

chocolate cake with matcha-mint frosting
Guys. I did it. I finally made a cake for no reason at all, which means I could cut out a slice and photograph it without being crippled by the thought of serving a party cake with a missing slice. I realize this is pretty much a non-accomplishment, but I was very proud of myself and walked around with a shiny glow of success all afternoon. When I was growing up, my mom worked part time coordinating a two-week summer exchange program for Japanese students. So each summer we w


vanilla pound cake with grapefruit curd & basil cream
So apparently this is just basil and grapefruit week over here. Well, in fairness it's because I had leftover grapefruit and basil simple syrup from the Basil Rathbourbon and I didn't want that to go to waste. We were already having a few friends over earlier this week and I'd promised to have a dessert on hand, so that seemed like a promising potential vehicle for my leftovers. I thought at first of doing our family recipe for a Grapefruit Chiffon Cake, but I'd just used tha


spice cake with berry compote & coffee-cardamom frosting
Ok, I promise I'm not going to post about everything we served at our wedding. I'm done after this one. Although there were these herbed butters... we'll come back to those later. This timing worked out perfectly, though. Our anniversary was on the 23rd and my friend asked me a couple months back if I'd be willing to make a cake for their wedding the following Saturday. She also gave me free reign on what kind of cake to make, so I jumped at the opportunity to finally eat a w


earl grey chiffon cake - with a side of birthday party
As I mentioned in the last post, I put together a birthday party for Aaron this past weekend. The party he threw for me back in September was incredible and I wanted to at least partially return the gesture. I know it isn't a comparison game, but I really wanted to make sure he felt as loved and celebrated as possible this year. So I schemed a bit and tried to sketch out what an "Aaron" birthday would look like. What I came up with was roughly as follows: - A small group of p