Almond cake

Almond cake (served here with a little rhubarb compote)

I love almond flavored desserts and baked goods - a good almond croissant is a really fantastic thing. This is a simple, not too sweet cake flavored with a little almond extract and topped with some sliced almonds for a little crunch. There's also a hint of lemon zest, which is really nice. This is also a very easy to make cake, and uses just one bowl, which I love, and doesn't require a mixer.

This cake is based on Dorie Greenspan's Swedish Visiting Cake from her book, Baking: From My Home to Yours. I increased the almond extract and decreased the sugar a bit, and omitted the sugar on top. Feel free to sprinkle a little sugar on top before baking if you like. Serve as is, or you can serve it with a little rhubarb compote during rhubarb season!

Almond cake

• 3/4 cup sugar or increase to 1 cup if you like
• Zest of one lemon
• 2 large eggs
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• 1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
• 3/4 tsp. almond extract
• 1 cup a.p. flour
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 1/4 cup or more sliced almonds

Heat your oven to 350 degrees F. Butter a 9" cake pan, pie pan or heavy ovenproof skillet, like a cast-iron skillet. I baked it in my Emile Henry glazed ceramic pie dish.

Mix the sugar and lemon zest together by rubbing it together with your fingers until you can really smell the lemon. One at a time, whisk in the eggs, then the salt and vanilla and almond extracts. Stir in the flour, and then gently mix in the melted butter. The batter will be fairly liquid-y and shiny.

Pour the batter into your cake/pie pan or skillet and smooth out the top. Sprinkle the sliced almonds on top and then bake in the center of the oven. If you're using a cake or pie pan, bake on top of a baking sheet or two to help keep the bottom from over browning.

Bake the cake from 25 to 30 minutes until it's golden brown and the almonds have browned a little bit. I went a little heavier on the almonds to cover the cake more with them, but you can use a little less if you prefer. Let it cool before serving.

Serve as is, with a little powdered sugar sprinkled on top, or with a little rhubarb compote if you like. I made one here flavored with a little bit of cardamom.

Tuna rillettes

Tuna rillettes

I had been in a bit of a no-cooking rut, and it's amazing what inspiration you can feel after taking a little time to flip through cookbooks. Lately, I've been spending some time with Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours.

This smooth, light puree of canned tuna, shallot, and a touch of cream or creme fraiche is delicious on toast, baguette or good crusty bread. It will remind you of tuna salad, in a good way. Dorie adds a bit of curry powder, which is really nice. If you're not crazy for curry flavors, use just a touch to add a little something to the flavor.

Tuna rillettes
Adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours

• 2 x 5 - 6 oz. cans of chunk light tuna packed in oil, drained (Dorie cautions to not use albacore, which is too firm and dry for this)
• 1 shallot, roughly chopped
• from 1/2 to 1 tsp. curry pouder
• 1/8 tsp. allspice or quatre epices
• 1/4 cup (4 Tbsp.) of heavy cream, or a little less creme fraiche
• 1/4 tsp. salt, more to taste
• 1/4 tsp. ground white pepper, or black pepper is fine
• 1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice, more to taste

In a mini-prep or food processor, finely chop the shallot. Add the drained tuna, spices, salt and lemon juice, and puree until smooth. It should be smooth and creamy with a light texture. Taste and adjust seasoning as you like. 

Transfer the rilletes into a bowl or container, cover and let it chill for at least an hour before serving.

Rosemary and pink peppercorn cornmeal cookies

Rosemary and pink peppercorn cornmeal cookies

These cookies were inspired by Tamar Adler's book, An Everlasting Meal: Cooking with Economy and Grace. In the final chapter of the book, titled "How to End," she writes, "If a meal cannot go on forever I ask only that its passage be not too jarring. I ask dessert to leave room for the flavors and smells before it, to let them linger faint, and not erased, in its margins." I love that!

One of the recipes she has put in the book is for a rosemary olive oil cake, which sounds lovely - not too sweet, a hint of herbaceousness. Rather than a whole cake, I wanted to make a cookie, maybe something like a shortbread, with rosemary. So after looking online a bit, I found a recipe on the Madison Herb Society's website for a cornmeal rosemary cookie. The addition of cornmeal gives the cookies a nice crunch, and I had been curious about trying a cornmeal cookie after reading about one in Dorie Greenspan's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, in which she talks about letting the cookies bake a little longer to make them even crunchier. If you go a little browner, they'll be crispier. If you go paler, they are a little more like sugar cookie, not quite crunchy crisp, with a little give to them.

I cut back the sugar a bit, increased the rosemary, and thought a pinch of pepper might be nice too. I had recently purchased some pink peppercorns so decided to use those to add a fun bit of pink to the tops of the cookies that was really lovely. Their recipe also called for dried cranberries, which I have omitted.

I made them both by dropping rounded tablespoons of dough on the cookie sheet, which yielded a thicker cookie that browned a bit more, and then flattening them a bit before baking and baking them a little less, making a blonder cookie more like a sugar cookie. They are both good - just a little different in appearance and texture. They both do spread a little bit from their original formation, though the ones where I just dropped the dough and did not flatten them out did not spread that much.