Sunday we went to Maine to celebrate Father’s Day with relatives. I didn’t need any more of an excuse to start baking. I’d already had this cake recipe in my head and couldn’t wait to try it out.

The body of the cake is made with just almond flour, making it gluten and grain-free and lending a slightly nutty flavor. Because almond flour isn’t all that absorbent, the cake comes out slightly dense and fudgy. I don’t know about you, but those are two adjectives I like to describe my cakes. The cake isn’t all that sweet, though, so the glaze adds that final punch of flavor that makes it a show stopper. This cake recipe will become my standard for frosted and layer cakes.

Dark Chocolate Almond Meal Cake

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 cups finely ground almond meal
• 3/4 cup cane sugar
• 1/2 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 3oz unsweetened chocolate
• 1/4 cup neutral oil
• 4 eggs
• 2 egg whites
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

Sift together the almond meal, sugar, cocoa powder, salt, and baking soda. Whisk in the eggs, oil, vanilla extract, and egg whites completely.

Melt the chocolate in a microwave or over a double boiler and fold that into the cake batter until it’s completely emulsified. Pour the cake into a cake pan and bake for about 25 minutes or until the center has set. Remove from the oven and let cool.

This is a great gluten-free cake on its own, but it’s not incredibly sweet nor does it have much else going for it. This cake really begs for a frosting or a glaze of some sort, and what goes better with chocolate than peanut butter?

Peanut Butter Glaze

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup natural peanut butter
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• Water to thin

Scoop the peanut butter into a large bowl. Slowly sift in the powdered sugar, mixing it in little by little. When the sugar is completely incorporated, pour in the maple syrup and stir. Slowly incorporate water until the frosting reaches a glaze-like consistency. Pour the glaze over the cake and level out.

I decorated mine with Trader Joe’s miniature peanut butter cups and cut it up into 14 slices. I couldn’t believe how well this turned out on the first try. The cake is somewhere between cakey and fudgy, which isn’t and easy balance to strike with gluten-free flours. And the peanut butter glaze doesn’t over power the rich chocolate in the cake.

I’ve set a goal to only have one slice a day. So far that’s not going so well.

I’ve baked more in the past few days than I had all Summer. I love baking but usually I can’t(or rather shouldn’t) eat a whole batch of sweets by myself, so as soon as I get a chance to bake for others I jump at it. Here’s a sneak peak at what’s come out of my oven lately:

9am is too early for cake, right? Just checking.

And last but not least:

Almond cookies. I looked all over for these one night and couldn’t find them anywhere. I threw in the towel and decided to bake them, which couldn’t have been easier. The secret to getting a crisp, biscuit-like texture to these is using regular and superfine sugar to create hard shell on the outside. And since you don’t need to whip the egg whites at all, it’s simple enough for a beginning baker to do!

Amaretti Biscuit Cookies

Ingredients:

• 2 cups almond flour
• 2 egg whites
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup cane sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons almond extract

Preheat your oven to 300 degrees. Line a baking tray with parchment paper.

Beat together the egg whites, almond flour, both sugars and extract until the dough is unified and sticky.

Shape the dough into 1-inch balls and place them on the baking tray. Bake for 25-30 minutes until the outside is hard and golden.

Serve with a cup of tea, coffee, milk, or almond milk. Since they’re crispy cookies, they’re perfect for dunking to get them soft and crumbly. If you want to spike your milk with amaretto, I won’t judge.

Can you have such a thing as too much dessert?

Remember the best dessert money can buy? I can’t forget. Ever. One thing I miss horribly about Providence is being a short bus ride away from Wildflour bakery. That’s probably a good thing for my wallet and health but hard on the heart. Since I’m obsessed with their raw ganache dessert it was the first one I wanted to try and recreate. Smooth, rich chocolate that I could call healthy and make any time? How could I say no.

