Gramercy Tavern's gingerbead cake and a goodbye

I know I'd write more often if I just put up quick posts. A paragraph here and there about a new favorite restaurant, or this chicken tikka masala that I've made twice in the last month, but keep forgetting to photograph. Yet somehow, the minute I start typing, I can't help but go on and on. Suddenly, a recipe for crumb cake becomes a walk down memory lane, or a summery pasta post turns into a tirade.

Well, today will be no different I guess. I've been wanting to tell you about this gingerbread cake I made a few weeks ago. I found the recipe on Food Migration, and just as Cindy promised, the cake's combination of cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, cardamom, ginger and a cup of Guinness deliver a dessert that's super spicy, dark and rich. My friends Tim and Judith called it "the best gingerbread cake" they've ever eaten. I might have to agree.

I just know that should I ever make it again, I'll always think of our friends April and Josh. You see, I made it for a potluck dinner that Tim and Judith recently hosted. When we first planned it, a fall bounty was our theme, and over a number of emails, the menu evolved: pork loin (made my Judith, the nicest vegetarian on earth), hot apple cider (made by the world's best husband to help his wife cope with the fact that she couldn't have any wine or beer), April's acorn squash with a smidge of butter and brown sugar, macaroni and cheese, sauteed spinach, the gingerbread cake, and Allison's seriously good molasses cookies.

A few days before the dinner, Josh and April announced they were moving to Philly (in two weeks!), something we knew they'd been planning, but never expected (or perhaps wanted?) to come so soon. Just like that, our fall potluck became a farewell of sorts.

Daniel and I have known April and Josh for about five years. We met them through friends and today, they feel like family. Just like us, they love to cook and eat.

A few years ago we started a dinner club with them and the very friends that first introduced us all. Every month, we cram into a different couple's apartment for a multi-course, home-cooked meal. Daniel and I hosted our most recent one, a few days before Halloween. (In case you can't tell, he's Borat and I'm Pamela Anderson). Marie, Joe and their son Lach dressed like a family folk band and sang a song about how much they love dinner club. Little did we know, it'd be our last one all together in New York. But we plan to keep the tradition alive -- we'll just start having some in Philly!

I hear their new apartment has outdoor space, which is a good thing since they'll be leaving behind a gorgeous roof deck in the East Village. We spent many nights up there, both warm and cold, eating, drinking and admiring our gorgeous city.

And for the past few summers, we've spent a weekend together on the Jersey Shore, and this year they managed to get a bunch of us to go camping in Fire Island. A week later, April and Josh and Daniel and I celebrated our October wedding anniversaries over the same September weekend in Lake George, purely by coincidence.

Once we all realized we'd be up there at the same time, Daniel and Josh started scheming and surprised April and I with drinks at the Sagamore Hotel, followed by dinner at The Friends Lake Inn. Unfortunately, I was still battling some serious nausea at the time, but I'll never forget all the fun we had that night.

But now a chapter in their life is ending, and ours as well. These are our first friends to leave New York for good. It really is the end of an era. During our twenties, the four years we spent in college seemed like the longest and most monumental of our lives. But April and Josh's departure from New York City is making me realize that the last seven years I've spent here -- almost double my time in good ol' Easton, PA -- have truly been the most defining.

I've gotten married, moved from the Upper East Side to Brooklyn Heights to Cobble Hill to my first official home in Park slope, jumped from one job to the next before finally setting in at Food Network, where I just passed the five year mark. FIVE whole years. Not to mention that in just four months, I'll be a mother. It's the end of an era indeed. Good thing we all have so much more to look forward to.

I know Philly isn't so far away. I've just never liked goodbyes, whether they're at the end of a really fun night (like the aforementioned potluck where Daniel had to drag me, the pregnant lady, home at 2am) or worse, when I won't see someone again for awhile.

But who knows? Maybe Daniel and I will be so wooed by April and Josh's spacious apartment on Rittenhouse Square that we too will make the move some day. Either way, I know that we'll never lose touch with two people who have become such an important part of our lives. Philly's a food mecca of its own, so the way I see it, we have a whole lot of eating to do in this new era. I can't wait.

But before I go, back to that gingerbread cake. If you need something sweet for an upcoming holiday party, this is the way to go. Just pick up a bundt pan, some molasses, a bottle of Guinness and get baking. Served with a dollop of fresh whipped cream, it's a dessert that can celebrate fall or welcome winter. For me, it was the perfect way to say so long to two very special friends.

Gramercy Tavern Gingerbread Cake
1 cup oatmeal stout or Guinness Stout
1 cup dark molasses (not blackstrap)
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
2 tablespoons ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
Pinch of ground cardamom
3 large eggs
1 cup packed dark brown sugar
1 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup vegetable oil
Confectioners sugar for dusting
Special equipment: a 10-inch (10- to 12-cup) bundt pan
Accompaniment: whipped cream (you can add booze if you want)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter bundt pan and dust with flour, knocking out excess.
Bring stout and molasses to a boil in a large saucepan and remove from heat. Whisk in baking soda, then cool to room temperature.

Sift together flour, baking powder, and spices in a large bowl. Whisk together eggs and sugars. Whisk in oil, then molasses mixture. Add to flour mixture and whisk until just combined.

