Cakes

Pumpkin-Apple Streusel Cake — Two Ways

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A fast 9″x13″ cake for Halloween gatherings, holiday breakfasts, tailgates, or coffee any afternoon.

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How sweet it is to be home! I missed you!

Since I returned from a month-long trip last Sunday, I’d been thinking about a fall cake. Pumpkin or apple or maybe – probably – both. I wanted a chunky, dense sort of cake that a person could cut and grab a small (or large) hunk when sidling through the kitchen on the way to the mailbox. (I only had one bite!! Honest.) Something that, should we have need of it, would hold together in a lunch box or travel intact to a party without melting or crumbling or even shifting in the pan on the back seat. What about a goody to accompany a big cup of hot coffee out onto the deck some cool morning? Or one to sneak in bed with us sometime when that felt ok? (Are you a crumbs in the bed sort of person? While I’ll happily guzzle coffee in bed any day, I’m not a breakfast in bed woman, even when ill.) I had in mind what we currently call a snacking cake, which denotes an easy-to-make and easy to serve homey cake that’s for any time at all you need or want cake. Not an occasion dessert like birthday cake, wedding cake, or even an elegant dinner party cake but simply a hang around the kitchen, come as you are kinda cake. And while some snacking cakes boast a glaze, a frosting, or a fine dusting of powdered sugar, I was leaning, once again, toward a crowning cap of spicy streusel.

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KIDS BAKE MOTHER’S DAY: Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake

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Are homey cakes best? Try mine and see!
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Wasn’t it just New Years? Or at least Valentine’s Day? I only yesterday took the Easter runner off my piano. Geez, Alyce. After a month away from home, hearth, dog, and blog, I was –after getting a little reacclimated — amazed to see Mother’s Day coming up quickly on the heels of Cinco de Mayo. The time simply runs. Perhaps you, too, have yet to make the first plan for Sunday, May 12, 2024, but you might start right here with nearly the simplest of sweet treats, my Blueberry Streusel Coffee Cake–which you can throw together and slide into the oven in truly a few minutes. If you are a really good soul (and you are, right?) and are baking with a local kiddo, it might take a few more. And if you’re skipping Mother’s Day all together, go ahead and bake this for yourself or have a favorite neighbor in for coffee. Don’t wait. Everyone should have a 9″x 13″ coffee cake in their back pocket and if you’ve not yet found yours, claim this one now. It’s fast, inexpensive, easy, flexible, and requires no chopping of fruit since it’s made with toss-in-the-bowl blueberries. Frozen work as well as fresh; just rinse and use — no thawing necessary. One thing about this cake is: it’s really a cake, by golly. This isn’t bread masquerading as cake. There’s a bu** load of sugar and even more fat than that and you’ll darned well like it when you eat it, I promise you. Diet another day and make sure the coffee is hot, good, and strong (just like mom!) while you’re at it.

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Cranberry-Apple Whole Wheat Olive Oil Cake

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Because this not too sweet cake is a tweak of a tweak that even I have made a few versions of…. I’m including the introduction to my blogpost for an all-apple cake from last spring to provide background…

I’ve been baking this friendly cake for a few months now in one variation or another. First, I was just fascinated by the ingredients in the original Almond Cake recipe, which belongs to Molly Wizenberg and was adapted by Mark Bittman and Sam Sifton…and later by me along with a few thousand of my closest friends. It starts with boiling an orange and a lemon together for a half hour, removing the seeds, and puréeing the now softened peels. Nothing I’d ever done in my not-so-extensive cake baking career; still, I was sold. There’s no butter but there’s plenty of olive oil, making it taste and feel seriously Mediterranean or just Spanish… and keeping it moist for a few days right on the old proverbial counter. That’s even in Colorado at altitude where bread becomes crouton material in 15 minutes flat. The original “Tarta de Santiago” or St. James Cake (very similar to the almond cake I kept making) is a middle ages and Camino de Santiago specialty still baked each July 25, for the feast of St. James. One couldn’t have asked for a better plain cake or maybe even one with more spiritual flavor. Think gently citrusy and uber nutty pound cake only lighter. My dad, who abhorred all things frosting, would have inhaled it. Only thing my cake needed was a little barely sweetened whipped cream or a few berries, as you see in my photo (below the recipe in this post). Or just a cup of coffee if you were my dad. Maybe a small Armagnac if you were me. A wee dram or a cuppa if you weren’t.

