CakeLove Affair

Story & Photos by Jennifer Deseo,
Recipes by CakeLove

It's a 40-minute Metro ride from northern Virginia to downtown Silver Spring. But for Laura Pinsky, the lemon cranberry scone is worth the trip.

"Here, taste this!" she says, pinching a beige clump of dough between her delicate fingers. "It's really good!"

Pinsky, a twentysomething financial analyst from Arlington, is one of six students attending a Monday evening class at CakeLove on Ellsworth Street. It's the first class of the season, and both students and instructors are giddy with excitement.

"It's something people have wanted for years," says Mary Meyers, CakeLove's corporate baking manager and an instructor. The bakery's bright 1,500-sq. ft. expansion in downtown Silver Spring allows students to learn in a working kitchen, which would be unmanageable in CakeLove's 500-sq. ft. bakery on U Street, she explains.

Three different classes are offered on a rotating schedule: introductory baking, cake decorating, and this evening's topic, handheld sweets.

Pinsky continues her "quality control" sampling of the raw scone dough. Meanwhile, Melissa Westervelt, who works with Pinsky at a Ballston consulting firm, coarsely chops a wedge of white chocolate. Later, she combines the chocolate with raspberries in a muffin batter.

At another counter, District resident Annette Hill and Barbara Donato of Alexandria navigate their way around a standing mixer. Their assignment: chocolate chip cookies, perfectly round and consistently sized.

"We went for the large cookies," says Hill, who chooses to mold the dough with an ice cream scoop instead of a small melon baller.

"I'm very proud of them," she adds.

Lemon cranberry scones

7 oz. unbleached all-purpose flour
2 oz. sugar
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. vanilla powder
zest of 1/2 lemon
3 oz. cold butter, cut into cubes
1/2 cup heavy cream
1-1/2 cups dried cranberries
1 egg
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
course sugar for dusting

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (or 335 degrees for a convection oven). Set the rack in the middle of the oven.
2. Sift the flour into a bowl, and then add the sugar, salt, baking powder and vanilla powder. Gently whisk for 10 seconds.
3. Add the lemon zest to the dry ingredients and mix slowly with a flat beater.
4. Add the cold butter and "cut" it into the dry ingredients until the mixture reaches a dry, crumbly consistency. Be careful not to overwork the dough.
5. Add the dried cranberries.
6. While mixing, gradually pour the heavy cream into the bowl until the dough resembles clumpy, damp sand and draws to the center of the bowl. (Note: You may not need all of the heavy cream to reach this consistency.)
7. Remove the dough from the bowl and divide it into two equally sized balls. Working the dough as little as possible, press each ball into a flat square roughly 1 inch thick.
8. Using a knife cut each square diagonally in half to form two large, triangular scones. (Or cut each square diagonally into quarters to form four small scones.)
9. Prepare an egg wash using the egg and vanilla extract. Brush each scone with the egg wash, and then dust with course sugar.
10. Bake the large scones for 22 minutes, rotating halfway through the cooking time. (Or bake small scones for 12 minutes, rotating halfway through the cooking time.) When done, the scones should be light and golden.

Yields four large scones or eight small scones.

Raspberry-white chocolate muffins

2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tsp. salt
1 T. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 cup half-and-half
1 egg
4 oz. butter
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup white chocolate
5 oz. fresh raspberries

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees (or 335 degrees for a convection oven). Set the rack in the middle of the oven.
2. Cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl.
3. In a separate bowl, mix the egg, half-and-half and vanilla extract.
4. In a third bowl, mix together the flour, salt, baking powder, white chocolate and raspberries.
5. Slowly add the egg mixture to the creamed butter and sugar and mix using a paddle attachment.
6. Add the contents of the third bowl and mix until incorporated.
7. Using an ice cream scoop, spoon the batter into a muffin pan.
8. Bake for 22 minutes, rotating halfway through the cooking time. A toothpick inserted through the center of each muffin should be dry when the muffins are done.

Yields six muffins.

Chocolate chip cookies

3 oz. sugar
7 oz. brown sugar
1/2 vanilla bean pod
4 oz. butter, melted and cooled
2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 whole egg
1 egg yolk
10 oz. unbleached all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
6 1/2 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
3 oz. 60 percent chocolate pistols

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees (or 300 degrees for a convection oven). Set the rack in the middle of the oven.
2. Combine the flour, baking soda and salt in one bowl.
3. In another bowl, pour the white and brown sugars into a bowl.
4. Slice and scrape the vanilla bean pod into the bowl, and then mix with a flat beater.Add the cooled, melted butter and continue to mix until fully combined with the sugars.
5. Add the cooled, melted butter and continue to mix until fully combined with the sugars.
6. Add the vanilla extract.
7. Add the whole egg and egg yolk one yolk at a time until combined.
8. Scoop in the flour mixture until combined.
9. Add the chocolate chips and chocolate pistols until combined.
10. Using an ice cream scoop, mold the dough into small balls and place them a few inches apart on a parchment-lined sheet tray.
11. Bake for 16 minutes, rotating halfway through the cooking time.
12. When done, the cookies should be light and golden, with hard outer edges and soft centers.

Yields 15 cookies.