​One of my favorite things to come out of the Midwestern multiverse is the 7Up pound cake my grandma made from scratch. She migrated from Corinth, Mississippi, to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with the recipe in tow. Baked in a Bundt pan, it’s rich yet fluffy, with bright citrus flavor from lemon-lime soda in both the batter and the glaze.. A combination of butter and cream cheese keeps the crumb tender and moist for days, while fresh citrus zest sharpens the cake’s lemon-lime flavor without relying on extracts. Finished with a glossy lemon glaze inspired by grocery-store bakery classics, this cake is nostalgic, unfussy, and built to disappear slice by slice.. What 7Up does in a cake: A generous glug of soda adds a wealth of citrus flavor, while its carbonation helps create a lighter crumb and a crisp, golden-brown exterior. You won’t taste soda—just brightness and lift. Sprite—or any other lemon-lime soda—will also work.. Use fresh zest, not extract. Fresh lime and lemon zest provide a cleaner citrus flavor than the lemon extract found in many 7Up pound cake recipes.. Bring ingredients to room temperature. Room-temperature eggs, along with softened butter and cream cheese, blend more smoothly, helping the batter emulsify and bake evenly.. Grease the Bundt pan thoroughly. While I typically use softened butter and a pastry brush (or nonstick baking spray) to grease my Bundt cake pan, my grandma swore by a tube of Crisco shortening tucked away in her cabinet. Whichever you choose, be sure to coat every nook and cranny of the pan.. Cool completely before glazing. Pouring glaze over a fully cooled cake ensures a thick, glossy finish instead of one that soaks into the crumb.  

​Presets and blending speeds. In addition to blending faster, more expensive blenders tend to have more preset functions designed to optimally blend the food you’re trying to process. These presets vary the speed of the blender and how long it runs, which can actually help you achieve better, varied textures. But they aren’t strictly necessary.. Materials. The easiest place to notice the quality of a blender’s build is in its base. High-powered blenders can have motor bases that weigh close to 10 pounds. Less expensive blenders weigh quite a bit less, which can make them less stable on the counter when the motor is whizzing. The two we recommend here use suction cup feet to help hold the blender in place. That undoubtedly gives them a more budget feel.. Pricey blender pitchers generally feel more substantial as well. Today, most blender pitchers, regardless of price, are made from BPA-free plastic as opposed to glass, which was more common in pre-21st century blenders. That’s not necessarily a bad thing—blending hot soups in a glass pitcher, for example, can cause enough pressure to crack them. But the quality of the plastic will vary, with cheaper blenders typically having thinner walls that feel less durable.. What counts as a cheap blender?. The blenders recommended here range from $60–$150. Generally, when we write these price-focused articles, we try to offer options below $100. With a blender, for the reasons outlined above, we felt that it was necessary to go a little higher in price cutoff, to $150. At this price point, we can recommend blenders that have enough power, high enough RPM, and high enough quality materials to last.. If you see blenders in this article that cost over $150, that’s because their prices fluctuate, especially on multi-party seller websites like Amazon. Know that we have regularly seen these blenders for $150 or less, so if you’re seeing them listed for more, it’s worth cross-checking retailers, or waiting for a sale.. The best budget blender: Nutribullet Power Core. Nutribullet. Power Core. $100. Nutribullet. $100. Amazon. Pros and cons. Pros:. Simple, intuitive controls. Powerful motor. Lower price than most Vitamixes. Cons:. Soft lid doesn’t always feel secure. Smoothie came out warmer than models with presets. Power: 1440 watts. Speeds: 10. Capacity: 64 oz.. Included: Motor base, 64-oz. pitcher, tamper stick. Warranty: 5 years, limited  

​The utensil holder may be one of the least glamorous objects in a kitchen. On most counters, it sits somewhere between the olive oil and the salt cellar, quietly collecting wooden spoons, fish spatulas, and wire whisks. It doesn’t have a PR problem; it doesn’t have PR at all. Nobody pins utensil holders to a mood board.. And yet it’s among the more opinionated things on your counter—because it’s always there. Unlike the Dutch oven that comes out on Sundays or the stand mixer tucked in the cabinet, the utensil holder is a permanent fixture. Which means whatever you choose, you’re choosing it over and over again, every time you reach for a spoon.. A marble crock telegraphs permanence. High-gloss enamel reads playful. A hand-thrown ceramic suggests you care about glaze as much as garlic. Even a stainless-steel cylinder can feel considered rather than accidental—or it can feel like you grabbed it from a restaurant supply store, which is honestly also a vibe.. Below, a tightly edited lineup—traditional crocks and otherwise—organized by aesthetic instinct.. Jump to your aesthetic. Heavy by design. Minimalist and architectural. Pattern with a point of view. Handmade, slightly irregular (on purpose). The vase strategy. Metal, copper, and steel. Wood, naturally. Marble and other weighty stone vessels have a certain inevitability about them. They don’t wobble. They don’t scoot across the counter when you reach for tongs mid-sauté. A marble utensil holder will not tip when you grab a whisk with one hand and stir with the other. It sits with authority.. What makes stone compelling isn’t just heft—it’s presence. The veining, the subtle tonal shifts, the way light moves across a honed surface: all of it reads deliberate. A marble holder beside a cutting board and a bottle of olive oil can make even an ordinary counter feel anchored.. There is, of course, a trade-off. Marble prefers to be wiped dry and treated gently—which is either a minor inconvenience or a minor ritual, depending on your disposition. And no two pieces will look exactly alike. Stone veining and coloration are unrepeatable by nature, which is either a feature or a risk, depending on your personality.. You’re not buying uniformity here. You’re buying weight and variation.. CB2. Turk Black Marble Utensil Holder. $80 $70 (13% off). CB2. Crate & Barrel. French Kitchen White Marble Utensil Holder. $45. Crate & Barrel  

