By Popular Demand - Lemon Ricotta Cake

Dairy products and I have a love-hate relationship. Milk, for example, is the nectar of the devil. It tastes awful and it makes me sick to my stomach. I need it on occasion to bake, but that is it. Consequently, it is really hard for me to tell if milk has spoiled. I have to rely entirely on how it smells, because it always tastes off to me. Cheese on the other hand, I adore. Hard cheeses, soft cheeses, stinky blue, creamy brie, nutty gruyere. So deliciously happy-making. However, in between these lie a sort of dairy limbo that includes yogurt, cottage cheese, ricotta. On any given day I can enjoy one of these thoroughly, or take against it. The latter is particularly true when freshness is in question. No amount of rational thought can ease my worries. I simply can't. Just can't. Hate. And this exact thing happened when I went to use up the ricotta from the tomato crostini. It had only been open a few days. The expiration date swore it was fine. But that nagging little dairy fairy on my shoulder was saying "ew" really loudly. And I decided the only way to deal with it was to make sure the ricotta was baked. Because somehow, that would make it okay. (Which is ridiculous, because of course it was okay, I swear I'm not baking with nasty ricotta here). Lucky for me, using up dairy that irrationally scares me can result in a completely heavenly dessert. Like little clouds of lemony cakey goodness. And the pendulum swings back to love.

LEMON RICOTTA CAKE
inspired by Giada De Laurentiis

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 C flour (all-purpose will do)
2 1/2 t baking powder
3/4 C salted butter (this is 1 1/2 sticks) plus more for greasing the pan
1 1/2 C sugar
1 1/2 C ricotta cheese (I used part skim and it worked fine).
3 large eggs
1 t vanilla
2 T freshly squeezed lemon juice
zest from 1-2 lemons
powdered sugar for dusting
optional: 1/4 to 1/2 C lemon curd

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350F. Grease and flour a 9" round cake pan.
In a stand mixer, cream together the butter and sugar (about 3 minutes). Add the ricotta and mix until incorporated. One at a time add the eggs, mixing between each. Then add your vanilla, lemon juice and zest. In a bowl,combine the flour and baking powder. Add your dry ingredients and give it a final mix. My batter was lumpy and also all the zest attached itself to the paddle. I fixed the zest problem by tossing it back into the batter and quickly mixing with a spatula before pouring it in to the cake pan. The lumps baked themselves away. Bake for 35-40 minutes. It is done when a knife inserted into the middle comes out clean.

Optional section: If you like, slice the cake in half so it has two layers (Doesn't that sound easy? It was my first attempt at something like that and those were not so even. Oh well.) Then spread lemon curd on the bottom layer. I used a quarter cup because I wanted it to be subtle, but it may have been almost too subtle so I might move up to a half cup next time. Or maybe I'll just be lazy and not do it at all. Either way.

Serve with powdered sugar on top (you do this by holding a fine mesh strainer over the cake, pouring in a bit of sugar and then tapping the side of the strainer gently so the powder comes down). If you are serving the whole cake at party powder it all at once, if you're eating the slices for dessert each night powder a slice at a time.

I Baked a Cake!

During the summer I don't always get a lot done during the day. But every day Ryan asks what I did. I tend to mumble out of embarrassment due to my utter lack of productivity. "I read. I watched TV. I took a nap. I tickled the dog". But Wednesday I had something to report. I practiced saying it. Excited: "I baked a cake today!" Casual: "Oh, you know, I just baked a cake." I even debated the basic grunt and point "Urg. Cake." Because come on, isn't that cake pretty enough to do the talking for itself? Two moist chocolatey layers, light and fluffy frosting of whipped cream and cream cheese, sweet sweet strawberries. It's so good. You know you want to be able to brag about it too!

CAKE!
A million thanks to Debbie for the basis of the cake recipe and guiding me through the round pan thingy. Go Debbie!! Also, Debbie now has a cookbook. You really might need it. Lookie here.
Please note, all the things I have done to this cake firmly negate any low calorie/weight-watchery virtues she may have mentioned.

INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 t salt (if you use salted butter, please only use a pinch, if that. This measurement is for unsalted butter users)
1 C dutch-process cocoa (admission, I used Hershey's because it's what was in the cabinet. It sufficed).
10 T butter, softened
1 1/2 C sugar
2 t vanilla
2 large eggs
1 C plain nonfat yogurt

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Debbie suggests greasing and flouring your pans. I found this insufficient and would put parchment down in the bottom of each round if doing it again, this was a nasty little beast to remove from the pans.

In a medium bowl combine your flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt (if using). Set aside.

Cream your butter and sugar until thoroughly mixed and fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs and then mix again until combined. Alternate adding the yogurt and the dry ingredients about a third at a time. After each addition, mix. This is a thick batter, so don't overmix it.

Evenly divide it between your pans and bake for 20-25 minutes or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Cool in the pan (try a half hour) and then run your knife carefully around the edge to separate it further. Very, very carefully turn it out and cool completely, on a rack if you can manage it, but one of mine was so fiddly it needed to cool on a plate. Be careful.

FROSTING!
adapted from here
INGREDIENTS:
8 oz cream cheese
2 C heavy cream
1/4 C sugar

DIRECTIONS:
Whip together the cream cheese and sugar. Then add the heavy cream and keep whipping until the cream can hold a stiff peak. Feel free to mess with the ration of cream cheese to whipping cream, just keeping in mind that the more whipped cream vs. cream cheese you use, the less stable it is, and it will need to be eaten sooner. But you may like the fluffier consistency if the cake will be eaten same day.

NB: Due to a slacker shopping job, I made/used a half recipe of this frosting. As you can see, it made do just fine. I'm giving you the whole recipe because I felt a bit stingy. You may want to feel extravagant or have the option of frosting the sides or you know, just stick your face in it. I don't judge.

ASSEMBLY!!
Rinse, dry and slice up most of a 16oz package of strawberries.

On a pretty serving plate, lay down one of the chocolate layers. Smooth on a suitable amount of the frosting. Artfully arrange the strawberries. (I'm a freak, the inside layer looks pretty much like the top, minus the one central berry). Carefully lower on the second chocolate layer. Top with more whipped cream frosting deliciousness. Artfully arrange more berries. Admire. Announce to anyone who will listen that you baked a cake.

Crummy

If you want romantic and cute this Valentine's Day, please, immediately click over to one of the plethora of food bloggers peddling adorable, sexy holiday treats.

I've got none of that. I am heading into this holiday with all the joy and anticipation I imagine most people feel prior to a root canal (having never had a root canal this is purely speculation on my part). Why so bitter? Am I not happily married?

I have in fact spent the past 8 Valentine's Days with my husband. We're not big celebrators, but most of the time I try to do something to make the day, a little special, a little like what I'd want it to be. But I'm out. I completely forgot to make any type of specially themed goody. It was all I could do this weekend to rustle up dessert, to say nothing of something that would communicate endless love for my spouse.

Instead I made a very crummy chocolate cake. I wanted to make Debbie's Chocolate Yogurt Cake. But I was lazy and a fool and instead I made the Chocolate Honeycake I found in the back of my Enchanted Broccoli Forest cookbook. Big mistake. Huge mistake. I am now out a half a cup of store-brand (but still overpriced) honey, and I possess a cake that tastes more than a little nasty. I should have gone to the store for yogurt. Then at least whilst I wallow in my anti-Valentine's misery I could be eating something I like.

Third Time's A Charm

I have been neglecting this blog. I can be honest. I am stressed and anxious and busy and this is the thing that has fallen by the wayside. In part because there has been no food in my house. It is incredibly hard to blog about cooking when your meals consist of things like the heel of a loaf of bread with some peanut butter on it. But I was determined to fix this, to cook something tasty, to have a worthy post. So to that end I planned and grocery shopped and tried out not one, not two, but three new recipes on Saturday night.

Most unfortunately the main result of this was me realizing just how much I can hate trying out new recipes. I tried making roast chicken with bacon and brandy, inspired by Nigella and Tyler Florence. It came out distinctly uninspiring. Also dry. But I'm blaming the meat thermometer for the dry part. I made these fancy shmancy potatoes that I once saw on Cooking for Real. They only took an extra 30 minutes to cook. Let me be real with you, I do not have an hour and a half to spend on something that looks like an armadillo and tastes exactly like a normal baked potato. Oh hell no.

