Wow! We had some fantastic entries in this month’s Does My Blog Look Good in This? event! We also had some fantastic judges who, up until now, were anonymous: Cathy, from My Little Kitchen, Lori from Dessert Comes First, Sarah from The Delicious Life and Slashfood and Anna, from the Annalog, which isn’t a food blog (but Anna is an excellent photographer and still likes to eat). I was the fifth and final judge. We all had a blast looking at the entries.Some tips for future entrants: Since the judging is based on edibility, originality and aesthetics, any one of those three categories can make or break a would-be winner. For aesthetics, aim for good or interesting lighting and a sharp focus. Originality could be anything from presentation to the food itself, or simply the fact that there are no other (cookies/cakes/salmon filets) entered that month, so it’s a bit of a wild card. That brings us to edibility. If it’s not edible or drinkable in its current state, it’s going to be at a disadvantage. Of course, I think that every single entry scored highly in that category, so don’t take this too serioiusly! We’re food bloggers - we like to eat.

The overall winners are:
1. Baked Strawberry Pudding
2. Cinnamon Sugar Beignets
3. Blueberry Tarts with Lemon Cream
4. Beet Risotto with Fresh Garlic and Fava Beans
5. Spirale di filo ai Pistacchi

Other Awards:

Viewer’s Choice: Fairly Easy Fairy Cakes (based on number of views)

Best Name: The Waffle of Insane Greatness
Meatiest: Fatted Calf’s Organic Beef Links with Aleppo Pepper
Best Fruit/Veg: Olives and Thyme

Congratulations to all the winners and thanks to all the judges. You can still view the rest of the entries here, if you missed them. The next round of DMBLGiT is being hosted by Helen, the Sydneysider who blogs at the wonderful Grab Your Fork. Head over there for more details!

I’ll leave you with a gratuitous photo of my key lime pie. Any suggestions for which photo from the last month I should enter in the next round? Leave them in the comments!

Tasty Kakes are snack cakes that are originally from (and hugely popular in) the Philadelphia area. Since a lot of my family lives out there, I regularly got to taste these delicious cakes when I was growing up, despite the fact that they weren’t sold out in California. More recently, I have seen a kind or two in the market, but they are still largely unavailable elsewhere in the country.

If you ask a Tasty Kake lover, they will tell you that they are the best snack cakes on the market. Now, I am no snack cake connoisseur, but they are certainly very tasty. The company makes a huge range of products and has a lot of extraneous “k”s in their spelling, which adds to their charm. When I’m back east, I like to go for the seasonal products, just to keep things interesting, but the gold standard of Tasty Kakes is the Peanut Butter Kandy Kake.

The Peanut Butter Kandy Kake (which used to be called “tandy takes” for reasons unknown) is a vanilla sponge-type cake with a thin layer of peanut butter and another of chocolate on top. The packaged Kakes are circular and are enrobed in chocolate. When I found a recipe on Epicurious for a version of these cakes, I knew that I had to try them, even though it can be difficult (and sometimes disappointing) to compare anything to a favorite food or product, since it is hard to match flavors exactly.

This recipe, however, was spot on - and maybe even a bit better than the original, because I liked the increased cake-to-topping ratio of this version.

The cake base is a vanilla-flavored sponge cake that is enriched with a little bit of butter. The peanut butter layer is simply peanut butter (not a “natural” kind, which will separate and turn greasy when put onto a hot cake) spread onto the hot cake and cooled. The chocolate is creamy milk chocolate. The whole thing is prepared in the pan and the only “trick” to remember is to make cut marks in the chocolate layer before it sets up completely, which will allow you to easily slice through the cake without cracking the chocolate when you are ready to serve it.

To keep the topping firm and give it a bit of “snap” when you bite into it, the cake must be stored in the refrigerator. Make sure to keep it well-covered so it does not get stale. You can also slice up the bars and individually wrap them, keeping them in the fridge or freezer for later use - just like the real, individually packaged Kandy Kakes!

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When I saw Elise’s post about mushroom caviar, I was immediately interested in it. It’s a cross between dip and “real” food, not to mention that it’s different from most of the dips that I have on a regular basis, so I thought it would be a great summer snack. And I was right.

This dish is called “caviar” for its slight physical resemblance to the fishy product and to make it sound a bit more posh than “mushroom dip.” It comes together easily, with chopped up mushrooms and shallots, followed by a bit of garlic and seasonings, all of which is sauteed until tender. I didn’t have an open bottle of white wine, so I left that out, as well as omitting the pine nuts (sorry, Elise). The caviar is served cold, so it can be made in advance, and is made creamy with the addition of a little bit of sour cream. I actually used plain yogurt instead of sour cream and, since I didn’t measure it, my caviar appears to be slightly creamier than Elise’s. The sour cream/yogurt helps the mushroom bits to stick together, so you can form it into an attractive round on your serving dish that looks almost like pate.

