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For St. Patrick’s Day this year I decided to pull out my copy of Dubliners and finally finish this collection of short stories. For the story Clay, I made barmbrack, an Irish bread traditionally made for Halloween.
They settled down before their huge mugs which the cook and the dummy filled up with hot tea, already mixed with milk and sugar in huge tin cans. Maria superintended the distribution of the barmbrack and saw that every woman got her four slices. There was a great deal of laughing and joking during the meal.
Clay (from Dubliners) by James JoyceI was craving a classic and James Joyce was the obvious choice the week of St. Patrick’s Day. In the short story Clay, Maria bakes barmbrack, a traditional Irish yeasted raisin bread. I had to give it a try. It had more of a fruit cake vibe than I’d anticipated. Let’s just say, I’m much more excited for our traditional soda bread that I’ll be baking on St. Patrick’s Day!
What are your St. Patrick’s Day traditions?
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A grabbed a stack of pie books from the library to celebrate pie day, but just knew I had to make a mud pie for the yucky pie a little boy wants to make for his greatest enemy in Enemy Pie by Derek Munson.
There is one part of Enemy Pie that I can’t do. In order for it to work, you need to spend a day with your enemy. Even worse, you have to be nice to him. It’s not easy. But that’s the only way that Enemy Pie can work. Are you sure you want to go through with this?
Enemy Pie by Derek MunsonEnemy Pie is a sweet story of a little boy struggling when a new boy–his greatest enemy–moves to the neighborhood and is stealing his best friend. His dad helps him make an enemy pie in retaliation. The catch? The boy has to spend an entire day with the new neighbor.
I whipped up a Mississippi mud pie, but mini in my small tart pans. I had to add some gummy worms, cause it’s for an enemy.
The pies were enjoyed by all.
Do you have a pie you like to make for Pi Day?
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In The Last Thing He Told Me, Hannah tries so hard to win over her stepdaughter, Bailey, including going to great lengths to replicate a dish Bailey liked at a restaurant. Here’s my take on the Whole Wheat Linguini in a brown butter sage sauce–sans burning.
“It’s the linguine that you had at Poggio,” I say.
The Last Thing He Told Me by Laura Dave
She gives me a blank look, as though Poggio isn’t her favorite local restaurant, as though we weren’t there for dinner just a few weeks before to celebrate her sixteenth birthday. Bailey ordered that night’s special–a homemade multigrain linguini in a brown butter sauce. And Owen gave her a little taste of his Malbec to go with it. I thought she loved the pasta. But maybe what she loved was drinking wine with her father.Hannah gets a mysterious note from her husband–”Protect Her.” Her husband, Owen, is now missing and Hannah attempts to keep his daughter, Bailey, safe while finding out why Owen would leave. The hunt leads Hannah and Bailey to secrets about Owen’s identity and into new dangers.
The Last Thing He Told Me is fast-paced, twisty, and a perfect thriller. I listened to it in a single day and absolutely could not stop. While the pace lagged a bit at about 75% for me, I still loved Hannha’s doggedness. The relationships make this book–the flashbacks to Hannah and Owen’s meeting and short marriage, as well as Bailey and Hannah finally overcoming their fraught relationship in an effort to find Owen.
To recreate the dish Hannah makes for Bailey, I made my own whole wheat pasta. I rolled out the dough and cut it using my KitchenAid pasta maker attachment, which I love! I’ve had my KitchenAid mixer for over a decade now and I use it all the time.
The brown butter sage sauce comes together in about 10 minutes!
When was the last time you tried to make a special dish for something and failed?
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Sorry, these browned butter chocolate chip cookies are drugs-free, but you’ll still be asking for just one more.
KAREN: This one time, we were recording and in comes a dozen chocolate chip cookies delivered by some dude. I said, “We have enough cookies.” And the kid said, “Not this kind.” They were laced. I have no idea who sent them.
Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid
EDDIE: ‘Just One More’ was written and recorded in one day when somebody sent over a batch of grass baked into cookies. The whole song, written mostly by Billy with my help, seems like it’s about wanting to sleep with a girl one time before you hit the road. But it was about how we’d eaten all the grass and just wanted one more cookie.
A story about the rise of a fictional 1970s rock band sounded less than appealing, but there was so much hype around Daisy Jones & The Six that I had to give it a try. The first few chapters of the book completely grabbed me – the interview style, the tongue in cheek, dry humor, the complicated characters. A week after finishing it, I could not stop thinking about Daisy, Billy, and the rest of the band. Daisy especially stuck with me. She was bold and brave, vulnerable, reckless, sometimes frustrating, sometimes tragic.
