In an enticing alternative to the usual coffeecake breakfast sweet, this nectarine tart serves the same function but with an extra dose of fresh fruit. Not only is the yellow cake perfectly golden, unctuously buttery and studded with luscious nectarines, Flickr user sassyradish heralds it as also being "moist, light and laced with vanilla and almond."
In this recipe adapted from the September issue of Gourmet, the shopping list calls for the usual pantry baking staples to be paired with the sliced fruit of your choice -- perfect for last-minute brunch-time entertaining.
Check out the elegantly simple recipe for yourself at blog Sassyradish.
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When is a savory slab of bacon not a savory slab of bacon? When it's a deliciously sweet, sugary cake merely masquerading as a salted and smoked side of pork.
This bacon-slab "groom's cake" from Flickr user debbiedoescakes is entirely sweet and, even better, entirely edible, right down to the cutting-board base. It makes our mouths water for both, and forces us to ask: Which would you rather -- cake or bacon? Or cake that looks like bacon?
No matter how fastidiously you follow directions, sometimes a cake doesn't work out just right. Luckily, there are a few ways to save a failed creation.
Whether you call it a chocolate craving or a "dirty mood," like Karen from Citrus and Candy, there are some days (and nights) when nothing but a big piece of chocolate cake is going to sate the need for, well, a big piece of chocolate cake.
While many would simply hit the nearest bakery to quell such a specific sweet tooth, Karen decided -- long past midnight -- that she was going to bake this flourless chocolate-hazelnut version of the classic gâteau because ... why not? As if this were not enough, she topped it off with a similarly hued, liqueur-infused chocolate ganache -- just enough decadence to incite a craving of our own.
Working on a book wherein I was tasked with hiding vegetables in dessert recipes, I discovered that some pair perfectly with fruit. In some cases, the veggies even make ripe fruit taste sweeter. Blueberries go well with spinach, raspberries with beets and strawberries with tomatoes.
I bought a pint of strawberries from a farmer' market recently, along with fresh, stem-on cherry tomatoes. These little guys are already naturally sweeter those usually found in the grocery store, but if your tomatoes are slightly further from the farm, your cake will still be tasty.
Get Jennifer's Tomato Cake with Strawberries and Cream Icing recipe after the jump.
It's a well-known fact that writer-director John Hughes, who died Thursday at age 59, was a master of capturing teenage ennui (not to mention a master of setting too-high romantic expectations for a generation of women raised in the '80s.)
What's less remarked upon is his fascination with food and the way American culinary rituals define adolescence. There's the lunch scene in the detention hall of "The Breakfast Club," in which Molly Ringwald snottily articulates the concept of "sushi" to an incredulous Judd Nelson and "bad girl" Ally Sheedy demonstrates fantastic Coke can catching skills before creating a sandwich out of Pixy Stix, butter, bread and cereal -- which she proceeds to devour like a raptor.
We're stuck on a loop of John Hughes memories, but this photo of a different 16 candles -- a snapshot taken by a father of his rosy-cheeked son "caught in the glow of his 16th birthday cake" -- caught our eye.
It's a tribute to the maestro that any cake teeming with candles will always make us think of him. So to paraphrase one of his own characters, "May we admire you again today?"
What's the first thing that comes to mind when you see this picture from Deb at Smitten Kitchen?
We're willing to bet a hundred truffles it's that you want to lick the batter of off that beater. To make it even more tempting (if that's possible), this particular batter was prepared for a plum kuchen -- a sweet, yeasty German cake -- adapted from a recipe featured in Gourmet employing a handful of delicious staples like butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, creamy whole milk yogurt and a swirl of lemon zest.
Sounds good enough to eat ... before it's even cooked, that is.
At first glance this bottle of Jack Daniel's Tennessee whiskey appears to be just that: a bottle of whiskey. But upon closer examination you will find it is a two-hit wonder, a duo of beloved treats: cake with (score!) a little bit of whiskey baked into it.
Zoe from the Whipped Bakeshop spent hours on this deceptive, decadent chocolate-whiskey birthday cake filled with caramel-whiskey buttercream and wrapped in fondant she painted by hand. Even its "hardwood" base is made of sugar.
While it is probably best washed down with a glass of cold milk, we imagine the birthday boy, Josh, downed a few shots of the real thing before building up the nerve to cut into this culinary work of art.
I present to you, without comment, a link to the blog of pop singer and impish egomaniac John Mayer, who, apparently, is also a cake lover. In this edition, he presents the results of his personal Winter '08 holiday baking contest.
Note the numerous instances of Mayer-themed cakes: The red-and-white "JM" logo cake, the JM "Tree-O" cake with Mayer and bandmates presented as fir trees, the "JM" logo Christmas ornament, the cake depicting a sugarpaste Mayer singing on stage at the Nokia Theater, and, of course, the portrait (pictured).
