Walnut olive oil cake

Making and tasting those wonderful olive oil muffins recently had made me eager to explore other recipes that involve baking with olive oil.

And when I was reading David Lebovitz's post/recipe for those muffins, I noticed someone mention another olive oil cake in the comments - a walnut olive oil cake recipe from Bon Appetit.  Since I love simple, no-frosting-necessary cakes packed with nuts, this walnut cake - one familiarly infused with orange zest - sounded right up my alley and I wanted to try it.  So I made a small version of it last Friday, for a little coffee date night I was having with my husband at home that evening.

So here's the thing.  I whipped up a small 6-inch version of the cake and after I did so, I actually thought I wasn't going to post it here.  You see, the cake is straightforward enough to make but I have to tell you: the middle sinks - rather pronouncedly - after it comes out of the oven.  Reviews for the cake warned about this - many people mentioned the sinking issue.  I wasn't overly concerned going in but sure enough, the center of my cake sank rather more than I expected as it cooled.  

But I changed my mind about posting it after I tasted it.  Because crater-in-the-middle or not, the cake was delicious.  The soft center, though sunken, is practically a selling point in moistness.  However, I almost favor the edges - comparatively dryer but with a lovely crust to it that's particularly full of toasted walnut flavor.  So in the end, the sunken center is not a deal-breaker for me and given the taste, I'd gladly make it again.

Now about that sunken middle.  I made sure the cake was cooked though (i.e., the cake tester came out clean).  The center is not wet, just moist.  Some have suggested in the recipe's comment section to reduce the amount of baking powder in the cake (and using room temperature eggs, which I did) to fix the problem.  I might tinker with that next time around but maybe it would be just as well to fill the "hole" with a small mound of orange-scented whipped cream if you're looking for a presentation "fix"? 

Olive oil muffins

There's a restaurant, Maialino, in New York City that I've heard great things about.  I haven't had the chance to eat there but honestly, there are so many amazing restaurants in NYC that it's impossible to keep up.  

Specifically, I heard a lot about Maialino's olive oil cake and the recipe is available at Food52.  I remember seeing the recipe and being interested but ultimately passing on it because...well, it's hard to explain but in that moment, it seemed like almost too much cake.  It called for a lot of olive oil and I just thought it might be a treat best saved for eating out where you can savor a slice with your mate. 

I still haven't made it to Maialino but now I have a good idea what their signature cake tastes like, thanks to David Lebovitz!  Instead of cake, it's in muffin form (individual cakes we can justify eating in the morning - even better!), which is also how it's available at the restaurant.  It's just what I'd been looking for without realizing it - a small scale recipe!  Apparently, David had brunch there recently and the olive oil muffin made an impression on him so he took the cake recipe available at Food52 and reworked it into muffin form.  All I can say is...thank you, David!  

Now I totally get what all the raves are about.  These muffins are really good.  You might look at it and think it's just another muffin but truly, it exceeded my expectations.  They're moist and flavorful - with fruity extra-virgin olive oil and a flavor of orange, as the batter is infused with fresh orange zest, and a combination of orange juice and Grand Marnier liqueur.  You end up with a full-bodied cake/muffin that has a great mouthfeel in every bite.  My husband and I were both surprised by just how good it was. 

Baking the muffins in these paper muffin molds mimics how they arrive at the restaurant.  I love these baking cups and I'm seriously thinking I need to find a good bulk source because not only are they great to use in a practical sense, they make your muffins and cakes look pastry-shop ready!  The paper molds I used are slightly larger than the ones David uses so for a half recipe, I ended up with 3 muffins (instead of 4).  One made a perfect size for breakfast though you don't want to stop eating at all.  I can tell you they stayed lovely and moist the next day so next time I make these, I will bulk up my output.  

Orange-chocolate chip brioche bread pudding (for two)

Apologies for the long blog post title but I was feeling descriptive...

In all seriousness, I did make bread pudding a few days ago, for the very first time! Are you a fan of bread pudding?  I have to admit that it isn't something that appeals to me in general.  I've never really had it but my husband will order it on occasion when we're eating out.  Naturally, I've been curious and bread pudding's been on my mental list of things to try one day at home.

