Bushels and Pecks

Cakes, cakes, cakes!!

2010-11-08T18:53:00.003-05:00

So, there's a few things happening right now that I'm pretty excited about. Even if one or all of them disappear/fall apart, I do feel a change in the winds. And this is something that I'm welcoming with open arms. Not to say that my life is in any way on the down and out, but I do get anxious about wanting to incorporate baking and food into my everyday life. I'm obsessed with learning new techniques and bettering myself with every single thing that I make.

Anytime I'm asked to bake something, I try to use the opportunity to incorporate something new. The uncharted territory is daunting but so far it's paid off in spades. Is that a real saying or did I just make that up? Essentially I'm trying to say, bring it on - I love a good challenge and I'll make it work. No regrets. Not even when I watch cakes crack and then collapse into 4 different pieces, like at midnight this past Saturday. Daylight savings, you have such impeccable timing with your extra hour!

Where am I going with this? For some reason (a reason I'm incredibly thankful for) the past couple months have been jam packed with baking requests. People ask for personalized cakes and I just always say yes, without thinking twice. The above sleeping cat was a birthday cake for a friend's boyfriend... my favorite part was his little pink triangle nose.

Then came Gabe's brother's 40th birthday and his wife, knowing exactly what would delight him, requested this cake:

Unfortunately, it required transportation to Boston, and on the way the the fondant slid off the top and bottom... However, some impromptu marshmellow "ice cubes", last minute icing-as-glue skills, and a toothpick or two seemed to fix the problem until cake cutting time.

The most recent venture was a trophy cake for my cousin who ran the marathon yesterday. Every time I got frustrated, all I had to do was remind myself that I didn't have to run 26.2 miles... and then I felt better.

The trophy cup on top was originally 3 times larger and made of cake, until it decided to perform the aforementioned last minute self destruction. This rice krispy treat backup was plan C, only after attempting to fill a Tupperware with cake and covering it in fondant. I immediately was saddened at my actions of putting something non edible in the cake and trying to pass it off - it's something that always disturbs me. Discovering non cake parts inside cake is kind of like being told there's no Santa.

I've also picked up a part time job assisting the head chef at an event and catering space on park avenue a couple nights a week after my day job ends at 7.30. It's something I absolutely don't mind doing despite the long hours, because it's giving me awesome exposure to what happens behind the scenes of an event planning facility. And then on Saturdays, I assist the pastry chef (!!!) It's a pretty exciting beginning of something fantastic...

Last but certainly not least, I was just asked to make my first wedding cake. My first reaction was slight panic, but it's not until April so you can bet I'll be spending the next 4 months researching wedding cakes and how they come to be. If you have any suggestions/tips/designs that you fancy, please do send them my way! I need all the material I can get my hands on.

Apologies for the non glamorous photos - recently when I've been in cake mode, it's all I can think about and the pictures usually come later (and are taken with the iphone). I promise to be better about this.

Julia Child's Perfect Chocolate Mousse

2010-09-27T18:25:00.000-04:00

I don't think I'm alone when I say that I find everything Julia Child makes to be nearly close to perfect, even though she doesn't include that word in the title of every one of her recipes. So when I stumbled upon this gem on David Lebovitz's blog, I... a) drooled, b) cleared my schedule and c) cried until it was in front of me topped with homemade whipped cream. "What whipped cream?" You might be saying. I'm sorry it was gone too fast. Just picture it in your head... a dollop of cloudy deliciousness. Also, turns out, all you have to do to make whipped cream is put whipping cream in your stand mixer. And then turn it in. Genius.

All you need (aside from the cream of course):

6oz. semi sweet chocolate (I used... what else? Jacques Torres 60% cacao chocolate discs)

1/4 cup strong coffee

6oz. (or 1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter

4 large eggs, separated

2/3 cup plus 2 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp rum

pinch of salt

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

In a double boiler over low heat, melt the butter, chocolate and coffee together. Once it's smooth and completely melted, remove bowl from heat and put to the side, but don't remove the saucepan of simmering water.

Remember: A teeny tiny oven is better than no oven at all. Oh, and is also automatically cuter with a teeny tiny kettle. Easy fix!

Fill a large bowl with ice water and also set that aside. In a THIRD bowl (where's my dishwasher??) over the pan of simmering water, whisk the egg yolks, 2/3 cup of sugar and rum constantly until it thickens and begins to look custard-like. Your arm will get tired. But as my dad would say, "Are you a man or a mouse!?" Which means, keep whisking. I think.

Remove from heat and place the bowl in the large bowl of ice water, continuing to whisk until it's cool and thick... like mousse. Fold the melted chocolate mixture into the egg yolk mixture. This folding is best used with a spatula and gently turning from the bottom, while rotating the bowl. I didn't really mean for it to sound that complicated, but basically if you beat or stir you're at risk of deflating things that make this mousse a mousse... little air pockets. They are our friends.

Okay busted. Gabe took that picture above. I was mid fit at this point because my light broke, my camera battery died and all I really wanted was the mousse anyways. But he plugged in the camera and persevered while i made this face :( And then I saw that sugar picture and made this face :)

In a FOURTH bowl (She said perfect, not easy folks), preferably the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the egg whites until they begin to hold their shape and then add the remaining 2 tbsp of sugar and the salt. Continue to beat until thick and shiny, then add the vanilla last. Fold a third of the egg whites mixture into the chocolate mixture until just combined. Don't overdo it or you'll just end up with glorified chocolate syrup. Then add the remaining egg whites with the same technique.

