My new favorite cake

Grapefruit Chiffon Cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Do you go through baking binges? I sure do. I can go months without turning out scones, cookies, cakes or pies, then inspiration strikes and I buy a few pounds of butter, sugar and flour and go to town. This particular bolt of inspiration struck me back in the winter ~ it's a prize-winning cake published by nannydeb on Food 52.

It's called Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit Cake with a Hint of Mint and it's spectacular. I've made it four times this year and each time it has gotten rave reviews. You may be alarmed by the word grapefruit. Another word: don't. The flavor is subtle and really, more citrus-y than particularly grapefruit-y. If you need to bring a cake to a family function this fall or winter, give this recipe a try. It's definitely a keeper.

I left off the mint in my version and the cake got raves, but give it a try with the mint. The recipe is found here: Texas Ruby Red Grapefruit Cake with a Hint of Mint. Be sure to check out Food 52 while you're there ~ the recipes range from homey standards to fresh new takes on restaurant and international dishes. I even have a page and a spotlight (curtsy).

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

Scary, for #LetsLunch

I've made a few Halloween cakes in years past, mostly for Fall Festival cakewalks and class parties, and I managed to find a few pictures of my favorites. The pumpkin beauty, below, was from pre-blogging days or I would have had a two-part series on making it. It involved three batches of my signature pound cake, plus three batches of buttercream. There were three smaller pumpkin cakes, too. I baked them in tube pans and Bundt pans, cemented them together to resemble a sphere, and decorated with orange buttercream and green fondant. My husband, daughter and I spent an evening in the kitchen, baking and decorating. 

The one I wish I had a picture of, but didn't think to do that (again, pre-blogging days) was a chocolate Bundt cake with chocolate glaze topped with a chocolate spiderweb. It was elegant and spooky and had a come-hither chocolate-y-ness about it. I may need to remake that one and take a picture of it. The cake was baked using my go-to chocolate pound cake recipe.

Pumpkin cakes. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

The following year, I decided to ease up on the buttercream and pound cake and came up with a Graveyard cake made with Pepperidge Farm Milano "tombstones" and Peeps ghosts. Here's my very homemade-looking cake:

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

I was reminded of this very homemade cake recently when I received this picture from the fine folks at Driscoll's berries - a fruit-enhanced graveyard cake. The ghosts are strawberries dipped in white chocolate, how clever is that? Here's the recipe for this ghoulishly good cake.

Graveyard cake. Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books.

Before you go, please click over to my #SeriousSandwich giveaway post to win a copy of Chef Emeril Lagasse's new cookbook, "Emeril's Kicked-Up Sandwiches." Drawing is Friday evening, so the clock is ticking...

#LetsLunch is a monthly Twitter party with a global group of food bloggers. Here's a partial list of October's participants:

Lisa’s Pretzel fingers at Monday Morning Cooking Club
Lucy’s fabulously spooky Halloween cakes at A Cook and Her Books
Annabelle’s Halloween Spice Cookies at A Glass of Fancy
Linda’s Pumpkin Spiced Flan at Spicebox Travels
Rashda’s Spooktacular Stuffed Pumpkin at Hot Curries & Cold Beer

Text and images copyright 2012, Lucy Mercer.

Halloween Cakes

Graveyard Cake

Above is from Halloween 2008, a graveyard cake, not quite as fancy as in years past, but homemade, delicious, and lots of fun for the kids to create. The headstones are Pepperidge Farm Milano cookies, the ghosts are Peeps and the border is pretzels. No prizes, but still a fun project.

Pound Cake Pumpkins by Lucy Mercer/A Cook and Her Books

Halloween 2007, featuring one cute kid and three big pumpkin cakes. I baked pound cake batter in every Bundt pan in the house and frosted two together to make pumpkins. The leaves are fondant, created by the cute kid. This cake was very heavy, delicious, and won the school's award for creativity!