I made you a cake.

Just kidding. I made myself a cake, ha. The recipe jumped out at me from one of the more recent Cook’s Illustrated magazines (‘course, according to them, it’s the best almond cake in all the history of almond cakes, but I’ve already said enough about that, and ‘sides, I’m not above adjectiving my recipes with bold strokes upon ‘cassion), so come last Saturday, I was in the mood for some ‘sperimentin’, never mind you that I still had half a carrot cake imprisoned in the glass cake stand atop the kitchen table.

(‘Sup with all the half words anyway? Weird. Moving right along…)

So I whipped up the cake. It’s a simple affair. One layer, no icing, and everything gets ground, beaten, and blended in the food processor. The resulting cake is dense and straightforward, nubbly with bits of blended-up almonds and capped with a crunchy lid of slivered almonds and lemon sugar.

It’s the kind of cake that:

*belongs in a picnic basket (not that I have a picnic basket) and then eaten out of hand with juicy, freshly-picked berries (because berry picking is what’s supposed to happen on picnics).
*pairs perfectly with a cup of morning tea.
*gets on fabulously with a big thermal mug of milky coffee.
*holds up under whipped cream and the scrutiny of an uppity guest (not that I ever have those).
*keeps well, should you have to set it aside to finish up The Other Cake.
*is underappreciated by children which means that you can hoard it without feeling guilty (not that I would ever feel guilty about hiding a cake that my children loved) (because I wouldn’t).
*feels like a hearty breakfast in a dainty dessert’s body, if that makes any sense.

Almond Cake
Adapted from the January-February 2014 issue of Cook’s Illustrated magazine.

The recipe calls for blanched, sliced, toasted almonds. The Cook’s Illustrated folks claim to be annoyed by the flecks of brown in the cake that come from the almond skins. Plus, they say the skins give the cake a bitter flavor. I used a mix of sliced almonds (not blanched) and whole almonds. I did not toast them. I’m not sophisticated enough to notice a bitter flavor, and I find the brown flecks enchanting. My recommendation: use whole, untoasted almonds and be done with it.

for the batter:
1½ cups almonds
3/4 cup flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon baking soda
4 eggs
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tablespoon lemon zest
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
5 tablespoons butter, melted
1/3 cup canola oil

Put the almonds, flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda in the food processor and pulse until the almonds are finely ground. Transfer to a bowl.

Put the eggs, sugar, zest, and extract in the now-empty processor and blend on high for about 2 minutes. With the processor still running, add the butter and oil. As soon as the fats are incorporated into the batter, add the dry ingredients and pulse several times to combine. Pour the batter into a greased and wax paper-lined 9-inch springform pan.

for the topping:
2 tablespoons sugar
½ – 1 teaspoon lemon zest
1/3 cup sliced almonds

With your fingers, mix the sugar with the zest until combined—about 10 seconds. (Lick your fingers clean.)

Sprinkle the almonds over the batter and top with the lemon sugar.

Bake the cake at 300 degrees for 50-65 minutes. Let cool for ten minutes before running a knife around the edge of the cake. Cool completely and serve. This cake keeps well, covered with plastic, at room temperature.

That I’m posting about a chocolate dessert on Valentine’s Day is entirely coincidental.

I’m ambivalent about the holiday. Some people love it, others hate it. I’m somewhere in the middle. Celebrating LOVE is a wide-open opportunity. A person could take it in a million directions which I find positively paralyzing and the reason that I have not even mentioned it’s Valentine’s Day to my children or husband. I don’t want to get cornered in the kitchen with butter and pink food coloring, nor do I want reams of construction paper cluttering up the house.

But maybe you love it? Maybe you do magical things for your children and friends? Fairy gardens, pink boxes tied up with twine, jaunty little poems, and cards with Beatrix Potter-esque illustrations? I bet it’s really nice.

Maybe I’m feeling jealous. A little guilty, perhaps. It’d be such fun to be That Person loving on everyone with boxes of hand-crafted magic. People like that are so appreciated and loved. I want to be appreciated and loved—really, that’s the only reason to celebrate Valentine’s anyway, to get our warm fuzzies on.

See, it all comes back to me. I’m so not cut out for Hallmark. (Speaking of which, there’s a whole bunch of awkward, not-really Valentine’s Day cards out there. If I were to write one, it’d say something like, “Here’s a gift because giving it to you makes me feel good.”)

I suppose I could make pizza or some other family-loved favorite for supper. A nice dessert would be appreciated, too. But truth is, we eat nice desserts and family-loved favorites rather often. Case in point, this chocolate pudding.

It happened, not because of V-day (in case you didn’t already catch that) but because I have all this cream on hand (thank you, kind neighbor!) and for some odd reason, I developed an inexplicable hankering for pudding. I recalled a post of Deb’s that piqued my interest, hit up her blog, and did what needed to be done.

Her recipe is super basic, calling for straight-up milk and chocolate chips—there’s no need to even crack an egg—but I used mostly cream because it’s what I had. I served the pudding in little glasses with spoonfuls of whipped cream dolloped on top because I believe that chocolate pudding isn’t worth eating if it’s not topped with whipped cream. I have strong feelings about this. Do not contradict me.

Serve this pudding to people you love and they will be happy which will make you feel good. This fact holds true for any day of the year, Valentine’s included. xoxo!

Chocolate Pudding
Adapted from Deb of Smitten Kitchen.

I considered naming this pudding “Pantry Pudding” because it’s made from pantry staples, but then I decided, no, that’s too boring a name for something this good. Besides, Pantry Pudding doesn’t reveal the decadent chocolate nature of said food. So I scraped the idea. (Still, I like the economy of the name.)

Deb calls for chopped dark chocolate. I used a mix of chips, both semisweet and milk.

½ cup sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch
1/8 teaspoon salt
3 cups milk (I used half cream and half milk)
1 cup chocolate chips
1 teaspoon vanilla
homemade whipped cream, not optional

Put the sugar, cornstarch, and salt into a saucepan. Whisking steadily, add a bit of milk at a time. (Add it all at once and you run the risk of lumps. Making a thick paste first and then gradually thinning it out reduces that risk tremendously.) Stirring constantly, cook the milk over medium high heat until thick and just beginning to bubble. Remove from heat and add the chocolate. Stir until they have melted completely. Stir in the vanilla.

Pour the pudding into a serving bowl and top with wax paper, pressing it onto the top to prevent a “skin” from forming. Cool to room temperature. At this point, remove and discard (after licking clean) the wax paper and cover the pudding with plastic wrap. Chill in the refrigerator. Serve with whipped cream.