The other day when I picked Eli up from school, he grabbed my hand and started to pull me back inside to the lunchroom.

“C’mon, Mama! We need to get a recipe from Chef Ric!”
“What recipe?”
“Wacky cake!”
“Wacky cake? Is that like our crazy cake?”
“I don’t know. I just know it’s a good chocolate cake.”

So we found Chef Ric and we compared notes. Indeed, his wacky cake is just like our crazy cake (or your cockeyed cake, or 6-minute cake), except he uses apple cider vinegar and I use raspberry. I’ve always imagined that the raspberry vinegar gives the cake a little fruit note in the background, perhaps deepens the chocolate flavor a bit, but suddenly talking to our school chef I wasn’t so sure. Does it really make a difference, or is it all in my head? Tonight, with no particular investment in football’s Super Bowl, Eli and I decided to test the theory by making three different crazy cake batters: one with plain white vinegar, one with apple cider vinegar, and the last with raspberry vinegar.

we labelled the batters according to each type of vinegar

I gave Tony and the boys coded servings of each cake

they took careful tasting notes

we tallied the results; the sheet with the red dots is the key to my code

Tony then served me my own coded cupcakes and the results from our limited sample are pretty decisive: the vinegar doesn’t matter. The kids and I each identified only one vinegar correctly and Tony didn’t even get one. The vinegar Eli and I got right (apple cider) was also our least favorite, so we won’t use that again. But given that white vinegar is less than a quarter of the price of raspberry vinegar, from now on, I’ll save it for salad dressings and other places I can really taste it.

Now, I’m really not a Cooks Illustrated, recipe-testing kind of cook. I am fairly imprecise in my baking, I measure casually, and I am always tinkering with recipes. But I do love a cooking project inspired by my children, and I love it when the cooking includes a bit of science. It was a nice change to be more careful baking these cakes so that each one would differ only in its vinegar, and fun to think about how best to keep track of which was which. But Eli definitely summed up the experiment best: “The thing I like about it is you get three cupcakes.” No argument here.

Edited to add: we shared some sample cupcakes with Chef Ric and his kitchen staff and (drumroll) we are impressed — but not surprised — to report he identified the three vinegars correctly!

You never know what will draw you into a recipe. A picture? An ingredient? Sometimes it’s a word; any recipe with the word “caramelized” in it gets me. Or it can be a phrase, as in the line that grabbed me several years ago when I spotted this recipe in Sunset magazine and made it part of our regular cookie repertoire: “These biscotti are crumbly delivery systems for chewy apricot bits, hunks of dark chocolate, and crunchy almonds.”

I got out a bowl and got to work.

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs
3/4 cup diced dried apricots
2/3 cup slivered almonds
4 ounces chopped bittersweet chocolate

Preparation

Preheat oven to 350° and line a large baking sheet with parchment paper.

In a food processor, pulse flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt 5 to 6 times to blend.

In a small bowl, whisk together melted butter, vanilla, and eggs; add to flour mixture and pulse 10 to 12 times to form a dough.

Turn dough out into a large mixing bowl. Add apricots, almonds, and chocolate, and stir to mix thoroughly.

Put dough on baking sheet and form into two 12-in.-long loaves. Flatten tops slightly and bake until loaves are golden but give slightly when pressed, 25 to 30 minutes.

Remove loaves from oven and reduce temperature to 325°. Let loaves cool 5 minutes, then cut on the diagonal into 1/2- to 3/4-in.-thick slices. Arrange slices flat on baking sheet and bake until lightly browned, 10 to 15 minutes. Cool completely on racks.

A friend of mine reviews reviews for websites; you read that right: if you write a product review of an item you buy online, chances are she or one of her colleagues will vet your review before it is published, checking for inappropriate language, slander, and other no-no’s. But even acceptable reviews are often riddled with punctuation and grammar errors, and I often think of my friend, waging a lonely, one-woman battle against misplaced modifiers and comma splices. The excerpts she posts on Facebook every day — especially the ones with grammatical errors that introduce unintentionally hilarious meanings (think, “Eats, Shoots and Leaves”) — make my day.

