Cocktails or Cake – Why Not Both? Limoncello Birthday Cake with Campari Frosting

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Remember when I made that adorable ha-cake for my friend's half birthday?  Well, luckily for me, despite generally preferring savory to sweet, K does love a good celebration cake, so when her full birthday rolled around this year she requested a cake that incorporated one of her favorite things: booze.  Specifically, Campari, which she fell in love with during a trip to Italy a couple years ago and which has been so well-loved as to have spawned its own hashtag.

Even better than suggesting (I won't go so far as to say demanding) a specific cake for her birthday, K suggested we bake it together, at my parents' house in the Napa Valley.  K is a food blogger too, although she focuses more on savory dishes and wine pairings, and while we've cooked together (we lived together for a while and we made some delicious dinners) we've never baked.  Plus, since she moved to Napa last year we get far too little bonding time, and this sounded like an excellent way to get some 'us' time (plus our assistant, but he's good at respecting our girl time).

So without further ado, to the cake-baking!  Of course, we started with booze: Negronis (a classic Campari drink), natch, mixed by our handsome assistant (to whom also goes credit for all the photos herein and on Flickr).

Another Win for Laziness: Chocolate Chip (Etc) Cookie Bars

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The first time, I made them because I needed something easy and transportable for a graduation party and I knew I wouldn't have time to wait for the butter in my freezer to soften, or to make multiple batches of drop cookies.  I googled 'melted butter cookie bars' and voila!  Bloggers to the rescue, as usual.

The recipe was super simple and I had all the ingredients, plus some pecans I thought would enhance the flavor of half the bars (we have a friend with a nut allergy so I wanted to leave half plain), and nobody was expecting cookies so the pressure was off.  I gave it a go and an hour later my companion and I were burning our fingers trying to 'test' the batch.

#chocolatechipcookiebars with pecans only on half (out of deference to our allergic brethren). #noms #baking #stuffourfaces #prettythings

A photo posted by Anne H. Putnam (@ahputnam) on May 23, 2015 at 3:38pm PDT

Once we were able to try a bite, we agreed: these things are good.  So good that I ate three that night, which is unusual for me – often when I bake something, no matter how tasty it is, I tire of it quickly and am obliged to convince someone else to eat the rest.  It's no coincidence that I favor tall boyfriends with hollow legs ;)

In this case, though, not only did I eat a bunch of the baked good in question but I also started thinking about making them again almost immediately upon leaving the party (I nearly brought home a couple bars but I stopped just short of embarrassing myself that much).  So when I was gifted two glass jars of Nutella from Italy and was antsy to use one as a wine glass, I knew exactly how to put the Nutella inside to good use.

The point is this: these bars are infinitely adaptable.  They were delicious with pecans, indulgent with Nutella, and likely would be even more toothsomely tasty with oats – that's my plan for next time!  In other words, make these.  As soon as humanly possible.

You're welcome.


Chocolate Chip (Etc) Cookie Bars
    Adapted for pecans/Nutella from Em's Bytes  
    (I doubled the recipe the first time and used an 8x13 pan – ain't nothin' wrong with twice the amount of this goodness)

Preheat oven to 350F/175C and grease an 8" pan, square or cake, whatever you have.
 
Mix together in a large bowl:
     1/2c (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
     1/4c sugar
     1/2c brown sugar

Beat in: 
     1 egg
     1 tsp vanilla
 
Add and stir until combined:
     1 c flour
     1 tsp baking powder
     1/4 tsp salt

Stir in:
     1c semi-sweet chocolate chips
     1c chopped pecans (optional – you can also place them on top of the dough once it's in the pan, if you fancy the look or want to limit their reach) 

Spread into prepared pan, pausing to top with blobs of Nutella if desired, and bake 20-25 minutes, or until golden brown. (Side note: mine never got as golden as I'd like, but I'm glad I pulled the first batch out when I did anyway, as they were getting close to dry.  I suggest using the cake tester method if in doubt, and remembering that gooey cookies are always better than dry.)

