Cakes

Thumbnail image for gluten-free chocolate bundt cake

gluten-free chocolate bundt cake

How can you not love someone whose name is Joy the Baker? That’s what she is — Joy. Yes, her name is Joy, but I mean more than that. Joy Wilson is sunlight and goofiness, connected conversations, generosity and cookies, and a good amount of butter and sugar. I’ve been relishing her website for years. [...]

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gluten-free glazed yeast doughnuts

These are doughnuts. Yeasted doughnuts with a honey glaze, to be exact. They are light with a little heft, sweet but not too sweet, and have the feel and smell and taste of doughnuts. That’s because they are doughnuts. The fact that they are gluten-free doughnuts doesn’t matter one bit. You don’t need gluten to [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free blueberry clafoutis

gluten-free blueberry clafoutis

Words rattle around in my head all the time. Sometimes my brain repeats words that sound good: prestidigitation, mellifluous, voluminous. Other times, my mind worries over names that snake in there: Christianne Amanpour, Shmuley Boteach, Prunella Scales. Once in awhile, when I’m stressed, I catch my brain repeating b i c y c l e [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free Mexican hot chocolate cakes for Valentine’s Day

gluten-free Mexican hot chocolate cakes for Valentine’s Day

You all blow me away. This past week has been extraordinary, for a number of small reasons. However, mostly it’s because my life has been imbued with your love stories. Every day, I have been coming here to publish comments and ended up in tears. Happy tears, mind you. Your vulnerability, generosity, and humor has [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free cake pops

gluten-free cake pops

This is a cake pop. It’s a cake pop made by my wonderfully talented and lovely friends Jessie (also known as Cakespy) and Megan (also known as Not Martha).If you are lucky enough to know people who want to spend the afternoon with you crumbling up cake with their hands, manipulating marzipan, and making zombie [...]

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Thumbnail image for baking a chocolate cake, in real time.

baking a chocolate cake, in real time.

We are just starting to bake a cake. To be specific, we’re baking Dorie Greenspan‘s devil’s food white-out cake, gluten-free. And our little friend H, who lives in San Diego, is making the cake too. It’s her first baking project. We’re doing it together. Want to join us? We’ll be updating this post as we [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free nectarine-blueberry buckle

gluten-free nectarine-blueberry buckle

I look forward to that first perfect peach every summer. You know the one I mean, right? That firm-fleshed peach that yields to the teeth, the one that is not entirely soft but not as hard as a toddler’s head either. The peach that is so bursting with juice that you have to stand over [...]

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two

She has started to jump, after weeks of frustration of her feet not leaving the floor. She holds onto my hands after I lift her onto the bed and she bounces, giggling, head thrown back, alive. She never stops moving, this one. After a couple of toddling months of walking, she began running, at full [...]

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Thumbnail image for The Pioneer Woman Cooks

The Pioneer Woman Cooks

Can you guess whose cookbook we cooked out of this week? You can’t? What, have you been hiding under a big old rock the past couple of months? That’s Ree Drummon, the Pioneer Woman herself, force of nature, damned good writer, authentic being, hilarious hoot, and amazing woman. Her cookbook has been on the New [...]

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Thumbnail image for gluten-free gingerbread

gluten-free gingerbread

(We’re thrilled that this recipe is being featured at Oprah.com’s roundup of holiday recipes for 2009. For more of our featured posts, visit Oprah.com today.)Gluten-Free Gingerbread, adapted from November 2009 issue of Gourmet Rain is hitting the windows on the door behind me so hard it sounds like little pellet guns full of pebbles are [...]

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Thumbnail image for feeding each other gluten-free birthday cake

feeding each other gluten-free birthday cake

I kind of wanted to punch someone last night. But he was on tv and punching the screen would have hurt. Let me explain. First of all, I’m exhausted. Have you ever traveled with a one-year-old? Every single movement has to be planned in advance, with contingencies in case of anything unexpected. And everything is [...]

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Thumbnail image for the taste of the familiar in ginger-molasses cupcakes

the taste of the familiar in ginger-molasses cupcakes

Every Christmas season, my mother made ginger-molasses cookies. Every year, she pulled out the recipe, written in blue ink, slightly smeared from butter stains and time. My grandmother’s spidery handwriting crawled across the index card. I don’t remember my mother’s mother ever baking, but I’m told she did, once. This recipe probably came from her [...]

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Thumbnail image for is this your first gluten-free Thanksgiving?

is this your first gluten-free Thanksgiving?

The other day, the Chef and I were standing in the baking section of the PCC in Issaquah. I was about to teach a holiday baking class, and I needed lots of little bags of gluten-free flours. The Chef held Little Bean — the two of them had tagged along for the afternoon. As we [...]

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Thumbnail image for celebrating with lemon-poppyseed cake

celebrating with lemon-poppyseed cake

There have been plenty of reasons to celebrate around here. It’s the first of May, and the world seems to have awoken. This afternoon, pulling into our driveway, I saw a few purple buds of wisteria draped over the patio trellis. Right now, a single bird is chirping out its rhythmic call, a little warble [...]

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being part of a team

Today is the first day of the new menu at the restaurant. Normally, we call this the Chef’s time of the month. Normally calm and cuddly, he grows a little twitchy, a little restless in the mornings, these few days before the new menu makes it onto people’s plates. All I have to do is [...]

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testing recipes

I have been spending a lot of time in kitchens, lately. Of course, I generally spend time in kitchens. There’s something deeply comforting about that space. The warmth of the oven wafting through the room, the windows bright with light, the assorted smells and visual presents — everything lends itself to welcoming. When we are [...]

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Thumbnail image for love in the form of flourless chocolate torte

love in the form of flourless chocolate torte

flourless chocolate torte I, originally uploaded by shaunaforce. At the end of the day, after long hours of work, I just can’t wait to race home. Not to lie down on the couch and flounder for awhile, like I did this time last year. Lousy time last year — when I was enervated from celiac [...]

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Thumbnail image for plummy red wine and a flourless chocolate torte

plummy red wine and a flourless chocolate torte

wine with chocolate, originally uploaded by shaunaforce. Flourless chocolate torte. Just the sound of it struck fear into my heart. How could I ever make something so daunting, so mythical in my mind, so…sophisticated? After all, I’m a girl who started off her baking career by ripping open the inside lining of a Duncan Hines [...]

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