Today is the 10th Anniversary of this here website. It was 10 years ago a few weeks ago, that I finally decided that I should put some of my recipes and photos online and Ben was nice enough to help me set up the initial iteration of the site. Ten years later, over 1500 recipes, I am still going strong. Who knew that I could keep a hobby going with such gusto!
Browsing Tag
cake
Once a year, I make a cake, on Annual Cake Day. It’s not that I don’t like cake, but there are things that I like more, and I am not great at decorating. I know, I say this every year. On Annual Cake Day. Well, that day is today, so here it is: a Winter Magic Torte: Chocolate Rosemary Almond Cake, with Sugared Cranberries. It’s a chocolate cake with rosemary buttercream on the inside, deep rich ganache, toasted almonds and sugared cranberries on the outside. And it came out better than I expected, so at least Annual Cake Day 2021 turned out ok. Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
I am calling this creation a “Olive Oil, Almond and Sweet Plum Cake” but what it actually is is what happens when you take two of Joanne Chang’s Recipes from Flour Love — the Plum Frangipane Tart (page 230) and the Olive Oil Cake with Fresh Grapes (page 297) and combine them. Turns out, it’s pretty spectacular as a combination — it’s mostly the Olive Oil Cake recipes, but instead of grapes, I used tiny sweet plums. I’m guessing it would also work really well with cherries (pitted) or gooseberries as well. At any rate, glorious inspiration for an otherwise unforgettable Monday.
So what do you do if you don’t have 1. flour, 2. yeast or 3. baking powder/baking soda and still want to make a sweet treat for …. say, Mother’s Day? Here is an idea: this Torta Caprese, an Italian Flourless Spiced Chocolate Almond Cake. No flour, no leaveners! Now, you will need a few ingredients that you might not have in the pantry (almond flour/meal, bittersweet chocolate bars, cocoa powder), and some standards (butter, eggs, sugar, salt, and spices). This comes together quickly, but does take some time to cool (and what happens if you don’t let it cool long enough — the top cracks when you cut it, like what happened here.) Nevertheless, delicious, rich and gluten-free, if that is your thing. My recommendation: serve with a bit of Amaretto Whipped Cream!
It’s actually quite rare that I post recipes verbatim from another cookbook or website without making a few modifications, but this recipe was perfect just as is. It’s from Joann Chang’s newest cookbook, Pastry Love, and besides the fact that I made it square not round, it is exactly as written in the cookbook and boy is it delicious. I also love the way the photos turned out. It’s the little things that keep you happy, right?