Biting into a fresh ripe peach is one of the most exquisite food experiences. The smooth juicy texture of the fruit is both lusciously soft and satisfyingly toothsome; a balance that seems contradictory but is somehow captured inside this beautiful delicate package.

A fresh ripe peach offers just enough toothy resistance to make each bite noticeable. As though it’s a signal to pay attention to the moment, to this perfectly ripe sweet juicy fruit that is here now and will soon be gone again for 11 months.

It’s not elegant, but my favorite way to eat a fresh peach is peeled, halved, and out of hand while standing at the kitchen sink letting the juice run down my arm. It’s a full-concentration kind of food. Let me be while I eat my peach.

I love eating fresh ripe peaches so much that I find it hard to cook with them. I like peach dishes, I just don’t ever want to give up my stash of fresh peaches to make a recipe. I did pony up three peaches for this week’s Tuesday’s with Dorie recipe to make the Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart. I’ll admit to it being a good use of peaches.

The fresh peaches are simply sliced and fanned out over a pre-baked shell that is then flooded with custard and topped with a crumb topping. I was skeptical of the crumb topping, fearful it would ruin a good thing, but it truly enhanced the tart. What made the topping successful is that it was sparse so it didn’t create a solid crust of sugar, and it had almonds in it. They added the perfect crunch and flavor to complement the peaches.

This tart is wonderful. The soft peaches and custard filling are sweet and creamy which is especially good when matched with a crisp shortbread-like crust. Though I am stingy with fresh peaches, I would actually consider doubling them in this tart. They were so good I wanted more of them in each bite. Rachel of Sweet Tarte gets full credit for motivating me to cook with my prized fresh peaches.

I have recently discovered using lavender leaves rather than just lavender flowers in dishes and decided to add some to the crust. Tasting the leaves and flowers side by side, the leaves have a nice lavender flavor, but don’t have the bitter finish that the flowers do. I added a tablespoon of chopped leaves to the dry ingredients. Once the crust was cooked, the flavor was very subtle, almost too subtle. I think the flowers have a little more punch and I will try using a mix of both next time. The combination of peaches and lavender is lovely and subtle is always the better way to go with a lavender experiment because it’s all too easy to end up with something that tastes like potpourri or bath soap.

Rachel got me on a bit of a roll and I decided to make a small batch of jam as well. Sticking with the peach lavender theme I used the lavender leaves again. They give the jam a nice herby note but in such a subtle way it’s difficult to pinpoint that it’s lavender.

This recipe only makes about 1 ½ cups so I just put it in the refrigerator to enjoy right away rather than bothering to can it for future consumption. There is something to be said for making a quick and simple spur-of-the-moment batch of jam. Don’t think I don’t enjoy canning. I have a pantry shelf loaded with jam I’ve made this summer. As a result, all my canning jars have been filled and I didn’t have a single spare to use for this jam, so it became a make-and-eat batch.

Peach Lavender Jam

1 pound of fresh peaches, peeled, pitted, and sliced
¼ ounce fresh lavender stems with leaves, tied into a bundle
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 tablespoon lemon juice
7 ounces (1 cup) granulated sugar

Place a small plate in the refrigerator to have chilled for testing the set of the jam.

Place the peaches, lavender, lemon zest and juice in a 3 qt. heavy-bottom sauce pan. Over medium-low heat, let the peaches cook for about 15 minutes to become very soft and release their juice. Stir frequently to prevent burning and lower the heat if necessary. As the peaches soften, mash them with the back of a spoon. Muddle the lavender bundle with the spoon as well to release the flavor of the herb.

Once the peaches have broken down and cooked for 15 minutes, reduce the heat and stir in the sugar. After the sugar is completely dissolved, increase the heat to medium-high and bring the jam to a boil for 5 minutes.

Place a small dollop of jam on the chilled plate and put it in the refrigerator for a minute or two. To check for setting, push one edge of the jam toward the center of the dollop, if the surface wrinkles, the jam is set and can be removed from the heat, if not, continue to cook and re-test every few minutes. Transfer jam to a clean jar and store in the refrigerator. Enjoy within 1 – 2 weeks.

Recipe link

• Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. 140 recipes completed 81 to go!

Have you crunched into a crispy kale chip? So light and crispy they shatter and crumble in your mouth and have a salty earthy flavor that is a completely satisfying snack sensation.

