This blog turned one year old this week! Happy Birthday, 48 Sugar Street!

In honor of the occasion, I’ll be answering the most frequently asked questions I get about baking and blogging. And by most frequently asked, I really mean the two questions I’m often asked by people other than my mother.

First, do I take the photos featured on my blog? 

Yes, I do! And can you believe that I take them on my iPhone? Yes, I do! I know almost nothing about photography other than that natural light makes food look prettiest, and meat is really hard to make look attractive in photographs in any light. Photography is very much a skill in progress for me. I am thankful for technology that makes it easy-ish because photos can convey the beauty and lushness of food in a way that words can’t.

Second, how do I make everything featured on here and not “weigh 400 pounds” (actual quote from multiple people)? 

This is a question I want to treat with tenderness. I am asked this regularly, have been for years. I’m asked it by women, always women, of varying weights themselves. Even my husband gets asked a version of it about his own body. 

The truth is that this is a hard question to answer with grace. I recognize that when I’m asked this, people are often communicating judgment about and discomfort with their own bodies and eating habits. I also recognize that inherent in this question is the judgment that there would be something quite wrong with me weighing 400 pounds. 

Both of these judgments make me deeply uncomfortable. 

By answering the question, it feels like I’m giving people permission to comment on my body. I’d really rather that my body isn’t a topic for conversation. 

By answering the question, it feels like I’m providing tacit acceptance to the pernicious idea that I must be thin to be worthy. If I did indeed weigh 400 pounds, would it make me less of a kick-ass baker? Would you be less likely to read what I write about baking with interest and delight? Would I somehow be less by weighing more?

Weight and bodies are tricky, fraught subjects for many of us. Sometimes I need to remember that food is just food. Sometimes I need to remember that food is NEVER just food. The act of eating is bound up with culture, childhood, family, health. We are truly what we eat. Body and soul. 

So, with that said, I offer how I personally try to manage a healthful life while also blogging about dessert: 

I exercise a lot.

I also eat a lot.

I try to pay attention to how food makes me feel when I eat it and moderate what and how much I’m eating based on that. 

I host people in our home for meals frequently and aim to time testing recipes for when we have guests.

I give away much of what I bake after my family has sampled it. Neighbors, church members, staff at my kids’ school, husband’s co-workers: all are frequent recipients of recipe leftovers.

The key: I try to keep joy and nourishment as the focus of eating. For me, it is not joyful or nourishing to eat with feelings of shame or deprivation. Chronic overindulgence is not joyful or nourishing for me either.

And another key: food is meant to be shared. Eating is (often) a communal act. When I center baking around that tenet, joy and nourishment abound.

Those are by far the two questions I’m asked most. Both are important in their own way. Both touch on why I write here in the first place. Beauty and joy and worth are found in all sorts of places and all sorts of bodies. 

 I’m grateful for you, dear readers, for all your support over the last year. Thank you for reading, for engaging, for baking with me. It’s an honor.

When considering what recipe to post to celebrate the blog’s birthday, I thought back to the first very cinnamon-sugary recipe I posted. What else could top its cinnamon goodness? Then I remembered this cake.

I started baking this apple cake years ago. I remember taking it to my first job after grad school to share with co-workers, right as I was learning how much I enjoyed baking. Someone asked, “You cut up the apples and everything?” Me, proudly: “I SURE DID.” It’s been a staple in my recipe notebook ever since. The original recipe calls for the use of springform pan, but I’ve come to prefer baking it in a square 9 x 9. It seems that butter or batter always drips when I use a springform, even when I wrap the bottom with foil. No one’s got time to deal with a messy and smoky oven because of a leaky pan. This cake can be made in advance and frozen, then thawed at room temperature.

Cinnamon Apple Cake

Adapted from Cinnamon-Apple Cake

Ingredients:
3 large apples (my go-to for baking are Granny Smith, but any kind you like are fine)
1-1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1-3/4 cups granulated sugar, divided
6 ounces cream cheese (full-fat or reduced fat both work fine), softened
1/2 cup unsalted butter, softened
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 large eggs
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees and adjust oven rack to middle position. Lightly butter the bottom of a 9 x 9 square pan or spray with cooking spray, then line with parchment paper. Set aside.

Peel and core apples. Chop into 1/2 inch pieces. Measure out 3 cups and set aside; snack on any remainders. 

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. In a separate small bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup sugar and 1 tablespoon cinnamon. Set both flour mixture and cinnamon sugar aside (hope you got a lot of “aside” space in your kitchen, because there’s lots of asides happening here).

Place the remaining 1-1/2 cups sugar, cream cheese, butter, and vanilla into the bowl of a mixer. Beat on medium speed until thoroughly combined and smooth, about 1 - 2 minutes, scraping the bowl as needed. Beat in eggs at medium speed one at a time, about 30 seconds for each egg, scraping the bowl after each addition. Add the flour and mix on low until just combined, scraping the bowl as needed.

Sprinkle apples with 2 tablespoons of the cinnamon sugar and stir to coat thoroughly; reserve the remaining cinnamon sugar. Add the apples to the batter and combine on low speed until evenly distributed. 

Spread batter in prepared pan. Spoon remaining cinnamon sugar evenly over the surface of the batter. There will seem to be an excessive amount, but this is OK! It’s really just perfect when baked. 

Place pan in oven and bake for 65 - 70 minutes. Cake is done when the edges pull away from side of the pan and a toothpick inserted into the middle of the cake comes out clean (try to avoid apple chunks when testing because it can make the cake seem underbaked when it’s not). Cool on a wire rack until ready to serve. Yield: at least 9 cinnamon-sugary-appley servings, more like 12.