Sweet and Simple In Westport Magazine

Sweet and Simple appears as a feature article in the July/August 2011 issue of Westport Magazine. Read about baking up entrepreneurship from scratch by downloading the .pdf.

Sweet and Simple In Patch

Sweet and Simple was recently featured in the local Patch network for Fairfield County. You can read more about my sweetly mixed life here. [Source: Patch Fairfield]

Sweet and Simple In The Academy

The good folks at The Academy, an online magazine devoted to small business culture, recently sat down with me to ask questions about how it all started. I think really, though, they were after some free cupcakes. You can read the fresh dish here. [Source: The Academy]

Sweet & Simple Spice Cake

I have a weakness for vintage cookbooks. They’re just fun.  SO fun.  For this blog post, I decided to give a recipe from a vintage cookbook a whirl.  The recipe, for an old-fashioned spice cake, was inspired by Green Mountain Kitchen Recipes (Elizabeth McWhorter, 1948).  I found this spiral bound collection of recipes in a community thrift shop in Vermont last winter. It has sweet illustrations and several wonderful recipes – and it cost a $1.

Some vintage recipes take a matter-of-fact-no-hand-holding approach with the reader. For example, Ms. McWhorter’s instructions for this cake: “Mixed and baked by the conventional method, the cake calls for the following ingredients…” The ingredients are then listed and the baker is expected – expected! – to know in what order to mix the ingredients and how to bake the cake. Yikes! 



Sure, sure, you and I both know to cream the butter and sugar together, add the eggs, add the molasses and then alternate adding the dry and wet ingredients. Of course we do! But a jumble of ingredients with no instructions may as well be a description of my pantry.  So, I’ve made sense of the original recipe, tweaked it here and there [Hello, touch of nutmeg! Hello, orange zest!], and I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Sweet & Simple Spice Cake*

Makes one lovely bundt cake

Preheat oven to 350°

Prepare a 10” bundt or tube pan (butter and lightly flour the pan, shaking off the excess flour). Alternately, you may coat the pan with a no-stick vegetable oil cooking spray (I won’t tell).

Have all ingredients at room temperature.

1 cup (225 g) light brown sugar

1/2 cup (112 g) unsalted butter

5 large eggs

1/2 cup (170 g) molasses

1 cup (250 ml) buttermilk

2 tsp orange zest

2 tsp vanilla

2 1/2 cups (338g) unbleached all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1-1/2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp cloves

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 tsp nutmeg (freshly grated is best)

1/4 tsp salt

Sift dry ingredients together and set aside.

Combine buttermilk, vanilla and orange zest and set aside.

In the mixing bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle, combine butter and sugar and beat well (the mixture will look like a grainy paste). Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down bowl twice. With the mixer on low speed, add the molasses in a slow, steady stream.  Scrape down bowl again. Beat until well combined. The mixture will look a little soupy at this point.

Alternate adding the dry ingredients and buttermilk/vanilla/orange zest, beginning and ending with the dry ingredients.

Mix until just combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan.

Bake for 40-45 minutes, or until cake bounces back when pressed lightly, and/or a cake tester comes out with a few moist crumbs attached.

Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then unmold and finish cooling the cake on a wire rack.

To finish the cake, when cool dust lightly with powdered sugar. Serve slices with a dollop of freshly whipped cream. Garnish with an edible flower or a pretty, slim slice of orange or both!

*Note: my Sweet & Simple Spice Cake recipe originally appeared as a guest post for The Fat Expat - a fun blog with interesting peeps and clever writing.

Caroline Dowd-Higgins Discusses My Business Recipe

I was recently featured on career coach Caroline Dowd-Higgins' blog. She tells the not so simple story of how I took my passion for baking and turned it into a business:

"So how does the Chief Household Officer now manage a growing baking business in addition to her family? Michelle admits that work/life integration is a challenge. Her boys are all very excited about the business and in addition to being expert taste testers and home kitchen helpers – they enjoy seeing their mom gain recognition and achieve success with her business in their community."

You can read the whole article here. [source: Caroline Dowd-Higgins]

Summer Part III, Sunflowers & Chuchee’s English Muffin Bread

Labor Day marks the unofficial end of summer at my house. Thanks to Hurricane Irene, I finally got my wish and the kids went back to school today instead of last week. I was very happy to have them home, it was like a bonus vacation for all of us.

This August, when we went to Montauk, NY for our "real" vacation, I drove by LKL Farmstand in East Hampton, NY several times before I worked up the courage to pull over and ask if I could take some pictures of their sunflower field. I didn't expect to be allowed in the field and up and down the rows - and they generously allowed both. If you've never walked in a field of sunflowers late in the day in late summer, and I hadn't before, please put it at the top of your list of things to do. There was a lovely hum of bees and a feeling of total peace. Everything seemed just as it should be. Here are a few of the pictures I took that day.

In the picture on the right, you can see the bees on a sunflower.


Made of cloth or recycled materials, I love the American flag. This one is from LKL Farmstand.

