{TWD} Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies

Although I don't drink coffee - the caffeine doesn't agree with me - I love its flavor. In fact, coffee is my very favorite ice cream variety, and when it's paired with chocolate, so much the better. So this week's Tuesdays With Dorie confection, Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies, seemingly had my name written all over it!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Donna of Life’s Too Short Not to Eat Dessert First picked Espresso Chocolate Shortbread Cookies on page 125 of Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours. You can also find the recipe on Donna's post.

- Shortbread is one of my favorite types of cookies. We have a family stand-by recipe, from Sheila Lukins' Around the World Cookbook. It consists of butter and powdered sugar and little else. I could eat it by the pound.

- I made half recipe. I was pretty sure that despite all the chilling in the world my cookies would spread, so to avoid that outcome, rather than cutting the dough into squares, I pressed it into a 6" springform pan.

- I wanted to experience this recipe just as Dorie intended it, so I followed it to a "T"... well, I did darker chocolate than specified, but otherwise, no substitutions.

- There was a bag of Trader Joe's Organic Powdered Sugar in my baking drawer, so that's what I put in these cookies.

- I scored the dough in wedges before putting it in the oven, then cut it immediately after I pulled it out.


the verdict:

This recipe had all the things that I love: coffee flavor, dark chocolate, butter and sugar. And it's shortbread. I thought I'd love the cookies, I planned to love them, I expected to love them. But in the end, I just did not love them. There was something odd about the combination of the espresso and the powdered sugar in my cookies that was not right. The cookies were bitter and the powdered sugar taste really stood out in an almost artificially sweet way.

I've read reviews from some of the other bakers, and they loved the cookies, so I'm going to assume it was user error, or else I'll blame the Trader Joe's sugar. At any rate, now I'm craving good shortbread!

{TWD} Peach Tart With Nut Crust

Eating a perfectly ripe juicy local peach is the highlight of our (very hot) Georgia summers. Mind you, just-right peaches from the farm box or the produce stand are not to be squandered on any old recipe. Fabulous peaches taste so good eaten out of hand (well, peeled first, of course) that it's a pity to use them in a setting that doesn't do them justice. My favorite way to enjoy peaches is grilled with herbs and olive oil in Jamie Oliver's wonderful summer salad (which I posted here). I also love them tossed with blackberries, blueberries, and/or red cherries. And a good peach ice cream is tough to beat.

This week's assigned recipe for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group is Crunchy and Custardy Peach Tart. I've never ever known a Dorie Greenspan tart to disappoint so I was hopeful that this one would be a worthy vehicle for some particularly tasty peaches from my weekly farm box.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- This tart was chosen by Rachel of sweet tarte and you can find the recipe on her post.

- In keeping with our preferences lately, I used a gluten-free nutty tart crust (made this time with almond meal and chopped pecans). For a sweetener I used palm sugar.

- Here are the ingredients I used in the custard: duck egg, cream, palm sugar, almond extract, and salt.

- Once I assembled the tart it was looking a little bare, so I added another peach, which filled up the empty spaces in the tart nicely. Maybe too nicely! There wasn't much of the custard showing so I ended up with extra topping (since it was supposed to be placed on the custardy parts of the tart).

- I omitted the flour in the topping, and made mine with: almond meal, chopped pecans, date sugar, and butter. Per the recipe's instructions I used cold butter, but the topping only came together once the butter softened, so starting with room temp butter might have been better.

- The oven time for my tart was:
10 min at 425
20 min at 375
then I put on the topping and baked an additional 15 minutes or so at 375?

the verdict:

We enjoyed the tart very much, especially the first day. The peaches and almond-flavored custard paired nicely with the the nuts in the crust. There was a bit of a problem because the nut crust was porous and absorbed the custard, especially by the next day. I realized too late that I should have brushed the crust with egg white before I "blind baked" it, which would have sealed the crust against the custard. I'll have to try that the next time I bake this tart - and there will be a next time with a tart this tasty!

{TWD} Oatmeal Breakfast Bread

This week's Tuesdays With Dorie recipe is called Oatmeal Breakfast Bread. Just from reading the recipe I knew it would be a favorite: it is a quick bread loaf, packed full of oats and nuts and dried fruit. I actually baked this one a few months ago, because it sounded so good and I got tired of waiting for it to be chosen! So thanks, Natalie of the blog Oven Love, for picking this one and letting me post from my "drafts" folder.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- You can find the recipe for this bread this week on Natalie's blog.

