Weiswomen Creations

It has been hot in the Boston area lately and because our house is old (and I mean old, like 1800s old) there is no central air conditioning. I work from home and our bedroom and my office is on the third floor. For over a week the thermostat read 90 degrees on the third floor and not much cooler on the second floor, which is where our living room and kitchen are. I know, I've just confused everyone not used to the whole two-family house thing. If I try and explain the layout of our house I'll probably just confuse you more.

So, all of that rambling was just an introduction to the fact that it was too hot to cook for quite a while. I really like baking and now that we have our nice new kitchen I like it even more (someday I'll write about what our kitchen used to look like, including the picture of the carpeted floor and the stove with two knobs). A few weeks ago I got two new baking cookbooks that looked amazing and last night it was finally cool enough to bake in our kitchen without baking ourselves. I started with Baked, from the guys at the bakery of the same name in Brooklyn. I have been drooling over this book since I got it and last night I tried the Pumpkin and Chocolate Chip loaf you see pictured above. I have to admit, I only really started liking pumpkin recently and if you're a skeptic at all, this will make you a major fan. Very easy to make and absolutely delicious. If you want to try an entree, I highly recommend the pumpkin ravioli with Gorgonzola sauce from Cooking Light magazine (recipe at the link). The thought of making a layer cake frightens me for some reason but someday soon I'm going to tackle two of the cakes from Baked: Malted Cake and Sweet & Salty Cake. Bon Appétit!