Blue Cayenne

Ahhh. When to eat bundt cake?

Breakfast? Snack? Dinner? Middle of the night?

I’ve done it all. I assume that when Marie Antoinette counseled “Let them eat cake” she meant bundt cake. (OK. OK. I know she probably didn’t say that, but it works here for the narrative.)

This bundt cake is from a Polish baking cookbook Dobre Dobre by Laurel Kratochvila. You can order the cookbook through your local bookstore or on Amazon here. Incidentally, Dobre Dobre comes from a Polish expression “Dobre, dobre, nie za slodkie”  which means “Good, good, not too sweet.”  This cookbook was named one of best cookbooks of 2025 by The New York Times. And, American-born Berlin-based Laurel Kratochvila was a James Beard finalist. She is also the author of New World Baking.

Bundt cake (or Babka Piaskowa as the author names this cake) is a staple dessert in Eastern and Central Europe. Piaskowa in the name means “sandy” and this delightful cake has an ever-so-slightly sandy texture.

Stories about the origins of bundt cakes abound. The Dr. Oetker site claims Roman origins for the distinctively shaped cakes. In modern times, the cake was repopularized in the 18th Century in Europe and was particularly popular in Vienna.It is reported that Maria Antoinette, the Austrian queen of Louis XVI, brought the bundt cake (or, at least its ancestor the gugelhupf) to the French court from her native Austria when she married. 

Fast forward to the 1950s in the United States. The Minnesota-based Nordic Ware company introduced the first commercial bundt pans to American cooks. They have sold more than 70 million bundt pans over the years. So, it is no exaggeration to say that the bundt cake has a strong foothold in American baking.

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

It appears to be spring here in SoCal.

Get ready! Zucchini “abundance” is just around the corner.

Here is a tasty recipe from Alison Roman’s new cookbook Something From Nothing.  You can buy the cookbook through your local bookstore or online through Amazon here.

To my taste, the contrasting textures in this pasta salad were delicious–crunchy fried walnuts, silky pasta “tubes,” an abundance of salty crumbled Parmesan cheese. All of it was boldly complemented by the strong flavors of a lemon and garlic dressing and  two generous cups of pungent fresh parsley, mint and cilantro. It was a party for the taste buds.  

Here is the recipe as I prepared it in my kitchen. 

Beans! Glorious beans!

This is an enthusiastic repeat recipe for Blue Cayenne. We originally featured the recipe back in May of 2024. Here is the link and the recipe: Turkish White Beans.

This recipe is from Yasmin Khan’s cookbook, Ripe Figs: Recipes and Stories From Turkey, Greece and Cyprus. You can buy the book through your local bookstore or on Amazon here. By the way, the author recommends using dried beans for better texture and “the best olive oil you can afford” for flavor. I used Rancho Gordo’s Marcella beans and Antica (Los Alamitos Ca) high polyphenol olive oil. I love and recommend both products. Here is a link to the Rancho Gordo site Rancho Gordo Beans and here is a link to the Antica Olive Oil site Antica Olive Oils and Vinegars..

About the Ripe Figs Cookbook, it is an exploraton of the cuisines of the eastern Mediterranean and the impact of migration (past and present) on those areas and their cuisines. Of the book Yotam Ottolenghi wrote, ” Ripe Figs is a dazzling cookbook that celebrates an ever-diversifying region and imagines a world without borders.”