[M]arble cake offers the best of both worlds, well, at least the best of both flavors — vanilla and chocolate cake batters are swirled together to bring two favorite tastes in one. I confess it’s been a long time since I’ve marbled anything — cake or otherwise. I do believe […]
[S]ometimes I wonder why it takes me so long to get to things. Like recipes. Like a Cinnamon Scone Bread recipe, in particular, which I first saw back in 2014 on the Food52 website, and at that moment declared, “Oooo, I gotta make that!†Just how long could one deny […]
[I] can’t remember which cooking maven (it was either Ina or Nigella) I first saw make affogato. But I never forgot this dessert — as simple as they come — where piping hot coffee or freshly brewed espresso is poured over a creamy mound of freezing cold ice cream. The […]
[M]any memories were stirred up as I mixed and baked a batch of Monster Cookies for the Baked Sunday Mornings online baking group this week. The recipe (you’ll find it here: http://bakedsundaymornings.com/2018/08/31/in-the-oven-monster-cookies/), from “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking,†by Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito (2008), is an old-fashioned drop cookie, […]
[S]ometimes, when you are in a slump (writing/cooking/baking/working/living), the best thing to do is make one. Never heard of a slump? I had, but had not made one until the Baked Sunday Mornings group put a recipe (see here: http://bakedsundaymornings.com/2018/07/20/in-the-oven-sour-cherry-slump/) for Sour Cherry Slump from “Baked: New Frontiers in Baking†[…]
[S]ummer means iced tea — more than any drink — for me. I’ll take a tall glass of a plain black or green tea, but a good flavored iced tea — naturally flavored — like mango, mint, hibiscus or berry adds flavor and variety to the refreshment. I also love […]
[B]iscotti, by description, seem something that would defy enthusiasm. Their name, derived from the cookie-version of “biscuit†and meaning “twice-baked,†is just an inkling of what they are. This double baking is meant to make them dry and hard (not typically the aim for most baked goods), for a longer […]
[N]othing matches the satisfaction of making a pie. Cakes are showstoppers. Cookies are always welcome. But they rarely feel as accomplished a feat as setting a humble dish of freshly baked pie, still warm from the oven, on your countertop. The baker’s glow is a different kind here. [P]erhaps it […]
[G]reat discoveries can happen in your own backyard, or, in this case, your own bookshelf. I was recently cleaning (gasp!) and re-organizing some books, and I stumbled across a little baking book from Ireland, actually named “The Little Irish Baking Book,†by Ruth Isabel Ross (1995), and, eager to take […]
[D]id you know there is a recipe for fool? And it’s so simple! Almost too simple, so that you almost want to pass it by (as I have, many times). Something that easy (and oddly named) certainly cannot be very good. The first recipes I saw for fools — desserts […]