- I made a few changes to the recipe, mostly trading the sweeteners. I used maple sugar instead of brown sugar in the topping, and used palm sugar in the dough because of its lower glycemic load.

- For liquids, I chose the buttermilk option

- I used walnut oil which I enjoy in quick breads.

- Along with the all purpose flour, I threw in some white whole wheat flour and oat flour.

- For the dried fruit I used currants.

- I had some very sad apples in my produce drawer, which were perfect for making homemade applesauce - I got to use it for this bread and some muffins.

- The bread ended up with a very loose crumb, a bit prone to falling to pieces, but it was beautifully moist.

I took 5 photos of the slices of this bread, and all of them turned out blurry. By the time I realized, the bread was long gone! I included the least blurry picture to give some idea of the crumb.

the verdict:

We loved the apple taste, highlighted by bursts of curranty sweetness and the soft moist texture. It was wonderful toasted, even if it did fall apart a bit in the toaster.

{TWD} Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream

I make a lot of ice cream. Summer and winter, I churn ice cream nearly every week. In fact, my ice cream maker has earned a permanent place on my kitchen counter and I try to always have the canister frozen and ready to churn a new batch of ice cream. The most common flavor around here is vanilla, because that is my husband's favorite, but I make my share of chocolate as well (and when it comes to chocolate, my share is usually pretty much all of it since my husband is allergic to chocolate!) As luck would have it, we invited some friends over for dinner last week and I knew that this week's assigned Tuesdays With Dorie recipe, Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream, would be the perfect dessert. I altered it a tiny bit to meet dietary restrictions and preferences, but the end result was still quite wonderful.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- - Katrina of Baking and Boys picked this Chocolate Ganache Ice Cream. Find the recipe on her post.

- Very dark chcolate is a favorite of mine, so I used a combination of Callebaut bittersweet and Green & Black 85% chocolate to make the ganache.

- One of my guests is sensitive to milk (but not cream) so I replaced the milk with coconut milk. I've done this before in chocolate ice cream; and the coconut flavor is not actually detectable, and the ice cream's texture is nice and creamy.

- I used palm sugar rather than granulated. This has become a favorite sugar of mine - thanks to Sarah of Blue Ridge Baker for pointing it out to me.

- To bring out the flavor, I added pinch of salt.

- The custard was very thick and pudding-like. It was so thick that I knew it wouldn't churn very well. I was temped to just skip the ice cream maker and freeze the custard, but I ened up churning it for several minutes anyway.

the verdict:

My daughter JDE said this ice cream was the Platonic ideal of the kind of chocolate frozen treat that a fudgsicle is but a mere earthly reflection. Put another way: this ice cream is similar to a Fudgsicle but far better tasting.

I found it to be a very creamy, subtle chocolate ice cream. I've made chocolate ice cream that was more intensely chocolate in flavor (lots of cocoa powder involved), and I've made chocolate ice cream that was more mysteriously complex in flavor (based on steeped cocoa nibs), but this is a nice, straightforward, deeply chocolate ice cream.

{TWD} Gingered Carrot Breakfast Cookies

I'm going to admit that I was pretty excited when I started reading Dorie Greenspan's introduction to her recipe for Gingered Carrot Cookies, "I wanted to make the cookie equivalent of carrot cake," says Dorie. "Yes, fantastic idea!" I agreed mentally. Carrot cake is a huge favorite in our house. As I've mentioned before (picture included), we had carrot cake for our wedding, and it's often the cake of choice for my husband's birthday. My longtime recipe is for a carrot bundt cake, but we also loved Dorie's Bill's Big Carrot Cake (or at least my adapted version of it.)

Reading Dorie's account further, I learned that although she used far too few carrots to approximate carrot cake's intense carroty goodness, she decided the "scone-like" cookies that resulted were keepers. Well, alright then, even though these cookies were not going to replicate our favorite cake after all, we happen to love scones, so I figured we'd do fine with these cookies, especially if I served them for breakfast!

n.o.e.'s notes:

- These cookies were chosen this week for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group by my long distance baking buddy Natalia of the lovely blog Gatti, Fili e Farina and you can find the recipe on her cookie post.

- My husband is a confirmed coconut-phobe, so I omitted the recipe's coconut and bumped up the carrots and the pecans to compensate.

- For about a quarter of the flour, I used oat flour.

