Orange Creamsicle Cake

 

This is a cake for spring.  It's also a cake for Moms.  It's light, sophisticated, and both unique and simple at the same time.  Although chocolate cake is my drug of choice, it just doesn't fit the bill for a sunny day in early May; this does.

 

Just so you know, this recipe is for a two layer cake but I decided to kill two birds with one stone this weekend and make two one layer cakes.  I brought one layer, spiced up (literally) with crystalized ginger inside and out, to a potluck dinner party in celebration of my friend's cookbook last Saturday.  And I kept the other ginger-free layer to enjoy with my Mom and sister on Mother's day.

 

While people at the potluck may not have been waiting in line to dig their forks into "Orange Cake," once they tried it, I think they were hooked.  I've decided to call this an "Orange Creamsicle Cake" because somehow 'creamsicle' makes the whole thing sound so much more appealing.  Yup, it's all in the name.

Orange Creamsicle Cake
Adapted from How Sweet It Is

Ingredients
1 1/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/4 cups cake flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/4 cups sugar
3 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
~5 large oranges, zested and juiced
3/4 cup fresh squeezed orange juice
1/4 cup orange zest

Vanilla Cream Buttercream
Ingredients
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
6 oz neufchatel cheese or cream cheese
contents of 1 vanilla bean
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 tablespoons cashew butter, raw or roasted (optional)
enough powdered sugar to reach desired consistency/ sweetness

Shredded coconut (I recommend a mix of sweetened and unsweetened)

Preparation
Cake
Preheat over to 350 degrees. Butter and flour two 8-inch cake pans.  Zest and juice the oranges.  Sift flour, salt and baking power in a medium bowl and set aside.

Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes. Add eggs one at a time, then add vanilla. After the mixture has come together, add in half the of the dry ingredients and mix. Stir in the orange juice and then the rest of the dry ingredients. Lastly, fold in the orange zest.

Pour batter into prepared cake pans. Bake for 18- 25 minutes, or until tested inserted in center comes out clean. Let cool completely before frosting.

Frosting
Cream butter and cream cheese until smooth. Add contents of vanilla bean contents, extract, and cashew butter if using.  Add in powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time until you reach desired consistency/ sweetness. Frost cake and then cover with coconut.  Decorate as desired.

Three Bean Salad with Rosemary Dressing

Spring is springing, or at least it's supposed to be, and that means more fresh produce, lighter meals, and sunshine.  As much as New York weather may want me to fight it, I'm beginning to warm up to idea of springtime salads.

This salad was inspired by one I spotted on the menu at Le Verdure, the vegetable centric restaurant in the Flatiron Italian food mecca known as Eataly.  On a beautiful day about two weeks back, I walked over to Eataly after work and enjoyed a relaxing solo meal at the bar of Le Verdure.  I saw this salad on the menu but ultimately ended up choosing two hefty slices of bruschetta-- one with mushrooms and braised kale, and the other with oven roasted cherry tomatoes and fresh ricotta cheese.  Both were delicious but I left wondering if I should have gotten the salad, as it continued to linger in my mind.

The next day, I decided to recreate my own vision of 'the salad that got away' at home; this is what I came up with.

Three Bean Salad with Rosemary Dressing
No measurements here as I don't find them necessary when making salads.  Use ingredients to your liking.
Ingredients
 
Haricot verts
Wax beans
Garbanzo beans
Cherry or grape tomatoes, halved
Kalamata olives, halved
Butter lettuce, romaine, or a mix

Dressing
Rosemary olive oil, or chopped fresh rosemary and olive oil
White wine vinegar
fine grain sea salt
black pepper

Preparation
Blanch the haricot verts and wax beans. (Fill a large bowl with fresh water and ice cubes, place in the sink.  Bring a pot of salted water to a boil, pour in the beans and boil for a minute or less. Pour into a collander to drain hot water and then quickly submerge beans into the ice water bath to stop cooking).  Cut into halves or thirds and pour into a large bowl.  Add the garbanzo beans, tomatoes, olives, and butter lettuce.  Whisk dressing ingredients in a bowl and pour over salad.  Lightly toss with hands and serve.  Season with salt, pepper, or extra rosemary as needed. Or top with Rosemary Crackers, if you've got any!

