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

A Complicated History (Honey pistachio rose baklava)

From my first taste as a child, I was absolutely obsessed with baklava. Something about the crispy, honey-and-butter-soaked layers always called out to me, much to the dismay of my mother (who categorically refused to prepare it, saying it was too labor-intensive). This relegated its status to that of a rare holiday treat, which was probably better for my health and certainly in keeping with the dessert's history as something precious and celebratory.

My precious

The Gingerbread Man (Honey stout gingerbread cake, honey glaze)

As the Thanksgiving dust settles, baking cakes may be the last thing on your mind, but as winter drags on, I expect that you (like me) will come creeping back into the kitchen. Call it culinary therapy. Winter demands sturdier, more substantial, more warming foods, and this month's honey stout gingerbread cake fits the bill, perfectly.    A bundt cake, this takes advantage of the pretty, fluted mold and uses a simple glaze you can just pour over the top, rather than fussing with layers and smoothing icing. Triple-spiked with fresh, ground, and crystallized ginger, it's an easy pick-me-up with just the right amount of not-to-sweet gingery fire.

Fyah

Yapple-Dapple (Apple galette, cognac caramel sauce)

We are now in undisputed apple season. In my hometown, September is always marked by the Apple Peach Festival, sadly this year just an apple festival after the late spring frost laid waste to the peach blossoms. Intending to console myself with copious amounts of apples, I had my heart set on tarte Tatin: a pastry crust baked upside-down atop a layer of deeply caramelized apples. This led to my next revelation, however: that recipe seemed somehow intimidating. I feel like "effortless elegance" is more my wheelhouse, so I split the difference: an easy apple galette, gussied up with cognac caramel sauce.

Gastronomically gussied

Star of the Summer (Strawberry mascarpone cheesecake)

I've told you before how, in my family, cheesecake is a celebratory affair. This is even more true for Aaron's birthday, for which it is a mandatory offering. "What kind of cheesecake would you like for your birthday?" is a standard question come August. This year was especially telling, because he laid out his entire hierarchy of berries, in which strawberry is king. This is perfectly fine by me - strawberry is my favorite, too, and undoubtedly a perennial star of the summer.

Star of the summer

In the Limelight (Lime Delicious)

Lemon pudding cake is a recipe that has been haunting me across social media for weeks, now. Whether it's an algorithmic snafu or message from the divine, I finally surrendered and clicked through and now I have a new go-to dessert recipe. Especially using the Australian name of Lemon Delicious, it's an easy sell: soft, pillowy citrus white cake floats atop a layer of warm, semi-liquid custard. Making it in individual ramekins allows you to turn out portions onto plates for a prettier presentation and the enjoyment of drizzling the creamy sauce down over the cake. Or, you can chill them, in which case it becomes akin to a cakey rendition of lemon meringue pie. As both of the GourmetGents prefer limes to lemons, this version is for Lime Delicious, but any citrus variant is an option.

Delicious by any name

Not So Sweet (Raspberry rhubarb crumble)

Spring is the perfect season for rhubarb, among the first plants we can harvest, growing outdoors from April until September. Greenhouse agriculture also allows rhubarb production year-round, so one never needs to go without. As a child I was as obsessed with rhubarb pie as I was with all baked goods (an obsession that remains), and confused to learn that the sweet, ruby-red filling was born of a bitter vegetable related to celery. Now that I have a more adult palate, rhubarb proves a wonderful option for making desserts that celebrate that happy zone of satisfying one's sweet tooth without being so cloying they induce a toothache. These individual raspberry rhubarb crumbles deliver sweet and tart in just the right measure.

For the not-so-sweet-tooth

Pi Day (Pineapple mango macadamia nut pie)

March 14, or 3.14, is now celebrated by nerds like Aaron and myself as Pi Day, in recognition of the mathematical constant pi (π). Without pi, we wouldn't be able to formulate geometry or trigonometry. Without pie, I would be sad. At Aaron's office, there's even a pi bake-off, and professional pride dictated that we simply had to enter. As we brain-stormed, Aaron rattled off ideas, including pineapple and mango. I scoffed at both as preposterous, only to eat humble pie as Google Image Search returned a gorgeous photo of this State Fair winner: pineapple and mango with a macadamia nut-studded lattice crust.

Boom.

New Year's Eats (Black tie mini cheesecakes, cherry sauce)

Happy New Year, everyone! Heading into February, love is in the air, and I always like to include a sweet treat for Valentine's Day. Usually, I've focused on treats for a smaller gathering, but this time around, it's sweets for a crowd. The more the merrier! This recipe for black tie mini cheesecakes and boozy cherry sauce makes enough for 24, so you can splurge with a special someone, have a party for all your friends, or hoard a private stash of cheesecake for days on end. Whatever February throws your way, I've got you covered.

