Add a little spice
November 1, 2015 § Leave a comment
Since enrolling in several design classes this fall, my cooking has taken a haphazard turn. Meals thrown together when I get home from class at 11 p.m. or pieced together in the office kitchen that’s large enough to just turn around, twice—provided there’s no one else trying to cook too.
So the huge kitchen we moved into in September hasn’t gotten as much use as I had imagined. Still, there have been Sunday pizza afternoons, numerous apple crisps, a birthday cake (that I didn’t even make!), and tons of large-portioned, casserole pan dishes meant to last the entire week. I had a chance to make the Bon Appétit October cover cake a few weeks ago and it had such an intriguing flavor profile—pomegranate molasses, cardamon, orange zest, caramel soaked pears—that I wondered why I don’t make recipes from magazines more often.
This fall, I have been relishing time outside, going out of my way to crunch in the leaves and taking that few extra minutes to just breathe in real, fresh air. When you spend most days and nights staring at grids and adjusting alignments to a minuscule point, you need it.
But as exhausting as it’s been, the past two months have been incredibly rewarding. I get to play with patterns and fonts and get real feedback from fellow designers. I’ve met people who are just as particular about color palettes and lines as I am, and that sense of community in itself has made these classes worthwhile.
So no recipe today, but please do make Bon Appétit‘s spiced pear upside-down cake! It’s sweet, but not very sweet, unexpected, and you get the added satisfaction of nailing the cake flip. That is, if you do nail it.
Cranberry Upside-down Cake
December 13, 2011 § 1 Comment
I’m pretty vocal about cake. Notably about not liking most cakes. If I eat a cupcake, it’s for the salted buttercream frosting. If I eat a layer cake, it’s either because I’m starving or I can’t resist a sugar rush. But if I slice off a sliver of a dense, vanilla cake topped with gooey, caramelized brown sugar and sticky, candylike, tart cranberries and pop it on top of the toaster for added warmth and crunch, you can believe that I really want to eat that cake.
I made this back in late-November but somehow December has turned into a whirlwind of papers and projects and now finally, just as winter break is about to start, internship applications and you never saw it. Somehow (don’t look at me!) nothing has been posted in almost half a month. And I’m here to rectify this, because really if you wanted to stray from the cranberry sauce but stick to the cranberries, this showstopper wouldn’t be out of place on your holiday dessert table. Sure it has imperfections; the bright cranberries balloon out on the surface like tiny pieces of confetti tossed in the air, the sticky sugar top (or bottom depending on how you look at) flows like syrup around everything in sight when you flip the pan, and it is so laden with fruit and liquid that the cake itself threatens to split down the middle when still warm if you don’t call in reinforcements. But the eye won’t be able to stray from it to the other competing desserts on the table. This I swear. Plus, who doesn’t like cake you can toast and eat for breakfast for days afterward?
Soufflé Days 