baking

 

you know that there's something yummy going on when this is what the kitchen sink is filled with...

i have recently been reading through the archives of Angry Chicken and SouleMama. i really love these blogs. they are very inspiring on so many levels. my husband calls them crafty homemaker blogs, which is perfectly up my alley. anyway, in addition to sewing and mothering and making art, they both post delicious photos and recipes of food they've made. last sunday i found a recipe on Angry Chicken for an Almond Cake that i had to try. i love almond flavored baked goods, almond croissants, amaretto... yum! so i succumbed to my temptations and made this delicious cake. The recipe is really easy and simple, except for the part about grating the almond paste. that was a pain. i'm trying to come up with something easier to do that yields the same effect. it ended up not being the prettiest cake i've ever made, but a sprinkling a powdered sugar or whipped cream or something would be an easy fix. it smelled so good that i just wanted to eat it. clearly, since i couldn't wait to photograph it before tasting it. if you are an almond fan, fire up your oven and make this cake!

it's extra lovely in the afternoon with a cup of tea.

my husband isn't an almond fan (i know, i don't understand it either) and i felt that it wasn't fair to him to make a treat that he didn't want. so, i made a batch of brownies for him. i am not a brownie fan. too much chocolate that isn't sweet enough for me. i like a nice piece of chocolate sheet cake with a glass of milk, but brownies just aren't my thing. i think he secretly likes this because it means that he gets all of the brownies for himself.

the last time i made brownies i was newly pregnant, almost two years ago. i always made the recipe in Cook's Illustrated The New Best Recipe. i love that cookbook. it is my desert island cookbook. if i could only have one, that would be it. anyway, last year my husband gave me Baking Illustrated, so when i went to make brownies, i grabbed that book. i assumed that it would have the same recipe since it is written by the same people. not so! unknowingly i made Chewy, Fudgy Triple-Chocolate Brownies, when what i really wanted was their recipe for Classic Brownies. it had been so long, and previously my brain had been baby-hormone infused, that i didn't even notice that the ingredients were different. i had also just made the almond cake, so that i'm sure didn't help either. anyway, my husband noticed the difference and decided that while both were good, he preferred the Classic Brownies. i haven't tried either one...