Like these CinnaBunBombs, the Ho-Ho-Ho is a recipe that’s been a long time coming. It’s a Christmas tradition in our house, at our aunt’s house, at our other aunt’s house…wherever there’s Christmas dinner, there is a Ho-Ho-Ho waiting patiently in the fridge a la Santa up on the roofs. Waiting for dinner to end, and for everything sweet to come to the table.

If you haven’t figured it out by now, the Ho-Ho-Ho is yet another punny dessert. Get it? Christmas? A giant Ho-Ho that large enough it needs another ‘Ho’ added to the title? Santa Claus’ more iconic saying? It’s a dessert that’s made for the holidays, both in name and in taste.

Like the infamous Hostess treat, the Ho-Ho-Ho is a dessert that brings smiles to one and all. Except instead of that wonderful (and it is wonderful) packaged chocolate cake, thick saccharine cream, and odd chocolate ‘coating,’ the Ho-Ho-Ho is a homemade cake. A chocolate soufflé roll, vanilla whipped cream, and rich chocolate ganache. The white chocolate ganache twizzle is simply the wink on top of the cake. (True Hostess aficionados will note that the twizzle is not traditionally of the Ho-Ho treat. It’s snack cake blasphemy, I know. But it tastes good, real good. And I like to think that if all Hostesses desserts could get together and combine in joyful union, the Ho-Ho-Ho would be the result. Tasty, taste results.)

The real beauty of the Ho-Ho-Ho is neither taste-based nor aesthetic. The secret is: the Ho-Ho-Ho is a soufflé roll that’s ridiculously easy to make. It’s practically foolproof as long as you take the requisite cooling steps with damp paper towels, and don’t over beat the eggs. Though I’ll tell you another secret. Even if the cake breaks during rolling, it’s still delicious. Just pretend you made a layer cake, the abstract interpretation of a Ho-Ho. Pastry is a great medium for abstract expression after all.

Recipe on the following page.

This is a fresh cake. Fresh in the Fresh-Prince kind of manner. But most importantly, it’s a fresh cake baked for the birthday of a fresh little sister.

Now here’s a story…

There was a batch of cupcakes. Lemon Lust Cupcakes in fact. Wonderful little lemon cups of cake, filled with tart lemon curd and topped with only the highest quality of  whipped cream. These were fresh cupcakes, these were tart little bites of cupcake perfection.

And so, like all great cupcakse aspire to be, these little Lemon Lust Cupcakes were transformed into a very big Lemon Pucker Cake. Moist, buttery lemon cake filled with tangy lemon curd and encased in the perfect foil of sweetness, a decadent white chocolate buttercream. Each slice is a wedge of lemon, and the best part is, if you finish a slice, chances are there’s more where it came from. With those cupcakes? You might have eaten the last one.

At which point, you’ll be truly fresh-deprived.

Recipe on the following page. (And yes. That last picture is of emo cake in the shade.)

Caramel Apple Upside-Down Cake, superior to all other cakes. Especially those frosted ones. Think rich caramel, soft apples, and a perfectly spiced, crumbly cake.

Click here fore the recipe and to read more.

Here’s the thing about donuts, they’re perfect. Truly, completely, perfect bits of fried dough. That they’re fried should tip one off to their perfection. And glazed, and occasionally filled. Whether yeasted or cake, donut I love you. It’s an unhealthy feeling, yes, to love such a thing. But have you ever tried one?

It’s America after all, if you’ve reached the point in life of literacy, you probably have encountered a donut.

But here’s the thing, Krispy Kreme donuts are not the superior donut of which I speak. Neither, unfortunately, does Dunkin’ Donuts fits the bill, although their coffee is my guilty go-to in the face of dearth of cafes. Donuts from small, ma and pa shops are the way to go. If you’re in the proximity of a Happy Donuts or an All-Star Donuts, (the favored donut shop name I’ve concluded after years of research), go. Go immediately. Get a cinnamon stick, a chocolate old fashioned, a chocolate custard donut, and donut holes.

In Los Angeles, specifically in Westwood, there is a corner store name Stan’s Donuts. Oddly, Stan’s shares a storefront with a Korean rice bowl place, but don’t worry, they’ve yet to collaborate on a Kim Chi donut. Which, to be honest, if they did, I would try. Because I love Kim Chi too. But that’s a love poem for another time.

