Coffee chocolate layer cake

Three layers of cake with mocha mascarpone frosting and white and dark chocolate curls.

Mini pies and cookies

Mini pecan pie, mini apple pie, and three almond butter cookies.  To accompany an osso bucco dinner.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

One for me, and one for everyone else.

Monopoly Die

Three layers of white cake, separated by raspberry sauce and lemon curd, and finished with buttercream frosting.  Dots are Oreo cookie halves.  The custom Monopoly board was also made for the three gamenight friends (Ed, Gus, and Martin) who all had birthdays this week.

Pancakes and Ping Pong

Saturday morning bliss. No, I didn't eat all of those. Yet.

Strawberry tart

A sea of strawberries on a bed of mascarpone cream in a citrusy tart shell. Finished off with a drizzle of port wine sauce.

Carrot cake

Carrot cake with cream cheese frosting, made for dinner with coworkers (Amanda, Steve, et al). This cake was one of the better recipes I've used-- crushed pineapple and sweetened coconut flakes in the batter, but no nuts.

Devil's Food Cake

Made for my brother's 32nd birthday, this cake is two layers of devil's food cake, each topped with dark chocolate ganache and white chocolate cream frosting. Finished off with some dark chocolate curls.

Pizzelles

Pizzelle cookies in a box designed especially for them, for a Christmas party at my friend Blade's.

Many Macarons

Not to be confused with macaroons, these French sandwich cookies were made to be a bite-sized snack on the table where I sold cards, calendars, and books at MIT's Artists Beyond the Desk semi-annual craft fair.

Thanksgiving Pi

Pumpkin pi, with label as requested by my nephew Jason.

Gingergread cake

Individual 'hot and sassy' gingerbread cake, courtesy of Todd English's fantastic recipe.

For art class

I took a graphic design class at MassArt, and in the middle of the semester we had a potluck party. As we had been working with Sylvia Plath's poem 'Mushrooms', I decided to make a cake with that theme. Happily, I had just received the perfect cake pan from my friend Rachel, originally designed to make a cake in the shape of a giant cupcake. Turns out cupcakes and mushrooms look quite a bit alike.

Berry Pavlova

This 'cake' is composed of 3 layers of sweet meringue disks sandwiching and topped with a mixture of whipped and sour cream and fresh berries.

Red Velvet Cake

Assembling berries on the frosting between layers.
Completed cake, frosted with cream cheese icing and topped with a pile of fresh berries.
Inside the cake, in all its red velvet glory. This cake was colored with food coloring-- it's pretty much just a vanilla flavored cake that's tinted red-- but in the early days of this cake's making, it was a small amount of cocoa powder (which was processed differently then) that gave the cake a red velvet appearance. This may also be the reason for the title "Devil's Food Cake" given to other chocolate cakes.

Easter 2009

Easter dinner at my apartment in Boston included whole stuffed artichokes, green beans, honey glazed ham, prosciutto with melon, deviled eggs with capers and tarragon, and potato, leek, gruyere, and mushroom gratin.

Lemon meringue pie with toasted coconut for dessert.

St. Patty's Day Cake

I was asked to bring a green cake to a green potluck party that was being held in the MIT Provost's staff office on St. Patrick's Day. This is just a simple white cake with a whole lotta green food coloring, frosted with a white chocolate cream cheese icing, and pressed with coconut on the sides.

Raspberry Chocolate Cake

This four layer chocolate cake with chocolate raspberry frosting and cookie crumb coating was prepared for my wonderful boss Amanda's birthday.

Note: The bag of alphabet tile chocolate cookies only had 2 A's, so I had to substitute an upside down V for the middle one. :)

So Many Cupcakes

Rachel and I made these cupcakes for a dinner party with coworkers. On top are chocolate almond cupcakes with fluffy coconut frosting, and below are lemon raspberry cupcakes (with raspberry jam hidden in the middle!) They are sitting pretty on the fabulous cupcake rack that Rachel bought me for Christmas last year (along with the wrappers and silicone bears which don't happen to appear in this picture). Next order of business: full on cupcake party with at least twice as many kinds of cupcakes!

Waffles

This is a simple waffle recipe that involves separating the eggs and beating the whites and folding them in last, so the waffles come out really soft and fluffy. Here, they are topped with whipped cream and fresh blueberries. And then maple syrup, of course!

Vanilla Creme Brulee and Ice Cream

Real vanilla beans are what really do the trick when making creme brulee and ice cream. The flavor is so much deeper and it's great to be able to see those little black seeds in each spoonful.

Because I also cook sometimes...

Here's my prep work for a chicken soup I made one Sunday night not too long ago. This recipe included all KINDS of vegetables. From left to right, there's brussels sprouts, pearl onions, mushrooms, carrots, celery, and cauliflower. Also some sage and butter for some additional flavor, and flour and milk to make it creamy. SO good!

Here is an asparagus mushroom risotto that I am particularly proud of because I merged two separate recipes together to make this from ingredients I had around my kitchen.

Pecan Pie

This is one of my least favorite kinds of pie (I'm more of a fruit pie fan), but it's what my Dad requested for his birthday dessert. So, voila!

