In mid June I had a book signing for United Cakes of America at the PG County Hyattsville branch library. A lot of great people came out to talk about cake and enjoy some samples from CakeLove. Tyler was particularly kind and attentive—along with the rest of his family. He asked if he could visit me at CakeLove and in early August we spent the afternoon together at CakeLove U Street. It was a lot of fun!

Tyler loves to cook and bake. He had a lot of great questions and ideas on pairing flavors. Here’s a recipe that we created together. After we baked them he handed them out as samples at Love Café and had a box of goodies for his siblings!

What I like about it was that we found a work around for not having brown sugar for cookies—usually a critical ingredient for us. Instead we took raw honey and paired that with super fine granulated sugar. Give it a try, I think I like it even more than our regular recipe. (see our recipe via podcast on our site under classes).

    Chocolate Almond Spice Cookies

2 ounces of almonds slices, roasted
8 ounces of super-fine granulated sugar

1 tablespoon raw honey

5 ounces of butter (melted and cooled)

1 teaspoon of vanilla

1 egg

11 ounces of flour
½ teaspoon of baking soda

½ teaspoon of ground ginger
½ teaspoon of cinnamon
¼ teaspoon of kosher salt

6 ounces chocolate chips

2 ounces sliced almonds, roasted

1.    Roast almonds, set aside to cool and divide. Melt butter, add vanilla extract and set aside to cool.  

2.    Combine sugar, honey and almonds in stand mixer with flat paddle on low speed.

3.    Slowly drizzle in butter.

4.    Add egg.

5.    Meanwhile, measure flour through salt and whisk to combine. Scoop into mixer.

6.   Fold chocolate chips and remaining almonds into dough.

7.   Scoop out and pan on parchment lined baking sheet. Lightly flatten with a soft press and top with a sprinkle of cinnamon and ginger.

8.   Bake in pre-heated oven at 300 to 325 for 13 to 15 minutes.

9.   Remove when cookie edge barely resists when poked. Cool and serve while still warm.

A big thanks to those who came out to the signings at Border’s in Silver Spring this past Saturday and Barne’s & Noble last Tuesday. It’s always great to meet people who are enjoying the book!

Happy baking!

Check it out!

http://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/daily-interactive-networks/id371031813?uo=6.

it’s free!

it’s recipes!

and shortcuts and hints!

It’s a way to post pics of your own cakes in our cake community.

Watch videos of me baking while you’re in the kitchen!

Have fun with it!

Got a couple of comments in person and on the blog about pursuing sugar free baking on why we’re doing it and is it true to our ideals. They’re fair questions and I understand the questions and the nature of them so let me share some thoughts…

Sugar free products are definitely something people have been asking for–for years really. I wrestled with the matter of whether or not to produce items that possibly use ingredients that aren’t in line with the core CakeLove mission- to bake with all natural ingredients. While I will never stray from that principle for our traditional products, everyone needs love and for CakeLove to ignore, disregard, or look away from this large sector of the population isn’t very genuine on our part and is a bit shortsighted for any business. We want people to enjoy desserts and believe that with enough information our customers can make an informed choice about what type of product they’ll purchase. It’s a change that we’re happy to embrace and look forward to greeting people who need to manage their blood sugar with treats that look and taste great!

We’re on the path for R & D and hope to have products available this fall. Thanks!

Try out these cookies I made at home last night. Scrumptious!

A mixer isn’t necessary, but it helps if you have one.

Honestly I didn’t measure so the quantities might be a little off, but they should work out as very chewy and buttery white chocolate-cranberry cookies…

1 ½ cups brown sugar (light or dark) loosely packed

½ cup white sugar

Mix well in a deep bowl.

3 ounces unsalted butter (3/4 of a stick), melted

½ teaspoon vanilla extract

Stir in—it should be damp to wet.

1 egg (size “large” or “extra large”)

1 yolk (size “large” or “extra large”)

Stir in. Dough should be quite wet and sloshy.

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

¼ teaspoon kosher salt

¼ teaspoon sea salt

Pre-mix in a bowl and stir in. Dough should clump up and be only slightly tacky.

¾ cup dried cranberries

½ cup white chocolate, chopped off a block into pea sized pieces

¼ cup chocolate chips (optional)

Stir or fold in until totally combined. If it’s a little too dry flick in a tablespoon or two of softened butter and beat in (that’s what I had to do).

Scoop onto a baking sheet lined with a nonstick baking paper or foil.

