Rhubarb Tart with Raspberry Cream

The Blackberry Farm Cookbook was one of my Christmas presents. I felt quit virtuous waiting to receive it until then, since I'd been coveting it for more than a year. The book photographs are so lush, and the recipes so appealing that once I unwrapped the book I almost left it on the coffee table to avoid the kitchen's inevitable trail of smudges, spills, and dented corners. But a cookbook only reaches its full potential when it's used, and I was curious to see if the taste of the food matched the beauty of the book's presentation.

But first, I took the time to read and savor the pages. I like the cookbook's arrangement of recipes by season. I have a few other cookbooks that have this type of organization and they are wonderful resources for menu planning.

I wanted to make something from the Spring section, and when my online buddy Kayte, who had received this book for her birthday, suggested making the Rhubarb Raspberry Tart, I happily agreed to join her (virtually, that is). This is a perfect recipe to make now, when it's not too late to find Spring's fresh rhubarb and Summer's ripe raspberries are appearing on the produce department scene.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe, which I've included, below, can be found in from The Blackberry Farm Cookbook.

- The tart combines raspberry and rhubarb, but it employs a bit unconventional way of pairing the flavors. The tart filling is straight-up rhubarb; the raspberry part of this tart comes in the whipped cream topping.

- If you want to make this tart and fresh rhubarb is not available, frozen rhubarb is fairly common in the freezer section of many grocery stores.

- To make the filling, half the rhubarb is cooked in a saucepan with orange juice, sugar along with some cornstarch to thicken it. Then the reserved half of the rhubarb is added and the filling is baked in the slightly blind-baked crust until the filling is bubbly and the rhubarb is tender.

- I made 2/3 recipe, in my 7.5" deep tart pan. By mistake I used the book's Sweet Pastry Dough rather than the Basic Pastry Dough which is indicated in the recipe. In my mind, a tart calls for tart crust rather than pie crust, I guess! The sweet dough had an interesting method: the butter is brought to room temperature before being mixed with the other ingredients in a food processor. Then the dough is chilled until it is cool enough to roll out to fit the tart pan.

- When the crust was blind baking, it oozed a lot of butter. I blotted up some of it, but also found that the crust magically re-absorbed the butter as it sat cooling on the counter.

- I rarely, if ever, sweeten my whipped cream, and I left out the recommended confectioner's sugar. I will say, however, that this is one of those times when a slight sweetening of the cream would be welcome.

the verdict:

This was a lovely dessert. The tart crust was delectable and I love the unusual combination of the creamy raspberry topping and the decidedly tart tart.

the recipe:

Rhubarb Tart with Raspberry Cream

adapted from The Blackberry Farm Cookbook and adjusted to 2/3 original size

tart or pie crust of choice in 7 to 8inch tart pan, blind baked and cooled
4 cups of sliced rhubarb
1/2 cup of granulated sugar
heaping 1/2 T of arrowroot or cornstarch (I used cornstarch)
scant 1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/3 cup wild or regular raspberries (I used regular)
2/3 cup heavy cream
heaping 1/2 T confectioner's sugar (I omitted, but would include next time)

1. In a medium saucepan, combine 2 c of the rhubarb, with the sugar, orange juice and cornstarch. Cook over medium heat, stirring, for 6-7 minutes, until thickened. Remove from heat.

2. Fold remaining 2 c rhubarb into the cooked mixture.

3. Pour filling into the tart shell and bake 25-30 mins, until bubbling. Remove from oven and place on rack to cool to room temperature.

4. In a medium bowl, crush the raspberries with a spoon.

5. Whip the cream and confectioner's sugar in the bowl of a stand mixer or in a medium bowl with an electric hand mixer until the cream forms soft peaks.