Raw Mini Ganache Tortes

Ingredients for the crust:

• 1 1/4 cups cashews*
• 3 Tablespoons cocoa powder
• 1/4 cup maple syrup(or agave)
• 1 Tablespoon coconut oil

Ingredients for the filling:

• 6oz cacao butter**, melted
• 1 cup cocoa powder
• 1/2 cup maple syrup(or agave)
• 2 Tablespoon coconut oil

*You can use any nuts; these are what I had on hand

**cacao butter is a specialty food product available online and in some grocery stores such as Whole Foods.

For the crust, pulse the cashews in a food processor until they’re finely ground. Add in the cocoa powder, coconut oil, and maple syrup and continue to blend until it forms a dough.

Flatten about a tablespoon of dough into the bottom of regular sized muffin wells.

To make the filling, gently melt the cocoa butter and coconut oil until they’re completely liquid(be careful that the cocoa butter doesn’t boil on you). Mix in the cocoa powder and maple syrup until completely smooth.

Scoop about 1/4 cup of ganache over each crust. Refrigerate until the chocolate has set.

To release them, gently run a sharp knife around the edges of the well until the torte pops out. For the best texture, keep refrigerate until 20 minutes before serving.

These are good. Like, really good. If I weren’t up against the best dessert money can buy they’d probably be my favorite. But I have to admit that Wildflour’s raw ganache is still the best I’ve ever had. It’s also probably cheaper to buy it than to make it with the raw ingredients since cacao butter is a pricey ingredient(although I plan on seeing if unsweetened baker’s chocolate will work in this recipe as well for a cheaper, less-raw alternative). Until I have theirs again I’ll have no problem settling with these.

This recipe is a life-changer.

I’ve long been obsessed with microwave chocolate fudge. I’ve tried making my own peanut butter fudge in the microwave in the past but the texture was never as good as the chocolate version. Finally, when I saw that Alton Brown had a recipe for microwave peanut butter fudge I knew I had to make it.

Alton Brown has to be my favorite Food Network chef, and not just for this recipe. Don’t get me wrong—I love watching Ina and Paula and Giada so that I can make fun of how ridiculous and fattening their “basic” recipes are. But Alton actually writes recipes like he knows what he’s doing, and that’s what makes him fun to cook from. 

Overall I stuck to the recipe pretty well. I halved the recipe and the only change that I made was melting the butter only and stirring in the peanut butter until it melted, too.

The fudge came out as an odd, doughy texture that was delicious but not really “fudgy.” I pressed it into a pan and let it sit in the refrigerator until it hardened up a bit and it came to the right consistency.

I wouldn’t leave this at room temperature since it got soft pretty fast. But other than that it was perfect; the taste was very rich and very sweet.

In other words, I need someone to take the rest of this off my hands right away

I’ve had a lot of gluten-free baking disasters happen to me. Cookies are the worst; there’s no protein structure in most gluten-free flours to keep them from spreading. When I read this recipe I was intrigued but skeptical. There’s no way a cookie could work with just almond flour I thought. Despite having doubts the entire time, I gave this recipe a shot and I’m so glad I did. These are perfect chocolate chip cookies, with a slight buttery flavor and tons of melted chocolate chips. The texture is soft and pillowy with a little chew. I couldn’t believe these came out as good as they did! I’m definitely saving this recipe to cook again and again.

Almond Flour Chocolate Chip Cookies(adapted from this recipe)

Ingredients(Makes about 12 cookies):

• 1 1/2 cups(6 ounces) almond flour
• 1/4 cup butter, room temperature
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 cup chocolate chips

Preheat your oven to 375.

To make the almond flour, ground 6 ounces of almonds in a food processor until it’s all been ground into a thin flour. degrees.

Cream the butter and sugar together until smooth. Mix in the egg. Next, add the almond flour, vanilla, salt, and baking soda and mix until it’s all incorporated. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Line a baking tray with parchment paper. Scoop the batter into even portions onto the parchment paper and bake for 12-15 minutes until golden brown. Let cool slightly before removing the cookies from the tray.

I had to try one straight out of the oven. And it did not disappoint. These would be great with a glass of chocolate almond milk for dipping. I would definitely double the recipe next time because 9 cookies just won’t be enough.

Added Note: The second time I made these(pictured) they spread out less so that the ones that went into the oven in a ball  shape came out rounded like a doughball whereas the ones that I fashioned into a disk came out in the more traditional cookie shape. The only difference between the two was in appearance; cooking time, taste, and texture all remained relatively the same.