The time finally came to make it.  When I baked that loaf of brioche recently, I made sure to freeze a few slices so I could have some homemade brioche for my first bread pudding endeavor.  I wanted something simple so I looked up Mark Bittman's recipe, which is a basic one that doesn't involve a long soaking time or a water bath to bake the bread pudding in.  

I scaled down the recipe to make bread pudding for two, essentially, and I added extra flavoring in the form of fresh orange zest and a couple spoonfuls of miniature chocolate chips.  Orange and chocolate is one of my very favorite combinations so I didn't think I could go wrong, and honestly, it gave this simple brioche bread pudding great flavor. 

I'm definitely coming to you as a novice but my husband and I think this inaugural bread pudding turned out really well; and by that, I mean it was tasty!  

When I was putting this together, my initial impression was that I might have too much custard.  It quickly switched to a concern that I didn't have enough when the bread quickly soaked up the liquid.  In the end, the bread pudding turned out soft (not wet), with creamy centers and some slightly crusty edges (thanks to a little time under the broiler).  I've seen bread puddings at different ends of the spectrum - some far more broken down, rather wet in texture.  We like a more intact structure but I think you can adjust according to your preference by how large you slice your bread cubes, how much custard you use, and how much mixing you do.

For me, the burst of flavor from the fresh orange zest totally made the dish.  And the decadent goodness from the chocolate chips would be missed if it was not there.  We thought it was a winner, and I'm very glad I saved some of my brioche bread and made this bread pudding!

Two-tier pistachio-orange-chocolate cake

Birthdays and anniversaries require cake so we're having cake today for this little Blog's 4th Anniversary!  

When I realized this anniversary was coming up, I started thinking about cake. Surprisingly, I didn't have a queue of cakes I wanted to make sitting on the sidelines so I kept it simple and just asked myself: what kind of cake do I want to eat?  And pistachio cake popped into my mind.  I've been on a pistachio kick lately and, to me, they're kind of like pears in that I'll go for a while without eating them and forget how good they are until I eat them again. 

So pistachios it was!  In the back of my mind, I was seeing this chocolate pistachio cake of Martha's that I always found alluring.  I stuck with the torte idea (which I tend to think of as nut-based, European-style, cakes) but instead of making a chocolate-pistachio cake, I made it a pistachio cake with chocolate.  I wanted the bright, nutty flavor of the pistachios to shine.  I based the cake on a recipe from epicurious and added the chocolate elements.  Pistachios and orange with chocolate is one of my favorite combinations so that's what we have. 

I didn't give this cake a lot of pre-thought before making it and wow, I was very pleasantly surprised by the cake I ended up with!  It was totally scrumptious, really moist and full of nutty citrus flavor, capped off by that coating of chocolate ganache. I will be making this one again and again.

The cake is made with ground pistachios but since it's not propped up solely on ground nuts (there's flour in it, too), the texture is moist and dense but also stands firmly in traditional cake territory as well.  I find cakes made entirely with ground nuts can be too rich and moist for my taste so this was a great balance.  There's a lovely chewiness to it also that I adore.  Orange zest works so well with pistachios and while I already have chocolate well represented in the coating, I couldn't resist adding another hint of chocolate in the cake itself.  So I grated an ounce of dark chocolate and folded it into the batter at the last moment.  You might not be able to detect the shaved chocolate within the cake but I'm comforted to know it's there.  

I attempted to make this a little more special by creating a two-tier cake, a 4-inch on top of an 8-inch base.  As you can see, I swaddled the cake in chocolate ganache, which is like an irrepressible reflex for me.  I am exploring my new interest in water ganache so it was made with just dark chocolate and water.  I'd use a little less water next time for a thicker consistency but I'm so far very happy with the water ganache option.  I topped the cake with a little decoration of chopped pistachios and cocoa nibs.  I would say this cake is a good representation of the kind of cake I love to eat - a moist, flavorful cake featuring nuts and chocolate!

I'm so glad I made cake to celebrating four years tapping away on this blog!  When I first started here, I didn't know how long I'd keep at it, and I still don't.  I'm almost surprised I'm still plugging away here but the truth is this continues to be a fun outlet for me and a motivation for learning.  I love thinking, talking, reading, writing, cooking, and eating food and that hasn't changed.    

