The Ravenous Guide to Maida Heatter Dessert Recipes

The Ravenous Guide 

Navigating Around the Ravenous Guide

The Ravenous Guide Homepage

Start here to find any Ravenous resource.

The Ravenous Blog

The Ravenous blog. My daily take on food, cooking, nutrition and the most interesting food writing of the day.

COOKIE RECIPES 

Chocolate Cookies with Gin-Soaked Raisins

From Epicurious:
One commenter gushes:
By far the most sophisticated cookied I've ever made or eaten. I brought them as my offering at a Christmas cookie party. I didn't have enough pecans, so mixed what i had with chopped hazelnuts(actually - i used mostly hazelnuts...) and they were THE hit of the night. I was asked for the recipe upwards of 5 times that night. They are sweet, so keep them small (no larger than an American quarter)and you will be thrilled with the results.

Chocolate Lulus

From Recipezaar:
These unusual cookies have a bold, dark chocolate flavour, but really get their secret kick from the unrecognizable addition of pepper. Try these when you are not in the mood for an overly 'sweet' cookie. From Maida Heatter's Brand-New Book of Great Cookies.

Joe Froggers

From Recipezaar:
This is from Maida Heatter's New Book of Great Desserts. They are a good cookie for traveling or mailing.

Sour Cream Ginger Cookies

From The Seattle Times:
My husband and I traditionally bring Sour-Cream Ginger Cookie dough from Maida Heatter's "Book of Great Cookies." I found the recipe in the December 1995 issue of House Beautiful and still keep the magazine on the shelf with my cookbooks. They require just enough time and energy that I'm only tempted to make them once a year - at party time.

Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Cookies

From the Global Gourmet:
This is an all-time comfort food. Big, thick, semisoft, moist, chewy-and loaded with goodies. Whatever you do with these, I suggest that you do not store them in a location that can be seen -- or reached. They will disappear too quickly. And frankly, if you don't have strong willpower, maybe you should just not make them.

Scotch Shortbread Cookies

"When a Scottish friend of mine went to visit her family in Scotland she returned with this recipe for me from her grandmother. She said that this is the real thing. It is easy and fun to make. The texture of the shortbread is light and sandy. Yummy!"

Barbara's Milk Chocolate Biscotti

Yummy chocolate biscotti from Diana's Kitchen.

Chocolate Chocolate Chip Cookies

Chocolate plus chocolate from That's My Home.

Charlie Brown's Peanut Cookies

Peanuts, peanut butter, chocolate chips in a cookie from Flora's Recipe Hideout.

Chocolate Wafer Cookies

I found this recipe for chocolate wafers in Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts. She says, "These cookies may be crumbled to make a delicious chocolate-cookie crumb crust. If you make them for that purpose roll out the dough and then just cut it with a long knife into large squares; don't bother to use a cookie cutter."

Chocolate Chip and Almond Biscotti

From a page of several biscotti recipes from Countrylife.net.

Swedish Jelly Slices

From a Swedish smorgasborg from Samcooks.com.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Crescents

A diabetes friendly recipe from Recipesource.com.

Spicy Chocolate Cookies

A chocolate cookie with black pepper and cayenne pepper from Patrick Hassel Zein.

Sugar Cookies

From James Andrew Rome's recipe collection.

Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

From a Pittsburgh Post Gazette article on shortbread cookies.

CAKE RECIPES 

New York City Chocolate Cheesecake

From Robin Rosenberg's Pastry/Dessert Page.

Cocolate Marbelized Cheesecake

From Chef 2 Chef.

Tomato Soup Cake

Sometimes you just have to trust the master. From Chef 2 Chef.

Amaretto-Amaretti Chocolate Cheesecake

From the very well organized and ultra-functional CDKitchen.com. Great if you use MasterCook software.

Austrian Chocolate Walnut Torte

A page of recipes from the Ann Arbor News. Scroll down for the Austrian Chocolate Walnut Torte.

