Cake Not Cake

My daughter is stronger than I–she can live without refined sugar. So for her birthday party last night I was wracking my brain as to what sort of “cake” I could make for her and her friends, that didn’t have sugar. I stumbled upon a “cake” made of watermelon slices on pinterest (my guilty internet pleasure). It looks like the original idea came from here, though I can’t say for certain.

Isabelle's watermelon cake

Given that I was making this cake in the middle of January there weren’t lots of choices for watermelons. I made this out of four personal size watermelons. I think it would be better if you could make it out of a really long summer watermelon, that way the slices would fit together better. Even though my slices were a little uneven it all got gobbled up.

The Best Chocolate Cake Ever

After graduating from college one of my first  jobs was as the baker at Leaf n’ Bean Cafe in Brooklyn Heights. I brought with me a rather slim batch of recipes. Prior cooking jobs had always handed me house recipes to use. No muss, no fuss just bake and serve. This was the first time I had been asked to supply my own recipes. The cafe was open for breakfast and lunch plus weekend brunches so the baked goods were pretty straight forward–muffins, cakes, pies, the occasional mousse, and bar cookies fit the bill. The glitch came around chocolate. The owners John and Allan wanted something chocolate on the menu every day, which makes sense since chocolate sells. The problem was that while I ate a lot of chocolate I didn’t have many chocolate recipes in my repertoire back then (my, how things have changed). My rescue came in the form of