Torta Caprese for My Birthday Cake

What a fabulous birthday. Surprise after surprise after surprise! Bright flowers from KP. A dozen eggs (thank you magnificent seven!) Presents and cards and several evenings out this week with friends and loved ones. And the Italian Baker, by Melissa Forti. Literally the most beautiful baking book I’ve yet seen. Full of mouth-watering photography featuring […]

Juicy Wine Cakes for my Favorite Dunce

“When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him.” -Jonathan Swift, from “Thoughts on Various Subjects, Moral and Diverting” Happy 7th Birthday, Izzy, bulldog of mine. You and Ignatius Jacques Reilly, the fat buffoon protagonist of Jonathan Kennedy Toole’s Confederacy […]

Buckwheat Chocolate Torte

It’s my birthday week! Among my favorite gifts rolling in was this generous box of bittersweet chocolate baking bars from Sarris Chocolates, to whom I dedicate this post. I decided to use the bars to bake a healthy chocolate torte with buckwheat. Gluten-free dessert that tastes amazing! Such a success. Last time I tried to […]

Bulldog Birthday Cake

Izzy the Tooth is six years old. I am aware that I photograph my bulldog more than I would a firstborn human. Izzy, however, is not aware that she is not, in fact, a firstborn human. I’m beginning to wonder if occasions like her birthday, on which she gets fed ample, extra portions of treats […]

Glazed Cream Scones with Ginger

Thank you Thank you Thank you to all for the texts and phone calls and emails and cards you sent for my birthday! I feel loved and older and wiser and impossibly more full of joy! It was a wonderful day, the highlight came after dinner—we had made an appointment at the hotel bowling alley […]