Treats for appetites of every size
I’ve been baking up a storm this week! I’ve already made two recipes, and have another one lined up for Wednesday night. This seems particularly amazing given I’ve also been having a crazy busy week otherwise. I guess its true that the more you do the more you can do.
I always feel a little bit like pancakes don’t quite belong on this blog. As a baker, I’m drawn to breakfast food, and they do have cake in their name, but they seem like less of an adventure than other things I make. But I wanted to make another loaf of sourdough bread this weekend, and was already feeding my starter, so decided to give these a try. As consolation for them not being super exciting, I’ll supplement them with a good story.
In my second installment of high altitude baking, I really went for something challenging: a true cake. Cookies bake for a short period of time, meaning that recipes really don’t need to be altered all that much. However, cakes are in the oven longer, and rising is much more important. Though there are plenty of websites online that explain adjustments of various ingredients at altitude, I decided it would be more fun to find an actual cookbook. What I found was a great little spiral bound book called Mountain High Cakes, written right here in Jackson, Wyoming!
It feels like forever ago that I made this cake. (It was Thursday.) I brought it to brunch on Friday with some coworkers, but since then I’ve spent two nights up in Vermont with my cousins, making Friday brunch a distant memory. Fortunately, I remember that it got a lot of compliments.
Happy Mother’s Day! This year, we started a new tradition – my cousin Kim and I cooked brunch for all the mothers on my dad’s side of the family – my mom, her mom (hi Gail!), our grandmother, and my godmother (our aunt). Brunch is my favorite meal to cook, but terribly difficult to make dessert for – it’s already pretty sweet, and everyone tends to feast and get full since it’s the first meal of the day.
Happy Easter! I just got back to Cambridge from a great 24 hours at home, and had the best time hanging out with family, playing with little kids, and eating chocolate for every meal.
I don’t know why I have this idea in my head, but I firmly believe that anything baked in a bundt pan is breakfast food. For some reason, the ring-shape of a cake makes it not a cake cake, just a breakfast cake. Fortunately, all of my friends in town for Harvard-Yale agreed and it’s just about gone.
I made the (great) mistake of starting Stranger Things this weekend. As far as things to watch during Halloweekend, I think I picked well, but as far as a full weekend of baking adventures, I only ended up with time for one.
As promised, it’s time for pumpkin. And when I decide it’s pumpkin season, I don’t mess around. This morning for breakfast, I had what I like to call the Gunther Tooties Pumpkin Trifecta: a pumpkin bagel with pumpkin cream cheese and a pumpkin spice coffee. I’m not sure you can get much more committed than that.
Finally, another baking adventure out of my own kitchen. I’ve been a baby the past couple of weeks and baked only at my parents’ house, with the promise of central AC. But Neha was up for an afternoon of revelry, so Cambridge baking it was!