I was gifted with a piano tuning and some hand-picked, organic, Mount Vernon-grown Jonagold apples. There’s nothing quite as pleasant on a rainy fall day as a warm house with the aroma of something delicious baking in the oven. Those three points are related. Today, while raking up another huge pile of those autumn leaves … More Celebrate Fall? Baked Jonagolds with Caramel Rum Ice Cream
A friend whose birthday was last week asked, when I offered to make it, that I choose which chocolate cake to bake. Her husband told me long ago that she is very fond of dark chocolate, so I decided to make a 3-layer devil’s food cake using strong coffee as the liquid, and to double … More Triple Chocolate Mocha Cake, aka Chocolate Coffee Cake
There’s still rhubarb in some local gardens, even after the big Rhubarb Cake with Cinnamon Sugar that I made last week for the Bon Voyage/Happy Birthday and block party. I’ve been promising this bread all season, and today was the day. I made it last year with pecans but followed the original recipe* this time … More Rhubarb Tea Bread with Hard Flour
Who thinks the title is a joke? It’s not, at least it’s not a joke if you don’t have a kitchen maid or if your local grocer doesn’t carry raspberry coulis. A couple hours of picking non-sprayed, local garden-grown raspberries, then a couple more hours of squishing and twice sieving six cups of berries to … More 5-Hour Raspberry Mousse Pie
In honor of Formula 1 Monaco today, I baked the third different rhubarb cake of the season, gratitude redounding to my niece for a link to someone else’s recipe for a cranberry upside-down cake*. After all, it’s often someone else’s recipe that gets adapted to palate preference or due to an ingredient gone missing from … More Rhubarb-Orange Upside-Down Cake
One of my nieces sent me a recipe for an upside-down cranberry cake from another blog in which the author said she sometimes makes it with rhubarb. I bookmarked it with the intention of making it today, along with a batch of rhubarb ice cream.* However, this morning when I clicked the link, it had … More Spring Rhubarb Cake with Rhubarb Ice Cream
Leftover Peeps? Shaved coconut in the fridge ready for toasting and this cake? I think it could be a new tradition since 3-layer coconut cake with cream cheese icing is one of those cakes which doesn’t get as much play as others. We’ll see how it works out next year. It’s worth making just for … More Peeps-a-boo Toasted Coconut Cake
So many photos of baked items are shades and bumps of brown because … well, baking. Muffins are a good example. No matter what you put in them to give them flavor or texture, they come out of the oven brown on top, so I shoot fixings. Sure, the close-up isn’t exactly brown but I … More Ginger, Date & Clementine Muffins with Orange Glaze & Tulips
The mother of a neighbor child asked me to make her daughter’s birthday cake again this year. She wanted a three-layer cake with two white layers, top and bottom, a chocolate layer in the middle and with vanilla buttercream filling, top and sides, to provide cake for 18-20 people. I said that a 9″ cake … More Feliz Cumpleanos, otherwise Happy Birthday without the tilde
Having seen a friend’s post on Facebook yesterday concerning the requirements for items children bring to school to share on Valentine’s Day, I had sighed a little sigh. No gluten. No dairy. No peanuts or tree nuts. No candy. No sugar. Shortly thereafter, I agreed by text to an order of baked goodies for Valentine’s … More Valentine Goodies for children to take to school, now with gluten, dairy
Ms Chef in Seattle 