But it’s got me thinking about recipe-writing and reviewing. I use recipe websites all the time, and often use the reviews to guide my choices, but I’m always amazed (and kind of amused) at the reviews that say something like “This cake was terrible!! I cut the sugar by 50%, replaced the butter with pureed prunes, and used wheat germ and ground flax instead of white flour; it was so dry! it wasn’t nearly sweet enough! I won’t ever make this again!!” (Online reviewers always use multiple exclamation points). Yes, well, serves you right, I think.

I adapt recipes, and I do often cut sugar or replace shortening with ground flaxseed meal, but usually not until the second time around. It doesn’t seem right to tinker until I really understand what the recipe’s doing. And when I tinker, I’ll let you know so that you can make your own decisions about the changes.

The chocolate zucchini cake recipe I made this week from Epicurious has a raft of reviews and for some reason this time they really drew me in. As usual, a number of reviewers simply praised the recipe; others (helpfully) explained changes they made and their result; others criticized the recipe after make unsuccessful changes; and then — my favorite — others told off the critics who had made ill-advised substitutions:

“Yep, if you start making substitutions, don’t blame the recipe.”

And even better:
“Did anybody actually make THIS cake???? By the time you make all the substitutions and revisions, it’s not the same cake. Who gives a rat’s behind about what everyone did to alter the cake, just RATE THE DAMN THING! Whooo, now that i got that off my chest, yes, I do feel better. Incidentally, the cake I made using THIS recipe, was fabulous.”

I have to agree. I made this cake and it is good.

We’ve been feeling pretty celebratory around here since learning the terrific news that Shambhala Publications/Roost Books will publish our anthology, The Dish: Making the Meals that Make Your Family. It seems an appropriate time to give you a big cake bonanza: three recipes! all for chocolate cake! I hesitated briefly because I don’t have pictures of any of the cakes in question, they all went so fast. But you won’t need pictures if you make them yourself, will you?

Chocolate Carrot Cake is dense and moist, my favorite layer cake. It improves after a day or two, so it’s great to make ahead, and you can glaze it with chocolate or (my preference) make a triple batch of cream cheese frosting and use that as filling and frosting. The cake is not too sweet and it’s perfectly chocolately. Plus, the carrots make it healthy (or so I tell myself). My friend Liz (who has contributed an essay about frosting and farmer’s markets to this collection) gave me the recipe, which originally comes from a Martha’s Vineyard cafe. It is my go-to celebration cake and is also, in fact, the one Tony baked last week to celebrate my birthday.

Crazy Cake, also known as cockeyed cake or 6-minute cake, is lighter, but just as moist and chocolatey (especially if you make it with coffee, which brings out the chocolate flavor). It comes together in five minutes and happens to be vegan, which is occasionally useful. Kids like to stir it together because the vinegar and baking soda make a satisfying chemistry lab reaction, so we make this batter into cupcakes for all the kids’ birthday parties.

And finally, Smitten Kitchen’s Everyday Chocolate Cake is this summer’s happy new cake discovery. It is a perfect one-bowl, dark and satisfying chocolate cake. Making it in a loaf pan gives it a simple and sturdy everyday look, though I suppose there’s nothing stopping you from doubling the recipe, putting it in round cake pans, and frosting it. But try it as written, because who doesn’t need chocolate cake every day?

If you have these recipes in your repertoire, you will need no others.

I may never bake another brownie again. Oh, I will certainly make brownies, but now I’ve found a recipe that rivals even the one I discovered in Kate Moses’ gorgeous memoir-with-recipes, Cakewalk, the brownie recipe I said — oh, less than two months ago — was the last brownie recipe you would ever need.

Well. If you want brownies without turning the oven on (which is useful in the summer) keep this recipe handy.

The irony here is that I did have to turn the oven on. Lacking the chocolate wafer cookies that are a key ingredient, and with my local market out of stock, I baked them myself rather than drive around to other markets looking for them. My recipe comes from Alice Medrich’s glorious Chewy Gooey Crispy Crunchy Melt-in-Your-Mouth Cookies but you can find a very similar version of the recipe at Smitten Kitchen.

