{bwd} brown sugar bundt cake

The book that started my whole blogging adventure— Baking: From My Home to Yours  by Dorie Greenspan— is finally making its debut here.  I have never featured a Dorie Greenspan recipe, because although I created the blog to join the Tuesday with Dorie baking club, I JUST missed out... they closed their doors to new members right when I applied.

This group, Baking With Dorie, was founded by two bakers who similarly wanted to join but couldn't. We will post twice monthly, which is a perfect pace. I just told The Family that I needed to cut back on sweets, but now I'm eating my words and eating this cake! The recipe can be found on Chaya's Comfy Cook Blog.

I was pretty sure I would like The Brown Sugar Bundt Cake recipe, as it included nut flour, butter and buttermilk.  It called for pears and prunes too, which was too autumnal for me.  Instead, I substituted 1 cup toasted, chopped almonds and used almond flour as the nut flour of choice.

Lots of brown sugar.

Almond flour adds interesting flavor.

Toasted, chopped almonds.

banishing the blues with brown sugar cookies

Today is a gray, rainy, dreary day. On days like today, I usually do one of the following things: light candles, turn on all the lights in the house, or bake cookies. Today was so dismal, I did all three. I've always wanted to try a cookie recipe calling for browned butter, and I found a perfect one in The Best of America's Test Kitchen, 2008.

The aroma of golden brown butter is sure to brighten anyone's day, though I was getting a bit worried about the darkening flecks at the bottom of the pan. I didn't leave the pan on for much longer after they turned brown, as brown can go to black and burnt in a heartbeat.

aspen oatmeal bars

I had to make some cookies for a meeting this past Thursday. This recipe, from Maida Heatter's Cookies, caught my eye primarily because of its short list of ingredients and its one pot simplicity. (I abhor clean-up tasks.)

Though the original recipe didn't call for this step, I lined my Fat Daddio's (gotta love that brand name!) pan with foil for ease of extraction. You first turn the pan upside-down and wrap the foil around the outside to form the shape. Then, turn it right-side up and insert the shaped foil into the pan.

Observe the dent in the butter. Note to self: strap camera around wrist before attempting aerial photography.