For serious, how has a year passed already? Eek.

The Jewish New Year is upon us. What’s a girl to make for a holiday this big and momentous? Answer: a whole lotta food. But at the request of quite a few lovely readers, this year, I’m getting more specific. I’ll be posting my Rosh Hashana menu from soup to cake, and — per your requests — I’ll share my recipe for apple cake. In my humble opinion, it’s a perfect recipe, with cinnamon-laced apples and the all-important crust. Let’s get to it, shall we?

First things first: my work schedule is such that I’ll have one day – one half day, if we’re being precise — to cook. With this in mind, my wonderful stepmother-in-law-to-be, Terri, is bringing a bunch of the staples with her from Detroit. Among the things coming on the plane are soup, 3 chickens, and 2 briskets. Clearly the lady is used to cooking for a crowd, and thank god for that.

Have no fear: just because she’s doing brisket doesn’t mean I’m not armed with a recipe for ya. It’s hard to believe I haven’t shared this brisket recipe yet, because it is my absolute favorite, and I rarely make brisket any other way.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Here’s the whole menu:

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If you can muster the inner peace to not explode when you turn on the oven, you should definitely make this cake. Granted, the 100+ temperatures make summoning the will to add heat to your home that much more masochistic, but like I said: if you can find that inner namaste, this cake is a handsome reward. It’s a simple summer cake recipe, one whose heft and flavor comes as much from thick, juicy peach slices as from freshly ground almonds.

You’d think the big hunks of fruit and almond flour would make this cake heavy, but they don’t. No, it’s not the lightest, most fluffy cake, but you know what? Neither is summer the lightest, freshest season. These are the dog days. With weather like this, you have two choices. You can sip cold soup, do a 10-day cleanse, and will the season to fade into fall, or — if you can’t beat’em, join’em. This slightly dense, incredibly moist cake will bring that love-hate relationship with summer right to the fore. It’s plump and bursting with peach juice. It’s not the least bit cold. And as you eat it, you’ll realize that succumbing to the dog days of summer, while sweaty as hell, can actually be liberating.

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I suppose I could call it Lemon Pound Cake as the Hamptons goddess did, but this title is more to the point. Once you make this lemon cake, it’ll become the one. The. One. (Unless you’re one of them crazy types who can’t ever make the same thing twice…but I don’t know any folks like that.)

And you know what? I’m not even one to go nuts for lemon cake. Hell, I didn’t even think I liked lemon cake. But then I was at the Dupont farmers’ market a couple weeks ago looking for something to bring to a meeting, and a half-ring of lemon cake at the bread stand caught my eye. We ate it, all of it. It was nice and firm, with a royal icing-type glaze of just powdered sugar and lemon juice. It was simple and classic, and really damn good. We ate it all.

Eating that cake, I realized I’d never really made a lemon cake before. I knew exactly what I wanted: flavors of lemon, butter, and good vanilla; texture that was both feathery and firm; and a light, bright yellow color. There was only one place to look for the perfect recipe, and she didn’t disappoint.

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I rarely make the same thing twice. If something truly blows me out of the water — as this did — I’ll make something like it again. Something like it, mind you; never identical. I like recipes, but I don’t really like following them. I’d rather just take an old idea and riff on it. That’s what I do best. So when I take out my pen, when I actually skip over to the fridge every ten seconds to scribble how much maple syrup I’m pouring into the bowl, you better believe whatever it is I’m making will absolutely knock your socks off.

Such is the case with this cake.

Chalk it up to the weather, but I’ve been on a serious maple kick recently. I guess it all started two Sundays ago, when I was whacked square across the face with the world’s biggest craving for maple syrup. This was no small itch: I’m serious, people. I just wanted to shmear maple syrup all over my face. I could’ve tipped the jug and drunk it straight. It was that kind of craving.

