Plum-Almond Cake

I have to admit that I've never really cared for plums.  Unless you get a perfect one, they're often tart and mealy.  Although the plums we get in our CSA share are better than most, some of them are less than perfect and my threshold for less-than-perfection in plums is pretty low.

Which is why I put them into a cake.

Matt's Birthday Cake (Carrot Cake with Blueberry Preserves, Blueberry Milk Crumbs, and Cream Cheese Frosting)

Oh, how do I start this one.  For as long as I've known him, I've made my husband Matt a birthday cake that incorporates his favorites - carrot cake, which is his lifelong birthday cake, and blueberries.  Never together though - it's always been carrot cake or some sort of cake with blueberries.

But this year, he deserved the cake to outdo all other cakes.  Carrot cake and blueberries.

Mango-Pistachio Crunch Cake (Mom's Birthday Cake)

Today is my mom's birthday, and what sweeter way to celebrate than with a cake made just to suit her palate. 

My mom loves mango, pistachios, saffron, and cardamom, and I've made her birthday cake using these ingredients in previous years.  But this year, I wanted to shake up this cake, and this is what I came up with.

Frosty's Flipped Fruitcake and The Brooklyn Holiday Experiment

Poor fruitcake. It's always the butt of jokes this time of year, and, unfortunately, for good reason: it's usually dense, booze-soaked but somehow dry in texture, and filled with frightening artificially colored candied fruits. But fruitcake doesn't have to be such a disaster. It can be good - even delicious - if it's approached with a fresh perspective.

Photo from Metromix NY

Last week, I reinvented fruitcake for The Brooklyn Holiday Experiment and with great results - the judges awarded it third place.  Redemption for fruitcake! 

Thai Eggplant Green Curry Chocolate Cake with Coconut-Thai Basil Ice cream

Here it finally is: my slightly belated post about my dessert for Dirt Candy’s 2nd birthday at the end of October. I already detailed how this unique opportunity came about so I’ll save this space for how I came up with the concept for the chosen dessert and, following that, an at-home version of the recipe that I shared with Amanda and staff.

As I previously mentioned, Amanda had asked me at the very end of August to come up with a vegetable-based dessert, thereby giving me nearly six weeks to come up with a concept, test, and finalize it before sending her my recipe the last week of October. Because it was still late summer, my head was wrapped around berries and stone fruit and corn but I quickly realized that those items weren’t really in season in late October (even though they could certainly be sourced at that time) and so I decided against them. Within a week, I was fully certain that I wanted to use one of the namesakes of this blog: eggplant.

Blood Orange Olive Oil Cake with Candied Pistachios

Early March is generally pretty dreary here in NYC - as evidenced by the past few days of horribly grey and wet weather - but there is something that comes around every year at this time to (temporarily) lift the doldrums: citrus. Sure, you can get navel oranges and pink grapefruits year-round, but it's only for this brief period in the late winter that we New Yorkers can readily get our hands on Meyer lemons, blood oranges, Cara Cara oranges, and Key limes.

There's something about these ephemeral citrus species that just works wonders in lifting my mood. Maybe it's their exotic flavors or their fleeting nature, but it always is such a treat to be able to indulge in the sweet, bright, and not-too-tart flavor of the aforementioned fruit. Of them, I'm particularly fond of blood oranges - aside from their wonderful flavor, their ruby red flesh is so dramatic and there's something amazing about a fruit that can stain your hands and your cutting boards.

Happy Diwali!

I know this is a belated sentiment, but better late than never, right? [I have an excuse - I made this cake Saturday evening and didn't get back to my computer until this evening.]

It's a tiny square cake - serves 8 - and, as you can probably tell, it's my signature pistachio-cardamom cake with rosewater frosting. This petite version has dried rosebuds circling the border and ground Turkish pistachios mixed with gold luster dust in the center.

Mojito Cake

Here’s another one from the archives.

I made this for a co-worker’s going away party…which was before Labor Day… Anyhow, I wanted to try something new, and had seen a few recipes for mojito cakes but liked none of them. I concocted this recipe and figured that even if it didn’t come out right, there was enough mint, lime, rum, and frosting going on in this cake to conceal any minor problems.

Kabocha Squash (Pumpkin) Cheesecake with Graham-Lime-Walnut Crust

Pumpkin pie: people either love it or hate it. I, as a lover of all things pumpkin, obviously don’t hate it, but I am very picky about it. Most of them have a bad crust and the filling is usually too sweet and cinnamony (I really don’t like cinnamon). But if it’s made well, it’s oh so good.

