Hippie Fuel ("Ultimate" granola)

Granola ranks among my very favorite foods, to the degree that (like Biscoff cookie spread) I'm better off not even keeping any in the house lest I simply devour it by the bagful. Crunchy-sweet-salty is totally my jam, and the typical inclusion of nuts & berries is also right up my alley. It shouldn't be overlooked, however, that while granola has a significant history as healthy "hippie" food, some granolas' claims to "health" may be somewhat...questionable.

Healthy ...ish

Fruit of the Underworld (Pomegranate lime vanilla cake)

Pretty in pink can be difficult to achieve without food dye. Unfortunately, taking an all-natural approach might not always turn out as you expected. This was the case with a batch of blood orange cinnamon rolls Aaron prepared one day. While delicious, the attempt to stain the icing ruby red with blood orange juice instead yielded a deeply unappetizing mauve-taupe. My attempts to correct with the trusty dropper of food dye resulted in nuclear pink. Ultimately, the project was abandoned for photographic purposes. This pomegranate lime vanilla yogurt cake, on the other hand, is perfectly calibrated to yield a beautiful finish using only the most natural of ingredients.

Au naturale

Salubrious, Celebratory Citrus (Triple citrus pound cake, citrus curd)

Hilariously overdue, I am loading the backlog of articles into the blog. Expect lots of updates, soon...

Now that Snowmageddon is but a fading memory, I'm ready to celebrate. This may seem somewhat incongruous, given my desire to go all-healthy last month, but every calorie-counter can find a way to make room for a little cake. If not for the pleasure of food, there's not much point eating, in the first place. Early spring is an interstitial season. For those in the northeast U.S., the first plants are just starting to perk up, leaving fresh & local food options a little thin on the ground. Spring greens like asparagus, fiddleheads, spinach, sweet peas, would all be appropriate, but I think they lack the right appeal for dessert. Instead, I opted for a melange of citrus fruits, which blend flavors I've always considered quintessentially summery, despite the most bountiful fruiting season being the dead of winter, splitting the difference for a spring theme. Triple citrus cake paired with citrus curd makes an easy, elegant dessert, appropriate for any time of year.

Citrus!!!

Decadent Delight (Gateau au chocolat fondant de Nathalie)

Chocolate cake is like the little black dress of dessert. It can be dressed up or down from the homeliest of meals to the pinnacle of haute cuisine and remain equally enticing in either environ. As a culture, we are given to hyperbole (and, as an individual, I am more so), so it would be no surprise to me if, when I say "this is the best chocolate cake in the world," you take it with a grain of salt. It helps that salt and chocolate pair so nicely. Perhaps it would change your mind, however, if I mentioned that a sizeable shard of the fractious and chaotic internet generally agrees this is, indeed, the cake of cakes? 

Truly, you are the cake of cakes

Jumbled Together (Russian Tea Cakes)

Russian Tea Cakes may be my very favorite variety of cookie. Also known as Italian wedding cakes, Mexican wedding cakes, Flexicans, polvorones, butterballs, and snowballs, you may know them best just as those buttery little spheres coated in powdered sugar, studded with finely ground nuts, and flavored with a variety of subtle seasonings. With their snowy white coats and elegant proportions, they make the perfect cookie to serve throughout the winter, arrayed on plates with doilies or tucked into gift bags. They're innocently sweet, utterly inoffensive, and melt on the tongue beautifully. Russian tea cakes, as the name suggests,  are the ideal pairing for strong tea served with lemon or cream and sugar. Less traditionally, but just as deliciously, I encourage the adoption of the "Russian coffee cake" and also offering coffee or cappuccino as accompaniment.

Cake: it's what's for dinner

The Scone Guy (Raspberry Lemon Scones)

It started out simply enough, I baked Aaron some raspberry lemon scones to bring to work. I figured he and his officemates could use a treat. Heady on the train of requests and compliments that followed, more scones were suddenly in the works. Blueberry one day, lavender another... then came peanut butter chocolate banana, a batch of my original very vanilla bean scones, and, most recently, a double batch flavored with jewel-like dried apricots and slivered almonds. I'm not sure what's wrong with me, exactly, but somehow I just can't stop making scones. I could try making muffins, or cinnamon buns, or a banana bread but, to me, the scone is the undisputed king of the breakfast table. I'm soon going to have to declare a moratorium, as I don't want to just be known as "the scone guy." I'm so much more than that. Regardless, this week found me patting out the dough for scones again.

Habit-forming substances

The Forbidden Fruit (Grapefruit Mascarpone Pound Cake)

I was trying to come up with something special for the holiday season, seeking a treat that was not just seasonally appropriate, but also a bit off the beaten path. It seems to me that stereotypical winter desserts always either go straight for the chocolate (not that I can blame them) or some variation of cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg. Those flavors are all well and good, but ever the iconoclast, I set my heart upon creating a grapefruit cake. Moistened with butter and mascarpone cheese, this rich cake allows the delicately sweet-tart perfume of grapefruit to bloom beautifully.

Sadly less pink than I'd hoped

Sticker Shock (Almond Butter)

$25? I was floored. I have an annoying habit of picking the most expensive item on the rack before checking the price tags, but this was a little ridiculous. $25 for one measly little jar of almond butter, which I'm more accustomed to grabbing for less than half that price. A quick google suggests extortionate almond butter may be something of a growing trend. Is there an almond shortage? Mad almond disease? Is it possible we were buying just "natural" almond butter and now that we're trying for organic we're going into sticker shock? Well, I got a pound of organic almonds for a song, so it seems to me the food industry is just trying to bend us over a barrel because they have grinders; and that really grinds my gears.

A luxurious commodity

Stripping Down (Naked Chicken, Orange-Thyme Butter)

Whew! Things have yet to really calm down, yet, and I am having trouble keeping up. Unfortunately, chores and work and posting cut down on my time spent lounging about in yoga pants. You wouldn't want to deny me that, would you? Luckily, I have no shortage of recipes that can be made with minimal effort, allowing one to turn one's attention elsewhere.

At least until dinnertime...