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So…yea. It’s been pretty snowy here, as you no doubt have heard. It’s not the kind of weather that makes you eager to jump off the couch and run to the grocery store. Fortunately, I subjected myself to supermarket hell before last weekend, when the first blizzard was on its way, and fortunately, I’m a typical Jewish woman and totally overshopped, so I’ve got plenty of food in the fridge.

If getting off my lazy derriere to go outside isn’t really in the cards, spending copious amounts of time in the kitchen most certainly is. The snow storm(s) provide an opportunity to make something complicated, something with steps, something luxurious, something you otherwise would flip past in favor of baked ziti. Raspberry streusel coffee cake was that thing for me.

I’ve been eyeing Rose Levy Berenbaum’s streusel coffee cake from her fantastic book The Cake Bible for quite some time. It’s easy to understand why: she’s an expert baker, and she says it’s one of her favorite cakes, so I assumed it’d instantly become one of mine. The recipe is a classic sour cream coffee cake that’s layered with a walnut streusel. It calls for 2 sticks of butter for the cake, another half stick for the streusel, 4 egg yolks, loads of sugar, and a few other things. Needless to say, this one ain’t gettin’ tagged “good for you.” But delicious? Oh yes.

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In my minds eye, a good cake is at least two layers high. It’s fluffy and moist and laden with chocolate and, if I’m lucky, coated from head to toe and all in between with cream cheese frosting. Or better yet, chocolate cream cheese frosting. In a word, decadent.

It’s easy to pass up simpler cakes in favor of the sky-high versions I make for birthdays and such. But when a more casual occasion comes along and I have good reason to make a cake that’s not coated in frosting, I jump at the chance. Much like the toasted flour sables I made in my last post, this cake is very girl-next-door. It’s the epitome of rustic simplicity, a simple batter flavored with just buttermilk and vanilla. The resulting cake is clean and pure, its texture at once moist and airy. It’s a cake made for brunch or a picnic in the park. A slice would also be the perfect accompaniment to a cup of tea, which is a ritual for me on winter mornings.

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What cake to bake for the girl who bakes birthday cakes?

Back in September, we had our friend Rebecca over for dinner right around her 25th birthday, so I decided to make her a birthday cake for dessert. Problem is, Rebecca’s basically known for her cakes and cupcakes. She makes them all the time, and in so many different flavor combinations, it’s hard not to be intimidated. She even wowed us all at her super bowl party a couple years ago by cutting out a strip from the middle of each cupcake, putting the two halves back together, and injecting some frosting in between, to make oblong, football-shaped cupcakes, complete with frosting to look like the laces. Show-stopping, for sure. I’m sure you wouldn’t blame me if, after remembering those cupcakes, I reneged on the idea of baking for Rebecca and just served a fruit crisp.

But I didn’t. Not content to balk at the challenge of baking for a baker, I settled on red velvet cake, a crowd-pleaser if ever there was one and a cinch to make. I used a recipe from The Hummingbird Bakery that my friend Sara from work always raves about. I don’t have the Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook, but I’ll expose my inner nerd and tell you that I actually went to Barnes and Noble, found the book on the shelf, and copied the recipe into my iphone. I told you, big nerd.

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The spring season is upon us, and we’ve got the rainfall to prove it! I wanted to go with something clean and fresh-looking for the spring blog design, with bright colors and lots of white space. So clear that cache and check out NDP’s new layout — I hope you like it!

We went to synagogue every week when I was a kid. After services, the congregation would flood into the social hall for “kiddush” — meaning the prayer over the wine, but also the term used to describe the nibble-and-schmoozefest that occurs after prayers. The “kiddush ladies” would have set up long tables lined with silver trays full of herring (for the old men) and sweets (for the rest of us), and people would just go nuts. All the kids (including me) would wriggle our way in between the long lines of adults to score goodies before they were all snatched up, and like good children we’d compare plates to see who had accumulated the largest stash of junk food.

