Brown Butter-Buttermilk Cake by Alison Roman

Growing up as the daughter of a pastor, I spent the majority of my Sunday’s at church. When I wasn’t attending the service, I could be found running around the property playing hide-and-seek with my siblings and other pastors’ kids, volunteering in the nursery, or scoping out the visitor’s table where a pink box of donuts sat. Every Sunday morning, my dad picked up a box of donuts from the local shop, Donut Star, and brought them to the visitor’s table. After the final service ended and congregants had gone home, my siblings and I had first dibs on the leftover donuts. Our great reward. 

Emily always picked the apple fritters larger than her face, Scotty liked Long Johns, preferably covered with chocolate, and I had eyes for old fashioneds. Their dense cakiness with only a touch of sugary glaze are the stuff dreams are made of. Not to mention their shape – I loved to break off each petal of the flower, taking my time, before finally enjoying the inner ring. 

Why am I telling you about church donuts? Because this cake recipe is the closest thing I’ve ever made to an old-fashioned donut. Alison makes this comparison in her recipe notes and she couldn’t be more spot on. 

blurry, but you get the idea. the cake really holds its structure

This recipe alone tells me that Alison used to work at Milk Bar in New York. If you’ve ever had a Milk Bar Birthday Truffle, you know how rich, compact, (and addictive) their cakes are. This browned butter-buttermilk cake is also incredibly rich and dense. It relies on the frosting glaze to provide most of the sweetness. The cake itself is like eating a doughy version of butter. Heavenly, but also taxing on the stomach if you know what I mean. One piece of cake is all I can handle in a day. 

The baking process is rather simple, and doesn’t require a mixer. It’s a simple whisk dry ingredients, then wet ingredients, then combine them without overmixing. The wet ingredients list includes a melted and browned stick of butter, in addition to a full cup of buttermilk. The frosting also contains buttermilk and more browned butter, mixed with a cup of powdered sugar. All in all, there’s just a lot of butter. 

see what I mean??

A few quick notes about my cake. For some reason, the texture of my cake looked kind of lumpy. I noticed as I poured the batter into the cake pan that it didn’t ooze and spread like a normal batter. I had to push it out to fill the pan with a spatula. I hoped that the lumps would melt and soften in the oven, but they maintained their structure. I can’t quite tell why this happened. Did I not mix the batter enough? I thought I did? I’m not an experienced baker, so I don’t have many ideas beyond that. Regardless of the lumps, they didn’t seem to negatively affect the cake’s flavor and soft, dense texture. Also note that the frosting comes together, and hardens, very quickly, so be ready to pour it over the cake as soon as it forms. And don’t forget to sprinkle flaky sea salt over the top! 

194 recipes cooked, 31 to go.

Sheet Cake with Mascarpone and Coffee with Almost Angel Food Cake by Alison Roman

The most dreamy trip of my life was in Italy in May 2019. My husband, Jordan, and I traveled from Milan to Cinque Terre, Florence, Siena, Assisi, and then to Rome. It was our first international trip as a couple, and my first international vacation ever. Everything about Italy felt like a storybook coming to life, from the countless Tuscan red poppies dotting the countryside, to the winding cobblestone streets, to the culture of ‘one more cappuccino, please.’ The food took my breath away as many times as the ornate ceilings of cathedrals did. I ate far too much (yet still not enough) burrata, bucatini, and basil. I’m not much of a dessert person, but Italy swayed me to eat at least one serving of gelato a day. And perhaps the best dessert we had on the trip was tiramisu. 

Ah yes, tiramisu. A sponge cake doused in strong coffee, layered with creamy mascarpone, sugar, and cocoa powder. The coffee hits the taste buds at the same time as cocoa powder sticks to the roof of your mouth. It somehow embodies Italy in a way few foods can. When I saw Alison’s version in Nothing Fancy, I knew I’d have to wait for just the right time to bake and savor this dish. As this project is winding down, I chose to make this dessert for the most ardent Italy-lovers I know: my in-law’s. They’ve lived in Italy for months-long sabbaticals, and know it like a second home. The perfect dessert for their recent visit was Alison’s tiramisu. 

The dessert starts with baking Almost Angel Food Cake, which I chose to make gluten free. Similar to angel food cake, the life of the cake comes from thoroughly whipped egg whites and sugar that grow light, foamy, and highly voluminous. A mix of dry ingredients get sprinkled and folded in until mixed, doing your best not to knock the air bubbles out of the batter. I chose to swap all-purpose flour for gf all-purpose and a half teaspoon of xanthan gum per cup of flour. I noticed no negative effects of this swap. I then had to let the cake cool completely. 

Meanwhile, I whisked together Mascarpone, sugar, and egg yolks. I also sprinkled cocoa powder on the bottom of my 2 quart baking dish. I brewed some extra strong coffee and combined it with whiskey. By the time this was done, the cake was ready to go under construction. Using a measuring tape, I measured out 8 x 8“ squares of cake and used a bench scraper to cut them.

I laid the first square of cake in the baking dish, then spooned a third of the coffee and whiskey mixture over the top. The liquid quickly seeped into the cake, as if being soaked up by a sponge. I spread out half of the mascarpone mixture and repeated the entire process. After sprinkling more cocoa powder at the very top, I placed the dessert into the refrigerator to chill. Alison says it needs four hours in the refrigerator, but my crew was restless, and I let them have at it at around the three-hour mark. 