It was no small blessing that dessert turned out tasty. If it hadn't there's no telling what would have happened over here. The applesauce cake is simple, old-fashioned and easy. A definite winner.

SPICED APPLESAUCE CAKE
from SmittenKitchen who is clearly better at recipe writing and testing than those suckers at Food Network

INGREDIENTS:
2 C flour
2 t baking power
1/2 t baking soda
1 t cinnamon (SK used 3/4, but I'm a cinnamon kind of girl)
1/2 t ground ginger
pinch ground cloves
1 stick butter (I almost always use salted butter, which is NOT ideal for baking, but then I omit the salt from the recipe, things usually even out)
1 C light brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
2 large eggs (that's 1/2 C eggbeaters for those watching their cholesterol)
1 C unsweetened applesauce

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 F. Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the vanilla and mix well. Add the eggs, mixing between each one. Then add the applesauce. Again, mix to combine. In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, ginger and cloves. Stir to combine. Add in small batches to the wet ingredients, mixing between each addition until all are incorporated. Grease and flour a round cake pan (I'm not a square kind of gal). Pour in the cake batter. Bake for 30-45 minutes (mine took 30 flat). Remove carefully from pan and set aside to cool. Frost when cool.

FROSTING

INGREDIENTS:
5 oz cream cheese, softened (cream cheese has these awesome lines like butter so you can cut it right, who knew?)
3 T butter, softened
1 t vanilla
1/2 t cinnamon
1 C confectioner's sugar

DIRECTIONS:
Whip together the cream cheese and butter until uniform. Add the vanilla and give it another whip. Sift the confectioner's sugar and cinnamon into the mixture. DO NOT skip on sifting because you are lazy. It will result in little lumps like I had. I don't do frosting really, so this was a learning experience for me. I realized as poured in the sugar that I was being an idiot but it was too late for me to do anything. Save yourselves. Make nice smooth pretty frosting. Sift in the stupid sugar. Beat again then frost the cake!

Disappointment and Pondering

This is a beautiful honey cake. I made it using a fairly majorly altered version of this recipe. Sadly, as pretty as it is, it's just not for me, there just wasn't enough going on there - which is odd, because as I was mixing together the nine million ingredients I was thinking there was too much going on there. At any rate, I ended up very disappointed that I hadn't made my usual (but very nontraditional) little honey cupcakes.

Now I'm left with an underwhelming bundt to finish off and also a bit of roast chicken. (Come on, I know I'm not the only one in this position around Rosh Hashanah). The obvious choice right now is to make soup. But I'm feeling awfully whiny about what kind of soup. Also I kind of want meatballs. I know, not helpful. Since I'm being less than helpful, perhaps you can help sort it out.

poll by twiigs.com

Apple Gingerbread Upside Down Cake

'Tis the season to be baking. Somehow, even with all our cookie baking, many of us still find that we're expected to produce additional seasonal baked goods. We have holiday gatherings at work, family gatherings, open houses. This cake is both seasonal and fairly easy. As an added bonus, you probably already have the ingredients in the house.


APPLE GINGERBREAD UPSIDE CAKE
recipe adapted from SmittenKitchen

INGREDIENTS:
Topping:

4 T butter (plus extra for greasing pan)
1/2 C dark brown sugar
pinch of salt
2 large apples cut into 1/4 inch wedges. Smitten advises 4 apples. I guess it really depends on the size of your apples. I used Northern Spies.
Gingerbread
4 T butter and 4 T applesauce
1/2 C sugar
1 large egg
1/3 C dark molasses
1/4 C honey (I used the 1/3 C the recipe called for and felt it a bit too sweet, probably because I subbed applesauce for half the butter, and that's sweet too).
1 C buttermilk (you can just use regular milk - here's what to do. Pour a cup of milk. Remove a tablespoon of it. Add a tablespoon of white vinegar. Wait 5 minutes. You're good to go.)
2 1/4 C flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t ground ginger
1 t cinnamon