- I reduced the total volume of sugar, used a combination of dark muscovado and palm sugar. To make up for the reduction in liquid (the sugar bakes as a liquid) I threw in a spoonful of creamy yogurt.

- I formed my cookies a bit bigger, getting an even dozen from my half batch of dough.

the verdict:

I sampled a cookie warm from the oven and enjoyed the subtle flavor of these cookies. They were slightly sweet and had a bit of a tang from the yogurt and the ginger. The texture was moist and wonderfully soft from the oats. I think they'd be even better with a bit of butter, but what isn't, really?

My husband tried them the next morning for breakfast. His vote: very good. I've gotta say, though, now I'm in the mood for real, honest-to-goodness carrot cake!

{TWD} Chewy Chunky Blondies

Back in the day, nearly 30 years ago, when I was newly married, I was introduced to my first "blondies" (so-called because they are a light, non-chocolate version of brownies) in two different ways.

There was a bakery on the mezzanine level of the big Davison's Department Store about a block from my office downtown. The only thing I remember from that bakery is their "blond brownies" - they were big and wonderfully chewy in the center - a perfect mid-afternoon snack. (There was also a cookie store in the ground floor of my office building, so even though I had no time to spend in the kitchen, thanks to those two shops I was not starved for freshly-baked goodies)

Around the same time I learned of an old recipe in my husband's family called "Butterscotch Delights" (which I recently posted, here). Over the years when I had just a bit of time I'd whip up a batch of those bar cookies and they always make a hit. In fact that's part of of the charm of a good blondie recipe: nearly everyone loves to eat the final product!

This week's assigned recipe for the baking group Tuesdays With Dorie is Chewy, Chunky Blondies, chosen by Nicole of the blog Cookies on Friday. I was eager to bake this version, which is filled with lots of chips and nuts.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Dorie's recipe (which you can find on Nicole's post, here) calls for light brown sugar and granulated sugar. I used dark brown sugar and palm sugar - to emphasize the butterscotch-y flavor.

- Although I forgot the vanilla (accidentally) I doubled the salt (on purpose) to wake up the flavors.

- My add-ins were: toasted chopped pecans, toasted sweetened coconut, chopped Heath bar, chocolate covered cocoa nibs, and 72% chocolate chips.

- I baked half a recipe in an 8x8 pan, which I lined with a buttered parchment sling so the blondies would release easily from the pan.

- The blondies stayed in my oven about 40 minutes. They were a bit moist in the center, but I knew they'd pull together as they cooled.

- Earlier this year I tried a different loaded blondie recipe, "Killer Blondies" from the kitchn, which I posted here. That recipe was more intensely flavored; it used dark brown sugar along with even darker muscovado sugar, and instant coffee dissolved in brandy. (It also had a topping which I found to be a bit too crumbly and quite sweet.)

the verdict:

These blondies were nice and chewy and were packed full with add-ins. Mine turned out to be quite chocolatey, from the generous quantity of chips, the chocolate in the Heath bar and in the chocolate-covered cocoa nibs that I'd used, and I found myself wishing I could taste more of the blondie and less of the chocolate. The coconut added a subtle, but nice, note. Overall, I prefer the "Killer Blondies" from the kitchn's recipe (minus the topping), but I liked these blondies very much.

{TWD} Baby (Basic) Banana Cake

The official name of this week's recipe for the Tuesdays With Dorie baking group is "Lots-of-Ways Banana Cake" because Dorie Greenspan gives, well, lots of different ways to bake, fill, frost, and/or serve her recipe for banana cake. I've got to admit that despite all of the available options I baked a very plain version of this cake, and a tiny one at that, hence my name for it: Baby Basic Banana Cake.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Kimberly of Only Creative Opportunities chose this week's recipe and you can find the recipe for the cake on her blog.

- I baked 1/8 recipe in a smallish loaf pan.

- At first I was a bit dubious about this cake; I had loved Dorie's Classic Banana Bundt Cake (that I posted here) so much that it was hard to imagine how this recipe could stack up to that one.

- Although I'd love to taste this cake baked with coconut milk and toasted coconut in it, my main taster - my husband - is anti-coconut, so I baked a coconut-free version.

- Since the quantities of ingredients were so small for 1/8 recipe I didn't use a mixer but just creamed and stirred with a big spoon by hand.

- For liquids I used a creamy thick plain yogurt, the optional rum, and a double quantity of vanilla extract.

