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New York Times
07-05-2025
- General
- New York Times
Empty Nesting Is Hard. This Carrot Cake Is Anything But.
For years, Genevieve Ko would make this dessert for her kids. Now that they're grown, she's streamlined it for them — and you. The whole point of carrot cake is to enjoy layers of tangy cream cheese frosting. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. By Genevieve Ko Genevieve Ko has baked more than 60 birthday cakes for her kids, including one shaped like a pirate ship. Published May 7, 2025 Updated May 7, 2025 On my first day as a line cook in a pastry kitchen, I was tasked with turning lemons into little bowls for housemade sorbet. I angled a sharp paring knife from the edge of a lemon half toward its center, then circled the knife to slice out a cone of seedy yellow flesh. Cupping that emptied half, I scooped out what remained with a metal spoon. Once the glassy sheets of membranes were gone, I had to keep going, gently running the spoon against the pith to create the thinnest possible shell without tearing the peel. That continuous scraping, the gentle pressure to excavate everything inside: That's what empty nesting has felt like. Somewhere behind my rib cage, some core is being hollowed out, and the rasping feels especially close on occasions like Mother's Day. When they were young, my kids felt pressure from relatives, teachers and the America around them to uphold the breakfast-in-bed tradition that started in the 1930s, about 15 years after Mother's Day was declared a national holiday. Aside from the fact that I'm not a breakfast eater, I'm also uninterested in doing twice as many dishes and washing syrup stains out of the duvet cover. I'm not alone — according to a 2017 Zagat poll, only 4 percent of mothers actually want breakfast in bed. But I may be alone in wanting to spend the day cooking. When I was just a year out of college, I realized that I could turn a lifelong love of food into a career and began apprenticing with chefs and a food writer. But, shortly after, I found out I was pregnant with twins, a decade before I'd planned to have kids. For years, on the holiday honoring motherhood, I tried to reclaim the childless trajectory I lost, air-drying duck to roast, slow-simmering fruit into preserves, in a peaceful kitchen. It felt like a selfish act twisted with the perpetual selflessness of nurturing. For the twins' first birthday, I created my first original baking recipe, a layered cake crammed with grated carrot and sweetened more with applesauce than sugar since it was going to be their inaugural taste of the stuff. They shoved handfuls into their mouths, howled with happiness, and it was then that I understood the joy of motherhood. The simplest way to frost carrot cake is to leave the sides unadorned, but they can be slathered with icing as well. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. Through the years of chasing toddlers with a newborn slung to my chest, playing their favorite yet impossibly boring board game (Life), driving to school, practices and play dates, I spent Mother's Day laboring alone over the long, hard dishes I loved but couldn't make for work or home. Now that they're all in college, all I want is to feed them again, to be crowded against the counter, hearing them laugh and bicker, wiping up mysterious sticky patches. But no one is clinging to my legs anymore, and, apparently, my long 'welcome home' hugs come off as pretty desperate. So I try to play it cool, not showing too much excitement when my youngest described craving carrot cake for the cream cheese frosting because, isn't that the best part? That's when I knew I'd taught them well and when I started plotting out a recipe that maximizes the frosting-to-cake ratio by baking the batter in a single half-sheet pan. Doing so eliminates the need for multiple cake pans and trying to slice tall rounds into flat layers. Instead, the big rectangle is easily cut into three smaller ones for easy stacking and an impressive tier with plenty of creamy frosting in every forkful. When my (taller-than-me) youngest tasted the frosting and suggested more lemon juice and salt to amplify its tanginess, I tried to not visibly tear up with pride. I was happy, really I was, when they couldn't stay to eat the cake but had just enough time to bring it to their classmates who 'destroyed it.' It's as it should be. And as the older two graduate from college, now only a few years younger than I was when they were born, I feed them by giving them starter recipes, like this cake, to prepare on their own. Texting recipe links and receiving photos of finished dishes in return don't fill the home's new hush, but learning to experience that as progress is its own celebration of motherhood. Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram , Facebook , YouTube , TikTok and Pinterest . Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice .
New York Times
04-04-2025
- Health
- New York Times
The Flour Blend That Makes Gluten-Free Baking So Good
Gluten-free baked goods can come out even better than the classics with these tips. A blend of gluten-free flours gives this yellow cake a fine, tender crumb. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. By Brian Levy Brian tweaked his gluten-free flour blend over years of recipe testing. Unlike store-bought varieties, his doesn't contain tapioca or potato starch. Published April 4, 2025 Updated April 4, 2025 The immediate reaction to finding out you can no longer have gluten may be despair — especially if you love to bake. But gluten-free flours are increasingly easy to find in markets, offering a gustatory lifeline for those with gluten intolerance or celiac disease. Baking without gluten is not necessarily more difficult, but it requires different ingredients and, sometimes, slightly altered techniques. For delicious desserts, it helps to understand the role of gluten in baked goods, your available options and how to use alternative flours. Gluten, inherent in all varieties of wheat, rye and barley, is a mixture of proteins that, when moistened and mixed or kneaded, lend structure and elasticity to doughs and baked goods. The food scientist Harold McGee explains in his book 'On Food and Cooking' that the proteins in gluten 'form long chains that stick to each other,' which hold pastries together and make bread chewy. They let pie dough roll without cracking, keep cakes from crumbling and give bread dough the strength to trap air bubbles as it ferments and bakes. For tender baked goods, look for flours finely milled from nuts and grains. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. While a wide range of gluten-free flours made from grains, tubers, nuts and seeds exist, you can't simply pick any one of them to stand in for wheat flour. Instead, you'll need a blend of at least two or three, which can be bought prepackaged or mixed at home. For the novice gluten-free baker, the best approach is to start with a store-bought blend that can be swapped in one-to-one for regular flour. It is 'the easiest way to get familiarized with the textures and expectation of what it is to bake gluten-free,' said Aran Goyoaga, the author of 'Cannelle et Vanille Bakes Simple: A New Way to Bake Gluten-Free.' This all-purpose gluten-free flour blend made from millet, oat and white and brown rice flours has a mildly nutty, sweet aroma. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. These blends are formulated to closely mimic all-purpose wheat flour's characteristics and often contain a large proportion of starch, making them 'great for things like cakes, cookies, pastry, brownies — basically everything that's not gluten-free bread,' said Katarina Cermelj, the author of 'The Elements of Baking: Making Any Recipe Gluten-Free, Dairy-Free, Egg-Free or Vegan.' For maximum versatility, she advised avoiding 'blends that contain intensely flavored flours like chickpea.' Blending individual flours yourself costs you less in the long run, and this simple all-purpose mix of millet, oat and white and brown rice flours has a mildly nutty, sweet aroma. In addition to flavor, each component contributes to this blend's effectiveness and versatility: White and brown rice deliver a hefty dose of starch; millet imparts a yellow hue and a rich, buttery flavor; oat adds protein and fiber to help with structure and moistness. Whether your blend is store-bought or homemade, it should feel finely milled and texturally resemble wheat flour (as opposed to, say, cornmeal). For basic desserts and other treats, Ms. Goyoaga advised starting with a recipe specifically developed for one-to-one gluten-free blends or one that calls for only cake flour or all-purpose wheat flour. According to Alice Medrich, a celebrated baker and the author of 'Gluten-Free Flavor Flours,' those recipes should come from experienced bakers who thoroughly test recipes. She also warned against straying from a recipe: 'Do it exactly as written that first time to see if you even like it, what it does and then play around a bit.' As for breads: Stick with recipes specifically written for gluten-free bread. Rice and millet flours replace the usual wheat in this gluten-free yellow sheet cake. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. Because milling is inconsistent and flour densities vary across brands and varieties, use a scale to weigh your ingredients rather than measure with cups. If you still end up with dry or crumbly bakes when swapping in a blend, Ms. Cermelj and Ms. Medrich advise reducing the amount of flour by 10 percent for wet cake batters; reducing the butter or oil by 20 to 30 percent for buttery treats like cookies; and reducing the baking temperature by 25 degrees and increasing the baking time as needed. And the more you bake without gluten, the more you'll enjoy its benefits. Over-mixing doughs and batters with wheat flour can result in toughness. With gluten-free flour, that risk is eliminated and means that cookie and pie doughs can be rerolled and that cake batters can be beaten well and end up with better textures. Once you're comfortable with one-to-one blends, try other wheatless flours. Nut flours and coconut flour contribute bold flavor and textural interest, even mild sweetness. Teff and buckwheat complement chocolate, corn flour shines in buttery biscuits and tarts and oat flour highlights the brown sugar in chocolate chip cookies. Psyllium husk powder and xanthan gum, often listed in gluten-free baking recipes and flour blends, serve as binders. Julia Gartland for The New York Times. Food Stylist: Samantha Seneviratne. When you buy gluten-free flour blends or consult gluten-free baking recipes, you'll notice xanthan gum or psyllium husk powder often listed among the ingredients. These are binders, which Ms. Cermelj, who also earned a Ph.D. in chemistry, described as 'hydrocolloids, which means they bind to a lot of water and make a sticky, elastic gel that kind of mimics the effects of gluten.' Xanthan gum can save cakes, cookies or brownies from turning out crumbly. Ms. Goyoaga said some amount of xanthan gum is especially helpful for doughs that require stretching, such as puff pastry, croissant, pasta and pie dough, to prevent them from falling apart when rolled or leaking butter when baked. As you gain experience with gluten-free recipes, you'll be able to guess how much, if any, xanthan gum or psyllium husk powder to add. But Ms. Medrich called gluten-free bread 'a whole other ballgame' — one where psyllium husk powder steps up to the plate. This fiber-rich, seed-derived ingredient encourages a chewy texture and, according to Ms. Goyoaga, is mandatory for holding together dough so it can be kneaded and shaped. Whatever you end up using, take heart: Going gluten-free isn't the end of enjoying baked goods, but the beginning to discovering how delicious new ones can be. Follow New York Times Cooking on Instagram , Facebook , YouTube , TikTok and Pinterest . Get regular updates from New York Times Cooking, with recipe suggestions, cooking tips and shopping advice .