And yes, I did put up with a fair amount of teasing for baking cookies to grind up to put in my no-bake brownies. Those folks would be eating their words if their mouths weren’t so full of brownies right now.

Here’s what you need:

12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped
1 1/4 cups evaporated milk (from one 12-ounce can)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
3 cups finely ground chocolate wafer cookies (from two 9-ounce packages; if you bake these yourself from the recipe linked above, you’ll have plenty for the brownies plus a dozen or so leftover. Do not share them with anyone who teases you about baking cookies to put into no-bake brownies.)
2 cups plus 2 tablespoons sweetened shredded coconut
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons salted cocktail peanuts
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
Salt

Here’s what you do:

Line a 9-inch square baking pan with plastic wrap, leaving a 1-inch overhang on all sides.

Heat chocolate and evaporated milk in a saucepan over medium heat, stirring, until chocolate melts and is smooth. Remove from heat. Stir in vanilla. Set aside 1/3 cup.*

Combine cookies, 2 cups coconut, 1 cup peanuts, the sugar, and 1/2 teaspoon salt in a bowl. Pour in chocolate mixture; stir until combined.

Spread mixture evenly into prepared pan. Spread reserved 1/3 cup chocolate over top. Finely chop remaining 2 tablespoons coconut and 2 tablespoons peanuts; sprinkle evenly over chocolate.* Refrigerate until set, about 2 hours. Remove brownies from pan by lifting plastic wrap. Remove plastic, and cut into 24 brownies.

Keep refrigerated (or even frozen). These would be excellent broken up and stirred into ice cream.

* I didn’t read the recipe very carefully (typical) and forgot to reserve chocolate/peanuts/coconut for the topping, but of course the brownies taste just as good with all those ingredients inside rather than on top.

After making the honey ice cream the other day, I had 6 egg whites left over. I could have made an egg white omelette, I suppose, but that’s not really my style.

This is more my style:

This recipe is similar — in look and execution — to Lisa’s chocolate roulade, though her cake is quite a bit richer. The recipe I followed is for a simple chocolate angel food sheet cake, straight from The Joy of Cooking:

Grease an 11″x17″ jelly-roll pan and line the bottom with parchment paper.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Sift together three times:
1/4 c cake flour
1/4 c cocoa
1/4 c plus 2 T granulated sugar
1/4 t salt

Set aside.

In a large mixing bowl, beat on low speed for one minute:
6 large egg whites
1 1/2 t water
1 1/2 t fresh lemon juice
1/2 t cream of tartar
1/2 t vanilla

Increase the mixer speed to medium and beat until the mixture increases in volume 4-5 times and resembles a bowl of soft, almost translucent foam composed of tiny bubbles (this takes 2-3 minutes). The foam will hold a very moist shape when the beaters are lifted. Beat in very gradually (on medium speed), one tablespoon at a time:

1/4 c plus 2 T granulated sugar

When all the sugar has been added, the foam will be creamy white and hold soft, moist, glossy peaks that bend over at the points; do not beat until stiff.

Sift a fine layer of the flour mixture evenly over the surface of the egg mixture and fold gently with a rubber spatula only until the flour is almost incorporated. Do not stir or mix. Repeat 7 or 8 more times, until the flour mixture is all incorporated.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and spread evenly. Bake until the top springs back when lightly pressed, about 15 minutes. Let the cake cool completely in the pan.

Invert the cooled cake onto a sheet of wax paper and remove the baking pan and peel off the parchment paper. Now lift the wax paper and turn the cake right side up on to a sheet of aluminum foil. Peel off the wax paper (a thin top layer of cake may come off; that’s fine).

Now make the filling; I used lightly-sweetened whipped cream, beat stiffer than usual: 1 cup of heavy whipping cream, 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon confectioner’s sugar, beaten until stiff. Spread over the cooled cake and then roll up the cake starting at one end: fold and press an inch or so of the cake firmly up over the filling at one end to get started. Even if the cake cracks at first, keep your first turns especially tight; the cracking will diminish as the roll gets bigger (also, you can cover cracks later with whipped cream, frosting or a sprinkle of confectioner’s sugar; also, no one will care what the cake looks like). Once the cake is rolled, wrap tightly with foil and refrigerate to firm the cake before serving.

