Hungry Bear has been craving a tart, lemony dessert for awhile, so we made a lemon olive oil cake this past Sunday night. I love olive oil, but in a cake... hmm? I had my doubts about the cake, but Hungry Bear had it on her list of things to make, so we gave it a try. Much to my surprise, I thoroughly enjoyed this light, airy cake.

Depending on how prominent an olive taste you want, extra virgin or regular olive oil can be used in the recipe. We had a nice bottle of extra virgin olive oil sitting around and used it in the cake for the added fruitiness. The cake had an interesting aroma. It smelled savory to me, but tasted like a light pound cake or a denser sponge cake. I was all confused as my nose and taste buds were sending mixed messages.

Once I got over my sensory confusion, I really enjoyed the cake. On its own, the cake was very light and not too sweet. It had subtle flavors of lemon and olive oil... obviously. To keep it light, it's best served with fresh berries and a dollop of whipped cream. For a richer dessert, serve it with a fruit compote and maybe a drizzle of aged balsamic vinegar.

I never use nuts in my chocolate desserts. I wouldn't dare put them in our chewy chocolate chunk cookies or in our brownies. Call me nutty, but I like to keep our chocolate desserts pure and simple.

The one nut I'll make an exception for is the macadamia nut. I love the richness and creaminess of this nut. As I was flipping through some cookbooks, I stumbled upon Jamie Oliver's two-nuts chocolate torte recipe, which uses almonds and walnuts.

The recipe looked simple enough, so I used it with a few changes. The first modification was substituting macadamia nuts for the almonds and walnuts. When I walked to the local supermarket, the only macadamia nuts available were roasted and salted nuts. I figured it would be okay, since most cake recipes ask for around a teaspoon of salt. Since macadamia nuts are higher in fat content than almonds and walnuts, I cut the amount of butter. The final change was the addition of vanilla extract to enhance the chocolate flavor.

On a cold day, nothing beats a warm chocolate pudding cake for dessert. This is our "go to" dessert during snowboarding trips. It's easy to make and doesn't require a mixer, which may not be available in a rental house kitchen. After a long, chilly day outside, this old-fashioned dessert really hits the spot!

I saw this recipe on a Martha Stewart show many, many moons ago. Please don't ask me why I was watching it. I'm not a fan of Martha, and I never intentionally watch her show, but the pudding cake caught my eye while channel surfing. Well, anyone can get my attention if these words are spoken... warm, chocolate, pudding, cake.

Hungry Bear and I love good old-fashioned chocolate cake. Nothing beats a moist, tender and airy piece of chocolate cake for dessert. The hard part is finding a recipe that has the right cake texture, chocolate flavor and sweetness level.

Last week, we were watching an episode of the Barefoot Contessa in which Ina Garten made a great looking chocolate cake. It looked so good, I had to give it a try. Hungry Bear's birthday was in a few days, so I decided to make it for her birthday.

The chocolate cake recipe produced a super moist cake due to all the liquids in the batter — 1 cup buttermilk, 1/2 cup vegetable oil, 1 cup hot coffee. With all the liquids, the batter was the runniest cake batter I've ever made. The frosting was a simple chocolate buttercream. Since we like intense chocolate flavors, I substituted bittersweet chocolate for the semisweet called for in the recipe and added an extra ounce of chocolate. And of course, I used Scharffen Berger chocolate and cocoa powder.

This past weekend my buddy, Chad, drove up from LA with his wife, Kristie, and their two young kids, Chelsea and Brooke, ages 2 years and 4 months, respectively. Chad was coming up for our annual Penn State Football weekend in San Francisco. It's just a get together with my two West Coast Penn State friends, Chad and Chuck, to hang out and watch a PSU game. I think we've held this event since 1998. Unfortunately, Chuck from Seattle couldn't make it this time.

After a weekend filled with Korean BBQ, Hawaiian, Chinese and Burmese food, I was wondering what to make for Sunday night dinner. Thankfully, Jane texted me Sunday morning stating that dinner was at her place. Her brother, Garry, was planning on making a slow-roasted pork shoulder and his wife, Karen, was making a strawberry cream cake. We were definitely looking forward to dinner.

Chad and I went on a 50 mile bike ride to Tiburon and afterwards, we were famished. I told Chad that we should snack on something before heading over for dinner, otherwise, everyone would think we were complete pigs if we devoured all the food ourselves. My reputation as a glutton has already been established, but I wanted to protect Chad's image.

Dinner started with a pasta dish that Garry threw together with hot Italian sausages, mushrooms, peas, onions and tomato sauce. As a side dish, we sautéed some Kale with garlic, olive oil, sea salt and a touch of butter. To make the kale more tender, we blanched it first. The pasta was excellent with spicy sausage and sweet peas. The kale was tender and tasty.

Next up was Karen's strawberry cream cake. Karen is a trained pastry chef, so we are always looking forward to eating her beautiful desserts. This time, she was trying out a strawberry cream cake recipe from America's Test Kitchen. The recipe is from the current season of America's Test Kitchen TV show, and it's free if you register for the site. The cake is like strawberry shortcake and consists of white cake, strawberry filling, whipped cream with cream cheese and fresh strawberries. The cake was amazing! It was surprisingly light and not too sweet.

While the strawberry cream cake was great, it was only a palate cleanser for the slow-roasted pork shoulder. Actually, Garry and Karen were tied up and couldn't get the pork in the oven early enough. Since it takes a few hours to roast, the pork wasn't ready until after dessert. And none of us were leaving without trying the pork!

Garry based the pork roast off of this slow-roasted pork shoulder with melted apples recipe. He omitted the apples and onions and cut the cooking time. Without the apples and onions, there was less braising and more roasting. Garry thought the pork shoulder was too dry, but everyone at dinner thoroughly enjoyed it. The pork had a crispy, caramelized crust and the meat was full of flavor. The two big carnivores of the group, Jane and I, couldn't stop grabbing more pieces of pork shoulder. I definitely want to make this dish again with the melted apples.

Dinner was very fun and scrumptious. It was also great sharing Sunday night dinner with Chad and his family. As we were all leaving with full bellies, two year old, Chelsea, yelled, "tanks for da cake!" 

SNDsters: Chad, Kristie, Chelsea, Brooke, Garry, Karen, Mark, Jane, Hungry Bear, Chuck