one of my favorite breakfasts is warm banana bread smothered in cream cheese. it's simple, but the flavors pair unbelievably well together. this dessert elevates that breakfast to a new level: it combines cream cheese, bananas, and spices into a rich filling that gets baked inside a buttery nilla wafer crust. the cheesecake is then topped with bananas foster — [...]
have you ever tried those jelly fruit slice candies? i only ever eat them at passover* — we stock up on them in lieu of [preferred] gluten-y desserts — but i suppose they're available year round. this cake is topped with the elevated, "from scratch" version of those candies in the form of candied clementines. after [...]
since i was born on the last day of january, i won't get to experience my golden birthday until i turn 31. that'll be in more than a decade! because i have to wait so long, i've been living vicariously through other people's golden birthdays for as long as i remember. people usually either forget [...]
the last time i made ice cream was in my seventh grade science class. we put milk and sugar in a ziploc bag, stuffed that bag into another bag filled with ice and salt, and shook it until our hands felt like they were gonna freeze off. the experiment illustrated how sodium chloride lowers water's freezing point, [...]
i wish we had tea in the u.s. i'm not talking about a cup of chamomile, i'm talking about afternoon tea. with crumpets and scones and cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. our fast-paced culture lends itself to an on-the-go espresso much better than it does to a sit-down afternoon meal, but i think it's something we should start doing. a [...]
i've talked about having trypophobia before (the fear of clusters of holes), so this cake was the ultimate test. it was totally worth the struggle, though — i love how it turned out. the cake layers are my (award winning!) honey spice cake. instead of using boring old costco honey, i used wedderspoon's amazing manuka [...]
i've had a taste aversion to cinnamon ever since i tried the cinnamon challenge at a middle school sleepover. would NOT recommend. i'm okay if there's a pinch of it in my coffee, but any more than that makes me want to gag. every single component of this cake has cinnamon, so i haven't tried it, [...]
i made this cake in honor of claude debussy! two days ago would've been his 154th birthday. debussy is amazing. his work is breathtakingly beautiful, and his nontraditional use of dissonances and intervals sculpted music's impressionist era and hugely popularized chromaticism. not only was debussy an incredible musician but he was also extremely eloquent. this is an excerpt [...]
a few years ago, everyone became obsessed with red velvet cake. ben & jerry's came out with a red velvet ice cream, oreos released red velvet cookies, and pop tarts invented a red velvet toaster pastry. in recent months, the red velvet craze has died down and been replaced by a new flavor: birthday cake. birthday [...]
i like some artificial fruit flavorings - banana laffy taffys, sour apple lollipops, and blue raspberry slushies are all delicious - but i have a strong aversion to anything made to taste like strawberry. that goes for strawberry milk, strawberry jelly beans, and store-bought strawberry ice cream. the quarts of neopolitan ice cream with chocolate, vanilla, [...]
LENA'S LUNCHBOX 