Plum & Strawberry Cobbler Cake

Yeah....It's been stupidly long since I updated. Life happens. Well, I made a hybrid of two of my favorite recipes from last summer, and here we go. It's great with coffee or tea. The cake is very dense, the cobbler is buttery and the plums are tart and light. I think it's a pretty nice balance.

Plum & Strawberry Cobbler Cake

For the Cake:

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

¼ tsp salt

½ tsp cinnamon

1 cup unsalted butter @ room temperature

1 cup + 1 tbsp sugar

2 large eggs

1/3 cup milk

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat the oven to 400º.

Line the bottom of a springform pan with parchment paper and grease thoroughly with butter.

Whisk dry ingredients , set aside. Cream sugar & butter, Beat in the eggs one at a time, then half of flour, then the milk and vanilla, then the remaining flour. Pour into buttered pan. Set aside.

For the Fruit layer:

6-8 plums , sliced

¾ cup chopped strawberries

½ cup blueberries

1/3 cup sugar

1 ½ tbsp cornstarch

¾ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

Whisk the sugar, cornstarch, and spices. Add the cut fruit and stir well. Pour onto the cake batter. Set aside.

For the Cobbler layer:

¾ cup all purpose flour

1/3 cup sugar

¾ tsp baking powder

1/3 tsp salt

¾ tsp cinnamon

6 tbsp butter, sliced and frozen

2 tbsp cold milk

½ tsp vanilla

In the bowl from the fruit, still all fruity, whisk the dry ingredients. Cut in the butter until the size of peas, then barely stir in the milk & vanilla. Drop in crumbles on the fruit layer.

Place in the center of the oven and bake for 45-60 minutes or until golden brown and doesn’t wiggle when moved.

Let cool completely before removing from springform pan. Keep refrigerated.

Banana Pancakes

What, more pancakes? Look, if you have people over for brunch as often as I do, you have to have more than one pancake trick up your sleeve. This is my basic pancake recipe (the sour cream ones I posted last week are my basic recipe now) with an over-ripe-spotty-but-not-solid-black-yet banana thinly sliced and added to the uncooked side just before flipping them over. If you have a little butter in the pan, the bananas caramelize ever so slightly and get sweetly fragrant. Way better than just slicing some bananas on top of the pancakes after they're finished.

I learned this method of banana pancake making from one of my former roommates, Yves, who also happens to be the person who schooled me on plantain frying. Go figure. I wonder if I still have a photo of her huevos rancheros... they were to die for!

Banana Pancakes

serves 2-3 people, makes roughly six 8" pancakes.

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp baking powder

1 tbsp sugar

1 egg, beaten

1 cup milk

1/2 cup sour cream

2 tbsp melted butter

1 or 2 overripe bananas thinly sliced

In a medium bowl, whisk the dry ingredients. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, sour cream, and melted butter. Stir gently into the dry ingredients, leaving the batter a little lumpy. Add more milk if needed to make the batter pourable.

Use a 1/3 cup or 1/2 cup measuring cup to pour batter onto a hot, lightly buttered griddle. When the large bubbles start to show up, lay a few slices of banana on the batter before flipping the pancakes over. If you put the bananas down too soon the batter underneath never cooks.

Buttermilk cake with Brandied Cranberries and Caramel

I made this cake for a dinner party last week and it was a total FAIL, I used too much buttermilk and it looked a lot like cobbler when it came out of the pan. I took it to the party anyway and it was devoured, the cake plate was scraped dry of any trace of caramel or brandied cranberry sauce. It was obvious I was going to have to remake it and make it more solid. (I remade it twice more; #2 had too much flour and this is #3.)

This is the one that I made for Thanksgiving this year, alongside a pumpkin tart. Thanksgiving at my house was 14 (15?) people, including some of my favorite bar friends and my best friends and some people who feel like family. We finished cooking a few hours later than expected but it was worth it to have new friends helping prepare the food while they drank and mingled, while I played queen of the kitchen and enjoyed the lively conversations just outside my tiny kitchen.

