Spring Means Cherry Cake Weather

or... What to do with that glowing jar of maraschino cherries hiding in the back of the pantry (other than topping bowls of ice cream)

It's still Springtime. I can tell because the bugs are fully activated, the weeds are on steroids, the wild onions are in bloom, and there are still a few cherry trees festooned in their floral finery in our neighborhood. Not many, and not for much longer, but a few nonetheless. Pretty sure the late-bloomers are the Kwanzan variety (one of my favorites). I had meant to post this in March or April when all the other varieties of fruit trees were showing off too, but things were starting to get weird in the world and blogging was not my focus.

We don't have cherry trees in our yard anymore, but we do have a crab-apple tree that came with this house, and when it comes to blossomy spring beauty, it's a close second to the cherry trees. Most of the year it's a nondescript unattractive old thing, showing its previous decades of neglect. For three to four weeks out of each year though (usually in March), it's a real stunner. A profusion of dark pink buds start the show and soon burst into pale pink blossoms that finish off creamy white before dropping their petals, swirling and fluttering to the ground, like springtime snow-flurries, with each passing breeze.

The color of this cake reminds me of those pretty buds and blossoms that every year herald the coming spring. The color is achieved by the inclusion of maraschino cherries and specifically, the "liquid" they live in. I won't go into how very unnatural the color of these jarred cherries is or what non-nutritive chemicals could create such a vivid hue, nor why you might want to avoid ingesting these things too terribly often. I'm a "waste not, want not" type of person, and even though they're not healthy, they are still sort of like food and need to be used if at all possible.

The reason we have a jar of maraschino's in the pantry at all is because of a sweet and wonderful Christmas tradition in my hubby's family. And now I have found the perfect thing to use them for. Don't get me wrong, we've had no problem at all using them to adorn bowls of ice cream every year! But next Christmas when I thank my mother-in-law for another jar of cherries, I will look forward to making this cake again.

When our crab-apple starts to bloom (or the neighbor's cherry trees, or all those darned wild onions, or frankly, whenever I feel like making a pink cake), I'll say, "It looks like Cherry Cake weather!"* and reach into the pantry for that jar of maraschinos, vivid with love, family, and memories.

Cherry Tea Cake

adapted from: here, here, here, and here

ingredients:

1 16-ounce jar maraschino cherries
1 3/4 cups All Purpose Flour (+ 2 Tbsp, reserved)

1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder

a good pinch of salt
2 large eggs

1/2 cup light olive oil
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup maraschino liquid

1 Tbsp vanilla extract

directions:

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease a standard 8.5"x 4.5" glass loaf pan.

1. Drain the cherries well, reserving their liquid. Put the drained cherries in a small bowl lined with a couple folded paper towels, set aside.
2. Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a medium bowl. 
3. In a separate bowl, add the eggs, oil, and the rest of the liquids. Mix well.
4. Combine wet and dry ingredients until just incorporated.
5. Give the cherries a few chops, then toss them with 2 Tbsp flour until coated (this prevents the cherries from sinking to the bottom while it's baking). 
6. Fold the cherries into the batter and pour it into the greased loaf pan. Bake for about 70 minutes (start checking after 50 though, as ovens and pans vary).
7. If you notice the top of the cake getting too dark too early, make it a little hat out of foil and perch it over the top of the pan.
8. Cake is done when it tests clean with a toothpick in the very middle. 
9. Let cool in pan for 15 minutes, then carefully tip it out and finish cooling it on a rack.

My Notes...

• This cake goes together really fast. No mixer needed, just a whisk and a spoon. 
• Almond extract can be substituted for the Vanilla in whole or part if you like. 
• Powdered sugar or cream cheese glaze would look nice over the top of this cake if gifting or taking to a party etc. Save a little bit of the jar liquid to tint the icing pink. I find that the cake is plenty sweet on its own, so I don't bother to frost it if it's just us eating it. 
• The cake can be frozen (unglazed) if wrapped well. 
• You can bake two mini-loaves instead for gifting (bake time will be shorter), or even make pretty pink cupcakes! 
• If you use a metal loaf pan, the baking time may be different. 
• And lastly, if you're sensitive to red food coloring, you'll want to just stay away from this cake altogether.

Happy spring, late bloomers!

–Steph

P.S. This essay would have worked so much better if we still had a cherry tree in our yard (or if I'd managed to post it six weeks ago). But this is me, doing my best with what I've got (and missing my old cherry trees a little also, I think).