Pour the mousse into one big large bowl or little individual cups, depending on how hungry you are, and put in the fridge for at least 4 hours and up to 4 days.

It's the perfect thing to give to your new neighbors to make up for that one time they saw you lugging garbage down the stairs in your pj's with no makeup on.

Dear Blog

2010-09-20T21:59:00.000-04:00

I am so sorry that I have neglected you for (almost, but not quite) a month. My gut tells me to list all the excuses that I have, and hope that somehow they'll convince you that it really wasn't anything personal. I do have a plethora of reasons... mainly the move. I mean, I just got around to unpacking my spices last night! It was officially the last box (not counting all those DVDs of course) and now I'm ready to get back together again. Shhhh... please just let me finish.

These distractions have only brought me closer to you. I've thought about you the entire time and everything I would say when we met again. And here we are. Just you, and me... and everyone else who reads it. It's time to break open those jars of flour and sugar and bake something delicious for the new neighbors! Do people still do that? I vote yes.

Here are just a couple sneaky peaky iphone pictures. Pretty much all I've been doing in my free time is tweaking little things that drive me nuts, like changing the knobs on the kitchen cabinets, removing kitchen cabinet doors, changing the shower head, moving pictures over a couple of inches, changing the curtain rods, organizing the books by color, etc. Oh and big things too, like unpacking everything I own and building all of the furniture. Okay, okay, so maybe Doug the man and his toolbox had a little something to do with it as well. Hey, speaking of spices, let's do a kitchen close up and focus on a couple new things that are dear to my little heart.

Though Erin will argue that ankle support for heels are where its at, I personally feel that open cabinets are really where it's at. It really opened up the kitchen and made an entire display case for all the pretty dishes and baby blue pyrex that would otherwise be hidden. And in the foreground, magnetic spices (idea absolutely positively stolen from my friend Elise 100%) which make my heart go pitter patter every time I turn the corner. I want/need at least 10 more!

And my dinner from last night. I loved that too. Tofu cubes marinated in secret ingredients, including a certain Peri Peri (whoops, secret's out!) and "Cauliflower Popcorn," roasted cauliflower tossed in olive oil, breadcrumbs, salt and pepper... the only popcorn I'll ever eat.

Last but absolutely not least, the landline. Yes, when it was discovered that this nostalgic anomaly was available free (FREE!) with a Time Warner Cable package, the search for a rotary phone ensued. It was disappointing to discover that the the whole digital and analog thing prevented me from getting the giant wall phone of my dreams, but then this faux rotary friend came into my life. And yes that's the first four of the bottle collection posing behind it. Come on thirsty friends, send 'em my way!

The Best Chocolate Chip Cookie(s) I Have Ever Had

2010-08-23T15:26:00.001-04:00

I don't mean that in a "I'm the best and I bake the best cookies" kind of way...it's more of a "This is the best chocolate chip cookie recipe I've ever used and I'll never use another one ever again and you should definitely try this" kind of way. Of all the places, this is on the nytimes website, featuring the one and only Jacques Torres and his delightful chocolate discs. I've mentioned these once before here when I made 8 pounds of cookie dough, froze it, and flew it to California for a wedding. I've made them umpteen zillion times since and they sell like hotcakes. Or, get eaten for free like hotcakes.

OR sell like hotcakes, like we did for Saturdays bake/stoop sale! 2 for a dollar, 1 free with any purchase (or if you have cute, well behaved kids)

Those things on the bottom are blueberry bars... or foreshadowing. Anyways the first secret: 60% cacao chocolate discs. They allow for entire chocolate layers in your cookie, versus tiny chocolate pockets.

The rest of the ingredients are as follows:

"Holy crap, that's a lot of stuff!" you might be thinking. The recipe calls for multiple kinds of flour and sugar, and those tortilla shells you see in the back are not going into the cookies. Cookie tacos yay!

Chocolate Chip Cookies
via nytimes.com - adapted from Jacques Torres

8 1/2 oz cake flour (or 2 cups minus 2 tbsp)

8 1/2 oz bread flour (or 1 2/3 cups)

1 1/4 tsp baking soda

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp coarse salt

2 1/2 sticks unsalted butter

10 oz (or 1 1/4 cups) light brown sugar

8 oz sugar (or 1 cup plus 2 tbsp)

2 large eggs

2 tsp natural vanilla extract

1 1/4 lbs 60% cacao bittersweet chocolate disk

Sea salt

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Now it's scale time! Again, this is a great investment. Especially when it comes to that molasses-y brown sugar. This cup, should it be packed? Semi packed? Unpacked, like my apartment? Do it folks - consistency is your friend.

Sift together the flours, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Woooo flour mountain! It's my favorite Disney attraction.

Set this to the side. Cream butter and sugars together until very light and fluffy. Add eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each addition. Stir in the vanilla.

Reduce speed to low, add dry ingredients and mix until just combined.

Lock your boyfriend in the other room, or else he will do this:

Don't worry, this dough was not used to make cookies. It met its demise too fast. Hey guess what? It's chocolate time!