I've learned to be comfortable in this space and I enjoy the freedom to make and show what I want without being pinned down to anything.  For a non-creative person like me, I really love the act of creating these pages - seeing these posts come to be with a recipe, some time in the kitchen, and then some words and a few pictures. There is a great sense of satisfaction in it that I'm very grateful for.  

If there's one thing that I feel a little sad about in the last four years of joining the food-blogging world (in my own very amateur, minor way) is the exiting of blogs that I got to know and enjoy.  While many blogs I started visiting four years ago are still going strong, some have stopped blogging altogether or reduced their posting significantly.  I didn't realize how much I enjoyed their words, recipes, inspiration until they were gone and I miss many of them.  I trust that those who have stopped blogging are happy and busy, and I'm sure they continue to eat well.  So I'm having a piece of cake and celebrating food blogs of old, the ones that continue to go strong, and ones yet to come that do so much to inspire and entertain me.  Thank you!  : ) 

Pistachio-orange biscotti bites

These biscotti bites are a very happy recent discovery of mine!  Picture biscotti that does not need to be twice-baked, and in round, bite-size form.  This is a fun, easy, and very delicious way to take a twist on classic biscotti (which I love).

I found the idea for these biscotti bites from Martha Stewart Living's Jan/Feb 2014 issue.  It really caught my eye given my love for biscotti so I promptly ripped the recipe out...and then left it to languish in my "things to cook" folder for over a year.  I meant to try it during Christmas but it didn't happen but 'better late than never' certainly applies here!  

There's so much I love about these cookies.  Taste - first of all, they're delicious!  In my case, I went with one of my favorite biscotti flavor combinations, pistachio and orange.  The original recipe is made with shredded coconut and grapefruit zest so you can see how you could very much customize the flavor to your liking.  The original recipe has chocolate bits in the cookie itself as well as a chocolate coating at the base but I choose to only dip mine when it comes to the chocolate.  Once in a while, I like to practice restraint when it comes to chocolate.  In all seriousness, I think the thin layer of bittersweet chocolate at the bottom of these cookies is enough to add richness and to complement the orange zest and pistachios.  The cookies are good even without the chocolate.

Texture is another key thing we need to talk about because I think taste and texture go hand in hand in making this a great package.  I don't normally make biscotti with butter but I see the appeal after this.  There's just enough butter in this recipe to soften the cookies to the liking of the majority of people (I think most prefer a softer texture than I do).  More interestingly, there's ground cornmeal in the cookies to give it a grittiness and coarse texture that you associate with biscotti.  It's like a little shortcut to the biscotti texture without having to bake them twice.

Ease - these are easy to make and aptly called "speedy biscotti".  No need to roll into a log, bake, cool, slice, and re-bake.  Make the dough, scoop it out and let it chill for about half an hour before baking just once.  You could get playful and make these tiny bites (the recipe suggests teaspoonfuls) but I made them more normal in size, just slightly over a tablespoon of dough per cookie.  

As someone to loves to bake, I don't necessarily mind the steps needed to make traditional biscotti so the real selling point for me here was just how tasty these are! The texture is firm and crunchy but not too hard, the cornmeal adds a lovely element of texture, and there's plenty of flavor and richness from the pistachios, orange, and thin chocolate coating. I highly recommend this to any biscotti fans looking for a fun, easy, tasty twist to the typical!

Chocolate chip-almond muffins

Some people can never have too many pairs of shoes...for me, I can never have too many muffin recipes!  And when I saw a chocolate chip-almond recipe recently, I knew I had to try it asap.

I've been on the lookout for a good almond muffin recipe - preferably one involving chocolate - for a long time.  I'm thrilled I found a terrific one recently.  This recipe comes from Williams-Sonoma Home Baked Comforts and what I really like about it is the addition of almond meal in the batter.  That, along with buttermilk, creates a wonderfully moist, tender, and flavorful muffin!  Throw some mini chocolate chips into the mix and we're really in business. 

