beach blondies with corona and lime

Believe it or not, I actually made these Corona Blondies back in January for an Oscars party. I added lime zest and juice to the original recipe and called them Hawaiian Corona Blondies in honor of nominee The Descendants. It was a pretty tenuous link to the film, but Corona does like to market themselves as a beer to drink while lounging at the beach, so I figured it sort of fit together with the film's paradisaical setting. 

french apple cake/super fast sauteed apples and ice cream

So remember when my friends and I went apple picking?




Cute right? Yeah I know. Not so cute? The utterly homely but totally delicious and gooey apple cake. It's kind of brown and ugly, and I could barely get it out of the pan, but damn if it wasn't really, really good.

flourless chocolate cake

As you may already know, my brother has celiac and can't eat wheat, so I am always on the look out for good gluten free recipes. This year, when Laura and I threw our annual joined forces for our annual birthday bash, Matt was home for spring break and therefore was able to come share in the celebration.

Great, obviously, but that also meant that I wanted to make a birthday cake that he could eat. Luckily, I'd been holding onto a flourless chocolate cake recipe by David Lebowitz for just an occasion, and it did not disappoint.

strawberry cornmeal cake

I don't have too much to say about this recipe for strawberry cornmeal pound cake.




It is a tasty breakfast-y cake, very easy to prepare and special because it's not just a pound cake: it's got cornmeal and fresh strawberries. That doesn't make it extraordinary by any means, but it definitely elevates it above your average pound cake.




I love cake recipes that only involve creaming butter and sugar and then stirring in the dry ingredients. I am like the world's slowest baker, but even I can handle that without stopping to consult the directions too many times.




Be warned that this really isn't that sweet. It's more of an afternoon snack type of cake, or a toasted-and-slathered-in-butter breakfast type of cake than it is a big celebration cake. But the strawberries are pretty, and it'd be great for tea. Plan accordingly.

dimply plum cake: homely but delicious

the famous dimply plum cake

Geeze. If you want a real idea of how infrequently I've been blogging lately, consider this: I baked this cake on September 3th. It is now November 1st, and New York has seen the temperatures dip into the thirties as the days begin to get shorter and shorter. September already seems like long ago, but try to remember to way back then: it was the Friday of Labor Day weekend. The East Coast was prepped for a massive hurricane set to put a major damper on the holiday. I had spent the afternoon at the hospital for my jaw's grand reopening. Though this was very exciting, it was also somewhat of a painful process. The wires had been drilled through my gums to hold the arch bars in place, so pulling them out required lots of novocain and left my gums inflamed and sore.

Even though they had replaced the wires clamping my teeth shut with more forgiving rubber bands a week and a half before, my jaw was still fragile and weak, which precluded me from eating all but the softest foods. Regardless, I was excited to be on the mend and free of the unslightly metal braces for the first time in over 5 weeks. I was looking forward to spending the weekend out on Long Island with Nathan's family and my own, and to putting my injury behind me.

I like to be a good house guest, so I spent that Friday night baking this dimply plum cake for Nathan's step-mom's friends Liz and Harry, who were kind enough to invite us to their home.


smooshed plum cake

I know that is one shockingly ugly cake. I foolishly wrapped it up in foil for easy transit before it cooled, so it steamed in the wrapper and the top turned into an unsightly sticky mess. Of course, we don't eat cake because it looks good– we eat cake because of the way it tastes. This cake, a recipe by Dorie Greenspan, is an internet sensation, so my expectations were high. The cake was less sweet than most, but pleasantly so, and was nice and moist from the large chunks of fruit. I was happy to use so many of my food co-op plums to make it, and I liked the hint of cinnamon flavor. It was a good dessert to usher in fall with the last of summer's stone fruit. Very seasonal, but not actually the most inspiring dessert you've ever eaten.

As luck would have it, the over-hyped Earl stayed off shore and the weather held up beautifully. We went swimming, took a motorboat out to Fire Island and foraged for beach plums on Saturday before heading north to Northport and spending Sunday sailing in the bay with my Dad. As for the food, I obviously missed out on all the grilled steak and corn on the cob at dinner, but Nathan's step-mom Patricia and step-sister Helen made sure there was plenty of soft and juicy salmon for me to enjoy.

