Bake or Break

Hummingbird Cake is one of my favorite cakes. I don’t make it often because it’s just too dangerous to have around. There’s something magical about that combination of bananas, pineapple, cinnamon, and cream cheese that is hard to resist.

In a recent issue of Southern Living, this slight twist on the traditional Hummingbird caught my eye. I immediately saved the recipe, putting it near the top of my to-bake list.
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I have a green metal box full of my grandmother’s hand-written recipes. When I need some baking inspiration, I love to look through it and see what jumps out at me.

Recently, I came across one of her recipes for a banana icing. No cake, just the icing. As I started thinking of what kind of cake would go well with the icing, my mind kept returning to the idea of a pecan cake.
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New York seems to be having a seasonal identity crisis. We had a few days of spring-like temperatures, and then fell back into something resembling winter again. No matter the weather, this time of year always has me thinking of light, fruity desserts.

This recipe came about as I was contemplating how to make a lemon dessert without it being so lemon-y that I wouldn’t like it. I’m more of a citrus-in-small-doses fan. I decided to add blueberry to the mix to make things a bit more interesting.
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How great is coffee cake? There aren’t that many cakes that can justifiably be eaten at any time of day. While we may not always need an excuse to eat cake for breakfast, it’s nice to do so with a tad less guilt sometimes.

This particular coffee cake is a slight twist on the traditional with the addition of a cream cheese swirl. All the things we love about coffee cake are still there — cinnamon, nuts, crumb topping. There just happens to be some cream cheese goodness swirled into it the delicate cake to take it to new levels of fabulousness.
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I very rarely make traditional chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes, I may even start out with the best of traditional intentions, but before I’m finished mixing up the dough, I’ve tossed in something extra.

I was assessing my chocolate stash the other day and found a forgotten bag of Guittard’s chocolate sprinkles. Immediately, I decided to make cookies using those as soon as possible. Not necessarily the most traditional chocolate chip cookie, but really not that much of a departure.
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Brown sugar is one of my favorite baking ingredients. Everything is way behind chocolate on that list, but brown sugar is pretty close to the top. Combine that with how much I like baking bars, and you get these beauties.

I’ve lamented before that cashews often get overlooked in baking. (If you agree, check out this or maybe this.) What better complement to all that brown sugar goodness than a big helping of cashews?
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