I saw this chocolate-sour cream cake on Apartment Therapy’s The Kitchn last week and simply could not get it out of my mind. A two-layer chocolate-sour cream cake! I had to make it. HAD TO. Because Gil’s birthday was just a few days ago, it gave me the great excuse I didn’t really need (because I have this here blog, you see).

So I got to work as soon as Gil left for for the office this morning, and it still took most of the day because I’m not much of a baker. Nor am I much of an icer, from the evidence presented above. Still, a crumb coat must be applied, no matter how messily.

I think it looked pretty nice once I was finished. And even though powdered sugar-based frostings aren’t really my thing, I couldn’t stop sampling. I think it was the sour cream that made it so irresistible.

Just to be safe, though, I decided to add a layer of poured ganache. What could it hurt?

You really should’ve seen my absurd setup for this shot: Seated on the floor, camera balanced on my right knee with auto focus engaged (I hoped), while my left hand stretched as far as possible to get the ganache close to the center of the cake. Oh, and let’s not forget the big reflector balanced on my left shoulder. It’s a wonder I ever get anything in focus at all. The things I do for you!

Naturally, I allowed the ganache to cool just long enough lose the completely smooth surface I made it for IN THE FIRST PLACE, so I rummaged around in the fridge till I found a visual distraction — pecans. PECAAAAANS! (Have I mentioned that I’m not much of a baker? Because I’m not. At all.)

See? All you notice is the pecans, right?

I’m heading to Louisiana tomorrow for an extra-long (and warm-weathered) Christmas visit with my family! (Cue happy dance.) Gil has to work this week, so he’ll join us after spending a few days alone with the dogfaces. Since I won’t be around for the start of Hanukkah, I thought I’d make Gil a batch of chocolate-drizzled macaroons to remember me by.

I was still working on my drizzling technique with these first few, but they’re charming in a jolie laide sort of way, right?

Happy Hanukkah to all who celebrate it! Next up: something savory to balance all of the sugar I’ve been posting…

recipe after the jump

(more…)

I’ll let you in on a little secret that maybe isn’t so secret: Cajeta is the food of angels. It’s essentially a milk caramel sauce, but what sets it apart from dulce de leche or confiture de lait is that it’s usually made from goat’s milk, which makes it more delicious by half, IMHO; it has a little tang and complexity the others don’t. Cajeta’s incredible on ice cream, with cookies or toast, over a simple cake, on a spoon, as a beverage (not that I’ve tried that…yet), or in a million other ways, I’m sure.

But because we have an abundance of pears in the market these days, I teamed the cajeta with crepes and topped them with, you guessed it, roasted pears. AGAIN.

I looked at a lot of cajeta recipes before starting, and most of them emphasized that you Must Stir Frequently, especially after adding the baking soda, or else! I liked Rick Bayless’s recipe because of his relaxed attitude to the whole thing and, you know, he’s Rick Bayless. So don’t worry too much when you’re making it; I just wandered into the kitchen every now and then (more frequently toward the end) to give it a stir.

Usually, cajeta would be a bit thicker than you see in the picture above, but I was in a hurry to wrap things up and skimped on the cooking time a little. It was still mind-blowingly good. And it would make a great homemade gift for the holidays, if you’re into that sort of thing. I’m pretty sure the recipient would be.

recipes after the jump

(more…)

December’s nearly half gone, so I guess that means no Advent Calendar this year! Instead, I’ll be posting some gluten-free goodness that’ll get you in the holiday spirit. First up, gluten-free gingerbread — soft, spicy and completely addictive, especially with a dollop of sweetened creme fraiche.

The instructions called for baking this in one pan, but I tried five mini-loaves, thinking these could make nice homemade gifts.

I’d say it worked well.

After cooling in the pans for a few minutes, I moved them to a rack till they reached room temperature.

Even Mr. Movember approved…

And Mr. Movember’s alter-ego (Fritz? I think he looks like a Fritz.) could barely contain himself.

recipe after the jump

Gluten-Free Sorghum Gingerbread adapted slightly from About.com’s Southern Food

I first tried a recipe that used a very precise blend of several gluten-free flours and not only was it more difficult than this recipe, it just wasn’t very good. This one is. And all I did was substitute Jules Gluten-Free AP Flour for regular AP flour. It seems almost too easy just to use an already-prepared flour blend, but I think it’ll become my default option from now on. And this recipe originally called for shortening, but I refuse to eat it, so I substituted coconut oil instead. There was no discernible coconut flavor and the texture was a beautiful thing, so I declare this an overwhelming success.

1/4 cup unrefined/organic virgin coconut oil (I buy mine at Whole Foods, but it’s pretty easy to find.)
1/4 cup butter
1 cup hot water
1 cup sorghum molasses or regular molasses
3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (use Jules Gluten-Free, if necessary)
2 large eggs, well beaten

For various reasons there was no farmers’ market for us this weekend, but we did eat our weight in ice cream sandwiches, so it wasn’t a total wash.