Carrot Cake Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Cream Cheese Glaze

Easter breakfast

Pre-roll

Neater than expected

Post-rise

Up close and personal

Ready

Go!

Carrot Cake Cinnamon Rolls with Maple Cream Cheese Glaze
I put a range for amounts of sweetener in the because it depends how decadent and dessert-like you want these rolls to be.  Also, the above picture of the filling shows the addition of unsweetened coconut flakes but I've omitted them from the recipe below because I couldn't taste them. 
Adapted from Healthy Food for Living

Ingredients
Dough:
1 cup almond milk, warmed
2 tablespoons full fat coconut milk
2 1/4 teaspoons (or one .25 oz packet) active dry yeast
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
1 heaping cup grated carrots (2 large carrots will give you about 1 1/2 cups-- use about 1 cup for the dough and save the remaining 1/2 cup for the filling)
1 3/4 cups whole wheat pastry flour
3/4 cup unbleached bread flour (plus up to 1/4 cup for kneading and rolling)
1 tablespoon baking powder
2- 6 tablespoons sugar, depending on desired sweetness
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt

Filling:
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1/3- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup chopped walnuts
1/4 cup raisins

Glaze:
1/3 cup neufchatel (1/3-less-fat) cream cheese, at room temperature
1 tablespoon maple syrup
1- 2 tablespoons almond milk
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Preparation
Dough:
Lightly grease a 9-inch round cake pan. Set aside.

Scatter yeast over warmed milk and allow to activate for about 10-15 minutes, or until frothy. Meanwhile, whisk together both kinds of flour, baking powder, sugar, spices, and salt in a large bowl. When yeast and milk mixture is bubbly, stir in the melted butter and grated carrots. Add wet ingredients into the dry and mix just until incorporated.

Transfer dough onto a clean lightly floured surface and knead until soft and smooth, adding enough extra flour (up to 1/4 cup) to keep dough from sticking, about 2 minutes. Let rest for 5 minutes.

Filling:
Lightly flour work surface again and roll dough out to about 1/4-inch thickness, about a 12-inch x 9-inch rectangle.  Mix the maple syrup and half the melted butter together in a small dish and then brush the mixture onto the surface of your dough.  Next, evenly sprinkle on the remaining 1/2 cup of grated carrots and the brown sugar, followed by the walnuts and raisins.

Starting at one end, tightly roll the dough jelly roll-style, making sure the filling doesn’t come out at the sides. Gently pinch seam closed. Cut the roll into 8 even pieces and place in prepared pan.  If you are making the rolls ahead of time, cover the pan and place in the refrigerator overnight.  If you are planning on baking the rolls today, preheat the oven to 350 F.  Cover the pan with a clean kitchen towel and let rise in a warm place until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Remove the towel and brush the remaining 1 tablespoon melted butter over the tops of the rolls.  Bake rolls at 350°degrees for about 20- 25 minutes, or until lightly golden on top.

Glaze:
While cinnamon rolls are baking, prepare the cream cheese glaze. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk all glaze ingredients together until smooth.

Remove rolls from the oven and transfer to a wire rack. The easiest way to do this is to run a knife around the outside of the rolls, place a large plate over top, and invert the cake pan so that the rolls fall out into the plate. Place the rack on top of the rolls and invert the plate so that the rolls are right side up on the rack. Drizzle with glaze and serve warm.

Vegan Almond Butter Cookies

We're all familiar with peanut butter cookies, but have you ever tried using a different nut butter in these classic cookies?  It seems like peanut butter gets all the love when it comes to baking.  While I can't argue about its deliciousness, some people (i.e. me) have difficulty digesting peanuts because they are a mucus forming food. (Yes, I did just use my food blog to direct you to an article entitled, "More About Mucus than You Ever Wanted to Know."  I'm really sorry about that.)  Mucus aside (ok, I'll stop now), there are also a high number of people with severe peanut allergies so, oxymoronic as it may be, I decided to make a peanut-free peanut butter cookie.

