The Only Newsletter I Care About This Week
Underwhelming or am I just old?
Apple Cider Doughnut Loaf Cake
Sarah Jampel via Bon Appetit
This cake made me week. I've been thinking about this a lot and I think it's just very important to have seasonal cake on hand at all times. Good for the goose. Good for the gander. Adding: Good for the guests that stop by announced/otherwise and make life just a whole lot sweeter.
INGREDIENTS
9 Tbsp. unsalted butter, divided, plus more for pan
1½ cups apple cider
½ cup sour cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1¼ cups plus 2 Tbsp. (172 g) all-purpose flour (I used Bob's cup for cup and it turned out great)
2 Tbsp. (15 g) cornstarch
1¼ tsp. baking powder
½ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt, plus more
1 tsp. ground cinnamon, divided
½ tsp. freshly grated nutmeg, divided (I skipped... not a big nutmeg fan)
2 large eggs, room temperature
1 cup (200 g) sugar, divided
INSTRUCTIONS
Place a rack in middle of oven; preheat to 325°. Lightly butter an 8½x4½" or 9x5" loaf pan. Line with parchment paper, leaving overhang on both long sides. Bring cider to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce heat and simmer until cider is reduced to ¾ cup, 8–10 minutes. Pour ¼ cup reduced cider into a small measuring glass or bowl and set aside. Transfer remaining reduced cider to a small bowl and let cool 5 minutes. Stir in sour cream and vanilla and set aside.
Melt 8 Tbsp. butter in same saucepan (no need to clean) over low heat. Let cool slightly.
Whisk flour, cornstarch, baking powder, baking soda, 1 tsp. Diamond Crystal or ½ tsp. Morton kosher salt, ½ tsp. cinnamon, and ¼ tsp. nutmeg in a medium bowl to combine.
Vigorously whisk eggs and ¾ cup (150 g) sugar in a large bowl until pale, voluminous, and frothy, about 2 minutes. Whisking constantly, gradually add melted butter in a steady stream; continue to whisk until fully combined and emulsified (no spots of fat should remain). Reserve saucepan.
Whisk dry ingredients into egg mixture in 3 additions, alternating with reserved sour cream mixture in 2 additions; whisk just until no lumps remain. Batter will be thin.
Scrape into pan and set on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake cake, rotating halfway through, until deep golden brown and a tester inserted into the center comes out clean, 60–80 minutes. Transfer pan to a wire rack and poke top of cake all over with a toothpick. Spoon 3 Tbsp. reserved reduced cider over; let cool 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, mix a big pinch of salt, remaining ¼ cup (50 g) sugar, ½ tsp. cinnamon, and ¼ tsp. nutmeg in a small bowl. Melt remaining 1 Tbsp. butter in reserved saucepan and mix into remaining 1 Tbsp. reduced cider. So, I totally skipped the directions on this step and dumped all of these ingredients into a sauce pan, brought it to a simmer and reduced it until it was sort of a glaze. Less of a streusel situation but maybe a better option afterall. I found that it sort of created a salty, glaze-y soaked top quarter inch of the cake. Choose your own adventure.
Using parchment paper, lift cake onto rack and set rack inside rimmed baking sheet. Peel away parchment from sides. Brush warm butter mixture over top and sides of cake. Sprinkle generously with sugar mixture to coat every surface (use parchment to help rotate cake and collect any excess sugar). Remove parchment and let cool completely before slicing.
A Self-Indulgent Moment
...says the girl who sends out a weekly newsletter about her life that literally zero people have asked for.
Into the Gloss's Top Shelf interviews. The Cut's I Think About This a Lot submissions. Cup of Jo's Beauty Uniforms. Basically Man Repeller's entire premise... this brand of soft journalism in the late aughts and early 20teens was my preferred media.
Labeling that time as 'Iconic' feels like a bit of a stretch (and reminds me of the well worn trope that anyone's opinion on the all-time-best SNL cast directly correlates to whichever years they were in high school), but truthfully, was there a higher career aspiration in my early 20's than one day being featured in one of these articles? Hairy shiny, pothos plants climbing the walls of my light drenched apartment? In short: No. Lol. (This explains a lot about my career path)
In this incestual pool of LA/NY's Cool Girls, plucked from what we were told was the next big start up, skincare line or sustainable collaboration (but was more often just the editor's roommate) gathered the advice of the bigger sister with a bigger checking account. Their vaguely recognizable names offered endless listicles of Desert Island Skincare Products, Interview Tips I Wish I Knew in my Twenties, and most glorified, the hallowed... INSERT NUMBER Lessons I Learned by INSERT AGE.
Their skincare routines, their career paths and their tiny apartment furniture arrangement hacks meant to be clicked through (cough cough affiliated links) and replicated into a shorthand of Jesse Kamm pants and vats of P-50. And while the over-jubilation of females simply succeeding in roles they had historically been excluded from rapidly morphed into the marketization, commodification and then the subsequent fall of the leading class of "Girlbosses" in my generation... I still want to give my advice.
With this preamble and with this preamble alone, I am able to confidently write, refine and publish my very own list of 30 tips by 30 😇🙏🏻
30 is a lot. And I have a terrible memory, so a lot of them are really plucked from the last few years (coincidentally, right around the same time I started to make wise decisions), but I think it's a pretty good friggin list. Not quite at 'In this house, we do messy' levels of poetry, but as close as I'll ever get!
So keep an eye out for that next week.* Currently, I have 26. That is 4 away from 30. I need 4 impactful life lessons in the next week. Is this poking the bear of 2021?
Anyway, happy Friday, ya'll. Aren't we glad it's not 2013 anymore?
*Now would be a good time to forward this to 100 people you know so they can subscribe in time.