Last May, Hannah Pham hosted her mother and her mother’s three sisters in Los Angeles, where she was working with her husband, the comedian and actor Ronny Chieng. She baked them bánh bò nướng, the special occasion cake she loved growing up in Melbourne, Australia. The women, who were tasting Ms. Pham’s version for the…
The older I get, the more I love the Fourth of July. (This might be because, as a kid, I cared about only the promised pyrotechnics: fireworks, sparklers, kissing my seventh-grade crush on the Ferris wheel at the county fair.) When the calendar flips from June to July, it activates some sort of happy Pavlovian…
During the Lunar New Year of 1988, Selena Wong wanted to create a special dessert for her family in Kingston, Jamaica. Ms. Wong, whose ancestors came to the island from China in the 19th century, was a self-taught baker who occasionally sold goods from her home. Knowing the importance of lychees to the Chinese Jamaican…
Baba au rhum — to my mind — is the king of soaked desserts. I make mine with a lot of orange, vanilla and, because even in the French countryside I cannot escape my Appalachian leanings, black pepper. Then, along with a few good extra glugs of straight rum, a little for the cake “and…
In 1976, Johnny Cash released a song called “Strawberry Cake.” It was a bit of an outsider tune, not altogether popular. But to me, it falls well within the canon of simple yet great Americana storytelling. In an interview, Cash talks about walking past a man sleeping on a New York street while on his…
It’s a classic Trinidadian dessert — a chocolate cake soaked in overproof rum and topped with swoops of ultrapasteurized whipped cream. But wait: It’s also a signature Pakistani cake, saturated with cherry brandy essence. And a Chilean cake, festooned with locally grown cherries. And a Lebanese cake — not too sweet, with little to no…
On the subject of raisins in carrot cake, the food writer Allison Robicelli once wrote for Taste Cooking, “They don’t just get to show up in desserts, acting like they belong there when they have no business stepping outside of the world of trail mix.” However you may feel on the matter — raisins or…
Consider this one more win for fans of January: Not only does the first month bring less highway traffic, cheaper flights, easier-to-secure restaurant reservations and the accompanying sense of calm, it also comprises part of the slow season in the wedding industry, along with its neighbors December, February and March. In Clark County, Nev., where…
A dozen roses would be challenged to compete with the delectable Sweethearts Cake from Nick Morgenstern, the ice cream wizard. A raspberry-dusted slather of gossamer whipped cream covers a half-cylinder of Madagascar vanilla ice cream, set on raspberry sponge cake for a snowy, edible Quonset hut. Hearts of tart red fruit jam show up in…