This is what it looked like when everything was done:

Buttermilk Bundt with Brandied Cranberries & Caramel

2 cups + 3 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk
1/2 batch brandied cranberries (see below)

Preheat the oven to 350º.
Sift the dry ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
In a medium bowl, beat the butter and sugar at medium speed until fluffy. Scrape down the bowl and beat in the vanilla. Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each. Scrape down the bowl again and beat in the buttermilk at a low speed until just combined. Add flour 1/3 at a time, beating until just combined.

Pour into a well-greased (I recommend spray) bundt pan and bake in the middle of the oven for 35-40 minutes. Let cool about 15 minutes before trying to remove the cake from the pan. Let the cake cool completely before adding this:

Brandied Cranberries
3/4 cup water
1/2 cup brandy
1/4 cup honey
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 tsp ground cardamom
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
12-oz bag of fresh cranberries
2 tbsp corn starch

Whisk together everything but the cranberries in a sauce pot, then add the cranberries and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and simmer, whisking occasionally, for about ten minutes. Scoop some of the juice into a small bowl and stir in the corn starch until fully dissolved, then whisk the mix back into the pot. The sauce will thicken as it cools.

Caramel

1 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 tbsp corn syrup
pinch of salt
1 1/2 tsp vanilla

Bring the cream, sugar, corn syrup, and vanilla to a boil in a sauce pot over medium heat, whisking to dissolve the sugar. Boil 12-14 minutes (yes that long), whisking frequently to prevent sticking. Add the vanilla. Pour the caramel over the cake while the caramel is still warm, but let cool before serving.

The Wedding Cakes!

CONGRATULATIONS, MOM!!

My mom got married this weekend, and these are the cakes I made for the joyous occasion. I know some of you will be relieved that my cake-fest is over, but I have bad news for you: It's not. I have started selling batches of cupcakes, and am working on getting myself some business cards....so there will still be a lot of cake recipe testing to come. You'll just have to bear with me. Meanwhile, I have a new stepdad, and that's pretty cool.

These cakes were my wedding present, and they are all cakes which have made appearances on this blog before because I worked on the recipes all summer in preparation. From top left: Carrot cake, Black Chocolate Cake, and Banana Cake with Nutella icing.


(who knew blueberries were so vivid green on the inside? I'd never noticed before!)

The chocolate cake was the most popular, and was the first to be polished off. The kids present didn't know what to make of a chocolate cake with blueberries & raspberries inside and on top, but there were a ton of tiny little Hershey's bars present so they were ok.

Chocolate Ganache
2/3 cup heavy (whipping) cream
6 oz semisweet baking chocolate, chopped
1 tbsp light corn syrup

Do not make ganache until you are ready to use it, like when you have assembled the cake and the base icing is smooth, or when your donuts are already fried and cooled, etc.

Bring the heavy cream to a boil in a small sauce pot. Remove from heat. Add the chocolate and corn syrup, let sit for a few minutes until chocolate is melting, then whisk until smooth. Pour over cake immediately. Smooth with an icing knife or whatever you can manage.


(sorry the photo's not more glamorous, we'd all had some really delicious white sangria by this point and I couldn't be bothered to mess with manual settings. ha!)

I added 2 layers of caramel cream to the banana cake, at the request of the groom. He approved of the result wholeheartedly. Good thing, too, cause I messed up the first batch of caramel cream so badly it was basically a weak dulce de leche. If I hadn't been so caked out, and if I hadn't had to travel with it, I would've held onto it to make tres leches cake or something. I'll just have to do it again on purpose sometime.

Caramel Cream
1 2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon water
3 3/4 cups whole milk
6 tbsp cornstarch
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter at room temperature
2 tsp vanilla

Measure out the cornstarch into a small bowl. Add 1 cup of the milk to it and whisk until smooth. Measure out the rest of the milk into another bowl. You will not have time to measure things once you have started.

Using a wooden spoon or heat-safe rubber spatula, stir the sugar and water in a small sauce pot over medium-high heat. Stir constantly until it looks like caramel. It will go through phases and will look like sand, gravel, rock candy, etc, and eventually will be liquid and dark brown. Let it get a tiny bit darker than you think it needs, because it will be paler when the milk is added. Do not, at any point, stop stirring. I mean it!
When it's nice and dark amber, remove from heat and add the whole milk (not the starch milk!) in a slow small stream while whisking constantly. Return to heat and add the starch milk while still whisking, a little faster now. When it thickens to a state just below, say, molasses, and has cooled a bit, add the butter and whisk until incorporated. Let cool almost completely before spreading it.

