I know I’ve bit a rambly lately, so back to discussions only on FOOD!!! And by food, I mean the most decadent, buttery, crumbly, intensely chocolatey cookies you can imagine. This recipe is also sort of a cheat, as it’s fairly famous and has been around for ages. But hey, things are a classic for a reason! I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for years, and finally got around to making them. I’m happy to report that they fulfilled all my expectations! They were fairly easy to make, although not super quick, time-wise, since the recipe does recommend that you chill the dough for a minimum of 2 hours. I ended up making the cookies over the course of two days, refrigerating the dough overnight. If you have enough foresight to do this, or even to make a batch to freeze for later, getting them in and out of the oven is supremely easy and fast, as the cookies take absolutely no time to prep and bake.

I must also apologize for my lack of pictures. I made these while my mom was visiting, and was too busy chatting instead of shot composing. However, the beauty of a universally lauded cookie is that you can ogle the vastly superior pictures here, here, and here. They are as delicious as they look. They are sort of a cross between a sable, a shortbread, and a chocolate chip cookie. For my part, here are some tips I’ve gathered about making the cookies:

• In the words of Dorie Greenspan: “This is an unpredictable dough. Sometimes it’s crumbly and sometimes it comes together and cleans the sides of the bowl. Happily, no matter what, the cookies are always great.” My dough personally came out rather moist and sticky, and I had no trouble rolling it into solid logs that held together. From reading Dorie’s blog and the comments, it seems that it’s best to keep mixing the dough until big, moist curds form. Then, continue kneading by hand if necessary to get the dough to moisten evenly and to hold together when pressed. If you don’t manage to roll the dough into a solid log on the first try, continue kneading and try again. The consensus seems to be that as long as you can push the dough together into a solid piece to bake, the cookies come out fine.
• Another note from Food52 about the dough: “If measuring flour and cocoa by volume, it’s important to measure them lightly, as follows: stir briefly in the container or bag, spoon into the measuring cup until it’s heaped above the rim, then level it with a straight-edged knife or spatula. If you dip the measuring cup into the container, you’ll have more flour and cocoa and a drier, crumblier, more difficult dough.” Personally, I’ve now graduated to using a scale and measuring all ingredients by weight, so maybe this is partly why I ended up with a moist dough.
• Relatedly, when I cut the cookies, they definitely cracked, and bits broke off. However, I just squished the pieces back together, and everything was fine.
• You really want to pay close attention to baking times and temperatures here. The lower third of my oven runs hot, and when I baked my first batch, the cookies on the lower rack were just on the edge of burnt. I rescued them just in the nick of time, but I raised both of my oven racks after that, and the second batch of cookies came out with a distinctly crumblier, more delicate consistency. So pay attention to hot spots in your oven and adjust accordingly.
• I used Endangered Species 72% dark chocolate, on the recommendation of Stella Parks. Use the best quality dark chocolate for extra luscious cookies.
• The recipe calls for light brown sugar, but I used dark brown sugar because that’s what I had, and it seemed to be okay.

And, that’s it! I brought these to a park BBQ, and they were lauded as “brownie cookies.” Whatever you call them, they taste amazing!

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World Peace Cookies

Source: Everyday Dorie, or Dorie's Cookies (by Dorie Greenspan)

Makes about 36 cookies

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups (170 grams) all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup (28 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder (I used Dutch cocoa; you can also use regular)
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 stick plus 3 tablespoons (11 tablespoons; 5 1/2 ounces; 155 grams) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 2/3 cup (134 grams) packed light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup (50 grams) granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or 1/4 teaspoon fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 5 ounces (142 grams) bittersweet chocolate, chopped into irregular sized bits

Instructions

• Sift together the flour, cocoa, and baking soda.
  
• In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, or in a large bowl with a hand mixer, beat the butter and both sugars together on medium speed until fluffy, light, and creamy, about 3 minutes. Add the salt and vanilla and beat to combine. Turn off the mixer, add all the dry ingredients and start mixing on the lowest setting to prevent flour from flying everywhere. Turn the mixer up a few notches, and mix until the dough forms big, moist curds. Add the chopped chocolate pieces and mix to incorporate. 
• Turn the dough out onto a work surface (I turned it out directly onto a sheet of plastic wrap) and gather it together, kneading it if necessary to bring it together. Divide the dough in half. Shape the dough into logs that are about 1 1/2 inches in diameter by 9 inches in length. Wrap the logs in plastic wrap and freeze them for at least 2 hours or refrigerate them for at least 3 hours.

  Note: The dough can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months. If you’ve frozen the dough, you don't need to defrost it before baking; just bake the cookies 1 minute longer.
• To Bake: Preheat oven to 325°F and place racks in center of oven or away from any known hot spots. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper or silicone baking mats.
• Using a long, sharp knife, slice each log of dough into 1/2-inch-thick rounds. If the rounds crack as you’re cutting them, just squeeze the broken pieces back together. Place the rounds on the baking sheets, leaving about 2 inches between them. If you need to bake in two batches, refrigerate the remaining cookies until you're ready to bake.
• Bake the cookies for 12 minutes. Don’t open the oven, just let them bake. When time is up, the cookies won’t look done, and will still be soft. Let the cookies cool on the baking sheet for about 1 minute until they've firmed up slightly, then use a spatula to transfer the cookies to a cooling rack. Eat the cookies warm, or at room temperature (the texture is arguably more interesting at room temperature).

So, the bad thing about being a blogging hobbyist newbie is that I take foreeeeeeeevver between when I make the thing and when the recipe is up on the website. This is usually okay, as most of the ingredients I use are fairly available year-round, and I have a whole three months to get my inspired-by-summer/winter/spring/fall recipes up. But where this long lag time really bites me in the butt is when I’m dealing with something so fickle and short-lived as the ever elusive sour cherry. Here’s a sour cherry pie recipe! But…I’m pretty sure that sour cherry season is already over.

However, I am too excited about (finally!!) getting sour cherries that I can’t bear to wait until next year to share (who knows where this blog will be at next year!)! You see, I have been trying to get my hands on sour cherries for probably 8 years now. I’ve missed them every year – for reasons completely attributable to my utter lack of self-organization. When I lived in Boston, I never found them in the city, and I could never get it together to drive out to a farm and get them. Now that I live in Chicago, I’ve discovered that Traverse City, Michigan is the self-proclaimed cherry capital of the world, but that hasn’t helped with my organizational skills.

