202. Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting p.726
The recipe courtesy of The Ulterior Epicure
Sometimes the stars just don’t align, and the baking Gods abandon you for a day. I’ve learned a lot about cooking and baking through this project, and I’ve gotten to a point where I rarely make the boneheaded mistakes that plagued my early experiments, but there’s always room to [...]
184. Katharine Hepburn’s Brownies p.688
The recipe
You know who I have an irrational dislike for? Katharine Hepburn. I know she’s one of the best respected and beloved actresses of all time, and the Oscar winningest lady ever, but she just drives me nuts. Admittedly I haven’t seen much of her work, but one film is all it took. In Bringing [...]
172. Brown Sugar-Ginger Crisps p.665
The recipe
I made these cookies in the middle of a cookie-baking frenzy, I was buying ingredients for about five different types, with a couple of backup shopping lists in case I couldn’t find all the stuff for the first tier cookies. Somehow the crystallized ginger that this recipe called for never made it into the [...]
171. Mexican Tea Cakes p.673
The recipe
While there’s nothing particularly Mexican about these tea cakes, they’re an international favorite for good reason. I’ve always heard these cookies called Russian Tea Cakes, and they mostly seem to be made by older eastern European women at bake sales and Christmas fairs. As children, these were the cookies that we ignored on the [...]
160. Cranberry Walnut Tart p.786
The recipe
Cooking is a learning process, and a lot of lessons just need to be learned the hard way. There are a host of excellent kitchen habits that food educators are desperate for us to get into, such as, reading the recipe all the way through, verifying that you have all the ingredients, doing things [...]
154. Chocolate Sour Cream Frosting p.726
The recipe
As I mentioned yesterday I’m not a huge fan of icing on cakes. As a result, my icing skills suck. I’m far more likely to bake a cake, and sprinkle it with powdered sugar, or cocoa than make icing. If I do decide to top a cake, I prefer to use flavoured whipped cream. [...]
153. Golden Cake with Chocolate-Sour Cream Frosting p.725
The recipe
This cake and its frosting are separate recipes, so I’ll only be tackling the cake in this post. That’s fine by me. I’m sure I’ve mentioned that I’m not really a frosting person. For me, the icing is just getting in the way of the cake. There are icings I like more (buttercream) and [...]
144. Coffee Coffee Cake with Espresso Glaze p.644
The recipe
I brought this cake to a brunch at a friend’s last spring. I’m going to have a difficult time giving it a fair rating, because I had horrible seasonal allergies and couldn’t taste anything. I barely remember the brunch, and had to leave after about an hour. My head was so muddled that I’d [...]
132. Blueberry Muffins p.641
The recipe
My dining companion has been doing a lot of driving for work over the past few months, and I’ve been looking for little treats that travel well to send along with her. These muffins looked like they’d fit the bill, and I was pleased to discover that they’re not just portable, they’re tasty. They’ve [...]
128. Streusel-Sour Cream Coffee Cakes p.645
Unfortunately there’s no recipe online.
The Book has a deep and abiding affection for streusel-toppings. I suspect that if the cooks at the Gourmet test kitchen leave their batter alone for too long, they’ll find that Ruth Reichl has snuck in and covered it in streusel. I don’t particularly have anything against streusel toppings, they add [...]