Prosciutto and Pastries and Prosecco, Oh My! The Foodie Low-Down on My Italian Adventure

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#stuffmyface #ItalyAdventure #girltime by @ahputnam

Hello, strangers! I realize I haven’t seen you around here in MONTHS, and that’s entirely my fault. I had this idea (I’m always having these ideas…) that when I was in Italy I would cook and photograph it (badly, with my iPhone) for you, and post at least once or twice, but alas, like so many of my ideas this one lacked follow-through. I did very little of anything that could be called ‘cooking’, preferring to spend my time eating paprika-flavored Pringles and making Caprese salads and roasted chicken breast and veggies when I needed to eat a real meal inside my home. And of course much of my consumption happened outside the apartment, because: ITALY. That said, I did make a Thanksgiving dinner for my Italian friends (and a few Americans), including my famous pumpkin pie recipe and a whole roasted turkey that would have fed twice as many of us, so the trip wasn’t completely without kitchen activity.

For those of you who don’t follow me on Instagram or Twitter, I offer here by way of apology for my absence some of my favorite foodie photos from the trip (for those of you who do follow me, I’m throwing in some new pics), and at the end of the post I’ll link to the recipes I used for Thanksgiving – I’m happy to report that the Italians were properly blown away, especially by the pumpkin pie and the stuffing, which was unlike anything they’d ever tried before. I also promise to work harder to get back to our regularly scheduled programming, and to share some of the exciting developments that have occurred in my life since last we met.

Pics and captions are after the jump!

Let's Just Hope My Language Skills Are a Little More Authentic... Americanized Tiramisu and an Announcement!

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Things have been reeeeaaaaally quiet over here on the baking blog – lest you think I hadn't noticed my neglect, rest assured that it's been bugging me for weeks.  I started working full time in April and since then my free time has been less plentiful and often takes place outside the hours of good natural light so essential to food photography.  I also lived in an apartment with a shared kitchen stocked with other people's things, so I never knew what supplies I had to make a recipe.

None of this is an excuse, though.  I should have prioritized this blog more.  Baking makes me happy, as does blogging about it, but for some reason I haven't done either for the past few months.  It's been a rough year, but I'm finally starting to feel like there's a light at the end of the tunnel, which should mean more energy and time and love to put into baked goods.  The only catch is that I'm moving again, this time to Italy – I'll be living off savings and spending my days writing and yoga-ing and writing and hiking and writing.  Hopefully a new book will form in those months of having nothing on my plate but writing and pasta.  In which case, you may not see me here for a little bit longer.  That said, should I find myself in need of a break from the computer screen, which is pretty likely, and hiking isn't doing the trick, you can bet I'll share whatever concoction I whip up over there on this blog here – fair warning, though, I'm not bringing my nice camera, so it'll be all-iPhone pics, all the time.

I knew I wanted to share this big change in my life with all of you (especially those of you who have been SO patient while I post so erratically!), so when a recipe for tiramisu landed in my inbox, it seemed like serendipity; I decided (despite this disturbing typo in the recipe) that I wanted to make it to celebrate my upcoming move and announce it here on the blog that has seen me through so many changes in location and circumstance.  There were, as is customary in my life, a few things that went differently from the plan, but I got there in the end and the result was delicious – I can only hope my non-food-related life winds up so successful!

A Long Time Coming: Apple Slab Pie Worth Making Thrice

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I made SK's apple slab pie last fall to great acclaim – in fact, the reception was so positive that I wound up making it three times in the space of a week, and there was nary a slice left over that wasn't immediately gobbled up by my parents' neighbors and their nine year old twins.  So why haven't I written it up until now, you ask?  Or, more accurately, you demand, with a stamp of the foot and the missed opportunity of apple slab pie on your palate?

I have no excuse.  There is no amount of busy-ness or family drama or house-/job hunting that can explain why I didn't stay up all night editing photos and writing up the recipe.  I just...didn't.  And I'm truly sorry, because you've all been missing out.  But I plan to make amends now; better late than never!

But not for you, when it comes to making this pie.  Get on it.  Seriously, you guys, this thing is TASTY.  Not too sweet, with a flaky, buttery handmade double crust just bursting with appley goodness.  And yes, you read that right: I made the crust from scratch.  I almost never do that, especially here in the US, where frozen pie crust is so easy to come by and decently tasty, but this time I figured I might as well make use of my mom's Cuisinart and spare myself the math of trying to make a long rectangle out of two pre-made circles.