But when my friends George and Adrienne, amazing cherry- and Michigan-loving souls that they are, found me a bucket of sour cherries at a farmers market in the suburbs of Chicago, they became my favorite people and this finally became my year! I’m pretty sure I stood in the kitchen clutching the bucket of cherries with my greedy little fingers and cackling like an evil witch.

Sour cherries are smaller than their commonplace Bing counterparts, and are a vibrant, jewel-like ruby red. They are honestly one of the prettiest fruits I have ever seen. They are also, obviously, sour. But when combined with a mountain of sugar and flaky, buttery crust, they transform to a tart, lip-smacking, mouth-puckering pastry.

Despite my previous struggle with a new pie crust recipe, I tried a new recipe yet again. This one is from Stella Parks’s book Bravetart. It has a significantly higher butter-to-flour and water-to-flour ratio than any other pie crust I’ve ever tried (which just means that it doesn’t use as much flour). This obviously made me nervous right away, because I was afraid the crust would be too small (given the lower flour quantity) or too tough (given the higher water quantity). But I tried it anyway, and I’m glad I did! I did use a shallower pie plate than normal, both to be conservative with this new crust, and also because the quantity of cherries I had was juuuuuuust a tad bit shy of the required amount. But what I really loved about this crust was that it rolled up like a DREAM, with an absolute minimum amount of handling and kneading. Soft, pliable, and easy to manipulate, this was the least finicky and least crumbly crust I have ever worked with. But it still baked up flaky and tender, and intensely, distinctly buttery. It definitely made me more confident in the amount of water I could add to pie crust without it turning tough.

I don’t know if this is an all-purpose crust, exactly – it is very rich, and very decidedly buttery. I may not use it, for example, in a cream pie, where I’d want the cream filling to shine next to a more neutral crust (I’m in the camp that does not necessarily object to shortening in pie crust). However, for this cherry pie, it was perfect – out of the oven, the cherry juices had bubbled over on top of the crust, where they cooled and merged into a sort of syrupy, crispy cherry candy pastry. Fresh sour cherries may no longer be in season, but hey, I’m hoping that you can always get your hands on some frozen ones!

By the Way:

• I am stubbornly against one-purpose gadgets in the kitchen, and do not have a cherry pitter. Instead, I use a small paper clip – basically, you open up the paper clip, stick one looped end into the stem side of the cherry, fish around for the pit, and use the paper clip loop to pry the pit out. Here’s a video for how to do it. I’ve also done it with a small safety pin, holding the cap of the pin and pushing the coiled end into the cherry. Cons of the paper clip / safety pin: it’s messy, and probably takes a lot longer than the pitter. Pros: I don’t have a gadget lying around taunting me for only using it once every four years (I made a sweet cherry pie probably four years ago).
• The Bravetart cherry pie recipe is written for a mix of sweet and sour cherries. Since I only wanted to use sour cherries, I cut down the lemon juice by half.
• I did not have tapioca flour, and substituted 1 1/4 ounces of instant tapioca. The instant tapioca worked fine, but I would try tapioca flour the next time, as the tiny pearls of instant tapioca were a bit distracting.
• The Bravetart pie crust recipe calls for an entirely new way of mixing, kneading, shaping, and baking pie crust. My old habits die hard, however, and I couldn’t let go of all of the ways I’d previously made pie crust. Thus, my method is sort of an amalgamation of Stella Parks’s instructions and what I’ve always done (mostly learned from Smitten Kitchen). For the full Stella Parks experience, go here, and let me know how you do with exclusively her method!
• On a similar note, I found that with the Bravetart method of baking, the pie was slightly burnt on the bottom crust. I think this problem can be resolved by using a glass pie dish, as Stella Parks recommends and which I did not do. However, another method of baking, which has previously worked well for me with steel pie plates and seems to produce similar results, would be to bake at a higher temperature, then turn down the temperature halfway. I ended up doing this anyway, since I suspected my crust was burning, and so I’ve written the recipe with this modification.

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Sour Cherry Pie

Source: Bravetart, by Stella Parks

Ingredients

Pie Crust:

• 1 3/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon (8 ounces) all-purpose flour, plus more for dusting
• 1 tablespoon (1/2 ounce) sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 2 sticks (8 ounces) cold unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) ice cold water

Filling:

• 6 heaping cups (2 pounds) whole cherries or 5 cups (28 ounces) frozen cherries, thawed but not drained (I used all sour cherries; you can also use a combination of sour and sweet)
• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice (Double if using combination of sour and sweet cherries)
• 1 cup (7 ounces) sugar
• 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup plus 1 teaspoon (1 1/2 ounces) tapioca flour (such as Bob's Red Mill) (Can substitute 1 1/4 ounces instant tapioca)
• 1 egg white, beaten lightly
• Sanding sugar, for decoration, optional

Instructions

For the Pie Crust:

• Combine the flour, sugar, and salt in a large bowl. Add the butter and, using a pastry blender, cut the butter into the flour mixture until the butter pieces are the size of small peas. I tend to shake the bowl every so often, so that the larger butter pieces accumulate at the top and I can target them with the pastry blender.
• Drizzle the water over the butter and flour mixture. As you drizzle the water, "fluff" the flour mixture with a fork - this really helps distribute the water evenly. You can stop adding the water for a bit, fluff the dough mixture with the fork, then target dry patches with additional water. After you've added all the water, knead until the dough comes together in a ball. When you pick up the dough in your hand and squeeze, the dough should stay together and should not crumble.
• Transfer to a generously floured work surface, and roll into approximately a 10-by-15 inch sheet. Fold each 10-inch side toward the middle so that the edges meet, then close the packet like a book. Fold again top to bottom, and divide the block of dough in half. Wrap each half in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least 1 hour (preferably 2), or overnight. 
• Remove one piece of dough from the refrigerator - if necessary, let stand at room temperature until malleable. Roll dough on lightly floured work surface or between two large sheets of plastic wrap to about a 13-inch round. Transfer dough to a 9-inch pie plate by rolling dough around rolling pin and unrolling over the plate or by folding dough in quarters, then placing dough in pie plate and unfolding. Ease dough into plate by gently lifting dough edges with one hand and pressing down into the plate bottom and sides with your other hand. Leave dough that overhangs lip of plate in place, and refrigerate.