Dessert was even easier, as cakes and pies can easily be mashed up into easily swallowed spoonfuls. With my wires gone, eating the same plate of dessert as everyone else, I was finally able to forget about my broken jaw and begin to enjoy food again. Based on taste alone, dimply plum cake may not have been the revelation I hoped for. I imagine that there are other plum based desserts that are just as good, if not better, even if their names aren't as cute. That being said, it was still delicious. Everyone else told me they liked it, but to me, at that point in time, dimply plum cake tasted like hope.

cream cheese frosted carrot cake/rice crispie treats

So back in the fall Jess and I went out to her uncle's house in the Southhampton. He has an amazing glass mansion on the beach with this dream kitchen stocked with just about every gadget imaginable. The past couple of years, he's been so kind as to let Jess bring her friends out for a weekend pre-memorial day or post-labor day. Last year, we came out in September to a surprisingly well stocked fridge with instructions to help ourselves to anything. This meant delicious frozen ravioli and sword fish, high quality Rao's tomato sauce, a tin of old fashioned banana pudding mix, slivered almonds and a tupperware full of homemade cream cheese frosting. Naturally, we took advantage of the latter two items by making a carrot cake, which we slightly altered by adding some chopped walnuts, which are generally one the best parts of any carrot cake.


cream cheese frosting on an almond carrot cake

The recipe proved delicious, and I've had it stashed away to make again ever since. The perfect opportunity arose over Memorial Day Weekend, when Laura and I threw a little party for our friends at the apartment. I had cream cheese in the fridge, a big bag of walnuts from BJ's, some left over almonds from our lentil dish, a lemon or two, plus carrots and eggs from the food co-op, so this cake was calling out to me.

Somehow, things did not go as smoothly as I had planned. I suspect that Jess did most of the actually baking last time around I did mostly things like toasting the nuts and getting the eggs out of the fridge while I made salad and pasta and such. Also, the food processor and other high tech grinders and such in the Southhampton probably really sped up the process. In any event, I had no idea how labor-intensive this little bugger was. First you toast the nuts, then you chop the walnuts and grind up the almonds to make flour. Then you zest a lemon, shred the carrots, measure the dry ingredients and mix in the egg yolks. As if that weren't enough, you have to whip the egg whites, and then fold them into the batter in two batches. You might think that you could bake the cake and be done with at that point, but no, I had to make my own frosting too, creaming together a stick of butter and brick of cream cheese with vanilla and a reduced amount of powdered sugar! Luckily, that part was super easy and came out awesome.

The cake itself was pretty good, but it was a lot of trouble when I had a party starting in less than two hours. I was frosting the cake and picking out the fullest walnuts from the bag to candy and decorate the cake with while the guests were milling about. It was a little stressful. Good, but stressful!

This cake is probably best if you have a reasonable amount of counter space and a food processor, but for those of us less fortunate, there are other confectionery delights that can be made in a snap. Why yes, I am talking about rice cripsy treats, specifically this salted brown butter rice crispy recipe. As any child can tell you, rice crispy treats are the best. What savvy moms can probably tell you is that they are damn easy to make as well! Simply melt a stick of butter, let it get golden brown, then take it off the heat and stir in a package of marshmallows. Then you add a quarter teaspoon salt and six cups of rice crispies, stir it all together and then press it into a pan. That's all there is to it! So if a 20 step cake is a bit daunting, know that you can always fall back on a childhood favorite. Plus, I had almost half the cake left over and no rice crispy treats whatsoever!

birthday cakes

a gluten free cheesecake for Matt

The first cake I'd like to talk about is this one, which my brother Matt and I whipped up Friday night for his birthday party. In addition to being delicious, it was also gluten free, not that you could tell. If you have any sort of experience with gluten free baking, that is pretty much the highest praise you can give. Matt pretty much handled the crust, while I took care of the filling. Between this and our cheesey bean dip and guacamole, I'd say we made a pretty good team. Stranger things have happened.

For this cake, I kind of created my own Frankenstein of recipe, combining bits and pieces of three different desserts. I got the cheesecake filling one place, and the gluten-free crust and (the most basic idea for the) strawberry topping at another. Surprisingly, the three elements combined to make one great cake. I baked it in what I guess was a 9 or 10 inch cake form at 350 degrees.

