Aug 21
Clearing things out is stressful but I’ve also found a lot of things to hold onto. In that spirit, I remembered a post I had written when I was asked for and heirloom recipe. I immediately thought of my mother’s merengón. Read more
Dec 25
For the past few weeks, I’ve been hopping around different countries for Devour. This recipe for sleeping meringues, however, is very close to home. I’d been trying to make my grandparents meringues which were air crisp on the outside and chewy on the inside when my friend Maria Budet shared her own grandmother’s recipe, providing the missing piece that had eluded me. Mystery solved, I added a few toasted almonds and drops of vanilla but am looking forward to many variations in the next year. Thank you all for reading and I hope you’re all enjoying a happy and peaceful Christmas morning!
Jan 30
Deep in cookbook research the past few weeks, this boniatillo has been on deck for awhile. Now that I’m (almost) ready to return to regular programming, I couldn’t go forward until I posted a favorite and final recipe from last year. Boniatillo – boiled sweet potatoes cooked down with syrup, spiced with cinnamon and spiked with rum – is a simple kind of dessert that would be easy enough to make before the holidays. Or so I thought. Read more
Dec 18
This weekend marks Hungry Sofia’s second birthday. In that first post, I talked about wanting to eat my Christmas tree (still do) and mentioned a bûche de noël but included no recipes or pictures. Two years later and closing in 300 posts, I thought it was time for the bûche to have its closeup. With friends coming over once again before going there separate ways for the holidays, I had the perfect excuse to make my site a birthday cake. Read more
May 9
Many people have a hard time imagining their parents as children, but I very much see my mother in the little girl pictured above — sweet, expressive and indistinguishable from the cake set before her, in essence if not in form. Last year around this time, I asked my mother to show me how to make her merengue con crema de leche. A combination of meringue and custard sauce, it’s similar to a French île flottante but much, much sweeter — Cuban sweet. She always made it for special occasions, though never the same way twice. Used to feeling her way around until she got it right, I distracted her with questions. I tried to note everything down, but secretly believed she was making things up as she went along. When I caught her consulting with her chihuahua about the consistency for the syrup, I knew we were in trouble. Read more
Finalist for the 2015 James Beard Foundation Award in the International Cookbook Category for The Cuban Table
hungry sofia 