a slightly different method to make blueberry curd (don’t worry I kept whole eggs), plus a very cool purposely sunken, dense cake that’s packed with summer flavor.
this week I am, as the techy folks call it, beta testing a few different sections in our newsletter. You’ll still see bakers’ review but it’ll have more than one comment or review for that recipe (I guess I’m shamelessly emphasizing how much the recipe is loved in order to get you to try it ;-). There’s a new section that takes a comment left on the blog and uses it as a learning opportunity, and the reads section is cutting back on the longer blurbs per piece, though it’ll have more links to relevant videos, social posts, etc.
new on bbs
Blueberry Curd Cake
Moist lemon butter cake with a thick swirl of homemade blueberry curd baked in. Easy to make and blends lemon and blueberry flavors in every bite. (p.s. this one sinks because of the heavy liquid curd!)
also new on bbs
Blueberry Curd (without lemon)
I’ve had a blueberry curd recipe on the blog for several years now but occasionally someone will comment that they’d like to make it without any lemon, just a pure berry flavor. I’d dabbled with it over the years and now can finally give you a lemon-free recipe that’s all about the berry.
berry good stuff
Raspberry Cheesecake
Creamy tart raspberry cheesecake made with reduced raspberries for an intense berry flavor. Housed in a graham cracker crust and topped with fresh raspberries.
&
Blackberry Cake
Two layers of plush lemon cake studded with fresh blackberries and sandwiched between two layers of an italian meringue buttercream made with fresh blackberry puree.
From the August Archives
2025: Pistachio Cake (this was last august’s special bake)
2024: Homemade Marshmallows (basic, classic)
2023: Brown Butter Cake (ebc’s bb sister)
2022: S’mores Ice Cream Pie & Black Cocoa Ice Cream
2021: Black Cocoa Cake (the blackest cake & so moist)
2020: Midnight Chocolate Ice Cream (funny story: I almost named this one black cocoa ice cream but it was developed for a brand and they vetoed the name. all is well though because two years later I created an even blacker black cocoa ice cream which I know think of as the only ice cream that deserves that title ;)
2019: Sour Cream Donut Cake (this one had sprinkle covered donuts on top, it was the era. I still love that sour cream donut flavor in the cake)
tap in
Why Are Berries Everywhere, in Every Season? Driscoll’s. NY Times.
Fruit is Too Sweet, it’s like candy now for better or worse, The Atlantic.
on the above topic, here’s a video from figcookingschool. As someone who loooves acidity I am both annoyed this is the case but also relieved to know it wasn’t just me that felt that most grocery store fruit has been missing something recently.
Nancy Silverston on the difference between ice cream and gelato, via chefstableofficial. I used to make gelato and this is exactly how my italian bosses taught me to explain the difference to customers.
the folks at wirecutter are asking what happened to Talenti. It seems this is the classic case of big company (Unilever in this case) buying a small promising brand and slowly ruining it over the years by cutting costs and quality. In the video they call Talenti’s vanilla ice cream “foamy” and funnily enough…
Ben Cohen describes Ben & Jerry’s chocolate-covered ice-cream bar as, “kinda fluffy” - an insult in the ice-cream world that suggests extra air was added to cut costs.” ‘It ain’t the same’: inside the bitter battle to free Ben & Jerry’s, The Guardian. Cohen is advocating for a boycott of all of unilever’s ice cream brands (under Magnum) in an attempt to force the brand to sell B&J’s so it can be independently owned and it’s founders free to be socially and politically vocal. ✊
recipe spotlight: Lemon Pudding
“the best I’ve ever tasted. I’m making it again REAL soon.” - Tania
“a hit!” - Beverly
“OMG, this is the single best lemon dessert I’ve ever made. I was a little anxious about the heavy cream in there, since I don’t typically like sour+dairy. But I shouldn’t have worried — this was perfection. Exactly the right blend of tart and sweet, texture smooth and silky. I immediately texted the recipe link to all the cooks I know, and am making it again tonight, less than a week later! Thank you.” - Emily
troubleshoot talk
Debbie wrote to me: “my cake didn’t rise. it was actually sunken down in the middle. made exactly by instructions. what did I do wrong? my oven did dip down to the high 200s and I had to reset it for some reason. but my cake was only in the oven for 20 minutes. any suggestions would be appreciated. the batter tasted delicious! it’s a birthday cake for a friend. I’m sure it will taste great, just did not rise.”
I feel so bad she made this as a birthday cake and probably couldn’t present it (I tend to tell people to test a recipe prior to making it for a special occasion - sometimes bakes need familiarity before they become dependable enough to be whipped up with stakes that high). In some situations when a bake doesn’t turn out as expected I can try to guess what’s gone wrong based on what I know about that specific recipe. The more information given, the better equipped I am to advise. Sometimes the baker will have told me what went wrong, often without realizing it, and that’s what happened here. Let’s talk about it:
You probably have heard the saying “never open the oven door when a cake is baking”. You might know that doing so causes a temperature drop and that’s not good for the cake but, why?
When the door is opened, the hot air in the oven immediately flows out and in rushes the cold air. If you’re baking at 350 F, the temperature will drop at least 25 degrees within seconds of opening in my experience (I keep an eye on my secondary thermometer that sits in the oven), and if you leave it open longer the temperature will continue to drop as the air continues to flow. This change in temperature affects chemical leavening and gas expansion (basically the cake’s rise). This interruption is especially risky during the cake’s delicate phase, before the crumb has set.
Late in the cake’s baking stage, you might open the door to check if it’s done and stick a needle in it or even press it, and the cake holds up. You might even do this several times as you wait for that crumb free indicator. Nothing happens to the cake - that’s because it’s structure is now built and stable: the flour and egg proteins have coagulated (become solid or semi-solid) and the flour’s starches have gelatinized to set the structure (The Cake Bible, Rose Levy Beranbaum).
Debbie didn’t open the oven door but she writes that her oven temperature dropped to around 50 degrees below the baking temperature, at the 20 minute mark. What happened was that the sudden temperature drop halted the rising agents (which are dependent on steady heat). And since the cake was only halfway into the baking time the batter was not yet set (the edges might be but the middle, the last part of the cake to bake certainly isn’t) and the proteins and starches were still in liquid form. The rising cake stopped rising, thus the liquid batter fell. A cake never quite recovers from this interruption so you’ll eventually pull out a sunken cake.
This the fault of a defective oven (a call to the technician is in order!). It is great that she had an eye on the temperature, another baker might not have noticed, would not figure out what went wrong, and would be stuck in a cycle of sunken cakes and likely a host of other problems. Lesson: keep an eye on your bakes even when you don’t necessarily need to ;-)
p.s. the next few newsletters will be brief with just a highlight of what’s newly published. I’ll resume our regular newsletters towards the beginning of the school year. I hope you’re having a wonderful last few weeks of summer!
sam
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