Since I was a little concerned that the muffin batter itself might not be flavorful enough, I debated whether I should add a little almond extract or orange zest into the mix.  I settled on orange zest and I'm really happy I did!  The fresh zest contributes such a burst of flavor.  It brings a freshness and brightness to the muffins.  And the combination of orange with chocolate is always a great marriage because one brings out the best in the other.  The orange seems to heighten the chocolate flavor even more.

The recipe was meant for mini muffins but to be honest, I think regular-size muffins are mini enough as it is so I made them standard size!  

When I eat a good muffin like this, I often wish I could reach for another one immediately.  While I certainly wanted another one after I polished off my first, one of these moist, fluffy muffins was almost surprisingly satisfying.  I think it has a lot to do with the almond meal...it adds a subtle richness.

So if you're like me - that is, if you like making and eating muffins, and enjoy the combination of chocolate and almonds (with orange, at that), do give these a try!

Unexplained cravings for a cinnamon roll

Ask my husband and he'll tell you that a couple of months ago, I had this unexplained craving for a cinnamon roll.  That might not sound all that unusual in itself but coming from me, it is.

Orange-dark chocolate cinnamon rolls with orange glaze (recipe makes small-batch of 4)

I'm usually not a particular fan of them and I've never craved one before.  While a fresh batch sure smells enticing, I'm not really one for sweet rolls or sugary icing (as hard to believe as that may be). And as we're talking about cinnamon rolls, I'm not altogether a big fan of the spice itself.  Don't get me wrong - I like a little cinnamon tucked into a banana muffin or blended into some knockout spiced cookies but I'm not a fan of it in abundance (I really dislike it when a cappuccino arrives at the table dusted with cinnamon).  That said, I was craving cinnamon rolls!  I tried to ignore, then resist, the urge but a couple of months passed and I was still craving one so you know how this story had to end.

Before baking...

I still can't figure out exactly why I started craving a cinnamon roll but I think I can place some of the "blame" (or I should say, "credit") on all the good-looking cinnamon rolls I saw on many of the food blogs I like to visit.  Because right around the time I noticed this craving, I seemed to see them pop up here and there on my screen.  Coincidence?  I think not...

Warm cinnamon rolls topped with a simple orange glaze

So I had to get baking!  There are 3 of us at my house so I really needed a small batch recipe because I'm thinking that having a dozen or so cinnamon rolls around might not be a wise idea. Luckily, I found a small-batch recipe (that makes 4) from Oh, Ladycakes.  I used that as the basis for my first batch of cinnamon rolls but made a few changes along the way.  

The recipe, like the focus of the blog itself, is vegan and since I'm not, I used the conventional counterparts (i.e., butter and milk).  From there, I took a little inspiration from this Joy the Baker-Pioneer Woman cinnamon roll mashup (love that video of them making the rolls together) and filled mine with a combination of sugar, orange zest, and dark chocolate.  Of course, there's cinnamon since it is a cinnamon roll after all, but I used a light hand.  Once baked, I topped the rolls with a simple orange glaze of confectioners' sugar and fresh orange juice.

Even a cinnamon roll novice like me knows you have to eat them fresh and warm from the oven.  I prepped the rolls the night before, stopping and refrigerating them at the point where the rolls were sliced and placed into the pan.  The next morning, I removed the pan from the fridge, placed it in a warm spot for a little over an hour for a final rise before baking.  With that, we had warm cinnamon rolls for our Saturday morning breakfast!  I sat down, sank my teeth into it, and finally satisfied my craving for a cinnamon roll.

I'm starting to really enjoy working with yeast because the results are little bit like magic.  These rolls turned out so soft - amazingly soft and pillowy. They were just squishy and squidgy in the best possible way!  How did that happen?  I'm not really sure but I'm happy for it.

My husband, the unintentional hand model, digs into his super soft cinnamon roll

I had fun making these; every time I think about it, it puts a smile on my face for some reason.  And eating the rolls was a fun weekend breakfast treat. The super soft, tender texture of the cinnamon rolls really stood out.  Once we sunk into that soft doughy bun, we tasted sweetness, chocolate, and a big pop of orange flavor.  These make a great occasional treat and I say if you're going to eat cinnamon rolls, you're far better off making them at home and determining/knowing exactly what you put into it.  