A number of years ago, I very briefly worked at a fancy Chinese restaurant at which Pichet Ong was the pastry chef. I absolutely loved, and to this day, still do love, his Asian-inspired desserts. About a year after that, the New York Times printed a wonderful recipe of his a few weeks before Thanksgiving for a twist on the classic pumpkin pie: a Kabocha squash pie. Kabocha squash is among the sweetest varieties of squash (see this NYT article if you don’t believe me), so it lends itself perfectly to dessert. My favorite thing about it is its vibrant orange color - it's very Day-Glo-esqsue. Pichet's pie's filling contains the standard pumpkin pie spices, but is heavier on the ginger than the standard. The crust is perhaps the best part – it’s a graham cracker crust that’s perked up with ginger, lime, and walnuts. The addition of nuts make the crust rich and almost candy-like, and the flavor is just outstanding. Overall, it's a nice little Thai twist.

Lemon Raspberry Cake

I made this cake for a family gathering at my parents’ house a few Saturdays ago. I was initially planning on making a cake version of my Brown Sugar-Hazelnut Cupcakes with Blackberry Frosting, but apparently all the supermarkets my mom went to were conspiring against us, as she was unable to find blackberries at each of the stores she went to that day (and she went to a lot just to find those elusive blackberries). I was informed of this dearth of blackberries while I was at work, and she asked what she should get for my Plan B cake…except I didn’t have a Plan B, so I was forced to come up with one on the spot: Lemon Raspberry Cake.

Perfect White Cake

This has become my favorite white cake recipe – it always comes out moist and delicate with an incredibly fine crumb. One of the perks of this is that you don’t have to beat the egg whites separately, which makes this cake (and cleanup) a whole lot easier than a traditional white cake. The best thing about this cake is that it stays moist for days – I’ve made one too many white cakes that dry out after a day or two – which means that you can bake these cakes a few days in advance and they’ll still have the right texture when it comes time to assemble and serve the cake.

Cake is Awesome! Another review of Charm City Cakes

Yes it is, and the one pictured above most certainly is! (As is written on his head!)

This past Saturday night, Matt and I went to a party hosted by Threadless and Charm City Cakes. Threadless is one of my favorite clothing purveyors - they make t-shirts based on user-submitted designs, and I own far too many of them (such as this, this, and this, and yes, I love giraffes). If you don't know what Charm City Cakes is, check out their website - they're an incredible bakery here in Baltimore that turns out anything but the standard cake, and they have a show on Food Network. But what does Threadless have to do with Charm City Cakes?

Earl Grey Cake with Kumquat Marmalade and Almond Meringue Buttercream

My brother celebrated his birthday last weekend, and, of course, I offered to make him a cake. He loves Earl Grey tea, so he requested that the cake somehow incorporate this flavor. After some brainstorming, I came up with the idea to flavor the cake itself with the tea. I like to make my cakes such that they have some sort of fruit filling and, if it works, some sort of nut on top of a flavored frosting. For this cake, I picked kumquats because their tart citrus flavor would complement the bergamot in the tea, and almonds for their mild nuttiness.

This cake isn’t very hard to make, but, as I learned while making it, you should definitely make the kumquat marmalade in advance – between the slicing and seeding, simmering, reducing of the syrup, and cooling, it takes a good 2 hours. The marmalade can be made up to a week in advance, and you should definitely make it before you start making the cake. (Learn from my mistakes!) 

Mango Kulfi Cake

Here it is – my mom’s birthday cake, which is based on my mango kulfi cupcakes but has been spruced up with the addition of saffron to the cake batter and pistachios between the layers and on top of the cake to make it taste even more like real mango kulfi.

Some of these photos are of the original cake, and some are of the corrected version that I made on Monday (the new cake has three rows of piped stars on the border as opposed to the one row of big stars on the original cake). I wish you could taste this – I am not a big dessert person but I absolutely love this cake and have to restrain myself from devouring the leftovers that are in my fridge.

Bostini Cream Pie - Daring Bakers Challenge

A few months ago, I ran across a blog that is a member of The Foodie Blogroll: The Daring Bakers. Their premise is simple and fun: each month, one member shares a recipe for a baked good and all the other members make it exactly as written (substitutions are only allowed for dietary reasons and for certain flavorings, and the recipe can be scaled down) and then everyone posts their results on their blog on the same day at the end of the month. It was interesting to see how one recipe produced such different results, and, since I bake so much, I thought I’d join.

Baltimore Peach Cake

Apparently peach cake is a bit of a Baltimore institution. I thought our only institutions were Natty Boh and crab cakes. Who knew? There was an article in Urbanite magazine a few months ago about peach cake, and I intended to make the cake using the recipe they provided. I finally got around to it last night, and the results were, well, rather good.

Tropical Dinner Part 6: Kiwi Lime Cheesecake Tartlets

The aforementioned kiwis needed to be used up, and I also had cream cheese in my fridge. So, of course, a kiwi cheesecake was the perfect ending to this meal. I didn’t think kiwis would actually work in the cheesecake filling, so I decided to flavor the filling with lime and top off the cheesecake with the kiwis (which always make for a lovely presentation). 

The crust is a twist on a standard graham cracker crust for a cheesecake, and it’s the one I use for my Asian-inflected pumpkin pie, which is now my annual contribution to my family’s Thanksgiving dinner (although in recent years, I’ve been contributing most of the meal, too!)