Strawberry Ricotta Sour Cream Cheesecake
adapted from bakespace.com and glutenfreeguide.com
Crust
1⅓ cups flour or Gluten Free Baking Mix such as Pamela's (I used a gluten free cake mix and subsequently cut down on the brown sugar)
a scant ½ cup dark brown sugar
½ cup cold butter, cut into pieces
⅔ cup finely chopped pecans

Stir the flour mix and brown sugar together in a medium bowl. Cut in the butter until fine crumbs form. Stir in the nuts and pat into your pan, covering the bottom and pressing up the sides. Try not to leave too much dough in the corners of the pan.

Filling
16 oz ricotta cheese
16 oz cream cheese, softened
16 ounces sour cream
1½ cups white sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
½ cup butter, melted

Beat together all the ingredients and pour into the crust. Place a piece of foil or a pan below the cake to catch any drippings that might leak from the pan. Bake at 350 degrees until the filling starts to solidify. Let cool on wire rack for 30 minutes and then refrigerate for at least four to five hours before serving.

Topping
10 or so strawberries, sliced
⅔ cup strawberry jam
⅓ cup sugar
pinch of salt
cracked black pepper

Simmer jam and sliced strawberries in a saucepan over medium heat with sugar, salt and freshly cracked black pepper until jam is syrupy and strawberries are soft. Pour over the cheesecake after you remove it from the oven.

Of course, that is not to say that things went off without a hitch. First of all, I didn't allot nearly enough time to cooling the cheesecake, so it was still slightly warm when we sliced it up for party guests at around 11:30. Plan ahead for cheesecake, people! Secondly, the recipe for the crust claims that you may have enough crust for a second smaller pie. They are not kidding. If you like your cheesecake to only have crust on the bottom, you could get away with making half as much crust. If you want some crust on the sides, you could absolutely get away with ⅔ of the recipe, and I've scaled the above measurements accordingly. Finally, do not, I repeat DO NOT, bake the strawberry topping onto your cheesecake. Some recipes call for baking a sour cream topping onto your cheesecake midway through the baking process. That might work, but baking on a luscious strawberry jam is only going to dry it out. It will still taste good, but it will look shriveled and sad. Don't do it.

The other cake is not as good as the cheesecake in my opinion, but if you are the type of person who loves chocolate cake, you might disagree. Laura pulled up this recipe over two years ago by searching for a "simple chocolate cake," and I was blown away by how good it was. Since she first made it, I've tried to replicate her results at least three times, but for whatever reason, it's never quite as good as I remember it. However it's still a good chocolate cake with delicious chocolate frosting, and its easy. The first time we made it, we made a pattern with red hot candies in the chocolate frosting, and that was surprisingly amazing. The heat of the candies leeched into the cake, and the moisture of the frosting was absorbed by the red hots, creating a surprisingly balanced cinnamon taste and a thick chocolately frosting. I vow never to make the cake without them again. (I once tried baking the red hots into the cake itself, but that proved disastrous.) I most recently made this for Laura and my 24th birthday party. Even without red hots, it turned out pretty good, but I was a little tipsy when I made the frosting and I didn't take the time to properly whisk in the powdered sugar, which made it a little lumpy. Otherwise, it was good and chocolatey, if totally overshadowed by Dave's amazing and picture perfect chocolate cheesecake with its buttery chocolate crust.

Simple Chocolate Cake
adapted from cooks.com
Cake
1¼ cups sugar
¾ cups butter, softened
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
2 cups flour
1 tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt
1 cup milk
6 oz. of semi-sweet baking chocolate, melted and cooled

Beat sugar, butter and vanilla in a large mixing bowl. Add eggs and beat to combine. Stir in melted chocolate. In a smaller bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. Beat the dry ingredients and the milk into creamed mixture alternating between the two ingredients. Pour batter into a pan (mine is 10 inches around, I think), and bake at 350°F for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in center comes out clean.

Frosting
½ cups butter
2 oz semi-sweet baking chocolate
1 tsp vanilla
⅛ tsp. salt
2-3 tbsp. milk
2½ c. powdered sugar, divided
red hot candies, optional

Melt butter and baking bar in microwave for 45 seconds or on stove top, and stir to mix well. Let cool to room temperature. Beat 1 cup powdered sugar, vanilla and salt into chocolate mixture until creamy. Gradually beat in remaining powdered sugar alternately with milk until smooth. Do not frost the cake until it has cooled for at least 20 minutes. Decorate with red hot candies.

I'll leave you with this shot of Laura and I blowing out the candles on our birthday cake.


making all our wishes come true