If using this caramel cream between layers of cakes, you will have a ton of leftover caramel, so you might want to bake a batch of brownies and swirl the caramel on top, or some cupcakes and inject it in them or something. Don't waste it!
Also, the cake will need to be refrigerated to let the caramel set before serving it.

Chocolate Raspberry Tart

(I might have a better image on another computer, sorry for the blur!)

Another birthday, another tart. Actually, there were two birthdays in my circle last week, but the peanut butter chocolate cake has already made an appearance on this blog. There's a carrot cake coming really soon, I have promised it to someone. Good thing, too, I still don't think I've had enough practice for mom's wedding!

The tart crust is based on a basic French pastry crust, and maybe it still is that, but I switched from heavy cream to buttermilk and it turns out somewhere between pastry and shortbread. And I am pretty sure I've been slightly under-cooking it. Whatever I've been doing, it's been delicious, so you should try it - with whatever filling you want. The first time I made this shell, I filled it with caramelized thin-sliced fuji apples. I didn't get a chance to photograph that one. These things happen often when it comes to desserts...

Shortbread Pastry Tart Crust
1 3/4 sticks of unsalted butter, slightly softened
1/3 cup confectioner's sugar
1 egg yolk
1 1/4 cup flour
1 tablespoon buttermilk*

In a medium or large bowl, mix the butter and sugar with a hand mixer on low. Add the egg yolk and beat in until combined, then mix in half of the flour. Add the other half of the flour, then the buttermilk. Lay a cookie-sheet-sized sheet of wax paper out and dump the dough onto the center of it. Place another sheet of wax paper on top and flatten to about 1/4" thick. Set this on a cookie sheet and freeze for about 20 minutes.
Remove the dough from the freezer and let it rest a minute before peeling off one layer of paper. Gently roll the dough around a rolling pin and remove the backing, then carefully unroll it over the tart pan. Press it into place and put it back in the freezer for an hour. Preheat the oven to 350º. Bake the tart in the middle of the oven for 20-25 minutes or until golden around the edges. I remove it from the oven halfway through and press a round cake pan into it to create a nice shape. (This can also be achieved with pie weights, or by lining the tart with parchment or aluminum foil and filling it with uncooked rice.) Let cool mostly before filling.

Chocolate Raspberry Tart Filling

8 oz baking chocolate, chopped
3/4 stick unsalted butter
pinch of salt
dash of vanilla
2 tablespoons agave nectar or corn syrup
1/3 to 1/2 cup rasbperry jam (or any other flavor)

In a double boiler with barely simmering water, melt the chocolate, butter and agave nectar.
Spread the jam around the bottom of the tart shell, then slowly, gently pour the chocolate over it as evenly as possible. It helps to pour in a circular motion and spread it with a rubber spatula.
Assemble raspberries on top.
Set in the fridge or freezer to set.

*milk + lemon juice = you don't have to buy buttermilk.

Black Forest Cake

This is all that remained of the cake after Blaine's birthday, and it was all I could do to smuggle it out of the bar to get a photo. He asks for black forest cake every year, but last year I made it with canned cherry pie filling, and this year I used fresh cherries and even bought myself a new toy for removing the pits.
If you want a darker icing, you can get fancy and melt a square or two of semisweet baking chocolate and add it to the butter *after* the chocolate has cooled to room temperature. Use a double boiler or microwave according to the package to melt it, otherwise you'll burn it! Chocolate burns easily and tastes like tree bark when it does. I have tested this theory dozens of times.

