Chocolate Peanut Butter Icebox Cake

The recipe below is from Smitten Kitchen. I know I already have a recipe by that name, and this is a variation on the theme. Instead of buying a box of small chocolate wafer cookies, you make your own, much larger, wafers. Is it worth the extra hassle? Well, look at how much prettier the result is! Plus, you get to snack on scraps of chocolate dough along the way. It’s not as tedious as it looks, because given enough parchment paper, you’ll find yourself in a rhythm where you’ve got a piece of dough in the freezer while you are rolling out a second one, and meanwhile one is in the oven and one is cooling off – it’s actually pretty zen and not as much works at it sounds like. As for the texture of the peanut butter whipped cream, I found it to be perfect (the one in my previous recipe was a bit grainy from the peanut butter, but this one whipped up smooth as a baby’s bottom!).
The recipe below is for a 7” cake; I ended up making a 6” cake because it was easier. The original instructions say that to make a big 10” cake, you can double all the amounts below.

In case it wasn’t obvious, we all liked it (and here’s a picture of the Fox in the background, being very patient while I take pictures of a delicious dessert before serving it!).


For the wafers
1 ½ cups (195 g.) all-purpose flour
¼ cup (20 g.) Dutch-processed cocoa powder
¼ cup (20 g.) black cocoa powder (I just used more regular cocoa powder)
½ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. fine sea salt or table salt
1 cup (200 g.) granulated sugar
½ cup (115 g.) lactose-free butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
1 tsp. vanilla extract

For the peanut butter whipped cream
3 Tbsp. (50 g.) smooth peanut butter
¾ tsp. vanilla extract
2 pinches salt
1 ½ Tbsp. (20 g.) granulated sugar
1 ½ cups lactose-free cream, cold

To finish
Chocolate sprinkles, chocolate shavings, or other chocolate candy

For the wafers
Combine flour, cocoa powders, baking powder, and salt in a small bowl. Set aside.

Beat butter and sugar together until combined. Add egg and vanilla and beat until smooth. Add dry ingredients and mix just until they disappear.

(If, by chance, you forgot to take your butter out of the fridge early and it’s still cold, you can make the dough in the food processor. Start by mixing the dry ingredients and the sugar in a food processor, then add butter and pulse until the mixture is powdery. Add egg and vanilla and run the machine until the dough clumps together.)

Preheat the oven to 350 °F. Divide the dough into 6 equal pieces. Roll the first between 2 pieces of parchment paper until very, very thin and just over 7 inches across. Slide onto board (parchment paper and all) and place in freezer for 10 minutes, until firm. Once firm, peel back top piece of parchment paper (it should now come off cleanly, while gently pulling back) and use a stencil or bowl with a 7-inch rim to trim it into a neater circle. Slide cookie round and lower piece of parchment paper onto a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes and let cool completely on paper, which you can slide onto a cooling rack so that you can use the tray again. Repeat with remaining 5 pieces of dough.

For the peanut butter whipped cream
In a large bowl, beat peanut butter, vanilla, salt and sugar until smooth. Beating the whole time, slowly add lactose-free cream, a small splash at a time, until peanut butter-cream mixture is loose enough that you can add the rest of the cream without breaking it into clumps. Whip cream, watching it carefully as it’s very easy to overbeat with an electric mixer, until soft peaks form.

Place first cookie on a cake stand. If it’s sliding around, as cookies do, put a dab of whipped cream down first (I just did this preemptively). Thickly frost first cookie all the way to the edges with about ½ cup peanut butter cream. Repeat with remaining cookies, decoratively swirling the top cookie. Garnish with sprinkles or candy.

Place cake in the fridge overnight or ideally closer to 24 hours so that the cookies soften into cake layers. A knife dipped in warm water will make clean cuts (I probably should have bothered using it for the piece in the photo, but it’s just as good anyway).

Rosemary Cream Chicken Pasta

I like to take advantage of being in Montreal to make recipes with cream and butter, both of which I can easily get lactose-free here (but I don’t have access to that in the U.S.). So even though this dish is rich, it’s certainly not something that I would end up eating all the time! It’s delicious, though, and only calls for a handful of simple ingredients. I served this with pasta; a green salad would have been nice, too.