What an awesome craving this turned out to be!  And while it's satisfied for now, I wouldn't be at all surprised if I'm hit with another craving for one of these cinnamon rolls one day soon.

French toast with an orange twist

Maybe because I'm more of a morning person, I really love the first meal of the day.  On weekdays, my routine is usually a ham and egg sandwich or toasted English muffin with peanut butter, alongside a homemade mocha frap.  On weekends, it's nice to set the table (the little one does that, actually) and start the day lingering over breakfast.  The boys often enjoy a little something sweet.  Pancakes, in some form, are regularly on the menu and sometimes there's French toast.

I once heard someone, somewhere, say that the "secret ingredient" to everything is booze.  I don't drink a lot but I'm starting to think that's a very true statement.  Take this French toast.  Regular French toast is delicious as it is but add an element of citrus with not only fresh orange zest and juice but also some orange liqueur and you've got something special.

Of course, the little guy enjoyed his French toast minus the liqueur but I have to say it adds a nice punch here for the grownups.  The trick is not to overdo it because I find it can be bitter if used too generously.  

This orange French toast was part of the "baking bonus" segment of Martha Bakes that I watched recently.  I took the essential idea of adding the orange flavors but leaned on the lighter Cooking Light recipe that I'm partial to.  I use low-fat milk (and not too much because I like the flavor of the eggs to come through), just a touch of sugar, and bakery-style white bread, as opposed to richer brioche.

It was tasty...very tasty.  You know the magic orange zest imparts on baked goods and it does that to this French toast.  The orange liqueur heightens the flavor and the whole thing is refreshing and sweet - a lovely breakfast and good start to a weekend morning.  I love the sunny golden hue of French toast, particularly brightened here by the burst of orange.  

I'm all for the classics and occasionally trying different spins on them to keep things interesting.  It's not only fun to eat but keeps cooking interesting, I think.  This French toast is a good example.  It's something very familiar yet a little special for your weekend breakfast.

Orange-dark chocolate-vanilla bean scones (aka, my first scones)

It's the morning after Thanksgiving!  I hope you had a great one.  We had a relaxing day, filled with plenty of good eats and time sitting around the table chatting and laughing.  It doesn't get much better than that.  I have to tell you that my humble little ice cream pie was a huge hit with the little ones!  Oh my goodness - it made me look like a rock star!  It just goes to show that one should never under-estimate the power of ice cream!  I think the kiddies will expect an ice cream pie every Thanksgiving from now on and that's okay with me.  Now...this morning, I may or may not be joining the crowds for a little Black Friday shopping.  I do not enjoy crowds or shopping (for the most part) but I might not be able to resist hopping into a few places.  So for now, I'll leave you with this little story about some scones I made recently...

It's hard to believe but these are my first scones.  As in first time baking and first time consciously eating them.  This sounds harsh (and admittedly a little ignorant) but I always vaguely thought of scones as dry, hard, biscuit-like lumps that I wouldn't like.  It doesn't help that my husband, who's usually quite laid-back and game for anything, tells me repeatedly that he doesn't like scones.  He's had a few bad experiences - times when he bought them at work - that's scarred him.

Breakfast time!  Orange-chocolate-vanilla bean scones with hot chocolate

Well, I finally made scones.  I've been curious about them for a long time because I have a friend who loves them and that fascinated me.  Someone loves scones!  And now that I've widened my horizons, cooked and tasted more, I know that there's possibility and magic in every food.  Sometimes you just have to find the right recipe for you.

There's a happy ending to this story.  These scones I made turned out truly terrific!  I've even converted my husband, who was surprised by how good they were.  He kept telling me, "you don't understand...I hate scones."  Well, no one hates scones in my house anymore.  The little one was a big fan, too, and we all devoured these with some hot chocolate for a recent Sunday breakfast.

I know my scones are not much to look at.  To be honest, I didn't put a lot of effort into making them neat and pretty since I didn't have very high expectations.  I also made these in a hurry first thing in the morning since I wanted to serve them fresh for breakfast.  I kind of like the rustic look and, even more so, the surprising good taste!

