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A Vanilla Chiffon Cake to Celebrate Spring
Recipe Follows this Blog Spring weather is so fickle. Balmy and beautiful one day, windy and wild the next. But here on the California Coast, the first organic strawberries are being picked on our...
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What is vanilla paste? How do you use it? Why should it be your next best...
Vanilla beans get all the glory. But should they? Introducing a best kept secret in the baking world – vanilla paste In 1967 I saw my first vanilla bean. I was already 24 years old. This shouldn’t...
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A Simple Cheesecake Makes a Sophisticated Dessert
Isn’t it fun to look at gorgeous pastries and desserts and fantasize about making (and eating) them? When it comes down to it, though, how often do you do it? Really, except for when I want to dazzle...
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Hazelnut Chocolate Mousse Tart
While this recipe involves some time and dedication, it isn’t difficult. It was inspired by a recipe in Sunset magazine, which I’ve adapted. For instance, the original recipe called for two...
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Have Room for One More Chocolate Dessert?
It feels like a cardinal sin to post a decadent chocolate recipe in a blog during the first week of the new year (2013). Well, almost. As you can see it didn’t stop me from doing it. I’m posting...
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Lemon Trifle with Berries
If you have teenagers, you’ll probably want to skip this blog as the main ingredient in trifle is stale cake. If you actually do occasionally have stale (or extra) cake — with or without teenagers...
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Vanilla Queen’s Cake
Vanilla Queen’s Cake — Courtesy of Sandie Rymal Much to my surprise and delight, vanilla fan and serious home baker, Sandie Rymal, created a special cake recipe then named it in my honor! I admit, this...
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Perfect Pineapple Upside-Down Cake
I love fresh pineapple! The best part about my infatuation is that pineapple is really nutritious and also reduces inflammation and pain.* Years ago I found a recipe from Cook’s Illustrated magazine...
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Bake Sale Lemon Bars
This is a great lemon bar recipe – bright, tart-sweet and with a buttery crust with nice vanilla notes. Meyer lemons aren’t quite as tart as Eureka and other American lemon varieties. If you’re using...
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Summer Cherry Cake
This delicious summer cake is a hybrid cross between a classic French clafouti and a coffeecake. It has a very moist, dense crumb due to the high butter and eggs and low flour ratio. It is a perfect...
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How to Make Perfect Cheesecakes
It’s hard to imagine anyone who doesn’t like cheesecake. There are several camps, however, regarding which type of cheesecake is best. Some of us like thick, satiny super creamy cakes; others like...
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Banana Bread
Bananas are a perfect fruit, full of potassium, conveniently packaged, and while sweet actually have a low glycemic index, meaning that the sugars break down slowly and won’t spike your blood sugar....
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Apple and Blueberry Cake
This quick and easy cake comes from Janet Sawyer, owner of Little Pod and author of Vanilla. It is an adaptation of a Mary Berry favorite. (Mary Berry is a well-known English culinary professional...
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Pumpkin Chiffon Cake Recipe
This light, moist cake is a perfect choice for an afternoon party or when you want a lighter alternative to pumpkin or sweet potato pie. That said, feel free to substitute butternut squash for the...
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Heavenly Chocolate Mousse Cake Recipe
Excerpted from THE BAKING BIBLE, © 2014 by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved. Heavenly Chocolate Mousse Cake Serves 8 to 10 Oven...
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Mini Gateaux Breton Recipe
Excerpted from THE BAKING BIBLE, © 2014 by Rose Levy Beranbaum. Reproduced by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. All rights reserved. Mini Gâteaux Breton Makes Thirty-eight 1⅝ inch cookies Oven...
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Chocolate Oblivion Tart
Long before the California food revolution began, my mother was given one of these dazzling tarts as a gift. It was a predecessor of the exceptional chocolate desserts that emerged in the 1980s. We...
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Oat Flour Sponge Cake
Excerpted from Flavor Flours by Alice Medrich (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2014. Photographs by Leigh Beisch. Oat Flour Sponge Cake Serves 8 to 10 Alice says, “Oat flour turns a plain-Jane sponge cake...
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Oat Flour Fruit Basket Cake
Excerpted from Flavor Flours by Alice Medrich (Artisan Books). Copyright © 2014. Photographs by Leigh Beisch. Alice says, “Too simple for words: soft, tender layers of oat flour génoise are filled...
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Viennese Holiday Pannetone
Viennese Pannetone, is a molded cake filled with currants and only loosely similar to the Italian pannetone, which is a yeasted bread. What I love about this recipe is that it’s easy to make and it...
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