Chocolate Chip Walnut Banana Bread

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When I was operating my own humble little bakery, Aero, there was one item that sold out almost every day. The chocolate chip walnut banana bread. I didn’t really understand the hype around this one loaf, since deep in my heart I felt like the better items on the menu included loaves of sourdough, with or without additions, lovingly fermented over 24 to 72 hours. This banana loaf was quick to whip up, especially with my noble steed (a kitchen aid mixer that Mike got me for Christmas, five days before we were married), and since I associated love with labor, I just couldn’t for the life of me fathom why this was the loaf that flew off the shelves.

Now with the bakery closed and with many a person finding ample time on their undoubtedly well-washed hands, I’ve decided to share this recipe with the world so that they could continue to fill bellies and hearts while I take a personal hiatus and well-needed time to myself during this stay-at-home period, which I’ve decided to look at as a gift.

But first, a bit about this recipe. This is not some grandoise, elegant and eloquent thing that I’ve creatively concocted out of thin air. It is a very basic and simple traditional recipe that has been adapted through different generations. This loaf came from Mike’s grandmother, who is a wonderful baker born and raised in North Dakota and whose magic bars and thumb-print peanut butter cookies graced our wedding reception’s dessert table. The banana bread recipe was passed on to Mike’s sister who made her own personal modifications. And after our wedding, it was shared with me on a hot summer afternoon when she and I decided to get together and bake in her kitchen. When I originally made this recipe for the first time, it was on a low counter-top, and we used what left-over ingredients were at hand, following the recipe in a blasé kind of way. No disrespect to the original recipe but we had more healthy substitutions in mind. Instead of pouring the batter into a traditional loaf pan, we used miniature loaf pans to make four teensy-tiny loaves that any minimalist would drool over.

When my sister-in-law sent me a photo of her recipe card a few weeks later, I decided to modify it a tad further. I had, at the time, Kefir instead of the suggested buttermilk or yogurt. I also had Rye grain from the Tehachipi Project, so I decided on a whim to mill Rye using my Mockmill right before mixing and to throw it into the bowl at 100% baker’s percentage. What came out was a very flavorful, dark, caramelized loaf that had a stickiness to it and a very moist, tender inside. Over the few months that I continued to bake this for others, I have decided that I preferred the recipe without chocolate chips, although my patrons fell into the two camps fairly evenly. I will leave that decision up to you.

I personally enjoy this loaf a slice at a time with a glob of yogurt plopped on top, and granola or a seed mix strewn over it. On the side, I love having a light cup of Joe, preferably of an Ethiopian variety. This HHC cup of coffee particularly has notes of blueberry, cream, black tea and sugar. The beans come from Ecuador, which I highly recommend – I also recommend their Kenya bag with notes of lime. Currently, HHC has a promo : buy a bag of beans, get the second one at 50% off! Check out their Instagramto find out how.

What are some of your favorite ways to eat banana bread? As dessert with vanilla bean ice cream? On-the-go with crumbs on your car seat? Like a child, licking chocolate off your fingers? Please do share below.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 ripe bananas, mashed
2 cups freshly milled rye flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup Kefir or Bulgarian probiotic yogurt
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/2 cup walnuts
1/2 cup chocolate chips

The Process:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Using a KitchenAid, cream sugar and butter.
Mix in eggs
Add Kefir or yogurt and the vanilla.
Add in the bananas.
Add dry ingredients – flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.
Fold in nuts and chocolate chips.
Spray cooking spray on the loaf pan and pour batter into it, using a spatula to flatten the top. You can choose to sprinkle whole and half-sized walnut pieces over the bread like I do, to give it texture as well as for appearances.
Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes or until the middle is cooked through, rotating at the halfway mark. You can check for doneness by sticking a toothpick or chopstick in the center of the bread.
Pull out of the oven and let rest in the pan for a few moments to slightly cool.
Invert out of the pan and cool completely on a drying rack.

This banana bread is photographed on East Fork pottery’s cake plate in Eggshell.

Buckwheat Blueberry Pancakes

This post is in partnership with East Fork Pottery, a company slinging hand-thrown, timeless pottery in Oregon using regionally-sourced stoneware clay. Their beautiful food-safe glazes are made in house and lend their pieces character, but in an unfussy and classic manner. The collection is, truly, a treasure trove.

