Tag Archives: easy cake recipe

It’s Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake Prime Time

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A super simple cake that bakes up souffle-like on top, and creamy pudding-like on the bottom.
A super simple cake that bakes up souffle-like on top, and creamy pudding-like on the bottom.

Jessica Merchant wasn’t kidding when she wrote that this “looks like nothing but tastes like everything.”

Her “Meyer Lemon Pudding Cake” might never win a beauty award, but this light-as-air creation will floor you with its fathomless wallop of zingy citrus taste.

This easy-as-can-be cake is from her newest cookbook, “Easy Everyday” (Rodale), of which I received a review copy.

The creator of the How Sweet Eats blog, Merchant offers up 100 effortless eats. This is a woman who believes dinner should never take more than 45 minutes to prepare, and breakfasts and lunches should be ready in a snap.

That’s evident in recipes such as “Whipped Cottage Cheese Protein Pancakes” (throw everything in a blender to make the batter in seconds), “Fire Roasted Lentil Lunch Soup” (saves time by using canned lentils), “Sticky BBQ Meatballs with Herbed Smashed Potatoes” (makes use of your favorite prepared barbecue sauce), and “No Bake S’Mores Pie” (the filling is made on the stovetop).

This pudding cake is one of those magical concoctions where the batter separates as it bakes so that the top turns fluffy like a souffle — without the anxiety of actually making one — and the bottom becomes creamy like a cross between pudding and curd.

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Plumb Good Plum Cake

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Summer was made for plum-filled cake.
Summer was made for plum-filled cake.

When Zoe Francois singles out a particular recipe as being her favorite in her new cookbook, you’d be a fool not to make that one first.

Her “Plum Cake” from “Zoe Bakes Cakes: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Favorite Layers, Bundts, Loaves, and More” (Ten Speed Press), of which I received a review copy, easily merits that adoration.

Francois, who studied at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, and worked as a pastry chef at several Minneapolis-St. Paul restaurants, is also the creator of the wildly popular web site, Zoe Bakes.

The cookbook is a must for anyone who loves baking cakes. Many of the recipes are unfussy enough for any home-cook to bake, such as “Lemon-Curd Pound Cake,” “Banana Cream Cake,” and “Olive-Oil Chiffon Cake.” For those who want to take things to the next level, Francois also includes detailed advice on working with fondant and piping bags, along with more ambitious recipes for “Blackberry Diva Cake” and a DIY “Wedding Cake.”

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Head Over Heels For Upside-Down Clementine Cake

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Sliced clementines decorate the top of this upside-down cake so very prettily.
Sliced clementines decorate the top of this upside-down cake so very prettily.

No matter if winter has brought torrential rain, hail, sleet or snow to your doorstep, this simple little golden cake is pure sunshine sure to brighten any day or mood.

“Upside-Down Clementine Cake” is the quintessential one-pan cake — with the bonus of cheery, bright slices of clementines dotting it.

The recipe is from “Petite Patisserie: 180 Easy Recipes for Elegant French Treats” (Rizzoli). Inspired by the treats at neighborhood patisseries, this sweetly designed book is by Christophe Felder, who for 15 years was the pastry chef at the Michelin-starred Hôtel de Crillon in Paris before opening his eponymous pastry school in Alsace; and Camille Lesecq, a former pastry chef of Le Meurice in Paris. Together, the two also operate the patisserie, Les Pâtissiers, in Mutzig, Alsace.

The book starts out with a series of foundational recipes that others build upon. The rest of the book is divided into chapters not by specific dessert categories, as you might imagine, but by the days of the week. Only in the world of Felder and Lesecq, the week has not seven days but eight, with the addition of “Funday” — a concept that I can completely get behind.

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Louisa’s Cake

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A sunny ricotta cake that is so moist, buttery, and rich.
A sunny ricotta cake that is so moist, buttery, and rich.

We all grew up seeing our parents and grand-parents, who lived through the Great Depression, wars, and/or famines, take care — to the extreme — to not let any drop of sauce from a can, any heel of bread or any minute shred of fish off the bone ever go to waste.

Not on their watch.

And now, not on ours, either.

With the pandemic creating food shortages — both real and exaggerated ones — we find ourselves looking at food much differently now, treating everything with the reverence it deserved all along.

The very bottom stems of parsley that I once tossed? No more. Now, they get finely diced and tossed into salads and soups. Those radish tops I once never looked twice at? Now, I savor them sauteed in an egg scramble.

The leftover ricotta I had from making lamb meatballs? Not that I would deign to ever throw something like that out, but these days, it takes on an outsize importance. Yes, that leftover ricotta that I once just nonchalantly enjoyed with berries for breakfast the next day, now seemed too good for that. Clearly, it should be destined for something far more special, I thought.

I found exactly that in “Louisa’s Cake.”

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The Comforting Taste of Mascarpone Gingerbread Bars

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Gingerbread in May? Yes, please!
Gingerbread in May? Yes, please!

There are some who think gingerbread’s season ends after the holidays.

But why should something so fragrantly intoxicating and so nostalgically soothing have a yearly expiration date?

It shouldn’t, especially when the warmth of its spices enfolds us like a big hug. And who couldn’t use the comfort of an embrace like that right about now?

That’s why “Mascarpone Gingerbread Bars” hit the spot now — and anytime.

This easy, square-pan snack cake is from “The Joys of Baking: Recipes and Stories for a Sweet Life” (Running Press, 2019), of which I received a review copy. It’s by food writer and food editor Samantha Seneviratne, who has worked in the test kitchens of Good Housekeeping, Fine Cooking, and Martha Stewart Everyday Food. She’s also the creator of the blog, Love,Cake.

Given its title, it’s not surprising that the book was inspired, of course, by the iconic “The Joys of Cooking” by Irma Rombauer. Seneviratne’s is destined to be a classic, too. She invites you into her life, bravely opening up with personal stories, inspirations, and insights, and even about her brother’s death and her divorce from her husband.

“Baking is a choice,” she writes. “Baking is never a necessity. No one needs a chocolate cake to survive. Except, sometimes, a chocolate cake is exactly what you need to survive. Sometimes, a chocolate cake is the only thing you need in this world. This is a book about and for those times.”

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