Getting Rid of Reminders, Deliciously: Pistachio Pound Cake

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I once shared my life with a boy who adored pistachios.  He demolished them roasted and salted, and thoroughly enjoyed them in biscotti, but his absolute favorite form was gelato, preferably consumed in Rome.  Whenever I see pistachio gelato, I think of him.  Another of his favorite treats is a bag of traditional Italian almond cookies, and when we were together I made these knockoffs for him – the same day I bought the almond crème I used in that much loved recipe, I also picked up a jar of pistachio crème, with the express intention of using it to make pure pistachio cookies for him on some special occasion.

Unfortunately, despite there being many ‘special occasions’ that last year, somehow the cookies were never a top priority.  The jar sat in the kitchen, patiently waiting to be used by some day before February 28, 2014.  At the time that seemed miles away, yet February came upon me so fast and here was the jar, still staring at me; when the boy it was intended for broke my heart I had thought to pour the crème all over his expensive clothes and fancy felt hat, but instead I packed it in my suitcase and took it with me to America, hoping to one day make something sweet for someone else.

Well, I didn’t make it for anyone else, but that was a silly thought – and a spiteful one – anyway.  I don’t really bake for the men I date, after my banana bread received a middling (and I’m pretty sure pure negging) review from someone I dated back in October.  The sheer blasphemy was enough to end that brief dalliance (not really, but it was one of the nails in the coffin).  No, these days I bake for family and friends, and for myself, and I try to pour as much love as I can into those treats, as if to make up for all the love I spent on the boy who threw it all away.

Any Excuse for a Celebration: Half Birthdays and Ha-Cakes

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It’s holiday time in the blogosphere – everywhere I look I see recipes for Christmas cookies or Hanukkah cakes or generalized ‘winter holidays’-themed party food.  But I think you’re all forgetting the most important holiday of the year: my friend K’s half-birthday.

Yes, I said half-birthday.  I can’t tell you how many people have balked when I tell them I’m planning to make a half-cake for K.  “Half-birthday?” they ask, incredulous, “isn’t that just for kids?”  Well, yes.  It is.  But one of the things I love about K is that she is pretty much the definition of unabashed.  She wants to celebrate her half-birthday with a few friends, some tasty food, and a ha-cake (as in hapenny, jeez), and honestly I don’t see any problem with that.  It is a bit strange for a grown woman to count her age in halves, to be sure, but on the other hand, couldn’t we all use a little more whimsy and celebration in our lives?  I know I could.

Making my excuses, and hoping for the future

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I know it's been an inordinately long time since I've written, and I actually wish I didn't have such a good excuse.  But unfortunately I do.

My engagement fell apart (and with it all my happiness and stability and functionality) in a most spectacular and traumatic way back in June, after months of pain and torment – obviously, I wasn't doing much baking during that time, and the aftermath was too filled with tears and logistics and fleeing the country for me to be thinking much about food at all.  I was lucky if I could remember/force myself to eat one small meal a day.  Needless to say, there wasn't much I could say here that would be anything but depressing, so I stayed away while I tried to pick up the pieces of a life I no longer wanted to live.  I moved back to San Francisco and am currently living with my parents while I try to get through this extremely dark time.  It's been the most difficult few months of my entire life, and there have been days when, if Morpheus had offered me one pill to keep going and one to stop everything right then, I would certainly have taken the latter pill.

But, and this is important, there have been bright spots.  Hours, even a few hours in a row, when I forget how much pain I'm in.  And every month there have been more of those hours – this month there have been whole days.  It feels like nothing short of a miracle, and I spend a lot of my time waiting for the relapse (there have been many of those, some unbearably long and brutal), but it seems time is finally starting to heal me a little bit.

And then a few days ago, I baked a galette.  It hardly counts as baking, since the dough was given to us by a neighbor and my mother prepped the apple-pears, so I literally just tossed the fruit with some sugar and spices, rolled out the dough, and brushed melted butter over the top, but it was a start.  And I had a feeling that things might actually be okay one day, far off in the future.

