Only on your birthday.

In a perfect world I could serve a cake with one slice missing. I could make a cake in the daylight hours, cut a slice out and spend 20 minutes taking pictures, changing settings, creating the scene around the plate. In this way I could photograph properly; in the right light, at my leisure, before people arrive instead of quickly rushing to snap pictures and then scurrying off with a slice for a rushed mini photo shoot while everyone else eats and mingles. If I could just take one slice out I wouldn't have to worry that my pictures won't come out in the dim evening light. If I could just take one slice out, I could even put it back untouched. I could be clever about it and spread the frosting just so.* Then no one would notice right away. They may, however, find it strange when they don't see me snapping away at the shutter and would quickly discover what had transpired. Of course since it's a perfect world, it would be okay.  

However, since we don't live in a perfect world, and I can't actually take a slice out of a cake made for someone else, I reserve this right for my own birthday cake. 

It's my birthday, it's my cake, I made it, I do what I want. 

I took a piece out this afternoon, photographed it and ate it, right there as I was lying on the floor with the camera. Then without even thinking twice I cut another one and ate that too. 

If I had predicted what part of this cake I would like best I easily would have guessed the frosting; but when I tasted it, it was not the frosting, but the actual cake that demanded another taste. Sure the frosting complemented it nicely but it was the cake that I wanted to keep eating bite by delectable bite.

I'm not sure why I made a carrot cake. It's certainly not my favorite cake but something pulled me to it. When I thought of what I would make for today, I didn't even blink twice. This was it, I was certain - I wanted this cake. My mouth must have already known the warm autumn flavor that awaits, my nose already taking in the rich cinnamon emanating from my oven and lingering on as it bakes. I think it was the frosting that caught my attention, after all what sounds better than fresh ricotta lightly sweetened with maple syrup?? In the end though, the frosting was a bit disappointing, forgettable, the maple flavor almost too faint to detect. On the other hand the cake, well the cake was perfect. Moist and richly flavored with cinnamon, the prefect texture thanks to finely ground carrots instead of coarsely grated. I did as Shannalee suggested and baked it the day before to let the flavors come together, don't skip this step and you too will posses a deep seated need to cut a slice (or two) before you serve it to anyone else. Just remember, only on your birthday.

*This is sort of like the cut-a-piece-of-cake-from-middle-and-fill-it-with-frosting trick 

Spelt Carrot Cake

Adapted from Ripe the Organic Grocer via Food Loves Writing

I used a 10-inch spring form pan because I didn't want to buy a 9-inch round - either works fine.

Replace the white whole wheat flour with white spelt flour to make this gluten free. Next time I might even just try 100% whole grain spelt flour.

1 cup white whole wheat flour

1 cup whole grain spelt flour

2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 1/2 cups raw turbinado sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

3 large eggs

3/4 cup olive oil

1 pound carrots processed finely in a food processor

Preheat the oven to 350° F. Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, mix eggs lightly. Make a well in the center of the dry ingredients, and add egg and oil, and mix through. Add grated carrot, then mix till combined. Bake in a greased nine-inch-round cake pan lined with greased parchment paper, for around 35 to 45 minutes. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from tin.

Ricotta Maple Frosting

To address my disappointment in the frosting - next time I'm going to try smoothing out the ricotta in a food processor and straining it in cheesecloth (the way I would for cannoli filling). Then beating it with vanilla and maple syrup and gradually adding just a bit of powered sugar to thicken it as needed. If its not too thin without the powered sugar then I'll leave that out and add 1 extra tablespoon of maple syrup instead. For now I have left the recipe as is.

2 cups fresh ricotta

3 tablespoons pure maple syrup

1 teaspoon vanilla

Mix ingredients together with a spoon

Frost cake.

Not my best idea.

If you had been in my kitchen last week, when I was grating up a zucchini, you probably would have said "Hey, putting zucchini in your chocolate chip cookies is not one of the best ideas you've ever had", and you know what? You would have been right. However, I had a lot of zucchini to use up when I stumbled across this recipe from Barbara Kingsolver's book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (not one of the best books I've read either). The idea seemed interesting and I did want to get rid of that zucchini. She swears it's completely undetectable and even kid tested. I don't know what kids she's been feeding these to because, I have a high tolerance for odd, healthy things in my baked goods and I certainly taste the zucchini. That being said, I don't really mind it. It tastes like chocolate chip zucchini bread in the form of cookies. In fact, even the texture is fairly similar; A little too soft and cake-y for my taste (although some people like soft cake-y cookies so that's not necessarily bad). 

Would I make them again? Probably not. I don't actually like zucchini bread all that much. If zucchini bread is your favorite summer cake - these cookies were made for you. If you prefer to keep your vegetables out of your dessert, try making my favorite chocolate chip cookies and click here for an easy way to use up that zucchini.

Lucky for me, I have the best friends in the world (aka. hungry boys who will eat anything that fits the criteria 'free' and 'homemade' and most things that don't). Either they really did like them, or they are just good at being supportive because they ate every last one.