With the advent of daylight-savings-time-changes mid-winter comes a post-apocalyptic episode of me scrounging a few more moments of sleep, desperately and daily. The time change lands on my most dreaded day of the year, and what follows is a week full of lethargy, a pathology that is largely self-diagnosed by yours truly. Coupled with dreary weather, rainy forecasts and winter blues, there isn’t much to be excited about after the clock sets back. EXCEPT perhaps… naturally leavened buckwheat blueberry pancakes!

All of this to say that the sun dost continue to shine, even if we can’t see it. You find brightness in other ways. In my case, flour to match in color with the winter blues, a dash of farm treasures in the form of berries, and perfect East Fork“>pottery to bring out those moody hues.

Before you begin to think this post is mostly a ranting of my hatred for time changes and a boasting of my favorite vessels, let me straighten the record and say that this truly is a sharing of a recipe. In particular, one that gets me out of bed on those mornings when I feel as if sinking into oblivion would be a better option. I guarantee you, it is not. With the record straight, let me digress and romanticize about all the reasons why this pancake (and this plate) makes this time of year more amicable.

There’s something about the color of buckwheat. It does, to me, give the pancake a bluish hue. The texture of the flour is soft and fluffy, and with the help of a natural starter, gives rise (pun intended) to a very delicate stack. Yet the taste of buckwheat contradicts this delicacy with its bold, earthy tone. The savory taste so distinct in soba noodles is ever so faintly noticeable in this overall sweet recipe.

Then there are the blueberries, which we purchase from a local farm up the road from my parent’s house. Organic and freshly picked, I like to mix these additions into the batter prior to pouring onto the pan. What results when cooked in the cake is a juicy bubble bursting to seep its way into the pancake’s core. The tartness of the berries offsets the savory pancake, their juiciness offsetting the sandy texture of buckwheat.

Off course, drizzling the entire stack with maple syrup and pairing with maple sausage links can’t hurt. And if this hasn’t convinced you of the therapeutic effects of cooking a comforting breakfast on a wintry morning, perhaps the presentation on hand-thrown, human-made clay pots is more appealing to you.

This morel hue does just the trick. Reminiscent of earthy things, like mushrooms that sprout, grounding and calming all at the same time. It’s no wonder East Fork considers it the most versatile color in the collection. Rich and soft like brown butter, morel adds elegance to the presentation without being pretentious. The coffee mug, also in morel, fits warmly in the hand and elevates my mood.

Then again, the coffee also helps.

Whatever wintry flourishes you’ve got in your back pocket to abide the time until Spring arrives, may this help get you through.

Ingredients:

2 large eggs
1 cup almond milk
1 cup sourdough starter
1 1/2 cup Bob’s Red Mill Buckwheat flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/2 stick melted butter
1 cup fresh blueberries

Instructions:

Whisk the eggs in a Kitchen Aid mixer or by hand, depending on your energy level.
Add the milk and starter and whisk again, on low, until well incorporated.
Add the dry ingredients including the flour, baking soda, salt and sugar. Mix thoroughly, stopping halfway to scrape a rubber spatula down the sides of the bowl, catching all the escaped floury bits.
Whisk in the melted butter, and let sit for 20 minutes to allow starter to do it’s magic.
Add the blueberries right before frying on the pan. Fold the berries in with a spatula.
Scoop 2 tablespoons onto a pan and heat on the first side. Flip after bubbles begin to pop at the surface and cook again for about the same amount of time.
Serve with Grade A amber maple syrup, more berries, and bacon or sausage links, if preferred.
Get by for the rest of winter.

Spiced Raw Chocolate Mousse

In the Kitchen is a series created to inspire others to cook more for themselves. It’s an effort to make healthful eating attainable in a zero-plastic way. It’s an ode towards the one life hack that keeps us well on our financial track. Hoping to slow people down this fast-paced track, I suggest giving up the dine-out and to-go habit, even for just a day a week. Some recipes are meant to be shared with your community, lest it be two or twenty. Others, more decadent and perhaps meant entirely for yourself. In either case, these are some of our tried, true, and favorited.

This spiced raw chocolate mousse is adapted from Kinfolk Table.

In this summer’s heat, there are times when the best dessert involves staying as far away from the ovens as possible, even if you ARE a bread baker. In fact, especially so. I came across this recipe in Kinfolk Table and was drawn to the simple ingredients used to make a such a luxurious dessert. I was happy to find that the ingredients are staples commonly found in a pantry, and that the preparation would take about 5 minutes of my time. Just my style. As an added bonus, the presentation requires nothing more than a couple of whiskey cups or water glasses and a smattering of sliced almonds (both for looks but also as an added layer to mouth feel).