These days, dslr's go hand-in-hand with food worship and blogging. The more you photograph your food, the more you want it to look good, creating an ongoing addiction to better cameras and faster lenses. But just sometimes, that love affair works its way onto your tongue in the tastiest way.
The above is a birthday cake that Flickr user fsumaria got at the end of last year. It was part of a pair -- the real D700 as a gift, and an edible, red-velvet version for the birthday cake. Talk about an awesome birthday! My D80 is glaring at me as I go green with food and photography jealousy.
This might not be a homemade version (it was whipped up by www.grannyschmidts.com), but it sure gives some camera food for thought, and an added impetus to continue improving my fondant skills.
Has the world of photography ever made it to you in cake form?
Yesterday I wrote about muscadine grapes, which include a coppery green variety known as the scuppernong. Well they've been on my mind all week. On Tuesday, I stood in a friend's mother's backyard around sundown, fending off mosquitoes as I plucked heavy handfuls of scuppernongs from the musky, sweet vinegar-smelling vines.
Tomorrow I will make scuppernong cake, my new favorite early fall treat. I came up with this Southern take on rustic Tuscan vintners cake last September - slightly cooked scuppernongs tucked, skins and all, into a light, olive-oil scented batter. I like to serve this cake with fresh whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.
As the resident cake baker in my circle of friends, I'm always trying to find something new and funky to make. I've been in a groove of no-cook fondant and marzipan figures, but this summer I got a challenge -- chocolate. Not being the biggest fan of chocolate cakes, I mostly stick to the many other flavors. However, my friend, she loves the dark and sinful treat. If she wanted chocolate, she was really going to get chocolate. Since she's also a skier, it would be served in a smooth, snowy package.
Death by Chocolate Cake, straight out of The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Chocolate, with white fondant, a marzipan skier, and some candles for wishing. Check out the gallery, peruse the recipe after the jump, and stay tuned for more information on the fondant and marzipan.
Cake Wrecks features cakes that people have actually paid for that have turned out less than stellar. I am glad of the blog's stance to not mock home bakers as I've certainly made some regrettable looking creations, but if I'm going to pay for something, I would expect it to look good.
As for the cake in this picture, the blog offers no explanation. However, the commenters came though. One commenter, Jen, pointed out that the characters say "Happy Birthday" in traditional Chinese and another commenter, Tom, said, "A little pile of poo is a good luck symbol in Japan." It seems that there is an explanation for everything.
Check out Cake Wrecks for more cake disasters that you can't help but stare at.
I've never been a cake for breakfast person unless you count pancakes as cakes. In a recent post by Cakespy (who I can't help but adore due to my love of cupcakes), she makes a strong case for eating cake in the morning. By writing about this, I am not advocating cake as a daily breakfast treat, but rather as an extra special morning indulgence.
Cakespy gives many slices of information on why cake for breakfast can be good. Here is one of my favorites: "You can't deprive yourself all of the time. If you wake up craving cake and instead eat something virtuous like oatmeal, it's likely that you'll still be craving the cake all day. This will undoubtedly lead to idly munching various non-cake items throughout the day in an effort to fill the void. Really, you should have just had the cake. So have it!"
With E3 in full swing this week (full coverage on our sister blog Joystiq), I thought it might be a good time to post my incredibly fun pac-man cake. It's not very difficult to make and since it uses cupcakes and mini-cupcakes, it can be made for any number of people to enjoy.
Start with any size batch of cupcakes and mini-cupcakes prepared in paper holders so you can move them around easily. I used red velvet cake because it was the preference of the birthday boy whose wife requested this cake. The background obviously needs to be black so you can use either black foil cake board wrap or, as I did, just use black poster-board. It has a nice dull finish for the video screen effect and since the cupcakes are in paper cups, they'll never touch it anyway.
I used black buttercream icing purchased from my wonderful and helpful local bakery shop. I've never successfully created true black icing and always just get really dark gray but theirs is tasty and crusts well. All of the cupcakes were iced and smoothed for a flat surface. I found my round cut-outs incredibly helpful for this cake. The smallest size circle was used with light yellow fondant to make the pac-dots and the middle size for the power pellets, both of which were placed on the mini-cupcakes to create the maze of the game. The largest circle was a perfect size for our hero in dark yellow fondant with a small triangle cut out for his mouth.
With E3 in full swing this week (full coverage on our sister blog Joystiq), I thought it might be a good time to post my incredibly fun pac-man cake. It's not very difficult to make and since it uses cupcakes and mini-cupcakes, it can be made for any number of people to enjoy. 
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