So to thank you for sticking around through my long hiatus, and as I ask you to please bear with me as I continue to gather the shreds of my heart and paste them together with spit and mud – I'm not as sharp as I was before all this, but hopefully that's temporary – I offer you this 'recipe' for an easy free-form galette.  It may not be much of a project, but it lifted my spirits and made me believe for a moment that maybe I could patch my life back together with a little patience and melted butter.  I hope for you it's at least a semi-pretty and tasty solution to the question of what to serve after dinner with friends.

'Paris Is Always a Good Idea' – Dark Chocolate Sables and Some News

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As usual, I've been wanting to spread the news about these amazing sables (or, as my French co-worker corrected me, sablés) since I first baked them, but as usual life has gotten in the way.  In face, I have an unusually good excuse: this post is especially apropos because the BF took me on a surprise trip to Paris the weekend after I made these French cookies – and he proposed!  Of course I said yes (if you've been following this blog for a while you know that he and I are already practically married), and have been consumed by wedding planning insanity (on top of work and book promotion) ever since.

Nonetheless, even with a head full of even more things than before (sigh), I still can't stop thinking about these little beauties – ooh, maybe I'll make a batch for the wedding!  Ahem, sorry.  I get distracted a lot these days.  Where were we?  Right!  I can't stop thinking about these sables, so it's high time I passed them on to you all so you can obsess over them too.  Trust me: they're worth the lost sleep.

Converting the Skeptics: Sticky Toffee Pudding

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I made sticky toffee pudding for the first time back in November – I'd been invited to a British-themed dinner party and I had no idea what to bring for dessert (having of course claimed that course before my phone had even registered the invitation email).  Normally I count on my large roster of American sweets to wow the Brits among me with little effort, but I didn't think it would be fair to break from the theme just because it was outside my comfort zone.  Still, what exactly constituted a British dessert (or, as the Brits say, 'pudding' – actual pudding is 'angel delight'...don't ask me why)?  Most of the really successful dishes have American and European counterparts: lemon drizzle cake, shortbread cookies, fruit crisps...  I didn't want to make super-classic Eton mess or a Bakewell tart (I actually hadn't thought of that one, but it would have been too much effort for the day anyway), so I was at a loss.  Until I remembered that old pub classic, and one particular skeptic to whom I still have something to prove.

I have a personal bone to pick about sticky toffee pudding: I need to prove to my older brother that a dessert made mostly of dates can be indulgent and delicious and completely unfruity.  I tried to explain sticky toffee pudding to him last summer and he wouldn't listen to my description of the dish itself, just kept making that irritating 'blegh' face that only brothers can keep mastering to such an infuriating degree well into seeming adulthood.  I swore up and down that I would make it for him someday and he would eat his words (and facial expression), along with half the pan.  So when I was trying to think of a British dessert to bring to girls' night I decided this was a good opportunity to practice, ensuring that when I do eventually make sticky toffee pudding for my family in SF, their socks will be duly knocked off.

Beauty Comes from Within: Sexy-Ugly Hedgehog Cookies

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One of the BF's favorite kind of cookies is oatmeal chocolate chip, for which he'll hardly get a raised eyebrow from me: the toothsomeness of an oatmeal cookies with the sweetness of chocolate?  Obviously.  I myself am a fan of the good old oatmeal raisin as well, but the more people I poll, the more I feel like this cookie has unfairly fallen out of favor.  Alas, poor oatmeal raisin... well, more for me!

Anyway, when I went to visit the BF in Boston a few weekends ago, I planned on bringing him some oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, but for some reason (I guess because, really, I wanted to eat them), I went with my gram's chocolate chip shortbread cookies instead.  He was never any the wiser, and those cookies are the bomb, so I didn't feel too guilty.  I did, however, find myself craving them the following week (I suppose the idea had planted and refused to let go!), and as I was going to have some girlfriends over for dinner – and needed to make some cookies to mail to a friend for his birthday – I had an excuse to make them.