We’ve been spending the last few days on our patio set, sweating in shorts and a tee, engorging ourselves on this perfect summer’s treat. Plus, didn’t we determine we would choose chocolate??

Ingredients:

1/4 cup raw almonds, sitting in water for 10 minutes and strained
1 heaping tablespoon of raw cacao powder
1 ripe avocado, peeled and pitted
1 large banana, frozen and coarsely chopped
2 tablespoons raw honey, agave, or pure maple syrup
Pinch of cayenne
Pinch of ground ginger
Pinch of sea salt
Cold water, as needed

The Process

Blend together the softened almonds, cacao, avocados, banana, honey, cayenne, ginger, and salt in a blender until smooth. I had to keep scraping down the sides of the blender to make sure that all the almonds and bananas were incorporated.
Add water 1 tablespoon at a time to adjust the consistency to taste.
Topped with sliced almonds. Serve immediately, while cool.
Conversely, make the mousse ahead of time and store in the fridge. This is a great dessert to make for a large group of people. Serve with blueberries for an even more elevated dessert.

Serves 3

Notes: The original recipe called for hemp seeds instead of almonds and 2 tablespoons of cacao powder. I used almonds because that’s what we had in the pantry and 2 tablespoons was just way too much (gasp!). It also says it serves two, but neither of us were able to eat that much mousse for dessert, surprisingly.

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Hearty Barley Salad with Broiled Feta and Tomatoes

As we delve deeper into this sustainable, zero-plastic, less-waste, bread-baking, grain-preserving journey, we keep finding little ‘windows’ (as my friend Heather called it) into different ways of approaching life. Prior to pursuing a more eco-friendly lifestyle, our choices regarding the food industry stemmed from the most frugal of options. Ergo, hardly were our choices supportive of our planet’s well-being, let alone our own well-beings. As we age and start to see the consequences of such choices, we have been attempting to spin our compass needle to something a bit less, destructive(?) Needless to say, efforts have been made in consuming more healthy options, this recipe included. Aligned with my mantra of less is more, a minimalist approach to a simple recipe for a very versatile dish. Adapted from Kinfolk Table. This we eat alone as a salad, or as a side dish with broiled salmon. Upon first make, we eat it warm, but second helpings are eaten cold, straight from the fridge.

Ingredients

8 oz. of feta cheese, purchased from the Olive Bar, cut into small cubes
1.5 cups Roma tomatoes, diced
0.5 cups of mixed black and green olives from the Olive bar, pitted
0.25 cups chopped fresh herbs, such as oregano, rosemary and thyme
0.25 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 cup barley
2 cups water
2 ripe avocados diced into 0.5 inch cubes
16 oz. artichokes, cut into 1/2 inch thick wedges
1 cucumber, seeded and chopped
2 cups fresh basil leaves, thinly sliced
2 tbs. fresh lemon juice
Freshly ground black pepper
Red pepper flakes

The Process:

Turn the oven on to 390 degrees Fahrenheit with a rack in the center of the oven.
While the ovens are pre-heating, combing feta, tomatoes, olives, herbs and olive oil on a foil-lined baking sheet and toss until mixed. Bake for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, bring the barley and water to a boil in a medium saucepan over medium-high heat. Reduce the heat to medium, cover, and simmer the barley for 20 minutes or until tender. Fluff with a fork and transfer to a salad bowl.
Add the avocados, artichokes, cucumber, basil and lemon juice to the barley and toss to combine. Stir in the feta mixture. Season to taste. I add a dash of red pepper flakes to get a little bit of a kick.

Hummingbird Birthday Cake

When it comes to birthday celebrations, I am a firm believer in home-made cake. Anyone can go to the store and pay for a cake, but it will likely be missing some of the magic. There may be some joy in the tippy-toeing over counters and selection of icing color, but there won’t be that love and care delicately (or not so delicately) folded into the flour, tucked underneath the frosting. I think the best presents come in the form of chocolate cookies made from scratch, so it just follows that the cake must also come from human hands, not a machine. All the better when it’s from someone dear.