The Best Damn Lemon Cake

From Recipezaar:
This is a recipe from the great and wonderful Maida Heatter. This loaf cake needs a couple of days to set, but is so well worth the wait. Want to impress someone? Try this recipe. A great holiday or hostess gift.

White Pepper and Ginger Lemon Cake

From Recipezaar:
Adapted slightly from "Maida Heatter's Cakes," this cake is unusual and very tasty! Source: Detroit News.

Dobosh Torte (seven Layer Torte)

From Recipezaar:
A friend shared this recipe with me it's from the Maida Heatter's Book of Great Desserts. It makes a nice holiday or dinner party dessert.

Big Daddy's Cake

From your queen's of cuisine at Out of the Frying Pan.

Blueberry Crumb Cake

From The Pittsburgh Post Gazette:
Blueberry Crumb Cake is a coffee cake studded with fresh plump blueberries. Lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla (use pure vanilla extract) add to this cake's unique flavor. Before baking, a layer of chopped walnuts is spread over the batter followed by streusel topping. What an outstanding combination!

Torte Souffle au Chocolat

From Music and Cats:
Two weeks later (so perhaps there is a rhyme or reason to my pacing of these episodes), I prepared for the second tasting. I baked another flourless cake, also from Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts. Like the first cake, this one depends entirely on beaten egg whites for its lift. Unlike its Italian cousin, in which ground almonds do the work of flour, this French "cake" really is a souffle of sorts. Chocolate, butter, sugar and eggs - what more does one need? Perhaps a splash of liqueur, a bit of salt, but that's all.

Torta di Cioccolata

From Music and Cats:
On Sunday evening (in early January, 1993), several friends came over for Torta di Cioccolata and port. They crowded around my kitchen table, and we chatted while I whipped cream. My then boyfriend Gary opened the bottle of port, and poured it into an assortment of small glasses. I brought out the star of the show, my freshly-baked chocolate torte, dusted with confectioner's sugar. I was tremendously pleased with at least the aesthetics of this foray into baking; my friends oohed and aahed. I was hoping that the torta would taste as good as it looked.

"That cake looks like you bought it," Annie teased. Her husband Jay chimed in, "And your kitchen's too clean - you can't have baked this today."

"I should've left all the dirty dishes in the sink, just to prove it," I laughed. "And then you two could've washed."

I sliced and plated; they passed plates around the table, and spooned dollops of whipped cream onto their cake. We toasted ("to cake, and port, and friends with whom to share them"), and then tasted: cake with cream first, then just cake, then cake with port drizzled on it. The torte was very good: dark, rich, and moist. I thought, however, that it might not be the perfect complement to a good vintage port. My friends agreed much too easily, and strongly suggested that I test another recipe. It was obvious that they just wanted more cake.

Pain d'Epice

From Cyberkitchen.com:
The recipe which follows includes rye flour in addition to wheat flour.
This is a clue to the recipe's ancient origins. Wheat flour was
expensive and scarce so bakers used to add some cheaper rye flour. The
addition of rye flour produced a lower-gluten batter and bakers needed
to find supplementary leavening agents. Wood ash was commonly used. The
disagreeable taste of wood ash caused bakers to add more honey and
spices to the batter. While the wood ash may have disappeared, honey
and spice lingers on in a traditional honey cake recipe. In this
recipe, so does the rye flour.

Florida Rum Cake

From Razzledazzle

Lemon Buttermilk Cake

From Ruth's Kitchen:
The only cake that ever failed from Maida Heatter's many collections was this Buttermilk Lemon Cake. I wrote her a letter about the failure, and she gratiously sent me an amended recipe. The cake is really a marvelous success with her changes. I recommend it for a special dairy meal. Source: Personal communication from Maida Heatter, 1979.

September 7th Cake

A reviewer on RecipeCottage.com shares:
I have made this cake many times and yes, it is time-consuming but well worth it. It is, indeed, a recipe by Maida Heatter who developed the recipe because she wanted something different for her birthday (Sept. 7th). The cake is pictured on the cover of her cookbook "Best Chocolate Desserts". It's a great cookbook even for beginners. Try the recipe but read it through first so you understand what's involved. You won't be disappointed. Try using raspberries or strawberries as a garnish. Yum!