At a certain age, the game got old, as I realized that the goodies served at kiddush were actually really gross. The cookies were soft and crumbly, the chocolate was all non-dairy and really yuck, and the pound cake — don’t even get me started on the pound cake — was truly terrible. Soft and mushy, but somehow still totally dry and bland-tasting, it was an affront to everything a pound cake should be. It’s fair to say that kiddush ruined my appetite for pound cake, and even now, I struggle to get excited about it.

That is, I struggled to get excited about it, until I encountered Alice Medrich. As you might know from past posts, I’ve never made a recipe from Alice Medrich that wasn’t absolutely, positively perfect. Her Pure Dessert is by far my favorite dessert cookbook, and I’m on my way to making every recipe contained therein.
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When I was a kid, my dad ate bananas a lot. He bought them when they were green, ate them when they were yellow and even when they had lots of brown spots, and when the rest of us finally managed to convince him that the last of the bunch was really way to overripe to eat, he’d freeze it until he had enough to make banana bread. My mom, clearly the more sane parent in this respect, ate bananas only when they were green. Yes, that’s right — totally and completely underripe. Once they were yellow, they were banana bread to her.

If I remember correctly, my brother ate bananas when they were yellow, and if pushed, he’d begrudgingly eat one with a couple spots, but he drew the line way before my dad did. And I? No, I don’t eat bananas. Never liked’em. Just not really my thing. No surprise, then, that I’ve never really associated bananas with elegance or delicacy. Before this weekend, I’d have been hard pressed to believe that a couple bananas could produce not only your usual dense and very banana-y banana bread, but a moist and rich, yet light and delicate, cake as well.
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I don’t know if trashy is your cup of tea, but when I was a kid I absolutely loved Entenmann’s ultimate crumb cake. The ratio of crumbs to cake on that thing was approximately 8:1, the little bit of cake base wholly overwhelmed by a thick coat of streusel. Still, I hardly ate the cake. Frankly, I just liked those crumbs.

While Entenmann’s isn’t exactly my thing anymore, I still have an uber-softspot for crumb cake. Something about that combination of brown sugar, nuts, cinnamon, and (of course) butter makes almost any cake better. I’ve outgrown my habit of picking crumbs off the cake (ahem, almost), but to compensate, I’ve taken to putting in twice the amount of streusel called for in the recipe. In case you’re not so inclined, I’ve recorded the original recipe here.

Well, almost the original recipe; I happened to have some of the last of summer’s sweet cherries, which I pitted for this cake. If you have sour cherries lying around, they’d be even better.
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In honor of the holiday season, Daring Bakers’ took on what may be the holy grail of daring recipes: Buche de Noel, or Yule Log. Until Lis and Ivonne charged DBers with making this, I didn’t even know it was a food. See, traditionally, the Yule Log was a large, thick piece of wood burned by Pagans just after winter solstice (which was on Friday), in order to thank their gods for making the days longer and the weather warmer in the months to come. Today, not many people burn Yule Logs, but apparently, loads of people eat them around Christmastime.

Now I’m not one to balk when the going gets tough — but that doesn’t mean I won’t bring in reinforcements. Fortunately for me, my dear friend Dellie was visiting from Boston, so we devoted a few hours one night last week to this undertaking. Boy was I wise — both to set aside lots of time and to enlist a cooking compatriot: Buche is quite the project!(...)
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Ghirardelli in the double boiler, egg whites in the mixer, and D asking for Duncan Hines yellow cake to no avail…it all can only mean one thing: chocolate soufflé. That’s right folks, I’m at it again.

I was a bit concerned that when I was ready to fold in the egg whites, the chocolate mixture was still warm. (If you add egg whites to a warm batter, the air that you’ve whipped into the whites can quickly escape, leaving you with flat, heavy batter.) However, my fears did not materialize, and the soufflé held its volume quite nicely. The result was light, fluffy, warm, and ever so sinfully chocolate-y. So to all those who think souffle is this uber-delicate little gem never to be tampered with, ha! It can handle the heat.