I have no idea why this recipe only claims to make 1 1/2 dozen cookies - look at all that dough! I only whipped up one batch and I had at least twice that many.

Look at this cavernous cookie dough landscape. I feel a bit like David Attenborough, exploring, spelunking... let's go in for a close up.

It's so beautiful, isn't it? Wait - oh no I'm lost! How do I find my way back out? We've gone too far!

Just kidding. Secret #2: Cover and refrigerate this dough overnight. I once ignored this piece of advice as I like to do from time to time and I learned the hard way. They just kind of... melted, into a nondescript burnt puddle. Sounds good right?

So the next day all you have to do is bake. I like to do tiny golf ball sized dollops, as seen here. Also, it's important to flatten the chocolate discs so they're horizontal, and therefore melt into delicious chocolate-y layers.

Last but not least, the revealing of secret #3. Sea salt. In addition to the sea salt you put IN the cookie dough, sprinkle some on top of each dollop before they enter the oven. This makes the magic happen. Pop them in the oven for about 15 minutes (I started checking them at 13 minutes because I'm a paranoid manic who loves fewer things more than under-baked cookies).

That's what true love looks like, in case you were wondering.

2 Weeks From Tomorrow

2010-08-19T17:10:00.003-04:00

Say hello to my little friend. My little kitchen that is. And yes... my little OVEN! dun Dun DUN... I do believe it will be okay though, as long as I don't host any major Thanksgiving dinners in the near future. Measurements have been taken and every pan should (this word is extremely emphasized) fit except for one that I know will not. Poor oven hasn't even been used I don't think. When the current tenant sent original pictures, there were books in the oven, a la storage bin. Don't worry little friend, you're no longer neglected.

The move is 2 weeks from tomorrow and I haven't packed one box. I have, however, arranged to have a stoop/bake sale on Saturday (more on this later) to purge the unnecessary things in my life and apartment. Hooray for cleansing!

In the meantime, I like to peruse the internets and daydream of all the plans I have in store for the new place, especially the kitchen! Some inspiring kitchen pictures I stumbled upon...

Who says you can't have an herb garden in a tiny city apartment? I'm using the word garden loosely but it will have to do sans outdoor space. I'm putting the windowsills to work!

Everyone start drinking, fast! I need lots and lots of bottles.

Cute bottle cap magnets for the fridge! My fridge now isn't magnetic (what's up with that?) so I haven't been able to utilize all that empty space that screams for tiny art.

How awesome is this chalkboard wall? It would enable all my childhood fantasies of writing on walls to come true, sans time outs.

2 words... Kitchen. Porn.

Yes to colors!!

I want to frame this. Food art doubling as easy access recipes? Yes, I'll take them all, thank you.

(all images via apartmenttherapy.com, but of course)

Big Bird's Basic Banana Bread

2010-08-16T13:44:00.003-04:00

You heard me. In addition to counting, singing and teaching, that bird bakes banana bread. It's nothing fancy, not that bad for you, and maybe the easiest thing I've ever made. I can't decide if he's a genius or just plain lazy. I remember having a set of Sesame Street books, maybe 20 or 30 (thin) "volumes" that were held together by a plastic big bird container and in one way or another my mom stumbled upon this banana bread bread recipe in one of them. Thank god she did because by the time I started baking, these books were long gone, but the memory of how the house smelled was ingrained into my mind forever. In fact, when it was in the oven last night, I went for a run downstairs and came back and could smell the bread from about 3 floors down. At first I thought my house was on fire, but it turns out the banana bread smell actually is that amazingly powerful. It was perfect for a cozy rainy Sunday night. I had some for dessert last night, and for breakfast this morning. How many things can you say that about? Okay, I mean, how many things can you say that about with a guilt free conscience?

Look at that! 5 ingredients. Make sure the bananas are over ripened... like, past the point of being able to be eaten. I'm resisting the urge to throw a "waste not want not" in here... or a "when life hands you old bananas..." nevermind.

3 over ripened bananas
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour (I like unbleached)
3/4 cup of honey
half a stick (that's it!) of unsalted butter
1 tsp baking soda

Ahh yes, very astute of you. No eggs, no sugar - see it's so very basic and kind of healthy? It's practically a salad!

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees now, because you'll seriously be putting this in the oven in like 5 minutes. Oh you want to see more of my new birthday present?

Oh you want to see a close up of my new birthday present?

Man. How old am I? I thought maybe I'd be obsessed with pretty new kitchen things eventually, but I'm there already? I literally squealed with delight when I realized these were mine (Thanks Erin!!)

Sorry - turns out I'm easily distracted when it comes to new pyrex bowls. Back to the bread - put the bananas in a bowl and mash with a fork.

Once it's completely mushed, measure out the 4 other ingredients. Add the butter and the flour...

...and the honey.

...and don't forget the baking soda! I almost did.

mmm mix it all up together and it looks a bit like this:

Actually it looks exactly like that. Grease and flour a standard sized loaf pan (I say standard size because I have no idea what the measurements are). I've been using this guy for awhile:

but now I'm starting to feel environmental guilt. This is an aerosol can correct? And all things that are sprayed out of these things are bad for the environment? Maybe I'm just being paranoid but I suppose I can start buttering pans by hand instead of spraying.