Serve with honey ice cream, extra whipped cream, and/or berries.

by Caroline

party supplies

I don’t do elaborate kid birthday parties. Knowing that most children are happy with a treat and the chance to play with their friends, I don’t see any reason to knock myself out. I am lucky that my sons both have spring birthdays, so we can keep everybody in the backyard, and for the last few years we’ve hosted parties for both boys that involve the kids building objects out of scrap wood and sending them flying down a fishing line strung from our back deck into the yard. The boys call the game “crazy contraptions,” and so far we have proven that kids from four to ten will play it for hours.

When it’s time for a break, we let the kids put their creative impulses toward cupcakes, and here’s where I suppose I do put in some effort, but I like to bake and homemade cupcakes are quick and cheap, so I make a lot. Typically I make crazy cake chocolate cupcakes and a vanilla cupcake and let the kids choose one or the other; this year Eli requested chocolate vanilla swirl, so I followed this incredibly simple (and delicious) recipe. Then I make a double batch of cream cheese frosting, divide it and color it, plus I make one batch of chocolate frosting. I set out the frostings in ziploc bags with one corner trimmed off (ie, instant homemade piping bags), set out some sprinkles, and let the kids go to town.

This recipe came from my friend Liz, and it is not only the best chocolate frosting I know, it happens to be super easy:

Beat until well-combined and a bit fluffy:
3 T room temperature butter
3 T cocoa powder
1 T light corn syrup or mild honey
1/2 t vanilla

Add 1 c confectioner’s sugar and mix well.

Stir in
1-2 T milk, just enough to make the frosting spreadable.

Makes about a cup — perfect for a dozen cupcakes, but you’ll want to double the recipe to frost an entire cake.

Last summer, to celebrate our tenth wedding anniversary, Tony and I arranged back to back sleepovers for our kids with two different families, and thus managed our first two-night getaway together since Ben was born. We’d each been away longer on our own (or with friends and family), both for work and for pleasure, but never just the two of us. So we drove to Calistoga with a pile of books and magazines and spent our time away sleeping, eating, and reading.

One of the books I read that weekend was Kate Moses’ richly-detailed, quietly moving memoir with recipes, Cakewalk. I read it very slowly, savoring her writing, not wanting it to end, and when it did end, I cried.

Cakewalk was in ways not the happiest choice for my anniversary reading. None of the many marriages she describes in the book are easy, whether she’s writing about her own parents or those of her teenage boyfriend, whose father mutters under his breath to Kate, in his wife’s presence, “Twenty-five years of that woman is enough to choke a horse.” It is in that chapter that Moses offers her brownie recipe, which, with its two versions, is perhaps a good example of how to thrive in a long relationship: stay flexible and always offer options.

One version of the recipe (the one that I prefer) was reprinted in the New York Times and I offer it here; you’ll have to buy the book to get the frosting-covered creamy brownie recipe.

1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, plus more for greasing pan

1 1/2 cups walnut halves (optional)

9 ounces unsweetened chocolate, chopped or broken into small pieces

3 large eggs

1 teaspoon salt

2 3/4 cups sugar

1 tablespoon vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour.

1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Butter a 13-by-9-inch glass baking pan. If using walnuts, spread on a baking sheet and toast in oven until fragrant and lightly browned, 8 to 10 minutes. Let cool.

2. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat. Remove from heat, add chocolate, and cover pan until chocolate is melted, about 10 minutes. In a mixing bowl, whisk the eggs, salt, sugar and vanilla just until thick, creamy and beginning to lighten in color.

3. Whisk the butter and chocolate until smooth, then mix into the sugar-egg mixture just until well combined. Using a spatula, fold in the flour, using as few strokes as possible, until it disappears. Fold in the walnuts, if using. Spread the batter evenly in the baking pan.

4. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, checking after 22 minutes to avoid over-baking. When the tip of a knife inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs, but not liquid, remove brownies from the oven. Allow to cool to room temperature, then cover and leave in the pan for several hours or overnight before cutting into squares. Store in an airtight container.

