Sunday Feast № 20 | Cherry for Blueberry, or with Blueberry, Tart with Oat Crumble

There is nothing like late night baking. Well, there are other as exciting, if not more exciting things, to do late at night, but sometimes switching it up is called for, and honestly, if the muse strikes in the middle of the work week, late night is the only time to do it. The beauty of late night baking is that it perfumes the air for a great soporific effect while the baking goods cool overnight to welcome you in the morning with temptation. So here I was again, this time adapting a recipe by Rachel Conners of Bakerita.com. The result didn't last long when next day's visitors started tasting - a seal of universal approval.
The original recipe called for blueberries since Rachel was "having waaay too many blueberries in the house". I had leftover frozen cherries, reserving fresh ones to eat as they are, and I had some blueberries for the start of the season, which for the most part I also wanted to eat raw. Nevertheless, I "sacrificed" some. Walnuts I had on hand were a good pairing for what in my case was predominantly cherry filling.    This is the most solid coconut oil I have ever used in anything, and baking at night when it was cool meant it stayed solid rather then liquefying in the jar the way it tends to do at the height of summer. There is also something comforting yet decadent in baking with almond flour. With the addition of honey and oats, I guess this tart is borderline healthy in a way few tarts can be. Trick of the mind? Perhaps, but a very good one. Very tasty.

Sunday Feast № 14 | Cherry Poppy Seed Cake, or how I survived baking after not paying attention to loaf pan size

While and after reading "The Sweet Life in Paris" by David Lebovitz, I started frequenting his blog, where recently he posted his adaptation of the cherry poppy seed cake from newly released "Sweeter Off the Vine" by Yossy Arefi.    Still in the throws of "I can do baking" and having acquired a loaf pan, I had a go. It looked very easy compared to the blind bake followed by baking with the filling that the lemon tart required. No sifting. No kneading. No whisking, per say. Just dry ingredients and wet ingredients eventually combined and poured into a loaf pan en masse. Even the streusel topping looked easy. The fact that he clearly and up front calls for a 9 in/23 cm loaf pan I didn't note.    You see, I still remembered reading his loaf recipes from "The Sweet Life in Paris" and noting that all of them required an 8 in/20 cm pan. An autopilot, especially in a non-baker, is a dubious thing. No biggie you would think, right? Seeing mine filled not far off the brim with the batter and the streusel and ending with streusel surplus gave me a pause, but then I ushered it all into the preheated oven. I would like to say that me putting a baking tray underneath the pan was a learned trick to prevent possible spillage onto the over floor. Alas, no. It was a matter of convenience and prevention: easy sliding of the goodies from and to the middle oven rack, while avoiding the inevitable, in my case, singes of my hands, typically below the thumb, from the top oven rack. You'd think I'd invest in some oven mitts instead of making do with folded over dish cloths. Nonsense! But I digress. The advantage of an oven door with a glass panel and an inside light is that you can watch like a hawk the proceedings within without opening the door and tempting fate with temperature drops.    And there it was.