For the chicken
4 sprigs fresh rosemary, leaves finely chopped
4 chicken breast filets, halved horizontally
2 Tbsp. olive oil

For the cream sauce
1 cup chicken stock (or white wine)
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
1 cup lactose-free cream
1-2 Tbsp. lemon juice fresh
parmesan, to serve
cooked pasta, to serve

Drizzle the olive oil over the chicken and season well with the rosemary, salt and pepper.

Cook the chicken in a hot pan until golden brown on both sides and cooked through. Remove from the pan and set aside to rest.

Pour the chicken stock into the pan and scrape the bottom to release all the caramelized bits. Allow the stock to simmer and reduce for 2 minutes then add the garlic and cook for another 30 seconds. Pour in the cream and lemon juice and allow to simmer for 5 minutes. Season to taste.

Slice the chicken and add to cooked pasta, then pour over the sauce and toss well. Add grated parmesan and serve.

Semolina Cake with Oranges

When I saw this semolina cake with oranges in Bon Appétit,I knew I wanted to make it. And then I remembered that I had lots of semolina left over from making this cake two summers ago, and it was still sitting in the pantry in my parents’ kitchen. It was still good, so I decided to make the orange semolina cake, and you guys… It was fantastic. Like, so good that my mother, who was initially thrilled that I was using up the semolina, pretty much decided that she’d have to buy it again to keep making this. We all loved it; the kids actually liked the fruit more than the cake, but hey, no complaints here!

For the syrup
2 bay leaves
⅓ cup sugar
1 pinch of kosher salt
½ cup water
2 tsp. fresh lemon juice

For the cake and assembly
¾ cup (1½ sticks) lactose-free butter, melted, slightly cooled
1½ cups coarse-grind semolina flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. finely grated orange zest
1 tsp. ground cardamom
½ tsp. kosher salt
1 cup lactose-free plain whole-milk Greek yogurt
¾ cup lactose-free whole milk
3 oranges
lemon juice (optional)

For the syrup
Bring bay leaves, sugar, salt, and water to a simmer in a small saucepan, stirring occasionally to dissolve sugar, about 5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in lemon juice. Pluck out bay leaves; let cool.

For the cake and assembly
Preheat oven to 350 °F. Grease a 9"-diameter cake pan.

Whisk semolina, sugar, baking powder, orange zest, cardamom, and salt in a medium bowl.
Whisk yogurt and milk in a large bowl. Mix in dry ingredients, then butter. Scrape batter into prepared pan. Bake cake until golden brown and firm, 55–65 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cake cool in pan 10 minutes. Turn a plate over top of pan and invert cake. Using a cake tester or toothpick, poke holes all over cake; gradually pour all but ¼ cup bay leaf syrup over, letting it soak in. Let sit 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, remove peel and white pith from oranges. Slice into ¼"-thick rounds; remove seeds. Combine in a medium bowl with remaining bay leaf syrup; let sit, tossing occasionally, at least 20 minutes. Taste and add lemon juice as needed.

Serve cake with oranges in syrup.

Buffalo and Niagara Falls

On our way to Montreal this year, we stopped in Buffalo, NY. The primary goal was so that I could attend a concert – Hanson was playing a String Theory show with the Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra at the Kleinhans Music Hall. The Engineer had gifted me with a ticket on my birthday, because he knows that I’ve really missed seeing my favorite band in concert (it had been almost 9 years!). I absolutely loved the show; it was a wonderful experience to see them play with a full orchestra, AND I actually got to sit for most of the show – seats are completely underrated, IMO.


Since we spent an extra day in Buffalo to accommodate that, we decided to visit a few things. First, the obvious: Niagara Falls! I had already visited the Canadian side over 20 years ago, but this was my first time on the American side; the Engineer and our boys had never been. Even though I loved seeing the falls, I have to confess that I found them less impressive than I had expected, but I honestly couldn’t tell you whether that’s because you get a better view from the Canadian side or because they’re just more impressive the first time you see them. In typical fashion, the Little Prince seemed more taken with helicopters, rainbows and an ant on the guardrail than with the falls themselves (he had also been more impressed by a chihuahua in a purse than by the Grand Canyon last year).