Stan’s Donuts, of peanut butter chocolate, custard filled fame. It’s an exercise in self-control to even wander down into the neighborhood. But look what happens when I restrain myself from purchasing the perfect little fried and lazed circle of bliss?

I make my own. Because, as it turns out, a decent cake donut is a bit of flour, an egg, and a chocolate dip away. Throw on some sprinkles and it’s a rainbow party. Who needs Stan’s Donuts? (When you can make your own…)

Recipe on the following page.

Chocolate Chip Snack Cake translates into an excuse to eat cake, all day.

Click here for the recipe.

What’s girl to do?

Let me be more specific.  What’s a baking girl to do?  Well, first off, get out of the oven.

Alright.  I’ll be serious.  So seriously, let’s talk buttermilk.  It’s tangy, thick and frothy.  It makes the best salad dressing, and the absolute premier biscuits.  But the thing about buttermilk, it comes in big quarts.  Or at least, I bought a big quart.  Even after the week of salad followed by the week of biscuits—which really, was a biscuit filled weekend, goat cheese filled anything doesn’t last a week—there was still buttermilk.  So back to the top.  What’s a girl to do?

As it turns out, the answer is easy, if not utterly predictable.  Ask the question, receive cake.  Apple Spice Cake with Walnut Praline Topping.  If the spicy, moist apple cake doesn’t convince you, just take a moment, and think.  Think about a warm, sticky toffee flavored nut topping, dripping over the top and sides of a loaf of cake.  Imagine a slice of said cake, and a little extra walnut praline topping.

Now ask, what are you going to do?

Recipe on the following page.

If last week’s testimony to Georgetown coffee shop and bakery Baked and Wired didn’t convince you to visit, if the idea of banana cupcakes topped with peanut butter frosting and chocolate drizzle somehow didn’t justify a leisurely stroll, Metro ride, drive, train trip, plane flight, sail…let me try again.

Yes, it may takes upwards of ten minutes for espresso drinks, yes there is never anywhere to sit and yes, sometimes the lines are extreme.  But, it’s worth it.  That’s what I’ve concluded.  While, during the ten minutes after you place your espresso order, it may seem like torture, caffeine-deprived torture, once that perfectly capped, wet-foam drink is in your hands, in your stomach, poured over your head or drizzled onto your eye if eyeballing is the game du jour, the wait is worth it.  Always.

On the plus side, if you go during normal hours on the weekdays, for a mid-morning, lunchtime, mid-afternoon or casual evening visit, there are generally nominal or no lines.  (Though the requisite ten or so minutes still happen. Good espresso takes time, a sentiment that is rapidly becoming the ultimate Catch-22 of my short life.  I desperately need it to wake up and function, but I have to go, purchase and wait.)

In a town that seems to run on good espresso, with Dupont’s Dolcezza and Filter and Chinatown’s Chinatown Coffee Company rounding my top favorite espresso shops, Baked and Wired has the additional plus of a lovely pastry case.

Never a bad thing.

There is a coffee shop in Washington that is obsessive about the perfect espresso drink.  Actually, there are many such places in Washington, shops where not only the coffee is deep, slightly bitter and so perfectly strong, but the baristas freak out if there is even a smudge of grounds on the love of their lives, their reason for living—their precious espresso machines.  If you’re curious, you do very much want your cappuccino made by baristas who revere their espresso machines on the same level as children.  Shiny, steamy Italian children.

It’s totally normal.

But there’s a catch.  The absolute perfect cappuccino takes time and while the ten minutes it takes to prep the foam, brew the espresso and perfectly pour a wet foam top is absolutely worth it after the fact, let me tell you; waiting ten minutes for necessary caffeine is a trial.  This may seem extreme, but it’s true.  If there is a hell on Earth, it’s the ten minute purgatory that stretches out between ordering a cappuccino at Baked & Wired and clutching the eight oz. cup of perfection in your hand.

Always, always worth it at the end of the road.  But in-between, I’m transformed into an un-caffeinated miniature gremlin. 

Thank god then, on the other side of the room is a table stacked with the most delicious of baked goods.  In the in-between, when the espresso bar is literally taunting you as the Baked and Wired baristas do their best to deliver espresso to the addicted masses, the baked bar on the other side of the shop is heaven.  Cupcakes—or Cake Cups as they affectionately call them (oh so hip*)—coffee cakes, brownies locked and loaded with an array of toppings, stuffed cookies, marshmallow bars, handpies…

There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel.