​Welcome to Bon Appétit Bake Club, a community of curious bakers. Each month senior Test Kitchen editors Jesse Szewczyk and Shilpa Uskokovic share a must-make recipe and dive deep on why it works. Come bake and learn with us—and don’t forget to join the Bake Club Group chat over on Substack.. I spent years working as a food stylist, and during that time, I picked up a handful of tricks to make food look beautiful. For a steak that glistens, brush on some vegetable glycerin. For a pat of butter that melts just so, heat up an offset spatula and give it a swipe. And for a perfectly domed loaf with a crack right down the center? Keep reading—that’s what we’re learning today.. For the prettiest loaf cakes, slit your batter. Read through my recipe for Chocolate Guinness Cake and you’ll notice an unusual instruction in step TK: “Run a paring knife lightly coated in nonstick cooking spray down the center of the batter, dragging it through about ½-inch into the batter.” Sounds bizarre but this simple maneuver is the key to a symmetrically cracked loaf cake that looks like it came straight from a photoshoot. Let me explain.. Slitting the top of the batter creates a weak spot where your cake will naturally crack and expand. Think of this step like scoring a loaf of bread, allowing it to bake in a controlled, less chaotic, manner. It not only gives your cakes a pristine channel directly down the center of your cake (beautiful! clean! professional!), but allows the batter to rise without much resistance. If you’re adding a glaze on top, the accentuated sloped top allows glaze to drip downward instead of pooling on top. But it’s not just for aesthetics: The expansion opens up the crumb slightly, resulting in a lighter, loftier texture. Not only does it make it more dashing, but actually improves the cake as well.. A few recipes to try out your new styling trick. Of course I recommend trying this trick/technique/TK with the latest BA Bake Club recipe, my insert recipe link. But you can use the same technique with just about any loaf cake recipe you come across. I’m partial to our Lemon Pound Cake and Carrot Loaf Cake. Even our Banana Bread is fair game. If it’s baked in a loaf pan, go ahead and slit the top of the batter before baking. Let your inner food stylist shine! Your loaf cakes will be infinitely prettier—and more delicious. Don’t forget to send me a picture of how it goes in the chat.. Chocolate Guinness Cake. A generous glug of stout gives this snackable loaf a malty depth.. View Recipe  

​America’s largest city is also one of its greatest food cities—maybe even the greatest (certainly if you ask a New Yorker this question). Look at things by the numbers and you can’t deny New York City’s formidable culinary bonafides. The five boroughs are home to over 21,000 dining establishments. Of those restaurants, 72 boast Michelin stars; the most of any city in the western hemisphere.. But New York’s food scene isn’t defined by tasting menus and white table cloths. This city of 700 languages is an atlas of options, with places to eat featuring cuisines from pretty much every corner of the world, with something to suit every budget.. But for any visitor looking to explore the vast culinary landscape of NYC, you should know: (Incredibly exhausted but unfortunately apt cliché warning) You can’t eat the Big Apple in one bite. There’s simply too much to explore. This is a good thing, but it means you have to be strategic about how you take on the city—and where you choose to stay will make all the difference.. In creating a hotel guide for people who travel with their stomachs first, we had specific criteria in mind. The list had to feature top-notch hotels across a range of price points that could serve as ideal home bases for travelers looking to eat their way through the city. Since some of the best food neighborhoods are scant on quality accommodations, we broke up the city into geographic chunks with superb hotels that are within walking distance of great restaurants and also conveniently located for taking the subway to explore farther flung locales.. The Western chunk of lower Manhattan has become an epicenter of buzzy, hard-to-get-into places to eat. You’ve probably heard of Via Carota, a West Village institution created by chefs Rita Sodi and Jody Williams that’s so in demand there are hours-long waits for its rich yet simple seasonal Italian plates (the green salad is somehow the most famous). The constellation of Michelin guide picks in this area includes the three-starred contemporary Korean spot Jungsik, and Semma, which has made it to the top of numerous best-of lists for its celebratory menu of South Indian cuisine. Yet somehow, it’s the Corner Store—a see-and-be-seen joint for steaks and fries—that’s become one of the hardest reservations to land in the city. Try your luck, but just know that there’s no shortage of alternatives.. For example, if you want a slice from L’industrie Pizzeria but don’t want to stand in line like a sucker, you can step inside its next-door neighbor Talea and order one to your table to enjoy with a locally-brewed sour beer. And Via Carota’s sister restaurant the Commerce Inn speaks the same simple-yet-exquisite vernacular, with a an American Shaker accent, and does take reservations. There’s also Shukette for shareable mezze, the Odeon for martinis and frites, and Don Angie for red sauce comforts.. Reserve the Corner Store on DoorDash Now. Wine nerds and aspiring oen