*An homage to Truman Capote's short story A Christmas Memory, about fruitcake and family ("It's fruitcake weather!"). If you haven't read it before, do so in November or December for the right ambiance.  

Joy's Chocolate Bundt Cake

Here's another yummie I made a while back but never posted. It just looks like Easter doesn't it? It looks like spring. But I didn't bake it in spring or for Easter. Actually, I think I might have. But I never got it onto the blog though, did I?

If I miss the window for posting something, I have to wait until its time comes back around. If I miss it again (and again)... and then take a break from blogging... well, here we are...years later, talking about this cake as if I made it yesterday (don't I wish!)

Now, a chocolate cake is fine any time of the year. Seriously, it just is. But once I sprinkled those candied sunflower seeds on top (to distract from my weird icing technique), it just plants itself firmly at Easter or the weeks surrounding it. 

There was of course a frosting fail on this one. It's always something, and this time it was the frosting.* There's a whole back-story about how I contacted Joy (The Baker, herself) regarding the frosting issue I was having and how very very gracious she was with her replies. It was so long ago now, that the details aren't important. What matters is how delicious this cake is (frosted or not), and how lovely she was about taking the time to listen and respond to my questions. She is the real deal, and her recipes rock.

Chocolate Bundt Cake with Chocolate Sour Cream Glaze from Joy the Baker

[also on page 179 of the (awesome) Joy the Baker Cookbook]

My Notes: As I mentioned above, I had issues with the glaze and ended up whipping it in the mixer which turned it into the fluffy gargantuan mass of frosting you see in the photo. I have never frosted a bundt cake in my life, and hadn't a clue what to do with it all. I had no choice but to just wing it since I was taking it to an event. Weird but delicious.

*Actually a lot of the time it's the frosting that gives me the most problems. Apparently it's a "thing" with me. Which then obviously is why I don't do a lot of frosted cakes! The fact that this scrumptious cake is supposed to be GLAZED and not frosted should tell you something.

A Carrot Cake for People Who Don't Like Carrot Cake

I know I promised you Cleansing Bars in my last post, but I just made this cake again and realized that I hadn't blogged about it yet. I forget sometimes that I've been a little absent around here for the last couple years. I'm working on that though.

So, on to the cake. I've actually made this cake at least four times, maybe five, in the past two years... and it has, along the way, become my "go-to" cake. The kind of cake that still turns out and tastes great even when you are sure you've blown it somehow. I like that kind of cake. I like it a lot. And more importantly, everyone who's tasted it seems to like it a lot too.

Some people don't like carrot cakes, probably because they tend to be quite dense, rich, and are packed heavily with carrots, nuts, and raisins. I quite like those cakes actually. But this cake... this cake might make converts of the carrot-cake-hating folks. This one is light, flavorful, not too sweet, and there isn't a walnut or raisin to be found within it's sweet confines.

The frosting I like to use with this cake is good and easy, maple-y sweet, and can optionally be loaded with chopped walnuts or pecans. Just don't do what I did the other day and try to use YouTube-inspired DIY powdered-sugar in your frosting. Just don't. Please promise me you won't.

I'm giving links to the recipes here because I didn't change a dang thing in either of them. They are perfect as is (and I am grateful to these ladies for sharing these tasty treats with us)!

Sigrid's Carrot Cake by Ree Drummond on Food Network
...and also on page 110-111 of The Pioneer Woman Cooks: A Year Of Holidays 

Maple Pecan Frosting from Darla at her sweet blog Bakingdom
The frosting with the carrot cake recipe is very similar to this one but calls for cream cheese which I don't always have on hand. Also, I think the maple in this frosting tastes really really good with this particular cake!

...a coffee-flavored icing might be nice too.... hmm...

Note: The recipe for calls for baking this cake in a Bundt pan but you can do it in classic layers, sheet pan or muffin tin even. If you use any other shaped pan, just be aware of the baking time and check it before you think it'll be done. A shallower pan will take less time to bake than a Bundt; so will cupcakes.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Etc. Etc.

Today was the last day of January. Is it too late to wish you a Happy New Year? Probably. But I will anyway. Here it is almost the middle of winter but as far as my blog is concerned, you might as well call it the dead of winter. No, my blog is not dead. But like much of the plant and animal kingdoms, it has been in a dormant state lately. You might even say... hibernating. 