This is the same cake recipe as the chocolate mint cake a few months back, only I left out an ingredient (the milk!) on the original post. Sorry! This version of it is complete, and has the added bonus of delicious drunken cherry syrup to make it nice and moist. It got rave reviews at the bar party. :)




Drunk Cherry Syrup
4 cups fresh dark cherries, pitted and sliced in half
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
2 tbsp + 2 tsp cornstarch
1/4 cup kirschwasser or cherry vodka

In a medium bowl, coat the cherries with sugar and a sprinkle of water. Cover with plastic wrap and let sit at room temperature for an hour or two until there is juice in the bottom of the bowl. Set in the fridge overnight to continue juicing. The next day, while the cake is in the oven, pour the juice into a small sauce pot over medium heat. Add the water and cornstarch and bring to a simmer, stirring constantly until clear and thickened. Set on a wire rack to cool. When cooled, pour about 2/3 of the glaze into a bowl and whisk in the kirschwasser. Use this, the boozed up portion, to pour into the cake layers later. The un-spiked portion of the glaze can be poured on top of the cherries on the top of the cake.

Black Chocolate Cake
1 3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 cups sugar
2/3 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
6 tbsp butter
2 1-oz squares unsweetened baking chocolate
2 eggs
2/3 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup boiling strong coffee

In a sauce pot on medium heat, melt the baking chocolate and butter, stirring often. If it starts to bubble, turn down the heat or it'll burn. Set aside and let cool.
Heat oven to 350º and grease two 9" round cake pans.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Add eggs, milk, buttery chocolate, and vanilla and beat with a hand mixer on medium for about 2 minutes. Scrape the sides of the bowl with a spatula, add the boiling coffee and stir it in. Pour into cake pans and bake for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes before removing from the pans and letting cool completely on wire racks.

Chocolate Buttercream Icing
1 1/2 cup (3 sticks) butter at room temperature
1 1/2 to 2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/3 cup cocoa powder
3 to 6 tbsp milk
2 tsp vanilla
pinch of salt

In a medium or large bowl, beat the butter with a hand mixer until smooth and creamy. In another bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups of the confectioners' sugar, the cocoa powder, and salt, then add to the butter along with the vanilla, and 2 tsp of the milk. Mix until combined. Add more confectioners' sugar, milk, or cocoa as needed to get the consistency/chocoholic level desired.

To Assemble:
Place a glob of icing on the cake plate, lay one layer of cake on it. Pour half of the drunk cherry glaze into the first layer, then cover with icing, then a layer of cherries. Place the second layer of cake on top of the cherries, pour the drunk cherry glaze, then icing, then cherries, then glaze.

Curd-Filled Lemon Cupcakes

While in London on a business trip a couple of weekends ago, I had a lemon cupcake with my afternoon tea and was thrilled to discover a surprise. Not only was this a delicious lemony cupcake with lemony buttercream, but it also had a lemon curd filling. It went beautifully with my extra-super-bergamot-flavored Earl Grey, and I promised myself I'd attempt to recreate them when I got back to my kitchen. So I did.

One of my friends, who has had many, many of my baked goods over the past few years, said these are the best cupcakes I've ever made. I think he's right, though I may top these with my birthday cupcakes next week....aren't you excited?

Make the lemon curd first, so you'll have it handy when you're ready to put some of it into the cake and into the icing. Instead of carving plugs out of the cupcakes and filling them, you can use a pastry bag to squeeze the curd into them. I think carving's more fun. You MUST use fresh squeezed-it-yourself lemon juice, the bottled concentrate stuff is horrible and will make horrible cupcakes.



Curd-Filled Lemon Cupcakes

For the Curd:
grated zest of two lemons
2/3 cup sugar
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 tbsp (1/2 stick) butter at room temperature
2 large eggs
pinch of salt

Bring about 1" of water to not-quite-simmering in a sauce pot. In a metal bowl, mix the lemon zest, sugar, and butter, blending with a hand mixer until creamy. Add the eggs one at a time. Mix in the lemon juice and salt, then place the bowl over the [almost] simmering water with the heat on low. Stir continuously with a wooden spoon until the curd has thickened enough to coat the back of the spoon, about ten minutes, then remove from heat.
Set aside 1/3 cup of curd to go in the icing, and 1/2 cup to go into the cake batter. The rest is for filling.

For the Cupcakes:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
pinch of salt
1/2 cup butter at room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp lemon zest
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup sour cream
3/4 cup buttermilk*
1/2 cup lemon curd
2 eggs at room temperature

*or, 3/4 cup milk with a tbsp of lemon juice in it, let it sit and curdle for 5 minutes or so before use.