It’s rather astonishing how easy it would be to eat an entire bundle of kale once it’s baked into crispy chips and sprinkled with salt and maybe a touch of spice. I can’t fathom eating that much fresh kale, yet I must ration my kale chips to keep from devouring them in a single sitting.

They are simple to make; a little rub of oil, dusting of salt, spread on a sheet pan and bake for 15 minutes. How can you not give this a try? In addition to the hightly desirable snack qualities of crispy and salty, baked kale has a sweet earthy flavor reminiscent of seaweed, but unlike seaweed it doesn’t get soggy and chewy when eaten. Nutmeg is a great spice with greens, so I added a touch after the chips came out of the oven. Good, but I really liked the batch I made with garam masala; the complexity of a blend of spices is more interesting. The sweet warm flavors of cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, and cardamom typically found in garam masalas are prefect with kale.

For a great snack duo, bake up some garbanzo beans while you’re at it. Right from a can these little nuggets are as easy to toast up as the kale, though it takes about 60-70 minutes to get them baked to a completely crispy state. Well worth the wait. Sprinkled with a bit of kosher salt and curry powder they too become an addictive little snack, and can pack a punch depending on how spicey your curry powder is. Sort of like corn nuts, only good for you. I have Jaden over at Steamy Kitchen to thank for putting this treat on my radar. I read about them on her blog and got up from my computer and headed right for the can of garbanzos stashed in the pantry. For some really creative flavor treatments check out the list of roasted garbanzo bean recipes the folks over at The Kitchn wrangled from across the web, or just turn to your own spice collection for inspiration.

Both of these will be a hit if you serve them at your next party, or just keep them all for yourself as mid-afternoon nibble that’s packed with protein. I hope you’ll give them a try and let me know what you think.

Now, if you want to swing to the complete opposite end of the snack spectrum, check out this blog I just came across,  www.junkfoodblog.com.

Recipe links

• Crispy Kale Chips with Garam Masala
• Curried Garbanzo Bean Nuts

Mid August seems like the perfect time to spin up a batch of homemade ice cream. Sunny warm lazy days and ice cream go hand-in-hand.

In the Northwest we’ve been reading about sunny warm days, but haven’t actually been experiencing them. Not terribly motivated for ice cream with our chilly summer, I put off making this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe until the last minute. Guess what? The sun finally came out for the first time in nearly a week.

This weekend is supposed to be in the mid-80s and the anticipation of true summer weather is very exciting. I believe I’ll be mixing up another batch of this ice cream because I don’t think what’s in the freezer will last to the weekend.

My “ice cream” is actually frozen yogurt. I had yogurt in the fridge, but no cream, so I thought I’d give it a try. I essentially down-shifted the fat by using whole milk in place of the cream and plain low-fat yogurt in place of the milk. It’s tangy, chocolaty, and wonderful. I like the lighter ice-milk like quality and the tangy zing of the yogurt is refreshing. The texture isn’t creamy smooth, which could be a result of the lower fat or the cocoa powder, or the combination of the two. It’s not off-putting by any means, but curious. I’ll have to try a vanilla version of the recipe and see what happens. Fearing the tanginess of the yogurt would overpower the chocolate, I added 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder as a little boost and the cocoa-forward flavor takes me right back to one of my favorite childhood frozen treats – a fudgesicle.

Because the yogurt was so tangy I increased the sugar from 1/3 cup to ½ cup. The only other minor tweaks were adding a pinch of salt and ½ teaspoon of vanilla.

Katrina of Baking and Boys has the full recipe posted on her blog and she gets a big thank you from me for picking ice cream for this week. I make ice cream and the sun comes out, how is that for positive reinforcement? And a brilliant example of flawed logic, but I’ll still enjoy a scoop while sitting in the sun today.

Recipe link

• Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 138 recipes completed 83 to go!

A crispy layer of bread crumbs adds an element of comfort food to this wonderfully simple vegetable casserole. Pre-baking the eggplant makes it creamy and soft, a beautiful contrast to the zucchini which retain a nice snappy bite.

This dish is inspired by my participation in Share Our Strength’s Operation Frontline program, which is a free six week cooking and nutrition class geared to help low income people prepare and eat healthy meals on a very tight budget. This is a national program implemented by different organizations in every community. In Seattle, I volunteer through Solid Ground.

Can cooking on a budget be delicious? Absolutely! One of the things I focus on in the classes I help teach is developing good cooking technique to draw the best flavor out of the ingredients. It’s hard to beat simple ingredients that are well cooked.