Truthfully, people. There’s almost nothing like taking the first bite out of a chocolate soufflé and watching the rest “relax” in the ramekin. Try it yourself; it’s not as hard and scary as you might think. And, if it’s not clear from my enthusiasm, the results are worth one or two mess-ups.

Chocolate Souffle

from Epicurious

serves 6.

• 1 tablespoon unsalted butter, softened
• 10 1/2 ounces (10 squares) extra-bittersweet chocolate
• 1 1/3 cups whole milk
• 1 tablespoon cornstarch
• 3 large egg yolks, room temperature, lightly beaten
• 6 large egg whites, room temperature
• 1/3 cup sugar; more for soufflé ramekins

1. Heat oven to 400 degrees. Butter and sugar six 6-ounce soufflé ramekins. Place on a rimmed baking sheet; set aside.

2. In a double boiler over medium heat, melt the chocolate until smooth. Remove from the heat and keep warm. (I found I had to stir it around with a fork every so often to keep it from getting chunky, but that will depend on your chocolate. The higher percentage of cocoa, the more you may need to stir.)

3. In a medium heavy-bottom saucepan combine milk and cornstarch. Stir well with a wooden spoon to combine. Bring the mixture to a boil over medium heat, stirring continuously, until thick.

4. Remove milk mixture from the heat, remove any skin that may have formed on top, and stir in warm melted chocolate. Let cool slightly. Add a bit of this mixture to the egg yolks to temper them, then add the lightly beaten egg yolks back into the milk mixture and stir until well combined.

5. In the bowl of a heavy-duty mixer, whip egg whites on medium speed until soft peaks form. Slowly add sugar and increase speed to high. Whip until shiny and stiff peaks form, about 3 minutes.

6. Using a whisk, lighten the chocolate mixture with about 1/3 of the beaten egg whites. Stir until well-combined. Using a large rubber spatula, fold in remaining egg whites until just incorporated.

7. Spoon mixture into prepared souffl
 ramekins; the mixture should come up to the top of the ramekin. Transfer filled soufflé ramekins on rimmed baking sheet to oven. Bake until risen, 12 to 15 minutes. Serve immediately.

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Three months of blogging and I actually have managed to not write about chocolate. It’s really an embarrassment. Rarely does a day go by when I don’t eat the stuff; how have I not blogged about a chocolate recipe yet??

Time to solve that.

Chocolate Souffle may be light and fluffy, but it’s one of the richest ways to have your chocolate. When done properly, a delicate crust gives way to light but shockingly-rich innards, which deflate and melt on your tongue. Even better is when it’s cut with straight cream at the table…ok, drooling.

I’ll sing the praises of chocolate souffle forever, but finding the perfect recipe is proving to be a challenge. That’s why this is the first in a series of posts, in which I’ll try various recipes for chocolate souffle, rate them, and (hopefully) find or develop a foolproof recipe.

Recipe 1 comes from one of my favorite bloggers, Bea at La Tartine Gourmande. Her version calls for infusing the milk with fresh cardamom pods, which I love but don’t have around the house, so I left them out. Here’s the rundown:

Pros

• the batter had a nice, light texture that stood up to a bit of over-mixing
• the 20-25 minute cooking time was exactly right
• the recipe called for equal numbers of yolks and whites, which means no egg-parts sitting in the fridge and a very happy Rivka

Cons

• mine didn’t rise to the heights that Bea’s did. Who wants pouting souffles?
• I used more chocolate than Bea called for, and my souffles were simply not chocolate-y enough. More chocolate more chocolate!

The search continues…

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**Note: I’ve gotten a couple questions about how to make this pareve (non-dairy). The answer: subsitute David Lebovitz’s wet ingredients for mine:

1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon canned pumpkin
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
grated zest of 1 orange
1/4 cup fresh orange juice or water
3 tablespoons packed dark brown sugar
1 large egg 1
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

The instructions in this recipe are the same for a pareve version of this cake, as they’re mostly taken from Monsieur Lebovitz himself.

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