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat the oven to 325F. Grease a 10" cake pan. (Good luck with that by the way. I don't own one. I used a regular 9" pan, had tons of leftover, some of which I mushed into a baby bundt pan). Now that I've completely got you measuring your baking pans...it's time to make the topping. In a small saucepan, melt the butter (4T). Then add the brown sugar and simmer over medium heat, stirring for 4 minutes. Then swirl in some salt. I believe what your going for here is making a carmel, but mine didn't quite pull together in that time. You might need a smidge more. Remove from heat and pour in the bottom of your cake pan. Then layer the apples, I suggest working from the outside in, making ovelapping circles around the edges towards the center. Fill in the gaps by chopping up some slices to fit.

To make the batter:
Using a mixer, combine the remaining butter with the sugar and cream until light and fluffy. In another bowl mix together the molasses, egg, honey, applesauce and milk. In yet another bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, ginger and cinnamon. Then alternate adding the molasses mixture and the flour mixture to the mixer holding your creamed butter and sugar.
When it's all thoroughly incorporated, pour your batter into your pan on top of the apple slices. Bake 45-50 minutes or until a skewer or knife poked in the middle comes out clean. Let cool on a rack for 10-15 minutes, then turn over onto a plate and unmold.

It's delicious served with whipped cream.

All Pumpkin, All the Time

Last weekend, just like clockwork, my annual fall pumpkin craving began. Ever since I was in college, and discovered the delicious pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins at Lyman Orchards I have found myself wanting, needing, pumpkin products. I've been reduced to checking restaurant menus, stopping in Dunkin' Donuts to determine if the pumpkin muffins are back yet, but now, I am master of my own fate. I have a recipe for a delicious pumpkin cake. Which could be made into muffins or loaves if you like, but I do love a bundt. In fact, in the past week, I have baked not one, but two of these pumpkin spice bundt cakes. They're that good. Special bonus? They use up a whole can of pumpkin. Seriously, this is a big deal. So many pumpkin product recipes use a cup. What the heck am I supposed to do with the rest of the can, people?

PUMPKIN SPICE BUNDT CAKE
recipe slightly altered from the one J posted in the comments of last year's pumpkin disaster, Pumpkin Dreams Smashed

INGREDIENTS:
2 c. sugar
1 c. veg oil
3 eggs
1 16 oz can pumpkin
3 c. flour
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp bking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp. bk powder
(1 c chopped walnuts if you want but why would you?)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350 F. Mix together the sugar and oil. Add the eggs and pumpkin and mix well. Sift together the dry ingredients. Add half the dry ingredients to the wet, mix until incorporated, then add the other half. Pour into a well greased bundt pan, bake at 350 for about 55 minutes or until a knife in the middle comes out clean. If you like, sprinkle with powdered sugar.

Birthday Cake

Truth: I have had the same birthday cake every year since my very first birthday.
I have never made this cake myself. My mother does it, with love, as she always has.

It is delicious.

Just as a great birthday cake should be, it is moist. It is not so chocolatey as to coat your mouth (just the cheeks of a one year old). It can be iced with chocolate or as I request now, mocha. It's simple, basic, tasty - what storebought cake mixes are trying so desperately to replicate.
Also, it's incredibly easy.

I'm simply going to pass along my mother's recipe and her comments, unedited, because really, mother knows best.

BIRTHDAY CAKE AND FROSTING
Ultimate Chocolate Cake -
This came from one of those hippie parenting books. It is made in one pan, with a minimum of fuss and a maximum of taste. It was a great book with all sorts of crafts and activities for having fun with kids.

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 C evaporated milk (no, it is not the whole can; you are just going to have to make two cakes!)
1 t vinegar
4 squares chocolate (1 square = 1 oz) I use a combo of semi-sweetened and unsweetened or whatever I have on had. Who knows what it was meant to be?
1/2 C butter, cut into pieces
1 C boiling water
2 C flour
2 C sugar
2 eggs
1 1/2 t baking SODA
1/2 t vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

In a bowl, combine 1/2 C evaporated milk, 1 t vinegar. In a sauce pan, combine 4 squares chocolate, 1/2 C butter, 1 C boiling water. Stir until melted. Add the canned milk/vinegar. Stir again. Add 2 C flour, 2 eggs, 1 1/2 t baking SODA, 1/2 t vanilla. Beat well with a wooden spoon. Pour into two greased and floured cake pans. Bake 35-40 min at 375 degrees.

