Cakes

    May you have rye bread to do you good, Wheaten bread to sweeten your blood, Barley bread to do you no harm And oatmeal bread to strengthen your arm. …and a wee bit of Bailey’s Irish Cream.   Wishing you a happy St.…

You’ll want to treat yourself to this one! It’s decadently delicious. While applesauce cake has been around in America since colonial times, it became especially popular during WWI. In fact, it was considered downright patriotic to eat applesauce cake during the war. By foregoing the…

OK. It’s no polar vortex, but it is cold, dark and rainy here in SoCal—window-rattling thunder, too. My nerves are noticeably jangled. Sweet Juliet, with plaintive break-your-heart “Mom: Make it stop” eyes,  is hiding among the folds of her favorite blanket. No question. We’re quite…

  These sweet little cakes are perfect. They are single-portion size. They pair beautifully with homemade vanilla ice cream (See ice cream recipe here.) They are beautiful. And then, there is the combination of quality chocolate (Barry Callebaut chocolate)  and ripe bananas–a sure-fire winner on…

  Santa’s in the house (or, at least, in the neighborhood). It’s time to get your gingerbread on. This recipe is a riff on traditional gingerbread. It has generous dollops of fresh cranberry sauce stirred through the batter. What you get is a taste of traditional…

  It’s Blue Cayenne’s Birthday! This improbable journey started on a blustery October day three years ago.  I desperately wanted to be a better writer, a better cook, and a better photographer, but I needed a nudge–a structured project to bring all those elements together…

  Raise your hands if you are fans of lemon curd in all its piquant wonderfulness. Good. I thought so. Read on. This delicious lemon-almond butter cake is a crumbly cake made with regular flour, almond flour and a generous amount of home-made lemon curd.…

  Banana cake. Cream cheese frosting. Chopped pecans. This is a great banana cake. You may even want to eat the frosting by the spoonful. I did.   OK. That’s a fair criticism. I have posted a number of banana cake and bread recipes on…

  Dear Meghan. You are one lucky girl. Movie star good looks. Handsome prince. Loaded grandmother-in-law. But why didn’t you put that elegant little foot down and insist on a real cake for your wedding? What was it with that frou-frou elderflower cake anyhow? I know.,…

  Your friends and neighbors who arrive home from idylls in the Caribbean usually bring back tans, lame pirate jokes, and rum cakes. Rum, of course, is ubiquitous in the Caribbean and entrepreneurs long ago learned to add rum to cakes to expand rum’s culinary…