Dunk & Crumble

Archives for May 2012

Apricot & Lavender Galette

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I’ve recently discovered that living in California is like winning the summer fruit lottery — why doesn’t everyone live here?  It’s not even June yet, but the peaches!  The cherries, the blueberries, the plums, the apricots, the peaches!  Ripe and fragrant, everywhere you turn.  In May!  What is this sort of wizardry?

Whatever it is, I’m on board.  I mean, Ben and I drove two hours to go peach picking over Memorial Day weekend, and consequently have somewhere upwards of fifteen pounds of quickly ripening peaches sitting in a cardboard box on the kitchen countertop.  Thinking about this makes me anxious, so let’s please talk about the apricots, instead.

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Red, White and Frosted

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Just a little inspiration for you this Memorial Day Weekend!  I hope it’s filled with warm sun and smiles.  And thankfulness.  And cake.

You can make these with any cupcake recipe (even one from a box — my lips are sealed) and any type of white frosting (simple vanilla, sweet and tangy white chocolate cream cheese, even mascarpone).  All you need to decorate are some crunchy sugars and a few bright berries.

Aren’t they pretty?

Let’s bring them to a barbecue.

Maybe make a friend smile.

Thank some troops.

Make the weekend a little extra.

Happy Memorial Day, cupcakes!

Oatmeal Double Chocolate Chip Cookies

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Today is a grumpy day.  A scowling, brooding, arms-crossed sort of day.  Why?

No good reason.

You’ve heard of these days?  The ones where you wake up on the wrong side of the bed and everything and anything is just sort of annoying?  That dust on the bathroom window sill?  Dumb.  Your morning workout?  Ugh.  Dumb.  This bowl of blueberry yogurt?  So dumb.

Okay.  Let’s snap out of it.  Snap snap snap.  We are not grumpy.  We are lucky.

So lucky!  Lucky to live in California, where the sky is blue and the peaches are already in season.  Lucky that our kitchen cabinets are painted purple, and that there are fresh flowers in our brand new bud vase.  Lucky for our families.  Our friends and our Bens.  Lucky to be healthy and alive and wearing neon yellow sneakers.

And lucky for the oatmeal chocolate chip cookies.

On a day like this, one of these (multiples of these, I think we can agree), might be in order.  Lucky us.

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Lavender Blackberry Syrup

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Everyone!  My parents are coming!  To San Francisco!  They’re on their way here right now.

!!!

I’m a little bit excited.  I haven’t seen them in over two months, you see, which for us is a pretty longish time.  Mom and Dad!  Winging out from Philadelphia!

I’ve been too excited (frantic?  I’ve spent all of my free time cleaning like a mad lady – Ben loves this about me, I swear) to cook or bake much, but I did throw this lavender blackberry syrup together, and I’m excited (can you tell I’m excited?) to serve it with ice and soda water when my parents arrive.  And gin?  Definitely gin.  Or mixed into some lemonade.  Or with hot water to make tea.  Over vanilla ice cream?  Poured on hot pancakes?  A sweet and pinkish-purply glaze for thick slices of pound cake?

You see where I’m going here.  Lavender blackberry syrup: to infinity and beyond (to impress my visiting parents).  Get excited!

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Pistachio Rhubarb Not Quite Pound Cake

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A stunner, this one.  A lightened pound cake flecked with pink and green.  Looks nice, doesn’t it?  Pretty.  Simple.  Baked with love.

…This cake exploded in my oven.

I won’t blame the cake, though it was clearly not my fault.  I didn’t tell the cake to explode inside my very own oven, certainly.  I didn’t tell it to ooze and bubble, splattering and crusting all over the floor of the thing.  I didn’t.

Did I overfill the pan?  Absolutely not.  I don’t know.

…Maybe.

So what?!  So what if I did, huh?  Maybe I got a little greedy with it!  Maybe I filled the little loaf pan to bursting – so?  WHO’S GOING TO BELIEVE YOU, ANYWAY?

…I’m sorry.

You’re right.  It was me.  It’s my fault the pretty cake exploded.  But the batter was just so lovely, you see.  So bright and rich!  So full of crisp rhubarb, bits of orange zest, gnarled pistachios!  I got a little overzealous.  I lost my head.  I lost my cake.  Lesson learned.

After a bit of tweaking and a second try, I ended up with the same lovely batter just, fortuitously for those of us who don’t like wasted dough, not quite so much of it.  Into the loaf pan it went, and, thankfully, into the loaf pan it stayed.  This time it rose gently, weighed down by an ample smattering of meaty pistachios, and baked and browned to perfection.  So you see?  I’m not a cake ruiner after all.  I’m no detonator of gateaux.  I, my friends, am a cake tamer.  A pound cake whisperer.  A genius of the first order of geniuses.

Or, you know, a regular baker.

At any rate, this cake is tender-crumbed and full of bright flavor.  It’s guaranteed not to explode in your oven.  Probably.

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Grilled Pineapple Salsa

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Certain events unfolded over the weekend which left me feeling, what’s the word?  Oh, awful.  And by “certain events,” I mean “margaritas,” and by “awful” I mean “terrible.”

So, so terrible.

Naturally, this tequila-induced Awfulness lead to a declaration on my part to, from here on out, subsist on nothing but vegetables and water.  I could do it, too.  I could walk on sharp tacks, bathe in rubbing alcohol (ugh, please don’t say alcohol), watch a horror film with my eyes open — any one of these things might feel better than the Awfulness.  Vegetables and water.  Detox.  I’m doing it.

Saturday morning, this was.  So I drank some water, ate sliced cucumbers, went out for a walk.  Easy.

That’s when I got hungry.

While Ben laughed at my inability to eat only vegetables for one day, I revised my previous declaration to state that I would only eat vegetable-based meals for an entire week.  You know, as opposed to pastry-based ones.

It’s been two whole days, and the declaration remains intact.  I tried to bake a pound cake today and it exploded in the oven.  (What?  Even professionals explode cakes from time to time.)  If that’s not a sign, I’ll eat my foot (covered with cucumbers, obviously).

So, in honor of the Awfulness, I present to you a delicious, veggie- (fine, fruit-) based recipe.  Grilled pineapple salsa.  To be eaten over greens and maybe some black beans or tofu.  Or chicken.  Maybe turkey burgers?  Pita chips.  Whatever.  Just, please, hold the margarita.

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Vanilla Bean Banana Pudding

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The rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain.  And if you live in California (which, it turns out, I do now), the rain stays mainly somewhere else.  Except, of course, when it doesn’t.

I don’t know what I’m getting at here.  I think basically that sometimes you just need to watch My Fair Lady instead of vacuuming your apartment or doing your laundry or, you know, being employed.  Sometimes.

Other times you need to make banana pudding.  Like when your cousin Aaron comes over with his electric drill and builds you a whole closet so you no longer have to live out of a suitcase; that is a good time for banana pudding.

Aaron is the sole member of my family who lives here in San Francisco — the only one who also lives out West at all, actually — and I’m so glad to have him here.  He makes this strange and wonderful city seem a bit more like home (he built me a closet, after all), and for that I am so very grateful.

So, you see?  Banana pudding, with cookie crumbs and soft whipped cream and specks of whole vanilla bean.  It’s time.

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