Lemon Curd Cupcakes with Strawberry Fool

and a strawberry galette -with lemon curd, obvs

Sam

May 18, 2024

∙ Paid

try and convince me that strawberries don’t taste amazing with lemon curd ;-)

new on bbs

Strawberry Galette with Lemon Curd

Flaky homemade pie crust scented with lemon zest and vanilla houses a filling bursting with strawberries, piled over a layer of tart lemon curd.

strawb + rose

Strawberry Rose Cake

Fluffy white cake flavored with rose water, lemon and strawberry swirled with a strawberry and rose reduction. Top with a cream cheese frosting & more swirls of reduction.

from the vault

If you’ve been on this list for awhile, you might remember these being released as a little ‘christmas gift’ exclusive for subscribers a few years back. Last year I quietly made the post public with just the bare skim of the recipe: just one paragraph of text with one photo. A few weeks back I had some overripe bananas and decided to remake and update the post with all the works - now it belongs to all of you and has the info you need to make the perfect batch.

reader review

“These were delightful! I’ve never toasted oats like this before, and I love how it deepened the flavor of the oats and helped the bars become so much crispier and chewier than the typical soft oat bars. They kept well in the frig but devoured quickly! I might increase the fruit filling next time; can’t get enough rhubarb!” - Colleen on Oatmeal Rhubarb Bars.

weekly reads & notes

“…workers have to pick as fast as possible, filling plastic clamshell containers—eight to a flat, the flat balanced on a cart they push between the rows. “It’s hard to pick even five boxes [flats] an hour, but if I can’t make that, or if I pick any green berries, it gets called to my attention,” said Matilde, a worker who didn’t want her last name used for fear of retaliation from her boss. She’d been picking for three weeks, her fifth year in the strawberry fields. “The foreman tells us we’re not trying hard enough, that they don’t have time to teach us, and if we can’t make it we won’t keep working. Some are even fired there in the field.”’ Strawberry Farmworkers Fight for a Living Wage, Civil Eats.
“According to 2016 statistics provided by Restaurant Opportunities Centers United, of the 3.5 million parents working in America’s restaurant industry, roughly 1 million are single mothers. They spend 35 percent of their wages on child care, more than 40 percent live below the poverty line and a third say they are unable to get the most desirable shifts due to child care obstacles.” The Restaurant World Still Has a Child Care Problem, Eater.
“The original idea behind eating cake in your car was to lessen the stress and anxiety brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to Wong. In the spring of 2020, Wong launched a pop-up bakery called Flouring L.A. because she “needed to bake to fill my soul.” … “I thought putting together a dessert box of things people could eat in their car would be a good idea,” Wong said on a recent call. “I created this cake bar wrapped in a little parchment square and you could hold the cake and eat it in the car while you drive. Car cake.”’ What is Car Cake and Why We Could All Use a Slice or Two, LA Times.
I watched this short film from Life & Thyme, called Sumoud. In it Reem Assil, the chef behind Reem’s California, talks about food being ‘the greatest expression of joy’ as a Palestinian, and how ‘food connects (her people) to the land… the earth’. It’s a heart-breaking but hopeful 8 minute video I encourage everyone to watch.
Listening to Reem talk in that film, I thought about how I too find joy in food. And so much of it! Joy in making food and exercising my creative muscles, joy in watching my family eat my food, joy in taking food to gatherings (always a sweet baked good!), but also joy in sharing my recipes, and often hearing back from you that they brought you joy. I think about the strawberry pickers and restaurant workers in the articles above, and how insanely lucky I am to spend my days doing something that, yes can be messy and hard in some ways, but ultimately is joyous. I know I’m here because of a combination of luck and effort, but you all, this little community of followers and bakers that I have cultivated for the last 6 years, enrich this job of mine and make it that much more… joyful. I guess what I’m trying to say is… thank you for being here <3

and for members