Preheat oven to 350º.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt, set aside. In a large bowl, beat the butter with a hand mixer until smooth and fluffy. Add the sugar, beating until fluffy, then add lemon juice, zest, and vanilla. Mix in 1/3 of the flour, then half of the milk, then another 1/3 of flour, then the sour cream, then the rest of the milk, and then the last of the flour. Pour into paper-lined muffin tins, each one should be around 2/3 full.
Bake for about 25 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges, and let cool completely before filling and icing them.

For the Icing
1/2 cup unsalted butter at room temperature
1/3 cup lemon curd
1 tsp lemon juice
2 to 4 tbsp milk
1 to 1 1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Cream the butter in a small bowl with a hand mixer. Add the lemon curd, lemon juice, and vanilla and beat until combined. Add 1 cup of confectioners' sugar, mixing to combine, and add milk and/or confectioners' sugar until it is the texture you like.

When the cupcakes are cool and the icing and curd are ready, cut a circle out of the center of hte top of the cupcakes (think half a wine cork) and remove the cake. Drop about 1 tbsp of lemon curd into the cupcakes and replace the cake-plug. Cover with icing to hide the seam, and place shaved lemon peel on top for garnish.

I recommend freezing a few of these, because you will want them again very soon after the first round, and not want to go to the trouble again so soon.

Strawberry Waffles

You can't see it, but there are about a dozen chopped strawberries in this plate of waffles. If you don't believe me, well, look really closely and you'll see some dark red bits. The recipe I based this on was the "Oh Boy" Waffles from my grandma's copy of the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook from 1951. I strongly recommend spraying your waffle iron with nonstick spray before each waffle is poured. The oil in the spray helps a lot with crispy edges. The ones in the photo, for example, were made with no cooking spray, and you can tell they're not very stiff if you really look close. But don't do that, kthx.

Strawberry Waffles

2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 tbsp sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/4 cup whole milk
3/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 to 1 cup chopped strawberries

Heat your waffle iron.
In a medium bowl, sift the flour, salt, and baking powder and set aside. In a small bowl with a wooden spoon or whisk, combine eggs, milk, vegetable oil and sugar. When the waffle iron is hot, add the wet ingredients to the dry and beat until smooth. Pour about 1/3 cup (up to 1/2 cup, depending on the size of your waffle iron) at a time onto the center of the waffle iron. Bake until lightly browned. Serve warm.

Lemon Tart

As I have mentioned before, I give my friends baked goods of their choice for their birthdays. This particular birthday dessert was hummed and hawed for over a month, and at the last minute, Richard decided on a simple lemon tart. Thankfully, too, because I had a plane to catch and was having trouble finding enough hazelnuts for the originally planned pastry. I have been wanting to try a vodka-based crust, having recently heard of them over beers. Yes, my friends and I talk dough when we go out drinking.

This lemon tart can also be made into mini tarts, in muffin pans or mini tart pans. Just roll the dough out to a large rectangle and cut to size. They taste like glorified lemon bars, with a more flavorful crust and a really nice consistency. If you are feeling crafty, you can make a stencil for the powdered sugar using parchment paper.

Lemon Tart

Crust:
1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
2 tbsp sugar
1/8 tsp salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter, cold and cut into pieces
1 large egg
2 tbsp vodka
1/2 tsp ground ginger

Filling:
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
2 tbsp all purpose flour
1/4 cup plus 1 tbsp lemon juice

Preheat oven to 350º.

In a large bowl, blend the flour, sugar, salt, butter, egg, ginger, and vodka with a hand mixer. When it starts to look evenly distributed, knead it a bit with your hands until a smooth dough forms.

Roll the dough into a ball and place it between two pieces of parchment paper. Roll out to about 1/4" thick, it should be about 14" across. Remove the top layer of parchment paper, and place the tart pan upside down on the dough. Carefully flip it over and peel the other layer of parchment off. Lightly press the dough into the pan, then roll your rolling pin around the edges to trim excess dough. Prick the bottom generously with a fork to let air bubbles out.