Filling and Assembly:

• Wash and pit fresh cherries; see note above if you do not have a cherry pitter. Combine the pitted cherries with the lemon juice, sugar, salt, and tapioca flour or instant tapioca. Toss gently with a flexible spatula to combine. Pour into the prepared pie shell and refrigerate while you roll out the top crust.
• Roll out second piece of dough to about an 11-inch round and place over filling. Gently press the top and bottom pieces of pie dough together, and fold and tuck the dough underneath itself so that the outer edge of crust is flush with the outer edge of pie plate. Flute the crust by pinching with your fingers or press with fork tines if desired, but I found that with such a buttery crust, the decorative crimping tended to melt away when baked. Cut several slits on dough top. Refrigerate the entire pie until firm and cold, about 30 minutes. Meanwhile, preheat oven to 425°F.
• Take pie out of refrigerator and brush egg white onto top of crust. Sprinkle evenly with sanding sugar, if desired. Place pie on baking sheet and bake until top crust is golden, about 25 minutes. Rotate pie and reduce oven temperature to 375°F; continue baking until juices bubble and crust is deep golden brown, 30-35 minutes longer. If the crust is browning too quickly, loosely cover the pie with aluminum foil.

It’s James’s birthday!! Can you believe, that in all the (three) years that we’ve known each other, we’ve never been able to celebrate the actual day of his birthday together? Work and life just get in the way. And so, I’ve never made him a birthday cake! And because we weren’t together this year either, I thought about just chucking in the towel and giving up on the cake for one more year. James was in Germany for a conference, and then in London to see friends and family. I, with a free Sunday on my hands, dithered between getting a manicure and a massage… or slaving away roasting sugar and making a cake.

Obviously I made a cake, and obviously, motivations weren’t completely selfless. I felt a little bad because I saw that his family had already made him a chocolate cake, but I also had my heart set on chocolate. You know those huge, fluffy, colorful sheet cakes from Costco that you ate all the time as a child, because they would be present at every birthday party, sporting event, and piano recital? Yeah, that cake – I loved that cake, and a few days ago, there was some leftover Costco chocolate cake in the office kitchen from a retirement party. I gobbled down a slice (being unable to resist free dessert), and have been craving more ever since.

I used the Devil’s Food Cake recipe from Bravetart, and the result was a cake that was chocolatey, moist, fluffy, and very very easy. It is truly a one-bowl cake that uses ingredients straight from the fridge, and comes together very quickly. The cake itself was the easiest part of this dessert to make! For the frosting, I also used Stella Parks’s new recipe for Chocolate Swiss Buttercream, which led me down the previously mentioned rabbit hole of roasting sugar (read aaaaall about my thoughts on that here). Whether because of the roasted sugar or not, the frosting was definitely the highlight – smooth, creamy, richly chocolatey, and not too sweet. Swiss buttercream is more labor-intensive than American buttercream, but I think it really tastes more complex, with a smoother, silkier, lighter texture. For all its steps, it’s also a resilient beast, and will bounce back from most supposed disasters. Once you get the hang of what you’re doing, it’s fairly straightforward.

Happy Birthday, Jimmy Ted!!!

Final note: I scaled both the cake and the frosting down 2/3 to make a 2-layer cake, because I still had a freezer full of Reese’s peanut butter cups, so that’s why some quantities are a little wonky. For quantities for the 3-layer cake, follow the links back to the original recipes.

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Devil's Food Cake with Chocolate Swiss Buttercream Frosting

Source: Cake from Bravtart, by Stella Parks. Adapted to make a 2-layer 8-inch cake. For a 3-inch cake, see ingredient quantities here.

Frosting from Serious Eats by Stella Parks. Again, adapted to frost 2-layer cake, hence why quantities are a bit wonky.

For more information on roasted sugar, see here.

Ingredients

Devil's Food Cake:

• 2 sticks (8 ounces) unsalted butter
• 1 cup (8 ounces) black coffee
• 2/3 cup (2 ounces) Dutch-process cocoa powder
• 4 ounces (3/4 cup + 1 tablespoon) finely chopped dark chocolate, about 72%
• 1 1/3 cup gently packed (10 2/3 ounces) light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 4 large eggs, straight from the fridge
• 2 large egg yolks (1 ounce)
• 1 1/3 cup (6 ounces) all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda

Chocolate Swiss Buttercream Frosting:

• 1/2 cup (4 ounces) egg whites (from 3-4 large eggs)
• 1 cup + 2 tablespoons (7 1/3 ounces) roasted sugar or light brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
• 1 1/3 cup (10 2/3 ounces) unsalted butter, softened and cut into roughly tablespoon-sized pieces
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 5 1/2 - 9 ounces (1 - 1 3/4 cups) finely chopped dark chocolate, about 72%

Instructions

For the cake:

• Place oven rack in lower-middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Line two 8-inch cake pans with parchment paper and grease with butter or nonstick spray. 
• Combine butter and coffee in a large (5-quart) stainless steel pot, and set over low heat, stirring occasionally. After the butter has fully melted, remove from heat and whisk in the cocoa and chocolate. Stir until the chocolate has fully melted, then stir in the brown sugar, vanilla, and salt. Add the eggs and the yolks, and stir to combine. Sift in the flour and baking soda. Whisk thoroughly to mix, then divide evenly among the prepared cake pans (there will be about 23 ounces of batter in each pan if you're using a kitchen scale).
• Bake at 350°F for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cakes comes out mostly clean with a few crumbs still attached. Cool in the cake pans for about 15 minutes, then remove the cakes from the pans. Peeling off the parchment, cool on a wire rack until no warmth remains, about 1 hour.

For the frosting:

• Fill a wide pot with 1-2 inches of water, and heat until gently simmering. Combine egg whites, sugar, salt, and cream of tartar in the bowl of a stand mixer, or a stainless steel bowl if using a hand mixer. Place the bowl over the pot of simmering water. Make sure the bottom of the bowl does not touch the water. If it does, place a thick ring of crumpled tinfoil on the bottom of the pot to act as a "booster seat" to raise the bowl up.
• Heat egg white mixture over the simmering water, whisking constantly, until mixture reaches 185°F (85°C). This will take about 10 to 12 minutes; if the mixture is heating slowly, turn up the heat. Once ready, remove from heat and transfer to a stand mixer fitted with a whisk attachment. Whip at high speed for about 10 minutes, until meringue is shiny, stiff, and cool to the touch, around 90°F (32°C).
• With the mixer switched to low, add butter, 1 or 2 tablespoons at a time. Make sure that the butter is close to room temperature to best incorporate with the meringue. After all the butter has been added, the buttercream should be thick, creamy, and soft but not runny, around 72°F (22°C). Add vanilla extract and mix on low speed until combined.
• Melt chocolate, either in a microwave or over a water bath (I did it in the microwave, in 20-second increments, stirring after each increment, until it was fluid and completely melted). You can play around with the amount of chocolate you add - the lower end of the suggested quantity range will produce a "milk" chocolate profile, and additional chocolate will produce incrementally deeper chocolate flavor (I used about 7 ounces, or a little less than 1 1/2 cups).
• Add all of the warm chocolate into the mixer bowl at once, then immediately begin whipping on medium-high speed until fully incorporated. Scrape bowl with a flexible spatula, then mix again for a few minutes until light, creamy, and silky smooth. If desired, adjust to taste with additional salt, vanilla, or melted chocolate.

