When something works, you tend to do it (or eat it) on repeat. That's the case with this simple buttermilk cake that I keep coming back to. The base cake is a delicious canvas for seasonal berries, which is really making its appearance again in the market. I've nestled raspberries and strawberries into the lovely batter in the past so naturally, it was time for blueberries to have a turn.
It's great because not only is the crumb tender and moist, the cake brings just the right amount of sweetness to the fruit nestled within. And it isn't too much cake - just enough batter to hold the fruit together. It's a great cake for tea and makes a wonderful dessert.
Each time I bake this, I enjoy how the batter rises as it bakes and you end up with this cobbler-like top to the little cake. And mine is indeed little in this particular instance since I made a 6-inch version. My fridge was happily ladened with a variety of berries last weekend (my other half lovingly loaded me up for Mother's Day) and I decided to take some of the blueberries to make this treat for my husband.
As much as I adore this cake myself, I have to say that I often make it for my husband, who tends to prefer his fruit consumption in the form of dessert! His secret is out! Well, maybe it isn't quite so earth-shattering considering those who know him likely know he has a serious sweet tooth, which can be partially credited for bringing about this little blog in the first place!
A few days before this, I also made some basic blueberry muffins but cake - the kind that makes us slow down and slice, and take the time to sit and eat - is such an elegant way to go. This particular cake is easy and fast to make and a great use of berries for when you need to transform them into a dessert like I often do for my husband. How can you go wrong with a moist, tender buttermilk cake encasing juicy blueberries and an almost-requisite touch of lemon zest in the background?
With the little one hankering for more of those Italian almond star cookies, I thought I'd give another type of almond cookie a try. I'd never made almond crescents until now.
The cookie dough is super simple to make. In fact, the recipe I started with seemed almost too easy. It called for 4 ingredients - ground almonds, butter, flour, and some sugar - that you simply mixed together. So I tinkered a bit, adding a pinch of salt, and some vanilla and almond extracts. I also decided to add a little lemon zest to subtly brighten up the flavors. In the spirit of embellishment for the holiday season, I dipped half the crescents in chocolate ganache.
Without any eggs in the recipe, I expected a challenge in shaping the cookies into their crescent shapes. It did turn out to be a little tricky but do-able and not an issue if you're not overly concerned about some cracks at the bends. A great big dusting of powdered sugar would distract you from that imperfection if it's a concern. The most important thing is they turned out really tasty! I'm not sure why I was kind of surprised by how much I liked them.
The texture is nice and sandy. Around the holidays, I embrace these buttery, crispy, sandy-textured cookies and welcome them as cookies I don't eat often enough. They are excellent with a cup of tea or with your mug of hot chocolate.
My son might not have devoured these crescents quite as greedily as he did the almond stars but they were still very appreciated. I really enjoyed the ground almond texture and flavor, with the hint of lemon. I am very thankful for the holidays for the gift of Christmas cookie variety!
I'm calling this "Last Minute Cake" because it is, seriously, so easy to put together that you can make it at the last minute, on a whim, or whenever the need arises. It's actually a lemony almond cake - a simple, casual, everyday cake you might just pick up and snack on or have with a cup of tea.
Making this cake really requires very little to no advance planning. It helps to have a lemon and some sliced almonds on hand (and I very often do, luckily) but I think the recipe is adaptable and you could play around with what you have on hand. As far as the batter goes, it gets mixed by hand within a matter of minutes. I decided to make this one Saturday night recently when we decided to stay in for dinner. It was already about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and I started getting some tomatoes ready to roast for pasta and dessert was on my mind.
This was one of the easiest recipes I could think of and comes from Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. It's actually called Swedish Visiting Cake in the book, referring to the source of the recipe, a friend of Dorie's whose mom would whip this cake up when she saw guests arriving. That made me consider calling this "Unexpected Company Cake" too. But what really attracted me to this cake was the description of it as "soft, chewy, moist and reminiscent of cakes made with almond paste." I love almond paste so I knew I had to try this recipe one day.
With just the 3 of us for dinner and plenty of dessert-making in my future, I divided the recipe in half and made a teeny 6-inch cake. The cake is meant to be baked in a 9-inch cast iron skillet (that you can serve the cake directly in), which I don't have (need to work on that). But you can also make this in a buttered cake or pie pan so again, it's quite versatile. Without any chemical leaveners (i.e., baking powder/soda) in the recipe, the cake is fairly thin. The texture is moist in the center, contrasted with a crisp top and edge thanks in part to a scattering of almond slices and some granulated sugar on the surface. Lemon zest adds freshness to the buttery flavor and almond extract together with the almonds contribute the almond flavor. It's not quite as moist and robust in flavor as a true almond paste cake but it is similar!
You just can't beat how easy this cake is to make. I had it done that Saturday night in well under an hour from beginning to end. After we enjoyed our pasta with roasted tomatoes for dinner (I couldn't resist including a picture of it here), a small wedge of this cake was a nice way to end the dinner on a sweet note.
Another bonus point for this cake is it keeps well so you can wrap it tightly and enjoy it over the course of about 5 days. I love cakes like that!
I'd never used wheat germ before until last week when I bought a bag to make those tasty (and healthy) blueberry-banana muffins. I still have quite a bit left and as luck would have it, I was indulging in one of my favorite pastimes - reading a cookbook - when I found another recipe to deploy the wheat germ for. I was reading through Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan and making a growing list of things I might like to make when I saw this recipe for honey-wheat cookies, which calls for lemon zest, honey, and wheat germ. It sounded like something worth trying during this post-holiday January when you (by that, I mean me or I) still want a sweet treat but prefer to stay on the lighter, healthier side.
Like its name suggests, the flavor and texture of these cookies come from the combination of lemon zest, honey, and wheat germ. To up the health factor a bit further, I substituted some of the all-purpose flour used in this recipe with white whole wheat flour. There's wheat germ in the cookies themselves and they also get a coating of it on the outside before baking. I really liked that, as it gave the cookies a bit more texture on the outside, similar to what you'd get if you rolled them in sugar and this is certainly a far healthier option. These cookies just cry out for a cup of tea to go alongside.
When the cookies first came out of the oven, they were pretty nondescript and I worried about what the combination of wheat germ, honey, and lemon zest would taste like. It was better than I thought it would be. It's like biting into a soft cake - sweet, moist, and with a nice lemon perfume and flavor to it.
This cookie might lend more towards adult palates though. Our six-year old was not into it. Obviously, this is no chocolate cookie but it is a nice change up in the cookie rotation right now.
