Entries Tagged as 'sweets'
My personal favorite take on a bunny cake (or a birthday cake, or a Sunday afternoon for no reason layer cake) is an orange layer cake with orange buttercream frosting. I love chocolate cake, and won’t turn up my nose at a good coconut cake, or carrot cake, but when it comes to layer cakes, orange cake might just be my favorite. Orange cake seems to magically straddle that divide between those who prefer what my friend Mike calls the “brown” flavors (caramel, nuts, chocolate) and those who prefer a fruitier touch. I’ve been making this particular cake quite a bit lately (layer cake happens to be a pregnancy craving) and it’s easy to throw together, with a nice orange flavor and a moist crumb.
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Tags: birthday cake·cake·Easter·layer cake·sweets
OK, I am a sucker for chewy homemade chocolate chip cookies. And nothing quite hits the spot in the fall better than my friend Kas’s molasses cookies. And these yeasted butter and sugar cookies are so unusual and addictive, they must be given some credit. But these oatmeal cookies are definitely in the TOP FOUR. And they’re really the cookies I’m famous for. When I was in high school, I’d bake these all the time — they were my dad’s favorite cookies, and were requested for holidays and family gatherings. I got out of the habit for a while — tried other oatmeal cookie recipes, cheated on my favorite, but I keep coming back to these — they’re really the BEST. Chewy and buttery, with the nuttiness of the oats and the crunch of walnuts. You don’t have to make them with chocolate chips — raisins are a perfectly acceptable substitute if you’re a purist — but I happen to think that chocolate chips elevate oatmeal cookies into the realm of the sublime.
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Tags: chocolate chips·cookies·oatmeal cookies·sweets
wasn’t sure what to call this. The recipe that I adapted it from is called a pie, but we all know a pie, and this is no pie. Cobbler would have a higher proportion of fruit, crisp would be, well, crisp. Torte seems too highbrow. This combination of sweet tart cranberries, caramelized sugar, crunchy nuts and a dense, sweet buttery dough is definitely not highbrow. It takes maybe 10 minutes to throw together (if you move slowly) and is homey and delicious and beautiful. Cake is perhaps the closest approximation, though light and fluffy this is not.
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Tags: Christmas·cranberries·desssert·holiday·nuts·sweets·Thanksgiving