Assembly:

• Trim the domed tops from the cakes with a serrated knife (they don't have to be perfectly level, just free from major lumps). Place one layer on a serving plate, cut side up. Cover the top with about 1 cup of frosting. Place the second cake layer on top of the frosting cut side down (this will help to reduce crumbs on the top of the cake). Spread a thin layer of frosting all over the cake to make a smooth foundation and trap any crumbs. Refrigerate for 10-15 minutes to set the crumb coat, then cover the cake with the remaining frosting.

Notes

Swiss meringue buttercream is amazingly resilient: if in doubt, just keep whipping. If the buttercream is too warm, it will appear soft and soupy. To fix, place it in the fridge for 15 minutes, then re-whip. If the buttercream is too cold, it will be firm and dense, and look slightly curdled. To fix, set the bowl over a pan of steaming water briefly, until the the edges just melting. Alternatively, scoop out a small amount of buttercream, melt it in the microwave, then add it back to the main bowl. Re-whip to homogenize. For more troubleshooting tips, see here.

As you know if you’ve read my previous post about homemade Reese’s cups, I am currently obsessed with Stella Parks. And I saw Stella’s new post about Chocolate Swiss Buttercream the other day, and fell down the rabbit hole of WANT. NOWWWW. This isn’t really a “NOWWWW” sort of frosting, though (ha!), as Stella waxes rather poetically about the benefits and complexities and beautiful flavors produced when you use roasted sugar, aka “granulated caramel,” in the frosting. Now, you’re right, I could have just used plain ole’ light brown sugar. But, because I have severe FOMO, and because I have been inspired by my friend Heidi, who has been fermenting all sorts of things lately (kimchi, kombucha), just for the fun of culinary experimentation, I dove headfirst into roasting sugar at 325°F, for 2 hours, on a sweltering 97°F Chicago heat wave day. Thank God for air conditioning.

So what was the verdict? Well, visually and olfactorily, the results were stunning! It was super fun to watch the sugar slowly turn color from snow white to a sandy light brown. Every 30 minutes, as I took the sugar out of the oven, the tops of the peaks of sugar would be lightly toasted, and the bottom would be a darker tan, creating pretty brown swirls in the pan when I stirred it. Also, the house smelled amazing when the sugar was roasting. Light, caramelly, and slightly meringue-y, like being next door to a Werther’s factory. I only roasted the sugar for two hours, but even in that time, the resulting product was a beautiful, crumbly, sandy brown sugar that was yet lighter in color and drier in texture than ordinary light brown sugar. Overall, it was immensely satisfying in and of itself to watch white sugar transform and be responsible for coaxing it along.

Taste-wise, the roasted sugar was pronouncedly less sweet than regular white sugar, with a distinctly mellower, nuttier, subtle caramel flavor. The roasted sugar also had a slightly coarser texture, with more clumping and larger, more irregular grains than the white sugar. Both James and I could tell the difference between the roasted sugar and white sugar in a blind taste test, although the different textures played a not insignificant part in differentiating the two.

However, how the roasted sugar fares when incorporated into recipes with other ingredients, I don’t really know! I’ve only used it to make the above Chocolate Swiss buttercream (separate post on that coming soon!), and while it was very very good, I can’t say how much of that was due to the roasted sugar. The chocolate flavor of the frosting was definitely very pronounced, as opposed to the frosting just tasting like sugar, which I appreciated. However, I feel like Swiss meringue frosting tends to taste less sweet in general, and I did buy some very good chocolate, so I can’t say for sure the same wouldn’t have happened with regular white sugar or regular light brown sugar. Maybe eventually I’ll get around to doing a side-by-side taste test (or ask the Pancake Princess to do one!). For what it’s worth, I did receive one compliment specifically on the frosting, so take from that what you will.

I will say, however, that I am excited about using the roasted sugar in more sugar-forward recipes that often tend to be tooth-achingly sweet and one-dimensional: marshmallows, Angel food cake, regular meringue. I’m also interested in making simple syrup with the roasted sugar, and using that in cocktails like old fashioneds or whiskey sours. Can you just imagine the description of this cocktail on a drink menu? Old Fashioned – Bulleit, bitters, maraschino, roasted sugar. Do stay tuned!!

Note: The pictures of the sugar in the baking dish were taken under the stove light, which I think washed out the color in the pictures. For the true, unfiltered color of the final product, the comparison pictures with white sugar were taken in natural light and offer the best representation.

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Roasted Sugar

Source: Bravetart, by Stella Parks 

Ingredients

• 9 cups (4 pounds) granulated white sugar

Instructions

• Preheat the oven to 325°F. Place the sugar in a 9-by-13-inch glass or ceramic baking dish. I actually used a smaller dish because it was what I had - around 8-by-10. As I understand it, water will evaporate from the sugar as a byproduct of caramelization, so you'd want a wider pan to encourage this evaporation and reduce clumpiness in the resulting sugar. However, my smaller pan worked fine. Also, avoid metal baking pans - they conduct heat more rapidly, which will make the sugar more likely to liquefy at the edges instead of slowly roasting.
• Roast sugar, stirring every 30 minutes or so to evenly distribute the toastier parts of the sugar. After about 2 hours, the sugar should darken to a light sandy brown color, with a texture that is coarser than white sugar, similar to turbinado.
• Cool sugar away from any sources of moisture or steam until completely cool. Stella says it will take an hour, but my sugar took maybe 2 hours to fully cool, plus I stirred it a few times to help release heat. The longer cooling time could have been due to my smaller pan and the sweltering Chicago heat wave. If the sugar is very clumpy after cooling, that's ok - just pulse it in a food processor until fine and powdery.
• Store for up to a year in an airtight container at room temperature, and use in place of granulated white sugar.

Notes

Stella's recipe for roasted sugar online at Serious Eats tells you to roast at 300°F, but she specifies 325°F in her cookbook. I roasted at 325°F and was happy with the color I got after 2 hours.

This recipe can be scaled up or down to any amount of sugar, but because of the time involved, Stella suggests you do at least a 4-pound bag at a time, and I tend to agree.