6. Fold the crushed berries into the whipped cream and serve with the tart.

Amaretto Ice Cream

In our house ice cream is popular in every season, but I realize that not everyone enjoys eating the cold stuff year-round (Except, have you ever noticed how popular ice cream is in very cold countries in very cold times of year? I think they might be onto something!) For those slightly-less-diehard ice cream eaters, the recent heat wave in many parts of the US has ushered in the churning season. So now I can share a delicious ice cream flavor with you!

I'm always on the lookout for new ice cream flavors to try. When I saw this recipe from The Times (London) Online, which calls for crushed amaretti cookies and amaretto liqueur, both of which I happened to have in the pantry, I set forth to make it posthaste.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I've included the recipe for this ice cream below.

- I prefer creamy to sugary in my ice cream, and I nearly always reduce the amount of sugar in ice cream recipes.

the verdict:

This was a wonderfully almondy, slightly boozy ice cream with added crunch and flavor from the crushed cookies that were churned into the ice cream base.

Fittingly, in this post with a British ice cream recipe, let me share this youtube video of the world's first amphibious ice cream truck, developed in the UK by Cadbury's:





the recipe:

Amaretto Ice Cream
adapted from a recipe by Lucas Hollweg, in The Times Online

Serves 4-6

300ml whole milk
90g granulated sugar (I used a bit less)
3 medium egg yolks (I used around 45g of yolks)
3 tbsp amaretto
250ml chilled whipping cream
30g amaretti biscuits (I use the Lazzaroni brand, because it's sold in my local deli)

Heat the milk and sugar in a medium pan over medium heat until hot and the sugar is dissolved.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with a whisk until lightened. While whisking continuously, pour the hot milk mixture into the egg yolks in a steady stream. Pour back into the saucepan and heat until thickened enough to coat the back of a spoon. The custard should be about 170 F degrees.

Remove custard from the heat and pour into a bowl set in an ice water bath. Stir until cooled, then stir in the amaretto.

Chill in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight. Once cold, stir in the cream, then churn in an ice-cream machine or still-freeze.

When the mixture is nearly firm, break the amaretti biscuits into pieces about the size of petits pois and stir in until evenly distributed.

After churning, scrape into a container, cover and freeze for 2 hours until firm enough to scoop. The alcohol should mean it's scoopable straight from the freezer; if not, let it soften for 10 minutes in the fridge before serving.

{TWD} Blueberry Brown Sugar Plain Cake

Perhaps the best part of summer is the return of fresh berries (optimally, local) at affordable prices. I love eating them by the bowlful and handful, but I try to save some for baking also. The bakers of Tuesdays With Dorie got a chance to bake with berries this week; the assigned recipe is Dorie Greenspan's Blueberry Brown Sugar Plain Cake.

It's tempting to doctor this cake up a bit, adding a streusel topping or a glaze, but that would defeat the whole purpose of it being a "plain" cake. I mean, it's right there in the title! It's a quick and easy cake, provided that your ingredients are at room temperature, and I wanted to test it the way Dorie intended it to be. Besides, how plain can a cake really be that boasts both blueberries and brown sugar?

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe for this cake is on this post on the blog Everyday Insanity, by Cindy

- The cake is supposed to be baked in a 7x11 pan. I do have that size pyrex baking dish, and it's pretty rare that I get to use it for baked goods, but I like square cakes, so I used my 8x8 metal pan with a removable bottom. A closer fit would probably have been a 9x9 pan, but I wanted a taller cake.

- I think I truthfully can say I made this one "as written" - absolutely the only thing I changed was the spice component, which was optional. Rather than the 1/2 tsp of cinnamon, I added 1 tsp of ground ginger.

- Including a pint of blueberries made for a high ratio of berries/batter. I gave some thought to dredging the blueberries in flour before folding them into the batter so they wouldn't drop to the bottom of the cake as it baked, but instead I succumbed to laziness. I didn't want to use another clean bowl, and I was hopeful that the batter was thick enough to support the berries without sinkage.