Mocha Icing

INGREDIENTS:
1/2 C sweet butter (I use regular butter; sweet butter is w/out salt)
2 1/2 C confectioner's sugar
2 T cocoa
2 T hot coffee
1/2 t vanilla

DIRECTIONS:

Cream butter. Add sugar gradually, beating well between additions. As it becomes thick, add cocoa. Add hot coffee and vanilla. Continue to beat until light and fluffy and thick enough to spread. Use for filling and to frost top and sides of cold cake.

Do not eat it or there will not be enough to cover the cake.

Butter Frosting (CHOCOLATE!)
INGREDIENTS:
1/2 C butter
3 C confectioner's sugar
4 T evaporated milk
3 T cocoa
1 T vanilla

DIRECTIONS: Cream butter. Add remaining ingredients and beat til fluffy.

These (frosting recipes) are from The Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedia Cookbook- the new revised deluxe edition. I think you already have a picture of it on your blog. My mother's was bound neatly.Published 1950. Apparently, as in the case of Nana, it was available earlier in segmented sections, including Your Leftovers; Your Canning, Freezing and Preserving; Your Lunch Box; Your Quick Dinners for the Woman in a Hurry. I think the segments were in the supermarket and you could buy one a week or month or whatever and then they sold a wire apparatus so you could clip them into a neat little binder. It was my mother's bible, but then again, she didn't really like to cook!

Procrastination

I have a bad habit of putting things off. And then the more I put them off, the more I dread dealing with them. Case in point. A while ago I asked my husband to buy me some plain yogurt, so that I could have it for breakfast. He is not a procrastinator, so he went out and got some that very day. Then it sat in my fridge. Every time I made breakfast, I'd look at it and think "ooh, I should really use that yogurt." But I didn't do anything about it. So with the sell by date fast approaching, I went into full panic mode. I baked two cakes using yogurt as an ingredient. One was a chocolate cake, and the other was a delicious apple cake. I really meant to write up that apple cake recipe for you. I did. I swear. But I hadn't taken a picture of it, so I kept putting it off. The thing about procrastination is, if you wait long enough, decisions are made for you. In this case, we ate the whole cake, so there is no picture to take. But I will try to make it up to you, with a recipe.

APPLE CAKE
from epicurious
INGREDIENTS:
2 T butter
2 large baking apples (such as Macoun, Jonamac, Granny Smith, or the ultimate baking apple Northern Spy)
1 1/2 T apple juice or apple cider
1 1/2 t ground cinnamon
1 C + 1 T sugar
2/3 C plain yogurt
2 C flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 C vegetable oil
3 eggs

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Peel, core and roughly dice the apples. Melt the butter in a saute pan, then add the apples and cook on medium for 5-7 minutes until golden brown. Add the juice, 1 T sugar and cinnamon. Remove from heat and set aside until needed.

In a large bowl, mix together the sugar and yogurt, whisking until very smooth. Then add the eggs and oil, again, mixing well. In a separate bowl, mix the flour and baking soda, and then add the dry mixture to the wet ingredients, stirring until well blended. Finally, stir in the apple mixture. Put in a well-greased 8" round pan and cook for 45-50 minutes. The cake is done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

Honey Cakes

At the celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, honey symbolizes the hope that the new year will be sweet. I think that there are a lot of us out there who need to believe that this new year will be a sweet one. And while you're waiting and hoping, maybe some honey cakes will help. These are delicate, light, and just the right kind of sweet without being cloying.