- 1/8 recipe fits into a pan with an area of 15 or 16 square inches. I used a 3"x5" loaf pan, which I greased and floured, then lined with a parchment sling so that the cake would easily release from the pan.

- The little cake took around 27 minutes to bake.

- Rather than fill or frost the cake, I sprinkled it with powdered sugar and served it with vanilla ice cream. It would be great with whipped cream and toasted walnuts, too.


the verdict:

This cake turned out to be a wonderfully fluffy, soft yet moist, cake-ish version of the best banana bread you've tasted. We enjoyed it with vanilla ice cream; perfect for a hot summer evening. My husband rated this one an "11" on a scale of 1-to-10.

Here I'm going to sound like a broken record: I don't know why I ever doubted Dorie. She definitely knows her way around banana cakes. I loved this cake nearly as much as her banana bundt cake. In fact I'd need to taste them side by side to see which one I like better.

If you have any love in your heart for banana baked goods, this is a recipe to keep in your back pocket. Thanks, Kimberly for a great pick this week!

Minnie Lane's One Pot One Pan Butterscotch Brownies

Today is my two year blog anniversary, and to celebrate I'm giving all of you a little gift: an old family recipe for blondies, or as we always called them, butterscotch brownies.

My husband's grandmother, Minnie, lived to age 90 and was quite the character. Opinionated, feisty, and outspoken. She was also thrifty and handy, she sewed clothes for herself and her daughters, and was an excellent cook. I have a few of her recipes, and the one that I make over and over is her Butterscotch Brownies, which combine ease of preparation with chewy texture and meltingly sweet taste.

These blondies don't have any baking chips stirred in; instead they get their butterscotch-y goodness from butter and dark brown sugar. The other virtue of the recipe? It can be made with a minimum of fuss and dirty dishes. Using a good digital kitchen scale, you can whip up a batch of blondies with a cooking pot, a spoon, a measuring spoon, and a baking pan!

the recipe:

Butterscotch Brownies

1 stick butter (115 g, 4 oz)
2 cups firmly-packed dark brown sugar (350 g, 12.25 oz)
2 eggs (100 g without shell, about 112g including the shell)
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour (212 g, 7.5 oz)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

2. Butter and flour a 9" x 13" baking pan.

3. In large saucepan, melt 1 stick butter. Stir in remaining ingredients in order listed above.

4. Spread batter in the prepared pan and bake for 25 minutes. Brownies are done when a knife inserted in center of pan comes out clean.

5. Cool on a wire rack in the pan. When cooled, sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into 1" squares.

{TWD} Brrrrr-ownie Ba-rrrrrs

Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours is admirably comprehensive, but brownies might be the category best represented. No matter what your taste, there is a brownie to fit (unless of course you don't like chocolate!) This week's recipe for Tuesdays With Dorie is designed for mint lovers. Called Brrrr-ownies, the name indicates the frosty flavor contributed by peppermint patties stirred into the batter.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Karen of the blog Welcome to our Crazy Blessed Life chose the recipe this week - click over to her blog post to find it.

- I baked 1/4 recipe of the brownies in a small loaf pan, and cut the brownies in bars when cooled.

- Although the recipe call for unsweetened and bittersweet chocolate, I used a bar of 85% chocolate bar instead of the two other kinds. The way I looked at it, 85% is the average of the 70% bittersweet and the 100% unsweetened chocolate I would otherwise use.

- I'm getting spoiled by these easy recipes lately; this one used just one bowl.

- After 22 minutes in the oven my brownies registered done using the knife test.

- The brownies looked a bit alarming when they came out of the oven. Some of the peppermint patty pieces had erupted through the chocolate as the brownies baked.

- I chilled the brownies before cutting them. When I cut them, I could see how dense and fudgy they were. There were empty pockets in the baked brownies where the peppermint patty pieces had been before they melted and oozed elsewhere.


the verdict:

These brownies were chewy, fudgy, almost candy-like. Even though I rarely like the chocolate and mint combination, I loved it in this recipe!

To make the "brrrrr" part of this recipe complete, it would be fun to chop the brownies into pieces and churn them into a batch of ice cream. I might try that with the leftover bars that are currently in my freezer.

{TWD} Ooh la la! Tarte Noire and Paris

It's been quite an adventure being a member of the baking group Tuesdays With Dorie for the past two years, as we work our way through Dorie Greenspan's book Baking From My Home to Yours, one recipe per week. I've grown to love the cookbook. As Dorie explains on her wonderful website:

"My... book ... is my most personal, in that it's like a kitchen journal recording the recipes I made and the things I learned over 30 years of baking at home and in the kitchens of some of the best chefs in America and France."

