Some good cakes you should bake

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1. A pear cake with muscovado sugar and maple syrup from Nigel Slater's Tender. (The recipe can also be found here.) You saute chunks of pear with cinnamon then add maple syrup and cook until bubbly. Spoon this over a dense, somewhat scant batter. The cake will look like the photograph above just before it goes into the oven; when it comes out it will be flattish and golden-brown, a thick, almondy cake with sticky lodes of pear. HIGHLY RECOMMEND.

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2. An apple cake with marmalade. Also from Nigel Slater's Tender. Recipe here. This was like one of those big nubbly "health food" muffins that paradoxically contains several tons of sugar. My favorite kind. RECOMMEND, though not quite as highly as the pear cake.

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3. Plum almond cake from the Bi-Rite Market's beautiful, brand new book, Eat Good Food. I made

this a few weeks ago so I don't remember very much except that the cake was rich and almondy, the fruit juicy and tart, and the whole production a delicious dessert. RECOMMEND, although not as highly as . . . 

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4. Chocolate sour cream bundt cake, also from Eat Good Food. CAN NOT RECOMMEND MORE HIGHLY. And I don't even like chocolate.

This is the recipe almost exactly as printed in Eat Good Food. The one thing I will do differently next time is to try milk chocolate in the glaze.

Cake

1 cup unsalted butter
1/3 cup cocoa powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup water, or black coffee
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
2 large eggs
1/2 cup sour cream
1 teaspoon vanilla

1. Butter and flour a bundt pan and preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

2. In a small pan, melt the butter with the cocoa, salt, and water/coffee over medium heat. Cook until melted and combined. Cool slightly.

3. Whisk together the flour, sugar, and baking soda. Gradually whisk in the melted butter mixture and beat well. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Whisk in the sour cream and vanilla.

4. Pour the mixture into the prepared pan and bake until the cake tests done, about 45 minutes. Let the cake cool in the pan for 15 minutes, then invert onto a rack. Cool completely, then place the rack on top of a sheet of newspaper that will catch drips. Glaze.

Glaze

4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

1 1/2 tablespoons corn syrup

1/2 cup heavy cream

1 1/2 tablespoons sugar

1. Put the chocolate and corn syrup in a bowl. Heat the cream and sugar in a saucepan until the sugar is melted and the mixture is hot.

2. Pour the cream over the chocolate and whisk until melted and smooth. If it is too runny (it was) let it sit for a few minutes to thicken. Pour over the cake and let it run down the sides.

Outstanding, this cake. In fact, everything I've made from Eat Good Food has been excellent. The book also includes a recipe for a pear skillet cake that I want to try next week, when the CSA drops off another 6 overripe pears.

And I wonder why I'm not skinnier.