Ham Sandwich Indicted!

That's a really terrible picture, but hopefully the intoxicating deliciousness of this cake will make up for my lack of food photography skills. (I was working on a deadline, people wanted to eat it.) Just in time for St. Patrick's Day, here's a chocolaty, boozy, cake that will do you right by St. Patrick, Leprechauns, and the IRA. (Just kidding, bomb jokes are not funny. But seriously, this cake will blow you away. Ok, I'm done. Seriously.)  I made this for my friend's birthday last week...as it seems we've developed a bit of a pattern of baked goods-as-gifts. (Last year, it was these peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes .)  The cake was still warm when I applied the glaze, so it didn't quite stay on as well as I would have liked.  Thankfully, it could be ladled up off the plate. It's a riff on this cake that I wrote about last year....and I think it's an excellent improvement.  The Guinness gives it a rich depth of flavor, and the B...

It's probably a little ridiculous to post a King Cake recipe the day after Mardi Gras, but I didn't get my pics off my camera until now. The King Cake is (I think) a lot like Christmas fruitcakes--they start popping up in grocery stores at one particular point in the season, and are never as appetizing as advertised. It's one of those traditional foods that people seem obligated to buy, but no one is really ever super excited about it. (I'm sure there are New Orleans residents who would beg to differ with me on that point.) Anyway, I think they're kinda tacky--slathered in high sugar glaze and festooned with an explosion of sprinkles...they're like the over-forty cougars in miniskirts at the bar...trying just a little to hard to get noticed. All that being said, this year I decided that they are probably better if made from scratch, not sealed in a plastic and cardboard box, and so I pulled a recipe from epicurious and made a couple King Cakes for friends an...

....is actually tomorrow (January 27th). But since the Ham Sandwich has other obligations to attend to this evening, she is honoring the day a tad early and letting her coworkers reap the delicious benefits. And damn if it isn't delicious. From the endless source of ideas that is Epicurious.com, I present to you my interpretation of their Chocolate Whiskey Bundt cake: Chocolate Whiskey & Kahlua Bundt Cake (because more booze = more better) Ingredients Cake: 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (not Dutch-process) plus 3 tablespoons for dusting pan 1 1/2 cups brewed coffee 1/4 cup whiskey 1/4 cup Kahlua (or other coffee liquor) 2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, cut into 1-inch pieces 2 cups sugar 2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/4 teaspoons baking soda 1/2 teaspoon salt 2 large eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla Ganache: 3/4-1 cup semi sweet chocolate chips 1/4 cup milk 1 tablespoon butter 1 tablespoon instant coffee/espresso powder Special equipment: a 10-inch bundt pan (3 1/4 inches deep; 3-qt ...

Sometimes, the only thing to do on a rainy Sunday night is to bust out a new cookbook and make something that you've never made before. In this case, it was the Golden Book of Baking that my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday (thanks, Eva!) and the recipe was Apple Kuchen Crumble. This was the recipe of choice for a couple of reasons: 1) I had 3 pounds of frozen, sliced apples in my freezer that needed to get used, and 2) I was actually home for the several hours required for raising and proofing the dough. For those of you that didn't grow up with off-the-boat German grandmothers for whom baking was a part of life and not something to blog home about, apple kuchen (cake) is a German pastry with a bread-dough like base that's topped with sliced apples and a crumb topping or maybe a light glaze. It's not overly sweet, as the focus is on the fruit, and it was the de rigeur dessert at many of our family holiday dinners. The thing that was great about my Grandma Ber...