Please excuse my absence from blogging – I know, two weeks away is a long time, but I did have a darn good excuse. I spent an extended Memorial Day Weekend with some good friends in Napa, eating and drinking my way through California wine country. The Napa/Sonoma area is now officially my favorite part… Read More Napa and Sonoma + Bing Cherry and Almond Tart
This month there has been lots and lots of baking in my life. I just returned from a weekend at King Arthur Flour in Vermont, where I took a class with the amazing and talented Gesine Bullock-Prado. She recently published a new cookbook called Pie It Forward, which is all about pies, tarts, galettes, and other delicious… Read More Almond Cornmeal Biscotti
I have a love-hate relationship with celebration cakes. You know what I’m talking about – those tall, multi-layered, gorgeous, frosting-covered works of art that are meticulously decorated and, if all is right in the world, elicit a chorus of oohs and aahs from the crowd. I love making them, I do; but I don’t have a… Read More Devil’s Food White-Out Cake
Or, Chocolate Chip Cookies Revisited. Yes, this is the third recipe for chocolate chip (or chunk) cookies I’ve posted, in about a year and a half of doing this blog. There were Alton Brown’s Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies, Jacques Torres’ Chocolate Chunk Cookies, and now these. And these – Salted Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies, courtesy… Read More Salted Butter Chocolate Chunk Cookies
Did I ever tell you the story of the best dessert I had in my entire life? No? Last summer during my trip to California wine country, a friend and I stopped in for lunch at Chez Panisse, the famous Alice Waters restaurant in Berkley, CA. We sipped Ms. Waters’ favorite rosé while working our… Read More A Simple Almond Cake