Last week we threw a birthday party for my mother-in-law. We hosted a dinner with both our parents and the grandparents, gathering around a table of freshly baked brioche buns, home-made turkey patties, and fresh produce in that construct-your-own-hamburger kind of way. Obviously, I baked a cake for celebrations sake, one that I think is worth sharing. The recipe itself isn’t my doing. I must admit that I stole that from The Kinfolk Table, a book that we saw sitting on the shelves of an AirBNB in Melbourne and one that I am currently going through, trying one recipe a week. All have been wonderful additions to my stash of recipes, but none have been as fitting or fantastic as the Hummingbird Cake.

The Hummingbird Cake is the type that one reserves especially for birthdays. Don’t ask me about the name, because its source is left unknown. It has all the special-ness without, say, the fuss. It can be whipped up in a jiffy, and the steps can be broken up around the gift-wrapping and the house-decorating. The ingredients are easily accessible year-round, and the decorating is made easier by the handful of pecans scattered on top to cover the frosting technique. In other words, it’s newbie-baker approved.

I made a few alterations to the original recipe, but the basics still stand. I knew it was a doozy when my roommate ate half of the excess cake that I had sliced off in order to produce flat cake layers. She said it was the best thing she’s ever tasted, and diligently ate away at the left-over cake crumbs, sans icing. I knew it was a killer when our 82-year old grandma exclaimed, “I would literally DIE for this cake” after her first bite. Someone who just survived a recent-knee surgery shouldn’t be making jokes like that. The true test, however, was when our picky grandpa who does not even eat CHEESE or anything more adventurous than beef and potatoes finished his entire slice without a word. That alone says enough.

For me, I think it holds a hint of a memory that is buried in the recesses of my happy, unhealthy childhood. Mornings spent with my mama’s banana bread in hand, or cutting into a fresh pineapple cake. Also, there’s nothing as sentimental as the way my mother-in-law’s eyes lit up when she saw that I had baked her a birthday cake, and the way three colorful candles looked alit atop. The birthday song sung by everyone in the room in the dim kitchen lighting really set the tone for this cake and what was once reserved for someone else’s family’s traditional birthday cake now became one of our own.

May all your birthday cakes be baked by someone you love, for all the future birthdays to come.

Hummingbird Cake

Ingredients:

For the cake:

28 g unsalted butter at room temperature
460 grams Bob’s Red Mill Pastry Flour
350 grams bananas
400 grams granulated sugar
3 grams baking soda
3 grams ground cinnamon
6 grams salt
3 large eggs, beaten and at room temperature
360 milliliters vegetable oil
227 grams crushed pineapple
7.5 milliliters vanilla extract
255 grams organic pecans, chopped

For the icing:

227 grams cream cheese at room temperature (equivalent to one 8 oz packaged cream cheese)
113.5 grams unsalted butter at room temperature
454 grams confectioner’s sugar
5 milliliters vanilla extract

The Process:

For the cake:

I make this cake with two layers, and icing in the middle. I use two 9-inch round cake pans in order to achieve this, and spray the insides with coconut spray. Preheat ovens to 350 degrees F and place a rack in the center of the oven. It is here that you will bake off both pans.
Finely chop the bananas. In a large bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Add the eggs and oil and stir just until you no longer see any specks of dry ingredients. Fold in the bananas. Stir in the pineapple, vanilla, and half of the pecans. Reserve the other half of the pecans for topping the cake.
Divide the batter equally between both pans, ad set them on the middle rack. Bake, rotating halfway, for a total of 30 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center of the cakes come out clean. Transfer the cakes to racks and cool in the pans for ten minutes before inverting out. Inverting too soon can compromise the structure of the cake. After cooling, invert them directly onto a rack and cool for at least one hour.
After the cake has cooled, trim off the excess on the tops of the cake, to get nice flat cake layers.

For the icing:

While the cake cools, beat the cream cheese and butter with an electric mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about three minutes. Decrease the speed to low and add the confectioners’ sugar and vanilla gradually. Beat until light and fluffy, about another three minutes.
To assemble, start with a bottom cake layer. Spread the frosting on top of it and sprinkle with some pecans. Then stack the second cake layer on top. Ice the cake on the sides and the top with the rest of the cream cheese frosting using a spatula. Sprinkle the remaining pecans on top of the cake, to cover a newbie frosting job.

No problem! Its a home made cake. Proof is in the icing.

Repeat for special birthdays to come.

