Recipe for Almond Angel Food Cake with Blackberry Curd for #BakeTogether

Almond  Angel Food Cake with Blackberry Curd

April has been a busy month. I started a new job after more than a year of the housewife life. I enjoyed my little break but it was time to get back into the working world.

It’s a writing post in the fundraising world, something I can feel good about every day. What I did not anticipate was the actual adjustment the job would require. Deciding who would get up first (I do, at 5:30 am, which is drastic to friends who know me well), making sure the rabbit’s morning routine is disrupted as little as possible (he has adjusted beautifully), remembering to pack a lunch.

Where, when and how to fit in exercise (right now it’s after work). And how to sit down to a healthy supper before 8 pm. I haven’t yet figured that out.

I’m trying to carve a sweet and balanced life for my family.  I’ve slowed a bit in posting here, but hope to resume a more regular schedule once I’ve figured out a new rhythm.

Coincidentally, April is the one year anniversary for Dust with Flour. Thank you, dear readers, for visiting and leaving such kind comments along the way. I’d wanted to start a blog for many years but the workaday life was a hurdle. I was definitely baking, but it didn’t get beyond that.

Dairy-Free and Sugar-Free Almond Soda

Dairy-Free (and Sugar-Free) Almond Soda

It usually starts late morning. The steady, shaking rhythm sounds like the musical instruments made from dried gourds.

Exactly where the sound originates is hard to identify. It’s just there — in the trees, in the air, all around.

Cicadas.

By late afternoon, more individuals have joined the chorus to create a huge wall of sound. Instead of a rhythmic shaking, there is now one continuous noise. The volume rises and falls in waves.

How many there are I cannot imagine, hundreds I suppose by the loudness of it all. I’ve seen several empty and perfectly formed shells attached to blades of grass or shrubs.

Cicadas emerge from their underground sleep, extricate themselves from their skins and start singing. Who can blame them. Stuck in the dark for a year — or 17 — depending on the species.

From Paris Sweets: Pavé Montmartre

Pavé Montmartre

Stone streets will wreck your fancy shoes — or cause you to stumble — yet this quite old and very well dressed woman glided along in her impossibly high heels. She never let a heel touch down on the old Paris street. I felt shabby in my Danish clogs.

I remembered her as I baked Pavé Montmartre, a recipe from Dorie Greenspan’s Paris Sweets, the book I am cooking in its entirety. It is an egg-rich almond cake that is wrapped in a thin sheet of almond paste, then lightly burnished in the oven for some color. It was designed to resemble a paving stone in Pâtisserie Arnaud Larher’s neighborhood.