Hello hello! I’m back after a terribly long hiatus. While I didn’t completely stop baking, things did take a bit of a back seat when I got pregnant and had my first child, baby Zoey! Baby Zoey is now actually a full fledged toddler, a few months away from 2 years old (!!) and my life is somewhere in the zone of having enough time to think about blogging again. I haven’t had as much time to photograph and style my baking as of late, but I thought progress is better than perfection, so why not just get started :)
If you’re from the Bay Area, you’ve probably heard of and hopefully had the chance to try Humphrey Slocombe ice cream. One of their well loved flavors is “Secret Breakfast” - a delightful combination of bourbon ice cream with cornflake cookie chunks in it. A while back I was thinking about this surprising combination and thought how fun it would be to turn that flavor into a cake. Then, this past weekend a group of my friends gathered to celebrate one of our friend’s birthday with a socially distanced picnic, and I thought it was a great opportunity to try out this cake idea. I think it worked out nicely as an “adult” birthday cake flavor!
One of my favorite go to cake recipes is this olive and summer fruit cake from Williams Sonoma. I came across this recipe a couple of years ago, and I’ve made it with many variations and sizes, such as little personal cakes blueberry olive oil cakes that are *delicious*. This recipe is definitely now a staple in my toolbox. But what does that have to do with this recipe? Well, this past week I was thinking about making a dessert for Rosh Hashana, the Jewish new year, and I started thinking about making a honey apple cake - two traditional foods for the holiday. I also for some reason got in my head that I wanted to use a loaf pan for this cake - perhaps because it felt a little more casual since this year celebrations are much smaller due to social distancing.
I couldn’t imagine our world would get any crazier last time I posted on here, and yet here we are in the midst of so much social/political unrest and (still) smack dab in the middle of a pandemic. I think the US is going through a really hard reckoning, but I hope that we can all grow through this. I hope we can all recognize that not everyone is treated equally here; that white supremacy is still a problem; that centuries of enslavement and systemic racism don’t magically disappear; that most importantly, we find a way to create a more equal society. It feels a bit strange to talk about this here, on a personal baking blog, but it also feels wrong not to mention all that’s going on right now.
Since weekends are now suddenly full of free time, today was a good opportunity to try a new recipe. Rugelach is an Israeli bakery shop staple - soft, chocolaty goodness…. Mmmm, carbs… Sorry, I might’ve just drooled a little.
Hello! It’s been a few months, and so much has changed in that time. It’s been quite terrifying to see images from places like New York and Italy, hard hit with Covid-19. My heart goes out to everyone effected by this pandemic. It’s hard to process something that is in so many ways out of our control. It’s harder to think that this may be our new reality for a year or more. And yet, we must go on, trying to maintain a semblance of routine in a time where so many things feel scary and unfamiliar.
Tiramisu is my old faithful. While not too complicated, the delicious layers of boozed up coffee-ness and creamy custard are trusted crowd pleasers. Its also the cake my mom usually requests I make for special events. A little while back we went over to my parents house for Rosh Hashana, and this baby made an appearance. While not a traditional dessert for the Jewish New Year, its a traditional dessert for our family!
So this past weekend Mike and I had a bunch of friends over for a special event: Mike did a “mini concert” of Bob Dylan covers, and I made a whole bunch of mini desserts! We also used the event to raise money for an org we care about - the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/). It was a nice way to have a fun evening with friends and do a little good! We decided to call it “Dylan and Desserts”, because alliteration.
