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 …

Sometimes you want a special breakfast. Something that feels like it came from a bakery. But you don’t want to put your shoes on and you want to be able to eat it before your mind wanders to lunch. That’s where these orange ginger scones come in. They’re dead simple to make. The dough comes …

I’ve been slow to get into the holiday spirit this winter. I’ve tried. I watched the charming A Very Murray Christmas on Netflix. I’ve listened to some of my favorite holiday music—Vince Guaraldi, Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, The Pogues’ “Fairytale of New York,” The Pretenders’ “2000 Miles,” Joni Mitchell’s “River”—and none of it has quite …

I was hoping to bake these orange cardamom snowflake cookies last week, because they are seriously some of my favorite cookies of all time and I wanted to share them with you in time to add them to your holiday baking list. But I couldn’t. My refrigerator was out of commision for 5 long days …

A few years ago, bartenders went crazy for barrel-aging cocktails. The idea is simple: make a large batch of a cocktail, put it in a barrel (preferably one that’s been used for aging bourbon or wine) and let the cocktail age, mellow, oxidize a bit, and take on the flavor of the wood. It’s basically …

I love elderflowers. When I saw that Seedling Farm was selling them at the Green City Market last week, I immediately bought a flat of them. They are delicate tiny flowers that have a brief season and a big heady fragrance. They are mildly floral, slightly anise-y, and they pair beautifully with citrus flavors. They’re …