Stella's tip: This technique will not work with raw or semirefined cane sugar, as its molasses content will cause it to melt at lower temperatures, resulting in the sugar liquefying and clumping. 

I’ve discovered two things this past week: (1) I have been living in a bland, colorless world for not buying Stella Parks’s incredible Bravetart cookbook until now, and (2) relatedly, Stella Parks is a freaking genius. I have only made one recipe from this book, having received it last week, and I am already a die-hard fanatic, ready to preach her gifts to the world and prostrate myself at the feet of her baking and candy-making wizardry. How does she do it?? I have no idea, but if I gain even one-quarter of her instinct for creating delectable combinations of sugar, butter, and chocolate, then I can rest a happy woman.

The item in question that has changed my life forever is the iconic, the unmistakable, the nostalgic Reese’s peanut butter cup. I love chocolate and peanut butter, and I love the Reese’s peanut butter cup. The silky smooth chocolate, slightly waxy, the salty-sweet peanut butter filling that’s a little bit grainy, containing tiny bits of crushed up peanuts, or maybe sugar, or maybe preservatives – I don’t really know.

All this to say – I know what a Reese’s peanut butter cup tastes like. And I’ve made recipes before that profess to recreate an iconic dessert, only to taste distinctly – and unmistakably – not like that dessert. They didn’t taste bad, they just tasted not like the original. Sort of like how you buy those Annie’s organic chocolate sandwich cookies thinking that they’re somehow healthier, but then kind of wish you had just bought the Oreo’s instead (Stella Parks also has a recipe for homemade Oreo’s. I digress). Same same, but different.

NOT THESE REESE’S PEANUT BUTTER CUPS THOUGH. They are the same same, BUT BETTER. Stella Parks writes that Reese’s are fairly easy to recreate, because when you take away all the preservatives, the ingredients are just chocolate, sugar, peanut butter, and peanuts. And trust me – these homemade versions tasted like exactly that – real ingredients, without the preservatives. The peanut butter filling is the same slightly crunchy, slightly gritty version found in the original, but with more caramel, more vanilla, more peanutty goodness that you want to eat it by itself off the spoon (Stella – can I call you Stella? – suggests that if you have leftover filling, you can dollop it on toast or crackers like “peanut butter Nutella.” She means “peanut butter crack.”). The chocolate shell is still silky smooth, but no longer waxy, because you are using excellent quality chocolate that you buy at Whole Foods for $10 a pound which makes your husband give you serious side-eye, but you don’t even care because you’ve just singlehandedly recreated peanut butter chocolate childhood bliss.

Now the bad news – these are a bit of a time suck to make, I’m afraid, and do involve tempering chocolate, which sounds scary but is not all that bad. I highly recommend you read this article, which has a fantastic amount of information on the details of tempering chocolate, and also suggests some alternative methods. You will need a decent digital thermometer if you temper the chocolate the way I’ve described below. However, you also don’t have to temper the chocolate. If you skip the tempering, you’ll just have to store the peanut butter cups in the refrigerator and serve them cold, since the chocolate will remain melted at room temperature. Also, a lot of the active time is spent on recreating that fluted iconic Reese’s cup look. If you’re short on time or don’t care about the cup aspect, there’s an easier alternative described that takes much less time. All this is to say that you have no excuses for not MAKING THESE NOW. If you are a Reese’s lover, you will never go back to the originals again.

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Homemade Reese's Peanut Butter Cups

Source: Bravetart, by Stella Parks

To make the peanut butter filling, first you will need to make a caramel-vanilla peanut brittle that you will then grind to a powder and mix with smooth peanut butter. You only need half of the peanut brittle for the Reese's cups, so if you want, you can halve all the ingredients for the brittle. However, the brittle is SO DELICIOUS and keeps up to 6 months in the freezer, so I don't think you'll be sorry if you go ahead and make the whole batch. I definitely wasn't!

Ingredients

For caramel-vanilla peanut brittle:

• 1/3 cup (3 ounces) water
• 1/2 cup (6 ounces) light corn syrup
• 1 cup (7 ounces) granulated sugar
• 4 tablespoons (2 ounces) unsalted butter
• 1 vanilla bean
• 1 rounded cup (5 ounces) dry-roasted or honey-roasted peanuts (I used honey-roasted)
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

For the rest of the Reese's cups:

• 3/4 cup (7 ounces) creamy peanut butter
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
• 2 pounds milk chocolate (I used Callebaut's 33% milk chocolate, found at Whole Foods)

Instructions

To make the caramel-vanilla peanut brittle:

• Combine the water, corn syrup, sugar, and butter in a 3-quart stainless steel pot. Split the vanilla bean lengthwise with a paring knife and scrape out the seeds, adding the seeds to the pot. Place the pot over medium-low heat and cook, gently stirring until the syrup is bubbling vigorously around the edges, about 5 minutes. Raise the heat to medium-high, clip on a candy thermometer if you like, and cook, without stirring, until the syrup is golden brown, about 10 minutes (or approximately 340°F). I didn't find it was necessary to use a thermometer - once the syrup starts to brown, it will be ready in a couple of minutes, so keep an eye on it. The edges of the syrup may brown quicker than the middle - if this happens, you can swirl the pot to distribute the sugar. The syrup will be ready when it is the color of smooth peanut butter - put a can next to the stove to compare.
• While the sugar is cooking, mix together the baking soda and salt and have it ready to go by the stove. Grease an aluminum baking sheet, or put down a piece of parchment paper. 
• When the syrup is golden brown, turn off the heat, remove the thermometer (if using), and stir in the baking soda and salt with a heat-resistant spatula. Be careful - the syrup will be incredibly hot! Stir in the peanuts, then scrape the mixture onto the prepared baking sheet and spread into a roughly 12-by-8-inch layer. Don't worry if you end up with large clumps of peanuts stuck together - you can break them apart later if you like. Cool to room temperature, about 1 hour.
• Chop or break the brittle into 2-inch pieces. And, voila! Wasn't that easy? Now you have delicious caramel-vanilla peanut brittle that is an amazing candy in and of itself. Store half of the brittle in an airtight container - it will keep for about a month at room temperature, or up to 6 months in the freezer.

