Thursday, June 16, 2011

Non vanilla baking


Love this new baking book my husband purchased for me.  I really like the approach to baking here, basically anything goes, with of course the appropriate restraint.  (Imagine baking with your liquor cabinet door open....something like this.)  Making traditional recipes new but not so foreign you don't recognize them or get upset.  My first try from the book was the pumpkin cheddar muffins, which were good, but definitely need to be eaten hot.  My second try was this olive oil orange bundt cake.  My husband has been trying to replicate a cake his grandmother used to make which in Italy they called ciambella.  He tried to take different recipes and meld them together to create the cake from his youth but really most attempts failed.  (Shall I discuss his first attempt when he used yeast instead of baking soda or powder as leavenging and had black "spots" all over....funny and not tasty.)  Anyways, I made this cake and it has been the most similar to his cake of youth yet.  (Note the use of olive oil.)  I guess you could also swap the orange zest out for lemon zest too.  

Beautiful photos in the book

As well the graphic design is really nicely done


These are the two authors of the book, Matt Lewis and Renato Poliafito and owners of their own shop in Brooklyn



Creaming the butter and sugar

Mixing in the olive oil and yogurt


Beating the egg whites into stiff peaks 

Final batter


After baking....simple touch of powdered sugar on top

Moist and flavorful....extremely close to the ciambella my husband remembers from his Nonna


1 comment:

  1. This cake is so good! Very simple and tasty in the morning for breakfast with "latte e caffe'" or in the afternoon for "merenda" with a glass of milk.
    Good old days when I was a kid and all I was worried about was eatinf stuff like this.... :)

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