It should be no surprise that my enthusiasm for the value of proper cooking technique comes from my experience with Rouxbe online cooking school. The concept of focusing on skills and technique rather than learning how to make a specific recipe really changed the way I cook, so this is how I approach the Operation Frontline classes.

We made this casserole with a simple polenta the first week of class and talked about how to use a chef’s knife and different cutting techniques. I have shared a video demo from Rouxbe of cutting with a chef’s knife in a past post, so this time I’ll share the video demo of how to cut an onion which we practiced in the class this week.

I love recipes that allow for creative license and the ratatouille gratin is very flexible giving you plenty of room to be creative. You can skip the mushrooms, use a mix of zucchini and yellow squash, double the Swiss chard, add in other veggies, or change the spices without any dire consequences. There are, however, a few key steps that will help to make the recipe successful.  

• Slicing the eggplant and squash evenly is important so the pieces cook in the same amount of time. If the eggplant is too squirrely to make nice slices, trim a small slice off the middle of one side so it will sit securely on the cutting board.
• Give the onions enough time to sweat down over a medium-low heat to develop their flavor. If you hear a lot of sizzling in the pan and they are beginning to brown, turn the heat down.
• Taste the onion mixture before assembling the gratin to be sure it has enough seasoning. It should have a deep rich flavor and be on the strong side because it will be tempered by the eggplant and zucchini.

In class we served this over a plain polenta, but here’s a more decadent version from Rouxbe if you feel like indulging. Please take advantage of the free 14-day Rouxbe membership to explore their site. Just click on any of the Rouxbe links from our site to access it. If you love it and want to purchase a membership, you will be helping us raise money for Share Our Strength. We are donating 100% of the commissions we make from membership sign-ups to Share Our Strength.

Recipe Links

• Ratatouille Gratin
• Soft Polenta  from Rouxbe

These soft cakey cookies packed full of goodies are reminiscent of carrot cake, so I took the obvious next step and filled them with cream cheese frosting.

As is so often the case, I made this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe with what I had on hand. Dried cranberries stood in for raisins and the sweetened coconut was replaced with unsweetened. The cranberries go beautifully with the carrots and the added tartness is a good thing given the extra sugar hit from the filling and icing.

How is it that I’ve never thought to grate two carrots at the same time before today?

There is nothing tricky about making these cookies. They don’t spread much, so I gave them a little pat to flatten the scoops of dough before baking them. The recipe suggests baking for 16-18 minutes; mine were done in 9. I was using a convection fan, which speeds things up a bit, but even so it’s always important to use your best judgment when it comes to baking times. Think of them as more of a hint as to when something should be expected to be done.

Just because I filled and dipped these little treats doesn’t mean they aren’t great just the way they come out of the oven.

To dress them up I made a Carrot-Cardamom Icing to glaze the top of each cookie with a nice blush of orange and add an additional hint of spice. After dipping a cookie top, let it drain by tapping it a few times on a whisk to remove excess icing. Just a thin coating is all that’s needed. Set them aside to dry for a few minutes.

Carrot-Cardamom Icing
2 tablespoons carrot juice*
1 tablespoon buttermilk
1 cup powder sugar, sifted
1/8 teaspoon cardamom (ground from about 3 pods)
Stir the carrot juice, buttermilk and cardamom into the powdered sugar and whisk until smooth.
*if you don’t have carrot juice, just use 3 tablespoons of buttermilk.

Spread a nice layer of cream cheese frosting on half of the cookies and then top each one with a glazed cookie top.

Cream Cheese Filling
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
2 ounces unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup powdered sugar (4 ounces), sifted
½ teaspoon lemon juice
Beat the cream cheese and butter using an electric mixer until fluffy. Slowly add the sifted powdered sugar and beat until well combined and smooth. Add the lemon juice and beat to combine. Spread on the cookies to fill.

These aren’t exactly traditional whoopie pies, but they are really tasty. If you would like to read about classic whoopie pies, of course www.whoopiepies.org is the place. It never ceases to amaze me that there is a website for every topic imaginable.

Thank you to Natalia of Gatti Fili E Farina for the fun recipe choice. She has the recipe as Dorie intended posted on her blog. You can always add my embellishments or create your own.

7/11 update: I baked some left over dough as thumbprint cookies filled with the cream cheese frosting and topped with crumbled nuts. They were even better than the whoopie pie style, and easier to make. Aren’t they cute?

Recipe Link

• Gingered Carrot Cookies

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 137 recipes completed 84 to go!

