Baked Goods

I love making celebratory cakes for my friends and family!
I also really like using whole ingredients and try to avoid the excessively sweet. I definitely sometimes fail at that part, but often I do find that less-sweet treats are the best at showcasing unique and pleasant flavors, like in these poppy seed sweater cookies.

Cornelius Maraschino Cherry and

Lemon Cake

Outside of where I work, there is a Cornelius Cherry tree, the fruits are more oval and much more sour than regular cherries. I picked and pitted them, then turned them into tart maraschino cherries via sugar syrup and almond extract. This lemon cake celebrates these tart late summer cherries. My cousin is a talented baker and had some leftover Swiss meringue buttercream that she gave me and which worked wonders here.

Glowing Garden

Green Birthday Cake

Almond pistachio cake with pistachio pieces. Cardamom custard in the middle layer poses structural threats but it worked out alright. Matcha and almond naturally flavored and colored Swiss meringue buttercream frosting, with marzipan and white chocolate accessories.

CHOCOLATE BABKA

Need I say more? I'll add, the second I finished taking these pictures my family (ok, ok, and myself too) devoured this loaf like a swarm of locusts, so I missed a picture of the inside.

Mosaic Table / Cake

2 for 1! My Labmate and I worked together to make this new table-top (left!) using up-cycled dinnerware and old project leftovers. It is a permanent fixture in the common space on our department's balcony now, and to commemorate it's completion we enjoyed a departmental coffee hour out there coffee and snacks-- including this little candy and cake replica (right! (I know it would be impossible to tell them apart otherwise!))

Boat Cake

Speaking of stunning replicas, (see Table Cake above) I made this cake with a miniature version of S.S. Scout, a Dyer 29 who's Captain has taken us on many lovely day trip's around the CT coastline. The frosting is made with red cabbage for color, and adjusted with pH.

Garden Cup-Cakes

Matcha Cream Frosting, and Trader Joes Gourmet Jelly Beans might make this the fanciest dish on this page yet!

Farewell Cake

Chocolate cake and citrus-y Swiss meringue buttercream and candied oranges

Classic Carrot Cake

Carrot cake with walnuts and run raisins, cream cheese frosting.

Natural food colors in the icing and an unnatural cake stand.

Poppy Seed Squares

Rum raisins, ground poppy seeds, and farina wheats make a soft and rich filling sandwiched by a butter crumb. One of my favorite desserts.

Sophisticated Berry Cake

Thin layers of chocolate, vanilla, and blackberry cake holding a rich sour cream frosting filling. The outer frosting is a white chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream, with white chocolate dipped blackberry garnish and coconut flakes.

Christmas Spread

The holidays are a great time for some classic Hungarian treats. Top left cookies are 'mézeskalács,' which I like to describe as "honeybread" as opposed to "gingerbread." It is common to paint it with a red glaze, and to make incredibly intricate little boxes out of the dough kind of like you might construct a gingerbread house (see bottom right for a highly simplified version). Top right are some gorgeous 'beigli,' which are walnut and poppy seed sweet bread rolls with a crackled yolk pattern on the skin. And then bottom middle are some more American style peanut butter puffed rice squares with a chocolate coat.

Three-Tier Birthday Cake

Dark chocolate cake with a really light and fluffy peanut butter cream cheese frosting. Frosted and decorated with whipped and regular chocolate ganache. Three tiers to feed a family birthday party of over 40 people-- Happy 86th, Dad!

Sourdough Bread

Been making these loaves a few times a month since 2023, soon had to start buying flour by the 50 lb bag!

Nutty Birthday Cake

Moist nutmeg cake with walnut pieces and decoration. Unfortunately no pictures, but the middle layer was a gooey sliced apple and cinnamon filling, I promise! Almond flavored Swiss meringue buttercream frosting, and nutmeg and chocolate dusting on top, using a removable stencil to leave a behind a birthday sentiment via the missing powder. fun!

Cation-Pi(e) Interaction

The "cation-pi" interaction is is a non-covalent electrostatic interaction relevant to some research we do in the lab, made for a lab-mate's Birthday-- as a cation pie, of course. Peach-filled :-)

Cat Pie

Entirely unrelated but similar enough. A poppyseed marzipan filling-- pairs well with hair balls.
P.S. the Cat who inspired this cake was very Round.