Five years ago today, in honor of her milestone birthday, I organized a virtual birthday celebration for my sister by having her many friends post birthday cake pictures on their blogs.

This year, with fewer of us blogging and more of us on Facebook, her friend Becca and I organized a somewhat different celebration of the day. But here I am, still blogging, and still with cake-baking energy, so in her honor I want to post the recipe for the first cake we ever baked together. It’s known by many names — Crazy Cake, Cockeyed Cake, 6-Minute Cake — but no matter what you call it, it’s always delicious. I usually make it now with revisions Libby first suggested to me — adding espresso powder and chocolate chips; using raspberry vinegar for the white vinegar — but whether you use those variations or not, the result is always surprisingly chocolate-y and rich. It happens also to be vegan, which is often convenient these days.

So for Libby on her birthday:

1 1/2 c white flour
1/3 c unsweetened cocoa
1 c sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp espresso powder (optional but good)
1/2 tsp salt

1 c water or coffee
1/2 c vegetable oil
2 tsp vanilla
2 tbsp vinegar (any old vinegar will do, but red wine or raspberry is particularly nice)

1/2 c semisweet chocolate chips (optional, but what’s not better with some chocolate chips?)

Preheat the oven to 375.

Combine the dry ingredients in an ungreased 8″ square or 9″ round baking pan. In a 2-cup measure, combine the water, oil and vanilla. Pour the liquid ingredients into the baking pan and mix the batter with a fork until smooth (make sure to get into the corners so that you don’t get dry floury bites in the finished cake!). Now add the vinegar and stir quickly. There will be pale swirls in the batter from the baking soda and vinegar reacting. Stir just until the vinegar is evenly distributed. Sprinkle the chocolate chips on top.

Alternatively, line a cupcake pan with liners, mix the dry ingredients in a bowl, then carry on with the directions as above.

Bake a single cake for 25 minutes, bake cupcakes for 15, cool briefly on a rack, and enjoy.

The other day we were brainstorming about foods we could make to celebrate our team — the San Francisco Giants — moving into the playoffs. Conveniently, their uniforms are a seasonal black and orange so we were thinking pumpkin muffins with chocolate chips (or chocolate frosting), and for dinner, black bean and sweet potato enchiladas. Lisa, always working the cocktail angle, suggested orange soda with black licorice straws, and of course we’ve already seen her gorgeous Giant Marys.

Then my friend Liz reminded me about the oreo cookie recipe I sent her long ago (and then promptly lost), and suggested making an orange filling. Perfect! Now, there are many recipes online for homemade oreos (including one that calls for devil’s food cake mix; hmmm), and most use an egg — which I’m sure makes a nice chocolate cookie; but, if you’re after the crumbly shortbread texture of the oreos of your youth, use this recipe (which Liz typed up and saved on her computer, thank goodness.) I’m sorry I can’t recall it’s source, so please, if you recognize it, let me know so I can offer proper credit!

“Oreo” Cookies

In a mixing bowl, beat till fluffy
1 cup room temperature unsalted butter
1/2 cup sugar

In a separate bowl, sift together
1 3/4 cups flour
3/4 cup cocoa*
1/2 tsp salt

Gradually add the dry ingredients to the butter to make a stiff dough. Remove from the bowl, knead a couple times on a lightly floured board to make sure it’s fully combined, then shape into a disk and refrigerate 4 hours or overnight.

To bake:
Preheat oven to 350°. Cut the dough into quarters. Working with one quarter at a time and keeping the remainder cold, roll out to about 1/4” thickness. Cut into circles or whatever shape you desire, place on a cookie sheet, and bake 15 minutes or till firm. Cool on a rack. Repeat with the rest of the dough.

When cool, make sandwiches with the following filling:

1/2 cup room temperature unsalted butter beaten till fluffy with
2 1/2 cups confectioners sugar and
1/2 tsp. vanilla

*Note: I use half regular cocoa and half black cocoa (available from King Arthur Flour) for a real “oreo” color.