So for my first scones, I clearly played it safe.  It's no secret I love chocolate so I wanted to make scones with chocolate.  I love orange and chocolate together so I searched around and low and behold, the uber-cool Joy the Baker had just what I was looking for.  Better still, her recipe was on a small scale, perfect for my family.  The wonderful thing that got me thinking about scones recently is learning that I can freeze them.  The freezer is a very close friend of mine these days.  I love stocking all kinds of food in there and making life easier later on.  This recipe makes 6 (smallish) scones - we ate three right away and froze the others.  Those were happily devoured a week later and I now have yet another batch stashed in the freezer.  That's how much we like them!

I made a few tweaks to Joy's orange-dark chocolate buttermilk scones recipe.  I used to always follow recipes verbatim but now I take a more relaxed approach to cooking and baking, for the most part.  In this case, I added the vanilla beans.  I think I was thinking about those petite vanilla bean scones I see all the time at Starbucks.  Plus, I happen to have a stash of vanilla beans in my pantry. I substituted some of the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour, and I also went ahead and took a little extra buttermilk to brush over the tops of the scones and sprinkled a touch of turbinado sugar over that.  I don't think my tweaks changed things all that much...I'm just happy the end result was so tasty!

Like a flaky, sweet biscuit - full of orange flavor and dark chocolate chips

I realized two things from this baking experience: 1) zest makes everything better, and 2) scones should be eaten fresh from the oven!  The orange zest really makes these - I think it even out-shines the chocolate, although no one's complaining about that.  And I can't help but think that many of us don't like scones when we don't get them fresh.  From the oven - just cooled to about room temperature - they really are like a sweet biscuit, with a great flaky, slightly-crisp-along-the-edges, just-moist-enough, texture.  

It doesn't happen very often but once in a while, I run out in the morning to grab chocolate croissants for a weekend breakfast. These scones are a great alternative to that and with a batch stowed away in the freezer ready to be baked anytime, I don't think I'll feel the urge to go on many more croissant runs.

Intense orange-chocolate-almond cookies

I had the idea to make these cookies a few weeks ago.  I call them intense orange-chocolate-almond cookies.  That's quite a mouthful for a title but it sums them up.  They look like ordinary chocolate chunk cookies but they're filled with a strong burst of orange flavor and embedded with bits of almonds, surrounding by that dark chocolate.  Some special chocolate bars provide a shortcut to achieving those flavors but to boost it further, I added fresh orange zest and almond extract to the cookie dough.

I snuck in a little bit of whole wheat pastry flour and you really can't tell one bit.  For half of my batch, I also added additional chunks of toasted almonds.

I got the idea to make these cookies after seeing a cookie recipe using chopped Toblerone chocolate bars.  Now, Toblerones and I go way back and they have a very special place in my heart.  I think they're pretty perfect on their own  and while I'd be thrilled to taste them in a cookie, I got to thinking about what other chocolate bars would work and hold up well baked in cookie form.  Right away, I thought of these...

I'll restrain myself from calling the Lindt Intense Orange chocolate bars one of my favorites because, while I do love them, anyone who knows me well knows I am a chocoholic and, thus, my list of favorites is rather long.  That said, they are really delicious both in flavor and texture.  The thin dark chocolate bar has bits of orange peel in it that really makes it deserving of that "intense-orange" description.  Plus, there are slivered almonds embedded within them.  I mean, what better combination is there than chocolate and orange, and with nuts as a bonus (well, okay...I could think of others like, say, chocolate and mint)!

I was confident these chocolate bars would be great in a cookie, and they really were!  The flavors stay intact and you get texture with the pieces of chewy orange and almond slivers already provided by the chocolate bar.  To heighten the flavors, I added orange zest and some almond extract.  I divided my cookie dough in half and added toasted, chopped almonds to one portion of the dough.  We actually preferred the ones without the additional almonds more since it really allowed the orange and dark chocolate flavor to shine.  

If you like the combination of dark chocolate and orange, I think you would enjoy these very flavorful cookies.  My family and I really did!

