Carrot cake is a quintessential dessert of spring. This recipe is moist slightly sweet, and perfectly spiced. It is paired with a rich and velvety cream cheese frosting.
Asparagus is so beautiful this time of year, so I wanted to create a recipe around it. I made some basil and pumpkin seed pesto, and drizzled it on toasted bread with asparagus, avocado, and shaved Parmesan.
Because his family is a true-to-the-bone pancake family, I really wanted him to share with me the secrets to making a good pancake, thin and delicate, perfectly browned on the outside, soft on the inside. He gave me a recipe, one that he has memorized. A set of very specific instructions, the right temp, the right amount of time for frying. I followed it to a tee, and sure enough, the pancakes came out the way I had always dreamed they would.
A light moist cake, with a tender crumb. The hazelnuts are ground down with the flour, creating more of a fine hazelnut crumb rather than pieces of hazelnuts dispersed throughout. The addition of orange zest is what really through it over the top for me. I am pretty content eating this cake on it's own for breakfast, or classing it up with chocolate pudding and whipped cream for dessert.