I hear the word blondies and I can’t help but think blandies; pale bar cookies that don’t offer much flavor beyond simply being sweet.

Let’s just say I cranked out this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe with very low expectations. In true Dorie Greenspan form, this bar cookie is packed with goodies that make it anything but bland. Chocolate, toffee bits, walnuts, and coconut are Dorie’s suggestions. In addition to the mix-ins, brown sugar adds a tremendous amount of flavor to these bars. I will go so far as to say I loved these, David too.

I kept half of the batch “pure” for David, only mixing in the chocolate. My half had all the goodies except for the toffee bits (only because I didn’t have any). I also used large flake unsweetened coconut rather than the sweetened shredded variety. How do I know David was a fan of these? The regular inventory updates I was getting.

“I only have three blondies left.”
“I’m almost out of blondies.”
“ I’m having the last blondie with lunch.”
“All the blondies are gone.”

A big thanks to Nicole of Cookies on Friday for picking such a winner of a recipe. Now I know good blondies do exist. She has the recipe posted on her blog if you would like to prove it to yourself (link at the end of this post).

I’m a big fan of finding the best way to do something (just look at SpiceCare!). In a recent blog post, the ever-clever and talented CakeSpy, Jessie, has put some serious thought into the best way to cut bar cookies. For the times when the cookies get plated rather than eaten straight from the pan while standing in the kitchen, a perfect cut is important.

She’s way ahead of the game with her tool of choice, a New West Knife Works knife. These knives have become my latest obsession after reading about them for the first time on Bren Herrera’s blog post, “El Cubano!” The Amazing Cuban Sandwich & an Amazing Knife. The Fusionwood Super Bread Knife makes my heart race. I have already vowed that when I own one someday I won’t use it to chop chocolate, an abuse my current bread knife suffers on a regular basis. A serrated knife is terrific for chopping big blocks of chocolate, but then it’s not so good for slicing bread anymore. If you are in the market for a high quality knife, take a look at the New West Knife Works lines. They are made by bona fide food and knife geeks in Jackson Hole, WY. They think of each knife as a work of art and that’s the kind of knife I’d spend money on.

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 131 recipes completed 89 to go!

Recipe Link

• Chewy, Chunky Blondies,  by Dorie Greenspan

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 136 recipes completed 85 to go!

It’s a Tuesdays with Dorie triple treat. The last three recipes all rolled into one delicious post. First up is Tart Noire. It’s as sexy and decadent as it sounds.

This tart is understated, elegant, and proof that very simple components, when done right, can be sensational. Like any dish, the simpler it is the more imperative quality ingredients become. This dessert is worth splurging on exquisite dark chocolate.    

One of the best ways to elevate a lovely chocolate ganache is to pair it with a rich buttery crust. The contrast between the smooth creaminess of the chocolate ganache and perfectly crispy tart shell adds as much to the pleasure of eating this as the flavor does.

Some time ago I had a hot lava-type chocolate cake with caraway at Jerry Traunfeld’s restaurant Poppy. His pastry Chef, Dana Cree, is known for creating fantastic and unusual flavor combinations with her desserts and I ordered this one out of pure curiosity. It was so fantastic the flavor combination has been on my mind ever since.  This seemed like a perfect opportunity to play with it, so I added ½ teaspoon of whole caraway seeds to the crust. It turned out to be a little too subtle, but the chocolate caraway combination was as good as I remember.  I liked the effect of the whole seeds releasing their flavor only when bitten into, but I think some ground caraway would make the presence of the spice more noticeable. One of the notable features of Chef Cree’s creation was that it wasn’t overly sweet, so I used a fairly dark chocolate for my tart.

Ganache and tart shells aren’t difficult to make. If you’d like to see it done before attempting it, take advantage of our 14 day trial offer  to Rouxbe. Here are two great recipes on Rouxbe that have a video demonstration of how to make ganache and how to make a tart shell; Chocolate Ganache Cake, Fresh Berry Tart.   A link to Dorie Greenspan’s Tart Noire recipe is at the end of this post. Her tart shell recipe uses a food processor which makes it a snap to make, and the Rouxbe demo shows the technique for a hand-mixed crust. Here is a video overview of the Chocolate Ganache Cake recipe to tempt you with delicious. At the end of the video you can click through for the free trail offer to be able to see the entire demo which includes how to make ganache.

