When we decided to throw a baby shower for Rachel, a post-doc in my lab, I immediately knew I wanted to bake something. Since she’s having a girl, I also knew I wanted it to be pink. So when I found this recipe for pink lady cake on my favorite cooking blog, I knew it would be perfect.

The cake itself is pink due to the pureed strawberries in the batter (plus a drop of red food coloring–I would add a few more drops next time, as it still wasn’t as pink as I was expecting). I was tempted to dye the frosting pink too, but I decided to restrain myself

Instead, I just wrote “It’s a girl” in pink gel icing and decorated it with fresh strawberries (though I used frozen strawberries in the batter, as suggested in the recipe).

Rachel and her husband Jay cutting the cake.

Overall, I was happy with how the cake turned out, though my amateurish decoration inspired me to look into cake decorating classes   As you can see, it only had two layers–I made 2/3 of the recipe because I only have two cake pans, and the original recipe calls for three. I also added a layer of strawberry rhubarb jam in the middle, in addition to the frosting, and that worked out nicely.

Of course, being a perfectionist, I did think cake was a little dry, probably due to a slight overbaking. I think next time I’d split the layers to make a total of four, and make more frosting (which was really great). Regardless, the cake was devoured pretty quickly, and I think everyone enjoyed it. Stay tuned for the June Daring Bakers challenge!

I’ve been putting off posting, and hence I decided to post about two of my recent baking experiments at once to make up for it

Part I : Cinnamon Roll Muffins

Recently I made these cinnamon roll muffins from Joy the Baker. They’re made with yeast, but only take about an hour total as opposed to regular cinnamon rolls, which usually require several hours for the dough to rise, rest, bake, etc.

The recipe, which was originally for a loaf version, isn’t clear about when to rest them as muffins instead of a loaf–I ended up resting them in the pan. That turned out fine and they rose ok, but I was concerned when I took them out of the oven because the cinnamon topping had melted off the top and spread out in between the muffins in the pan. However, it ended up being pretty easy to scoop it up and get it back on top of the muffins, so crisis avoided

As for the taste, the muffin part was pretty bland and had the muffin-like texture you’d expect (not like a cinnamon roll, despite the yeast in the batter–which is to be expected because the dough wasn’t kneaded to develop the gluten), but the topping was so sweet that I wouldn’t have wanted a sweeter muffin. Overall, they were good and perhaps could substitute for cinnamon rolls if you had a real craving, but I’d rather use my calories on real cinnamon rolls!

Part II: Tarte Tatin

When I was at home in Atlanta, I decided I wanted to make a fruit dessert, so I chose the apple tarte tatin from smitten kitchen. I love tarte tatin, and will usually order it in a restaurant that has it on the menu, but I’ve never tried to make it. I guess I was always intimidated by the amount of caramelization you have to do to the apples…plus the fact that you need a pan that can go from stovetop to oven But, emboldened by my recent completion of the Daring Bakers caramel challenge, I picked up my mom’s stainless steel pan and decided to go for it.

Overall, it went way better than I expected. In fact, it was almost perfect — apart from the fact that the apples got a little too caramelized (some might say burnt) in the middle. The problem was that the pan I used was about 15 inches across, and just didn’t heat evenly enough to caramelize everything at the same time. So rather than having perfectly caramelized apples in the middle and undercaramelized ones on the outside, I ended up cooking the ones in the middle a bit too much. Still, the flavor was amazing. The crust was super easy to make and really flaky and delicious, and the tarte even came out of the pan with minimal apple displacement (only a couple in the middle stuck)! In all, I was really proud of it, and I guess everyone else liked it because it was gone by the end of the meal

I joined the “Farm Fresh to You” CSA couple of weeks ago, meaning that every other week I get a box of fresh, local, organic, in-season produce delivered to my doorstep. Not only have I started eating more vegetables, but I’ve also been challenged to cook vegetables I might never have selected on my own. Of course, I’ve always loved asparagus, so I was excited to get it this week (I actually requested it as a substitute for mustard greens–they were also sending swiss chard, so having both greens seemed a bit much. Plus, fresh asparagus!).

This recipe is essentially the exact one from Simply Recipes–all I did was add 1/4 lb of cooked Dungeness crab (they sell it at Andronicos, the grocery store near me), plus the juice and zest of a whole lemon to cut the fishiness of the crab. It was just a good the next day for lunch!

I had never heard of Meyer lemons until I moved to California. They’re actually a cross between a lemon and a mandarin orange, so they’re a bit less tart than regular lemons. Last night I used them to make Michael Chiarello’s Lemon salt marinated pork tenderloin with honey roasted applesauce. It’s a great recipe because the salt makes the tenderloin really juicy, and not overly salty as long as you use sea salt. Plus, the sweetness of the applesauce helps to cut any residual saltiness. I think the Meyer lemons worked well with it. I served it with rosemary roasted potatoes and gingered beet greens. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures But have no fear, I used my leftover Meyer lemons to make lemon bars using this recipe from a great baking blog. They’re delicious!