August 2021

Hello!

I briefly mentioned this at the start of summer, but I’m officially taking a break from recipe development this month. Typically, I post anywhere between 4 to 8 new baking recipes on Hummingbird High. This month, however, I’m taking an official “mini break” to focus on training Biscuit and avoiding turning on my oven in what’s turning out to be an extremely hot summer for Portland. But be sure to follow @hummingbirdhigh along on Instagram—there, I’ll be revisiting old recipes and doing video tutorials for summer favorites like s’mores chocolate chip cookies and liège waffles!

In Case You Missed It: New Recipes and Posts on Hummingbird High

And in case you missed it, I published the following new recipes and posts on Hummingbird High. Here’s a round-up of everything—I’m surprised by how many cakes I baked this month!

• Chocolate Chip Cookies With Powdered Sugar (You can read The Kitchn‘s review of this recipe on their website! I like that they recommend my styling tip. 😜😜😜)
  
  
• 6 Inch Japanese Strawberry Shortcake
  
  
• Yuzu Japanese Soufflé Cheesecake (This recipe is technically on my long-time partner and collaborator Valrhona’s website—they asked me to develop this recipe with their Yuzu Inspiration chocolate!)
  
  
• My Best Yellow Cake With Chocolate Frosting Recipe
  
  
• Blueberry Crumble Pie

Below are pictures of the two most popular recipes from the month—Chocolate Chip Cookies With Powdered Sugar and 6 Inch Japanese Strawberry Shortcake—to inspire you:

Food For Thought

This past month, I also spent a LOT of time thinking and reading about food beyond the baking recipes you see on this blog. Here are the ideas and issues that resonated with me:

• “Even The Sheet Cakes Are Bigger In Texas” in The New York TImes. Okay, this is a bit of a shameless plug—ya girl (ME!) is in this article talking about my love for Texas sheet cake! I have such happy memories of it from when my family first immigrated from abroad and moved to Texas. So many of our neighbors gifted us Texas sheet cake to welcome us to the neighborhood, and it still makes me smile thinking about it today. Don’t forget—you can also grab my “small batch” recipe on Hummingbird High.
  
   
• “We Can’t Quit the Ziploc” in Taste. If you’re a long time reader of Hummingbird High, you probably know that I tend to lean, ehm, “crunchy.” I recycle religiously, have several different food compost systems set up, and pretty much eliminated single-use plastic in my kitchen thanks to beeswax wraps, Stasher bags, and these silicone bowl covers and lids. But real talk—the thing I found hardest to quit? Ziploc bags. Even still, I loved reading about their history and invention in this article!
  
  
• “The Constant Reinvention of No-Recipe Recipes” in Eater. I’m pretty sure I’ve already shared an article similar to this one in previous monthly updates, but here’s another one that’s worth reading. Marian Bull, formerly of Food52 fame, talks about Sam Sifton’s new cookbook that claims not to have any recipes and encourages folks to “riff” in the kitchen instead. Marian then interviews BIPOC-author Andrea Nguyen, who discusses how Sam’s freewheeling, hands-off approach is exclusively reserved for white authors and white food.
  
  Honestly… as somebody who spends a lot of time making sure my readers have as much information they need to pull off one of my recipes successfully, I often wonder: when did following recipes become so uncool? Should I NOT provide you guys with this information and instead just be more laid back and chill? You tell me!
  
  
• “The Lie Of “Expired” Food And The Disastrous Truth Of America’s Food Waste Problem” in Vox. Remember how I told you I was “crunchy”? Well, maybe the crunchiest thing about me is my blatant disregard for expiration dates—I roll my eyes at a lot of the dates, and tend to just use my senses to figure out whether or not the food is still edible. But before you get weirded out and judge me, READ THE ARTICLE I JUST LINKED TO. It talks about the creation and evolution of expiration dates in our food system, and how many of those dates are arbitrary. I also discovered many of the facts the article covers when I was writing my cookbook, Weeknight Baking. I’m not crazy, I promise!

New Cookbooks To Try

Summer is kind of a slow time for cookbooks, but I did get a new one I’m excited about: Baked To Perfection by Katarina Cermelj of The Loopy Whisk! I’m always looking to up my gluten-free baking game, and I love, love, LOVE Katarina’s scientific approach to things.

Finally, On A Lighthearted Note

• “We Regret to Inform You That Van Leeuwen’s Kraft Mac and Cheese Ice Cream Is Very Good” in Eater. I’ve been a fan of Van Leeuwen ice cream ever since one of my New York friends introduced me to their ice cream parlor (which he lived across from in the East Village back in the day). Apparently they now have a Kraft Mac and Cheese flavor, and it’s apparently VERY good? It sounds weird, but I’m not surprised—queso cheese ice cream is a thing in the Philippines, and it’s delicious! 
  
  
• “Please Stop Calling Portland America’s Best Pizza City. We Don’t Care” in Eater. The authors of celebrated Modernist cookbooks like Modernist Cuisine and Modernist Bread recently declared Portland as the country’s best pizza city and people are PRESSED. LoL. This is such fake drama, and I am here with the popcorn.

Okay, whew! That’s all for now, folks. I hope you all are staying safe and healthy! Please let me know how you’re doing in the comments below, and feel free to share the ideas and issues that are floating around in your heads, too.

XO
Michelle