In honor of this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe, Vanilla Ice Cream, Jeff and I decided to stop deliberating and actually buy an ice cream maker. I’d been making ice cream without a machine for months using David Lebovitz’s old-school method, and I was happy with the results, but they took several hours. So, we grabbed one of this particular home store’s ever-present coupons with visions of sugar cones dancing in our heads.

We were giddy.

We walked up to the display of ice cream makers, and there it was: The One. The same one we’d lusted over last year. And it was $10 MORE.

In the words of Our Lady Oprah, what I know for sure is that the Lebovitz method works. See this lovely, creamy, very vanilla ice cream? I followed Dorie’s recipe to the point where it required a machine, and then I chilled it in a bowl over an ice bath and slipped it into the freezer. After that, it was all my meaty biceps, a big wooden spoon and time. The chocolate pieces are Trader Joe’s mini peanut butter cups I stirred in at the last minute – before I could give in to the temptation of lining them up on the counter and snorting them. So, instead of instant gratification with the $50+ machine, we spent the afternoon at home, slowly tending our ice cream and wrapping up “Torchwood: Children of Earth.” It was a fair trade.

For the recipe, visit Lynn of Café Lynnylu, or pick up a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours.”

Some dads play golf. Some fish. When my dad needs to relax, he drives. Windows down, radio on. And not just around the block or around town. Once he drove all the way to New Orleans. He’d offer to take us out to eat after church, and three hours later, we’d wind up at Lambert’s Café in Sikeston, Missouri, reaching up for those “throwed rolls” like they were manna from heaven. But one of the benefits of Daddy’s extensive travels was that right as we started threatening to kill ourselves or each other if we didn’t get out of the van, he’d find a dairy dip. Some standing room-only shack that smelled like little burgers and fries and soft-serve ice cream. Daddy bought a lot of goodwill with that 99-cent cone.

I’d been planning on making my own ice cream this summer, so I was excited that this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was Honey-Peach Ice Cream. What’s a baking group doing making ice cream? Who cares? Orange blossom honey. Georgia peaches. Whole milk, cream, sugar. I expected it to be good, but even the smallest bite blooms with the flavor of ripe peaches and cold, sweet cream. It’d be worth a three-hour drive, but it’s so much nicer to just walk to the freezer.

For the recipe, visit Tommi of Brown Interior, or pick up a copy of Dorie’s Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours.”

Clowns.

Watermelon.

Nickelback.

The films of Kevin Costner.

Burnt Sienna.

“CSI: Miami.”

Today’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe: French Yogurt Cake with Marmalade Glaze.

Can you guess what these things have in common?

P.S. For the recipe, visit Liliana of My Cookbook Addiction, or pick up a copy of Dorie Greenspan’s “Baking: From My Home to Yours.”

It’s taken more than a year, but this week Tuesdays with Dorie is finally tackling the Devil’s Food White-Out Cake. The black-and-white beauty on the cover of “Baking: From My Home to Yours.” The cake of inspiration.

What, you didn’t recognize it?

A few weeks ago, Jeff’s dad, Dan, was joking about wanting a birthday cake topped with a jeep – one like his white Jeep Cherokee. He told his wife, Tina, who told Jeff, who told me that this idea needed to be on like “Donkey Kong.” So, I used this week’s Dorie recipe to make the cake, a crumbly devil’s food with a marshmallowy filling, and a batch of Rice Krispies Treats® for sculpting the jeep and rocks. Jeff sculpted, I added the fondant, and he painted the details. He had never worked with fondant. Remember how my first fondant experience looked? No? EXACTLY. It was born for the landfill. But if you peek through Jeff’s tinted windows, you can see Dan laughing at the wheel while Tina screams. The only unrealistic thing is that the rock hill should be much, much steeper.

If you’re looking for an easy cake that looks (and tastes) impressive, Dorie’s Devil’s Food White-Out Cake could be your pick. The cake is covered in its own filling and crumbs, so you don’t even need a spatula to decorate it. A keeper! For the recipe, visit Stephanie of Confessions of a City Eater.

1. Prep this week’s Tuesdays with Dorie recipe–The Black and White Banana Loaf–and lovingly place it in the oven.

2. Lock the front door before you go downstairs to check on the laundry.

3. Step into the laundry room, and close the door behind you. Realize it just locked.

4. Remember the banana bread.

5. Open the garage door, and run to the neighbors’ house. Try to forget that you’re wearing a Rocky T-shirt and workout pants.

6. Arrive as the entire extended family is gathered to welcome someone home from hospice care.

7. Ask to use the phone. Realize you’re trying to call your husband during his office’s weekly production meeting.

8. Call your mother.

So, my Black and White Banana Loaf was a bust. Attractiveness-impaired and flavor-challenged. But, I did learn that I have very good, very gracious neighbors. That the Rocky T-shirt has to go. And that our new house is very, very secure.

To try the Black and White Banana Loaf, check out the recipe at Ashlee’s A Year in the Kitchen.

When I was 17, a friend set me up on a blind date with her cousin. He picked me up in a monstrous white truck with extra stereo speakers installed where padding should have been. The windows rattled. Deafening. He drove me to his parents’ house, had his mother make him a grilled cheese and tater tots (nothing for me), and ranted about how his ex-girlfriend had cheated on him and women couldn’t be trusted.

What does all this have to do with Dorie’s Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake?

It’s like a blind date. You want to like it.

What’s not to like about polenta, ricotta, sugar, honey, butter, and figs? Separately, delicious. In this particular combination, grainy and cloying.

Still, I wasn’t ready to give up on it. I tried adding Dorie’s suggested whipped cream sweetened with honey.

Didn’t help.

Sometimes bad cakes, like bad blind dates, require dumping. But one woman’s frog is another’s prince, so I give you the Fluted Polenta and Ricotta Cake recipe.

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