Cookbook of the Month / Quarter nominations are underway.
Join in if you’d like to cook along together next quarter.
(One of the nominees is Kristina Cho, of Mooncakes and Milk bread.)
These are my favorite blondies with white chocolate and dried cherries from Smitten Kitchen
My notes: ½ cup of chopped cherries (75g), 1 cup of chopped white chocolate (150g), 23 min, ½ t of fine sea salt, sprinkled with fleur de sel
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We had afternoon tea yesterday with my visiting cousin and her eight-year-old daughter, so I baked lots of treats.
Savory tartlets with sautéed onions, sun-dried tomatoes, capers, Parmesan, and herbes de Provence in smoked paprika pastry.
Dried cranberry cream scones.
Blueberry cheesecake tartlets brushed with elderflower syrup, orange marmalade almond cakes, pretzel-topped brownies.
I used the simple cream cheese-butter-flour-salt dough used for tassies (same/similar to rugelah dough) for the tartlets, with smoked paprika added to the batch for the savory tartlets. Especially if it’s well-chilled after being pressed in the pans, it always bakes up maximally flaky and tender. I put the tartlet pans on a preheated baking sheet to make sure the bottoms would be crisp even with the liquid in the tart fillings, which worked great.
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Cherry puddin’, a PA Dutch treat. A plain cake with sour cherries; ideally there are enough that the cake is very moist.
I got this particular version of the recipe from an older lady at a country orchard fruit stand I frequent; she said it was her MIL’s and wrote it out for me on notepaper by memory.
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They look decadent!
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I love this. I’ll bet they were both thrilled.
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All six of us were pretty happy!
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I like how each mini has a corresponding garnish/decoration.
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What a wonderful spread!
Love your savories, which are often the weak link of a tea.
And how sweet that everyone participated in parts of the preparation (even though the lions share of effort was clearly yours) including the 8yo.
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I baked a riff of Dorie’s Apero bread by way of Chetna Makan’s Spinach Paneer loaf for an afternoon / evening roof party that was afternoon tea in food but cocktail party in drink.
Not my usual amount of spinach because I couldn’t make a store run, so supplemented by a herb mix, an assortment of cheese, and some chilli flakes for a kick.
I was short of time, so I baked it like brownies instead of a loaf, which took only 20 mins instead of over an hour.
Quite delicious — flavorful and cheesy — and, per Dorie, a perfect accompaniment for wine (or sparkling water).
My friend always makes an assortment of skinny sheet pan quiches for this — dough rolled thin, with slight layer of egg and toppings. Easy to eat, and a lot less work than mini quiches. Choices were tomato-mustard, salmon, and broccoli.
Gratuitous shot of the Empire State Building from the roof after the sun set.
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Yes, four of the six of us contributed to the food prep. And the eight-year-old eats as much as the middle-aged and older adults (she is always on the go, physically).
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Those look really appealing! But what happened to my invitation 
?
Such a varied selection, I hope there was bubbly too!
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This sounds like perfection!
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Strawberry spoon cake (NYT) , a simple cake made to showcase strawberries, I made half but decreased the sugar a bit and increased the strawberries. This is a thin cake, crispy edge but soft in the center, might use a smaller width ramekin next time. It received very positive reviews at The Times, mine received positive reviews at home.
ETA This bakes very quickly, it took 13 minutes, the 8” at The Times took 20-25 minutes.
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Bacon-Cheddar Quick Bread with Dried Pears
Bacon Cheddar Quick Bread with Dried Pears Recipe | Epicurious
This is a Dorie Greenspan recipe – I printed it from the 'net in 2009.
We both approved, he more than I, he loves it. The dried pears are nice with the bacon & cheese.
The comments for this recipe were bonkers, hardly anyone made the recipe as written. To avoid their disappointment, I followed the @#$&! recipe.
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Following the lead from @Nannybakes and @mig, I made the strawberry cake from Natasha’s Kitchen.
I’m not a fan of cooked strawberries, so my version included zero strawberries in or on the cake. Instead, I thickly sliced the cake-portion of berries and added them to the finished sauce. As I ran a tad short of sour-cream, and used a little whole-milk yogurt to make up the volume. For a half recipe, I used a 6 ½” springform pan, which baked in 35 minutes.
Delicious! Good texture and flavor. I’m happy I made it, and can see trying a variety of fruit sauces.
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Open invitation anytime you’re in the city, but just avoid the heatwave of the next few days!
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Anyone have a hot milk cake recipe they like?
I came across this the other day and it’s calling out to me, but given that it’s just cake and jam, I thought I’d ask if there’s a vetted cake recipe.
Not going to make lamingtons — just the sandwich cake.
King Arthur has “Chef Zeb’s Hot Milk Cake” which I’ve had in my notes for ten years! Can’t recall if I’ve made it , I think I might have left a comment to myself if I did. But you might just want to compare the two.
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That cake looks so good and gets such positive reviews that I think I’ll make a small version in the next few days.