The recipe for these Almond Butter Cookies is so quick and simple.  While I was quite pleased with the results, I do have a confession to make: I think I enjoyed the dough more than the actual baked cookie.  That's the wonderful, and wonderfully dangerous, thing about vegan cookies-- raw dough is definitely not off-limits.

Indecisive as usual I made two versions of these cookies.  Half plain, topped with sprinkles for some added pizzaz, and half chocolate chip.  As I'm sure you've guessed, the chocolate chip were better.

Vegan Almond Butter Cookies
Heidi notes to look for a nut butter that is well combined, and not super-oily (extra slick) looking - to avoid problems with the cookie batter.  If you aren't in the mood for chocolate chips, I think some chopped almonds, cinnamon, or raisins could be nice additions.  Also, I reduced the amount of sweetener in this recipe from 1 cup down to 2/3 cup.  If you're looking for a sweeter cookie, use the original amount.
Adapted from 101Cookbooks

Ingredients
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour, spelt flour, or unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1 cup almond butter, smooth or chunky [I used Trader Joe's Creamy Roasted Almond Butter]
2/3 cup grade B maple syrup
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil (subtract about a tablespoon if you feel your nut butter is very oily)
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
chopped dark chocolate (optional)

Preparation
Preheat oven to 350F degrees. Place racks in the top third of the oven.

In a medium mixing bowl combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. in a separate larger bowl combine the almond butter, maple syrup, olive oil, and vanilla. Stir until combined. Pour the flour mixture over the almond butter mixture and stir until barely combined - still a bit dusty looking. Let sit for five minutes, give one more quick stir, just a stroke or two.

Now drop by heaping tablespoonfuls onto parchment-lined baking sheets and press down lightly. Bake for 10, maybe 11 minutes - but don't over bake or they will be dry. Let cool five minutes and transfer to a cooling rack.

Make 2 - 3 dozen cookies.

Baked's Malt Ball Cake

My dear blog,
I'm so sorry I've been neglecting you.  Here's something sweet to make up for it.  I hope you like it.

I cook and bake a lot of things that don't make it onto the blog.  They're usually things that don't turn out quite the way I'd planned (dry muffins), or things I don't see as "blog-worthy" (throw-it-in-a-pan dinners), but then there are those things that I mean to post, but they just end up getting lost under all the stuff of life.  Such was the case with this gorgeous cake I made for my sister's birthday back in October.

Malt balls are one of her favorite candies and Baked's recipes are always stand-out, so I knew this cake would be a winner.  I didn't make any changes to the original recipe (for once!) and it turned out perfectly.  With fluffy, malty layers and silky smooth milk chocolate frosting, this cake definitely ranks high on the sweetness scale, but I'll let the pictures do the talking:

Why yes, that is malted milk ball gelato in the background-- unfortunately, it wasn't as good as the cake.

The recipe is printed in full in Food & Wine magazine so I'm going to be a little lazy here and just give you the link.  This could actually be a really great cake for Easter decorated with those egg shaped malted milk balls instead of the regular ones; maybe that's why I waited six months to post it...

Espresso Cardamom Chocolate Chip Cookies

Last Thursday was one of my nearest and dearest friends' birthdays; you know what that means, right? I had to bake something; it's a given.

When I think of my friend Francesca, I think of cardamom coffee.  She was the first person to introduce me to the idea of making flavored coffee at home.  It's such a fantastically simple concept, yet it had never crossed my mind.  All you do is put a bit of whatever whole spice you'd like (in her case, it's cracked cardamom pods) into your french press with some coffee grounds and brew as usual.  D'oh!  But this post isn't about coffee, it's about cookies.  Espresso Cardamom Chocolate Chip Cookies.

Since cardamom coffee makes me think of Francesca and cookies are easy to transport (I'm all about practicality here), I decided to make a cardamom coffee flavored cookie.  I had a hunch that dark chocolate would be a perfect complement to the flavors of coffee and cardamom, so I decided to add chocolate covered espresso beans to the cookies and kill two birds with one stone (as I said, I'm all about practicality).