Bake for 13-15 minutes at 325°F. Remove and cool for about a minute and then get busy with munchin’ on ‘em.

Enjoy!

Most of the spring was spent completing the recipes, copy and pics for my second cookbook, United Cakes of America-recipes for every state. I’m super excited about it and very much look forward to it’s release.

The recipes are from all over the US, dedicating at least one recipe that uses ingredients from a specific state or is too popular in the state’s history or culture to go by unmentioned. I reworked a lot of traditional recipes and created a few new ones–all with an eye toward keeping it simple. Most are really easy and a few venture into the more difficult territory, but that couldn’t be avoided. It’s kind of the perfect book for me since I’m a US history geek and love to cook!

Not sure on the publish date, but it should be late fall and I’ll post it as soon as I know which should be soon.

Thanks for all of your interest and have fun in the kitchen.  - WB

Just wanted you to know that we’re suspending production of any peanut butter related cookies, buttercream or cakes until the USDA recall is lifted. I doubt anything is wrong with what we use and no one has reported any problems, but we’re complying with the suspension of using peanut related stuff in the products until we get the green light. So… no Cynthia’s sin, Peanut butter Downfall, peanut butter cookies or peanut butter cucpakes (which are amazing!). until further notice We’ll let you know. 

Thanks!

I was playing around with recipes in Silver Spring last week and came up with a buttecream styled after the New German Chocolate and the Pecan nut crunch. BTW if you haven’t had the Pecan buttercream on vanilla cupcakes yet, you’re really missing something! It’s like, well, it’s terribly good!

Anyway, I tried fresh ginger steeped into milk and then lightly dosed with raw honey… yum! I don’t find the flavor too strong, but I’ll take freshly grated mace on just about anything. Look for this one to appear in the coming months!

Hail to the Chief and welcome to DC President-elect Barack Obama!

We’re thrilled and very, very excited for January 20th! The whole city seems to be buzzin’ with action. 

We’ve put together a salty-caramel cake in honor of our next President and have called it “44th”! Caramel and salt are said to be some of the favorite flavors of our next Commander-in-Chief so we wanted to get him something that would get right to the point.

44th is available by the slice and as a whole cake. it’s not weird, the flavors of salty and sweet work quite well together as I’m sure many of you already know.  If you know CakeLove cakes, this one is closest to a Lemon Swirl– layers of vanilla cake with thick layers of caramel squeezed between the layers and a little fleur de sal sprinkled in between and on top. It’s a little gooey, but that’s good!

Come out and join us at CakeLove for a preview of what we’re cookin’ up for the holidays!

Sunday November 16^th is the day to come in and graze on samples of baking from scratch! We’ll have a variety of holiday flavors and some of our favorites for you to snack on (we have even more specials in Baltimore—see our ad in the Baltimore City Paper for more info). If you’re scratchin’ your head wondering what  we’re all about at CakeLove we’ll have a few demonstrations, too. And for all of the bakers out there don’t miss our “Ask a Baker” corner where you can get help to figure out what need tweaking in your holiday baking.

CakeLove Holiday Open House

Sunday, November 16^th  from 2:00-4:00pm

Love Café/ CakeLove U st., CakeLove Silver Spring, CakeLove Shirlington

CakeLove Baltimore (see extra specials advertised in the Baltimore City Paper)

CakeLove National Harbor, CakeLove Tysons I

Featured Flavors at the 2008 Holiday Open House

French Vanilla – a new vanilla cupcake with a buttercream dotted with real Madagascar bourbon vanilla bean.  Warren developed the recipe for this soft and tender cake this fall and Mary Meyers developed a creamy, custardy buttercream  that is nearly lethal it’s so delicious. Don’t get too close because you might get bitten by people leaping for it.

Mojito –this is straight from the CakeLove cookbook. Rum, lime, and mint are stirred in the mixer instead of the cocktail glass for a sweet treat. No wonder it’s always enthusiastically embraced.

Pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese icing—Fall wouldn’t be the same without it’s wonderful flavors and we celebrate the best one with a moist slathered with tangy icing. Everyone loves this so much it might be around year round.

Spice cake with vanilla buttercream – This holiday have a taste of a gently spiced ginger cupcake topped with vanilla buttercream. Long time CakeLove fans may recognize this as the Gingerly cake now paired with vanilla buttercream to let the balance in the cake shine through.

Cinnamon Swirl – (limited availability) this knock-off of the hot, spiced buns drowned in icing makes its second annual return.