Although I’ve had them bookmarked for over a year, I’d been hesitating to make these cookies, thinking they might be too simple and old-fashioned for my (ha ha) discriminating tastes. Well, they do look a little plain, don’t they? And I think it was a rather grave error for Gourmet to publish the recipe in their January 2008 issue — I mean, I’m sure they’re just fine in winter, but honestly, these are summer cookies all the way, ones that beg to be eaten in stifling heat while searching for a breeze on one of those big wraparound porches that old Victorian houses have. And maybe with a loyal dog nearby to snuffle up the crumbs? Ah, but my apartment kitchen (with a little imagination thrown in) makes a pretty nice spot, too.

When I brought them to work, I was surprised to discover that these were some of the most well-received cookies I’ve ever made. Even the coworker who is very picky and usually shies away from the sweets I bring in thought they were wonderful. I suppose that with so many exotic ingredients and decadent combinations featured in cookbooks and food blogs these days, it can be easy to lose sight of recipes like this that seem to come from a different era, before 65% cacao and açai became common parlance. I’m not saying that one is better than the other, but sometimes it feels good to be reminded of the value of restraint. I think Antoine de Saint-Exupery says it best:

“Perfection is reached, not when there is no longer anything to add, but when there is no longer anything to take away.”

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Baking | 6 Comments »

Four. That’s the number of times I’d tried to make Lori Longbotham’s Ultimate Lemon Pound Cake. It’s also the number of times I have been reduced to a quivering, demoralized failure on account of it. The thing never — and I mean never — would come out of the pan for me, and it would either be too brown on the outside or mush inside. While the cake does make an excellent base for trifle, I’d begun to have a highly antagonistic, somewhat unhealthy relationship with the recipe. I couldn’t stop myself from going back to it every now and then, hoping that all those past misunderstandings could be left aside, one of us would finally realize the error of our ways, and the cake would come out perfectly. Maybe we all have recipes like that…for whatever reason, the stars never line up correctly and they fail over and over, while you sit dolefully in the corner and whack your head against the butcher block, wondering what you keep doing wrong.

While some may be tempted to stretch that metaphor even further (to personal relationships, perhaps?), let me say instead that unlike my dear Moz, I did get what I wanted this time. At least in terms of pound cake. And I am here to sing the praises of Ultimate Lemon Pound Cake at last. Whether it was that whispered incantation over the Kitchenaid, the half-inch of Crisco I smeared on the pan so the bloody thing wouldn’t stick again, or just dumb luck, who cares — victory is mine, all mine!

I suppose my slightly unhinged gushing might sound a bit silly to someone who is lucky to never screw up a recipe, or who (wisely?) doesn’t keep returning to one that only makes her feel like a schlump. But there are few things sweeter than the rush of success after many failures, so I intend to milk this little triumph for as long as possible. The cake has a beautifully tight golden crumb and delicious tart lemony flavor, thanks to being generously soaked in lemon syrup. Since I made the cake for a party, I added a cosmetically-enhancing confectioner’s sugar glaze, but it was really unnecessary as the cake is lemony and delicious enough without it.

I think I’ve said about enough, though — it really is just about perfect. And maybe striving for perfection really can pay off, as long as you don’t mind pounding away a little dignity in exchange.

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Baking | 7 Comments »

I spent a recent weekend in DC for the cherry blossom festival, and was fortunate to have absolutely splendid weather and even lovelier company. Although it wasn’t necessarily a food-centric trip, I did get to visit the Dupont Circle farmer’s market (next time I’m bringing a cooler!), and an adorable bistro called Montmartre that had excellent moules with chorizo. One of the friends that I stayed with also gave me some containers of duck fat that she’d brought back from her home in Bordeaux. Let me say that it is wonderful to meet someone new who within four hours knows me well enough to understand why I would get excited about a jar of fat. Duck confit, anyone?

Before my little retreat, though, I made a big batch of caramel bars to liven up some stressed-out, anxious-for-spring moods. These are probably rich enough to be called candies, but who says you can’t celebrate spring with rich caramel and dark chocolate? The recipe was particularly interesting in that that it uses some ingredients that are a little atypical for me — the base is made with saltine crackers (!) and the caramel layer uses condensed milk — not from my normal camp of obsessively-made-from-scratch endeavors. But I was sweetly rewarded for not turning my nose up at these little gems. They are hardly less elegant looking (or tasting) than the usual make-your-own caramel bars, and so bloody easy it’s practically a crime not to have them in your repertoire, especially for holidays or times when you need to feed a lot of people on short notice. Perhaps if forced to choose, I’d admit a slight preference toward the make-you-own version, but that’s not to say I wouldn’t make these again in a heartbeat. I squirreled a container away in the freezer to nibble on, cold, when my caramel jones strikes at odd hours.