Where, Oh Where, Has My Little Blog Gone?

Unlike bears and daffodils however, it's not going to wait until spring to wake up. So that's good news, right? Do I really need to explain my absence? Probably not. But on the off-chance that it matters… well… where do I start? It's really not all that interesting, come to think of it. Let's just say, "life happened", and leave it at that. I was deeply involved in living the life I've been blessed with, spending real time face-to-face with my family and friends, and observing and enjoying the wondrous and wintery world around me. O.k. I also had a major case of the blues. Or maybe it was the mean reds. That's all part of this wonderful life sometimes too.

I Love Olive Oil Cakes

I know I have written about olive oil cakes before. In fact, more than once, which is why I hesitated writing about them again. But I simply had to. How could I not, when I keep finding such great recipes for them? Like this one... 

Heidi Swanson's take on Kim Boyce's Rosemary Olive Oil Cake
Click the link for the recipe on Heidi's blog or find it in Kim's (wonderful) book: Good To The Grain

Beyond tasting good... beyond the lovely moist texture... beyond their rich flavor that is not too sweet, olive oil cakes will always be a go-to dessert for me for the following two reasons:

Peep Cake: A Tutorial

...or Why Baking Is My Hobby And Not My Profession

1.  Take one easy chocolate cupcake recipe and bake it in round cake pans. Pour the extra chocolate glaze you made over each layer and hope it sets up faster than you know it will.

2.  Plan on piping a sentiment on top of the frosted cake. Fold parchment paper into a small cornet and fill with remaining glaze. Set aside in a small glass.

3.  Transfer the glazed cake layers to a pretty vintage cake plate, breaking the top layer in half while maneuvering it into place. Make sure to get lots of cake and glaze stuck to your fingers in an attempt to reunite the two halves.

Tassenkuchen a.k.a. Coffecake

Tassenkuchen. A cake that's not too sweet. A cake that goes great with a cup of coffee or a pot of hot tea. Coffeecake in other words. Tea cake, maybe. Or just do as I do and call it... Breakfast Cake.

Using Cosby-esque logic, this cake has milk and eggs and wheat and fruit in it... why wouldn't it be good for breakfast? I dare say, it's healthier than the plates of greasy beige food at the local Lenny's. Or the box of vitamin-enriched sawdust and food coloring that passes for cereal. As a bonus, kids will think you are epically awesome. Or even awesomely epic.

We've had this cake as breakfast for the last three days and it's actually a pretty darn pleasant way to begin the day. Besides, it makes a nice change from our usual porridge. Of course, if you are in the habit of taking tea in the afternoon, or coffee with friends, by all means have this cake later in the day. It's not very sweet or moist, but has a really nice eggy-buttery-ness to it with a subtle lemon peel scent. Come to think of it, it's probably fine at any time.

Yellow, Like The Sun Above The Clouds

Need something to brighten up a dreary day? This is a cake to make you forget all about the soggy gray weather outside. I know, because it happened to me.

Last Sunday we had a potluck to attend and, well, due to pantry limitations, I had decided to bring either a Meyer lemon tart or a chocolate bundt cake. Approaching the decision in a typically sideways manner, I ended up making a lemon bundt.

Cook's Illustrated calls this lemon bundt cake "The Best" and I can't really disagree with them. While I always hesitate to apply that title myself (it doesn't leave any room for improving), it is after all, a lot easier than calling it The Pretty Dang Close To What I Imagine The Best Lemon Bundt Cake Would Taste Like.

Olive Oil: What A Sweetheart

There are a lot of reasons why I like olive oil cakes, not the least of which is that they're quite tasty. Most of the time that's enough. And if that were all they had to offer, it would be plenty. But these cakes have something more going for them. Simply glance over the list of mega-health benefits from olive oil, and suddenly making (and eating) a cake feels almost virtuous.

Then there are those times when I need* to make a cake and I find myself without a dab of butter in the house. Olive oil to the rescue.

These cakes are dense, moist and flavorful, but not so sweet as to make your teeth ache. Even with a sugary glaze poured over the top of them, they are restrained in their sweetness, making them equally at home after dinner, for breakfast, or mid-afternoon with a mug of tea.