Once we had our fill, we went to the aquarium. Honestly, I’d recommend that you don’t waste your time – it’s even smaller than the San Antonio Aquarium and you’ll be in and out in an hour.


So we had lunch at Whole Foods and then went to the Buffalo Museum of Science. We all really enjoyed it! We had to peel ourselves away when it closed at 4 pm. What struck me initially is that it’s an old museum (it smelled a bit like an old library, actually, in a really good way). Most science museums I’ve been to lately had modern, STEM-oriented facilities, but this place has a stuffed bison and a mastodon skeleton and the like, as well as more modern and sometimes interactive exhibits about the human body, insects, the weather, mechanics, etc. This one is definitely worth your time! (FWIW, we paid just a few dollars more for admission than we did at the aquarium, but got so much more for our money at the museum!)


I think next time we drive through New York State, I’ll make it a point to go to a Wegmans, because that is one thing I haven’t had time for yet!

Classic Buttermilk Chess Pie

I was trying to empty the pantry and freezer again before our annual trek to Canada. I used up one of the two jars of honey making a great honey buckwheat spiced cake with mocha frosting for my mother-in-law’s birthday as well as Ricardo’s almond and honey tart (meh – don’t bother with that one). I also had a staggering amount of pine nuts, so I made roasted pine nut butter, which was delicious! I felt good about not wasting anything, instead of guilty for spending so much money making nut butter, so that was great, too. And as a kitchen-sink strategy that wasn’t granola or cookies, I made single serve frozen oatmeal with dried cherries, seeds, and nuts. I liked the result, as the oatmeal is frozen in a muffin tin and you can top it with whatever you want, but keep in mind that you’ll need 2 or 3 pucks of oatmeal for a decent breakfast!

I also had a premade pie crust in the freezer, so I decided to make classic buttermilk chess pie, using lactose-free milk and lemon juice in place of the buttermilk (FYI, that’s basically what you get in a commercial buttermilk carton anyway – real buttermilk is hard to come by!). This recipe has you place the pie crust on the oven rack first, then pour in the filling – that way, the filling won’t be sloshing around when you transfer the pie to the oven, but do be careful to slide the oven rack back in gently! The recipe also called for finely ground cornmeal, but I’d use straight-up corn flour next time. The pie baked up a bit like a soufflé and deflated afterwards, but it was delicious!

1 (9-inch) pie crust
4 large eggs
1 cup granulated sugar
3 Tbsp. all-purpose flour
2 Tbsp. finely ground cornmeal (I’d use corn flour next time)
1 ½ cups buttermilk (1 ½ Tbsp. lemon juice topped up with lactose-free milk)
4 Tbsp. unsalted lactose-free butter or margarine, melted and cooled
1 Tbsp. vanilla extract
¼ tsp. salt
2 Tbsp. packed light brown sugar

Arrange a rack in the middle of the oven and heat to 350 °F. Line a regular 9-inch pie pan (not deep dish) with the pie crust. Be sure to press the dough into the sides, without any cracks or holes in the pie crust. Roll the edge of the crust down on itself about ¼ inch and use your fingertips to flute the edge. Refrigerate the pie plate while preparing the filling.

Place the eggs, sugar, flour, and cornmeal in a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the buttermilk, butter, vanilla, and salt and whisk until smooth, about 1 minute.

Place the prepared pie crust on a baking sheet. Pull out the oven rack halfway and place the baking sheet on it. Pour the filling into the crust. Sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over the top (it's okay if it appears to sink into the filling slightly). Gently slide the oven rack back into place.

Bake, rotating halfway through, until the center of the pie is barely set in the center, reaches 200 °F, and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean, 50 to 60 minutes total.

Let the pie cool completely on a wire rack before serving, 3 to 4 hours. Store leftovers in the fridge.

