Cakes

Here she is, a fall treat about as basic as they come: pumpkin bread. I mean, it’s bread in the same way that banana bread is bread, which is to say that it’s pretty much cake that you can get away with eating for breakfast. There are about eleventy-billion versions of pumpkin bread out there. …

There’s a special place in my heart for loaf cakes. They’re unfussy and unassuming. They don’t demand layers and decoration and all of the foofaraw that can go along with a serious baking project. They don’t demand a special occasion. They’re suitable for dessert, portable for picnics, and a great excuse for sweet snacking. If …

There’s little I like more than discovering a new dish that folds seamlessly into my life, like it’s always been there. That’s how I feel about this sweet corn and blueberry spoon cake. It’s the sort of dish that my grandmother would have made, except as far as I know she didn’t. But lots of …

This strawberry rhubarb buckle is just the thing to bake right now. “Now” meaning, whenever you’re reading this and happen to be in the possession of some rhubarb and strawberries. Buckles are part of the family of unfussy fruit desserts that includes things like crisps and crumbles and cobblers (and if you want a rhubarb …

Carrot cake has a tendency to veer into maximalist territory. If you let it, it can become a multi-layer affair with not just shredded carrots, but pineapple and raisins and even shredded coconut. But this simple carrot loaf cake is not like that. It is carrot cake stripped down to its essentials. This minimalist carrot …

This chocolate orange olive oil cake is a winner. It’s a spin on a cake that appeared in chocolate-guru Alice Medrich’s book Bittersweet (still totally worthwhile for anyone serious about baking with chocolate). That version, which she called her tiger cake, was a marbled olive oil cake with chocolate and white pepper. And I made …