Cake

This cake does not take long to bake, yet it looks as if you have gone to a lot of trouble, an impression I like to give. Purchased blackberry jam makes short work of the filling.

When you round the curve on Black Hawk Road in hilly Carroll County, you will see it on the left. In four-foot letters the name “Cox” is spelled out in boxwoods. About twenty years ago Mr. Cox started cutting his hedges into all manner of fanciful shapes. He has had a life-size cowboy wearing a Stetson and riding a horse, an alligator, a bird in a cage, and an elephant two times life-size. One of my favorites is a rabbit eating a carrot. Mr. Cox kind of has the temperament of Mr. McGregor in The Tale of Peter Rabbit. He has even snipped a self-portrait out of his hedgerow. It looks just like him, with a long beard and a farmer’s straw hat perched on his head. I love to go out and visit with him. He is a spirited old gent and he lets you know pretty quickly if he is in the mood for company or not. If I bring him a carrot cake, he seems more amiable.

Born in 1915 in Shaw, Mississippi, David “Honeyboy” Edwards won a Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 2010. He is perhaps the last of the true Delta Bluesmen. Despite his age he keeps on the road touring the world and flirting with the ladies, crooning his hit “Who May Your Regular Be?” This dense chocolate cake covered with bittersweet honey ganache could be just the thing to win over a loved one’s heart or to cure the blues of a broken heart.

There is a plum tree on Interstate Highway 35 in Austin, Texas. My uncle Jon keeps an eye on this poor little tree growing in the median. After its showy blooms fade he watches for the red plums. When they look ripe he pulls over with his hazards blinking and picks every last plum and brings them home to make jelly.

I try to keep my carbon footprint in check and buy local and all, but every now and then I throw caution to the wind and buy a fresh pineapple from a long way away. Recently I was talking to some fourth-grade kids in the town closest to the farm. Not one out of the fifteen or so kids had ever seen a fresh pineapple other than the one SpongeBob lives in; they just knew they came from a long way away or in a can.

Spice and fruit and caramel cakes all rolled into one. This cake brings in a lot of money at a bake sale.

Miss Moina Michael was born in 1869 in Good Hope, Georgia. She was educated at Lucy Cobb Institute, Georgia State Teachers College, and Columbia University in New York City, quite an accomplishment for a woman of her times. She went on to work as a professor at the University of Georgia. When World War One broke out she left her teaching position to volunteer in the war effort. When the war was over Miss Moina returned to the University of Georgia, where she taught continuing education classes for disabled servicemen. She conceived a fundraising idea to help the veterans: selling small silk poppies inspired by John McCrae’s memorial poem “In Flanders Fields.” (“In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses row on row.”) Miss Moina from then on wore a red poppy to bring attention to the cause of disabled veterans. By 1921 the American Legion had adopted her red poppy as a symbol of remembrance for fallen soldiers. To me this delicious cake, decorated with red poppies, is as fitting for a patriotic celebration as anything red, white, and blue. Memorial Day is the perfect occasion to serve these poppy seed petits fours.

If you’ve ever seen the fabulous movie Steel Magnolias, you’ll remember the running gag of a groom’s cake in the shape of a giant armadillo that “looks like it’s bleeding to death”! Until I saw that movie, I had no idea I could produce my favorite color in a cake. I left the theater determined to uncover the secret—which is, of course, red velvet cake. It’s a deep red cake with velvety texture and a subtle flavor of cocoa hidden under snow white, vanilla-laced, cream cheese frosting. The armadillo shape is optional.

This is everything you want a chocolate cake to be. A simply prepared batter bakes up into a delicious cake with layers that have a tender crumb and good chocolate flavor. The frosting is beaten into billowy clouds of shiny chocolate goodness that spreads like silk.

The carrots we grew were so sweet and delicious that we’d often go out to the garden, pull them one by one out of the ground, and bite right into them, with nothing more than a cursory wipe on our jeans on their journey from ground to mouth. An abundant crop would mean Mom would bake this divinely moist cake, which gave us the best reason ever to pray for a good harvest.

These individual molten chocolate cakes come from my ArtBites “Dining in the Aztec Empire” class, where I learned that chocolate is indigenous to Mexico, and for centuries nobles and priests used it to make an unsweetened drink.

I found this recipe in one of my aunt’s cookbooks that is old enough to have seemed old when my aunt herself was a child. It’s a great way to celebrate any event in autumn—or to celebrate autumn itself! Layers of spice-infused, walnut-studded apple cake hide an orange-flavored cream cheese filling and are covered with silky orange buttercream.

Buttery, not overly sweet, yellow cake is topped with rich, caramelized pineapple in this classic treat that never lets me down. All of the ingredients, including the pineapple, are staples in my pantry, so I can make it any time I want a cheerful and delicious dessert without having to shop especially for it. Using cake flour results in a more tender cake that is best eaten the day it is made. All-purpose flour gives a sturdier cake, almost like a coffee cake.

We always understood where our food came from. More often than not, the source was the land outside our back door! Pumpkin bread began with the pumpkin seed that we planted, tended, and eventually harvested. My mom never bought cans of cooked pumpkin, so the only time we could have pumpkin bread was when there was a surplus of pumpkins in our garden. This made me keenly aware of why pumpkins and pumpkin treats are a tradition for the autumn holidays—this is when pumpkins are actually in season! In fact, pumpkin bread is a Halloween tradition in my house. Those jack-o’-lanterns offer more than just spooky light—the pumpkins give us the makings for baking as well. I love cinnamon and this bread is definitely cinnamony, though you can use less if desired. As the bread bakes, the kitchen fills with a sweet, caramel aroma. The bread is very dark outside and very moist within.

Nothing ever went to waste in my house. If bananas got too brown, we knew banana bread was on its way. In fact, I couldn’t wait for the bananas to go brown! I happily made my family’s recipe for years, until the day I tasted my friend Teri Hatcher’s banana bread on the set of Desperate Housewives. She’s our unofficial on-set baker, and her philosophy on banana bread is “the more booze, the better the bread.” This version is like using bananas Foster to make banana bread. The flavor is fantastic and it’s the moistest I’ve ever made or tasted.

Like magic, this lemon pudding cake separates into two layers during baking: an airy and soufflé-like cake on top, and a soft lemony curd below. In truth, the first time I ate it I was convinced it was a cake and pudding recipe combined. This foolproof recipe is the perfect summer sweet, served simply with fresh berries and whipped cream. For the creamiest texture, it is important to bake the cake in a water bath. The hot water protects the cake from cooking too quickly, keeping the pudding super supple.

Fresh fruit caramelized and embedded in rich buttery cake makes a great dessert any time of year. Just about any seasonal fruit that you have on hand works very well in this recipe. Try peaches, apricots, and, of course, pineapple. The beauty of this one-pan cake is its simplicity: you don’t even need a cake pan. If the basil in your herb garden has, like mine, grown to the size of a bush, and you’ve had your fill of pesto, consider trying the basil ice cream recipe. Basil is a super fruity and floral herb, which to me is a natural for ice cream. When people take their first bite, the reaction is always the same: oh my God!