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Posts from the ‘Desserts’ Category

Mar 23

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Sour cream chocolate bundt with fudge glaze (turns out I do like chocolate cake)

Remember when I decided that I didn’t really like chocolate cake? I tried recipe after recipe for traditional chocolate layer cakes, only to decide that I wasn’t finding what I wanted because I didn’t really like traditional chocolate layer cakes very much to begin with.

This was all a little ridiculous, because no one doesn’t like chocolate cake. It may not be on the top of one’s cake list (which I just made up and now want to make and laminate and put in my wallet), but seriously – no one honestly dislikes chocolate cake. I was fixated on finding that perfect recipe, and when I didn’t find it I basically said “I wasn’t playing anyway,” and all was well.

Until this looker came along.

Chocolate_bundt

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Mar 14

Citrus-coconut tartlets with cream cheese pastry

Citrus_coconut_tartlet

Just a quick post of a recipe that’s unfortunately not entirely quick – but totally worth it.

I’ve made this one twice in the last week, first testing it for a little catering job I did last week and then tweaking it and sending it out to rave reviews. I’m glad I did the test, since the recipe definitely needed some re-working, and the end result was fantastic. These were the first thing to go at the event, and I had trouble keeping myself from eating four or five at a time from the test batch.  Super flaky cream cheese pastry, tart and sweet lemon-lime-coconut filling, and a crispy little layer of vanilla glaze on top. Topped with two strips of candied lime zest, if you want to get fancy. Read more

Mar 8

Strawberry cake, a fixation

I can get a little fixated on things sometimes. I’ll be the first to admit it. But together with a growing sense that it’s “no big deal” to churn out another batch of cookies or another shaker of cocktail or, in this case, another layer cake, that tendency to fixate means that sometimes I’m making a sizable volume of something in order to make sure I know how I like it best.

Strawberry_cake

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Feb 24

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Experimentation, rebellion, and ginger molasses cookies

Working at a cooking school that emphasizes “no recipe/follow your inner chef-style cooking” and going to professional culinary school classes has me fascinated by the ways recipes are developed and written. I don’t know where we’d all be without recipes to guide the way we cook, but I’ve started to see how limiting and confusing recipes can be. No wonder people are overwhelmed and confused by cooking, when recipes state things as law and generally don’t explain why you’re doing things that way or what other options you have. Of course I understand that cookbooks wouldn’t sell very well if recipes included all of that information and blossomed to paragraphs upon paragraphs of notes and instructions – but I do think that recipes as written can be sort of counter-productive in teaching people how to cook. (And full disclosure, here: I’m about to give you two recipes. Part of the problem, I am.)

All this is to say that I’ve started to notice a bit more rebellion and a bit more of the scientific process – two generally dormant parts of my personality – coming out in the kitchen. As I understand more about the potential techniques and options that can go into the making of a cookie, for instance, I start to question the instructions of various recipes. I start to wonder what would happen if I took the baking technique of one recipe and added it to the dough of another. Or what would happen if I chilled the dough. Or if I added a bit more spice. And then I start to experiment.

Ginger_cookies

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Feb 10

A sweet pair for Valentine’s Day – blood orange and mixed berry-vanilla curds

Sometimes, friends, the best laid plans …

I had a lovely idea for you for Valentine’s Day.  Fluffy angel food cake with a sweet little pair of fruit curds – tangy, creamy, sweet, and romantic. One blood orange, one mixed berries and vanilla. Some whipped cream, some chocolate shavings, some berries. A flirty dessert for your Valentine that won’t weigh you down like some sort of chocolate extravaganza.

Blood_oranges_2

But then my angel food cake testing went a little awry. Tasty, certainly, but a little too sticky the first time, and a little too clumpy the next. A work in progress.

But I’m still going to give you those curd recipes, and know that you can use them on just about anything. Maybe you have an angel food cake recipe that you like. Or maybe you should make a pavlova (another good way to use up all those egg whites left behind by these curds). Shortbread would be great here too. Or vanilla bean pound cake. Or just fingers.

It is Valentine’s Day, after all.  Read more

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