Bake the crust for 15-20 minutes, or until the edges are slightly golden. Prepare the lemon filling while it cools.

In a large bowl, beat eggs and sugar with a hand mixer until light and fluffy. Add the baking powder and flour, then stir the mixture into the eggs. Stir in the lemon juice. Pour over the crust and bake for an additional 20-25 minutes, or until lightly browned on top.

Dust with powdered sugar before serving.

Banana Rum Tart with Chocolate Mousse

I had some bananas getting spotty on my kitchen shelf, and wanted to come up with some way of using them other than my standard banana bread. This is what I came up with, after reading a dozen recipes for banana custard and banana cream and a Cuban banana rum cake. I served it after red beans and rice with spicy chicken, and I will likely post that recipe very soon.

This recipe makes enough banana custard to fill one full size pie shell and three 4-inch mini tart shells.

Banana Rum Tart & Chocolate Mousse

Tart Shell
1 cup all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
1/3 cup butter
3 to 4 tbsp ice water

Whisk together the flour and salt in a medium bowl. Cut in the butter and mix with a pastry cutter until it looks like coarse crumbs. Add 3 tbsp ice water and mix until the dough is smooth. If too dry, mix in another tablespoon of ice water.
Roll the dough out between two pieces of parchment paper to a circle slightly larger than your pan and refrigerate for 30 minutes before removing the parchment and fitting it into the pie pan. Bake for 8 minutes at 425º before filling with banana custard.

Banana Rum Custard Pie Filling
3 overripe bananas
3 eggs
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 tbsp all purpose flour
3/4 cup heavy cream
4 tbsp dark rum
1 tbsp all purpose flour
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar

In a large bowl, mix the bananas, eggs, and brown sugar on medium until smooth and bubbly. Add the cream and rum, mix in. Pour into the partially baked crust and bake in a 350º oven for about 20 minutes, or until the custard is set.

Chocolate Mousse
1/2 cup milk
6 tablespoons sugar
1 large egg yolk
1 cup chocolate chips or 4 bars of baking chocolate
Pinch of salt
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1/2 cup heavy cream
2 tsp ground cinnamon

In a small saucepan, melt the chocolate over low heat, stirring often. Set aside. In another sauce pan, combine the other half of the milk and sugar and heat until steaming and the sugar is dissolved. Put the egg yolk in a small bowl and gradually whisk in the hot milk. Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over moderate heat, whisking constantly for about two minutes until it has thickened slightly.
Remove the pan from heat. Add the chocolate and salt and whisk until smooth. Whisk in the butter. Pour the mousse into a plastic bowl and freeze for 15-30 minutes, then whip with a hand mixer on high speed until the mousse is thick and fluffy.
Place a heaping tablespoon of mousse on each serving of banana rum tart. Top with an anise star, or chocolate shavings.

Blueberry Scones

This morning, Chicago was doing its best London impression, and there's nothing to warm you up after a walk in the cold rain like a scone and some tea. These are so fast and easy to make, you'll probably find yourself making them all the time once you've tried it.

If you don't have buttermilk handy (who keeps that around?), you can put a few teaspoons of lemon juice or vinegar in the milk and let it sit for a few minutes and it'll work the same as buttermilk. I'm sure you can find a precise ratio of vinegar to milk online, I just pour a little and have never measured. Now you know my lazy secret.

Blueberry Scones
3/4 cups all-purpose flour

1/4 cup brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/3 cup cold butter
1 3/4 cups buttermilk
1 1/2 cups fresh blueberries
1/3 cup granulated sugar

Preheat the oven to 375º.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, and baking soda. Cut the butter into small pieces and mix with a pastry cutter (or your hands for messy fun) until it looks like coarse crumbs. Stir in the buttermilk until just combined, and add the blueberries.
Knead just enough to evenly distribute the blueberries and place on a greased cookie sheet. Spread the dough out to a rough rectangle, about 1 1/2" thick and sprinkle granulated sugar all over the top. If you have coarse sugar, use that.
Bake for 30 to 35 minutes or until slightly browned.

