Nutella, rum and hazelnut cake with boozy ganache and cream cheese frosting

The best thing about loving to bake, cook and generally be in the kitchen? Getting to handpick and carefully concoct your very own birthday cake. I knew that chocolate would be involved. I also had some Philadelphia that needed using, but didn’t feel like a cheesecake. Cream cheese frosting it was. I also had some leftover chocolate ganache from macarons I’d made about a week earlier. Double frosting, I had no choice. I scoured my Evernote and finally decided on Bake or Break’s chocolate hazelnut cake, with a few adaptations.

Dulce de platanos

I bought some plantains at the supermarket weeks ago for no good reason other than I had never seen plantains at the supermarket before. I had no idea what to do with them, but imagined it would be something salty. Chips? Fried plantains? Purée? Turns out Jé had other plans, and was hoping for something sweet. “It’s not a banana,” I told him. After a quick search through Epicurious, however, I found the perfect recipe. It was hidden amongst traditionally savory dishes, but I found it, and was very glad that I did. The only downside? The plantains, which were bright green, needed to be incredibly ripe, nearing black in color. And so, we waited. And waited. And waited. Until one day, like five weeks later, I finally made my first dulce de plantains.

Spiked hot apple punch

Two years ago, Jérôme and I were traipsing through the cobblestone streets of Prague, taking in the sites and trying our best to keep warm. This of course meant frequent coffee breaks. On day three, after dozens of espresso, cappuccino, hot chocolate, etc., we discovered what would soon become our winter drink of choice: “hot apple punch.” It was everything we needed: spicy, warm, sweet and alcoholic. We had several on our trip, and as soon as we got home, I set out to recreate the winter cocktail so that we could enjoy it whenever we wanted to.