Hi bakers!
In case you missed it, we have two new Cookbook of the Month threads for the Quarter – Smitten Kitchen and Sabrina Ghayour.
Smitten Kitchen especially has a plethora of baking recipes, so come join in!
Last quarter’s New York Times COTM thread is also a Cooking-From thread ie ongoing, so if you are baking from the NYT, do continue to share your bakes on that thread!
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Thank you. Your so kind but honestly i just use my samsung tablet and the only thing i know how to do is crop my picture.
Thank you
Thank you. I tastes fantastic. Going on my list to repeat.
My friend’s birthday cake came out OK. Everything was going swimmingly until I tried to lift it off the messy parchment after frosting. Oh well. I repaired it as best I could, but it’s a little lopsided and not as pretty as it was. Hope she likes it! 
I made the Amazon cake using Ghirardelli cocoa and followed this KA recipe for frosting and filling. I did tweak the filling a bit – adding salt, reducing powdered sugar, and using a mix of crunchy and creamy PB.
I’d be thrilled to receive this!
Looks great!! I’m sure she will love it!
Looks great, and I love the touch of the peanut butter cup on top!
She’s a choco-peanut fanatic! Thanks 
It was well received – I’m glad. Thanks for all the help!
In December Mig made and loved Sarah Kieffer’s Pan-banging Ginger Molasses Cookies:
I didn’t do that pretty glaze. I don’t like BIG cookies so instead of 2 oz balls, I did 1 oz (I weighed them) and they were plenty big enough, got 6 to a ½ sheet pan. Recipe calls for 249 g of flour so I used the
1 ¾ cups into a bowl on the scale and it needed a lot more flour to get to 249 g so I recommend you use a scale. (Some comments on this recipe said they spread and were greasy … maybe it’s because they didn’t weigh the flour!!)
Recipe made 28 cookies. I think it’s hard to remember how many times you remove the pan to do the “banging” … I managed but next time I would mark on a paper each time I did it. I was baking for a total time of 14 minutes, cookies were coming out crispy, which I like but it’s not what the recipe intends. So, the last pan I baked for 7 minutes instead of 8, then banged, 2 minutes, banged,
2 minutes, banged and removed to cool, so a total of 11 minutes. These were more like it. Next time I might reduce the first bake time to 6 minutes.
To cool, I just moved the parchment paper holding the cookies onto a wire rack.
I think they’re very good but take some effort, all that banging, in and out of oven.
(I got the pretty plate for 50% off after Christmas sale at a grocery store!)
A slightly squished piece of citrus chiffon cake I brought home from my mum’s. Used tangerine and lemon zest along with orange juice in the cake and glaze.
Almond orange ricotta cake inspired by @Stef_bakes gorgeous cake upthread.
This is 2/3 of the recipe, I substituted some almond flour for AP, added soft candied orange peel that was processed with the sugar and ricotta, in fact, made the entire recipe in the FP. Brushed with candied orange syrup as Stef mentioned she also did. I had enough for a mini cake to have a sample taste, very fine crumb and sufficient orange flavoring. Looking forward to a better taste tonight.
Loverly! I’ve never baked anything with ricotta as I instinctively tend to stay away from anything with a “healthy” component.
Full-fat ricotta isn’t that healthy. 
Try it…maybe you’d like it. The cake does have sour cream in it , if that would make it more acceptable ! The ricotta was made in casa with whole milk.
I thought ricotta by definition was “no fat”, hence my avoiding it. Glad to know there’s hope!
Sour cream definitely makes it more acceptable! It is used in RLB’s Golden Grand Marnier Cake, which is wonderfully moist.
This has a lovely crumb and is definitely moist, Stef_bakes said the cake would be a repeat for her and I can say the same! I made a similar cake from “not Nigella” a few days ago but this has that beat hands down.
It was traditionally a byproduct of making mozzarella, a way to avoid wasting the whey, but commercial ricotta is (like commercial low-moisture mozzarella) available in whole milk and part-skim versions. Homemade is often made with whole milk, as Nannybakes did, or a combo of milk and cream.
Why does milk street recommend a light-tasting olive oil? I kind of thought the point would be to notice the difference. Does it turn bitter when baked or something?