Pour it in and smoooooth it out. The recipe says this goes in the oven for about an hour, but mine was done at 50 minutes, so start checking it with a toothpick then.

I love before and after shots! Doesn't just looking at it make you feel warm and fuzzy inside? This is delicious straight up, but part of me is resisting the urge to cut a slice and put a thin layer of peanut butter on it...? Am I supposed to keep these kinds of thoughts to myself or does that make sense to anyone else?

Yacht Rock Birthday Party (complete with foods of course!)

2010-08-13T19:12:00.022-04:00

Between apartment shopping (then deciding, signing, paying and panicking) and planning the yacht rock birthday party on Saturday, there hasn't been much time for the kind of baking I'd like to do. There was however, appropriate snacks, dips and desserts for the party... um, none of which I took pictures of. I think that part of me is still mad at my camera for not being able to be fixed (for under the cost of my rent anyways) and so it's only recent involvement in my life has been as the receiver of many frowns as it sits in bubble wrap on my dining room table.

Pictured above however, in one of the many awesome pictures that Teddy took that evening, are 2 desserts that were made - the Blackberry Cream Pie with Oreo Cookie Crust and a Bacardi Rum Cake. (Not pictured, but appropriate for the theme: Erin's key lime tart, tuna pasta salad (my favorite!) and clam bake, Paula Deen's Shore is Good Seafood Dip, Martha Stewart's Sweet Onion Dip and Gabe's Crab Cakes - not pictured yet anyways)

Blackberry Cream Pie
adapted from The Pioneer Woman

*Not only was this the most perfectly cool and most refreshing dessert for an outdoor party in August, I actually somehow squeezed two of these suckers out of this recipe - maybe my disposable pie pans are shallower than most?

25 oreos
4 tbsp butter, melted
1 cup blackberries
3 tbsp honey
2 6 oz. containers blackberry yogurt
1 3.4 oz package jello instant vanilla pudding mix
1 cup heavy cream

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put oreos in a food processor and process until they're all crumbs. Mix with the melted butter and pour into a pie pan. Press crumbs all over the pan and up the sides and bake for 3 to 4 minutes. Cool crust completely and make the filling. Place blackberries in a bowl and smash them with a wooden spoon until they're completely pureed, then add the honey.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, combine blackberry yogurt with the instant vanilla pudding mix and beat on low until combined. Pour in heavy cream and whip on low for 30 seconds. Stop the mixer and scrape down the bowl with a rubber spatula. Turn mixer on medium-high speed and beat for two minutes, or until mixture is thick.

Remove bowl from mixer and fold in raspberries. Pour into prepared pie pan and spread evenly. Freeze for two hours, or until very firm. This pie can be made a couple days in advance, as long as it's kept in the freezer and given time to thaw a little bit before serving.

Bacardi Rum Cake
adapted from Bacardi Rum and Nick Malgieri via Epicurious
3 cups cake flour
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
2 tsps baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2/3 cup milk
1/3 cup Bacardi Gold rum
3 eggs
Rum glaze (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease and flour a 10-inch Bundt pan. Combine flour, sugars, baking powder, and salt in the bowl of a mixer. Add butter and mix on low speed until butter is worked in completely; the mixture will have a sandy appearance.

In a small bowl, combine milk, rum, and eggs. Whisk to blend. With mixer on low, add milk mixture to dry ingredients and beat on medium speed for 3 minutes. Pour batter evenly into pan. Bake 50 to 55 minutes, until top of cake springs back when touched.

While the cake is baking, make rum glaze. When cake is done, remove from oven and let cool 10 minutes in pan. Invert the cake onto a rack with a large plate underneath. With a wooden skewer or toothpick, pierce cake all over, spacing marks about 1 inch apart. Spoon reserved rum syrup over cake to soak in. Transfer cake to a clean plate and pour thickened glaze over top.

Rum glaze: In a saucepan, combine 1 1/4 cups granulated sugar and 1/3 cup water and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add 1/2 cup rum, then turn off heat. Add 4 tablespoons butter and stir until melted. Add 1 tsp of vanilla (or even better, scrape a vanilla bean and put the pulp and pod in the syrup) Pour 3/4 cup of syrup into a separate container for moistening the cake. To the syrup in the pan, add 2 cups confectioners' sugar and whisk until blended. Add 1 more cup confectioners' sugar and whisk until smooth. Add up to 1 more cup confectioners' sugar, as needed to make a thick, pourable glaze.

*The cake can be baked and soaked several days in advance; store it wrapped in plastic wrap. Glaze and decorate the cake the day it will be served.
**Also, I'm not even sure if the rum glaze is necessary - the cake was plenty delicious and not dry (I'm still battling the word "moist") without it.

Congratulations! you've reached the end of this pictureless post! To rectify this situation, here are a few highlights from the party:

Blog Update & Cookbook Wishlist

2010-07-23T17:42:00.001-04:00

With the recent developments in regards to my precious Nikon D50 (R.I.P), along with the sudden death of my 8 year old Powerbook the very same week (not to mention the crash and burn of my cable box and all of the recorded DVR shows along with it!) I haven't been posting here as much as I'd like to. How is it possible that all of these things happen at once? Is there some sort of magnetic realignment happening in my apartment? Are all those years of escaping big purchases finally catching up with me? What is the universe trying to say?! Nevertheless, it was kind of nice to succumb to these technological failures, step back and take a moment to just enjoy summer and all it has to offer (please reference above picture - a lovely backyard BBQ scene from last night, courtesy of Ms. Erin Cassidy).

