I’ve been thinking a lot about dough lately–kneading it, pressing it, watching it grow, baking it, and of course, frying it. Maybe I should actually amend the previous sentence to read: I’ve been thinking a lot about fried dough lately. There is nothing like a good doughnut, or a fritter, or a beignet. If my doughnut consumption was in direct proportion to all of my doughnut thinking, no doubt I would be an enormous, sugar-kissed young woman waddling towards you, her hands coated in chocolate glaze.
Perhaps it is the shape of the doughnut, that pleasing circular form, that begs for constant thought. It is the ideal form– symmetrical from all angles, but also a continuous surface. You can start at one point on the doughnut, travel a circuitous path, and end up right back where you started. That is if you did not munch [...]

The year is just about coming to a close. Yes, I realize we have just over two months to go, but a girl must plan accordingly. The year of no more food taboos is winding down; and I must say it has been a successful one. So successful in fact, I am finding it difficult to find foods that I do not like, or at the very least, don’t eat. So when I was at the market, and I saw a pile of fresh dates, a fruit that had typically been a foe, I decided to give them a try.
In the past, dates had been a bit much for me– too sticky, too cloyingly sweet. And that is saying something from a girl who thinks dessert after every meal, including breakfast, is appropriate. But I was desperate, not only for a new task to [...]

Simple can mean many things: stripped down, easy, commonplace, or everyday. Today it has become a bit of a catch phrase when referring to those typical 30-minute meal options. But simple can also mean pure, unadulterated…delicious. This is the type of simple I mean when talking about Vanilla Bean Cream Cake.
Pure unadulterated vanilla, a tender, pound cake-like crumb, perfect for dessert, or even with a cup of coffee for breakfast (cake being the breakfast of champions, of course), the cake was simple, but it was also complex. This cake is definitely ingredient-heavy. With 5 eggs, butter counted not by sticks but pound measurements, and flecked with real vanilla bean seeds, this cake was not necessarily simple in its composition, but rather simple in its taste.
So I went to the library again, this time to scour the shelves for a good baking book. And I found one; Lisa Yockelson’s book Baking [...]