• Devil dogs

    Depending on where you grew up, devil dogs may be a kind of hot dog, a kind of snack cake (akin to a Twinkie or Ding Dong) or a Marine. I’m in the latter camp — which is why I knew I had to make them. I had been thinking about making these for a […]

  • Guinness chocolate cake

    Happy St. Patrick’s Day! You all know Guinness is good for you, right? Well, Guinness chocolate cake is even better. I tried to drink the leftover beer… that didn’t work out. Maybe I should have let it come to room temperature and poured it into a pint glass? Since I made this as a bundt […]

  • Red velvet cupcakes

    You know what today is, right? Arizona’s 99th birthday! What better way to celebrate that — and that other holiday — than red velvet cupcakes? You need cake flour for this recipe, and I thought I had a whole box. Then I picked up the box to measure it and realized I only had about […]

  • Hummingbird cake

    As I mentioned before, my grandmother died recently. She loved to cook and bake, and one of her favorites was hummingbird cake. I wanted to bake one in her honor — though unfortunately I don’t know any Carmelite monks to give it to, like she would have done. Instead, I gave it to a bunch […]

  • Orange chocolate chip Halloween cupcakes

    I usually wait a few days before posting things I’ve made (sometimes even longer), but I had to go ahead and show you these cupcakes I brought to work for Halloween. They are not difficult at all (though they are definitely easier with a microplane grater) and you still have time to make them for […]

  • Chocolate-peanut butter cake

    Imagine moist, chocolatey cake, enveloped in fluffy peanut butter-cream cheese frosting and topped with a layer of peanutty chocolate ganache. It’s like what would happen if a peanut butter cup accidentally wandered through some radioactive ooze. It’s a teenage mutant ninja peanut butter cup cake. You can use any kind of cocoa powder. I had […]

  • How to frost a cake

    So you bake a lovely, moist cake. And you whip up some fabulous frosting that is a different color. And then you realize — I have no idea how to combine these items without it becoming a big mess. Don’t worry. The secret is a crumb coat. If it’s a layer cake, the first thing […]

  • How to butter a pan without buttering yourself

    This might be a “duh” one, but I used to butter a pan by just picking up the stick of butter and rubbing it around in the pan. Even if I tried to hold it by the wrapper, I’d still get butter all over my hands. Then I saw Isabel do the following: Put some […]

  • How to measure flour

    With cooking, it’s easy to experiment and try a little more of this or a little less of that. But one of the keys to baking is precision. Adding too much flour or too much milk will change the consistency of your cookie or cake and may negatively impact the taste and texture. But it […]

  • Chocolate cake with marshmallow frosting

    As you may remember, my mom made me a Ding Dong cake for my birthday. Well, kind of. The thing is, I love the combination of chocolate and marshmallow. So I didn’t really care about having the chocolate ganache at the top. I just wanted lots of marshmallow-y goodness all over. This chocolate cake recipe […]