Tangerine Bundt Cake

From a DYI Network article on using citrus oils in baking:
This cake is a take-off on Maida Heatter's Famous Florida Lime Cake. As her daddy, Gabriel Heatter, used to say on the radio a long time ago, "there's good news tonight" when you serve this velvety, tart tangerine cake. It's also wonderful made the original way with lime zest and juice and an extra kick of lime oil. Sweetened whipped cream rounds out the flavor and texture.

Stanley's Cake

From a Cook's Notebook:
This is really an adapted version of Maida Heatter's Old-Fashioned Fudge Cake, and so is the icing. They are from her Book of Great Chocolate Desserts, Knopf, 1984.

Key West Rum Cake

From Leon @ Astray.com

Chocolate Mousse Torte

From RecipeLink.com.

Chocolate Regal

From Howard's Recipes:
This is the best chocolate dessert I've ever eaten.

Orange Chiffon Cake

From RecipeLink.com

PIE AND TART RECIPES 

Mom's Apple Pie

After the notes on pie crusts is a recipe for apple pie. Just scroll down.

Maida's Big Apple Pie

Calls for Granny Smith and Golden Delicious apples. From Leon @ Astray.com

French Tart Pastry

From Chef 2 Chef.

Pumpkin Pie With Pepper

From The New York Times:
Maida Heatter, the author of many dessert cookbooks, does not include cinnamon in her favorite recipe, spiking the gingery filling with a nice touch of black pepper. "I tried making other variations, with macadamia nuts, for instance, but I think I prefer my more traditional one," Mrs. Heatter said. "Getting the crust right is harder than making the filling."

This page has a number of interesting Pumpkin Pie recipes by top chefs.

Lemon Cream Cheese Pie

From The Seattle Post Intelligencer.

This article has a handful of good pie recipes, including Maida's Lemon Cream Cheese Pie.

Lemon Curd for Lemony Blueberry Cheese Tart

The author uses a Maida Heatter recipe for lemon curd as the basis for a lemon mascarpone cheese tart.

Missippi Mud Pie

From Recipezaar.com.

Tart Tatin

From Melinda Lee:
Here is an apple pie with the crust on the bottom, but not the sides or top. It's a classic French creation that is often made by caramelizing butter and sugar to coat the bottom of the baking pan. Topped with apples, and finally the disc of crust dough, the tart is baked with the crust on top, and turned out so that the crust (never soggy!) will be on the bottom when served.

BROWNIES AND BARS RECIPES 

Pecan Squares Americana

Maida:
Many years ago a Miami newspaper published a letter to the food editor from the wife of Governor Collins of Florida. She raved about the pecan cookies she had eaten at the Americana Hotel in Miami Beach. She went on to say that she had requested the recipe from the hotel, that they had given it to her, but it did not work for her. The letter included the recipe as she had received it. I ran to the kitchen to try it. The recipe did not work for me either. I called the hotel and asked to speak to the pastry chef. His name was Jacques Kranzlin; he could not have been more gracious or charming, and he invited me to his kitchen to watch him work. It was a treat.

When I got home I was able to make the Pecan Squares. I made them again and again and again. I wrote the recipe. I taught it in my dessert classes. It was unanimously The Best! I included the recipe in my first dessert book. And when I taught classes around the country, it was one of my favorite recipes to teach because I knew how people would rave about them.

Maida Heater's intense fudgy Brownies

From Recipezaar:
This recipe is different because it has the addition of sour cream which adds moistness and a little tang. The taste of these brownies improves overnight so, if possible, make the day before serving.

Palm Beach Brownies

One her most loved recipes from Recipesource.com

Viennese Marzipan Bars

Sweets from Christmas-Cookies.com.

Fruit and Nut Bars

A cocoa flavored bar studded with chopped dates or prunes; chopped dried figs or apricots; or raisins and chopped walnuts, pecans, hazelnuts, peanuts or almonds from The Ellsworth American.