- My cake pan is dark and non-stick, so I decreased the temperature to 360 degrees instead of 375. The cake was in the oven for 40 minutes, and I let it cool in the pan for about 10 minutes before removing it from the pan via the removable pan bottom.

- As I learned when I cut into the cake, the berries had indeed sunk to the bottom.

the verdict:

This cake may have "plain" in the title, but that doesn't mean it's boring or bland. Or unpopular. My tasters all loved this one, and piece after piece disappeared from the serving plate. I enjoyed the texture and the flavor from the brown sugar, but I was wishing that my blueberries were not those sweet, cultivated ones. To me, the intense flavor burst from tiny wild blueberries would have been better in this cake. My tasters were unconvinced; they liked the cake just as is.

Chicken with Prosciutto and Parmesan

British chef Jamie Oliver has become a champion of simple but tasty and unprocessed food, in schools and homes, both in the UK and in the USA. His website and his books are a great source of easy but delicious recipes, and I've found myself turning to them again and again when time is tight and inspiration is lacking.

One recent weekday I was faced with a package of boneless chicken breasts. None of my usual standby recipes appealed to me, but Jamie's recipe Parmesan Chicken Breasts with Crispy Posh Ham caught my attention, and I decided to give it a try.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe here

- I try to keep a package of Prosciutto in the freezer; it's wonderful for draping over ripe cantaloupe or jazzing up a salad. It also comes in handy for this recipe!

- I have a bad attitude about pounding chicken breasts. Although I know that it keeps them tender and makes them a uniform thickness so that they cook more evenly, I always dread pounding them. And every time, I realize that it wasn't so bad after all.

- The recipe is a snap and introduced me to a new technique for pounding chicken breasts. First you score one side of the meat and sprinkle it with seasonings and grated parmesan cheese, then lay sliced prosciutto or ham over the top. Then cover with a bit of plastic wrap and pound the breasts. Not only does the pounding thin the meat, it also imbeds the seasoning and the cheese into the meat and adheres the ham to the surface of the chicken.

- The chicken could be prepared in advance and cooked at the last minute. After a quick pan-saute, the chicken is ready to eat.

the verdict:

After I cooked the chicken and plated it, I realized how pretty it was, and I was a little regretful that I was wasting it on a weeknight dinner. It would be perfect for company. You absolutely cannot tell from looking or tasting how easy this was to make. The salty ham was a great counterpoint to the chicken, and the cheese and the thyme added tons of savory flavors.

{TWD} Caramel Pots de Creme

It has been one day short of three months since we made Chocolate Pots de Creme for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group. I must have been living under some sort of rock, because until that time pots de creme had been totally under my radar. After discovering the magic of pots de creme, however, I embarked, along with my partner-in-creme, daughter JDE, on a quest to try as many flavors of this creamy dessert as possible. And in the past few weeks, despite four out-of-town trips and weekly baking for TWD, we managed to try - and enjoy - two other pots de creme recipes (which will make an appearance in this space in due time.)

And that brings us to the excitement that is this week's Tuesdays With Dorie selection: Caramel Pots de Creme - an opportunity to try yet another flavor of luscious rich custardy heaven, while simultaneously crossing off another in the dwindling list of unbaked recipes in Dorie Greenspan's delightful book Baking: From My Home to Yours.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- This recipe calls for a couple of previously-tricky steps that I can now tackle with relative ease, although I'm not above holding my breath when making caramel, and I always, always keep a bowl of ice water on hand in case of molten sugar contact. That stuff burns wickedly.

- Some of the sugar in the recipe is caramelized and some is reserved in granulated form to be added to the eggs. I used golden palm sugar, which has a naturally caramel-like flavor, for the reserved sugar, and white sugar for making the caramel.

- Too late I realized that I should have added a pinch of salt to the recipe.

- I lowered the baking temperature to 285 degrees, and took the pots out of the oven in 33 minutes' time.