The title of Dorie's book might have more accurately read "Baking From My Homes to Yours" because Dorie has a home in Paris as well as two in the US. She has worked with French chefs on both sides of the Atlantic and luckily for us, many French recipes have become part of Dorie's "home" baking, and through the book, they can be part of our home baking also!

One such recipe is the Tarte Noir, which has become a favorite in our home. It is one of the first recipes that my daughter JDE baked two summers ago when she bought the book. Her tart was elegant in appearance (unfortunately there are no pictures of that tart, as it was before my blogging and TWD days) and, truly, nothing that sublime had ever come from my kitchen. A buttery and sweet crust combined with a velvety chocolate filling made for a perfect dessert. JDE baked it for a meeting of my book group. The general consensus of the members was that my daughter should go into the baking business!

This week my very good blogging and baking friend Jessica (aka Dharmagirl), of the blog bliss: towards a delicious life, got to choose the recipe for TWD. She recently returned from a trip to Paris, and chose the Tarte Noir as a way to celebrate her experience there. Jessica's choice turned out to be perfect timing for me, for two reasons. First, JDE had just come home from college and in a turnaround, this time I baked the tart for her.

Chocolate tarts in the window of Maison du Chocolat in Paris (sorry about the terrible photo; no inside photography was permitted)

Second, a few days after baking the tart, JDE and I traveled to Paris. We left that fabulous city yesterday after enjoying a wonderful week there. We stayed in the 6th - Dorie's neighborhood - and had a great time pretending it was our home too. There's a lot to love about Paris, but I have to say it was a special thrill to see chocolate tarts in right there in the bakery cases! Of course we had to sample the Parisian variety and see how it compared with the home-baked version. I've included some of our pictures of Parisian chocolate tarts.

Chocolate tarts (both noir and milk chocolate) in the pastry case at Bread and Roses in Paris.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- If you'd like the recipe for this tart, you'll find it on Jessica's post.

- Here are my notes about the tart I baked.

- I'd already enjoyed this tart with Dorie's fabulous crust, when my daughter baked it. This time around I decided to experiment with a gluten-free coconut crust. I adapted the crust I used for the ice cream pie (posted here) by adding an egg and blind baking it. Dorie always says that she dislikes an underbaked crust; she'd be very proud of me because mine was baked to a deep toasty brown color.

- Rather than a full-sized tart, this time I made a partial recipe and baked three small, deep, individual tarts.

- I used Callebaut bittersweet chocolate, which I love to use in baking. I think a very dark bittersweet chocolate would be good in this tart also.

- For some reason, this time my chocolate ganache wasn't very smooth. I probably should have thinned it a bit with some more cream. My tart doesn't have that coveted (by me at least) smooth, glassy-sea appearance, but luckily the deficiency was only cosmetic; the ganache tasted as great as ever.

- The chocolate caramel tart that we baked for TWD last year (posted here) is nearly the same recipe, with the added attraction of a caramel layer and salted nuts. It is one of my all-time favorite recipes!

My daughter and I split this chocolate tarte noir as a dessert after a lovely lunch at Bread and Roses in Paris. That is a bit of edible gold leaf casually placed on top!

the verdict:

The little tart tasted like a coconut cookie with a creamy, chocolate-y filling. The rustic coconut was a perfect counterpoint to the smooth perfection of Dorie's chocolate ganache. Every time I make this ganache it takes my breath away!

And the chocolate tart we had in Paris? Here's JDE's verdict:

My impressions of the Parisian chocolate tart: The chocolate filling was extremely similar to that of my home-baked tart! The crust was good, but I prefer Dorie's recipe. Thanks, Dorie, for making this French classic (and many others as well) achievable to ordinary home cooks, no matter where our homes are! And thanks to Jessica for this fabulous pick this week.

{TWD} Lemon-Drenched Lemon Cake

When I was in high school I had a steady babysitting job - nearly every Saturday evening found me taking care of three adorable children and I even took some vacations with them. I have many fond memories of that family, including some very strong food associations. The mother baked fresh braided loaves of Challah bread every Friday, and there were always cold Tab sodas and Chips Ahoy cookies in the fridge, and a Sara Lee pound cake in the freezer. Invariably we'd slice and eat the cake frozen. I loved its tight crumb and the fact that it never ever tasted dry. Dry pound cake is just a shame, isn't it?