I’ll be making this again many times. I served it with some garlic crackers that I picked up at Trader Joe’s, though it also went extremely well with pita chips.

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Raise your hand if you have ever experienced and overabundance of courgettes/zucchini/summer squash in either your garden or refrigerator.

Everyone? I thought so.

I don’t try to grow it anymore for two reasons. The first is that it takes over the garden and results in an unbelievable number of squash. The second is that my garden is already overtaken with cucumbers and I don’t have any more room. I buy it, though. I love zucchini because it tastes great, is versatile and is usually both plentiful and inexpensive. I have used it in cornbread and to make oven-fried zucchini sticks, and there are even blogs named after it. From time to time, I am struck by the desire to do something different with my squash and will toss some into a cake or bread, both of which work beautifully - but cookies?

Zucchini works as well in cookies as it does in cakes. Don’t worry - the cookies don’t taste like zucchini, even though you will be able to see little specks of green in them. It gives the finished product a moistness that is uncharacteristic of most cookies. It also makes them fairly cakelike, much like a muffin top, so this recipe is probably not for you if you only like crunchy cookies!

The cookies are easy to make and use up about 1 medium sized zucchini. Though cakelike, they are not dry and they keep well in an airtight container. I like the fairly mild spicing that the cookies have, but you could certainly add in a bit of freshly grated nutmeg or more allspice, if you like. I prefer raisins to chocolate chips in these cookies, but if you need to have your chocolate fix, simply substitute an equal amount of semisweet chips.

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This month’s food meme mashup of IMBB27 and SHF20 is hosted by Reid, of the inimitable Ono Kine Grindz, everyone’s favorite Hawaiian food blog. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, allow me to clarify. Every month, many food bloggers participate in the food blogging events Is My Blog Burning? (IMBB) and Sugar High Friday (SHF), which usually occur independently, but happen to both be run by Reid this month. Everyone makes a dish according to a theme and sends it in to one blogger who publishes a roundup (list of links) of all the participating bloggers and their recipes. The catch is that the events are themed and this month’s theme is soy.

It didn’t take me long to decide what to make.

First, I wanted something sweet, which would be appropriate to the spirit of SHF as well as IMBB. Given that it is getting pretty darn hot here in Los Angeles, I figured that something cold would be a good choice, too. The final piece of the puzzle came from leftover cookies.

I made cookies n’ cream ice cream with a low-fat soy milk base. Since my Trader Joe’s Jo-Jo’s (Oreo cookie look-alikes) are vegan, this made the whole ice cream vegan. How’s that for a guiltless summer treat?

The ice cream turns out to taste pretty much just like cookies and cream. It is smooth an creamy, with a bit of crunch from the cookies. The chocolaty color is due to the fact that I crushed up some cookies very finely, while leaving others in bigger chunks. If you only want chunks, stir in the crushed up cookies after the ice cream base has churned in the ice cream maker. And yes, I do recommend that you use an ice cream maker for this recipe.

This works best with low fat soy milk, which will yield a slightly creamier than non-fat. Using vanilla soy milk will give you even more vanilla flavor.

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What do you do when you already have a really good cheesecake recipe, but want to make another one? Sometimes, it is hard to justify trying a new recipe when the one you have is excellent because it is taking a risk on something new when you already have a sure thing going. The best solution is to make a variation on the recipe, which will give you a similar product, but get you there in a new and different way. For example, I wanted to make a cheesecake, but I didn’t want to use the same recipe again (even though it is fantastic). I made ricotta cheesecake instead.

Ricotta cheesecake is rich, but light at the same time due to the ever-so-slight texture that the cheese gives the cake. Of course, it’s not “light” in the sense that it is low in fat or calories, but you’ll certainly never mistake it for the super smooth and super dense New York-style cake. This cake has a hint of lemon, which is tasty and almost refreshing in the chilled cake.

I prefer it this way, but I won’t say that it’s necessarily better.

I used the recipe from Joy of Baking because it incorporated both cream cheese and ricotta, giving the cake a good flavor profile. The cheesecake whips together in minutes and, though it does bake in a waterbath, it is easy to tell when it is done because you want it to brown slightly on the top. As it bakes, the cake will puff up a lot, almost twice the size that it will be after it cools. After it deflates, there will be small wrinkles around the outer edge of the cake, giving it a distinctive and appealing look.

I omitted a crust because I noticed that many ricotta cheesecake recipes leave it out. While I crust would have been fine, I do think that the texture of the cheesecake was subtle and might have been lost with on the tongue with the crisp, crumbliness of a crust. It still would have tasted good, though.

One final word of advice: don’t eat cheesecake at the end of a meal. You won’t be able to finish a piece, but you will want to and will probably just end up feeling guilty that you wasted it. And even if you stuff yourself, you won’t feel good enough to actually enjoy the flavor. Instead, have a piece with your coffee in the afternoon, when you’re really able to savor it.

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