- The technique of sealing the pots + roasting pan they bake in with plastic wrap is very useful to know. The wrap doesn't melt at those low temperatures, and you can see through the plastic to check the jiggliness of the custard without uncovering it.

the verdict:

A full recipe of pots de creme is always welcome at our house, and this flavor variation was no exception. Eight teacups split between two people makes for a very nice math problem indeed!

These pots de cream were not quite as unctuous as others I've made. They were a tiny bit spongy when warm from the oven, and while they compacted when chilled, they didn't have the silkiness of the chocolate pots de creme we made in March. The flavor was excellent, however; a subtle, but unmistakeable smokiness of caramel in each creamy, rich spoonful.

Summer Fruit Salad with Mint Sugar

While I know, and almanac.com confirms, that summer doesn't technically begin until June 21, I've always counted Memorial Day as the beginning of Summer. After all, don't the swimming pools open this weekend? Also it's the first day that it's appropriate to wear white, and nothing signals summer quite like a pair of white jeans (or shorts, if you happen to live in a place where it's just too darned hot to wear long jeans between Memorial Day and Labor Day.)

Holiday weekends are perfect for parties and eating out-of-doors. When we were invited to a picnic and asked to bring a side dish, I knew I wanted to use some of the beautiful fruit my fridge was harboring. This recipe for Summer Fruit Salad with Mint Sugar sounded like it would be pretty and tasty without being fussy and time-consuming to prepare.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- I found the recipe in my big yellow Gourmet Cookbook. This book, which I recommended in my Christmas cookbook post, is a serious goldmine of fantastic recipes. I've not hit on a dud yet, including the three that I've prepared in the past few days. If you don't have the cookbook, you can find the recipe here.

- The cookbook cautions, "simplicity is the key to a successful fruit salad, so don't yield to the impulse to include every fruit you see on your cruise through the produce section." The recipe mentions grapes, sweet cherries and peaches. Although I had cherries, I didn't end up using them because I had four other fruits begging to be included - strawberries, grapes, blueberries and cantaloupe - and I didn't want to push my luck.

- The mint sugar is simple to throw together in a mini-food processor, and then it's sprinkled on the cut and mixed fruit. Voila! A finished dish in minutes.

the verdict:

This salad was lovely and quite refreshing as a side dish at a cookout on a very warm (euphemism for very hot) day. The mint gave the fruit an extra kick of flavor and brightness, not to mention a pretty green color note.

{TWD} Nutmeg Oatmeal Scones

Thanks to my daughter for taking these lovely photos for my blog post!

Is there any baked good as well-mannered as a scone? Scones conjure up images of pinky-raised cream teas, where they display their good breeding on silver platters. But their manners really shine when they effortlessly fit into other, more humble settings. Scones are also graciously quite at home at everyday breakfasts and quick snacks on the run.

In the case of this week's recipe for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group, Oatmeal Nutmeg Scones, we enjoyed them in varying degrees of formality. We baked them on a well-worn baking sheet in the oven of a salvaged gas range, then plated them on some china that was hand-painted by my daughters' great-grandmother, and finally, tucked the leftovers into brown paper bags to be eaten at lunch on the job.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- This week's hostess is Patricia from Life with a Whisk; you can find the recipe on her scones post. Thanks for choosing this recipe, Patricia; I bookmarked it months ago and am very glad to finally have the opportunity to try the scones.

- I baked these for breakfast when I was visiting my daughter ALE in Buffalo. I measured the dry ingredients the evening before and left them on the counter, covered with a serving plate. I also put the butter in the freezer for an overnight chill. The next morning, all I had to do was add an egg, some buttermilk – actually, yogurt in my case – and grate the butter.

- The dough didn’t come together as quickly as I hoped it would, and I had to knead it quite a bit. I worried that the scones would be tough, but luckily they weren't.