Crustless Apple Pie

I've made a lot of different kinds of apple pie over the past few years, and this one is by far the fastest, easiest and tastiest. It's a shame it's not more elegant, but I always get over its less-than-beautiful appearance the minute people start eating it and the chorus of "mmmmm!" begins. At least two friends have told me that they love this though they hate apple pie in general, so there must be something to it. It's like a bed of sweetened apples with a snickerdoodle on top. Can't beat that!

The recipe is from the grandmother of an old friend of mine. I have since received this exact recipe from two other people, and all three originated in western Massachusetts. If anyone knows why every western-Mass grandma has the same apple pie recipe, please let me know.

Tip: If you don't let the butter cool after melting, your pie will be dripping with butter in a bad way. Yes, there is a bad way.

Crustless Apple Pie
prep time about 15 minutes, bake time 45 minutes.

5 or 6 apples, cut into wedges about 1/4" thick
1 tbsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar
1 cup flour
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
pinch of salt

Preheat oven to 350º.
Lay the sliced apples in the pie pan - it should be about 2/3 to 3/4 full. Sprinkle the tablespoons of cinnamon and sugar on top.
In a small mixing bowl, mix the flour, sugar, butter, and salt. Pour onto the center of apples, it should spread itself out. Help it with a fork, if it's not spreading well enough to suit you.

Bake for 45 minutes or until lightly browned.

Cable-Knit Pie Crust

Ok, so I have to admit that I cheat once in a while. I was really craving cherries, which are prohibitively expensive in the off season, and bought a can of cherry pie filling. I was totally dissatisfied with the inside of the pie as a result, but the crust was yummy and definitely easier to work with than other pie dough recipes I've tried. It's also the prettiest pie I've made yet, so despite its not-from-scratch filling, I am showing it off.

The recipe is adapted from Baking Illustrated from America's Test Kitchen. The design idea for the top came from a conversation I had with one of my friends, a fellow sweater designer, just before making it. It helped that I was making it for a craft night I was hosting, so I knew the people eating it would appreciate the idea. I know the top looks really complicated, but it's not actually that hard. I'll give the best directions I can.


Two-Layer Pie Crust
3 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp sugar
2 sticks + 1 tbsp butter, cut into small chunks
10 tbsp ice water

Whisk the flour, salt, and sugar in a medium mixing bowl. Add the butter a bit at a time and mix with a pastry cutter until it looks like fine crumbs, with pieces no bigger than peas. Sprinkle the ice water over the crumbs and mix by pressing down with a rubber spatula. You can add an extra tablespoon or two of ice water if it won't come together.
Divide the dough in half. Form into 5" disks and wrap with plastic wrap. Refrigerate at least one hour.

After the dough has had time to chill, Preheat the oven to 375º. Take one piece of dough out and place between two sheets of parchment paper. With a rolling pin, roll it out to a 12" circle, then carefully roll it around the rolling pin. Hold the rolling pin just above the pan and carefully unroll the dough into place. Press down lightly to fit the dough into the pan, then cut excess off edges. Prick the bottom of the crust to reduce risk of bubbles when it bakes.

Fill the pie with whatever you're putting in it. Canned pie fillings aren't terrible, but: if you cut up 5 apples and sprinkle a few tablespoons of cinnamon and sugar over them you won't be disappointed and it's as easy as opening up cans.

Take the other piece of dough out of the fridge and roll it out to 12" too. Using a very sharp knife, cut 4 lines diagonally across the widest part of the dough. The lines should be about 1/4" apart. These three pieces will be the 'cable' down the center of the pie. Pick the 3 pieces up carefully with both hands and lay one end on the edge of the crust, pinching it down slightly. Drape them across the middle of the pie, flipping them over every 2" or so. That creates the 'cable' look. When you get to the other end, pinch it down again. You'll cut off the excess later.

Repeat the 3-strip lay-and-flip process two more times, so that there are 3 cables evenly distributed across the pie. To fill in the rest, cut a few more 1/4 strips and twist each one, creating a spiral. Lay these down in any areas that look too open. Repeat until the pie is visually balanced and pinch down the edges around the crust one more time, then cut off excess carefully with a knife. Bake for 25-30 minutes or until lightly browned around the edges.