Today, that light is the wonderful, ridiculous Elvis Cupcake, a riff on the Unporked Elvis at Baked and Wired.  A moist, light banana cake filled with chocolate fudge filling and topped with a luscious, velvety peanut butter frosting.  Chocolate drizzle and bacon optional.

Now, what do you say? BACON OPTIONAL?  I know, I know absolute blasphemy.  (Who knew this post would take such a theological air? Oops.)

Blame it on an unfortunate run-in with a dark chocolate, bacon pumpkin truffle last fall. But this Elvis Cupcake is so perfectly sweet and surprising with complementary banana, chocolate and peanut butter flavors, that I just couldn’t bring myself to add a bacon crumble.  Against the King’s wishes, but trust me, it can stand on its own.

*ster

Recipe on the following page.

There is a bakery on the Upper East Side of New York City where quite honestly, dreams come true.  If you’re slightly abnormal like me and spend time imagining baked goods, if pie and brownies dreams are at the forefront of your mind, then the Two Little Red Hens bakery on 86^th street is quite honestly heaven.  Just imagine a homey, warm enclave on 2^nd avenue, packed with tables, farm memorabilia and pastry cases.  Now add the most beautiful array of cakes frosted with explosions of lotus flowers, daisies, roses, irises, vines, sunflowers…I guarantee you’ve never seen anything so beautiful.  First time I’ve teared up in years.

On top of the most exquisite Brooklyn Blackout Cake or cupcake ever—moist and airy chocolate cake filled with luscious, velvety chocolate cream and topped with truffly, fudgy chocolate frosting and crumbled chocolate cookies crumbs for texture—there are any number of pastries, cookies and pies.  The Macadamia Nut Turtle Bar.  The Peacan Fudge Bar.  Lemon bars, apple pie, cinnamon buns, Linzer bars, cookies, cheesecakes…

There is a reason that lines frequently are out the door, even on cold February days.

Two Little Red Hens can be credited, in part, for the start of Bakelist.  It’s true, it really is.  Not that I’ll ever reach the bakery-echelons of the Yorkville establishment, but it doesn’t mean I can’t try.

For the train ride back from NYC to Washington, I had a little cupcake packed away.  And by little cupcake, I mean a relatively large cupcake that I consumed in front of many a jealous co-passenger.

Sucks for you, is all I have to say.  Should have gotten your own cupcake.

Reminiscing about past cake is a terrible idea, mostly because cake memories are not nearly as good as cake-present.  Yeah, sure.  A recollection of how rich and luscious the chocolate ganache was is always nice, as is the thought of perfectly whipped, sweet frosting.  But come on.  I’d trade any remembrance of cake for, well, a slice of a cake.

So this Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake with Mascarpone Frosting and Brittle, this very cake of my dreams, only brings back fond recollections.  But then I get to thinking about how perfectly moist and peanuty the cake was, how it was filled with dark, silky ganache and a crunchy powder of peanut brittle, how it was frosted is alternatively sweet and tangy mascarpone whipped cream frosting and how on top were perfect fragments of that same sticky sweet brittle, and I curse my brain.  I try to shut it off, block the memories!  It’s helpless really.  I accepted long ago that for about 80 percent of the time, I’ll be thinking sweet nothings of pie, cake, cookies, ice cream and the occasional tart.  Most of the time it’s lovely, but every so often I catch myself thinking of dessert when I actually am quite hungry.

It does not help the situation.  At all.

Each component of this cake can stand on its own, but combined they create one of the most delicious (and traditional) flavor combinations in a new and luxurious kind of way.  Chocolate and peanut butter have never tasted this elegant.  Part of that can be attributed to what I’ve discovered is the General Rule of Deliciousness.

What is this rule, which, in general, makes everything delicious?  Oh well, I guess I share it with you.  For maximum deliciousness, the finishing touch has to be contrasting textures.  A little crunch in the filling of this cake is what brings it over the top.  The soft cake filled with the similarly textured smooth ganache filling is highlighted by the sweet crunch the peanut brittle adds to each layer.  That dissonant surprise sharpens the other textures and flavors.  It’s the General Rule of Deliciousness.  Try it out, in ice cream, cookies, muffins, anything.

But first, make this cake.

Recipe on the following page.