• Rosemary Olive Oil Cake at 101 Cookbooks intrigues me beyond measure  
• Orange-Scented Olive Oil Cake from Saveur uses whole oranges  
• Orange Almond Cake from page 722 of Mark Bittman's How To Cook Everything

Want more? Check out this previous post: Olive Oil Cakes 

* The word "need" in this instance can be anything from having guests over, going to a potluck, or simply a hankering for cake. 
**Info regarding the new U.S. Olive Oil Standards

Apples For Autumn

A simple apple cake or apple bread is, in my opinion, the perfect thing on an autumn day, whether it be warm, crisp or drizzly (that goes for the weather or the cake). Homey, comforting, and just plain delicious, these apple goodies are loaded with walnuts, raisins, and warm autumn spices. With a big slice of apple cake, a mug of hot tea, and a good book... you can just color me all kinds of contented.

• German Apple Cake at the Honey and Jam blog
• Sticky Spiked Double-Apple Cake with a Brown Sugar-Brandy Sauce at The Kitchn or, if you have the book: it's on page 441 of In the Sweet Kitchen by Regan Daley (2001).
• Apple Walnut Flaxseed Bread from Joy The Baker 
• An Old-Fashioned Apple Spice Cake (with a brown sugar meringue top) from the Food 52 blog
• These Cheddar Apple Bars from Canadian Living sound healthy, delicious and perfect for a picnic or potluck.
• Like many of these recipes, this whole wheat flour Fresh Apple (or Pear) Cake from Grocery Shrink can be served for breakfast or dessert. 

Peaches Aplenty

It's just not summer without peaches. Lots and lots of peaches. While it's great when you hit on something fabulous to make with them, something you could make over and over with no complaints, it's also fun to mix things up a bit and try something new. The repeat favorites around here are of course the recent Peaches & Herbs Shortcake and last summer's Peach Crostata. If I made nothing else but those two recipes with each and every fresh peach that came my way, I would be a happy happy girl. But when I look around and see so many other wonderful ways to prepare and feature this luscious summer fruit... well, I start to cave. I wonder if maybe I might be missing out on something great. And after all, I have the crostata and shortcake in my back pocket (in a manner of speaking), and can make them at any time knowing they'll be wonderful. Why not venture out a little. See if there is a new favorite waiting to be discovered.

Here is a list of peach-centric recipes for breakfast-time, snack-time, dessert-time, and even cocktail-time. They all sound just peachy to me...

• The easiest thing you can do and still call it "dessert" Peaches Simmered In Muscat at The Kitchn
• Picnic portable Peach Ginger Hand Pies also from The Kitchn
• Fresh-Peach Drop Cookies at Martha Stewart sound delightful (and easy).
• Peach and cinnamon are practically made for each other Cinnamon-Peach Cottage Cheese Pancakes at allrecipes.com
• Peach And Cornmeal Upside-Down Cake also from MSL (Aug 2008 issue) has a little lavender in the mix to give it that extra summer something.
• Muddle, shake and sip on a  Whiskey Peach Smash from The Kitchn (extra points if you have a veranda to sip it on).

Tender Sweet Apricots

I always have some sort of dried fruit in my pantry. Always. Dried fruits keep practically forever and are endlessly versatile. One of my very favorite dried fruits is the dried apricot. Soft and sweet with a honeyed-tang. They are amazing in everything from oatmeal at breakfast to turkey stuffing at Thanksgiving. Dipped in dark chocolate, well then  they've dried and gone to heaven.*

In summer though, my thoughts always turn to fresh fruit, and the little fragrant fresh apricots often get overlooked as I bee-line to the berries, peaches, plums and melons. They even get overshadowed by their own genetic offshoots: pluots, apriums, etc. Whats next? Grapricots? Aprinanas? It's time I took another look at the subtle and classic blushing beauty that is the fresh apricot... 

 

These desserts all look so very tempting, my problem now is to pick one:

• A yummy Apricot Cake and Apricot Fold Over Pie both from Serious Eats
• Tea-Steamed Apricots & Blackberries on page 20 of Healthy Desserts  (Williams-Sonoma Collection, 1995 )
• This gorgeous Walnut Apricot Bread also over at Serious Eats uses one of my favorite flavor combinations
• Apricot Slice, a tasty looking thing that would be equally at home either for breakfast or dessert (I just love those). Found on page 23 of Best Of Baking (Wolter and Teubner, 1980) 
• The Martha Stewart Cookbook (1995) has Apricots Baked With Vanilla Sugar (pg 422) and two kinds of Apricot Tart on page 453 (one with Grand Marnier and the other with rum... yum!). 
• Also from Martha are two apricot-almond recipes: a Fresh Apricot Tart and a simple dish of Baked Apricots with Almond Topping..