Falling into Nostalgia Again: Apple Spice Cookies

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One of the times I miss the US most is the first week of fall, when that first bite hits the air in the mornings and people start pulling out scarves and boots from the backs of their closets and the leaves haven't quite turned yet but you can tell they will be soon.  This time of year always brings the nostalgia pretty hard, and usually I cope with it by taking long walks in the park with the BF, stopping for coffee and a snuggle, and, of course, baking.

This year, the BF just happens to be abroad – back in the States, actually – for a sort of med-student study-abroad program.  I've been handling the separation pretty well, due mostly to being run off my feet with work, book stuff, and general back-from-vacation admin, but when the leaves started turning I did start to pine a bit (no pun intended).  Still, I was determined not to mope (or eat my feelings any more than I'm already wont to do); I may not be able to take long, chilly walks with my guy, but I can still bake, dang it!

I Made A Real, Frosted, Layered Birthday Cake (and It Only Took Two Attempts and About a Million Eggs...)!

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Last Friday my company had a 'wine and cakes' party in our department, celebrating the first birthday of the imprint I work for.  Now, as someone who often brings homemade baked goods in to the office, I expected to be asked to make something, which I was happy to do.  What I didn't expect was being volunteered to bake a birthday cake, which to most people might just mean a cake but which translated in my head to many-layered cake of wonder with homemade icing and decoration, which is something I'd yet to attempt.  Still, I figured it would be a good opportunity to try something new (namely, making a fancy icing). 
 
But then two things happened to make the plans much more stressful.  The first was that my friend Tess, who works in the marketing department, asked me to use a recipe from one of our books, which wouldn't in itself be a problem but I had been hoping to use a tried-and-tested American recipe, or at least one with tons of online reviews – of course I agreed, though.  And the second thing was that my very well-meaning friends 'bigged up' my baking in a company-wide email.  And of course, as we all know, there's nothing like a little outside pressure to make a cake fall flat.

A Tart and Tasty Birthday Treat: Lemon Cream Cupcakes

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It was my mom's birthday a couple of weeks ago, and since I was in town for it for once (had you guessed that the past 6 weeks of radio silence had something to do with me reveling in the delights of the Great Bay Area?), I wanted to make her a little treat.  Of course, my mom being the healthy lady that she is, I knew nothing rich or heavy would be up her alley, which made for a slightly tricky situation when, without thinking, I suggested that my nephew and I should make and decorate cupcakes together...  My mom is so not into buttercream, or cake, really – she prefers fruit tarts and crisps and maybe the odd cookie (just one).

Still, I figured there was one way I could still have bonding time with my nephew (who's nearly 7, and a boy, and not so into grown-up baking like tarts) and serve my mom a dessert for her birthday that she'd actually enjoy: when in doubt, make it citrus.  My mom, like me, loves anything lemon.  And when I found a recipe, it came with an accompanying recipe for a whipped-cream-based frosting, which I figured would be much lighter than a buttercream, not to mention easier.

Battling My Sweet-Yeasted-Dough Demons: Paul Hollywood's Brioche

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For some reason, every time I decide to make something sweet that's yeast-based, whether it's challah or gooey butter cake, the elements contrive to work against me and the thing turns out to be a huge flop.  I end up nervously hovering over my dough, waiting for it to double while I curse the rain and wish I had ever seen what doubled dough should look like so I could be sure I'd recognize it when it happened.  And usually I give up and bung it in the oven after waiting an hour past the recommended time, and usually that ends up being a mistake and I can only guess that my dough was under-proved... I don't have this problem with savory breads (but maybe it's just that it's less noticeable when they're a bit under-proved, and they're just a bit denser which isn't such a big deal in my book), but the sweet doughs always seem to elude me.

So I'm not sure why, when Bloomsbury asked me to test a recipe from Paul Hollywood's new book, How to Bake, I chose brioche.  It's everything I'm crap at: a sweet dough, with more ingredients than your average bread, and a recipe that requires planning, patience, and 2 days to babysit your kitchen.  And yet, somehow, once I saw the photo of that fluffy, gorgeous, golden crown of deliciousness, I just couldn't get it out of my head.

