I had a pound piece of almond paste languishing in the cupboard and remembered this cake I made from TheGreens Cookbook from the late 80s. A bundt cake that used a pound of almond paste - half creamed into the batter and the other half diced and folded in. Delicious but wish I had fresh berries to go with it!
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Milk bread from Mooncakes and Milk Bread. I’ve made this before and found it too sweet. With the sugar cut in half, it’s quite nice. Very squishy, soft sandwich bread.
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A 7-inch sour cherry pie. Out-of-season, but made with cherries I picked from our trees last summer and froze.
FYI the sweet Rainier cherries I put up last summer did not fare well in the freezer. Even with application of Fruit Fresh (citric acid) they turned brown in the freezer after a couple of months. I ended up feeding those to the local deer. In contrast, the Montmorency cherries used here maintained their brilliant red, as good as fresh.
Will serve tonight after dinner with David L.'s Philly vanilly ice cream.
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Beautiful!
You used dried tart cherries?
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Thank you!
No dried cherries this go-round. I’ve made cherry pies in the past with a mix of canned and dried cherries (pandemic pie!), which worked really well, but this one is 100% from frozen cherries.
Looking to use some dried apples, I found this recipe on Leite’s Culinaria. I’ve since learned it was reviewed also by Smitten Kitchen, and originally written by Bill Yosses and Melissa Clark in The Perfect Finish. The recipe calls for roasting fresh apples, but I used 100 g. dried. For cheese – still using up the WSU Cougar Gold (sharp white cheddar).
The recipe has you dump everything in a stand mixer and mix on low until it comes together. I mixed by hand, in the order and way one would traditionally make a scone. I did have to almost double the ¼-c. cream called for, and perhaps this was because of my choice of apples.
In any case, both salty and sweet, these are delicious and different. Will make again.
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Have you made Dorie’s cheddar and apple scones? I’ve made both and have to say I like Dorie’s more, though with Dorie’s I wanted them a touch more savory, feeling that they needed more salt.
I know you prefer dried fruit in scones, so they have that going for them as well.
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That recipe was my original jumping off point, but ultimately the cornmeal didn’t appeal to me. I still might try it sometime.
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I’d probably like Bill Yosses’ more with the dried apples as you used. They’re also very sticky with fresh apples, so dried would be much easier to handle.
I like the cornmeal in Dorie’s for the texture and sunny color.
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Hong Kong milk tea tres leches. I’m not a big fan of tres leches, but I’d been wanting to try a milk tea version since I love tea and it seems a perfect match for tres leches. The flavor is good, but imo this is a bit too saturated. I know people who feel that tres leches can never be too saturated, but I don’t agree. I thought the topping needed to be a touch sweeter here than I made it, so I drizzled a bit of condensed milk over the top and I do think that made it better. Normally I like the whipped cream topping to be barely sweetened or not at all since I find tres leches to be too sweet (no matter how much someone claims that the one they make isn’t too sweet), but with the tea here a sweeter topping is warranted. I’d just do a sweetened condensed milk whipped cream if I were to do it again. Though I have to say that the cake tasting like milk tea kind of gets old fast imo. It could just be due to too much saturation, but it feels a bit like too much of a good thing.
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Looks good, I do love tres leches. But give me a nicely saturated cake and you can skip the whipped cream entirely 
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Sourdough conchas. These are amazing. And I don’t even like conchas normally because they’re too sugary, flavorless, dry, and loaded with too much yeast. Homemade produces something worth eating, and sourdough are especially delicious.
I had some trouble with the topping because I will absolutely not use shortening, and it holds up much better to the long proofing times and at higher than typical proofing temps. I used butter and a little lard for crispness, and the topping was melting off. Sticking the second tray in the fridge helped and a freezer would have been even better.
These are mostly blueberry and chocolate with a couple of strawberry because I got distracted when I was dividing the cookie topping.
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That looks and sounds great; I’m partial to almond paste. Mind posting the recipe, please.
It’s February 4th (here in Japan, at least) and though I tried, I couldn’t find a “What are you baking? February 2024” thread, so I’m posting something here (I didn’t feel it was my place to begin such a thread, either.)
Anyway, I’m staying with friends who love sweets, but only have a toaster oven…which limits me as to what I can bake for them. They also have a very small kitchen with other equipment limited as well and are rather health-conscious.
So I made them two small snack cakes (I made 2 rather than try to halve the recipe I found online) free of butter or oil. The only ingredients are Japanese hotcake mix (sort of a sweeter version of Bisquick), eggs, Greek yogurt, coconut sugar and peach jam.
It was extremely easy to make and the level of sweetness was just right.
I’d be happy to post a translated recipe if anyone is interested.
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Whoops, it’s February!
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Thank you! Should I delete the above post I made and post it in the new thread or leave it as is? I don’t mind either way…it’s your call.
Those look AMAZING 
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It would be lovely to see your cakes start off the February “what are you baking” and they look delicious!
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Thanks so much!! I’ll do that in a bit!
@harters, above is a poppyseed and cherry Schnecken recipe that is baked like sticky buns, placed tightly together in a pan.
Most Schnecken I’ve purchased look like this, baked on a sheet, not touching one another. Not too sweet.
Whereas my ideal sticky bun at Balthazar in NYC looks like this
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