* I really have to apologize for that cheesy awful joke.

Mayo Cakes

Only one of my many cookbooks had a recipe for mayonnaise cake in it, and it wasn't chocolate. Odd really, since the 1950's and 60's are pretty well represented on my cookbook shelf. I just assumed that it was a 50's-era recipe since mayonnaise (and Jell-o, mini-marshmallows and cream-of-whatever soup) figured so prominently in recipes back then. The Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake must have originated even earlier. So until I can lay my hands on a Depression-era cookbook, I turn to the internet and of course find more Chocolate Mayonnaise Cakes than I could ever possibly wish for... not in a thousand lifetimes. 

 

It seems everything old is new again:

• A Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake from Tasty Kitchen baked in a square pan... perfect for snacking
• For even more chocolate, here is a Two Layer Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake from Recipe Sleuth
• Bon Appétit has a Three Layer Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake for a tower of chocolate mayo-ness

If for some unimaginable reason I am not in the mood for chocolate, or am just out of cocoa (but not mayonnaise and dates), I can always try this one...

• Mayonnaise, Date Nut Cake from page 225 in the "Say, Ah-h-h-h!" Cookbook (1973)* 

*Just don't ask. At least I haven't brought out the "Favorite Recipes of Lutheran Ladies: Traditional Meats (including seafood and poultry) Cookbook", circa MCMLXVI. This is fair warning... I have it and I'm not afraid to use it.

When Life Hands You Fallen Cupcakes...

I am... not a very good cupcake baker.
I have... two cupcake cookbooks filled with photos of unattainable cupcake perfection.
I can... never seem to fill the cupcake pan neatly or evenly.
I have... had nothing but disastrous results when making cupcakes.
I will... be glad if some day perfectly baked cupcakes were ever to come out of my oven.
I do... so hate cleaning the cupcake pan afterward.
I am... supremely happy that there is, a mile or so from my house, a cupcake bakery. So if my planned dessert doesn't work out, the Hubs can always run over and pick up a few high-priced but gorgeous and tasty professionally made cupcakes.

I'm practicing making positive affirmation-type statements... how am I doing? Like the cupcakes I just made, these statements start out o.k. enough, but then something goes wrong. And don't even get me started on frosting! Ugh. Same story. As with most things, I probably just need more practice. Clearly there is some sort of mental-block to overcome.

Lemon Love

Oh, how do I love lemons? Here are but a few more ways...

• Two of my favorite flavors together: Lavender Lemon Bundt Cake from williams-sonoma.com. It may be a little early for fresh lavender, but I always keep a jar of dried in the pantry.
  
• A Lemon Crostata (my favorite form of pie) from gourmet.com featuring a toasted almond lattice crust.
  
• Lemony Angel Food Cake from marthastewart.com (originally published in the May 2009/MSL magazine, this version has been updated). Lemon cream frosting on top... yes, please.
  
• Little Lemon Hazelnut Cakes at JoyTheBaker.com

Many of these recipes call for cake flour which usually brings me down real fast, since, just like buttermilk, I don't usually have any in the house. I know I can just go to the store and get some, but I tend to be a spontaneous baker: When I get the urge to make something, I want to jump right in and get started. If I don't have a crucial ingredient and can't immediately substitute something, I move on.

Well, now I never have to pass over one of those recipes again while lamenting my lack of cake flour. Joy The Baker has busted up the mystery of cake flour and shows us how to make it at home from regular all-purpose flour (which I always have in the cupboard)... how very cool!

• How To Make Cake Flour from JoyTheBaker.com
  

Angel Food Fix

Here it is more than a month after my "oops!" with the Brown Sugar Angel Food Cake and I hadn't done anything with the erroneous flour-sugar combo other than pack it up and stuff it in the pantry. Didn't want to waste it, but it sure would have been helpful to have noted how much flour and sugar was actually in there. All I remember is that I had measured some of the sugar in with the sifted flour before realizing that it was the wrong kind of sugar.

...and it's been staring at me from the pantry shelf ever since.

The first thing to do was to go back to the beginning (a very good place to start).* I got out the Brown Sugar Angel Food Cake recipe thinking that if nothing else, I could just try the same recipe using regular sugar or a combination. On the following page was a Lemon Angel Food Cake filled with lemon curd. That would be a sweet way to deal with all those extra yolks!

