Category: baking
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Strawberry Upside-Down Valentine’s Day Cake
Today is Valentine’s Day! And I wanted to try making something new. Something suitable for Valentine’s Day. But I didn’t know what it would be… At the Farmers’ Market, I bought a basket of strawberries. (The great thing about living in coastal California, is that we have Farmers Markets – with fresh strawberries – all…
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Peanutty Peanut Butter Cookies with Peanuts
Who doesn’t love peanut butter cookies? Other than those who are allergic, of course… In the past year, I expanded my cookie repertoire to peanut butter cookies. Sam loves them, Becky loves them, and my sister Amanda loves them. In honor of Auntie Amanda’s upcoming visit, I’m finally blogging the recipe that I use. Of…
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Pumpkin Bread
Some time ago, I posted a recipe for courgette (zucchini) bread, inspired by a particularly successful loaf of pumpkin bread that Mike V. and I baked in Tanzania. And I’m sure everybody has been wondering…but what about that pumpkin bread? Well, at long last, here is a fantastic pumpkin bread recipe, adapted from an article…
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Want To Make Bread? There’s No Knead!
In November of 2006, Mark Bittman introduced the world to Jim Lahey’s No-Knead Bread. This recipe totally rocked my world, and demoted the bread machine to a sad, unused corner of the kitchen. And it wasn’t just me…everybody I knew who baked was talking about it. Four years later, it came up at lunch, which…
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Courgette (Zucchini) Bread
Back when I was in the Peace Corps (I know, I know) I took spring break 1998 to visit Mike V. on Mafia Island, a small island off the coast of mainland Tanganyika. Mafia is exactly what you would expect from a desert island in the Indian Ocean, complete with a fantastic coral reef. Luckily,…
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Pumpkin Pie
The first pie that I learned to make is one of my favorite: good old pumpkin pie. I don’t make it as much as I would enjoy, since a certain unnamed person for whom I do most of my cooking doesn’t like pumpkin. But come Thanksgiving, Pumpkin Pie is a Rykoff family tradition, and sorry…
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Apple Muffins
While she was pregnant, Becky needed lots of continuous food input. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down now that she’s breastfeeding Sam. So I made lots of quick snack foods, including dozens and dozens of muffins. I adapted this apple muffin recipe from Alton Brown’s basic muffin technique. They’re apple-y and tasty and…
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Worst. Cookies. Ever.
Last week, Mark Bittman posted a new recipe for The Mother Of All Butter Cookies. His point was that this recipe was akin to a mother sauce and an easy and flexible base that could be turned into butterscotch cookies, chocolate chip cookies, citrus cookies… Sounds great, huh? Some of you might ask: the Tollhouse…