Tag Archives: baking
November 28, 2011 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
It’s considered a hard and true fact in the food world that baking is a precise discipline and that cooking–sauteing, roasting, salad-making–is looser, freer, more of a vehicle for personal expression.
Why does that always have to be the case? Isn’t it possible that, if you know a thing or two in the kitchen, you can whip up a batch of cookies with as much freedom and joie-de-vivre as you might employ while making am omelet? I decided to challenge the status quo yesterday by making a batch of cookies without following a recipe.
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May 10, 2011 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
It was only after I’d started making this coffee cake, mixing the butter and sugar, that I realized this wasn’t a round 9-inch cake sort of deal; this was a 13 X 9-inch beast.
Yes, I know, you’re supposed to study a recipe carefully before proceeding; and yes, you’re supposed to butter the pan before you start (I tend to do it right before adding the batter). But the point is: I made a giant coffee cake. And the larger point is: it was so outrageously good, with a chocolate cinnamon swirl inside and pecans on top, that it was gone in a matter of days.
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April 21, 2011 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
We’ve all been there. It’s 9 o’clock at night, dinner is over, and suddenly you and your loved ones are craving cookies. All eyes turn to you and you stand up–ready to do the dirty deed–and as you march into the kitchen, confident that you can churn out cookies lickety split, you grab a box of brown sugar only to discover…
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February 7, 2011 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
Most food blog posts are meant to inspire, but this one is meant to mock.
Yes I am mocking you! When sour cherry season rolled around last June, did I, like you, stuff myself silly, popping every last sour cherry into my mouth until I had none left? No, sir, I did not. Like a smart little squirrel, I pitted my sour cherries and then popped them on to a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Look, I even took a picture….
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October 30, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
You say “chocolate cake,” and the masses come; you say “olive oil zucchini cake” and there’s a bit of a silence. “Ummm,” a timid voice emerges a few seconds later. “What kind of cake did you say?”
It’s olive oil zucchini cake, timid-voiced person! Or, rather, zucchini olive oil cake. It comes from Babbo pastry chef Gina DePalma’s book “Dolce Italiano” and one bite will make a convert out of you. It’s moist, it’s got terrific fall spices (cinnamon? check. ginger? you got it. nutmeg? who’s your daddy?) and there’s a “lemon crunch” glaze on top that’ll make you pucker your lips in delight. Craig’s friend Alena was dubious at first, but after one bite she declared “this is AMAZING” and asked for a second piece. The defense rests.
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May 3, 2009 | By Adam Roberts | 0 Comments
I made the banana cake of my dreams this weekend, a banana cake so good I had to give half of it away because I knew I would eat it all.
What made it so good? It was a homey, cozy, PTA bake sale kind of cake; there was nothing fussy about it, no caramelized bananas between the layers or Marzipan bananas dancing across the top. You just mix a bunch of wet stuff, add a bunch of dry stuff, put it in a pan, bake it, cool it, top it with frosting and you’re done. And the resulting cake is every bit as satisfying as a more elaborate banana cake; perhaps even more satisfying because the flavors are so pure and comforting.
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December 18, 2008 | By Adam Roberts | 56 Comments
If you haven’t heard about the no-knead bread by now, you clearly don’t read many food blogs (or newspapers, for that matter.) Last year, in The New York Times–actually, TWO years ago in The New York Times (the article was published November 8, 2006! Boy, I’m way behind on making this)–Mark Bittman coaxed a recipe from master bread baker Jim Lahey for perfect bakery-quality bread at home. Shockingly, the recipe required no work, no kneading of any kind. The food world was astonished. Food bloggers went ga-ga. I watched them go ga-ga. And, finally, last week I decided to go ga-ga myself.
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November 18, 2008 | By Adam Roberts | 12 Comments
We are about to conduct an experiment. For this experiment you will need a person; the person should be a person who: (1) loves scones; (2) is a self-professed non-cook. The purpose of this experiment is to prove that a self-professed non-cook who loves scones can whip up a batch of cream scones so quickly, so easily, that they will: (1) no longer consider themselves a non-cook; and (2) eat scones to their heart’s content.
Don’t believe me? I can get them there in three steps, using a Molly O’Neill recipe from The New York Times (courtesy of Amanda Hesser.) Are you ready? Here we go.
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