Now getting on to the peanut butter cups:

• Coarsely chop the remaining half of the peanut brittle. Put the pieces in a food processor and pulse until the pieces break down into a loose powder. Add the peanut butter, vanilla, and salt and grind to a smooth paste, about 2 minutes. It will start off looking like a ball of dough, but keep the processor going until the paste loosens and smooths out into a thick but spreadable consistency. Stella Parks recommends you transfer the filling to a piping bag fitted with a 1/2-inch plain tip, but I didn't have one and just placed the filling in a bowl and dolloped it onto the cups with a spoon. This also worked fine, although maybe piping it would ensure a more even and consistent layer of filling. I give instructions for both methods later.
• Temper the chocolate. Coarsely chop about 2/3 of the chocolate into 1/4-inch cubes, and place into a stainless steel bowl. Finely chop the rest of the chocolate and set aside. Heat a saucepan containing about an inch of water over medium-low heat until the water is just barely simmering. Place the metal bowl with the chocolate on top of the saucepan to create a double boiler, making sure that the bottom of the bowl doesn't touch the water. Stir the chocolate to melt it, while monitoring the temperature with a digital thermometer - do not let the temperature get above 105°F. If the temperature is rising too rapidly, take the chocolate off the heat for a few seconds and stir to release heat. When the chocolate is completed melted and just shy of 105°F, about 8-10 minutes, take it off the heat and stir in about 1/3 of the finely chopped chocolate. Stir until all the chocolate has melted, and then add in the remainder of the finely chopped chocolate, except for about 1/4 cup - save this 1/4 for emergency use. Stir for 5 minutes, until all the chocolate has melted (keep stirring even if the chocolate melts before the 5 minutes - this is necessary to properly agitate the chocolate). After stirring, the goal is to have the chocolate be at 84-86°F - it is now ready for use! If the chocolate cools too quickly and becomes thick, place the bowl over the hot water bath for 5 seconds, then stir vigorously off heat.

  Notes: To test the chocolate, dip a butter knife into the chocolate and refrigerate for two minutes. If it comes out soft or melts to the touch, it hasn't tempered correctly, and your best bet is to repeat the whole process. If it comes out streaked or swirled but semi-firm or slightly tacky, it needs to be agitated more - stir vigorously for two more minutes, and test again. If it comes out hard, glossy, and snappy, it's tempered and your chocolate is ready for use!

  During use, if the chocolate cools and becomes too thick, carefully rewarm it by setting it over the water bath for a few seconds, then stirring off heat. However, do not let the chocolate exceed 86°F - if it accidentally overheats, immediately add the "emergency" chocolate and stir like mad.
• Assemble the peanut butter cups. Line muffin pans with fluted cupcake papers. I found it helpful to make the cups in batches of 6 or 12. Drop a tablespoon of chocolate into the cupcake papers. Add the peanut butter filling one of two ways: 1) With the piping bag, hold it vertically, perpendicular to the layer of chocolate, and pipe about 1 tablespoon of filling into the center of the chocolate. 2) Using a spoon, gently drop about 1 tablespoon of filling into the center of the chocolate. In either case, dropping the peanut butter filling should push the chocolate up the sides of the paper. Top each cup with another tablespoon of chocolate, smoothing the tops if necessary with an offset spatula. Lightly tap the pan on the counter a few times to even and smooth out the tops further. Refrigerate until the chocolate is set, about 30 minutes. Repeat with remaining cupcake papers, chocolate, and peanut butter filling.

Notes

The cups will keep in an airtight container for up to 1 week at room temperature, 1 month in the fridge, or 6 months in the freezer.

Alternative: Peanut butter slabs

On a parchment-lined 9-by-13 baking tray, spread half the tempered chocolate in a smooth layer. Refrigerate until firm, about 10 minutes. Spread all of the peanut butter filling on top of the hardened chocolate, then cover with the remaining chocolate, smoothing gently with an offset spatula if desired. Refrigerate until hard, then cut up into bars to serve.

My lemon elderflower layer cake is my new baby. You know, life is a journey. And at this point, this cake is definitely the pinnacle of my cake making skills (trust me – that lemon curd is sooooo good). Anyway, I’m also excited about it because I branched out and decorated it with fresh flowers! And, honestly, it’s no mystery why wedding cakes these days are just bursting with fresh flowers – they cover, disguise, and distract from any blemishes, imperfections, or frosting smudges on your cake. Unsure of your frosting skills? Literally pluck a fresh flower on your cake, and it will be elevated from homemade confection to professional beauty.

However, when I was researching the logistics of how to actually put flowers on and in cakes, I couldn’t find that much information online about it. So this is what I did, and hopefully it can be helpful to you!

Before I start, I must warn that using fresh flowers does come with a certain degree of risk management. Flowers, after all, aren’t really meant to be put on food, and so there’s a spectrum of things you can do to manage that risk, which I’ll try to explain. I found a lot of articles online (mostly from bakers) who were horrified at the prospect of putting fresh flowers – any flowers – on baked goods. I’m no horticultural expert, so do the research you need, and think about what you’re comfortable with.

Choosing the Flowers

First, I think it’s important to find organic or pesticide-free flowers. I have no idea what pesticides are used on flowers, and whether you can adequately remove them just by rinsing flowers under clean water. You’re not eating the flowers, but it’s better to be safe than sorry, and especially if you’re putting them on sticky surfaces like buttercream, there’s a good chance that chemicals can transfer to the food. Find a good florist, talk to them about your plans, and see what they say about the treatment, transport, and storage of their flowers. Also ask them how long different flowers will keep and what temperatures they can tolerate without water. Some flowers are more delicate and will wilt very rapidly out of water – try to steer clear of those as much as possible, life will be less stressful!

As for which flowers or greens you should actually choose, that’s another risk management decision. There are some websites that counsel you to only use technically edible flowers. While you’re not eating the flowers, parts of the plant (petals, pollen, filaments, etc.) could still fall onto or touch the cake. Since non-edible flowers contain various toxins, this could be bad. I… sort of tried to do this, but ultimately failed. The local florist which I used (and loved) here in Chicago had a limited selection of non-treated flowers, which really only consisted of absolutely beautiful ranunculus. Unfortunately, ranunculus contain toxins that can irritate the skin and mouth. I tried to find out more information online: which part of the ranunculus was actually poisonous, whether the toxin was in all parts of the flower or only in some parts, how much you’d have to eat to be affected (just a small dusting of pollen? One petal? The whole flower?), how much physical contact would be necessary to release toxins, etc… However, I couldn’t find anything really useful. Turns out, not many people are considering eating ranunculus??