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Cafe Nico

It’s winter time and citrus fruits abound. Sweet, juicy, and bright, the perfect contrast to gray weather and chilled bones. Hence, the perfect time to share an orange-infused latte recipe (‘cuz it’s been a while), as inspired by our favorite local coffee shop, Hopper and Burr. Introducing, Cafe Nico.

Related Posts:

This drink has it all. It starts with orange peel, simmered and candied with sugar and water to create a lusciously subtle homemade orange simple syrup. Nothing like a little zest to give you that early morning kick, much appreciated after an invigorating 6 am yoga session. A few teaspoons (plus or minus a dash) coat the bottom of a shallow mug, or better yet, a small 4 oz. glass, followed by a rich and creamy espresso pull.

Currently at our house, we have the Decaf Sumatra Mandheling from Portola Coffee Roasters, with dark fruit, earthy, chocolate, and herbal notes, or the Karinga AB, also from Portola, with black currants, melon, lemon-lime, and herbal tones. The latter imparts an additional layer to this citrusy drink. To get an espresso assortment shipped to your door for everyday at-home coffee, may I recommend one of our favorite providers, Blue Bottle Coffee.

Rounding everything off, we sprinkle the top of the espresso pull with a dash of cinnamon, to add warmth to the winter season. If you are feeling up for it, I would mix in some orange zest with the cinnamon prior to adding it to the coffee. Off course, the drink wouldn’t be a latte without steamed milk. I find that the ratio of a 4 oz glass allows for equal parts orange syrup and steamed milk, which is my preferred combination. My favorite cortado cup is this black 4.5 oz Monty Milk Art Cups by Fellow. The latte will appeal to those looking for just a hint of orange zest. Whether you choose to drink in one gulp or in tiny sips, it is sure to take you to the warmer summer days ahead.

Tools You Need:

There are a few gadgets that you will need in order to make a Cafe Nico at home. These are some of our gadgets that we are impartial to.

Scale – I own this one, because it weighs heavy-enough things for bread-making as well. I also like this because I can toggle between grams and ounces. Mike has this one that he uses for coffee exclusively, which is what we mostly use when measuring coffee bean and water weight. It is especially useful since it has that timer, essential to latte pulls and drip-coffee!
Grinder – The grinder plays a huge role in the quality of your brew (or espresso, or latte, or what-have-you). We used to just live with the results of a sub-par grinder, until last Christmas, when our gift to each other was a high quality grinder that has been spewing out delicious pours ever since.
Espresso Machine – We own the La Marzocco Linea Mini. It is a high end espresso machine that my husband sold his motorcycle for after waiting ten years to buy it. We use it every day and are slowly earning back the money we spent buying it by not going to a coffee shop for our espresso based drinks.

Ingredients:

4-5 teaspoons of homemade orange simple syrup
18 g of coffee of your choice, pulled as an espresso shot
Steamed milk of your choosing, the original recipe calls for half – and – half
Cinnamon (a dash)
Orange zest (optional)

The Process:

Prior to making the coffee, I would pre-mix some orange zest (if using) with the cinnamon. The last thing you want to do is allow the coffee to cool while you scramble for this mixture. You want it to be prepared with a mesh strainer set aside or placed in a shaker for easier sprinkling.
Place 4-5 teaspoons of homemade orange simple syrup at the bottom of your cup or glass. This is the part that allows you to control how citrusy and sweet the drink actually is. Mr. Debtist prefers only 3 teaspoons, whereas I almost always do the full five.
Pull your espresso shot OVER the simple syrup. I use 18.5 grams of coffee ground at the setting of 6A using our Baratza grinder, extracted for 25 seconds to pull 1.5 oz of coffee.
Sprinkle the top of the espresso with a dash of your cinnamon mix.
Steam milk, and top off the drink.
Allow this drink to get you through the winter. Summer is coming.

If you love coffee, then you may be interested in checking out this coffee gift guide, which lists some of our favorites! Feel free to pin it to Pinterest so you can refer back to it later!

Homemade Orange Simple Syrup

I am one who is all for making things from scratch, sometimes in an effort to reduce pre-packaging waste, and other times for the sake of being creative. Simple syrups are one of the pantry items that I urge people to make at home. Why? Because the name itself implies its simplicity. It only requires, water, sugar, and whatever taste you want to infuse into the syrup. Once made, these syrups are perfect additions to coffee, cocktails, and baked goods. Today, I share with you this orange simple syrup recipe, which we use to make Cafe Nicos in the winter months.