Covered in cherries

Holiday Cheer (Cranberry orange spice cheesecake bars)

For me, the holidays mark open season for baking. Cooler weather makes it more comfortable to blast the oven all day and subtly increases the caloric load, or at least I like to tell myself so. "I'm storing up for the long winter" is a frequent excuse I make, while eating a dozen cookies at a time. At first, I wanted to make one of my mother's requisite holiday recipes: Pecan Tassies. Like miniature pecan pies, nestled in a bite-sized tart shell of cream cheese crust, they've always been a favorite in my family. Owing to Aaron's unfortunate upbringing beside several pecan trees, however, he still suffers from perennial pecan fatigue and refuses to eat them. Seeking a different source of holiday cheer, I settled on cranberry orange spice cheesecake bars: rich, sweet-tart and 100% holiday-approved in color and flavor profile, these are an ideal nut-free treat for the bleak midwinter.

Sweet!

Apple-y Dapple-y (Baked apples with walnuts, honey, and spiced mascarpone)

Mono no aware is the Japanese concept of "Awareness of Things." It refers to the poignancy of ephemeral beauty: the single night of the moon at its zenith, spring blossoms that scatter to the winds, autumn leaves changing colors, only to fade, and fall. I fancy I've always had a certain affinity for the melancholy of evanescence. This reached its peak in high school, when I'd craft intricate designs below the tideline, using stones, shells, and beach roses. I knew that, in a few hours, they'd be devoured by the waves, but the action of creating the art, and its destruction, and the pathos of those fleeting moments in between was part of the beauty. As I walk in the park every day, with that welcome new tang of autumn chill to the air, I feel just a little blue as I notice the season turn and sunlight slip away. This is why, in my opinion, the Autumnal Equinox was a festival for ancient Europeans. It doesn't just coincide with the harvest, it also helps to kick away that sense of autumnal doldrums. Like with  honey-baked apples, roasted walnuts, and spiced mascarpone cheese.

Quick pick-me-up

Waffles 4 lyfe! (Liège-style Belgian waffles)

Over time, the entirety of my immediate family has trickled down to live in Chesapeake, Virginia. While I love the area, the job market has invariably left me further north. As the odd man out, it can sometimes be difficult to make family get-togethers. This was the case this most recent Mother's Day. I was sad to miss spending time with my family, but doubly so when I learned my equally epicurean sister had served gaufres de Liège, Belgian waffles with pearl sugar, as a holiday brunch.

Thus, with a waffle, I die

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

Berries Jubilee (Shortcakes with Mixed Berry Flambé)

Strawberry shortcake is a classic dessert, and I've been obsessed with it for as long as I can remember. As a child, I'd wait with bated breath for dessert-time, ever irked when my mother insisted it was so-named because the table is "deserted" from having cleaned one's dinner plate and cleared the way. Even when I was little, I knew the difference between a sponge cake and a shortcake and, despite how groceries dutifully place the spongy yellow pucks next to the strawberries every summer, I would accept no substitutions. Proper shortcake should be like a biscuit or a scone. Not spongy, but crumblingly delicious, at once dry and yet delectably saturated with oil; with flaking crumbs that melt away on the tongue and leave nothing but happiness in their wake.

Pictured: happiness

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

Pumpkin in the Air (Pumpkin Butterscotch Blondies)

The long-lingering warmth of summer seems to have inspired especially beautiful leaves this season and I've found myself slowly ambling down the backroads around the bakery to soak in the blazing canopies of foliage. Leafer madness is in the air. Also in the air in high concentrations: the sweet, earthy squashiness of pumpkin. I chose to capture the star flavor of the season by tinkering up pumpkin butterscotch ginger blondies: tender treats that highlight the true flavor of pumpkin, while still enthusiastically embracing a curated selection of its aromatic pairings.

Aromatically delicious

Snow Cherries (Sparkling Cherry Granita)

At last, cherry season is here and they're ripe for the taking. It had become a weekly ritual to enter Wegman's, look for the cherries, and be disappointed, but now brilliant Bing, golden Rainier, and tart Morello cherries are all to be found. So far, I've made clafoutis, a giant French pancake studded with fruit, and sparkling sangria with Spanish cava wine, but I think it was the sparkling cherry granita that made for the most interesting presentation. A boozy, effervescent slushie for adults, this elegant dessert helps you cool down with tiny fireworks of cherry flavor.

Fireworks!

Fresh Arrivals (Apricot Almond Ginger Tart)

I've waited weeks on tenterhooks for the first fresh cherries to arrive to market, but in the meantime chose to console myself with a clutch of glowingly golden apricots. I had ulterior motives. We'd also been eagerly awaiting the birth of our third nephew, Oliver, who at the time of writing this article was slightly overdue, and I figured a little light folk medicine couldn't hurt. Elizabethan England held the belief that apricots induced labor, which is why they feature in the play The Duchess of Malfi, where her nefarious brothers expose her pregnancy with a slyly offered bowl of apricots. It has no basis in science whatsoever, but might as well be worth a try. To gussy up the presentation, I decided to toss the apricots with fresh ginger, then layer them into a tart mantled in slivered almonds.

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