Lyndsey Matthews

Baked goods, travel, and things I like.

[lyndseym]

I can't be stopped! #cakemonster

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Getting older is about owning your flaws. Mine is clearly not being able to show an ounce of restraint. (🎂 by me! Inspiration from @unbirthdaybakery)

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Belated birthday cake breakfast for @aliyahrg! #🎂 #marthabakes #marthafood (at Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia)

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Food52’s American flag cake is much easier to make than it looks. Get the step-by-step instructions here.

[lyndseym]

50 Classics in Five Years, Year #1

Last year, I decided to read 50 classics over the next five years. And unlike some goals, I'm happy to say I've stuck to this one.

In 2013, I read:

The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold by John le Carre

The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

Master and the Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe

Rabbit is Rich by John Updike

Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut

I liked the movie version of the Count of Monte Cristo better, I think Moby Dick deserves a re-read, but I loved Jane Eyre and the Rabbit series just keeps getting better. Looking forward to continuing this kick.

[lyndseym]

Who needs Stonehenge when there's Foamhenge! Better than the original, in my opinion.

[lyndseym]

Green = Where I've lived.

Blue = Places I've been at least twice.

Orange = Been there once, stayed the night.

Red = Driven through.

White = Haven't been, want to go starting with Utah, New Mexico, Maine, Wyoming and Montana.

[lyndseym]

A Pumpkin Pleasure Dome Filled With Spices and Pecans

Not kidding, this is the name of the recipe from a 2001 New York Times Cookbook. Usually when you think of pumpkin bread, a dense sweet loaf comes to mind. This is not that. The Pumpkin Pleasure Dome is a lightly spiced brioche that would lend itself well to being buttered and eaten with your morning cup of coffee. See the recipe here, or click below. It makes three domes: one for home, one for a friend, and one for the office. Or three for yourself, because mmm pumpkin.

[lyndseym]

Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake

This is the best picture I could get of the pumpkin cheesecake I brought into the office on Monday for National Pumpkin Cheesecake Day (really?) because it got scarfed that quickly by my coworkers. I'd call that a success.

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen + Gourmet, November 2003

For crust

3/4 cup graham cracker crumbs (from five 4 3/4- by 2 1/4-inch crackers)

1/2 cup pecans, finely chopped

1/4 cup packed light brown sugar

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

For filling

1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin

3 large eggs

1/2 cup packed light brown sugar

2 tablespoons heavy cream

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 tablespoon bourbon

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1 tablespoon cornstarch

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/2 teaspoon salt

3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, at room temperature

For topping

2 cups sour cream

2 tablespoons granulated sugar

1 tablespoon bourbon

Lock on the side and butter a 9-inch springform pan.

Stir together crumbs, pecans, sugars, and butter in a bowl until combined well. Press crumb mixture evenly onto bottom and 1/2 inch up side of pan, then chill crust, 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 350°F.

Whisk together pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, cream, vanilla, and bourbon in a bowl until combined.

Stir together granulated sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and salt in large bowl.

Add cream cheese and beat with an electric mixer at high speed until creamy and smooth, about 3 minutes. Reduce speed to medium, then add pumpkin mixture and beat until smooth.

Pour filling into crust, smoothing top, then put springform pan in a shallow baking pan (in case springform leaks). Bake until center is just set, 50 to 60 minutes.

Transfer to rack and cool 5 minutes. (Leave oven on.)

For the topping, whisk together sour cream, sugar, and bourbon in a bowl, then spread on top of cheesecake and bake 5 additional minutes.

Cool cheesecake completely in pan on rack, about 3 hours.

Decorate top with pecans.

Chill, covered, until cold, at least 4 hours. Remove side of pan and serve.

[lyndseym]

Momofuku Apple Pie Cake

Apple pie in birthday cake form.

Browned Butter Cake + Liquid Cheesecake + Crumbled Pie Crust + Apple Pie Filling + Pie Crust Frosting = nom nom nom.

[lyndseym]

This salted caramel fudge cake was inspired by Sweetapolita's salted caramel chocolate fudge cake recipe and frosted with Joy the Baker's chocolate buttercream (made extra fudgy with Ovaltine). Hiding in between all those layers of cake and frosting? Sweet + salty pretzel crunch.

[lyndseym]

Normandy Apple Tart I baked from a Dorie Greenspan recipe (found here) and Fishkill Farms apples.

[lyndseym]

There's so much sugar in and on top of these, but let's just call this breakfast, okay?

Pumpkin Spice Donut Muffins (or, Pumpkin Muffnuts)

Adapted from King Arthur Flour

Yields 12 Muffins

Ingredients

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 large eggs

1 1/2 cups granulated sugar

1 1/4 cups canned pumpkin

3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground ginger

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1 3/4 cups All-Purpose Flour

Steps

Preheat the oven to 350°F and line muffin pan with papers.

Mix the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spices, salt, and baking powder until smooth.

Add the flour, stirring just until smooth (I did this all by hand. It's hard to over-mix with a wooden spoon).

Fill muffin wells about 3/4 full. You might have a little left over.

Bake 23-25 minutes.

Remove muffins from the oven. Cool for 5 minutes, then transfer them to a rack.

 While the muffins are still warm, gently shake them in a bag with the cinnamon-sugar.

Note: If not serving the muffins immediately, store them loosely covered or else they'll get too sticky. Cinnamon-sugar them right before serving.

[lyndseym]

Apple Pie Cake

Now that it's nearly fall and I have an apple-picking field trip penciled into my calendar next weekend, it's high time to make this Momofuku cake again.

[lyndseym]

I would love to explore all 59 U.S. National Parks before I die. So far, I've only checked 7 or 8 off my list. Got to most of the California parks as a kid, Great Smoky Mountains in middle school, and Crater Lake and the Grand Canyon on road trips in the past few years, but there's so much more to see.

If you have a similar goal, Brooklyn-based Etsy shop ElloThere makes this fun National Parks Checklist Map to track your progress and inspire your next trip. The screenprint even comes with a set of colorful tree stickers to place over the parks once you've gone.

UPDATE: The one off the coast of Florida is Virgin Islands National Park.

[lyndseym]

If you live in Brooklyn and haven't visited Four & Twenty Blackbirds in Gowanus yet, go now. Order the salty caramel apple. Or do what I did recently and ask for "a slice of every kind you got." It was for work! See>> America's Best Pies. Hard work, you know?

[brouhahadreamer]

WRITTEN BY Caitlin Moran

Published at 12:11PM, July 13 2013

The Times

‘Nine times out of ten, you probably aren’t having a full-on nervous breakdown – you just need a cup of tea and a biscuit’

My daughter is about to turn 13 and I’ve been smoking a lot recently, and so – in...

[lyndseym]

“The main thing is just to try to be nice. . . Keep slowly turning it up, like a dimmer switch, whenever you can. Just resolve to shine, constantly and steadily, like a warm lamp in the corner, and people will want to move towards you in order to feel happy, and to read things more clearly. You will be bright and constant in a world of dark and flux, and this will save you the anxiety of other, ultimately less satisfying things like ‘being cool’, ‘being more successful than everyone else’ and ‘being very thin’.