Braised Ginger Meatballs in Coconut Broth

I started following Smitten Kitchen on Instagram, so I’ve been getting new inspiration, even though I already loved the blog. Unfortunately, my family did not like the cauliflower and caramelized onion tart, but the braised ginger meatballs in coconut broth were a unanimous hit! I added spinach to the broth and served everything over rice (the Little Prince likes having a say as to whether his sauce and meatballs should be over the rice or next to it, and will change his mind about this once in a while, but I liked my sauce over the rice). This would be great with some lemongrass too, if you have it!

For the meatballs
2 lbs. ground pork (a mixture of ground pork and ground chicken would work, too)
2 large eggs
3 Tbsp. panko breadcrumbs
2 Tbsp. finely chopped peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp. fish sauce (or maybe a bit less)
2 tsp. kosher salt

For the broth
1 can (13.5 oz.) unsweetened coconut milk
2 cups chicken broth
¼ cup thinly sliced peeled fresh ginger
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
2 fresh chiles, thinly sliced (optional; I omitted them)
Finely grated zest and juice of ½ lime
1 Tbsp. fish sauce (or maybe a bit less)
1 tsp. ground turmeric
½ tsp. granulated sugar
Kosher salt
A few handfuls of baby spinach

To serve
Roughly chopped fresh mint and cilantro leaves
Lime wedges
Jasmine rice


For the meatballs
Preheat your oven to 425 °F. Combine all of the ingredients in a large bowl. Form the mixture into 1 ½-inch meatballs and arrange them on a large rimmed baking sheet about 1 inch apart. Bake until the meatballs are golden brown and just cooked through, about 12 to 14 minutes.

For the broth
Meanwhile, in a large, ideally wide, saucepan, combine the coconut milk, stock, ginger, garlic, chiles (to taste), lime zest and juice, fish sauce, turmeric, and sugar. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce the heat so the broth is simmering. Simmer 10 minutes, until the flavors are infused into the broth. You can leave everything in, or remove everything with a skimmer for a smooth broth. Season to taste, if needed, with salt.

Add the meatballs to the broth, return to a simmer, cover, and simmer until cooked through and tender, about 10 to 15 more minutes. Add spinach and cook just to wilt. Season the broth with more sugar, salt and lime juice if necessary. Serve with herbs, additional chiles, lime wedges, and rice.

Oatmeal Blueberry Cake

It’s pretty amazing how a change of environment can completely alter one’s routine. I’m now spending the summer at my parents’ house, and somehow I can’t find the time to blog much. Maybe because my laptop is set up at a tiny, uncomfortable desk in my bedroom, as opposed to a spacious desk in a home office? Back home, I had also started working out during the Fox’s nap, yet I can’t find the time (or place!) to do that now. But you’re used to fewer posts in the summer, right? It’s a lighter schedule for everyone.

I tend to gravitate more towards chocolate-based desserts than fruit-based ones (not that the two have to be mutually exclusive), but sometimes a simple pear cake is just what hits the spot. Meanwhile, these no-bake chocolate oatmeal bars were too sweet and unwieldy. I did try something new recently, though, a blueberry cake. (It’s vegan as well as gluten-free and refined-sugar-free, for those who have restrictions.) I’m not sure “cake” is the proper term, though, because it’s very wholesome and just barely sweet. It has a crust, but it’s not a pie or tart. It’s mostly fruit and whole grains, and frankly, just the type of thing you can have for breakfast without any guilt. I loved it, and so did the Fox and my mother-in-law; the Engineer and the Little Prince did not like it, but I think that if they hadn’t been expecting a *cake* cake it would have gone over better. Let me know if you think of a proper term!

To make this, I used an 8” springform pan lined with parchment paper and had to double the quantities for the crust – the amounts below are mine. I used frozen, thawed blueberries to make this, but fresh would be great too.

For the bottom layer (which I call a crust)
1 ½ cups oat flour
¼ cup water
2 Tbsp. melted coconut oil
2 Tbsp. maple syrup

For the top layer
1 ¾ cup puréed blueberries (from about 3 cups of blueberries)
1 ½ cups oat flour
½ cup unsweetened applesauce
1/3 cup melted coconut oil
¼ cup maple syrup


For the bottom layer
Preheat oven to 350 °F.

