This year it’s a basque cheesecake, with my obvious imprint: lemon flavored with zest and juice (and it’s me so you know it’s got a tart taste). My recipe also departs from the classic basque: I bake it in a water bath like a ny cheesecake. This keeps the interior custard incredibly creamy and smooth, and even the normally over baked edges are marvelously perfect here:

new on bbs

Lemon Basque Cheesecake

Utterly creamy burnt basque cheesecake made with lots of lemon. My recipe uses a water bath to cook the custard more evenly so that the texture is light and airy.

one more pic cos I’m so proud of this texture:

p.s. we’re keeping it light these last few weeks of summer & will be back with our regular jam (but let’s be honest, mostly curd)-packed newsletters… soon ;-)

warmly,

sam

new on bbs

Lemon Curd Blueberry Loaf

Soft and moist lemon loaf cake layered with homemade lemon curd and fresh blueberries. Every bite tastes of tart lemon with sweet bursts of berry.

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🫐

Blueberry Buckle Muffins

Blueberry buckle cake in muffin form: tender buttermilk muffins topped with a crispy cinnamon streusel.

🫐

Blueberry Breakfast Cake

Most and fluffy with bursts of blueberry throughout - a simple cake made snacking style. [Can be made with oat flour too!]

🫐

Blueberry Cupcakes

Tender cupcakes made with 2x the blueberries topped with a naturally colored blueberry buttercream.

not 🫐

Chocolate Cupcakes

Soft and moist with a tight, tender crumb. Topped with chocolate whipped cream.

baker’s review 🫐

“This is one of the tastiest cakes I’ve ever made! The blueberry flavor is incredible and the cake came out so moist and spongy, and it was easy to make! I would 100% make this again, such a delicious cake!” Kayla on Blueberry Layer Cake

From the (later) July Archives

2025: Sourdough Blondies

2024: Pistachio Ice Cream

2023: Strawberry Cookies (chewy!)

2022: Brown Butter Muffins (I like making these with 🫐 but my girls prefer chocolate chips)

2021: Bakery Style Chocolate Bread (revisiting this one soon, already began some testing with almond flour)

2020: Ice Cream Pops (two layers of chocolate, homemade ice cream, all in a muffin cup frozen with a popsicle stick)

2019: Birthday Cake & Cookie Dough Ice Cream (cookie dough, tons of sprinkles andcake bits)

2018: Blueberry Ice Cream 🫐

reads

• “While governments are being sued over policies aimed at tackling unhealthy diets, the amount of UPF consumed continues to expand, contributing to rising cases of obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, mental ill health and other conditions. The world’s biggest UPF firms would “not fight so hard” if policies to curb intake of their products were ineffective, said Marion Nestle, a professor of nutrition, food studies and public health at New York University. “The lawsuits tell us that public health measures reduce sales of unhealthful products.” While the majority of cases were eventually won by governments, experts said the intensive litigation by UPF companies suggested other objectives: slowing down the implementation of laws, limiting the desire and capacity of countries to enact other public health measures and chilling regulators. The tactics mirrored those used by the tobacco industry for decades, Nestle said.” ‘If all else fails, sue’: how ultra-processed food firms are using the courts to obstruct health rules, The Guardian.

• “The lettuce supplier at the center of the turbo diarrhea outbreak has spent millions of dollars to sway sentiment around food regulation and elect Donald Trump and other MAGA Republicans, according to public filings. Taylor Farms donated more than $2 million to conservative political groups in 2025, according to Federal Election Commission filings. That includes a $1 million donation to MAGA Inc., the Trump-centric super PAC, and $1.1 million to other super PACs dedicated to electing Republicans. From 2020 through the end of 2024, the company donated more than $1.6 million to conservative PACs, including a total of $850,000 to AFP Action, an anti-regulation super PAC with ties to the Koch network.” Taylor Farms Spent Big on MAGA and Anti-Regulatory Lobbying Before Outbreak, Wired.

• “There is a pattern that anyone who questions MAHA quickly learns to recognize: challenge the movement, and within hours you will be accused of being funded by Big Food, Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, or some combination of all three. The accusation doesn’t need to be true. It just needs to land fast enough to change the subject. I have known Marion Nestle for nearly twenty years. Her book Food Politics was instrumental in shaping my first book, The Unhealthy Truth, published by Crown/Random House in 2009. Long before the food movement became divided and politicized by the current administration, Marion’s work was foundational to all of it. She has spent fifty years following the money, documenting with meticulous, peer-reviewed precision how corporate interests corrupt the science, capture the regulators, and rewrite the guidelines that are supposed to protect us. She has done this work without taking a dollar from the food industry. She has a public policy on her website saying exactly that.” The Tobacco Industry Playbook Is Being Run Against the Woman Who Wrote the Book on It, The Signal.

• bonus read: Setting the record straight: Calley Means by Marion Nestle, published on her site Food Politics.

no notes this week, hope you’re enjoying these long, hot summer weeks =)

(a little too) warmly,

sam

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