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Rhubarb-Banana Olive Oil Bread

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A lighter fruit-filled treat for car trips, beach picnics, or early morning coffee.
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My friend Pam is a multi-talented woman. She enjoys a stunning alto solo voice; cooks like a fiend; entertains largely and comfortably; cultivates a wry wit; is an avid reader; makes a devoted wife, mom, church member, and friend; plays a mean piano, and –the thing I might most envy– is the epitome of organization. What most people don’t know about Miss Pam is she’s also a fine gardener who loves and generously shares the bounty of her craft. While summers here in the front range are late and short with cool nights, she still manages to get a crop or two in each year despite two black Labrador retrievers romping all over her big backyard. Best sous and husband Dave and I are often the recipients of her largesse when the weather warms and the other day Pam’s husband Lee drove over for a visit toting some of her rhubarb along as a gift to us. As rhubarb keeps pretty darned well in the fridge, I didn’t worry about using it quickly. Needing a snack on the not-too-sweet side yesterday, though, I soon heard that rhubarb calling my name, whispering, “bake, bake, bake…” and pulled it out to see just exactly how much she’d sent. To be on the safe side, I chopped it up and measured it to find I easily had a cup plus. Not enough for a pie or a cobbler, there was plenty for a simple cake or quick bread if I included another fruit in the mix. With a side-eyed sniff at the counter, it was apparent the partner needed to be bananas. Then again, I’d never heard of rhubarb and bananas. You? Turns out: It’s a match made in heaven.

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Whole Wheat Apple Olive Oil Cake

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I’ve been baking this friendly cake for a few months now in one variation or another. First, I was just fascinated by the ingredients in the original Almond Cake recipe (see photo below), which belongs to Molly Wizenberg and was adapted by Mark Bittman and Sam Sifton…and later by me along with a few thousand others. It starts with boiling an orange and a lemon together for a half hour, removing the seeds, and puréeing the now softened peels. Nothing I’d ever done in my not-so-extensive cake baking career; still, I was sold. There’s no butter but there’s plenty of olive oil, making it taste and feel seriously Mediterranean or just Spanish… and keeping it moist for a few days right on the old proverbial counter. That’s even in Colorado at altitude where bread becomes crouton material in 15 minutes flat. The original “Tarta de Santiago” or St. James Cake (very similar to the almond cake I kept making) is a middle ages and Camino de Santiago specialty still baked each July 25, for the feast of St. James. One couldn’t have asked for a better plain cake or maybe even one with more spiritual flavor. Think gently citrusy and uber nutty pound cake only lighter. My dad, who abhorred all things frosting, would have inhaled it. Only thing my cake needed was a little barely sweetened whipped cream or a few berries, as you see in my photo. Or just a cup of coffee (black) if you were my dad. Maybe a small Armagnac if you were me.

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KIDS BAKE EASTER: A Very Berry Ricotta Coffeecake

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KIDS BAKE recipes–easy for kids to make with help but great for adults without extensive baking experience.