Line an 8-inch springform pan with parchment paper (you can do this by putting a sheet of paper on the bottom part of the mold and closing the top part over it, cutting the excess paper outside the pan).

In a medium bowl, mix oat flour with water, coconut oil, and maple syrup. Spread evenly in the pan, patting it down. Set aside.

For the top layer
Mix blueberries with oat flour, applesauce, coconut oil, and maple syrup. Spread on the bottom layer nicely. Bake for 20 minutes (this was 30 minutes for me, because it still looked a bit too wet after 20 minutes).

Spring knits 2019

While I was looking at my stash again after the holidays, I realized I had 3 skeins of Debbie Bliss Baby Cashmerino Yarn in Mallard, I believe (otherwise it was Sapphire, I can’t quite remember). This was *just* enough to make a sweater for the Fox before he outgrew it, so I had to get to work! I knit a stripy number by Sirdar, using leftover blue yarn from two previous projects for the stripes on the sleeves. I only have a few yards of the teal blue left, everything else was used up to the very end. I used 3 buttons from my stash for the shoulder closure, and I really love the finished sweater!


Then I set about knitting the famous Gramps Cardigan for friends who have just adopted their third child – a boy, this time. I’d been meaning to knit this for a while, too! I unfortunately didn’t have enough yarn on hand to make it, so I had to buy some. I chose Rowan Alpaca Soft DK Yarn in Clover, and lovely buttons on Etsy. I knit the 4T size and used up 4 skeins; I still have 2 skeins left, though. The window to return them has closed, so I’m thinking the only thing to do with them is a sweater vest for the Fox – there isn’t enough yarn for something bigger, but there’s definitely too much for a hat. I actually got the Fox to model this sweater, even though it’s too big for him, but I love it! That being said, if I ever make it again, I’ll follow this advice and switch the directions of the cables on half the sweater, so that the left front and sleeve mirror the right front and sleeve (instead of all the cables going in the same direction as the pattern calls for). I washed it and blocked it for the last photo before sending it off in the mail. The boy’s oldest sister is wearing it now, and she’s 5 years old, so the size is pretty forgiving!


At this point, I was keen to use up some of the yarn I had bought in Alaska, at Aurora Yarns. I started with a skein of bulky yarn by The Alaskan Yarn Company in a colorway called Parpika, I think. I knew I had about enough for a hat, so I decided to make the Brioche Hood Hat. And I was almost done with it when I ran out of yarn! You see, brioche stitch takes up more yarn than stockinette, so I would have needed more yardage, even though I had already made the ties shorter. There was no way to get another skein of the same dye lot, obviously, and I decided that this variegated color looked batter in stockinette anyway. I didn’t want to buy a new pattern, so I tried making a Beehive Hat. The first one I made was too big, and the second was the right size but something wasn’t quite right about it. So I searched the internets and decided to make the Cocoon Hat. This time, finally, I liked the result, and had just enough yarn. (That’s one of the cool things about knitting – if you don’t like the finished product, you can often salvage the yarn and just start over, unlike, say, sewing). I think this one suits me better than the last one I knit in this style.


So after knitting the equivalent of 4 hats, I decided that I really did like the Brioche Hood Hat and wanted one after all, so I bought a skein of Malabrigo Rios Yarn in Teal Feather. It has just enough yardage for this hat – I ended up with something like 6 inches left over. The construction is not intuitive; there are a lot of short rows, making up wedges, and the short side will be the top of the hat. There’s a seam for the side at the end. I think I only got 12 wedges out of my yarn, yet it was big enough for my above-average-sized head. I had some trouble styling it, though, but after seeing this and this, I think I’ll use up those last 6 inches to sew up the rest of the side seam, eliminating the keyhole opening, and knot the ties on the opposite side.


I’m now back to knitting a sweater-vest, and God willing, I’ll be able to post about that at the end of the summer!

