A Darwinian summer of cake and salad

My wife is a talented chef, but her true passion is baking. Today I share with you a few pictures of her delicious cake and salad creations from this past summer. Get ready to drool!

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I’m incredibly lucky to be married to the Dr-ess. We met in college about 20 years ago, well before I decided to become a physician. I guess you could say she took a chance on me.

When I successfully got into med school and started my decade of training, she started her own career and jump started our investment portfolio.

Along the way, the Dr-ess took a pastry course for fun. I’ve enjoyed the fruits of that decision ever since.

Below, please enjoy some photos of some of her creations from this summer.

Berry chantilly cake

This minimalist concoction had two layers of vanilla cake with berry syrup and cream frosting. The Dr-ess garnished the cake with with fresh raspberries and mint leaves.

Bonus: did you spot the kid’s play structure in the background of the picture?

Fraisier cake

This is a fraisier cake (said with a fancy french accent). The Dr-ess made the cake with vanilla mousse, lined it with fresh sliced strawberries and topped it all with a homemade strawberry glaze. Finally she garnished it with fresh whole strawberries.

The fraisier is sitting on china from our wedding, which we try to use at least once a week.

Chocolate Easter cake

The topping really set this cake apart. The Dr-ess created a nest of toasted coconut flakes and filled it with multicolored chocolate Cadbury eggs. Below the candy eggs was a two layer chocolate cake with a generous helping of mascarpone chocolate frosting.

Honey mascarpone tart

We had a bumper crop of figs this summer, so we tried to incorporate them into many of our meals. This tart had a sweet mascarpone cream filling inside of a graham cracker crust. The Dr-ess garnished the tart with sliced elephant ear and jelly figs and dusted it with crushed pistachio.

Dirt Bike birthday cake

To celebrate the birthday of our older son, the Dr-ess created a “dirt bike cake.” It had three layers of chocolate cake terraced into a hillside. She studded the chocolate frosting with “boulders” made of Cocoa Puffs cereal. The “road” was made of crushed Oreo. The dirt bikes and trees are from Amazon.

Tahini cake

The Dr-ess flavored this middle eastern cake with tahini (crushed sesame paste). She separated it into two layers, filled it with homemade blackberry jam, and used her patented mascarpone frosting on the outside. She garnished it artfully with whole blackberries and blueberries.

Trash truck birthday cake

Our younger son also had a birthday celebration in September. The Dr-ess celebrated his undying love for trash trucks with a special birthday cake.

This cake had four layers of chocolate cake filled with mascarpone chocolate frosting, She then topped it with a toy trash truck from Amazon with peanut butter chocolate candy eggs spilling out of the truck onto the cake.

Arugula salads

We also enjoyed some delicious salads. By no means did these negate the calories from the cakes, but they were delicious and nutritious!

We love using arugula as our salad leaf of choice. Their crunch and peppery flavor stand up really well to bold salad ingredients like cheese and nuts.

Conclusion

People joke that they’re coming out of this pandemic either really overweight or really fit. I’m trending towards the overweight category, unfortunately, but at least I’ve been enjoying some amazing cakes along the way!

Do you like to cook (or eat) as a hobby? Comment below! Please share and subscribe for more tasty content.

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