Lemon Tea Cake

If pressed to name my favorite baking book, I'd have to go with Lisa Yockelson's Baking by Flavor. My admiration for this book didn't happen immediately; instead, it developed over time. My previous inability to keep track of stuff I've baked -- especially from that book -- is one of the factors that led me to start this blog. I'd guess that I've made anywhere between one-third and one-half of the recipes in Baking by Flavor. Not all the recipes were successes, but certainly enough of them were to keep me going back and using the book again and again and again.

Because Baking by Flavor has a great lemon chapter, I turned to it for this Lemon Tea Cake recipe. The cake is lemony with zest in the cake itself. Then, when the cake is warm, it's brushed with a warm lemon-sugar syrup. This cake is supermoist and extremely good.

Lost Lunch Thursday Finale

We ended another season of Lost and another season of Thursday dissections and chats about this still-entertaining TV show. Maybe I'm a TV snob, but if I'm going to watch something on TV, it has to be compelling and demand my attention. Lost continues to do that. And for the past few years, it has given me a chance to make fun desserts to conclude our Lost chats at work.

For last year's finale, I made a toasted coconut-almond cake from Tish Boyle's Diner Desserts. This year, I wanted to do something similarly lush and extravagant, so I made Iced Coffee Chocolate Layer Cake from Lisa Yockelson's Baking by Flavor.

BBF might be near about my favorite baking cookbook. I love the structure of the book (chapters based on primary flavors rather than final product), I love the breadth of the recipes, I admire the specificity of the instructions. Of all the baking books I own, I think I've made more stuff from this book than any other (possibly upward of a third of the book). I can think of only two things that didn't turn out well (a lemon Bundt cake and some oatmeal cookies).

I'd made Iced Coffee Chocolate Layer Cake twice before, but never actually tasted it. Once was for Karen to bring in for a coworker's birthday, and once I brought it in for a work birthday during a pre-marathon taper period (so no sweets). I'd clearly missed out on something good. The cake is pretty straightforward chocolate, with cold brewed coffee as the liquid component. Between the layers, there's a filling of coffee pastry cream. The icing is a soft, chocolate frosting. All in all, this one is a keeper. The cake is lovely and moist; I wish I'd dropped the pans full of batter on the table to dislodge air bubbles before I baked them. Otherwise, no complaints.