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.

Gluten-Free Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

I think I need to take a computer course. Isn’t that ridiculous? Isn’t my generation supposed to be naturally computer savvy?

Unfortunately I seem to have missed out on the “computer genius” gene and I’ve been struggling with uploading pictures off my camera (among other things). The program just shuts down every time I plug in the camera. I feel like I spend at least 75% of my day troubleshooting cursing at my computer and it makes me want to unplug it, toss it out the window, and move to the country. 

Am I crazy or are there other people out there who feel like technology is sometimes frequently more trouble than it's worth? I feel really old and crabby saying that but it's true, I hate computers.

I'm very frustrated because I had this great post planned for you guys; with some pictures from my race on Saturday (my boat placed second), a few scenes from opening day at the farmer’s market (I bought 5lbs of honey), and these delicious cookies I made for my rowers. I've been putting off posting about these things since Saturday because I can't seem to get the pictures off my camera. At this point I didn't want to wait any longer to share these cookies with you, so I've decided to post without pictures and update when I'm finally able to load them.
Edit: I was able to get pictures of the cookies off my camera but now I'm having trouble again so no market pictures.

Gluten-Free Almond Chocolate Chip Cookies

Adapted from Elana's Pantry. Yields about 24 Cookies.

I'm not allergic to gluten, nor are any of the guys who I made these cookies for but I’ve been wanting to try baking almond meal for a while. Unfortunately, the only company available in Binghamton is Bob’s Red Mill and I’ve read only bad reviews about it (dry, crumbly etc) – plus it’s about  $10 a pound. The Trader Joe’s* brand, however, is significantly cheaper and has a much better texture. It is a meal and not a flour so its not very finely ground but it adds great texture to cookies or a sturdier cake – just don’t try to make angel food cake with it.

These have a softer chewier texture, more like an oatmeal cookie. I received nothing but positive feedback on them but I want to cut down on the fat content - 10g per cookie is a bit high for me but that's due to the almonds. Since I'm not concerned with keeping them gluten-free, I'm going to try replacing a small portion of the almond meal with whole wheat flour. If you want to maintain the gluten-free properties but still want to cut down on fat, I suspect oat flour would do the trick nicely. However, If you want to replace more than 1 cup of the almond meal, you'll also need to increase the oil to replace the fat lost from the almonds.

These cookies are only slightly sweet so if you prefer yours sweeter I would suggest using maple syrup instead of honey or even half syrup, half honey. The syrup will add a slightly different almost caramelized flavor.

2 ½ cups almond meal**

1/2 teaspoon baking soda


1/2 teaspoon salt


1/2 cup honey (see headnotes)

1/2 cup light olive oil

1 tablespoon vanilla extract


1/2 cup extra dark chocolate chips***

Preheat oven to 350F

Combine all ingredients, except the chocolate chips, in a medium bowl. Mix well. Mix in chocolate chips and refrigerate for 20 minutes. On parchment-lined baking sheet, drop round (generous) tablespoonfuls of dough, spacing 2 inches apart. If dough seems dry and rigid, flatten a bit. If you like ultra chewy cookies, flatten dough into discs before baking.

Bake for 7-9 minutes, until lightly golden (If you like crisper cookies, bake 9-10 minutes.). It's important to let them cool on baking sheet for a full 10-20 minutes to set, otherwise they will just fall apart.

Notes

*The last time I was on Long Island I got a little carried away at Trader Joe's since we don't have one in Binghamton - I think I bought something like 9 pounds of almond meal. Oops.

**Be sure to store an opened bag of almond meal in the fridge or even the freezer so that it does not go rancid from the fat.

***I've been hearing a lot of good reviews on Guittard chocolate so I bought a bag of their extra dark chocolate chips. The result? They were good, but i prefer the larger size and flatter shape of my usual Ghirardelli 60% Dark chips.