Bread, Wine, Salt

Brown-Butter Swiss Meringue Buttercream I have come here today to confess to Almighty God and to you my brothers and sisters that I have sinned.  In full knowledge of the importance of birthday cakes , I did willfully try to get away with making a pound cake for a friend's birthday because I didn't want to be bothered with frosting a layer cake. My feet were only set back on the path to righteousness by a stern rebuke from my friend's husband. (Okay, not a stern rebuke, but "statement of my friend's mild preference" seems sort of anti-climactic, doesn't it?) And, as it turned out, a different friend of mine had spurred a thread about brown butter over on Facebook and I had filed away the phrase "brown-butter buttercream" for future use. So I decided that if I was going to frost a cake I was going to do it with style. The first step is to brown the butter, which is a simple matter so long as you're willing to hang around the kitc...

I am bad at Lent, just as I am bad at New Year's resolutions.  Specifically, I am bad at giving up bad habits, and at taking up good habits. I resist change, even change that is undeniably good. At least I am bad at the change that requires any effort at all. But I try again every year. I'm only half-hearted about New Year's resolutions, but I do usually mean what I say about Lent. As of Sunday afternoon, I'd been fairly sure what I was going to do for Lent this year, but then on Monday I ran into this article about Austrian churches encouraging their congregations to give up their cars for Lent. Reducing the amount that I drive would be a net good: I'd walk more, put less smog into the air, and spend less on gas. My kids are both in schools that are walking distance. The library, my yoga class, their dance classes, and a grocery store, all in walking distance. At the beginning of the school year when I was ambitious, I walked them to and from school regular...

Is it a tea cake? Is it a bread? A young visitor insisted that my freshly baked offering wasn't cake at all as there was no frosting. So we offered it as vanilla bread instead, like banana bread, without the banana. He agreed that he might like banana bread without banana, and tried a bite. Where is the line between cake and bread. Is a muffin something in-between or is it something altogether different? What should we call muffins that are really sweet, fluffy cakes sold in paper wrappers in coffee shops? Are there lines at all, or is it just a continuum of floury goodness? Should we worry less about what we call things and more about making them wonderful, and then offering them up to guests, even skeptical guests? Should we go bake up this moist, flavorful cake and then brew a pot of tea? Absolutely. Banana Cranberry Bread, Vanilla Tea Cake, Gingerbread I used vanilla bean seeds because it adds great vanilla flavor and the specks of bean add an inter...

I made birthday cake for two little boys who insist on growing up and turning 5. One little boy loves all things chocolate, and one little boy will have no cake at all if chocolate is the only choice. Given the opposing preferences and the size of the joint party I made two cakes. Chocolate boy got the same chocolate cake I made for him two years ago. It was a hit then and it was just as popular this time around. I won't reproduce the recipe because I baked without adaptation from the Chocolate Layer Cake with Milk Chocolate Frosting on Epicurious. People rave about it and ask me how I got the frosting so creamy. The answer is butter, silly, lots and lots of butter. (And then a bit more butter.) Yes, it is off kilter.  You know who cares?  Nobody cares. Not-chocolate boy requested a strawberry cake. I don't know why strawberry occurred to him, since normally he asks for vanilla cake . I found a promising recipe for strawberry cupcakes at Annie's Eat...

I went to the pool to swim laps early this morning. Swimming laps first thing in the morning is for people who are serious about swimming. By the time I got into the pool at 6:15 the lap lanes were full. I observed the swimmers for a length before I decided which lane to join, and then I waited another lap for her to get to my end of the pool so I could ask to join her. It's a basic pleasantry of lane sharing, choose someone who seems to be at about your level and wait for the swimmer to acknowledge you before you get in and start swimming. I have the gear of a serious swimmer: a racer-back suit with no frills or furbelows, a swim cap made for folks like me who have a lot of hair to tuck up, and goggles. I can swim freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke creditably. (I can even do butterfly, though it wears me out pretty quickly and I feel self-conscious when I do it because that's a very serious stroke and everyone in the pool knows what you're doing when you try it....

I'm a big believer in homemade birthday cakes . Unfortunately that doesn't always translate into the time to make them for my friends. When it does I have my usual concerns about making a cake that isn't pretty enough. Certainly no one is going to pay me for my decorating skills. But if I don't over-extend myself on the decorating I can produce an acceptable cake exterior. Once you start slicing, the pretty doesn't matter anymore, but the flavor and texture of the cake matter with every forkful. This carrot cake was wonderful, flavorful, tender, and just sweet enough.  Cream cheese frosting is a natural with carrot cake, and this one is just right.  The recipe comes from BakeWise by Shirley O. Corriher, who you might recognize as the cheerful food scientist who makes appearances on Good Eats . Corriher uses the science of food to come up with recipes that work perfectly. It's a big book, and I haven't tried all of her recipes (not even close)...

Everyone deserves homemade birthday cake. It ought to be right there with life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. (Although maybe they assumed that birthday cake was covered by the happiness bit.) This means that you (Yes, you! Okay, maybe me.) might need to get over a few things, like your doubt about your cake decorating ability. A homemade birthday cake does not need to look like it came from Charm City Cakes . If you made it with a good recipe and good ingredients and love for the recipient, it will be good, and maybe no one will fall to their knees and beg you to make their birthday cake, swearing that money is no object. But something better might happen. Someone might know that you put time and love into the cake, and they might feel loved. How cool would that be? It's also possible that someone might declare your cake one of the few that is worth the calories, which given the caloric content of cake is really quite a statement. The birthday boy wanted ...