Some LKL Farmstand peaches in jars. I'm going to make my grandma's Peaches 'n' Cream Pie, which calls for preserved peaches, with LKL Vanilla Peaches this winter.


Since I started Sweet & Simple, I've been baking more than ever, but in a commercial kitchen. I do miss the quiet time in my own kitchen. So yesterday was Labor Day and, even though it was hot and humid out, I wanted to relax at home in the afternoon and bake something. I thought English Muffin Bread would be great for back-to-school breakfast this morning - and it was! I had mine with butter and apricot preserves.

No surprise, some of my best recipes are from my favorite people – my friends and family. This English Muffin Bread is super easy to make and delicious to eat. My friend and former neighbor, Chuchee, an amazing baker and cook, made this for us many times. With her permission, I'm sharing her recipe. Chuchee’s English Muffin Bread is best toasted with lots of butter and jam. Or, try cream cheese, peanut butter or Nutella. All are popular at my house! You will find some of Chuchee’s other recipes here.

Since I tend to use a mixer or Cuisinart for most recipes – including pie dough and challah bread – I enjoy making this by hand in a Pyrex bowl with a wooden spoon. And the 45 minutes of wait time is a great excuse for yet another cup of coffee.

Chuchee's English Muffin Bread

Makes 2 loaves

Lightly grease 2 8-1/2 x 4” loaf pans and sprinkle with cornmeal.

3 cups plus 2-1/2 – 3 cups all-purpose flour
2 packages dry yeast
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 cups milk
1/2 cup water
cornmeal (for pans)

Combine with a whisk, 3 cups flour, yeast, sugar, salt and baking soda in a large bowl. Set aside.

Heat milk and water in a small saucepan until very warm. Add milk to flour mixture. Beat well. Stir in 2-1/2 – 3 cups more flour to make a stiff batter. Spoon batter into pans. Loosely cover and let rise in a warm place for 45 minutes. While the bread is rising, preheat oven to 400º. Bake 25 minutes. Remove immediately and cool on wire rack.

Goodbye, Summer. Thank you for sweet memories and happy days. See you next year!

Summer Part II, Molly’s Blueberry Zucchini Bread

A few weeks ago I asked my sweet friend, Molly, if I could take a few pictures of her summer garden and animals for this blog. She agreed.

We’ve been enjoying fresh and beautiful eggs from Molly’s hens for months and I wanted to meet them. Turns out the hens had nothing to say to me - but they sure are pretty, aren’t they? And look at this zucchini – blossom and squash!

And Molly had just added two furry babies to her house – Peaches and Ron (Weasley). They are soft and sweet and hoppy as can be!

How do you prepare summer squash? Or, what’s your favorite way?

I like to take a combination of zucchini and yellow squash, cut them on a diagonal in medium slices, sprinkle lightly with sea salt and sauté in olive oil until crispy and golden brown on both sides. Just don’t crowd the pan – if you do, they steam (and I make a frowny face) - work in batches until all the rounds are done. Then I arrange the slices, slightly overlapping in concentric circle in my sauté pan, sprinkle generously with grated Parmesan and stick the pan under the broiler. Yup. That’s what I do. Watch the pan carefully and please-oh-please have those oven mitts handy to remove the pan when the cheese is crispy and golden brown!

Beautiful yellow squash. Love how different the blossoms are from zucchini blossoms.

Molly has a GREAT tip for all that extra zucchini. She grates it, measures out servings and puts them in individual plastic freezer bags for the winter. As needed, she adds the frozen zucchini to pancakes and baked goods for her kids. Garden zucchini in the darkest days of winter would make ME smile!

I had a few recipe ideas for this post, but Molly gave me some loaves of her quick bread to take home that day and I quickly lost interest in my own recipe ideas! Here’s the recipe for her Blueberry Zucchini Bread. It’s delicious and I’ve left the recipe as is – no tinkering, no inspired by, just a lovely recipe from her home to mine and now to yours.

Thank you, Molly! I've known you since our first born babies were in pre-school together and you are a wonderful mother and friend. Not to mention a fabulous gardener and cook. XO

Molly’s Blueberry Zucchini Bread
Makes 4-5 mini loaves or 1 8 x 4-ish loaf

Preheat oven to 350°
Prepare loaf pan(s) by lightly greasing with vegetable oil.
[If you’re using bake-and-serve-loaf pans, skip this step.]

3 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 1/4 cup white sugar
2 cups shredded zucchini
3 cups all purpose, unbleached flour
(or, 2 cups all purpose unbleached, 1 cup whole wheat)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon
2 cups fresh blueberries, washed and picked over

Combine with a whisk the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda and and cinnamon and set aside.

In the work bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a whisk attachment, beat together the eggs, oil, vanilla and sugar. Switch to the paddle attachment. Add the zucchini and beat until just combined. Add the dry ingredients and beat until just combined. Remove attachment and work bowl and with a spatula or wooden spoon gently fold in the blueberries. Transfer to the prepared mini loaf pans.

Bake 50 minutes or until a knife inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool 20 minutes in pans then turn onto wire racks.