Ingredients:

1-quart water (filtered or distilled)
1/2 lb. sugar (granulated)
5 oranges (peel only, sliced)

The Process:

Combine the water, sugar and orange peels in a heavy-bottomed saucepan. Stir to combine, bring to a boil and cook until the sugar dissolves, stirring occasionally. Avoid boiling for too long. Once the sugar caramelizes, you know you have gone too far. I have had plenty a time when I’ve burned my simple syrup and had to start over.
Remove from heat, remove the peels and let the syrup cool. The syrup should be slightly opaque, with no hint of brown. Transfer to a bottle or jar. Store in the fridge for longest life.
Add to Cafe Nico.

Rye Pecan Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting

When it comes to cooking, I find joy in creating complexity out of the most simple and base ingredients. Take carrots, for example. A boring carrot stick is something you pass by on your weekly grocery run in the produce aisle. Orange, stiff, sometimes with carrot top still intact (in which case, a no-waste carrot top recipe, here). A long ways from extraordinary. But when I think of a well-made carrot cake, my eyes can’t help but twinkle, my mouth salivates. The marriage between sweet, earthy, and spicy undertones signifies a TRUE carrot cake, not disguised by extreme amounts of sugar, as they usually are. The colors of the cake itself remind me of the beauty of fall – orange from the carrots, brown from cinnamon and brown sugar, purple and mossy green from the rye.

Too often, carrot cake is done a disservice. Fatty and sugary sweet isn’t the cake I dream of. If it comes out of the pan shiny, covered in grease and oil, then you know it’s not done right. The texture should be moist, but grainy too. It should be fluffy and crumbly. My favorite way to make it is to keep the carrot shreds long, so that they break up the cake and are featured in their own right, rather than disappear into the flour, overshadowed by bread. With this recipe modified from East of Kitchen, I was able to create such a cake for a Friendsgiving gathering, with plenty of left-overs to boot.

It’s time to do carrot cake justice.

For the cake:

Ingredients:

2 cups pecans, roughly chopped
5 cups carrots, peeled and coarsely grated
4 cups Bob’s Red Mill Stone Ground Rye flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
4 tsp cinnamon
8 large free-range eggs
2.5 cups granulated sugar
2 cups coconut oil
3 tsp pure vanilla extract

The Process:

Preheat the oven to 350F.
Grease two 9-in cake pans and line the bottom with a circle of baking paper and grease that, too.
In a large bowl, combine the rye flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and set aside.
In the bowl of your stand mixer, beat the eggs until frothy, about 3-4 minutes on medium speed. Add the sugar one tablespoon at a time and beat until the batter has thickened.
With the mixer running on medium speed, add the coconut oil in a slow and steady stream.
With the mixer set on low speed, add the flour mixture, and mix just until combined.
Dump the grated carrots and the pecans in the batter and incorporate with the aid of a spatula.
Pour the batter into your prepared pan and bake for 40-50 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.
Allow to cool on a wire rack completely before removing to a cooling rack. When it is completely cooled, cut lengthwise through the middle with the aid of a serrated knife.

For the Cream Cheese Frosting:

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
16 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
3 cups powdered sugar, sifted
2 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 tsp lemon zest

The Process:

In the bowl of your stand mixer beat the butter and cream cheese on low speed until everything is blended.
Add the powdered sugar one tablespoon at a time, with mixer running on low, until everything is incorporated and smooth. Beat in the vanilla and zest.
Refrigerate at least one hour prior.

To assemble the cake:

Place the first cake layer on a serving plate.
Wrap wax paper around the circumference of the cake to create a tall wall to support the building of the cake.
Spoon 2 tsp of milk over the cake. This will keep the cake moist.
Spread a layer of the frosting evenly on top, then place the second layer over.
Spoon 2 tsp of milk, and them spread another layer of frosting.
Repeat with the third and fourth layers. Spread frosting evenly on top. There should be more than a fourth of the frosting reserved for the top layer. Reserve a small amount of frosting for the sides of the cake.
Place the cake into the freezer without removing the wax paper. Let sit in the freezer for 30 minutes to an hour.
Remove the cake from the freezer and remove the wax paper. Ice the sides of the cake with a thin layer of frosting. Place in the fridge for at least one hour to allow the frosting to set.
The cake should be ready to eat afterwards. If you wish, decorate with sprigs of rosemary stems.