In the end, I decided to just do it – I decided that a light brushing of the underside of the ranunculus against the buttercream would not be a big deal, and if it looked like the flower was really sticking to the buttercream, I could always scrape some buttercream off the affected area. And as of the time of writing, it’s been 5 days since I’ve served the cake, and no one has complained of mouth irritation, so I feel good about this decision. Fortunately, however, there are lots of popular and beautiful flowers on the edibles list, like lilac and roses, so you should be able to find something. You could also try a food seal for more protection (see “Additional Notes” below).

Preparation

Rinse the flowers and greens you’re using under gentle cold water, brushing off any stray dirt or pollen, and running the water through the petals. This will ensure that your flowers are clean and free from bugs. Pat flowers dry with paper towels, and put stems back into water. Keep your flowers in water until you’re ready to decorate. If you use the straw water tubes as I describe below (in the “Decorating the Cake” section), I found that the flowers could probably last the day at room temperature, depending on the size of the straw and the kind of flower. If, however, you’re not providing any water source at all for your flowers, they will wilt rather quickly, especially in hot temperatures. So try to make these flowers or greens more of an accent rather than the main focus, and put them on as late as possible.

Decorating the Cake!

There are a few ways you can decorate with fresh flowers or greens. You could simply lay them on the top or the sides of the cake. This is what I did with the two lilac bunches – one is just resting on the top, and one is resting on the cake stand. I trimmed off the flowers on one side of the bunch resting on the cake stand so that it would lay closer to the cake and “hug” the sides more. Before I did this, the lilac was sort of in a triangle shape, poking off to the side. After, it was half of a triangle, and looked much more integrated into the cake.

For single flowers, you could also try the resting method; however, they’re more likely to topple off or tilt at a weird angle. I prefer to actually stick these into the cake. To do this, I used plastic drinking straws to create little water tubes that: a) become a tool by which to push flowers into the cake, b) provide a physical barrier so that flower fluid from the stem doesn’t leech into the cake and c) if you’re sticking the flowers in to the cake vertically, provide a small reservoir of water for your flowers.

I used regular 1/4-inch diameter drinking straws, because those were the only ones I could find. They were big enough for my flower stems, but just barely. If you can find larger straws (I think the straws provided at McDonald’s or Starbucks might be a tiny bit larger in diameter?), or the straws used for boba, they might work better. Just make sure that the stems of your flowers or greens fit comfortably into the straw.

To make the water tubes, first cut off any bending bits so that your straw is just a straight tube. Next, you’re going to use heat to melt and seal one end of the straw. Over a flat, heatproof surface (I used the bottom of a baking tray), light a match or lighter and hold it to one edge of the straw until the straw starts to melt and shrink. This will only take a second! Quickly blow out the match and then, using another flat, heavy, heatproof object (I used the flat bottom of an oven-proof ceramic bowl), quickly press down hard on the melted plastic and hold for a few seconds until the plastic cools. After the plastic has cooled, you should have effectively sealed the straw at that end. To test, fill the straw with water (due to the tiny volume inside the straw, trickle the water into the straw in as fine a stream as you can to avoid trapping air bubbles and preventing the water from flowing all the way to the bottom of the tube. It also helps to hold the straw at an angle to the trickle of water). After you’ve got water in the bottom of the straw, rub the sealed bit with your dry fingers and thumb. If it’s truly sealed, no water should leak out and you should feel no water between your fingers.

A note about melting plastic: James, who admittedly is not a materials and food scientist by any stretch, seems to think that no harm will come of inserting heated, melted, then cooled plastic into food products. This answer was acceptable to me, as it’s not like I’m melting plastic and dripping it over food. The straw is completely cool by the time it touches the cake. If there are any plastics experts out there who disagree, please do let me know! And if you don’t feel comfortable with melting plastic, maybe there are tiny little glass test tubes you can buy for this purpose? I didn’t research this too closely, but if you have some alternative suggestions, I’d love to know those too.

Use the straw tubes to put flowers into cake:

Trim the unsealed end of the straw tube so that the tube is about 2 – 3 inches long. Trim the flower so that the stem is about the same length as the straw tube. You don’t want the stem to be too long; otherwise, your flower will look like it’s floating above the cake. You don’t want it too short either, though, because then it won’t reach any of the water at the bottom of the tube. Don’t worry too much if the stem is too long for now – you can always trim it after you’ve inserted the straw. Fill the tube with a little water (if using), and place the stem of the flower inside the tube. After placing the flower in, the water level should be about 1/4 inch below the top of the tube – adjust the water amount if necessary.

Push the straw tube gently but firmly into the cake where you want the flower to go. Continue to push the straw tube down into the cake, adjusting the angle if necessary to land your flower where you want. If you feel comfortable in the angle, you can always remove the flower from the tube, and just use the tip of your finger to push the tube down. If you want to keep the flower in the straw tube as you’re pushing down, I find it helpful to push down on the straw edge with a flat, thin object like a butter knife, holding the knife parallel to the surface of the cake, to avoid accidentally touching the frosting. You’ll want the lip of the straw tube to be about flush with the surface of the cake, maybe a tiny bit above, so you can easily remove the straws later. Check how your flower looks. If it’s “hovering” too much above the cake, take it out from the straw and snip a bit off the end of the stem.

Note that if you’re inserting the flowers horizontally, or at a horizontal-ish angle, you won’t really be able to put much water, if any, in the tube. That’s okay, but it’s something you’ll have to keep in mind – maybe keep the flowers in water for as long as you can, and just insert them into the tubes right before you present the cake. Also, try to angle the opening of the straw tubes at least a little bit upward, so that any sap or flower juice from the stem will collect at the bottom of the tube instead of spilling over onto your cake.

As a bonus, because the flowers go into the straws and not into the cake itself, you can always switch the flowers into different straws if you’re not happy with your original arrangement.

Additional Notes:

If you want to provide more of a barrier between the flower and the cake, I did find this special food seal that coats items with a food safe material. I did not use this, so I don’t know how well it would work, or what appearance it would give your sealed flowers / plants. My feeling is that you would only be able to coat the stem and the underside of the flowers. The seal might be a good way to create a physical barrier between the underside of the flower and the cake, if you’re using non-edible flowers and concerned about toxins passing to the cake from contact. If you use it, let me know what you think!

I feel like I should add a legal disclaimer at the end. If you use ranunculus and end up with sore mouth, please don’t sue me. I’m not responsible.

Oh. My. GOD. The royal wedding was this Saturday, where Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wed in St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. I’m not embarrassed to admit that I watched about two full hours of the coverage, and even teared up a bit when Meghan and her swoonworthy veil started her walk alone down the aisle. Here’s my favorite fun tidbit – Prince Harry had to get special permission from the Queen to wear his beard while in Army uniform! Anyway, James is a Brit, I absolutely adore Meghan Markle, and so it’s no surprise that we were wrapped up in the glitz and glamour. My friend Kate was so excited too she flew all the way from San Francisco to celebrate with us!

