I’m having some picture trouble these days because I hate Apple Photos. Guess I’m getting old and it’s harder for my brain to adapt to new things. It’s not doing what I want!!!

I made the above cake for my b-day, not because I really wanted a wheat flour cobbler, but because I REALLY wanted to eat whipped cream.

The recipe is Heidi Swanson’s. You can find it here on her blog. I found the recipe in her cookbook, Super Natural Every Day, and used plums as she does in the book version. I halved the recipe and baked in a pie plate, used regular whole wheat flour instead of whole wheat pastry, and used yogurt thinned with whole milk instead of buttermilk. Turned out great, though was a little dry the next day. I would call it a cobbler and not a cake, and indeed might make it for a singing someday.

But the whipped cream! For the first night I ate this I made whipped cream with a little sour cream and a touch of powdered sugar. Whipped with an immersion blender. One problem I have when doing this is I always almost over-whip the cream. For the leftovers, I didn’t want to make a big batch of whipped cream (I was the only one eating it) so I just whipped a little cream and a tiny bit of powdered together by hand with a whisk. It was amazing. I don’t know why I haven’t been doing it this way all along. I’m sure it came together so quickly because I was only doing a small amount, but it was the perfect consistency and really not too much work. And oh, the revelation of only making a bit of whipped cream at a time! I’m tempted to keep heavy cream in the house all the time for naptime snacks or whatever…

A while ago I made a flourless chocolate cake for two. I’m here to tell you that I made it again this weekend and it was not as good as I remembered. I really didn’t like the texture, very gritty, and I didn’t think the flavor was outstanding. I think the really issue is that I couldn’t decide if I should make this cake or chocolate pudding, which I’ve also talked about before. What I’m saying is I should have made the pudding.

Speaking of the pudding (original recipe here), I have a couple of updates. I used to make it by adding a couple of tablespoons of cocoa powder and subbing flour for cornstarch. It takes it longer to set up but I always thought flour was a fine substitution. Well I recently bought cornstarch and I realized that the cornstarch pudding is far superior. It sets up thicker faster and has a smoother texture. Also, I don’t feel a need for the extra cocoa anymore, I think instead I’ve just been cutting the sugar a little, maybe 1/3 cup?

And finally, a new cookie recipe. We had people over yesterday afternoon and I wanted to serve a snack but we were all out of flour and adult snacks (though we had plenty of goldfish crackers, graham crackers, banana muffins, etc.). I ended up making a half batch of these peanut butter cookies, even though we only had natural peanut butter and I was afraid they wouldn’t turn out (despite the note that the recipe works with natural peanut butters). The only change I made was the addition of one crushed graham cracker, to thicken up the dough and hopefully prevent them from spreading too much. They turned out great and everyone loved them. Next time I’ll try them without the graham cracker.