Barron's Brownies

From Karen Celia Fox
. . . to be served with Bourbon and ice cream for a 1920's themed dinner. Quite possibly the best fudgy brownie recipe around.

Brownie Sundae

From The Boston Globe:
In order to make a brownie sundae, you need a divine chocolate sauce and a dependable brownie recipe. These recipes are adapted from the popular ''Maida Heatter's Book of Great Chocolate Desserts,". . . The sauce was given to Heatter by California author Paula Wolfert, who based it on a recipe from French chef Michael Guerard. Heatter's brownies are the ones she has been making since she was 10 years old. ''People who barely knew me, knew my Brownies," she writes.

Oatmeal Brownie Fingers

From Recipezaar:
Surprise your brownie aficionado friends with a chewy honey and oatmeal version from baking maven Maida Heatter. Remember, the better the chocolate, the better and more dramatic the flavor.

Macadamia Nut Coconut Bars

From Homecooking@About.com comes a recipe first printed in Food & Wine in 1995.

Date Nut Hopney Bars

From RazzleDazzleRecipes.com.

Lime Bars

From eGullet:
This is a take on Maida Heatter's Florida Lemon Squares from her Book of Great Cookies
Substitute lemon juice for lime and you're back to the original.

Pumpkin Pie Bars

From FoodDownUnder.com

RECIPES: Odds and Ends 

Maida Heatter's Famous Bran Muffins

From StarChefs.com:
By Maida Heatter
"My mother was incredible, she did everything Martha Stewart does and more. Her bran muffins were a part of growing up and I can not remember being without them for very long. We used to take them on picnics, to the movies and Yankee Stadium, and always in our lunch boxes. These bran muffins have received a lot of attention since first appearing in my cookbook, Maida Heatter's Great Desserts (Knopf, 1982), but I fondly remember them as a staple for my father, Gabriel, during the Lindbergh trial in Flemington, NJ. My father was quite famous for his nightly news radio program and especially remembered for the phrase "Ah there is good news tonight!"coined during a WWII broadcast. The Lindbergh trial generated such large crowds that the only place left for my father to live was a small hotel room, and opportunities for decent meals were scarce. Therefore, my mother and I would drive up from Manhattan every few days and make a thermos delivery of hot vegetable soup and bran muffins. I think it is these muffins that made that small room bearable for so many weeks."

Apple Cranberry Muffins

From Recipezaar.com:
Oh, my, talk about good. These cupcakes are absolutely loaded with goodies: cranberries, apples, raisins, nuts and spice The ingredient list is long, but these are not hard to put together ...And so good when you've done so!

Healthy Raisin Bread

From Recipezaar.com:
This is a recipe I adapted from Maida Heatter's "New Book of Great Desserts". It makes a delicious loaf that slices so neatly that you can make small tea sandwiches with either sweet or savory fillings. It's wonderful served with a fruit salad. The canola oil is optional. The loaf tastes the same but stays moist longer with the oil.

Nutty Rice Pudding

From The Homeschool Zone's Mom to Mom Recipe Library:
Nutty rice pudding is a delicious treat and well worth the little bit of extra time to prepare. Some folks like to eat this pudding warm while others prefer it chilled.

Homemade Irish Liqueur

From the introduction of Maida Heatter's New Book of Great Desserts:
...my husband and I were visiting California and I thought I was hearing things when my sister-in-law, Helen Sparks, casually asked if I would like a recipe for a drink that tasted like Bailey's Original Irish Cream. I love the drink, and I was sure there was a misunderstanding - I could not believe that there was a recipe for it. But Helen gave me it to me. She had gotten it at a meeting of a wine-tasting group that she and her husband belong to in San Diego; it came from a lady who had brought it from Ireland.

When I read it, I raised an eyebrow -- I was very sceptical and not in much of a hurry to try it. But I did.

Then we had a blind taste-testing party with this and Bailey;s Original Irish Cream and everyone liked this one better (not to mention the price which is a fraction of the other).

Recipe variation and directions for the original at Epicurean.com

Homemade Marshmallows

From Homecooking @ About.com.