Christmas Pizzelles

This year, I made vanilla and almond flavored pizzelles. Usually I flavor half with anise and half with chocolate, and make a batch with a little of both. This time I accidentally threw in almond extract, thinking I had reached for the anise (those little bottles look the same! of course, I realized the swap as soon as I poured the extract in and smelled the almond) Luckily, these little cookies taste great with any kind of flavoring. Maybe next year I'll do orange and lemon, to mix it up a bit!

Cookies and Cream Cake

I was hired to make this cake by the daughter of one of the women who works at MIT's CopyTech (Bug). It's an Oreo cookies and cream cake. Two layers of chocolate cake with fluffy white frosting and cookie crumbs between the layers and pressed around the bottom.

Pumpkin Spice Layer Cake

Two layers of pumpkin cake, flavored with the best of the season's spices, draped with a caramel cream cheese frosting and hugged by a coat of chopped walnuts.

Cranberry Walnut Cinnamon Buns

Breads are so much fun to make. The way the dough doubles in volume as it sits, the softness and elasticity of it as it is kneeded, and of course, the final product. These were made for the October MITEI staff meeting. (I made scones for the September meeting.) It's so nice to have regular monthly events to bake for again. And an opportunity to work on breakfast instead of dessert for a change!

Rum Cake

Rum cake prepared for a pirate party, complete with a bounty of gold in the middle.

4th of July Cupcakes

Chocolate and vanilla cupcakes with buttercream frosting and festive sprinkles, made at Kristen's for the 4th of July party we're going to in Westchester today!

Coconut Cream Pie

A graham cracker crust baked with shredded coconut mixed in, filled with coconut flavored custard (flavored with coconut milk and more shredded coconut, and if I had coconut extract, that would have been in there, too), and topped with lightly sweetened whipped cream and (even more!) toasted shredded coconut. Oh so tasty. We didn't let this chill for long enough before eating it (couldn't wait a whole night to pass!), so we more or less had coconut cream soup, but eating it with a spoon didn't make it any less delicious.

Blueberry Pie

Made from blueberries picked from my parents' garden last fall, frozen and then thawed, this pie was a terrific balance of tart and sweet. Glad they put up a new trellis around the blueberry trees this year so they'll have an even bigger yield in the fall!

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

I made this strawberry rhubarb pie for no apparent reason on a Sunday afternoon in early May, to start what became a month of many pies. Making the lattice crust is one of my favorite parts, though I didn't seem to have done a very good job weaving this one...

Easter Pound Cake

Sweet, sweet pound cake, not quite done in the center (oops!), with a strawberry compote. Made to share with family on Easter.

Banana Lime Cake

This was a fairly dry cake-- perfect for the brunch party I brought it to. The icing and dried banana chips on top added the right amount of sweetness, and the lime flavor added a nice tart zing.

Mini Carrot Cupcakes

I am on a cupcake tirade this year!! These mini cupcakes were prepared for a St. Patty's day party. I later topped some of them with green tinted cream cheese frosting, which was flavored with a little bit of melted white chocolate and lemon zest. Zing!

Molasses Crinkle Cookies

Here's a little stack of molasses cookies that were pressed into big fat crystals of raw sugar before they were baked. They turned out perfectly chewy on the inside and just enough crisp on the outside, with pretty little lines (crinkles) running across their length.

Southern cookin'

To accompany a big southern dinner, I made red velvet cupcakes (which were frosted with cream cheese frosting), sugared peanuts, and cheesy corn bread. All thanks to recipes from Paula Dean.

Superbowl cupcakes

White cupcakes with chocolate frosting. Who knew that cupcakes could be an appropriate superbowl food?

Dad's Birthday Lemon Chiffon Cake

Dad is getting a little pickier about flavors as he gets older... Lemon Chiffon seemed safe enough. This is a two layer cake with a meringue frosting. We brought it to Mediteraneo to have after dinner, which was in retrospect a silly thing to do, as they charged $8 per slice as a 'cutting fee'!!

Christmas Cheesecake Squares

These squares start with a graham cracker crust, followed by a thick cheesecake layer, and then a simple layer of chocolate ganache on top. As this treat has only a few ingredients, the quality of each is key. No slacking off and getting store brand graham crackers, eggs from caged chickens, or Hershey's chocolate.

Pumpkin and Spice Layer Cake

My highschool friend Rachel and I made this cake for her boyfriend's surprise 30th birthday party. One layer is flavored with fresh pumpkin, the other is a spice cake. Frosted with a molasses butter cream and garnished with toasted walnuts.

Apple Pie

One of the best things about fall. Apple pie made from freshly picked apples: Cortland, Granny Smith, and... a third apple that I can't remember (maybe Empire).
Piece o' pie.

Almond butter cookies

S-shaped almond butter cookies, studded with almond slivers, in a glass cookie jar. Brought these with me when I went to visit my great Aunt Lee and Uncle Mike in Providence.

Cherry Pie

Nothing like a pie made from real cherries with a lattice crust to jazz up a party (note confetti in the background, which went into the pinata...)