Alas, I used my only two lemons on the rum cake disaster last weekend. However, I noticed that the only difference between the lemon and brown sugar cake recipes (other than the type of sugar) was the addition of lemon zest. So you could say, I made the Brown Sugar Angel Food Cake with white sugar. Or did I make the Lemon Angel Food Cake without the lemon? All of the amounts were identical. For instance, the eggs. Fourteen of them. Leaving me once again with... 14 egg yolks looking for a purpose. Stay tuned.

Adapted from Lemon Angel Food Cake, page 510, The Martha Stewart Cookbook, 1995

Notes: I measured out the flour/sugar combo into another bowl and subtracted the known quantity of the flour. From that I was able to determine how much sugar was in there and add to it. Since I didn't have anything to make a sauce with for this one, I was worried that the cake would be too plain by itself. It was too late to sub cocoa powder for some of the flour (darn), but I looked up a basic angel food recipe** and added 1 tsp of vanilla and 1/2 tsp of almond extract according to that recipe. Baked it for 50 min. Could have gone maybe 5 more. Not sure I'm in love with the almond flavor, but overall it's lovely cake, and I would happily serve it to people I like.

*Everything I need to know about life... I learned from The Princess Bride (and The Sound Of Music).
**Angel Food Cake, page 725, How To Cook Everything, Mark Bittman, 1998

Super (Bowl) Citrus Cake

Orange Cake, page 359, The Silver Palate Cookbook, 2007 (25th anniversary edition)
Don't have this cookbook? (you really should), here's the recipe along with another review of this excellent cake at the blog Matarást-Love of Food

Notes: Went totally by the book and everything went like clockwork. Except for the glaze. I forgot to set the timer on the stove and got distracted by a design project I'm playing around with. Oops. I made caramel. I didn't need caramel, I needed glaze. So, I took the rest of the juice from the oranges and just whisked in powdered sugar until it reached a glaze-y consistency. 

The cake was moist and flavorful without being too sweet, and the simple glaze was perfect with it. I needed a crowd-sized dessert though, and while I thought my Bundt pan was the right size for the recipe, the cake was at least an inch shy of the top of the pan. Survey says... diminutive yet delicious. A keeper for sure, but will only serve about 8 fans. Of course, I could just make two of them and solve it that way...

See also: Orange Chocolate Chunk Cake, page 206-207, Barefoot Contessa: Parties!, Ina Garten, 2001

Better Luck Next Time Rum Cake

Rum Cake, page 66, Desperate Measures, Kevin Crafts, 1993

Brown Sugar Angel Food Cake with Blackberry Sauce

Page 509 and 573 of The Martha Stewart Cookbook: Collected Recipes for Every Day, 1995

My Notes: I happened to have cake flour in my pantry (go figure), and needed a simple dessert for a pot-luck. There was an initial false-start, when (panicking over the time), I completely forgot the name of this cake and mixed regular sugar into the sifted flour. I guess that would technically be considered an illegal substitution and not a false-start. 

Once back on track, this cake went together really easily and turned out quite tasty. The blackberry sauce took a lot longer to cook than the recipe said, but it may have been in part due to the small pan I was using. I forgot that things will reduce/thicken a lot faster in a larger (wider) pan. Did not use the liqueur in the sauce. It also was such a strong flavored sauce that it completely overwhelmed the subtle flavor of the cake itself. 

I didn't split the cake horizontally and spread the whipped cream and berries inside, like the recipe suggested; no time for that. Instead, I doubled the whipped cream and served everything separately. Call it deconstructed if you want, and I'll just call it yummy. I had forgotten how much I love "from scratch" angel food cakes. Now, what to do with fourteen egg yolks...

One-Bowl Apple Cake

The last of the sad apples have been reincarnated as this easy apple cake. They must've done something right during their little apple lives to have ended up here. The warm cinnamon and apple smells coming from the oven are just so good. Maybe they're not exactly reincarnated, but with so many other obvious metaphors to choose from, this one was as good as any. A few weeks ago these little apples had fallen off of a tree. That's pretty much the end of the road for an apple. These particular windfalls found their way into my kitchen and there they sat. And sat...and sat. Until today. I washed and dried them, cut them up and baked them into this cake (o.k. cakes - I made two), now cooling on my counter top. Those little apples are now fully realized as our breakfast. They're happier now. Tender, moist, nutty and fragrant. It's a good thing I made two.