Optimistic note: There is some light at the end of the tunnel. Erin's very nice boyfriend Teddy sold me his 2 year old Macbook Pro (with photoshop, yay!) for a very reasonable price, and I picked up my not unusable but very handicapped camera yesterday to work with until I can afford another camera (again, yay post production and photoshop!) This probably won't happen until after the big move next month... that's an entirely different story altogether. Maybe the best news of it all: tomorrow I'm going in to help at Nine Cakes in Brooklyn! I can't wait to get in the kitchen and get started - I've always admired their work and the cakes that come out of there are always so breathlessly beautiful, yet so simple and elegant. And they taste good too!

Anyways, I've been collecting quite the Amazon cookbook wish list collection and have decided that these will all be mine someday soonish. Feel free to comment if you've heard of them, have them, hate them or love them. Or if you can recommend any other gems?

Baked: New Frontiers by the guys who own Baked in Brooklyn. I will admit, I've never been (gasp!) But talk about this book seems to keep popping up wherever I go, therefore, I want it...

...as well as the not yet released sequel.

Nick Malgieri designed the curriculum for the Pastry and Baking Program at the Institute of Culinary Education here in NYC - I took a 12 week course there last fall and absolutely loved every second of it.

The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern. This book was recommended to me by a Producer who I worked with here at my Post Production non baking day job. I love discovering secret bakers who are currently masquerading as something else.

This one was recommended to me by Amazon. I want it because it's pretty. I'm such a girl. Well, and I would love to learn more about decorating wedding cakes and working with fondant and perfecting the design aspects of cakes. It's an art form and it baffles me.

Lastly, a curveball - I recently took a class with Allison Fishman and realized that I have no idea what to do with meat. She put a rack of ribs in my hands and I just stood there holding them, panicking. This is when I'd usually pass it over to the boyfriend and bake some biscuits or something. But maybe it would be nice to have some sort of idea of how to prepare meat because well, I do love it. And would otherwise find myself in a pickle if I was feeling carnivorous and he was out of town.

Did I mention my birthday is coming up?
I kid, I kid... maybe :) More posts, baking and pictures coming soon!

Throwdown Without Bobby Flay

2010-06-25T00:08:00.003-04:00

I know what you're thinking... good lord, how many posts are going to involve strawberries? Lay off the strawberries! Yes, I promise this is my last for awhile but I can't resist because this time I picked them! In Vermont last weekend, we drove over to the field, and were given a couple lanes of Annapolis strawberries ripe for the picking. And no there weren't any peaches involved, that was just a poor choice in background and unintentional product placement (pay me, Trader Joe's!)

Adorably tiny baby strawberries! So cute, I feel like I should sing them to sleep or something. But I cut them in half instead. I soon realized that this could be a perfect opportunity to do what I've been wanting to do for a couple years now - pie off with the pie lady (aforementioned here).

Yes this is her pie that I'm obsessed with and buy every time I go up there. No, she doesn't exactly know she was involved in this pie off, specifically a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie off, but it doesn't make me any less happy with the results.

That teeny hole is where some crumb/brown sugar/oat topping used to be. I wonder where it went? Anyways, after I baked my version I cut a slice of each and dug in. In the banner picture, hers is on the left and mine is on the right. Below, hers is top, mine is bottom.

She's really nailed this crumb topping and all the flaky layers in the crust that you can best see at the top. In mine, the crust is more present all around... really amped. We could say that on a scale of 1-10 this crust is at an 11. Not necessarily a good thing it turns out, as the results stated the next day at work after I brought both pies in. What was I going to eat it all myself?

I put out both pies with a little note requesting that clients taste both and then write down their vote for Pie A or Pie B, along with an optional comments section. What an amazing focus group this is! They chose mine, 7 to 1, with a couple comments highlighting preferences to her crust, probably because I overdid it. In the future, I'd do two things differently: scale back on the crust, and scale back on the sugar. Turns out, freshly picked strawberries actually taste like... um, strawberries. Therefore they are sweeter than store bought ones.

So thank you pie lady... Pie B might have won this round, but your pies will always be my favorite. Maybe someday I'll actually learn your name... so I can stop calling you pie lady. I'm not sure how much you'd like that.

The Evil Green Line

2010-06-11T18:35:00.001-04:00

A little while ago, I started noticing this mysterious vertical green line that would appear in some pictures, mostly dark ones. It was always in the same place, just left of the center, and completely straight. I successfully ignored it for a little while, as I do sometimes. But then it wouldn't go away so I had to face it head on, which I also do sometimes. The problem just kept getting worse and I couldn't Photoshop it out anymore. After taking it in to multiple camera repair shops, the verdict was clear: it must get shipped back to Nikon because no one in the city seemed to have the equipment to fix the problem, most likely with the sensor.

