Posted by Lucy Baker, May 27, 2008 at 4:15 PM
My parents' birthdays are four days apart, so usually I just make one cake for them both. Every year it poses a bit of a challenge. My mom is fond of carrot cake, cream cheese frosting, and chocolate, while my dad is more of a plain butter cake or upside-down fruit kind of guy. The one flavor they both love? Lemon.
For their joint party—and for this week's Magazine Recipe Review—I prepared Nathan's Lemon Cake, created by San Diego-based chef Nathan Coulon, from the May issue of Cooking Light. The recipe appealed to me in large part because of the frosting, a simple combination of powdered sugar, lemon juice, and melted butter. Only the tops of the cake layers are frosted (not the sides) so the icing dribbles down in a homey and comforting manner.
The cake turned out moist, tart, and dense with just enough creamy icing to hold the layers together. I omitted the lemon rind strips and studded the cake with fresh raspberries, which is a move I highly recommend. Not only do the bright red berries look stunning atop the pale yellow cake, they also add a burst of sunny sweetness.
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Posted by Lucy Baker, May 15, 2008 at 1:30 PM
When it comes to eating cake, sharing is the pits. Instead of slowly savoring a slice, you end up fighting over the last few forkfuls. Who will get the final crumbs? It's a race to the finish. The best thing about today's Cook the Book recipe for Italian Almond Cake, excerpted from Wine Bar Food, is that the batter is divided into either tart pans or muffin tins, and yields 8 to 12 individual servings.
So you can have your very own cake, and eat the whole thing, too.
This recipe makes crumbly, cookie-like cakes that keep well for several days. Enjoy them with any spumante—Italian sparking wines made predominantly from Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Pinot Grigio, and Pinot Bianco grapes.
Win 'Wine Bar Food'
As is always the case with our cook the book selections, we're giving away five (5) copies away this week to lucky readers. Enter to win here»
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Posted by Adam Kuban, September 20, 2007 at 5:30 PM
Alice Medrich, author of Pure Dessert
, from which this recipe comes, took inspiration for this Italian Chocolate-Almond Torte from Claudia Roden's torta di mandorle e cioccolata in Roden's Book of Jewish Food. The chocolate in this torte is ground, rather than melted, so it's easy to make.
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Posted by Adam Kuban, September 19, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Alice Medrich, author of Pure Dessert, from which this recipe comes, advises would-be bakers of this cake not to fear the olive oil in it. The result won't be overly sweet, as you'd imagine. Instead, the oil, sherry, and orange zest yield "a subtle and flavorful cake" that's "improves after a day or two." You might even want to try toasting slices of it for breakfast.
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Posted by Dorie Greenspan, September 6, 2007 at 3:00 PM
We bakers must be a lot alike. Last week, when plums were inching berries off farm stand tables, I got messages from people around the country who were making plum cakes, custards, and tarts. And that was just what I was doing. I made a plum clafouti, (kind of like a custard, kind of like a cake), individual plum tartlets (puff pastry rounds brushed with jam, topped with plums, sprinkled with sugar, dotted with butter, baked, and served warm with ice cream), and this Dimply Plum Cake, a favorite.
The base of this treat is a brown sugar cake flavored with cardamom and orange zest, a combination I really like with plums. The cake itself is a simple beat-the-butter-with-the-sugar affair, in other words, a snap in the technique department; the baked fruit is really what makes it special. I love the way the way the plum juices seep into the batter and add their own tangy sweetness to the mix. (Of course, you can mix things up and make this cake with other fruits and other spices; see "Playing Around," below.)
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