As a journalist and recipe developer, people often ask me how I come up with recipes. Yet no one has ever questioned why I come up with the recipes.
I’ve spent a lot of the past five years hosting a podcast and a Substack newsletter where I bake and discuss what’s going on in the news and politics. As Contrarian readers and avid followers of the news, you have undoubtedly experienced some stress and/or anxiety when following the news, which is why, when I’m thinking of recipe ideas, I’ll take into account the general mood of my subscribers. And it’s why I specialize in carbohydrate-rich foods. Back in 2020, I offered a month-long cookie countdown to the presidential election on my now-defunct blog. For my first article for The Contrarian back in 2025, I promised a peanut butter cookie that would help us sleep better at night; the reality is that a cookie can’t save democracy, but a good night’s sleep can make us better prepared to fight the good fight.
But I also celebrate the wins. Indictment cookies in June 2023 honored Special Prosecutor Jack Smith and the Department of Justice’s release of Donald Trump’s indictment. The chocolatey cookies had seven add-ins — one for each indictment. Later in 2023, there was the RICO cookie (rum, icing, coconut, and oatmeal) that paid homage to Trump and 18 co-conspirators being indicted in Fulton County for attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. (Even though the case was dismissed in 2025, I’m still holding onto the recipe and hoping.) In time for the mid-terms, I will be resurrecting a cocktail called The Blue Wave in the hopes it might act as a magical potion.
Like most regular (read: non-political) recipe developers, I also look to the seasons and holidays for inspiration, with desserts such as iced strawberry shortbread for Mother’s Day and a a cranberry-ginger Nantucket pie (that’s really a cake, long story…), and a mango peach pie to celebrate the peak of summer. In August I came up with a fudgy brownie recipe for the wedding of my friend Ayelet Waldman’s son. It remains in my Top 3 favorite brownie recipes. (I have a lot of brownie recipes.)
I created over 60 chocolate chip cookie recipes for my Secret Life of Chocolate Chip Cookies cookbook because I couldn’t think of a more universally loved cookie and thought we all needed a book to escape into that was one happy thing after another. To come up with so many variations on a theme, I broke up the challenge into categories based on texture (thin, crunchy, crun-chewy, soft) and thought through which flavors matched each best. I imagined my coffee-cardamom cookie being dunked into a frothy cappuccino, so conjured up a crunchy cookie. I figured a candied ginger and rye chocolate chip cookie should be soft to accompany the chewy ginger candy, and that a crun-chewy cookie needed to be intense with nutty caramel flavors from browned butter.
More commonly, but no less special, are the recipe ideas that just appear in my greedy, food-obsessed, preternatural brain, like some mystic who involuntarily receives visions.
Today’s recipe, for a tender walnut snacking cake with a honey-cinnamon cream cheese frosting popped into my mind, nearly fully formed, while walking my dog to the park a few weeks ago. The nut-filled cake is the kind no Viennese cafe worth its schlagobers would be without. I Americanized it with a lush, somewhat tart cream cheese frosting, warmed with cinnamon and sweetened only with honey.
You can absolutely serve the cake without frosting, just, perhaps a dusting of powdered sugar to gussy it up.
I will not stop you from smearing any leftover frosting on a piece of toasted brioche. (NB: The cake and frosting should be stored in the refrigerator but are best served at room temperature.)
Walnut Snacking Cake with Honey-Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting
Serves 8 to 12
What You’ll Need
For the cake:
¾ cup (85 grams) walnuts, finely ground
1 cup (226 grams) butter, room temperature
1 cup (226 grams) packed brown sugar
1 ¾ cups + 2 tablespoons (226 grams) all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt (or ½ teaspoon table salt)
4 large eggs, room temperature
2 tablespoons milk (preferably whole or 2%)
For the frosting:
225 grams (8 ounces) cream cheese, room temperature
8 tablespoons (113 grams) butter, room temperature
¼ cup (95 grams) liquid honey
1 to 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
What You’ll Do
Make the cake:
Heat the oven to 350°F. Butter and flour a 9-inch round or square cake pan. Line the bottom with parchment.
With a hand- or stand-mixer, cream together the butter, brown sugar, flour, baking powder, and salt until creamy and fluffy, about 4 minutes.
In a small bowl or measuring cup, whisk together the eggs, milk, and vanilla. Add the egg mixture to the butter mixture and blend on medium-low speed until combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl at least twice. Fold in the walnuts.
Pour the batter into the prepared pan, and smooth the top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until a toothpick poked into the center of the cake comes out with a few moist crumbs. If you have an instant-read thermometer, the cake is done when it’s between 180° and 190°F. If you find the cake is looks very brown on the top but isn’t baked through, lay a piece of aluminum foil over the top — do not crimp —and continue baking. Let cool.
Make the frosting:
Whip together the cream cheese and butter until you cannot tell one from the other. The mixture should be smooth. Scrape down the sides of the bowl, add the honey and cinnamon and beat on medium high speed until creamy.
Spread the icing in a thick layer across the top of the cake. The cake will keep in the refrigerator (cover well to avoid the cream cheese taking on flavors or drying out) for 3 days. Bring to room temperature before serving.
Marissa Rothkopf Bates writes about food for the New York Times, Newsweek (RIP) and Publishers’ Weekly among others. Her newest book, “The Secret Life of Chocolate Chip Cookies,” is available wherever fine books are sold. Find her on Substack here.
