Food, Photography and Bons Mots
If chocolate rocks your world, this is the cake for you. It is decadently bittersweet with a poundcake texture. The frosting is to die for. For this recipe, I used Callebaut Bittersweet Chocolate and Double Dutch Cocoa; both were purchased from King Arthur Baking. This…
Tahini. Tahini is a nutty-flavored sesame paste. Think you are unfamiliar with tahini? In all likelihood, you’ve probably enjoyed it in hummus or baba ghanoush. For purists, the best tahini is made from ground and roasted humera sesame seeds from Ethiopia. This bias in favor…
This is a sweet little tart. Easy, too. It is a Peach and Plum Frangipane Tart from Hetal Vasavada’s new cookbook, Desi Bakes. Over the decade that I’ve been writing Blue Cayenne, I’ve posted innumerable recipes for stone fruit dishes. To me, stone fruits are…
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…
This is an exceptional recipe. Exceptional. I don’t use that word very often. This is an Ottolenghi recipe from his website here. The Ottolenghi lede to the recipe suggests these pears as a topping for pancakes or French toast. Trust me. These are wonderful with…
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…