On Compromise: Budgeting and Backup Banana Bread

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Life has been a wee bit stressful lately.  I picked up more work and was finally able to break away (hey, better late than never!) from the financial help my parents were giving me when I was in school, but it wasn't until I got my first amended paycheck, post-tax-gouge, that I realized just how much of a cut my monthly budget had taken.  I have to admit, it knocked the wind out of me, and it's taken me a good month or so to begin to think I'm capable of managing.

But I am capable, and I will manage, and it feels so good being completely responsible for my own finances, and completely independent, that I don't think I could go back, even if my parents had a windfall and suddenly wanted to throw money at me like there was no tomorrow.  I love the sense of pride I get from earning my own keep, and if the trade-off for that is a much tighter budget and a restricted social life, so be it.  Everybody makes sacrifices and compromises in this world, and as long as I can afford to stay in my lovely flat and spend time with my lovely boyfriend and bake delicious comfort foods, then I'm doing pretty well I think.

Going Native: Lemon Drizzle Cake

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There are some very American things I will never give up, no matter how long I live in England – peanut butter, Trader Joe's chocolate, and Peet's coffee, among others – but recently I've been forced to admit that, despite my best efforts, some English traditions have gotten under my skin.  For example, the BF and I spent the Jubilee weekend in Devon with his family, and after a long, cold, rainy wander through one of the nearby towns (gotta love that British summer), I crouched through the door of the little thatched cottage where we were staying and headed straight for the kettle, mumbling incoherently about how badly I needed a cup of tea.  Then, this morning, the BF made coffee in our stovetop espresso pot and I had one cup, relishing the flavor of Bay Area-roasted beans, and then made another cup of tea.  Yup, I'm totally addicted to a good old English brew.

I also use words like 'bin', 'lift', and 'post', and never ask where the bathroom is in a restaurant anymore, preferring the colloquial 'loo' (less graphic somehow than asking for the toilet!).  But if there's one area of life in which I staunchly support America's superiority, it's the kitchen.  Not that I can't appreciate a good Sunday roast or a nice slice of banoffi pie, but given the choice I'd always rather stick with a US favorite, like lasagne or pumpkin pie or brownies or banana bread... the list goes on. 

An Offering: Lemon Ricotta Muffins

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I come to you, much like a suburban neighbor, with an offering.  A basket of muffins (or a cyber-basket, really), handed sheepishly over the doorstep in the feeble hope that my neglect will go unnoticed in a rush of fluffy and crunchy textures and bright citrus and sweet almond flavors.  Trust me, one bite of these muffins and you won't even remember that I haven't posted in over a week (there are plenty of excuses, but for now let's just focus on the muffins).

Travel, Family, and Meyer Lemons – Does It Get Any Better?

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Look at that.  Just...look at that.

Now do you understand why I checked out for so long while I was gone?  I know, I know, there are bloggers far better than I, who schedule posts to go up while they're away – there are even some bloggers, like the Energizer Bunny Pioneer Woman, who write and post while on vacation!  Alas, I am not one of these bloggers.  I am weak, and as much as I may know I should write a post while I'm home in SF, I cannot resist the temptation of an offer to walk along Crissy Field instead.

However, I am not entirely useless – I also cannot resist an opportunity to bake, and the overflowing bowls and bags of Meyer lemons in my mother's house were just that.  Her trees in Napa were heavy with fruit, and she was running out of ideas for what to do with it.  So I bring home for you: Meyer Lemon Quickbread (and some bad phone pics, sorry).

Slapdash Baking with Delicious Results: Banana Nutella Pecan Muffins

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I wasn't going to write a post about these muffins... They weren't anything special, as far as the process went, just something I threw together to get rid of some old bananas and buttermilk and feed a friend who needed comfort food in her life.  I didn't even plan on adding the nutella until the last minute – as is often the case when I make spur-of-the-moment baked goods, I was ad-libbing the whole time.  For once, I was baking to eat, rather than baking to blog.

Hence the terrible photographs.  I didn't take any pics until after we'd tried the muffins and declared them delicious – moist, banana-y, and chocolatey, with a nice crunch from the pecan bits – and multiple Facebook friends had read my status update and demanded the recipe.