Month: March 2017

Week 13: My Recipe for Coconut-Banana Cake

~ Sweet Sweet Love ~ 1 Comment

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Anyone who’s anyone that shops at Trader Joe’s knows their bananas are the best deal in town. At 19 cents a pop they’re hard to beat. Throw them in you smoothies, pack them as a mid-afternoon snack, sprinkle them over a little peanut butter toast–you can’t go wrong. However, you can go wrong when you leave them on your counter uneaten all week. And since you’re anyone who’s anyone, you know that Trader Joe’s produce isn’t one to wait around for you to eat it. Don’t even get me started on how fast their conventional sweet potatoes last!

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Week 12: Vegan Chocolate Cake

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I double checked the astrology charts to make sure mercury wasn’t in retrograde. Maybe it has to do with the change of the seasons, but I suddenly and unexpectedly found myself craving chocolate cake. While I usually go for light fruitier flavors with a nut flour based recipe, I could not get the thought of biting into a luscious slice of chocolate cake out of my head.

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But why vegan?

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Week 11: Almond Ricotta Cake with Blood Oranges

~ Sweet Sweet Love ~ 1 Comment

Of all the ingredients to have on hand, blood oranges might have been the most fortuitous. Rooting around my refrigerator, the royal purple-red color caught my eye, begging to be more than a brown paper bag after thought, the blushing porous skin becoming a seductive canvas for this week’s cake.

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Before I even started week 1, I had this recipe tucked away on my book shelf. The inspiration for this cake comes from issue No. 7 of my favorite indie magazine, Cherry Bombe. For those of you who know me, you’ve probably heard me talk about the magazine, and for those of you who read it, it’s from the issue with Chrissy Teigen on the cover. The recipe accompanied the article, From Scratch, highlighting the matriarch behind San Francisco’s acclaimed bread bakery, Tartine. You can find the recipe on, Tartine Matriarch, Liz Prueitt’s Instagram as well as in the magazine; however, I recommend picking up a copy of the magazine, it’s really something special.

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Week 10: Pistachio Cake with Honey Apples

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I’ve had boxed cake in the back of my mind for a while now. Before you start to question my cake-baking scruples, I want to point out that nowhere in the Sweet Sweet Love parameters does it state that I cannot phone a friend, aka dial up my girl Betty Crocker.

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If there was ever a week to make a box cake, this would have been it. I traveled to Michigan over the weekend and was welcomed back to Chicago with back to back booked weeknights. Not ideal for baking a cake, letting it cool and eagerly waiting for the perfect Saturday morning light to snap a few pictures. however, I didn’t want to give into cake mix just yet!

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Week 9: Tahini-Date Cake

~ Sweet Sweet Love ~ 2 Comments

Sometimes we crave things that comfort us. Whether it’s places, food, activities or people, there are certain rituals we lean on to guide our feet back to earth when deep breaths aren’t enough.

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After watching the Oscar nominated documentary shorts, i.e. an emotionally draining evening, and allowing other anxiety inducing thoughts to enter my mind, I found myself scrambling for the rituals that balance me and put my mind at ease. It’s no surprise that baking cake is on the top of that list.

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