And so, when I learned back in March that Prince Harry and Meghan had chosen a LEMON ELDERFLOWER CAKE for their reception, bucking the tradition of heavy celebration fruitcakes and one made by a native Californian, no less (I’m originally from California), I knew immediately that I had to recreate this! I mean, if we’re eating the same cake, it’s practically like we’re at their wedding, right?!

I had a pretty good idea of how I’d go about this. I’ve made Smitten Kitchen’s lemon layer cake before, and it was absolutely delicious and the epitome of spring. And while I love the seven-minute frosting that I made it with that time, Harry and Meghan are having buttercream and by jove, buttercream I will have too! I turned to Style Sweet CA’s Tessa Huff for her reliable and easy Swiss Meringue Buttercream, spiking it with some St. Germain elderflower liquor. I’m also not embarrassed to admit that I took the Friday before the wedding off work to make this cake – these layer cakes take me for-EVER! But after a few fresh flowers plunked on the cake for decoration, I must say that this is one of my best cakes yet. Prince Harry and Meghan are truly inspiring me to live my best life.

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Lemon Elderflower Cake with Buttercream Frosting

Sources:

Cake and lemon curd: Smitten Kitchen

Elderflower buttercream: Style Sweet CA

Note: Feel free to omit the elderflower liqueur if you don't like it, and add 1 1/2 teaspoons of pure vanilla extract instead for vanilla buttercream. Or, feel free to try out some other flavoring! 

Ingredients

For the cake:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour, minus 2 tablespoons
• 1 1/2 tablespoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1 cup (2 sticks) butter, at room temperature
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 4 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Lemon curd:

• 8 egg yolks
• 1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, cubed
• 3/4 cup lemon juice
• Zest of 3 lemons

Elderflower buttercream:

• 1/2 cup egg whites (from about 4 large eggs)
• 1 cup granulated sugar
• 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter, cubed, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup elderflower liqueur (such as St. Germain) (optional)

To assemble:

• 3 tablespoons elderflower liqueur (such as St. Germain) (optional)

Instructions

Make the cake:

• Preheat oven to 350°F. Butter and flour the sides of 3 8-inch cake pans, or spray with nonstick cooking spray. Place a circle of parchment in the bottom of the cake pans.
• Mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt.
• Using an electric mixer, cream butter until fluffy. If your butter is too cold, beat it a bit more here to warm it up. Add sugar and continue to cream well for 6 to 8 minutes, until the mixture is pale yellow, light, and fluffy. Do not rush this step! This is what incorporates air into the mixture and what will cause the resulting cake to be light and airy.
• Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Alternate adding the flour mixture and the milk into the batter, adding the flour in three additions and the milk in two, starting and ending with the flour. Mix after each addition, but don't overdo it - it's okay to stop and go on to the next addition even if you can still see some streaks of flour or milk. Add vanilla and mix until just combined.
• Divide batter equally among prepared pans. Level the batter by holding pan 3 or 4-inches above the counter, and dropping flat onto counter. I do this about 5-7 times per pan. This releases air bubbles in the batter and leads to a more level cake. Bake for 23-25 minutes or until a tester or toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
• Let cakes cool for about two minutes in the pan, then turn out onto cooling racks and let cool completely - this will take at least an hour.

Make the lemon curd:

• Create a double-boiler: Fill a saucepan with a few inches of water and bring to a simmer. Place all the lemon curd ingredients in a metal bowl, and place the bowl on top of the saucepan to create a double boiler. Make sure that the bottom of the metal bowl doesn't touch the water. Cook the mixture, whisking constantly, until it begins to thicken (sort of like the consistency of loose salad dressing) and turns color from a bright yellow to a pale, frothier pastel yellow. You can also check the temperature - it will be done when it reaches 165-170°F. This will take about 10-15 minutes. Remove from heat and allow to cool. Cover and refrigerate until completely cool - it will thicken even more.

Make the elderflower buttercream:

• In a large bowl, or in the bowl of an electric stand mixer if you're using one, add the egg whites and granulated sugar. Whisk them together briefly by hand until combined.
• Create a double-boiler again with a saucepan and simmering water. Place the bowl with the egg whites and sugar on top of the saucepan (again, don't let the bowl touch the water). Heat the egg white mixture, stirring, until it reaches 155-160°F. The mixture should be very hot to the touch and the sugar should be completely dissolved.
• Once the egg white mixture has reached the designated temperature, take it off the heat and beat the mixture with the whisk attachment on high speed for about 8 minutes. You can return the bowl to the stand mixer to do this, or do it with a handheld electric mixer with the whisk attachment. When done, the meringue should hold shiny, medium-stiff peaks and be cooled to room temperature. The outside of the bowl should feel at room temperature. Stop the mixer and swap out the whisk for the paddle attachment.
• With the mixer on low, begin adding in the butter a couple tablespoons at a time. Use the paddle attachment to mix each addition in. The butter must be room temperature in order to incorporate properly with the meringue.
• After the butter has been mixed in, add the elderflower liqueur and mix to combine. Turn the mixer up to medium speed and mix the buttercream until silky smooth, light, and creamy. This may take a few minutes.

To assemble:

• Cut off any domed tops of cakes so that each cake layer is even and flat. Run hands along all sides of the cake to remove excess crumbs. Place one cake layer on your cake stand or pedestal, and brush about 1/3 of the elderflower liqueur onto the top of the cake with a pastry brush. With a pastry bag with a plain round tip, or a plastic bag with a corner cut off, pipe a circle of buttercream around the outer edge of the cake layer. This will add structural integrity, and help to hold the lemon curd in place. Because the lemon curd isn't very substantial, though, the buttercream circle doesn't have to be super thick - maybe about 1/4 inch in height. Spread about 1/3 of the lemon curd on top of the cake inside the buttercream circle.
• Repeat with the remaining cake layers, finishing with elderflower liqueur and lemon curd on the very top of the cake. Brush any remaining lemon curd on the sides of the cake with a pastry brush. Frost the top and sides of cake with remaining buttercream. To frost the top of the cake, it's easiest to pipe the frosting on with a pastry bag or plastic bag first. I use a round tip to pipe a spiral covering the top of the cake, then use an offset spatula to gently smooth out the frosting and fill in any cracks. This will help you frost the top of the cake without pushing off all of the lemon curd underneath.