The great chocolate cake bake-off

At some point last fall, I made Trish de Seine’s famous chocolate cake and found it quite lackluster. This got me thinking about how often I make a chocolate cake hoping for something really good, better than my go-to recipe, only to be disappointed. So I decided to test a bunch of recipes that had billed themselves as “the best” and see which one I would keep, once and for all. I don’t want to waste time (and calorie allotments) on mediocre cakes, after all. I wanted the best chocolate layer cake (NOT a bundt cake or a loaf cake or chocolate-avocado or gluten-free or whatever, just the best layer cake). So I looked at all the recipes I had bookmarked, online and in cookbooks and magazines, and tried to find points in common (example: two recipes called for yogurt, so I compared those two among themselves, in the first bracket if you will, before comparing the best of those to the rest). For each cake, I served it to my family once, froze a clearly labeled piece for later comparison, and the rest of the cake was either doled out over a few days OR was sent to work with the Engineer, who came back with an empty carrier each time. And here’s what happened. (If you just want the result, scroll to the bottom of the post.)


I made them all with the same ingredients (same white whole wheat flour in every one, same chocolate, same cocoa, same instant coffee, same vegan margarine, same coconut milk instead of cream, etc.). I didn’t use baking strips or heating cores in any of them, because I forgot for the first one and really wanted to compare everything as fairly as possible.

I had meant to make the winning cake one more time and take good pictures (as the photos I took otherwise were more for documenting and my personal reference), but you know what? Even though this project stretched out over several months, I just don’t have it in me to bake another chocolate cake right now. So these few low-quality photos will have to do.

Also, I intended to make the famous Beatty’s Chocolate Cake by Ina Garten, but realized it was almost identical to Ricardo’s best chocolate cake, so those two are equivalent in my mind (I simply tried Ina Garten’s frosting on another cake that didn’t come with a frosting recipe to evaluate that part).


The contenders:
- Happy Wife, Happy Life chocolate cake from Small Victories, by Julia Turshen
- ”Ze” gâteau au chocolat from Famille futée 2
- Gâteau au chocolat infaillible de Patrice Demers (published in my baby book La Bête)
- Ricardo’s Best-Best Chocolate Cake
- Black Magic Cake with Ina Garten frosting
- Chocolate cake with bittersweet sour cream frosting from Not Without Salt
- Chocolate midnight cake from Samin Nosrat’s Salt Fat Acid Heat, with the fudge frosting from the Vitamix cookbook that came with my blender
- My previous go-to chocolate cake from Minimalist Baker


The notes:

Small Victories cake: there was only enough frosting for the top, and ideally it should not be refrigerated. I found the crumb quite good, but overall I already knew it wasn’t the best. The Engineer did not care for the raspberry jam between the layers or for the frosting, but the Little Prince loved the frosting.


Famille futée cake: I made a half-recipe, because 2 layers were plenty for my purposes. I was curious about their recommended “healthy” frosting made with tofu, though it’s still got as much sugar as regular frosting (I guess it’s just low in fat? which doesn’t automatically make it healthy?), but that was a total failure – it was hard to work with, runny, and the cornstarch gives it an unpleasant mouthfeel. That being said, the cake itself was excellent, and better than the Small Victories cake that also called for yogurt! This one had mineral water as well.


Patrice Demers’s cake: The Engineer called it a “very satisfying cake”, but I knew it was not The One. The crumb is not the best, and it contains chopped chocolate that I think I find a bit off-putting in a layer cake.


Ricardo’s cake: This was definitely better than Patrice Demers’s for me – we had a contender! I didn’t have two 8’ springform pans, so I used 8”-round pans lined with paper, greased, and dusted with cocoa. It was essentially the same as Ina Garten’s cake (which I didn’t bother baking), and had less cocoa than the Black Magic Cake. The ganache was just okay, though.


Black Magic Cake: This recipe really should have specified to line the pans with paper in addition to greasing them! The cake was flat, flimsy, and fell apart. Ricardo’s cake beats it hands down.
Ina Garten’s frosting: I used it to top the Black Magic Cake. I found that the yield was too small, the frosting hardens immediately, it had a bit too much coffee in it, and it was weird. Somehow, though, it ended up being the Little Prince’s favorite cake/frosting combo up to that point.


