I’ve lived in Michigan now for more than half of my life, but my beginnings were in central Pennsylvania. One of my favorite memories as a child was our drives west to the small suburbs north of Pittsburgh where my father’s family lived. We would measure our progress by counting our way through the tunnels, more numerous then than they are today. (Of course, being total eggheads, my older brother and I absolutely loved the modern, well-lit ones where we could read as we traveled through.) Sadly though, I don’t recall that we ever visited downtown Pittsburgh. I wish I had seen it then so that I could fully appreciate the transformations it’s gone through.
Recently, my husband and I had the luxury of spending a long weekend in the city and both of us fell in love with it. It’s almost as if you took a bouquet of smaller towns and tied them together with the wet strands of the rivers and then tucked them in among the ridges that surround the area. We especially enjoyed the Brookline neighborhood where we took a walking, culinary tour that introduced us to my latest love, Burnt Almond Torte. The almonds in it aren’t burned and it’s more of a cake than a traditional torte, but it is undeniably the most amazing dessert I’ve ever tried.
So guess what, being a total smarty pants and imagining that watching The Great British Baking Show has imbued me with skills that I don’t actually possess, I figured I’d make one at home. The final product was tasty and the outside looked quite nice, but it was so complicated and in the end, such a pale imitation of the original, that I threw the recipe away before we’d even cut into the thing. Trust me on these two points. One, it is incredibly delicious and two, unless you’re the caliber of baker that could actually survive a week or three on the baking show, you should just order one. Prantl’s Bakery. Amazing!
Brookline