Who cares if the ice cream was store-bought? Just sandwich some Haagen-Dazs vanilla between homemade spicy molasses cookies and call it a party.

Like I did with the popovers, I subbed Jules Gluten-Free Flour in place of the AP flour in the recipe and the cookies came out great. It’s been my experience that gluten-free cookies spread a bit more than regular, so I used a smaller amount of dough per cookie and they were absolutely perfect. Next time, I’ll try using coconut oil instead of the butter to see if that firms them up a little bit. (There’s less moisture in the cookies from the original recipe because it calls for shortening instead of butter, but man, that stuff gives me the willies.)

recipe after the jump

(more…)

Aaaaaah, cinnamon-sugar popovers. Remember them? I thought they’d remain nothing more than a pleasant memory, but I had a craving and decided to test the claim that Jules Gluten-Free All-Purpose Flour can be subbed one-for-one with standard wheat flour.

I tried it once before with biscuits, and wasn’t entirely pleased with the results, but these popovers sure looked like the real thing:

But the flavor, the texture? How did they taste?

Indistinguishable from the real thing, which is to say, eggy, moist, light and springy.

I suspect the problem with the biscuits was just a lack of moisture. Popovers are made of a fairly thin batter, so that wasn’t an issue here. But I’ll test my biscuit theory again sometime soon and let you know.

recipe after the jump

(more…)

It’s been too long since I last posted — a heady combination of travel, an insane work schedule and a cold that wouldn’t quit conspired to keep me from updating — but I had to kick off the Memorial! Day! Weekend! with something grilled, so here you go: Lamb burgers with gluten-free buns.

Atypically, I tried a new recipe for the burgers instead of going with the tried-and-true kofta concoction. It was as essentially burgery as you’d expect but I missed that depth and balance of flavor from spices thrown in by the handful, so I’ll likely stick with it next time. But I did love the toppings enough to keep them on future burgers — sun-dried tomatoes, oil-cured black olives and arugula.

Normally, when we go out for burgers, I’ll order mine without the bun and be perfectly happy, but I wanted to give gluten-free buns a try this time around since I was doing the burgerizing myownself. As always, I turned to Gluten-Free Girl for the recipe and think it’ll be my go-to for the rest of the summer. That’s assuming the buns freeze well, anyway — they took forever and a day to prepare, but were so worth it (and most of the time was resting time for the dough). I was out of potato flour, so I substituted equal parts rice flour and sorghum flour, which might’ve made the buns a little heavy, but the buns were so yeasty and, dare I say, bread-like I ate one on its own.

But you can’t have a burger without fronsh fries (why, that’s un-American!), so I dug deep into the archives for my standard oven-baked garlic fries that I see no need to depart from.

So Happy Memorial Day Weekend and unofficial start to summer! Hope the weather’s as nice where you are as it (finally) is here, and you can take advantage of it with a little grilling.

Oh, and our weekly Ringwood Farmers’ Market starts again this weekend! So much to look forward to . . . fresh vegetables, organic fruits, and quality meats and eggs that only traveled a few miles to get here. Can’t get better than that.

I worked up a batch of gluten-free biscuits this morning, adapted from Ms. Edna Lewis’s recipe. They were just a touch dry so I’ll add more buttermilk next time, but they went down just fine with a little Meyer lemon curd (much more on which later).

Happy first day of spring!

You know, this whole gluten-free thing hasn’t been quite the pain in the ass I expected at first, and not just because I’m lucky enough only to get joint pain when I eat gluten (meaning I can cheat without major repercussions from time to time). I work in New York, so GF lunches are fairly easy to find, and once I got over my egg sandwich craving for breakfast it was pretty smooth sailing. The difficulties I’m having are in finding acceptable pre-packaged bread and pasta. I’ve turned out a few decent loaves of bread on my own in the past few months, but dried pasta offerings have been uniformly disappointing so far. If you have any recommendations, I’m all ears!

One of these surprisingly good homemade bread experiments was a gluten-free redo of a Concord grape focaccia I first tried last year. It took a couple of weeks to get to the point of baking that bread, just because focaccia is a favorite of mine and I knew no wheatless version could compare to the real thing… but then I sucked it up, put on my big girl pants and got to work.

And you know what? The weeks of anxiety were just a silly way to spend my time — it turned out great! Gil and I ate about half of it that first day, so I’d consider it a success. Also? It’s much, much easier than baking honest-to-goodness bread — no kneading involved and no overnight rest in the fridge, so the time between craving and craving fulfillment is much abridged.

I just received my copy of Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef, which has another version of focaccia that I’m dying to try. Let’s hope those Concord grapes hold out one more week!

recipe after the jump

(more…)

okra love

Nicoise Salad from A Twist of the Wrist

Bad Ass Mocha Cream Cake from The Crazy Kitchen