Raspberry Dome Cake

Is it cheese?

Nope, it's a dome-shaped cake!

Let us take a second to sincerely apologize for not posting anything for the past four months. Mah b guys. Byrne's too smart and has a busy schedule, while Charlotte has the the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.

Anyway, we decided to bake a cake in a bowl! I know, crazy.

We then cut it in half, spread raspberries in the middle and iced it. Seems simple, right?

No. It took us a good hour to bake it because of the volume of the cake. It had to cool for an hour before we cut it in half and added the raspberries. It had to cool more after that, so we finally just went to bed and frosted it in the morning. Cake for breakfast!

The actual cake part was too dense, so we're going to leave out the recipe [read: we're too lazy to type up recipes].

But the frosting was amaaaaaaazing thanks to butter, sugar, and almond extract.

Almond-y Frosting
1 cup butter (two sticks)
2 cups confectioner's sugar
1/2 tsp almond extract
1/2 tsp salt

Cream the butter and sugar together, adding sugar gradually until fully incorporated. Splash in almond extract and salt, and mix until combined.

Canning Fever

Have you heard?

It's all over the news.

A terrible, new epidemic.

It's attacking men, women and children.

It's got one of us.

There's no going back.



It's Canning Fever.

From left to right: peach jam, honey bourbon pickled blueberries, pickled sungold tomatoes, maple-thyme vidalia onion, blackberry-port jam

Wee ones and squat ones

Homemade jam, kindly sent to Byrne by a very talented maker of preserves

France

Charlotte's summer consisted of cycling across France! Four amazing and breath-taking (literally) weeks of bicycling from Paris to Nice with 13 strangers was quite an adventure, and she had an incredible time.

A tad preoccupied with cycling, Charlotte didn't get the chance to snap as many food-related photos as Byrne did in Italy but she did manage to take a few...

Cereal box abuse on bikes.

In honor of France, we decided to bake croissants! Although they took us a week to actually make due to disorganization and long chilling/rising processes, they were absolutely amazing. Going into the oven, we were doubtful of whether they would turn out okay. But twenty-two minutes later, they emerged golden, flaky and spectacular!

Italy

We're about to dump quite a few pictures on you.

Byrne spent a glorious few weeks in Italy this summer (Charlotte's summer adventures are coming soon!).

She took a cooking class. She visited a farmers market. She toured a winery and an olive... oilery? In other words, it was magic.

Olive man and his olive friends at a market in Puglia

Cucumbers, I was told

Fresh almonds! They're commonly eaten on ice, on the beach in southern Italy. Once you crack open the green, outer skin, there's another layer of thin, white, bitter skin, and at last, the almond. Tastes almondy, but less strong. Its what I imagine an acorn would taste like.

Capers! We bought some packed in salt (pictured here) and are canning them in vinegar ourselves.

A condiment ketchup sized chocolate espresso. Why don't they have these in the US?!

Lemons the size of our heads (literally)

One of many cannolis

Calzone "with salad"

Mr. Crabs

Buon appetito!