Honey Cakes
from Donna Hay's Off the Shelf

Ingredients:
2/3 C superfine sugar (you can make superfine sugar by putting regular sugar in a food processor and pulsing on high)
6 oz (a stick and a half) butter
3 T honey
2 eggs
1 1/2 C flour, sifted
1 t baking powder

Topping:
whipping cream (the recipe calls for double thick cream which I have yet to see in the US, you can make your own whipped cream using heavy cream, I didn't add sugar to mine, but you may want a tsp of sugar in yours)
honey

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325
Mix together the sugar, butter and honey until light and fluffy. Add the eggs and continue to mix until creamy. Sift together the flour and baking powder and add to the eggs and sugar mixture. Mix well. Pour into a greased muffin tin. Bake for 15-20 min. Top with whipped cream and a drizzle of chilled honey. DO NOT drizzle the honey until the last possible moment. As it warms it will squiggle down your cake. Still tasty, but not so pretty for company.

A Seedy Business, with Heavenly Results

My husband has high cholesterol. He hasn't done anything to deserve it, like shovel cheeseburgers and supersized fries down his gullet and plop down in front of the television for hours on end. In fact, he stopped eating red meat in high school, works out a minimum of 4 days a week and checks labels conscientiously to avoid transfats. And you know what's just chock full of tranfats? Store bought baked goods. No dessert for him. It's really very sad. So I try to help out by baking for him from time to time. This is the ultimate low-cholesterol recipe. Angel food cake with blackberry coulis. And if you make the angel food cake instead of buy it, you'll not only avoid transfats, but have something that you might want actually want to eat.

Make the cake first, and then while it's baking you can take care of the coulis. Also, you can reuse some of the equipment if you do the cake first. Everyone likes fewer dishes, right?

LEMON ANGEL FOOD CAKE
from Barefoot Contessa Family Style

INGREDIENTS
2 cups sifted superfine sugar (1 1/2 C in one place, 1/2 C in another) - also, I don't have superfine sugar. So I make it by sticking regular sugar in my food processor. I think I got that tip from Alton Brown, who knows, I watch a lot of Food TV.
1 1/3 cups sifted cake flour (not self-rising) - I have no cake flour. I use all-purpose. The world has yet to end.
1 1/2 cups egg whites (about 10-12 eggs) - Use the eggbeaters AllWhites product. So much easier. And less wasteful.
3/4 t kosher salt
1 1/2 t cream of tartar
3/4 t vanilla extract
1 1/2 t lemon zest (from about 2 lemons)

DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350F.

Pay attention, separate the sugar. Combine 1/2 C of sugar with the flour and sift together 4 times. No idea why four. I use a metal mesh strainer. Set aside.

In your mixing bowl, combine the eggs, salt and cream of tarter and whip on high until the whites form medium-firm peaks. Reduce speed to medium and add the 1 1/2 C of sugar (NOT the flour/sugar combo) by sprinkling it around. Try not to get it all over the counter. Whisk until thick and shiny. Then add the vanilla and lemon zest. Whip for about a minute more. Then sift a quarter of the flour mixture over the top and fold in. I am utter crap at folding. Maybe this explanation from Apartment Therapy will help you if you are similarly handicapped. I promise however that my inability to fold well has not had bad results. Okay, so after the first quarter of the flour mixture is folded in, do the next quarter and so on, until it's all in. Then pour the batter into a ungreased angel food cake pan and cook for 35-40 minutes or until it springs back to the touch. Invert pan on cooling rack until cool. Use a knife and run it around the edges to help remove from the pan.

See that wasn't so bad. Now the blackberry coulis? That's a different story. Wear something you are okay with ruining completely. Not your go-to basic pink shirt. That would probably end badly.

The great thing about coulis is that once you can make blackberry coulis, you can probably make any kind of berry coulis your little heart desires. Blackberries are wicked cheap around here right now, so I went with them. Coulis is also terribly forgiving (because of the added sugar) so if your berries aren't at their ripest, you can give them a boost.