Dorie Greenspan includes 14 different brownie recipes in Baking: From My Home To Yours, and I must admit this wasn’t one of my favorites. The distinguishing element is a mix in of York Peppermint Patties. When it comes to drug-store candy, I actually like York Peppermint Patties, but they made the brownies too sweet. The texture of the brownies was also an issue, heavy and a bit greasy, but it improved after sitting for a day. Now don’t let my lack of love for this recipe mislead you, we ate every last one of them. Of the brownies we have made so far, my favorite has been the Tribute-to Katherine-Hepburn Brownies. By my count we still have seven more brownie recipes to bake.

The Lots-of-Ways-Banana Cake rounds out this triple-treat post. The most exciting thing for me about this recipe is I emptied 3 containers of frozen things in making it, bananas, coconut milk, and coconut buttercream. I freeze leftover bits of whatever is left over and always get a thrill when I manage to use up the odds and ends, but truth be told I’m most happy about freeing up the freezer container so I can fill it with something else.

Brown sugar and nutmeg really add a nice flavor to this cake. Dorie provides a list of options to take this cake in a variety of directions. I went with two layers frosted with creamcheese coconut buttercream because I had the perfect amount of it on hand in the freezer. Though I really liked the flavor, the texture was a bit heavy for a layer cake. I think it would have been better baked as a loaf cake and frosted. It seems silly that the shape would make a difference, but it comes down to expectations. I expect a layer cake to be light and delicate and expect a loaf cake to be dense and hearty, the kind of cake you could eat out of hand with a nice cup of coffee.

Thank you to my fellow Tuesday with Dorie bakers who selected the recipes: Dharmagirl of Bliss: towards a delicious life picked Tart Noire, Karen of  Welcome to Our Crazy Blessed Life selected the Brrrr-ownies, and Kimberly of Only Creative Opportunities chose Lots of Ways Banana Cake.

Recipe links

• Tart Noire
• Brrrr-ownies
• Lots of Ways Banana Cake

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 135 recipes completed 86 to go!

What an exciting weekend… I competed in a live cooking competition! My recipe submission of Grilled Ribeye with Dried Cherry and Fresh Sage Relish landed me a spot in the semi-finals of the Beringer Vineyard’s Great Steak Challenge.

The competition took place at The Bite of Seattle food festival which happens to be local for me, so I had the benefit of a very supportive cheering squad of friends – even sporting Team Carol T-shirts!

We had 30 minutes to complete our recipe and present it to the judges, two of whom were none other than the Deen brothers. Only one person in our group had ever done a cooking challenge before, so I felt a little better knowing that most of us were novices at this.

Beringer had the event perfectly organized and went out of their way to make sure we had everything we needed. Most importantly they wanted us to have a great time. Rather than having all ten of us go at it simultaneously, we were broken into two heats of five.  Happily, I was in the first wave. They had us grilling to classic rock hits, an MC giving minute-by-minute updates while roaming around chatting with us when we weren’t looking frazzled or needing to be intensly focused. There was even a camera and video crew capturing all the excitement. Because it was so much fun I was able to stay fairly relaxed with the exception of having my plating come down to the wire with the time limit.

Every competitor was supplied with all the tools and ingredients necessary for our recipes, but we were permitted to bring any favorite tools, and of course I had my SpiceCare containers at hand to make seasoning a snap. We each had a personal work station and dedicated grill, and shared ingredients were placed on a community table for all to use.  As I was measuring my wine I thought about taking a big swig from the bottle, but given that it was on the community table and someone else was going to be using it I exercised good manners and didn’t. Once my entry was finished I was able to relax and enjoy watching the second group cook.

Seattle was the third of ten regional competitions. One lucky winner from each region gets to compete in the finals, which will be held in Napa, CA in early October. What will they be battling it out for? Fame and fortune. The final grilling showdown will be filmed and aired on The Cooking Channel and the grand prize is a big fat check for $15,000!

I was very happy with my finished dish. I didn’t forget to add any ingredients and completed it with a generous 30 seconds to spare! Whew. The fact that I did my best and had a great time took the sting off not winning. Oh, how I would have loved to have landed a spot in the finals, but I was out grilled by some stiff, but very friendly, competition. Dustin Harrison was the star of the day and will be proudly representing the Northwest region in Napa. I hope he walks away with the big win.

This is the first Great Steak Challenge, and hopefully it will become an annual event. If so, I encourage you to enter next year becuase it was such a blast! Seven more live semi-final events will be happening over the next few months in various cities. Check out the list of locations, if one is in your town you should go cheer for the competitors. You can also taste some wine and meet the Deen brothers.