Not Without Salt cake: I used 1 cup of white sugar and 1 cup of brown sugar. I would have loved to be told the weight of the batter I should have put into each of the 3 pans… As it was, upon unmolding, 1 layer fell apart, so it was a 2-layer cake instead of a 3-layer cake. I would use 2 pans, myself. I liked it better than the previous cake, but the Engineer and the Little Prince both liked it less. (As for the Fox, he wasn’t giving me any quotes to use, but he seemed to be happy with all the cakes in the running.)


Salt Fat Acid Heat cake: We have a contender! This cake has a great crumb – which can withstand some handling – and is delicious. (I had made it once before, for Valentine’s Day, and loved it. It’s worked well in both 8”-square and 8”-round pans.) The instructions say to line the pans with paper, grease them, AND dust them with cocoa. Honestly, that’s probably overkill and you could pick two of those three instructions, but I figured “better safe than sorry”.
Vitamix fudge frosting: I was curious about this because I’d never made a frosting in a blender and because it called for evaporated milk, which Carnation now makes lactose-free. In the end, though, it was just okay.


Minimalist Baker cake: I baked it a bit longer than called for because this time, I made it in 8”-round pans instead of 9”-round. This cake seemed to come out ahead of the pack! It definitely has the best frosting of the bunch, and the crumb is wonderfully moist. The Little Prince revised his favorite to this one upon tasting it. And I felt a bit like Dorothy when she found out that she’d had the power to go home all along – when I posted that recipe almost 4 years ago, I had called it “the definitive chocolate cake”, and I should have just listened to Past-Me.


After testing the frozen samples: My favorite is still the Minimalist Baker cake, but I think I will make the Salt Fat Acid Heat cake again too. Ricardo’s cake would be a close third. For the Engineer, Patrice Demers’s cake is the best of the bunch, so I guess I’ll make the recipe available to him for when he wants to make it. The Little Prince likes the Minimalist Baker cake best, but the Black Magic with Ina Garten frosting is a close second. The Fox likes chocolate.

Hard-Boiled Eggs

This post meanders quite a bit – if you just want to know how to make hard-boiled eggs ASAP, scroll all the way down and read the instructions in bold.

I’ve been trying to nail down an Easter menu so that I don’t have to scramble each year, but it’s not going so well. I tried vegan Cadbury eggs bowls, which were essentially white chocolate mousse served in chocolate bowls and topped with a round of canned peach. The recipe only gave loose directions for making the chocolate bowls, using balloons to shape them, and mine turned out all wrong. Next time (I do think there will be a next time, because I really like the concept), I’ll use tempered chocolate, and at the very least 2 ounces per small bowl (even though that means there will be leftover chocolate). Bakerella has a post about this that I’ll look at. And the white chocolate mousse was fine, but not great.


Two years ago I had made a sweet carrot soufflé (which I had first made in college), but I was the only one who liked it. And the Engineer didn’t like the raspberry morning buns from Small Victories. This year I decided to make deviled eggs, which he loves – I wanted to make the bacon and chive deviled eggs from Cook’s Illustrated, so I used their recommended method for making easy-peel, hard-cooked eggs (because my method of baking them in the oven sometimes leaves brown marks, which don’t matter for a chopped egg salad for instance, but would show on deviled eggs). I followed the instructions, which called for a steamer basket, a timer, and an ice bath, but even so, it was a complete disaster. The shells took off large amounts of the whites with them, and the yolks were undercooked. I ended up serving the eggs halved, topped with crumbled bacon and chopped chives.


Since then, I’ve tried Smitten Kitchen’s directions and was much happier with those in my quinoa kale salad with carrot-coriander dressing.


I took it a step further and added baking soda to the water, which made a big difference in how easy they were to peel. (That link also recommends using a white kitchen towel in the pot to prevent eggshells from cracking, especially if you are making many eggs at a time. I recommend these flour sack towels that I’ve been using as napkins and even as cheesecloth.) So from now on, to make hard-boiled eggs, I’m adding a dash of baking soda to the water and boiling them at least 10 minutes (10 for eggs as pictured below, but I’d do 11 or 12 minutes for deviled eggs next time) and soaking them in an ice bath to stop cooking.