Can you see it in that strawberry picture? Maybe? How about in this one I took of the boyfriend (we'll just call him Doug from now on) posing with Christopher Columbus:

Yep. There it is. And so it is with a heavy heart that I must be apart from my camera for at least 2 weeks, possibly even a month. To add insult to injury, I'm baking not 1, not 2, not 3, but 4 wonderfully delicious things tonight and all day tomorrow for my friend Brian's wedding party and they will be pictureless. Damn you, green line, damn youuu!... (I'm shaking my fist in the air right now).

Pictureless for now anyways. I'll try to find a temporary solution, but just know that to come will be posts on Buck Eyes (which, now that I'm all grown up, are no longer just for christmas), Dark Chocolate Mint Brownies, Blueberry Crumb Bars, and various mini cupcakes with the cutest liners I've ever laid eyes on. For now though, have a great weekend, and be wary of any evil green lines. They've been known to ruin otherwise beautiful moments.

Cava Soaked Strawberries

2010-06-08T13:10:00.001-04:00

I almost called these "Cava Macerated Strawberries" but I didn't for two reasons:

1) The word "macerated" makes me giggle

2) In the past when i have macerated (teehee) fruit, it didn't involve this much liquid... mainly just sugar, which when mixed with fruit and left alone for a couple hours, causes it to "sweat" and becomes of a syrupy fruity topping.

Although this came out differently than what I was anticipating, it was super delicious... the boozy cousin, if you will. Despite the fact that his behavior is unexpected, I love him just the same.

You might also be thinking, why Cava? I'm just being honest, it's what I had on hand post Spain trip/infatuation and it was on sale at Fresh Direct. Champagne would work splendidly, as I'm sure Prosecco would or any other booze even. In fact, this is a tweaked Alton Brown recipe in which he had called for red wine.

Ingredients:
1 pint strawberries
1/2 bottle Cava
1/8 cup honey
1 tsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup sugar

Hull and quarter strawberries and put them in a bowl. I have got to get some non metallic bowls, seriously.

Combine all the ingredients together and put them in the fridge for at least 2 hours. They get better with time - I had some 2 days later and they were awesome.

This is a really complicated recipe. Remove from fridge and put as much or as little on top of your angel food cake as you'd like. Or sponge cake. Or pound cake. Or hamburger, what do I care? Just don't drink it, you won't make it to work the next morning.

Light as Air Angel Food Cake

2010-06-07T18:42:00.002-04:00

My dad's the kind of person who will discover a new food/restaurant/hobby/project/technology and practically obsess over it until one day he decides to move on and never look back. In this way, he is a man who is always on to greener and greater pastures. There are a few solid constants in his life though, including his love for his family, his unwavering work ethic and his love for Angel Food Cake. Every year on his birthday my mom bakes one of these and frosts it with Duncan Hines chocolate frosting. It is simple, predictable and delicious. Next month he will be 50 years young and I wanted to conquer making one from scratch so I would be ready if and when the opportunity arises.

As you can see this ingredient list also includes Cava and strawberries. I'm so bad at keeping secrets! Let's worry about the topping later.
Ingredients you will need for the cake (not many!):
10 large eggs whites, room temperature
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp lemon juice
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 heaping cup cake flour

The boyfriend has cleverly discovered a way to make use of the egg holder in the fridge that the apartment owners left for us - I was always nervous to do it before because once the eggs were out of the crate, there was no expiration date!

Problem solved. Just the whites of 10 large eggs should give you about 12 fluid ounces. I've always found this color interesting. It's less of a "white" and more of a "neon" isn't it?

This is essentially a cake made from meringue. We're going to whip these egg whites on medium speed with the salt and the lemon juice. It'll get frothy and bubbly at first like so:

And then continue on medium speed until it get thick and glossy, and has indentations from the whisk attachment... like so:

Slowly and steadily add only 1/2 cup of sugar while this is mixing. Beat until you get soft peaks. Be careful not to overmix.

When you flip the whisk upside down, there should be a peak, but it shouldn't be standing straight up. That's called a "stiff peak". What you want here is a soft peak. I promise not to say "like so" this time.

In a separate bowl, sift together the remaining sugar and the cake flour. You're going to fold this into the meringue mixture in 3 parts, so not to frighten and deflate the meringue. For it is very fragile, and scared. Key word here is "fold", which is easiest to do with a rubber spatula.

Once everything is folded together, scrape the batter into a tube pan. This is one of the rare cases where you do not want to butter/grease/parchment paper/flour/prepare the pan in any way. The batter is going to rise and needs something to grab on to on it's way up. If it's too slippery it will fall. Just like climbing trees.

350 degrees for 45 minutes...

and bam! When you take it out of the oven, allow it to cool upside down. My mom always perches hers on an empty wine bottle and I remember being fascinated by how it didn't fall out.

De pan this guy after it's completely cool by running a knife around the edge. Now here you are, left with a spongy, light as air Angel Food cake. As far as toppings go, the sky's the limit. This cake will absorb anything you so wish it to, like a sponge, except edible.

I'm not going to pretend like I didn't give the topping away already, so I'll just say next up, Cava soaked strawberries... though this is also very good on it's own (and healthy! Where's the butter??).