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I’m not a big cake baker and certainly not much of a cake eater, but lately I find myself working on cakes. There are probably a few reasons but one is the number of impressive cakes posted on Dorie Greenspan’s engaging and active facebook group, BAKE AND TELL. Some of these folks bake their kids’ favorite chocolate birthday cake (more my speed) and others create pastry visions (think marzipan) unseen at many professional bakeries. Yikes. But it’s all fun and there’s lots of learning and togetherness– the internet at its best. Another thing going through my mind has been finding a cake my good friend Tony can eat and still stay on his healthy regime, which means no white flour, no dairy, and not much sugar. (I’m nearly there on that one; a pan of cake with his name on it is in the freezer for the next time we play Pinochle. We’ll see what he thinks.) This last Sunday, I woke early to drink coffee and exercise (I know–me?!) and saw a few cartons of sorta sad-lookin’ berries (Poor babies.) in the fridge when I got the milk. There was also a container of ricotta — couldn’t even remember what I’d needed that for, but it passed the sniff test. What could I make with berries and ricotta? Well, folks, that’s what Google’s for, isn’t it? Up came Ina Garten’s “Blueberry Ricotta Breakfast Cake.” Luckily I have the book it’s in (Go-To Dinners) and read it through twice thinking about how Alyce would make and bake this cake. And here’s what happened; I changed it as I went along…

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KIDS BAKE MOTHER’S DAY: Apple-Pecan Coffeecake

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What is it about making brunch at home that feels extravagant and comfy all at the same time? We’re all over planning changeable, healthy dinner meals complete with menus, shopping lists, and Sunday prep, but morning fare is relegated to nearly the same dish over and over again. Folks literally eat oatmeal for breakfast every single day. Or peanut butter toast. Yogurt and granola. Whatever. But take us to a swank brunch buffet at a fancy hotel and we’re putting soft poached eggs on smoked salmon dill biscuits and snarfing down raspberries in Grand Marnier with dark chocolate waffles as if there were no tomorrow. And then there’s the bottomless mimosa, isn’t there? When we finally decide to put on an at-home morning spread–for Mother’s Day, say?– that takes more thoughtful preparation than slamming down bread in the toaster and manage some actual day-before cooking or baking, it’s amazing how pampered-rich, how homey and cosseted we feel. Kinda like, “Well, isn’t this nice?!” And it is.

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Rhubarb Clafoutis

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While this sweet might be among the more difficult dessert names to pronounce, it’s also the simplest to make and make well. Clafoutis (clah-FOO-tee) —and yes, I must keep remembering it’s a singular noun! — is a much-loved and often-baked traditional French dessert that is a cross between a custard and a cake, but easier and faster to make than either one. When cherries (or raspberries, blueberries…) are in season and hence plentiful-cheap, the oven is heated along with a cast iron pan (can also use a casserole), a quick batter is whirred together in the food processor, blender, or by hand and poured right into that the pan. The fruit gets distributed on top and into a HOT oven it all goes for just a half hour or so. And there’s dessert, friends. At first it’s all hot and puffy golden brown if you like it that way (think Dutch Baby), but soon it calms and cools down and is just as good, if a tad deflated. Cold for breakfast the next morning? Of course. Bien sur!

How to pronounce CLAFOUTIS (Listen up!)

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Clean Out the Fridge Chicken Pasta–Don’t Look for This Dish in Italy

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Over the years, I’ve taught a number of Italian cooking classes, one more enjoyable than the last and no doubt I’ve learned as much as anyone in the groups. A few minutes are always spent discussing the basic courses of an Italian meal while listening to a stellar Italian opera aria or two, though we rarely have time to make them all, more’s the pity. Having traveled to Italy a number of times, I learned it was no secret Italians themselves only have time for such luxurious repasts during special family get-togethers, Sundays, or holidays — much like Americans. In Naples, a tour guide confided to me, “We love just pasta for lunch; it’s a favorite. Or pizza!” It was cool hearing that.

Here in the states, pasta is rarely a first course (“primi”), which it is for that special Italian meal:

Primo / Primi or primo piatto / primi piatti – first plate/s, usually pasta or risotto; you could also have a “bis di primi” or “tris di primi”, where they give you a small portion of two or three different types of pasta so you can sample.

ITALY Magazine

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