I've been missing Dahlia Bakery and Macrina incredibly. There are some nice bakeries in NYC, but I got terribly attached to both of those places in Seattle, so nothing here is stacking up. To console my sweettooth, I recently bought Baking at Home with The Culinary Institute of America, which is an awesome baking cookbook. It has little sections on various dessert types, and each opens with some notes on technique. So far I've figured out how to make these:

• sabayon (yum!)
• chocolate sabayon torte
• truffles
• buttercream cake
• sponge cake
• lemon buttermilk cake
• Raspberry coulis sauce

I've made a few other recipes, but I haven't exactly mastered them yet... created mushy messes would be more like it. One important recent discovery: the kitchenaid whisk mixer is a necessity for sponge cake, just as the recipe says. Fail to use it, and you will end up with something that falls in on itself.