This dessert was a lot of fun to make (anytime a tape measure gets involved, you know it’s a good time). It was also just as delicious as a piece of authentic tiramisu. I have no suggestions for making this better. Just be ready to want to eat far more dessert than you probably should.

180 and 181 recipes cooked, 44 to go.

Crispy Chocolate Cake with Hazelnut and Sour Cream by Alison Roman

Let’s talk about a chocolate cloud. No, I’m not referencing Willy Wonka or Candlyand, the classic board game of my childhood. I’m talking about the essence of a cloud made of rich, decadent dark chocolate with hints of hazelnut and almond. 

Just keeping it real, Alison’s crispy chocolate cake is a gluten-free chocolate cloud. A cloud that can interrupt my sunny skies any day. 

I don’t feel like walking through every step of the cake-making process today. But I do want to write a little something about the people I shared this chocolate cake with, which I’ll intersperse with pictures of the cake baking process, because I have them, so why not. 

My coworkers, the team of ten at the Center for Vocation and Career, are a delightfully diverse and committed and thoughtful group of people invested in the success of our students, now and beyond college. They care about the whole student, which includes the intersection of career goals, personal passions, faith, family, and culture. They spend their time actively listening to the needs of students and responding with compassion and gentle wisdom. They go above and beyond to champion others. They’ve made it their jobs! 

I am blessed to work with these people and blessed to share my chocolate cloud with them too. On a day when students were off campus, we had a team potluck for lunch. The theme? Charcuterie board. My contribution? This cake. And I’m thankful to say it was swiftly consumed in full that afternoon. 

As I looked around the room at these comrades eating cheese and meats, munching on olives, forking a bite of chocolate cake, I felt nothing but gratitude. Gratitude to work alongside them, to learn from them, and to contribute as well. I’ve said it before, there’s something particularly special about contributing to the nourishment, the physical sustaining, of people you care about. I’ve learned not to underestimate the power of sharing a homemade chocolate cake, especially because of this project.

163 recipes cooked, 62 to go.

Torn Plum Browned-Butter Cake by Alison Roman

I’ve loved every single one of Alison’s desserts. But this cake, in a neck-and-neck tie with Alison’s Key Lime Pie, wins the Gold Medal. Impossibly buttery, dense but not heavy, bursting with sweet juicy plums, and sprinkled with crunchy sugar. When it comes to describing food, I try to avoid terms like “guilty pleasure,” but I’m not sure how else to talk about eating this cake. It was so perfectly rich that it felt… sinful? No, heavenly? Let’s go with heavenly. 

Flavor besides, the effort required is minimal. It starts with greasing a 9-inch cake pan. Then, melting butter (there’s a LOT of butter – 1.5 sticks to be exact!) in a small pot until it starts to brown. This took about 6 minutes for me. Then I let it cool. 

In the meantime, I whisked the dry ingredients including powdered sugar, salt, GF All-purpose flour, almond flour, and Xanthan Gum. Then I added and whisked in 5 egg whites and maple syrup, (I was out of honey), until there were no lumps to be found. Once the butter cooled, I folded that into the batter as gently as possible before pouring the batter into the cake pan. 

I loved tearing the plums with my hands instead of using a knife. Call it childish, but playing wtih your food is a lot of fun. I made sure to choose really ripe plums at the store for maximum sweetness and ease of tear. I plopped (yes, plopped) the plum bits onto the batter and sprinkled everything with demerara sugar. The cake baked for 42 minutes, with one rotation at the 20 minute mark. The key to done-ness was the deeply browned edges, which ended up being my favorite part. And oh, it was heavenly. 

106 recipes cooked, 119 to go.

Blueberry Cake with Almond and Cinnamon by Alison Roman

It’s softer than any coffee cake. It’s richer than any fruit crumble. It’s more nuanced than any other fruit cake. It takes the cake, because it is THE cake. This blueberry cake with almond and cinnamon is wonderful. 

Allow me to highlight the aspects of this cake that really set it apart: 

1. Almond flour – The recipe utilizes a mixture of almond flour and regular all-purpose, which lends a nutty depth to the batter. Almond flour also makes the crumb slightly more dense than other breakfast cakes. And for those of you wondering, I did swap the all-purpose flour with gluten-free all-purpose flour. I also added an extra egg and a 1/4th tsp. of Xanthan gum. The conversion worked beautifully. 

2. Cinnamon – When Madeline took her first bite, the next words out of her mouth were, “ooo the spices!” To which I responded, “it’s actually just cinnamon!” But I agreed with her – somehow this tasted like a nice blend of spices. Nutmeg and a dash of allspice, maybe? Perhaps it’s the almond flour that gave it the depth. No matter the cause, the cinnamon really transformed this cake from a straightforward berry cake to one with depth. 

3. Amount of fresh blueberries – Two whole cups! Blueberries bursting in every bite. This helped keep the cake moist. There weren’t any real dry patches, save for a few tiny ones at the very edges of the cake. FYI, I think using frozen blueberries here are a real no-go, unless you’re willing to totally thaw and drain them first. 

4. Sugar on top – To give it a crackly texture on top, Alison instructs you to sprinkle 3 tbsp. of granulated sugar over the cake’s surface before baking. The sugar hardens and forms cracks along the top, giving it a nice textural contrast and a punch of sweet in every bite. 

I loved this cake. I can especially see this coming in handy when I need to contribute to a breakfast or brunch of some kind. It’s a crowdpleaser. But I’m also just as willing to make it for myself on a random Wednesday. I’ll have no problem eating it on my own.

80 recipes cooked, 145 to go.