Esterhazy Torte or Hazelnut Dacquoise Layer Cake

Yet again, a “rustic” cake from the wedding cake designer only Quasimodo would hire. Sorry folks. Another good schadenfreude moment for my haters. What is my handicap with fancy cakes? I need to take a class or something! You know, I think it’s the end game for me—I’m solid through the baking, the layering, and […]

Cardamom Coffee Cake with Crumb Topping

Why is there comfort in tradition? One holiday tradition in my family is to serve coffee cake or cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning, with a steaming hot cup of coffee. On Christmas Eve, we exchange new pairs of pajamas and wear them for the next 25-72 hours. We watch Muppet Christmas Carol. When the pajamas […]

Sachertorte, or the Drunk Sand Castle Project

I’m totally in over my head with this new baking group. Last time I made chimney cake. Now this. I spent four hours of my Saturday spackling this cake into the unimpressive mound you see here in this photograph. No shortcuts, every last moment of this project was painstaking–[See: straining apricot chunks out of boiled […]

Chocolate Pecan Cake with White Chocolate Mocha Sauce

Happy Birthday Karl-Peter! The chickens are grateful to you for saving their lives from the hawk this week, and with this cake they give you their 10-egg salute!   Chocolate Pecan Cake with White Chocolate Mocha Sauce Adapted from the New New Orleans Cooking by Emeril, and lovingly prepared by KP’s mother Marilyn 8 tablespoons […]

Beefcake

Healthy team camaraderie is the best way to survive residency. Open lines of communication are vital in patient care, and equally vital to build morale, to keep people coming to work and giving one hundred percent. The psychiatry hospital team I’ve been on this month has got it going on—they even have a mascot—they call […]

Chocolate Pound Cake Cassatas and Desire

I believe Desire is not only a state of being, but the state of being. Once we learn that our longing has nothing to do with the object at which it is directed, and will neither be alleviated nor mitigated by the object’s possession, but is in fact an inkling of some greater magnetism, a […]

Brown Butter Polenta Cake with Maple Caramel

On the way in to take my pediatrics shelf exam yesterday, I stepped in a steaming pile of fresh dog turd—an unpleasant but accurate foreshadowing of the boards test-taking experience. I am ever flummoxed that one’s mastery of understanding a medical specialty can be assessed by one hundred arbitrary multiple choice questions. For the next […]

Homemade Brownies

I couldn’t find the picture that goes with these incredible brownies, so I figured a photo of Izzy looking mischievious in a surgical cap would substitute well. She is brown, in places. And homemade, technically. She looks a little here like Lucille Ball in the famous chocolate factory I Love Lucy episode, one of the […]

Happy Birthday to Me Coffee Cake

To quote from Rafa Nadal’s Australian Open concession speech yesterday, “You make feel [me] like home.” Thanks to all the family and friends whose cards, gifts and calls have warmed my heart which would otherwise be frozen by the current Minnesota climate colder than Mars. In particular, I want to thank Izzy for not eating […]