Let cool mostly before serving.

Jam Sandwich Cookies

These cookies take a while, so definitely save them for the weekend. They're light and buttery and not too sweet, and can be changed easily to suit any occasion (hearts for Valentine's Day, for example). You start with a simple butter cookie, but once you've added jam and powdered sugar they certainly don't taste simple.

A few tricks:
1) To get the inner cookie out easily, pinch your cookie cutter a little and lift.
2) Use a spatula to gently transfer these from the parchment to the cookie sheet, they're delicate and will break if you just pick them up with your hands.
3) Wear an apron for these, they're pretty messy.
4) Make sure your tiny cookie cutter leaves plenty of cookie around it, the thinner the edges are the more likely the cookies are to break. Any bigger than the star I used would be a bad idea. Hearts should be placed with the point at least 1/4" from the edge.

Jam Sandwich Cookies
1 cup butter
1 cup white sugar
1 egg
2 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 small jar raspberry jam
1/2 cup (or more) confectioners' sugar for dusting

In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour and salt, set aside.
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and white sugar with a whisk or hand mixer until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg, then stir in the vanilla. Stir the flour mixture into the sugar mixture.

Divide the dough in half and lay each half on a piece of parchment paper. Roll out each half of the dough between two pieces of parchment paper. The dough should be between 1/8" and 1/4" thick. Lay the parchment-rolled dough slabs on a cookie sheet for stability and put in the fridge for at least one hour.
Cut with round cookie cutters. Cut a shape out of the center of half of the cookies, the solid half will be the bottoms. You can either bake the cutouts as extras or re-roll them and make additional sandwiches out of the dough.
Preheat oven to 400º for at least 20 minutes. Bake for 8 to 10 minutes or until *very* lightly golden at the edges. Remove from cookie sheets to cool on wire racks.

When the cookies have nearly cooled, melt your jam in a sauce pot over medium-low heat. Put 1 teaspoon of melty jam on each cookie bottom. Dip the top of each cookie top in powdered sugar then press it into place. Let the cookies set for 30 minutes before stacking or serving them, otherwise the jam will set crookedly and ruin all your hard work.

Not that they're that hard. Just time consuming and delicious.

Banana Bread

Isn't it sad when bananas go black before you have a chance to eat them? NO! Cause that means you have an excuse to make banana bread! Delicious warm moist sweet banana bread. My boyfriend insists on calling it banana cake, no matter how many times I correct him. If you have any banana bread left the morning after it's made, it's heavenly when toasted and buttered, though I recommend keeping a close eye on it if you've got a butter-fiend cat around. I do, as you can see:

That is a Mummy mug, but it's for the Mummy rollercoaster at
Universal Studios, which is totally badass, unlike the movies.

Alternative recipe options: The nuts are, of course, optional, and you can put in any kind of nuts you want but I like pecans the best for most recipes. Walnuts are the second favorite choice. You can leave out the sugar if you're minding your health, it's still plenty sweet from the bananas themselves. You can also substitute 1/3 cup brown sugar or 1/4 cup of honey in place of the sugar. If you use honey, mix it in with the wet ingredients instead of with the dry. Also, if by some miracle the bread goes uneaten for a few days, it makes really wonderful bread pudding. I've only had the opportunity once, but I look forward to making it again. When I do, I'll share it here, of course.


Banana Bread
Prep time 15 minutes, ready in about an hour

3 very ripe black speckled bananas
2 large eggs slightly beaten
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 cup plain yogurt
6 tbsp (3/4 stick) butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup granulated sugar
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp dried ground ginger (optional)
1 handful of whole nuts (1/2 cup?)

Preheat the oven to 350º and spray a loaf pan with nonstick spray (or grease it with butter).
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger.
In a medium bowl, mash and stir the bananas with a fork until they look kind of like baby food. Add the yogurt, eggs, vanilla and butter and mix with a wooden spoon.
Dump the wet mixture into the dry mixture and stir just until the flour is incorporated. Add the nuts and mix in. Pour into the loaf pan and bake for about an hour. Check for doneness at 50 minutes. It is done when the crust is brown and a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
I recommend serving it immediately with butter and coffee.