My 7-year old called this my "fractured recipe".  You see, his second grade class just finished a fairy tale unit at school.  They've been reading fairy tales and writing their own versions, basically creating "fractured fairy tales" with their own spins on the classics.  When we sat down to eat these cookies and I told him how I started off with a chocolate chip cookie recipe that I really liked but changed ingredients and added different components to alter the flavor, he said "Cool!  It's like a fractured recipe!"  It gave me a good laugh, and I think he's absolutely right in his description.  I don't often "fracture" recipes, if you will, but I'm so glad I tried this idea.  It took me just a little outside my box and led to a rewarding result!

Chocolate amaretti cake

After making a batch of amaretti cookies, I thought I'd use some of them to bake a chocolate amaretti cake.  I love it when things tie together or there's more than one good use for an ingredient. 

I remembered a chocolate amaretti cake recipe from one of Dorie Greenspan's books that I wanted to try; there was a chocolate glaze and optional almond whipped cream you could make to go with it.  But in the end I settled on a version from Giada de Laurentiis that sounded simple and appealing to me.  Everything gets blitzed in a food processor so it's very easy (as long as you have the equipment).

I had the most wonderful time making this cake because I had a special helper!!  My little guy deigned to help me, so long as it wouldn't be "too messy".  I think I've mentioned he doesn't quite share my enthusiasm in puttering around in the kitchen.  But the appeal of working the food processor hooked him in.  It's always the equipment that appeals to the boys.  He had a great time turning the machine on/off and hitting that "pulse" button to his heart's content.  Before long, he wanted to pour the eggs and everything else in and started making fun of how the egg yolks looked.  It was so much fun working in the kitchen together!

My little guy and I made a good cake!  I'm quite partial to single layer/no frosting-necessary cakes, particularly when it's moist and there's chocolate involved like in this case.  Its flavor reminds me of the holidays somehow.  I think it's the fragrance and taste of almonds mixed with chocolate (a combination I love) and the bit of orange zest infused into the whole thing.  The cake came out moist and fudgy, with a grainy, nutty texture from the amaretti as well as additional ground  almonds in the batter.  I'm craving another slice right now as I think about it.

Reading some of the reviews on this cake, I tweaked the recipe a tiny bit by adding a touch more chocolate and a dash of espresso powder to amp up the chocolate flavor.  The cake is decidedly but not intensely chocolate.  I think it helps to take it out of the oven a few minutes before you think it's fully done so that it's nice and moist inside.  We liked the result very much and for me, it's just satisfying yet light enough for everyday.  The other good thing about a cake like this is it holds well for a few days either stored at room temperature or in the refrigerator.  Ours only lasted two days but I thought it tasted even slightly better on day 2.

Blueberry muffins with orange zest

I had a hankering to make another batch of muffins.  I really like making muffins because they're so easy to put together and they taste so good warm from the oven.  Your house smells wonderful and then you sit down with your fresh muffin that has a slightly crisp top and warm cake within...

I was looking through the Flour cookbook by Joanne Chang and zeroed in on her "raspberry-rhubard muffins."  I decided to go a more traditional route and make the classic blueberry variation instead since I've got some frozen blueberries in the freezer I'd love to use up.  But one of the reasons I really wanted to try her recipe is because it uses crème fraîche, which is something I've never used before in baking but have heard so many great things about. 

I always thought crème fraîche would have the consistency of sour cream since it's often cited as the alternative if you can't find crème fraiche but at first sight, it's much more like cream cheese in texture.  When you let it sit at room temperature and whisk it a bit, it becomes looser, with a thick and velvety texture.  The crème fraîche, milk, and eggs add richness to the muffins but to give it a fresher flavor, I decided to add some orange zest.  For me, you can rarely go wrong with adding a bit of orange or lemon zest to a basic cake or muffin batter.

I would definitely make these muffins again.  I made the batter for these muffins the night before and baked them first thing in the morning.  They're the type of muffins that puff up on top when baking and then sort of slide off to the sides, leaving some nice crispy edges to munch on once the top is cooled.  The center was super fluffy, with a nice airy texture (which surprised me since I half expected the crème fraîche to add a denseness to them).  I polished one off very quickly.  In general when I'm baking, I'm pretty precise when it comes to measuring the flour but I tend to low-ball the amount of sugar.  I found that I shouldn't skimp on the sugar when it comes to this recipe.  Mine could have used just a tad bit more sweetness so next time, I'll follow the recipe more precisely.