The bars are very rich, so I recommend cutting them into quarters. The recipe makes quite a bit — around 40 bite-size bars — so they really are perfect for a crowd.

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Baking, Candy Land, Eating Elsewhere | 6 Comments »

So much for the attempt to revitalize myself from hibernation mode. I don’t know if I’m the only one who felt this way, but February sure was rough. It wasn’t because of any specific personal difficulty — I just found myself struck with a rotten case of that most Februaryish of moods: general malaise. And it seems to have taken nearly all of March to recover…which isn’t so bad, really, since that’s the month when spring officially comes to town and birthdays of friends and family start appearing on the calendar. If March ever fails to get me back on my feet again, I’ll know it’s time to think about moving South.

So I made these chocolate Guinness cupcakes, not for St. Paddy’s day, but for a tipply colleague who requested Guinness cake for her birthday. They don’t taste alcoholic at all; the Guinness just contributes a bit of maltiness and depth. You can use any stout, of course, not just Guinness, but since I don’t usually keep beer in the house, I stopped at a bar on the way home to get a can. Let me issue a warning that going up to a bar and ordering one can of Guinness to go might have some unintended consequences, such as the bartender looking at you sympathetically and asking “Just one can? To go? Are you having a good day, sweetie?” Good grief. Maybe I should have told him it was for my “secret experiment”.

Anyway, although there are several recipes for Guinness cake out there, I decided to use Nigella’s recipe. It seemed to be one of the most popular of the bunch, with the added bonus of an honest-to-goodness pastry chef endorsement: Shuna of Eggbeater wrote about it earlier this month. She’s spot on when she says that the cake is incredibly moist and sticky, not to mention having one of the easiest preparation methods ever. They were a big hit with everyone. I love these cupcakes with their tangy cream cheese frosting, but I bet they’d look pretty slick with a shiny chocolate glaze, too.

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Baking | 3 Comments »

If these look slightly familiar, it’s true — they’re a hazelnut version of the almond and chocolate sandwich cookies I made about a year ago. It’s a great, simple recipe for sandwich cookies, and notable because you don’t have to roll the cookies out. That’s right, the only thing I dislike about making sandwich cookies has been completely eliminated! And if you have a very small scoop (like this one), there’s really no excuse at all not to make them.

When I first tasted the cookies, I worried that the toasted hazelnut might have been little bit too bitter, especially combined with a thick filling of bittersweet chocolate, but my co-workers sure proved me wrong. To my delight, everyone wolfed them down in a snap, so I clearly shouldn’t underestimate them! Like many of my favorite recipes, this one is open to play and variation, which makes them all the more fun. Try other nuts, and fill them with whatever you like - dulce de leche, Nutella, raspberry jam…or how about some ice cream for tiny ice cream sandwiches?

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Baking, General | 10 Comments »

Hello there. It’s been a little while since I stopped by these parts, and certainly longer than planned, although I do feel somewhat refreshed now. A break was definitely in order after Thanksgiving. I can’t stay long, though, since there are even now so many things on the schedule this weekend: Christmas shopping to do, Christmas returns to make (already!), work parties, gaming day, chocolate to buy, a trip to Tazza D’Oro to replenish my coffee stash, and somewhere in the middle of all that, laundry.

Right now I don’t much feel like doing any of it, although I do feel like remembering how pleased I was with the banana cupcakes made earlier in the week (and wishing I’d squirrelled one away in the freezer for right now). You might remember that I used to be a cupcake-hater, but, ahem, let’s just say that the times, they are a changin’. Now, I do like cupcakes, although the caveat is that they have to be made by me rather than by a bakery, so I can obsessively limit the quantity and sweetness of their frosting. But these little fellas have the kind of frosting that I don’t usually consider when thinking about frosting: cream cheese. I guess I didn’t realize this before, but I can eat much more cream cheese frosting than nearly any other kind. And when this very frosting is twirled atop a bite of moist, banana-cardamom cupcake, I can make the sacrifice to eat a little more than my share, just to make sure everything turned out right.

The cupcake recipe is based on one from, well, I don’t actually remember…maybe Cupcake Project? I’ve made them a few times and they’re just wonderful - they even stay a nice shade of pale rather than getting brown like banana bread. After frosting them, I sprinkled the tops with a fine grating of nutmeg, which really sent them over the top for me, although it’s not completely necessary. The recipe makes slightly more than a dozen (around 16 for me), which is an ideal number for a smallish get-together of people who maybe sometimes like a second helping.

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Baking | 15 Comments »