“I had absolutely no interest in being somebody else’s muse. I am not a muse. I am the somebody.”
Daisy Jones & the Six by Taylor Jenkins ReidAdded bonus–the show Daisy Jones & the Six on Amazon Prime was phenomenal. It’s one of the best adaptations I’ve ever seen.
To make the best chocolate chip cookies that you just can’t stop eating, I made Sarah Kieffer’s Brown Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies. The recipe isn’t available on Sarah’s blog, but it is in her book 100 Cookies. I use this cookbook more than any other and almost every recipe is perfect. Grab yourself a copy!
If you don’t have Sarah’s book and are dying for some yummy chocolate chips, her Chocolate Chip Cookies 2.0 are also excellent.
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I knew I had to make the chocolate cake that gets abandoned by the six nitwits in the cabin who all split up and go their separate ways. Never, ever split up when you’re staying in a cabin in the middle of nowhere says every horror, suspense, mystery novel/movie everywhere.
He put down a huge platter of meat–ribs, steaks, chicken breasts. Then he returned with sides–macaroni and cheese creamy and gooey, Brussels sprouts crisply browned, potatoes, salad. The silent young woman assisted. Hannah watched that spider tattoo as she filled everyone’s water glasses from the pitcher.
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger
Hannah’s stomach was trembling, and she really did not want to hear about ghosts.
“A decade ago–more,” said Chef Jeff. “A man murdered his family on the property.”Three couples are invited to a cabin in the middle-of-nowhere for a weekend getaway. But they each have a hidden past and someone wants them all to pay for their secrets.
Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six by Lisa Unger is a moody, creepy, and suspenseful thriller. And so fast-paced. It’s a bit superficial, in the best possible way. The characters are mostly ridiculous and, truth be told, I hoped half of them wouldn’t make it out of the cabin. It’s also low-key scary. I was a bit dissatisfied with the ending since some people got off too easy with their crimes, but I’d recommend it if you’re looking for a quick, fun read.
I had to recreate the creepy dinner where the chef tells the six friends about the murder that happened at the cabin.
I whipped up some macaroni and cheese. I followed this Half Baked Harvest recipe for the Brussels sprouts and potatoes. Then used the marinade for the chicken breasts.
Finally, I grilled the marinated chicken breasts on our raclette.
And a moment to gush about our raclette? If you’re unfamiliar, raclette is sort of like fondue. Instead of melted cheese in a pot, though, melted cheese is added to diner’s plates and poured over boiled potatoes, meats, veggies, basically anything you’d like. Traditional raclette has this giant grill thing set up over a giant cheese round and the warmed up cheese gets regularly scraped away and onto people’s plates. Brice and I visited Brice’s sister and her husband back in 2017 over Christmas when they were living in France. We visited again Christmas 2019 when they were living in Belgium and both years for New Year’s Eve we had raclette and now it’s a tradition that Brice and I have continued!
If you like entertaining, it is such a fun dinner party idea, though maybe not the best dinner party accessory if lots of little kids are attending.
Finally, I used black cocoa powder to make up a batch of my favorite chocolate cake. For the icing, I used my favorite cream cheese frosting recipe (I use honey instead of golden syrup and skip the lemon extract) and added cocoa powder and melted chocolate until I had the consistency I wanted.
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I’ve been using this chocolate cake recipe for years. It’s a Devil’s Food Cake recipe, to be exact and it’s phenomenal. I never, ever use other recipes. If necessary, I substitute this recipe into whatever I’m using. It’s delicious and super chocolatey and incredibly moist.
My chocolate cake recipe is adapted from Zoe Bakes’s Devils Food Cake recipe. I’ve been making it for years and have tweaked it a bit here and there. I added a melted chocolate element. I also added coconut milk–the stuff that comes in a can, full fat.
It’s intensely chocolate-y and insanely delicious. And, if you prefer, you can substitute the coconut milk with regular milk.
I made this chocolate cake recipe for my Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six post but I subbed the cocoa powder for black cocoa powder. The black cocoa powder gave a super intense chocolate flavor and make the cake a much deeper color. Regular cocoa powder or black cocoa powder both work beautifully.
I’ve used this recipe for birthday cakes, surprise gift cakes, wedding cakes. Everything.
