Bake or Break

As I was making that lovely Raspberry Almond Crumb Tart earlier this week, I began thinking about some of my favorite baking recipes that use berries. These days, berries are available pretty much year-round, but there’s just something about fresh local berries that is extra exciting. As we head into berry season, it seems like a good time to start thinking about what to bake with all the berries that will soon be on their way.
[...]

As a child, I disliked the texture of berries. I loved the flavors, but the texture was just weird to me. I’m happy to say I’ve gotten over that. I still don’t like to bite into a big strawberry, but cut those up and I’m good. No idea what that’s all about.

In any case, I now happily embrace berries and love to use them in baking. For my taste, I prefer to use them in a way that lets the flavor of the berries come through. They’re plenty sweet on their own without adding much to them. This tart is a lovely way to revel in berry deliciousness.
[...]

My baking habits and tastes have changed over the years, but longtime favorites still endure. Chocolate, pecans, and shortbread are always winners for me. When I find a recipe that combines all three, how can I not make it?

I happened upon the recipe for these brownies when browsing through Fat Witch Brownies. Fat Witch is a delicious little brownie shop in New York’s Chelsea Market. When we lived in Manhattan, we lived just a few blocks away and visited the market frequently. We often ate dinner at one of the restaurants there, did a little shopping, and then hit up Fat Witch for our brownie fix.

Now that we live in Brooklyn, I don’t get to visit Fat Witch as often. But, with their cookbook, I can recreate some of that deliciousness at home. I can’t remember seeing these brownies in the shop, but I couldn’t resist baking them.
[...]

Happy Friday, my baking friends! I’m not sure where this week has gone, but I imagine it’s mired somewhere in all the baking I’ve done this week. I’ve lost count of the pounds of butter and flour I’ve gone through in the last few days.

In addition to my regular amount of baking, I am also baking many, many cookies for the NYC Bake Sale that’s happening at Brooklyn Flea in Fort Greene this Saturday. If you’re not familiar with this big event, it features baked goods from New York area food bloggers and local bakeries. Trust me, that’s some good stuff. Plus, all proceeds benefit No Kid Hungry, a national nonprofit organization that’s helping to end childhood hunger by 2015.

If you’re in the area, please stop by for some amazing treats. I’ll be there until 11:30am, so please come find me and say hi. If you need some more motivation for getting up on a Saturday morning, I’ll be selling my Browned Butter Salty Sugar Cookies. If you aren’t in the area, you can still help by entering some of our amazing raffles provided by great folks like Baked, Le Creuset, and King Arthur Flour.

In BoB news, you may have noticed a theme this week. Breakfast was the hot topic as we started out with Mocha Muffins and moved to Cinnamon Roll Cake. It was really unintentional, but I figure we’ll just keep going with it today.
[...]

I love recipes that take a well-known, well-loved baked good and present it in an entirely different way. I also love baked goods that are just as good for breakfast as they are for dessert. So, you can imagine that this Cinnamon Roll Cake makes me very happy.

The cake itself is a lovely yellow cake made with one of my favorite cake ingredients – sour cream. A little cinnamon sugar gets partially mixed into that delicious cake. Then, the cake is layered with a combination of brown sugar, cinnamon, and pecans. To top it all off, a sweet vanilla glaze goes on top of the baked cake.
[...]

Quinn has been after me for ages to bake more with chocolate and coffee. The problem, you see, is that I don’t like coffee. Love to smell it, don’t love to drink it. Does anyone else have this problem?

It’s no secret that chocolate and coffee are a brilliant pairing. They just seem to enhance each other naturally. Even I have a hard time arguing with that.
[...]