The recipe this week for Tuesdays With Dorie is called Rum Drenched Vanilla Cakes (I baked the lemon variation). Dorie Greenspan compares this cake to the texture of a Sara Lee poundcake.

n.o.e.'s notes:

- Wendy of Pink Stripes chose these cakes for us this week. You can go visit her blog for the recipe. Her site is always worth a good browse; Wendy is one of my favorite baking buddies and she always features yummy sweets (including fabulous ice cream!) and wonderful veggie dishes. It makes sense that if Wendy didn't choose an ice cream recipe, she'd pick one with alcohol. Next time, Wendy, I'm going to try this cake with the rum in it.

- Although I love rum in my baked goods, given the very hot weather we've had in these parts this June, lemon sounded perfectly refreshing, so I chose the lemon variation. This meant reducing the rum and vanilla and including lemon zest in the cake and lemon juice in the syrup that soaks the cake after it's baked.

- I baked 1/3 recipe, which I split between a smallish loaf pan and a baby loaf pan. I drenched the baby one with syrup for tasting and kept the larger one plain so that I could pop it into the freezer.

the verdict:

My cake wasn't as dense or as moist as a Sara Lee pound cake. Nor was it as lemony as I would have liked. I'd definitely increase the lemon presence if I were to make it again, maybe adding lemon extract to the batter and the syrup. Or I'd skip the lemon and go for the rum version. Thanks, Wendy, for a fun and easy pick this week!

{TWD} Dressy Chocolate Loaf

Sometimes the recipe names in Dorie Greenspan's book Baking: From My Home to Yours are perfectly straightforward (Molasses Spice Cookies, French Pear Tart, Sweet Cream Biscuits), and sometimes they are a bit more of a puzzlement. This week's Tuesdays With Dorie selection is a case in point: Dressy Chocolate Loaf Cake. Some of those words - "dressy" and "loaf cake" are not usually found together.

So this week's recipe presented a semantic mystery. Is the cake truly dressy as compared to all cakes? Or is it merely dressy as far as loaf cakes go? Only one way to find out - bake it up and see!

I decided to serve this one to my book group. As a collection of people they are remarkably versatile in the dressiness department. On any given evening most of us will be in jeans but at least one of the men will be in a suit and tie from working late. At times members have come from or been on the way to cocktail parties or fancy dinners. Our desserts have been similarly varied. We've sampled fancy tarts and rustic pies. I've run the gamut of my decorating experience (sort of dressy to very casual) in cakes I've baked for my book group.

No matter which type of "dressy" this week's cake would end up being, I knew it would fit in fine with our group.


n.o.e.'s notes:

- Amy of Amy Ruth Bakes chose this cake for the TWD group to bake this week. You can find the recipe on her site.

- I was very indecisive about kind of cocoa powder (the recipe didn't specify) so I used part natural and part very dark alkalized

- Instead of the loaf pan that Dorie specified, I used my long slim loaf pan, which has equivalent volume but different dimensions. As it baked, the cake rose a lot and filled the pan.

- When assembling this cake I was beset with misgivings. I'm not a huge fan of sour cream flavor, but I like it in some things. I was cautiously optimistic about the frosting. That is until I tasted it, and didn't really care for the flavor, at which point I got a bit worried.

- The other area of uncertainty was the filling. The recipe specifies splitting the loaf lengthwise and spreading raspberry jam between the layers. Despite what feels like a neverending supply of jam jars in my cupboards and fridge, I was unable to unearth any raspberry. Instead I chose a mild berry jam: cloudberry preserves from IKEA.

the verdict:

This was definitely dressy for a loaf cake, with its split, filled layers, and robe of frosting coating the top and sides. In the universe of cakes, however, it was fairly average in dressiness. But this cake was far above average in taste. The first bite brushed aside any lingering doubts I had about the various elements. This close-crumbed, moist, dark, chocolate-y cake paired beautifully with the jam filling and the sour cream frosting.

The book group agreed that this was a fine cake indeed. Perfectly dressy for a Thursday evening in summer!

Although I loved the combination of cake, jam and sour cream frosting just as it was, the cake also would be a great base for a variety of frostings. I had a few scraps of leftover cake with some peanut butter frosting and it was delicious.

I know this post is a few days late; I have been traveling and planned to write the post on Tuesday from the airplane. Except the plane didn't offer an internet connection.