- This batch of scones was the first time I've strayed from Dorie’s scone directions. Her method is to divide the batter into two discs, then cut each into six portions, producing twelve dainty scones. This time I decided to experiment a bit. I formed just one disc from the dough, and cut six large wedges, separating them slightly before baking.

- I brushed the tops with milk then sprinkled with nutmeg before popping them in the oven.

the verdict:

We ate these scones warm from the oven, and they were delicious with butter and/or jam. I like these the best of any scones I've baked. They are hearty without being heavy, yet still moist and tender. The nutmeg had an opportunity to shine in its solo spice role, and provided a delicate spicy warmth.

The scones were a big hit with the housemates at breakfast, and I hope they were just as good when pulled out of lunchbags a few hours later.

Pea Shoot Spring Salad

There are certain ingredients whose appearance in Spring is so fleeting, and whose flavor is so delicate, that they beg to be prepared in ways that allow them to show their charms before they are gone for another year. I love it when I can find pea shoots, either at the market or in my farm box, and I devised this simple salad to showcase their flavor.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- First I wash and dry the pea shoots, then divide them among my salad plates. Over the top I arrange sliced spring onions, toasted walnuts, sliced tiny radishes, chopped cucumbers, and crumbled soft goat cheese.

- I dress the salad with a simple vinaigrette:

Whisk together 3 Tablespoons of walnut oil, 1 Tablespoon of white wine vinegar, a dab of prepared mustard, salt, pepper.

the verdict:

To me, this salad is the essence of Spring! I happily return to it again and again as long as pea shoots are available.

{TWD} Maple Cornmeal Drop Biscuits

I'm busy this week dashing to and fro, so this post will be short and sweet. Which is perfect because these biscuits were exactly the same: quick to throw together, and just sweet enough to make me feel that I was eating something a little bit special.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- This week Lindsay from A Little Something...Sweet chose the recipes for the Tuesdays With Dorie members to bake. If you'd have a couple of minutes available for baking, and would like to try these biscuits, you can find the recipe on her post.

- I made 1/4 recipe and ended up with 3 biscuits.

- The recipe honestly could not be easier. The biscuits have both flour and cornmeal, and maple syrup provides the sole sweetener.

- I followed a tip from Caitlin of Engineerbaker and grated frozen butter into my dough and it worked perfectly - the butter gets mixed into the flour without working the dough too much.

the verdict:

The biscuits were lovely and moist inside but a little bit crumbly. We liked the crispy outside edges and the little crunch of the cornmeal. The maple flavor added wonderful flavor.

[TWD} Pecan Brown Sugar Bundt Cake

Being one among a couple of hundred members of the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group has shown me the seemingly infinite variation among bakers, particularly when it comes to recipes preferred by the group's members. Case in point: the recipe that appealed to me most when I first opened my copy of Dorie Greenspan 's Baking: From My Home to Yours - the Swedish Visiting Cake - was still available for me to choose when my hosting turn rolled around, more than 2 years after the group started. Another example: when my daughter JDE bought Dorie's book three years ago, the Brown Sugar Bundt Cake was one of the first recipes she baked, but it wasn't chosen for the group until this week; more than 150 recipes were chosen ahead of it!

A testament to the quality and depth of this book is that these recipes that we are baking in the group's final year, far from being "dregs," are producing some of the tastiest baked goods to date!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Peggy, of the blog Pantry Revisited, is this week's hostess; you can find the recipe on her blog post. I love reading Peggy's blog because she is always cooking up something fun in her kitchen. Besides, we Southern bloggers need to stick together, right?

- JDE joined me in the kitchen and we baked the bundt together. We made half recipe in a small pudding mold/tube cake pan.

