christmas Glögg

Glogg is Scandinavian mulled wine served at Christmas. This version combines port wine, brandy, whiskey, raisins, almonds, orange zest, cinnamon, and cardamon.

Star-shaped cookies on a piece of parchment paper.

Chinese Five-Spice Cookies

Chinese Five-spice cookies. Essentially sugar cookies perfumed with Chinese five-spice powder. Say hello to your newest holiday tradition.

A deep baking dish containing celery root and potato gratin with one piece missing

Celery Root Gratin

You sure you don’t like celery root? We think you’ll change your mind when it’s layered with potatoes, drenched in bacon-infused heavy cream, and smothered with cheese and bread crumbs.

Bow Tie Cheese Straws on parchment angled up and to the right.

Bow Tie Cheese Straws

Cheese straws that marry a cute form with a nonbreakable function. And that’s to say nothing of the rich, cheesy flavor.

Three breakfast sausage patties on a blue plate with two fried eggs, bedside a cup of coffee.

Breakfast Sausage Patties

David divulges why he bothers to make his own ingredients, from breakfast sausage to, well, you’ll just have to read about it.

Homemade cultured butter mounded up in a yellow bowl with a glass jar of cream behind it.

Homemade Cultured Butter

David recalls his first time making homemade butter and how he didn’t notice the beauty right in front of his face. Recipe included.

Fatty Daddy Cocktail

Fatty Daddy Cocktail

You’ve not “made it” until you’ve an eponymous cocktail all your own. Witness the Fatty Daddy, a sweetly surprising number that packs a punch, just like our own dear David.