Zucchini Chocolate Chip Cookies

From Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Makes about two dozen

1 egg, beaten

1⁄2 cup butter, softened

1⁄2 cup brown sugar

1/3 cup honey

1 tbsp. vanilla extract 

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1⁄2 tsp baking soda 

1⁄4 tsp salt 

1⁄4 tsp cinnamon

1⁄4 tsp nutmeg

1 cup finely shredded zucchini 

12 oz chocolate chips Stir these into other ingredients, mix well. Drop by spoonful onto greased baking sheet, and flatten with the back of a spoon. Bake at 350°, 10 to 15 minutes.

Beyond any muffin.

I never liked scones.

They are almost always too dry or too doughy, usually too dense and inevitably resemble crumbly lead balls. Appearance is no help either - generally the more appealing they look the worse they taste. If I bothered to eat them more frequently I may occasionally stumble across one worth eating but, since the odds are never in my favor, I usually don't chance it.

In spite of this, my dad brought home freshly baked blueberry scones from Fairway a few weeks ago. He piled them in a basket along side the croissants and a few oversized muffins and plopped them on the counter with a grin. We usually agree that Fairway's baked goods are not very good; but these came out of the oven just before he scooped them up and maybe it was my imagination, but they were almost still warm when I broke into one.

They had a crisp sugared exterior and instead of the typical smooth triangular cut, they had rustic craggy shape. They looked better than any scone I've ever seen which, if going by my past scone experiences, means they should have tasted awful. Yet against all better judgment I took a bite and unleashed a new found love for scones.

I'm almost sorry I did. 

Almost.

The perfectly crystalized crust yielded to a tender crumb and the blueberries whispered their praise for summer with each plump berry. The contrast of crust to to crumb elevated it way beyond any muffin and I happily ate one, completely plain, while thinking of all the scone recipes I've skimmed and never really given a fair chance. Now I remembered one in particular that caught my eye. 

I settled on this recipe over all the rest because it uses buttermilk instead of cream which adds a nice tanginess and rounds out the flavor. It also cuts down on the fat but that's really only a drop in the bucket since there is still a full cup of butter per twelve scones. I also like that it recipe doesn't require rolling out the dough. This means less mess to clean up plus the less you handle the dough the less likely the final result will be tough. 

If we're being honest, I also just really like pictures. I'm far more likely to make a recipe if the picture looks good and, as I've said before, The Big Sur Bakery Cookbook is one of the most beautiful around. 

Blueberry Scones
I replaced some of the flour with whole wheat pastry flour with no trouble, next time I will probably cut out all of the white flour and replace some of it with rye flour or regular whole wheat flour. If you don't have buttermilk you can replace it with the usual milk/vinegar combination. Just place 1 cup of milk in a cup with 1 tablespoon of vinegar. Let stand 5 minutes and use the required amount. The dough will seem a little dry at first and it ended up being much easier to forgo the wooden spoon and just mix gently with my hands. Try not to handle the dough too much to avoid tough scones. These are best eaten the same day.
Adapted from the Big Sur Bakery Cookbook/Makes 12 Large Scones

1 cup fresh blueberries

1 cup cold unsalted butter, cubed

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 cup turbinado sugar

1 tablespoon baking powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

2 tablespoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup low-fat buttermilk

extra turbinado sugar to sprinkle on the tops

About 2 hours before making the scones, scatter the berries on a cookie sheet and put in the freezer.

Put cubed butter, flours, 1 cup turbinado sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a mixing bowl, put the bowl in the freezer and leave it there for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, preheat the oven to 375 degrees and 2 baking sheets with parchment paper (I ran out so I just sprayed mine pan really well with olive oil to keep them from sticking).

Using a pastry cutter, or in my case a potato masher - which i don't recommend, work the chilled ingredients together in the bowl until the butter cubes are the size of peas. Make a well in the center. combine the buttermilk and vanilla in a separate bowl, and pour the mixture into the well. Mix the ingredients with a wooden spoon to form a shaggy mass. Add the frozen berries and gently mix them in trying not to crush them.

To shape the scones, place a 3-inch round cookie or biscuit cutter on one corner of the prepared baking sheet. Take a handful of the dough and press it into the cutter patting it down so that the top of the scone is flat. Pull the cutter off the sheet leaving the scone behind. Repeat the process across the sheet, keeping enough space between scones for them to double in size, until you've use all of the dough. I fit 6 per sheet and made 12 scones total.

Sprinkle the tops of the scones with turbinado sugar and bake for 15-20 minutes, until they're golden brown along the sides but still tender inside. Transfer the scones to a cooling rack and let them sit for at least 10 minutes before serving.

All pictures (excluding the last two) courtesy of Katherine Hamilton.

To be a pie.

