The Perfect Pantry®

Chocolate chocolate chip waffles recipe

Chelsea, Alex and I dubbed these waffle brownies when we took our first bites during Wafflepalooza, and I promise that when you taste these chocolate chocolate chip waffles, you'll understand. I'm a coffee-with-waffles girl, as a rule, but these waffles beg for a glass of cold milk, just like the very best brownies. For all the chocolate chips and cocoa powder, the waffles aren't as dense as you'd expect. In fact, they're almost fluffy. In our house, these are "special occasion" breakfast waffles, the kind my husband Ted might make on Christmas morning. They also make a fine (and fun) dessert, with a drizzle of raspberry sauce on top. You can make them ahead, freeze in a single layer on a sheet pan, then pack into ziploc bags; to serve, simply pop them in the toaster.

Recipe for quick and easy apple walnut turnovers

What if you make a recipe, and after you make it you figure out exactly what you'd change, but you've used up all of the key ingredient and can't find it in the markets within 15 miles of your house, and with gas at close to $4.00 a gallon, you have to admit defeat? That's what happened with these quick and easy apple walnut turnovers, made with store-bought discos. They're delicious, just as you see them, but one thing will make them 100 percent better: chopping the filling a bit in a food processor before you stuff the dough. If you do that, you'll be able to get more filling into your discos, and, after all, turnovers are all about the filling. I wanted to make them again, to prove it to you, but Rhode Island's markets let me down. So, when you see discos in your supermarket (you'll find them in the Goya frozen foods section), be sure to stock up. I'll do that next time.

Recipe for double chocolate pumpkin pecan loaf cake

As much as I love chocolate -- and I do love chocolate -- I seldom bake or eat chocolate cake. Truth be told, I'm more of a cookie gal. However, when the pantry presented me with all of the ingredients for this double chocolate pumpkin pecan loaf cake, including some canned pumpkin left from baking these pumpkin chocolate chip biscotti, I couldn't resist. Despite the presence of chocolate chips, this cake is not overly sweet, yet it's melt-in-your-mouth moist. Kathy and I thought a scoop of vanilla ice cream or frozen yogurt would make a perfect topping, but we didn't have any on hand when we took the photographs. (Good thing, too, or you'd be seeing even less of the cake than you are now.) Make your cake ahead, let it cool completely, cut it in half cross-wise and freeze it. That way you'll have some on hand for the holidays, and some for a lucky friend or two who might stop in for afternoon tea.

Recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip biscotti

Did your family dunk? We did. Oreos in milk, and for the older set, chocolate chip cookies in coffee. If you didn't grow up in a dunking family, you might not know that biscotti are twice-baked Italian cookies, so crispy that the best way to eat them is to dip them in coffee, or tea, or vin santo, a Tuscan dessert wine. The biscotti absorb the liquid, and just before they fall apart, you pop them in your mouth. Almost every recipe for pumpkin cookies or cupcakes or custard calls for half a cup of pumpkin pureé, so you're sure to have a little container of leftover in the refrigerator, just enough for these pumpkin chocolate chip biscotti, or you can substitute canned squash pureé. These cookies will stay crisp for a few days in an airtight container.