Food, Photography and Bons Mots
I seem to be having a bit of a baking extravaganza this month. Look at all the baked goods I’ve featured on Blue Cayenne! Spring is here in Southern California and my farmers’ market has been rich in berries–blueberries, strawberries, blackberries and on and on.…
The honey cake is considered the fruitcake of the kosher kitchen. That is…it is not always appreciated. I don’t think you will feel that way about this sweet cake, though. This honey cake is deliciously spiced with cinnamon and vanilla, sweetened with honey and brown…
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…
I was having an “off” cooking day yesterday. A recipe from one of my favorite cooks, Eric Kim, just wasn’t turning out for me. Hate that. So, I had a Marie Antoinette moment. I let myself eat cake for comfort. As it turned out, my…
Pavlova: A meringue-based “cake” with a soft marshmallow-like center and a crisp crust. How good does that sound? Throw in a story about a famed Russian ballerina and a century-long petty diplomatic dispute between Australia and New Zealand about the origin of the recipe and…
Persimmons! My kitchen fruit bowls are brimming with persimmons this year. In the past, finding myself with persimmons in the winter, I’ve pretty much defaulted to making the usual fruit-cake-like loaves of persimmon bread. Those loaves have been good–sometimes very good–but eventually that iteration…
Marian Burros has died. She developed the famous Plum Torte recipe that ran for years in The New York Times Cooking Section. It is a wonderful recipe. It would be perfect to make right now as this year’s plum season winds down. Here is Burros’…
OK. It’s another cake. It’s been THAT kind of month. This is a recipe from The New York Times Sunday Magazine. You will find the original recipe here. The original recipe gave permission to use blackberries, blueberries, raspberries or chopped strawberries in this recipe. You have…
My husband could talk incessantly about his love for home-grown figs. Seems there was a fig tree in the yard of the house he lived in in Berkeley while in college. So, for him, there were glorious memories of fresh figs galore—jams, pastries, au naturel.…
Apricots and I go back a long way. Growing up, I always had a “Paradise Cake” for my birthday. The cake was two layers of yellow cake slathered with a tangy dried apricot puree and covered in coconut. I’ve tried to find the recipe online…