I ate about a kilogram of cherries on several occasions in both Armenia and Georgia and I really thought I was sick of them. That was before I came across tubs of sour cherries in the Union Square Greenmarket on friday. They were sleek, shiny red and mouth puckeringly tart. They just begged with every ounce of their little cherry souls to be taken home. They wanted desperately to be a pie so of course I bought several pounds and made one. 


After all, there's few things more perfect for a 4th of July beach party and bonfire. 

Sour Cherry Pie

You will have a little pie crust leftover but it freezes well and can be saved to make a small free-form pie or some mini turnovers. I replaced half of the flour with half whole-wheat pastry flour
Makes 1 10-inch pie

4 batches of Williams-Sonoma Basic Pie Dough, divided into 2 pieces for a bottom and top crust

5lbs pitted sour cherries

1-1/4 cups turbinado sugar

6 tablespoons cornstarch

a pinch of kosher salt

3 tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into small pieces.

1 egg

Extra sugar for sprinkling on top

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.

Prepare the pie crust according to the instructions.

Beat the egg and set aside.

Toss the cherries with the sugar, cornstarch and salt.

Pour the cherries into the bottom crust and scatter the butter pieces over the top.

Brush the edge of the crust with the egg and top with the second crust.

Pinch the edges and crimp with a fork.

Brush the top with the egg and sprinkle with sugar.

With a sharp knife, cut four steam vents into the top of the pie.

Bake for 15 minutes at 425 then turn the oven down to 375 degrees. Bake for another 50-60 minutes.

If the top or the edges begin to get to dark, cover them with tin foil.

Be sure to place a baking sheet on the rack below the pie to catch any juices that spill out.

Let cool at least a few hours before serving.

Better than Nutella

Nutella is one of those foods that I just won't buy. Not since my freshman year in college anyway. Back then I bought it twice or three times when I first moved into the dorms. I ate it on everything from toast to fruit and it was especially good right off a spoon directly from the jar. Of course each jar disappeared all too quickly (a week or less a piece), and I decided Nutella was a food better left in Supermarket. 

The next three years went by without so much as a thought of, or even craving for Nutella until one misty morning in early 2009. I was in India, in the city of Varanasi (formerly known as Benaras). I sat down to breakfast and on the table was a jar of Nutella and a basket of bread. I remembered it's smooth, creamy texture and immediately toasted a slice of bread, spread a thick layer of the dreamy, chocolatey, goodness and took a bite. It was just as I'd remembered it. Better, actually, because by then I had been in India for over two weeks and I was definitely missing familiar foods. I ate a few more slices, closed the jar and went about the next year as I had the past three. 

Then one day this past February, I made my own Nutella. I figured if I made it myself, I can control what goes into it. I can make the main ingredient nuts instead of sugar, I can leave out the preservatives and I can certainly leave out the hydrogenated oils. My first attempt came out alright. I used a tiny food processor and the texture wasn't spectacular. I used honey for the sweetener and it lent a taste that I said I didn't mind, but later decided wasn't my favorite. Last but not least every recipe I looked at had added oil so I added a bit as well - just to try to smooth it out. The result was good and I was completely thrilled with it at the time, but I didn't find myself making it again. In fact, I pretty much forgot about Nutella altogether, until I spied an especially delicious looking chocolate croissant in the bakery the other day. It reminded me of when I used to eat croissants slathered with the stuff in high school. 


I decided to try again. 
Only this time, it would be different. 
This time, it would be better.
This time, it would be so good, I wouldn't even call it Nutella.
This time, it would be better than Nutella.

I used an 11-cup food processor, powdered sugar and no added oil. After all, the nuts have plenty of oil in them already and that really should be sufficient. It turns out I was right. Just 4 ingredients made the best chocolate-hazelnut spread I've ever tasted with less fat, calories and sugar than Nutella.

Better than Nutella

It's important to use a food processor with a capacity of 11-cups or larger otherwise the nuts will not smooth out properly. Makes about 1 1/2 cups

2 cups hazelnuts

1/4 cup natural unsweetened cocoa powder

6 tablespoons powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Place hazelnuts in a single layer on a shallow baking pan. Toast until the skins are almost black and the meat is dark brown, about 15 minutes. Stir the nuts halfway through baking to ensure an even color.

Since the skin is bitter, you’ll want to discard them. Wrap the cooled hazelnuts in a clean kitchen towel or paper towel, and rub until most of the skins have come off. Don’t worry if you can’t get off all the skins.

Process nuts in a food processor, scraping down the sides of the bowl occasionally, until they have liquefied, about 5 minutes. First, you will get coarsely chopped nuts, then a fine meal. After a little while, the nuts will form a ball around the blade, and it will seem like you only have a solid mass. Keep processing. The heat and friction will extract the natural oils, and you will get hazelnut butter.

When the nuts are liquified, add the cocoa and vanilla.
Next add the powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time until the mixture reaches your desired texture and sweetness. Make sure you scrape down the sides in between

Note: First two paragraphs of the instructions are from Jessica at Su Good Sweets.