- As written, the recipe calls for adding pieces of pear and chopped prunes to the batter. The ever-helpful Dorie suggests that apples would be a good substitute for the pears and any kind of dried fruit could stand in for prunes. Dorie gives a further option for making a nutty brown sugar bundt cake, and because I love pecans with brown sugar I decided to go that direction and bake a super-pecan bundt. I used King Arthur Flour's Pecan Meal in place of some of the all-purpose flour, substituted 2 oz of pecan oil (which I had bought a couple of months ago when I visited B&B Pecans in Fairhope, AL) for 2 oz of the butter, and stirred in a generous handful of deeply-toasted pecans (also from B&B Pecans). I also added some teensy currants. The flavorings were almond and vanilla extracts.

- The brown sugar I used was pretty dark, but I'm never one to object to a more intense brown sugar flavor.

- The cake crumbled when I sliced it, but I think that might be because I cut into it before it was completely cooled. It definitely was not a dry cake.

the verdict:

This cake was delicious, very moist and nutty with a distinctive flavor of brown sugar. I thought it was great plain but I certainly wouldn't argue with a little whipped cream on top. As much as we enjoyed it the first evening, warm from the oven - and we did enjoy it, each of us going back for second helpings! - it was even better the next day when the flavors had a chance to settle and combine. The pecan version was delicious, but I'm betting the cake would be equally good with walnuts and walnut oil.

Mama's Angel Food Cake for Mother's Day

From the title of this post, you'd be justified in assuming that I baked my mother's recipe for angel food cake. But you'd be mistaken - or more accurately, misled. This cake is from Virginia Willis' own Mama, and knowing what a great baker Virginia is, I was excited to try her mother's recipe: Mama's Angel Food Cake.

I baked it in the angel food cake pan that was my own mother's, and her mother's before that. All in all, it seemed a perfect way to celebrate Mother's Day!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe here -

- Angel food cake is a great way to use up a lot of egg whites. The recipe calls for 12 whites; I always have extra egg whites from all of the ice cream that I make (ice cream base usually uses yolks) For this cake I pulled a bunch of egg whites out of the freezer. I used 360 total grams of egg white (my general rule of thumb is that each egg white weighs 30 grams)

- The accompanying Bourbon Creme Anglaise - recipe here - on the other hand, uses yolks only. I didn't want to orphan more whites than absolutely necessary, so I made half recipe (3 yolks) of the creme anglaise. It turned out to be plenty for the whole cake.

- The cake directions are clear and the cake came together exactly as described.

- Angel food cakes are baked in ungreased pans, presumably so that the cake can cling to the sides as it rises. My America's Test Kitchen Family Cookbook gives a great hint to line the bottom of the pan with parchment paper. My grandmother's pan has a decorative ridged bottom, however, so I couldn't put parchment there. I was a little nervous about whether the cake would release after it baked.

- In addition to the ridges on the bottom, my grandmother's cake pan has faceted sides and is shallower than many other angel food cake pans. I suspected that it might not hold a full recipe of cake batter, so I had a small loaf pan handy for possible leftover batter. I ended up putting nearly two cups of cake batter into the loaf pan.

- As the cake baked, it rose and filled the pan completely. Once the cake comes out of the oven it is supposed to cool in the pan - in an inverted position - for approximately two hours. One way to keep the pan inverted is to rest the pan on a wine bottle. The center post of my cake pan was not the right size to fit around a wine bottle. But the post was about an inch taller than the rest of the pan, so I could balance the pan upside down on my counter, with none of the cake touching the counter.

- When the time came to unmold the cake, I loosened the cake's edges with a plastic knife and held my breath. The cake did release, but the browned edges of the cake stayed in the pan. It was still quite pretty to me, with its snow white crumb showing. I'm wondering if I should grease the bottom of the pan the next time I bake this cake.

the verdict:

I served the cake at a family Kentucky Derby/Mother's Day gathering. All nine of us loved it! It was definitely the best angel food cake that any of us had ever tasted. There was no hint of dryness in this cake; it was impossibly tender, soft and moist, with the most delicate vanilla flavor. I loved seeing the little vanilla beans speckling the cake's crumb.