BLACKBERRY COULIS
adapted from Sara Moulton

INGREDIENTS
1 C blackberries
1/8 C sugar
1 t lemon juice

DIRECTIONS
Put the blackberries, sugar and lemon juice together in your food processor (see, if you've just made the superfine sugar, you don't even need to rinse!) Blend. Then things get interesting. Grow several extra arms if possible. You'll need the mesh strainer, a bowl for the coulis to drip into and then you'll need to pour the coulis from the food processor into the strainer. Then you press the mixture down into the strainer to try to get all of the juice to drip down and the seeds to stay. You will need to smush and smash many times. You'll get to a point where it looks like very seedy jam.This is not done. You should have almost exclusively seeds left to be done. Check out the bottom of the strainer, there will be lots of coulis waiting to drip into the bowl. Resist the urge to use the same spatula as you were using to push the seedy part through. You'll just get seeds in the bowl. Get another spoon or spatula. When you are sick and tired of smooshing, quit. If possible, con someone else into cleaning the mesh strainer.

Serve the coulis over the angel food cake and top with a few blackberries.

Sheep in Wolf's Clothing

The loaf shaped dessert cake has long meant one thing to me - pound cake -intensely rich, a dangerously decadent treat. But all that has changed. Behold the lemon cake.

I can already see you puckering up your lips. But you don't have to, it's not that lemony. It's very delicate. Something to have a slice of with tea. Or for breakfast, if you're my husband. Even though I've made it a few times now, I'm still always surprised at exactly how light it is. And I'm excited for the summer, because come raspberry season, I'm doubling this recipe and baking it in round tins, adding some lemon curd filling and some raspberry filling and making into the showpiece it deserves to be. But for now, it's one tasty non-threatening treat.

LEMON CAKE
adapted from Barefoot Contessa, episode Going, Going, Gone
INGREDIENTS:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup plain yogurt (I used non-fat)
1 1/3 cups sugar, divided (1 cup for cake, 1/3 for glaze)
3 extra-large eggs (I used egg-beaters)
2 teaspoons grated lemon zest (2 lemons)
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/3 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice + 2 T
DIRECTIONS:
Preheat oven to 350.
Sift together flour, baking powder and salt. Mix. In another bowl, mix together the yogurt, sugar, eggs and lemon zest, and the 2 T of lemon juice (save the 1/3 of a cup of juice for later). Slowly add the dry ingredients and whisk until incorporated. Add the vegetable oil and fold in with a spatula. Pour into a greased and floured loaf pan. Cook for 50 minutes or until a knife comes out clean. Right before it's done, mix together the 1/3 C sugar and 1/3 C lemon juice on low heat until it's clear. Set the finished cake on a baking rack and pour over the glaze. (I actually ended up glazing all sides of it, because I like the lemony part). Allow to cool.

P.S.

See, now that's what the cider-gingerbread spice cake is supposed to look like. Pretty, yes?

Beauty's Only Skin Deep

Today I made my one of my favorite fall desserts, apple cider gingerbread bundt cake. It is moist, sweet, spicy, apple-y and very hard to stop eating. Luckily, it's not even that bad for you! The recipe is from Cooking Light, so all this fall goodness is yours without the guilt. The only trouble I've ever run into is that certain brands of molasses result in the cake cooking up with a slight bitter aftertaste, but most people don't even notice this. Usually, the cake comes out beautifully, but today I was left trying to resmoosh the top part back on after it refused to part ways with the bundt pan. Ah well, at least it still tastes delicious.

Hey - want to see what it looks like when it's all pretty? Click here!

OLD-FASHIONED CIDER-GINGERBREAD BUNDT CAKE
Source: Cooking Light November 1998
Yield: 16 servings

INGREDIENTS:
2-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup apple cider
1/2 cup apple butter
1-1/3 cups shredded peeled Granny Smith apple (about 1 apple)
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup molasses
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup egg substitute or 1 egg white

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves and salt. In your stand mixer, combine granulated sugar, molasses, cider, apple butter, vegetable oil and egg or egg substitute in a large bowl. Mix on medium speed until everything is incorporated. Slowly add the flour mixture, mixing well to incorporate. Add apple; beat well. Pour batter into a 12-cup Bundt pan coated with cooking spray. They are seriously not kidding about this cooking spray. I've made this many, many times and it's only stuck once, but boy did it stick that time. I think I totally forgot to spray it that time. Bake cake at 350°F for 55 minutes or until a knife inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes; invert cake onto a wire rack and remove from pan, and cool completely.