The Very Best Chocolate Cake
3 layers of 6-inch cakes or
2 layers of 8-inch cakes or
24 cupcakes
Ingredients:
For the coconut milk “hot chocolate”
- 1 – 14 ounce can of full fat coconut milk
- 1/2 cup (45-50g) of cocoa powder
- 1/2 cup (87g) of semi-sweet chocolate chips
- optional: add coffee to the chocolate milk concoction to help bring out the chocolate flavor
For the chocolate cake:
- 2 cups (400g) granulated sugar
- 2 1/3 cups (280g) all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup (50g) Cocoa Powder (It doesn’t seem to make a difference if you use natural or Dutch-processed), sift if lumpy
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/4 cups + 2 Tablespoons of hot chocolate concoction
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup (240ml) buttermilk
- 1/2 cup (120ml) vegetable oil
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Directions:
- Make the hot chocolate concoction: Add the can of coconut milk to a medium-sized saucepan. Heat over medium-high heat. Add the 1/2 cup of cocoa powder and 1/2 cup of chocolate chips and whisk until smoothly combined. Also add coffee, if desired, at this point. Allow to simmer then take off of heat.
- Heat the oven to 350 degrees Farenheit and prepare 3 6-inch cake pans. I like to grease the pans with butter, lay down a round of parchment paper in the bottom and flip over the parchment paper so that it’s buttered on both sides. I then dust the buttered pan with a coat of cocoa powder.
- Combine all the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and whisk until combined. Set aside.
- Whisk together, eggs, buttermilk, oil and vanilla until well combined. Add the egg mixture to the dry ingredients and whisk, while slowly adding the hot chocolate to the batter and whisk until totally blended and smooth, about 2 minutes. The batter will be quite runny.
- Fill the cake pans until about 3/4 full.
- Bake the devil’s food cupcakes for about 25-30 minutes or until a tester comes out clean.
- Allow to cool on a cake rack and then decorate with your favorite buttercream, frosting, or ganache.
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A Unicorn Named Sparkle is the sweetest children’s books series. The illustrations are charming and, I swear, I can hear little Lucy’s voice when I read these books. I had to recreate the Valentine’s Day cupcakes from Lucy and Sparkle’s party, but make them comic because…illustrations!
[Sparkle] cut a heart shape with his horn. It was harder than he thought. He kept trying until he got one that was okay.
A Unicorn Named Sparkle and the Perfect Valentine by Amy Young
He didn’t know how to write, so to say that he loved Lucy’s curly black hair, he made a hoofmark. To say that he loved her great big laugh, he made another hoofmark. And to say that he loved her best of all, he made a third hoofmark. He pressed so hard that it tore the paper.Happy Valentines Day from Sparkles the Unicorn and the twenty-one cupcakes he ate in one sitting. These cartoon cupcakes from Georgia’s Cakes seemed too perfect for sweet, funny Lucy and her best friend the goat-unicorn Sparkles.
A Unicorn Named Sparkle and the Perfect Valentine is a great addition to a home library!
For the chocolate cupcake, I used my very favorite, chocolate, moist amazing chocolate cake recipe.
For the buttercream, I used my favorite Italian Meringue Buttercream recipe from Erin McDowell, colored with pink gel food coloring and a tiny bit of the maraschino cherry juice.
What’s your favorite Valentine’s Day treat?
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I, of course, had to try my hand at Black Cake after reading Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson.
Benny had just enough time to go through the whole routine and set two black cakes on top of the stove to cool before getting ready for her morning job. She still felt the need to talk to her ma but she didn’t have the courage to try calling her again. This would have to be her message, the cakes. She had taken some photos of the preparation. She would send them to her mother along with a letter.
Black Cake by Charmaine Wilkerson
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Photo number one: the jar of fruits sitting next to a group of eggs…
Photo number two: the blacking of the sugar. Smoke rising gently out of the pot, the fire turned off just in time, the wooden spoon sticking out of the saucepan. Snap.
Photo number three: two cake tins filled with batter, each tin sitting in a pan of water in the oven. Snap.
…
Photo number four: a closeup of one clack cake cooling on the counter. The color of moist earth, the smell of heaven. Snap.Black Cake tells the story of Benny and her brother Byron who are brought together after their mother’s death to listen to a recording of their mother’s life. Their mother, Eleanor, shares the twists and turns of her life, of how she went from the Caribbean to England, to California. Listening to the tragedy and joy of their mother’s life Benny and Byron have to face their own strained relationship.
This was a beautiful story told from so many different perspectives. I loved how there would be a chapter from a surprise perspective and that was it–we never had that perspective again in the book. It was a story with tragedy but still hope. And I loved that the black cake was almost another character with the influence it had on people’s lives.