Pour batter into bundt pan and rap pan sharply on counter to eliminate air bubbles. Bake in middle of oven until a tester comes out with just a few moist crumbs adhering, about 50 minutes. Cool cake in pan on a rack 5 minutes. Turn out onto rack and cool completely.

Serve cake, dusted with confectioners sugar, with whipped cream.

Nigella's buns and my bump

It's finally time to break my silence and tell you where I've been. Rather than beat around the bush, I'll be blunt.

I'm pregnant!

I didn't think pregnancy would keep me away for so long. I wrote a few posts in the beginning, but then the nausea really kicked in.

For the first time in my life, I wasn't into food. At all. Some of my favorite foods made me sick to my stomach, and for about a month or so, I felt queasy and unsure of what I wanted to eat. I still ate plenty (read: pizza, grilled cheese, pasta and more pizza). The nausea subsided almost 2 months ago (I'm now 4 1/2 months along) and my appetite is back and bigger than ever!

Without sounding too cliche, I have to say that pregnancy is an amazing thing and I already feel forever changed by it. You might not remember, but the beginning of this year was incredibly hard for me and my family. My cousin, aunt and great uncle all died unexpectedly and quite tragically. For months, I felt hopeless about life and could only focus on my fear of death. This baby has helped pull me away from such melancholy thoughts. I'm not the most religious person, but now I believe there must be someone or something that's making this world go round. I have no other explanation for what is going on inside my body. It really is a miracle. How does it just know how to create a human being? The best part is that I don't even have to do a thing. I can sit on the couch and watch Dancing with the Stars (my new guilty pleasure), while a living, breathing human being is growing inside me.

In the beginning, I made myself crazy with daily internet searches about all the possible ways I could harm my unborn child. Then at some point, I decided to just let go. I vowed to listen to my doctor and to make choices that felt right to me. Instead of worrying and obsessing over what could go wrong, I'm trying to let nature take its course. Easy no, but liberating, yes. Good preparation for parenthood too, I'm sure.

I've had many memorable meals while I've been gone: this soup, for example, beignets with a quince sauce and three other delicious desserts during a girl's night out at The Harrison, a selection of Tibetan specialities and the butteriest paratha bread at Cafe Himalaya, my new favorite hole in the wall place (that sadly, according to Judith, did not pass health code regulations), pumpkin tortellini at A Voce, and these unbelieveable chocolate and almond breakfast buns.

Thanks to Nigella Lawson for creating the recipe and Luisa for posting it, I've now had the best baking experience of my entire life. I kid you not. These things are TO DIE FOR. They'll make you, and whomever you bake them for, happy to be alive. I found them very therapeutic to make, but nothing beats eating one, fresh from the oven. The dough is sweet and soft and slathered with semi-sweet chocolate chips and slivered almonds.

The recipe makes about 30, so be sure to stash your leftovers in the freezer. They taste almost as good after about 15 seconds in the microwave, although you should really test your patience and reheat them in the oven for a few minutes. Daniel and I did that to the last two this weekend (about a month after I first made them), and I swear to God, they were just as good.

I'm planning to bring a baking sheet to California in December so I can make them again. We'll be visiting my brother, his girlfriend, and their first child, who should be born in just a few weeks. I can't think of a better way to spoil everyone on Christmas morning and to celebrate what's become a wonderful year.

It feels good to love food again and to share that love with all of you.

Come back in a few days when I'll post a few more recipes I've been meaning to blog about. Because come April, who knows when I'll have time to write.

Chocolate-Almond Whirligig Buns
Makes 20-30 buns

Dough
5 to 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup superfine sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 packets instant yeast (6 3/4 teaspoons)
7 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 2/3 cup milk
2 large eggs
Vegetable oil

Filling
8 1/2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup plus 1 tablespoon superfine sugar
3/4 cup slivered or sliced almonds
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 large egg, beaten

1. To prepare the dough, combine 5 cups of flour, sugar, salt and yeast. In a small saucepan, combine butter and milk and heat to lukewarm. Beat the eggs lightly, then whisk them into the milk mixture. Sitr the liquid ingredients into the dry ones.

2. Using a mixer with a dough hook, or by hand, knead dough until smooth and springy, adding more flour if necessary. Form into a ball and place in a clean, oiled bowl. Cover with plastic wrap and let rise in a warm place until double in size, about 30 minutes.

3. Punch down dough. Line a 13 x 10-inch baking pan with parchment paper. On a floured surface, roll out one-third of the dough and place in pan (I skipped this step and think you should, too). Roll out remaining dough to a rectangle about 20 to 10 inches.

4. For the filling, mix together the butter and sugar to a paste. Spread the paste over large rectangle of dough. Sprinkle almonds evenly over the dough, then top with chocolate chips. Starting from longest side, carefully roll up dough so it looks like a long sausage. Cut dough into 20 slices, about 3/4 inch thick, and arrange with a cut side up on top of the dough in the pan.

5. Preheat oven to 400 degrees (original recipe says 450). Brush buns with beaten egg and let them sit in a warm place until puffed up and snugly fitting pan, about 15-20 minutes. Bake until buns have risen and are golden-brown, about 25 to 30 minutes. Remove from baking pan to cool on a rack. Serve warm.