I used the classic Tate's chocolate chip cookie recipe as a base because I've never heard of anyone who doesn't like Tate's cookies [Note: if you exist, I'd advise you not to show yourself as you will surely be shunned-- mostly in New York and the Hamptons though.]  I'd never tried this recipe before but it worked wonderfully.  The cookies came out with Tates' trademark crispness and rich tan color.  As for the taste, my friend absolutely loved them but, in the interest of full disclosure, they were a little heavy on the cardamom for my taste.  I have a feeling I'll be making a plain chocolate chip version in the near future... 

Espresso Cardamom Chocolate Chip Cookies
If I were to make these a second time I think I'd add in a teaspoon or so of instant espresso or coffee powder.
Adapted from Tate's Bake Shop via GOOP (thanks Gwyneth!)

1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cardamom (I used a mortar and pestle to grind Decorticated Caradamom, if using pre-ground, you may want to add slightly more)
1/2 cup (1 stick) lightly salted butter, at room temperature
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons dark brown sugar, firmly packed
1/2 teaspoon water
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 large egg, beaten
2/3 cup dark chocolate covered espresso beans, chopped
2 tablespoons raw cacao nibs (optional)

Preparation
Preheat the oven to 350º.

Whisk the flour, soda, salt and cardamom together in a bowl. In another large bowl, mix the butter with a wooden spoon to lighten it a bit and then mix in the sugars. Add the water, vanilla and eggs to the butter mixture. Stir in the flour mixture until just combined and then fold in the chocolate covered espresso beans and cacao nibs, if using.

Using two soup spoons, drop the cookies 2" apart onto two nonstick or greased cookie sheets. Bake for eight minutes if you want them soft in the middle, twelve if you want the trademark crispiness.  Rotate the sheets after four minutes (I didn't find this necessary). Remove the cookies to a wire rack to cool, and repeat the process with the rest of the batter.

Makes about 24 cookies

Organic Nectars Raw Agave Gelato

Source

I usually don't spend too much time talking about products on this blog because, as you can probably tell from my fig newtons, marshmallows, and English muffins, I'm a big fan of home-making it (new term, go with it).  Even though I'm always tempted by new and delicious looking products at the grocery store, I try my best to stay away from too much packaged food.  Making things at home is usually cheaper, healthier, and more enjoyable, making it a win-win-win.  Still, there are always certain specialty products that I have to make an exception for and this gelato is one of them.

I saw it for the first time in the Bowery Whole Foods (where I hang out in my spare time...) and it immediately caught my attention.  I contemplated buying it, but the fact that it was $8.99 and that I don't live anywhere near the Bowery Whole Foods brought out my better judgment.  Fast forward to a few days later at my local Whole Foods and a pleasantly surprising incident in the freezer aisle: Organic Nectars Gelato, Cherry Chocolate, on sale-- I'm pretty sure you can guess what happened next.

I was afraid of having yet another lackluster dairy-free "ice-cream" experience (i.e. soy dream and rice dream-- anyone tried almond dream yet??) but as soon as I opened the carton-- approximately 5 seconds after I got back from the store-- and saw the fudge-y swirls and large chunks of real cherries, I knew this was going to be a hit.  People, this gelato is really good.  Taste-wise, it's creamy, smooth, and flavorful; health-wise, it's made from cashew milk, sweetened with agave nectar and all organic, raw, vegan, gluten and soy-free.  I think it's my favorite dairy-free frozen treat I've tried to date.  So far, I've only tried the Cherry Chocolate flavor, but it also comes in Chocolate, Chocolate Hazelnut, Mint Chocolate, Pistachio, and Vanilla. 

I'm not being compensated by this company in any way but I wanted to do this post because if any of you had seen this in the supermarket and weren't sure if it was worth the price tag, I wanted to let you know that, I think, it's a really tasty product.  I wish it were cheaper, but I think I can rationalize the occasional carton.  I'm looking to track down Mint Chocolate and Pistachio next.  Let me know if any of you try, or have tried, some of the other flavors.  I'd love to hear what you think!