If you are feeling hestitant about your steak grilling skills, take advantage of a free 14 day membership to Rouxbe Online Cooking School to perfect your technique. They have a fantastic module on cooking meat. Click on the link below to visit Rouxbe and here to read why TableFare has this offer for you.

Click here to get your FREE
14-day membership to Rouxbe!

When I treat myself to a nice cup of coffee at a coffee shop I generally like a little baked treat to go along with my beverage and I usually go for either a scone or a slice of pound cake.

More often than not I’m underwhelmed by coffeehouse pound cake that I likely paid $1.75 for. Not that it’s bad, it just never seems to be as good as it could be. Much of what distinguishes “great” from “okay” is texture. A really good pound cake is tender but with a course dense texture. The right balance of these elements creates a unique toothsome chew that sets great pound cake apart.  

This week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cake, is great pound cake. It has the seemingly impossible combination of a course, yet tender texture and a rich buttery sweet flavor. You might be thinking that drenching it in rum give this cake an unfair advantage, well, I only drenched mine with citrus simple syrup and it definitely qualified as a great pound cake in my book.

As far as cake goes, it’s an easy one to make requiring nothing more than simple hand mixing. Bonus points are added for utilizing melted butter which eliminates the need to think ahead to bring the butter to room temperature. Unlike a traditional pound cake, which is simply a pound of butter, sugar, flour and eggs; this version takes advantage of the leavening power of baking powder for lift. One note, mine cooked much quicker than the suggested 55-60 minutes, so keep an eye on it.

Last week I discovered that a little jam and frosting can transform a simple pound cake into an impressive layer cake. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to apply that concept again this week. I filled the layers with freshly made strawberry ginger jam (recipe posted soon) and frosted it with coconut buttercream I had stashed in the freezer. Transforming a pound cake into a layer cake is my favorite baking discovery of this entire Tuesdays with Dorie odyssey. It has endless applications and is hands-down the quickest and easiest way to create a beautiful layer cake.

Thanks to Wendy of Pink Stripes for the delicious pick this week. If you need a dessert to take to a 4^th of July celebration this weekend, this would be a great choice. You can even make it a day ahead because it really is better the next day.

Happy 4^th of July!

Recipe Link

• Rum-Drenched Vanilla Cake

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 131 recipes completed 89 to go!

Sometimes it’s a unique combination of flavors or a surprisingly lovely texture that surprises and thrills me about a new recipe. With this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake, it was the construction.

This is essentially a sour cream chocolate pound cake, a really good sour cream chocolate pound cake mind you, that has been sliced into three layers, filled with jam, and frosted. Brilliant! As soon as I realized what was going on with this recipe my mind started cataloging all sorts of ways I can put this concept to good use, and I wondered why I had never thought to treat a pound cake like a layer cake before.

If you aren’t up for making and frosting a layer cake, this is the cake for you. The batter is easy to mix up and it bakes in a single loaf pan. Layering the cake with jam eliminates the need to make a filling and is so quick and easy to spread. The jam melds with the cake layers adding a bright flavor accent and moist texture that makes you want another bite.  A simple ganache frosting made by stirring sour cream into melted chocolate is all that’s necessary to finish it off.

Chocolate with cardamom is one of my favorite flavor combinations. Cardamom has the unique ability to be simultaneously strong and coy; it swirls around the taste of the chocolate and comes through in a subtle I’m here but I’m not here sort of way. I added ½ teaspoon of cardamom to my version and matched it with apricot jam.

Treating a simple pound cake like a layer cake opens up a whole new set of dessert options. The speed and ease of turning to a lovely jam as a filling makes this concept all the more appealing. I love the delicious understatement of pound cake but if I’m serving it for dessert will always dress it up with something. Fresh berries are my standard garnish, though I have recently become quite enamored with this Guinness Reduction.  Now, I’m just as likely to layer it with a special jam and frost it.

Thank you to Amy, of Amy Ruth Bakes, for expanding my idea of what pound cake can be. She has posted the recipe on her blog if you would like to try this particularly tasty version, but of course you can layer up and frost your favorite pound cake in any way that inspires you.

Recipe Link

• Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake
• Guinness Reduction

Over 350 baking bloggers are baking our way thorough Dorie Greenspan’s book, Baking: From My Home to Yours . 130 recipes completed 90 to go!