Loaf Cakes

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This petite loaf is so packed with flavor that it will make lemon lovers weep and may convert champions of chocolate to the citrus camp. This is without a doubt the finest lemon cake I have ever tasted. Its flavor comes from zest, fresh juice and pure lemon extract, the combination of which made my socks go up and down. The recipe is the creation of Rita Wilson, who among other things is the wife of Tom Hanks, and it was featured in Family Circle…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This cake will go down in family annuls as one that nearly rent years of marital bliss. It is a brown butter pound cake that is made with a copious amount of bourbon. It was made for a derby day party that we, in the end, could not attend, but for which I had committed a dessert. I decided to make this cake because it was unusual, mercifully easy to make, and its use of bourbon would connect it to Derby Day and the state of Kentucky. Now, before I go…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...Gael Greene is a woman of great appetites, only one of which will be covered here today. I've left the more titillating aspects of her biography for others to tell and if you are interested, this is one of many articles that will bring you up to speed on facets of her life that are not included here. I knew very little about her until I began to gather information for this post. Not all the luminaries from the early days of the NYC food scene had…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...The Silver Fox and I spent Black Friday making fruitcake. Not just any fruitcake, mind you. These rum soaked gems were gleaned from memories of Christmas past and their making was a part of holiday ritual that dates back to when our hearts were young and gay, and we were newlyweds living in a basement flat on the south side of Chicago. Financial constraints determined that gifts that year would be token offerings, and rather than make cookies, we…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I wanted to share this unusual quick bread with you today. I found the recipe for it on Food52 and it received such generally good reviews, that I wanted to give it a try. I haven't made a lot of chocolate quick breads because I've found them to be too heavy for my taste. This one, made with cocoa, was offered as a breakfast bread and I thought that anything designed to be eaten so early in the day would be lighter and not too intensely chocolate for a…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I made a huge batch of applesauce this weekend. I processed most of it, but held back a few pints for fall baking. I used tart early apples for my sauce and made it a point to use little, if any, extra sweetener in its preparation. I mention that because I think this lovely, old-fashioned cake would be cloyingly sweet if it were made with a sweetened applesauce. The cake comes from the family of Gale Gand and it was featured by Gale on one of her early…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I know I'm pushing apples before the berry season has ended, but I so liked this cake that I carried it from one coast to another, so my family could sample and enjoy it. A single bite will help you understand why I'm so enthusiastic about this confection. It is the creation of Piper Davis and I found it in her book, The Grand Central Baking Book. Her bakery was named one of the 10 best in the country by Bon Appetit magazine, so her credentials are…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...The coronation of Willem-Alexander, started me thinking about Dutch food. Save for cheese, not much of it has made its way across the ocean, and many of the dishes that we attribute to the Dutch, are actually German and come from Pennsylvania Dutch country. I suspect its crackly sugar topping is what gave this delicious loaf its Dutch descriptor. It's jam packed with apples and walnuts, and that remarkable crackly topping gives it flavor that more than…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite..."Oh, what a tangled web we weave...." I had not intended to post an Ina Garten recipe today. Don't get me wrong. I love Ina and the only reason I don't feature more of her recipes is that we all have her books and actively cook from them. You don't need me to tell you how good she is. Chances are you have already made this lovely loaf cake and aren't interested in seeing yet another take on it. Mea culpa, but after a quick walk through my day you'll see…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...We are back and I have many a tale and recipe to share with you in a series that I'll begin tomorrow. I had planned to start those features today, but I had an outstanding obligation to the volunteers who have been working phones for Tuesday's election. I still haven't been to the grocery store, so I had to use what I had on hand to come up with the cakes I made for them today. This is a simple, quite basic recipe that produces a really lovely cake. On…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I must start by telling you that this cake is as delicious as it sounds, but then I quickly have to add that the devil is lurking in the details. I found the recipe in the December issue of Food and Wine magazine. It caught my eye, so I scanned the recipe, but as I read it I found a discrepancy in the amount of an ingredient that was to be used. I went to the online version of the recipe seeking clarification, but that just muddied the water. The…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I had planned to make strawberry shortcake this weekend, but the berries available in the markets were so sour that I had to quickly devise and execute an off-the-cuff "Plan B". That plan involved using this chocolate nut loaf as the base for a death by chocolate-type sundae that I knew everyone would enjoy. The recipe for the loaf cakes came from a dogeared copy of an old Farm Journal cookbook, so you'll find it is straight forward and should have no…

Highway 36 is an old artery that connects the Oregon coast to the fertile farm lands of the Willamette Valley. The winding two lane highway lies in a gorge that's cut through the Coast Mountain Range by the Siuslaw, a now gentle river that's been known to rage and flood on whim. The length of the highway is peppered with dying mill towns. The general stores and post offices in these communities are now boarded and the cottages of the remaining residents are gradually succumbing to neglect…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite... We had breakfast for dinner tonight. Chalk it up to a great day trip that probably should have been an overnighter. We had promised the boys a trip to Cape Foulweather, so named for its high winds and the ferocity of its storms, and the cape did not disappoint. We stayed longer than we should and a late and heavy lunch left no one with any real appetite for dinner. Once home, I pulled this cinnamon swirl from the freezer and Bob made pancakes and bacon…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...This is the other lemon cake I experimented with for the party this weekend. This cake, developed by Dorie Greenspan, is a kissin' cousin to the one that was introduced by Patricia Wells. The cakes use almost the same ingredients, but they produce very different results. The Wells' cake has an intense lemon flavor and a fine tight crumb. The Greenspan cake is more like a standard pound cake that has been enhanced with lemon zest. I've been asked to pick…

From the kitchen of One Perfect Bite...I've been baking today. Like many of you, the Silver Fox and I will be attending an Academy Award party on Sunday and I've been asked to bring an appetizer and dessert. For all the baking I do, I have never made the Lemon Loaf Cake that Patricia Wells featured in her book Bistro Cooking. I thought this would be a perfect cake to tote with us, but while I was at it, I decided to also make Dorie Greenspan's s version of a similar cake. I wanted to do a…