Black Cake was a perfect book for the end of the year.
As I made these candied citrus peels for my own black cake I reflected on how the beginning of a year is so bittersweet.
It’s a time to celebrate the last year and look forward to what’s ahead.
But there’s also a heaviness. The year has passed and can’t be redone. Kids are older. Opportunities may have passed by. Maybe the year ahead feels daunting.
Black Cake beautifully explores the bitter and sweet of life and how they can exist together. The bitterness of family disappointing us against the joy of their love. The bitterness of future plans falling apart amidst the sweetness of unexpected paths.
Here’s to holding space for the bitter and the sweet in this new year.
It was definitely an experience trying to create my own black cake–especially since I don’t drink alcohol and tried to substitute the rum with a concoction of juices. After replicating Benny’s pictures to her mother, I replicated a scene for Benny’s future cafe–though, undoubtedly, her black cake will be much better than mine.
Have you ever had Black Cake before? I would like to try the real thing someday.
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While there was plenty of food mentioned in The Secret History by Donna Tartt, I had to highlight the scene with the cherries. It so perfectly encapsulates how ridiculous the characters are, while also showing how they’re all spiraling out of control.
For some time I had been staring at the jar of cherries without realizing fully what they were. “Why are you eating those?” I said.
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
“I don’t know,” he said, staring down at the jar. “They taste really bad.”
“Throw them away.”
He struggled with the window sash. It sailed up with a grinding noise.
A blast of icy air hit me in the face. “Hey,” I said.
He threw the jar out the window and then leaned on the sash with all his weight. I went over to help him. Finally, it crashed down, and the juice had left a spattered red trajectory on the snow.
“Kind of a Jean Cocteau touch, isn’t it?” Francis said.The Secret History follows a group of college students who murder one of their friends. No spoilers here. The reader learns of the murder in the first two pages. The story is told from the perspective of an unreliable narrator with zero main character energy named Richard. Richard has escaped his small California town for a liberal arts college in Vermont. He falls in with an exclusive, pretentious group of students studying Greek and through Richard we watch how the group turns on one of their own and the subsequent unraveling–throwing cherry jars out windows included.
It’s a suspenseful dark academia psychological thriller. The writing is beautiful and soaked in allusions. I loved it when I read it at 18 and loved it this time around. It’s a story that sticks with you. Like, the characters are absolutely horrible, but I could also talk about them all day long.
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I adore Molly Idle and especially the Tea Rex series that follow Cordelia and her little brother George (I know his name because I asked Molly Idle!) and their dinosaur friends on adventures. For Santa Rex, I had to recreate the gingerbread cookies the kids make for Santa, along with my favorite gingerbread recipe.
Deck the halls with boughs of holly,
Santa Rex by Molly Idle
paper chains,
strings of popcorn,
and cut-out window snowflakes.
Everyone loves to help bake Christmas cookies.
So delicious, they’re sure to disappear quickly.
Be sure to save a few for Santa…I love a soft, chewy, spicy gingerbread cookie. Every year, I make a giant batch to share with friends. Typically, my gingerbread cookies are decorated simply with a white royal icing. But this year, I finally made time to color the frosting and do lots of cute decorations.
I’ve tried several different recipes over the years, but this gingerbread recipe from Erin McDowell is excellent. It’s easy to make, the cookies are perfectly spiced, and they’re thick and chewy!
It can be so fun to cut out the cookies with kids. I’ve got a few different sets of cookie cutters at this point, but this set is a good starting point for Christmas!
After baking and cooling, I love decorating cookies with royal icing. I know, the recipe I use has raw egg. I use the carton of pasteurized egg whites. And if you aren’t comfortable with raw eggs, there are lots of recipes that use meringue powder. In my experience, it never tastes quite as good so I use the egg whites.
For coloring the icing, I learned an awesome trick when taking a cookie decorating class. To keep a color palette consistent, mix as many colors as possible in the same bowl. For instance, mix your pink, add your pink to the piping bag, then in that same bowl with traces of pink icing still in the bowl, mix your red. An orange could be mixed in that same bowl. Greens and blues could get mixed in the same bowl. Browns could be mixed in any of the colors. You get the picture.
While I used my regular Wilton piping bags for these cookies, next time I want to try these piping bags to see if I can get a better cut on the tip.
It was so much fun recreating the cookies from the book.
I, of course, also had to make some pink Christmas trees for GUP with the left-over pink icing and Christmas tree cookies.
What do you bake every year for the holidays?
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