How to: Lattice Top a Pie

2010-05-24T16:12:00.011-04:00

As promised, albeit a bit late: visuals for making a lattice topped pie. As you can see there is no "pie" per say so this is more of a "how to lattice top your cutting board" tutorial, but I trust your imaginations can do the rest. Go ahead now, picture your favorite kind of pie. Okay now replace the cutting board in these pictures with said pie. Doesn't it look delicious!?

Surprisingly, it's easiest to start in the middle. Place 3 strips of dough like above, 2 vertical and 1 horizontal. Or the other way around, it doesn't really matter.

With each additional strip you put down, you just pull back the strips going in the opposite direction and then replace them, making a basket weave.

The ends don't have to be perfect, as you'll be trimming them or tucking them into the pie when you're all finished. Just make sure they're long enough to cover its diameter.

When you have a full row, pull back the strips that were underneath the horizontal strip and place the next strip down underneath it, pulling them back over the top of it.

Do this again on the other side, pulling back the strips that were underneath, and then placing them on top again.

Continue with this pattern until you've covered the entire pie. Pull back, add a strip of dough, put it back, lather, rinse, repeat.

See? That was easy. I won't deny that the thought of sticking this in the oven by itself crossed my mind. Crust crackers? Crust cookies? Hm... those sound terrible, but I know it would result in something delicious.

Food in Spain and Portugal

2010-05-19T20:58:00.026-04:00

...and we're back! Apologies for the sudden absence, the boyfriend and i took a trip to Spain and Portugal to sample the sights, culture and culinary delights. I'd heard various stories of ham, port and seafood and man oh man was I NOT disappointed. Why does everything seem more delicious when eaten at a table outside a cafe on a European cobblestone street, people watching, glass of wine in hand? Is there a way to do this for a living?

The above picture is from our first night in Seville, during our dive headfirst (perhaps too strongly?) into the world of tapas. I believe it was called a "tower" of tomatoes, eggplant, salmon, and goat cheese.

Jamón (ham) was literally everywhere you looked. Whole pig legs were hanging above you at cafes, restaurants, bars, even bodegas. I thought it was unusually quaint, considering I have a natural aversion to ham... but when in Rome, right? It actually bears a closer resemblance to bacon than my grandma's ham roast, which earned it points for me.

The fish was so perfectly prepared... simple, to the point, healthy and delicious. This was salmon, green and black olive tapenades, pesto. And raw butter? We considered that a decoration.

Foie gras and kimchi is a delicious combination - who knew?

Squid ink pasta, scallops, garlic... green sauce...

Now I suspect that this is what did me in. It's pretty much what it looks like. A bubbling skillet of melty delicious cheese. I saw something like this in Mexico but it had meatballs in it. Maybe this is the diet version.

Mushrooms with fried onions and balsamic. I suppose one could say that we ate tapas like Americans (more please!) but we learned to pace ourselves a bit after this meal.

Fried eggplant! Okay maybe "pace" wasn't the best word to use.

Quail eggs are popular too. The only time I'd had a quail egg before this trip was when I graduated college and my boss at the Thai restaurant made me take a raw quail egg shot to celebrate. Not so bad when chased with some sake, but needless to say, these mini toasts were better.

This was in Portugal, where everything was fresh from the water right outside the restaurant.

Sea Bass mmmmmmm... so simple and perfect. Some lemon and salt is all you need.

Pastries at a gas station. I can't tell you what it is but it looks pretty syrupy, sugary, crispy and delicious.

I assume it's the same here, different shape. Not buying these is probably my biggest regret of the trip. Besides the skillet of cheese. Maybe.

Meat dinner in Vejer de le Frontera. May seem strange, but given it's close proximity to Morocco, the town has restaurants which are heavily influenced with Mediterranean fare. This came alongside couscous, a fish tagine, and a hummus sampler which was eaten too quickly for a picture. We couldn't choose between the kebabs so we just ordered them all... chicken, sausage, lamb and beef.

Morning after meat dinner breakfast. Everything in moderation people.

Add a café con leche and a book = Perfect.

Omelet, salad, bouillabaisse, seltzer. Terrace lunch in Luz, Portugal.

The next post is going to be from somewhere way less exotic. I'm guessing it will be from my kitchen. Just bracing you for the normalcy.

Sour Cream Apple Pie

2010-04-26T18:35:00.028-04:00

This my friends, was the best seller of the holiday pie sale. The Sour Cream Apple Pie was something that I could make with my eyes closed by January. But I haven't made one since, so I had to keep them open.

1 pate brisee crust (see here)
6 apples. preferably granny smith or another firm apple
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
juice of half a lemon
4 tbsp unsalted butter
2 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 cup sour cream
and... I just realized I have nutmeg in that picture. I suppose you could put in a 1/4 tsp but i didn't here. I love nutmeg in everything, even hearty soups, but this pie is equally delicious without it.

Peel those apples! I tried to peel them in one long coil but was completely unsuccessful.

Slice the apples in half and core those babies. Be sure to also get the stems and bottom as well. I use a small knife to cut them out in little triangles.

Slice them as evenly as you can (about half an inch to an inch thick) and throw them into a bowl.

Toss the apples with the sugar, lemon juice, and cinnamon using a wooden spoon.