The creme anglaise was a perfect complement to the cake, with just a whisper of bourbon (so appropriate for the Derby!) The combination was, as I said at the time, "swoon-worthy"! I've never really cared much about angel food cake, but this one had me coming back for seconds and looking forward to leftovers.

{TWD} Black & White Chocolate Peppermint Marble Loaf

Marble Cake. I was very excited that the Basic Marbled Loaf Cake was chosen as one of May's recipes for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group. The best part about making a marbled cake: the marbling itself provides endless opportunities for amusement, entirely apart from the merits of the actual cake! It's fun to assemble the cake, but the real adventure comes after the cake is cooled. Then it's time to cut it and see the actual marbling pattern. Each slice shows a different design, so the fun continues until the cake is gone.

My first marbling experience was in the summerof 2008, the third recipe I baked after joining TWD. Learning cool new techniques and enjoying the delicious results has been the hallmark of my three years with the group. The only marbling I'd done in the meanwhile was a botched attempt at some marbled dinner rolls, so I was ready for another try.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- The recipe was chosen for the group this week by Carol from the blog The Bake More. Her marble cake post has the recipe, if you'd like to give it a swirl.

- Dorie sets up the recipe in a way that requires us to select a flavor/color combination. The basic recipe is just that: basic, and it gives no flavors. Instead, Dorie lists several possible choices, and encourages flavor experiments.

- So before I could even start to make this cake, I needed to choose flavors for my two halves of the batter. I was very very tempted to make Dorie's cardamom + coffee variation but I had already baked a marbled coffee loaf with my first TWD marbling experience.

- I love the look of a classic black and white marble loaf. But with all that leeway to play around I didn't want to bake a simple chocolate + vanilla version. I looked at the suggested variations and saw one for chocolate and peppermint. One half of the batter is made with bittersweet chocolate and the other half has both white chocolate and peppermint extract. I actually don't care for peppermint baked goods and also dislike white chocolate, so this gave me a moment's pause. But I was baking this for an eventual book group meeting and many people aren't as unreasonably picky about mint and/or white chocolate as I am. My buddy Mike baked this cake a few days before I did and his tweets raved about the delicious peppermint taste, so that sealed the deal for me. I had (unopened) peppermint extract in the cupboard and a lot of white chocolate on hand, so there was even more reason to choose that option!

- For the white chocolate/peppermint half of the batter, I used up a bunch of bits of white chocolate of various brands: Guittard, Ghiradelli, and Callebaut.

- My biggest objection to white chocolate is its cloying sweetness, so to make up for the extra sweetness from the white chocolate, I cut the quantity of sugar in the cake batter ever so slightly.

- I baked my loaf in my favorite vintage long slim loaf pan. I stumbled upon a cache of these pans and have sent them to several of my baking buddies. From what I hear, a number of them used their pans for this week's recipe.

- With this flavor variation, Dorie advises us to marble sparingly so that the peppermint flavor of the light batter doesn't get muddled with the dark flavor. I layered the two batters carefully and very gingerly sliced a knife through them.

- The loaf rose well in the oven, rising above the rim of the pan.

- My loaf seemed to take forever to bake, even in this thinner loaf pan, which is usually much quicker than regular pans. The light part of the cake kept testing liquid.

- I baked this cake just as I was heading out of town for a week, so once the cake cooled, I just sliced off the end and wrapped the rest and tucked it into the freezer.

the verdict:

It's always an adventure cutting into a marbled cake - you never know what patterns will emerge. In this case, because I marbled the cake so timidly, the resulting pattern wasn't very pretty.

I was surprised at how much I liked this cake. The white chocolate taste pretty much disappeared and the peppermint was present but not brash. The cake had a tight and even crumb. My biggest quibble is that the piece I sliced from the end was a bit dry. The flavor was excellent, though, and I'm hoping that when I pull it from the freezer we will find that the inner pieces of cake are moister. At any rate, it will be delicious with a mint ice cream or mint-infused whipped cream.