Throw the apple mixture with its juices into a large skillet and cover, simmering for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes, uncover and cook over medium heat for about 7 minutes. Cook the apples until they're "al dente" if you will. They're going to bake in the oven as well so you don't want to overdo them here. Strain the apples. I took pictures of all that by the way. And then I realized I hated them.

Usually before I put them into the pie crust, I put a layer of crumbled graham crackers at the bottom (about 1/4 inch thick) so it doesn't get soggy. I'm out of graham crackers. Also, don't just slop 'em in there, do a nice even layer so each piece is just as apple-y as the next.

And you're saying to yourself, hm, wasn't there sour cream in here somewhere? It's optional, but yes, I think it adds significant flavor and texture to the pie. Mix the sour cream with the brown sugar in a small bowl and just put a spoonful or two on the bottom layer of apples. Sour cream haters, avert your eyes now.

Now repeat with another layer of apples, a layer of sour cream, and the remaining apples. The apple layers don't have to be perfect as we're covering it anyways... we're just going for even distribution here.

You should have some remaining pate brisee dough that we're going to use for the lattice topping. On a lightly floured surface, roll it out into a less circular, more oblong shape.

Using this tool (why do I want to call it a benchpress? I know it's not. Is it bench scraper?) cut the dough into a rectangle with a length at least as long as the diameter of the pie.

Cut evenly into as many strips as you need for the lattice topping, about 13 to 15. If you have some shorter pieces, they can always go closer to the edge, but you might have to re roll out the scraps a couple of times to get the strips that you need.

I also did a nice tutorial on how to make a lattice topping, but those pictures came out horrible too so we'll have to take a rain check on that one. Basically, it's easiest to start in the middle. Lay your longest pieces across the center of the pie, and another one going in the opposite direction. Then lay one next to it, lifting the other one every other strip. Yeah, that's going to be hard to explain. I promise to do this in the next post. For now, hey look at this pie! (Update:How to Lattice Top a Pie)

There are many different ways to do a topping. This one has the decorative edge and the lattice topping. You'll need to trim the edges to fit and then I just do a tuck under into the pie.

See there? All tucked in, nighty night.

Before you stick it in the oven, brush with an egg wash (one egg whisked) and then sprinkle with some granulated sugar.

Put the pie into a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes, or until the crust gets a nice golden brown color like so.

Seriously, this is the greatest air freshener ever created. Your house will smell the best it ever has, so make sure you have people over to enjoy it with you. Oh, and vanilla ice cream of course.

Strawberry Rhubarb Pie

2010-04-19T12:01:00.006-04:00

My apologies to those who guessed strawberry hummus pie (that's disgusting... yet interesting). I guess I should've taken the tahini out of the picture, because today we're making strawberry rhubarb pie! I've eaten quite a few (slices, not whole pies... maybe) on summer trips to Vermont. There's a farmers market in Norwich where "the pie lady" sells the most amazing... yes, pies with a PERFECT (I do not use that word lightly) crumb topping. The bad news is I can never wake up early enough to buy one before they're all sold out. The good news is you can take a nice country drive to her farm in Woodstock and buy one there. This is my first go at making one from scratch in an attempt to attain that perfection in my own kitchen. Less scenic? yes. As tasty? We will see...

Remember this? He's in your fridge and probably needs some time/beating/rolling/yelling at to becoming pliable enough to roll into a 1/4 inch thin disc. Once you've achieved this, put your pie plate face down in the center.

Cut a circle with a knife around the pie plate, leaving 1-2" extra to spare for the crust. Fold the circle in half, and then fold it in half again, so it looks like one of those pre made refrigerated pie crusts you would buy at the store. Until now of course.

Center it in the pie plate, which you have now turned right side up i hope, and using your creepy alien fingers, press gently from the center out into the corners, letting the air escape from underneath the overhang. No air bubbles here!

Then, fold the overhang underneath itself so it rests on the lip of the pie plate, propping it upwards so you have more to work with when you do your fancy decorative edge.

Now do your fancy decorative edge. I do one finger on the inside, one on the outside, pressing them against each other for a ripple effect. Try not to break the dough, but it's easily fixable if it does break. Or you can just leave it and call it "rustic." Stick it in the fridge so it keeps it's shape.

Now if you were to have shown me the following vegetable 2 years ago, I would've either changed the subject or guessed pink celery. I don't know if we don't have this in Florida or if I just never paid attention, but here you have some rhubarb.

Foodnetwork.com calls it a fruit for some reason but I'm pretty sure it's a vegetable. Don't fruits have seeds? And vegetables have leaves and are roots/stems? Does anyone know the answer to this?

Also, In researching what the heck rhubarb was and how to prepare it, I learned it was very important to cut the leaves off completely because they are poisonous. Looks can be deceiving my friends. Chop up the rhubarb. **See updated rhubarb prep notes on the bottom of this post.

I only grabbed a bunch but I'm pretty sure you could grab 2 whole bunches to get a closer 50/50 ratio of strawberry to rhubarb to this pie. Halve or quarter one 16 oz. package of strawberries.

In addition to the rhubarb and strawberries, grab yourself the following to make the filling:
1/4 cup corn starch
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
pinch of salt
1/2 cup sugar

Throw all the ingredients together, mix and let them meld. The sugars will macerate the fruits and the cornstarch is there to absorb the right amount of liquid so it's not all squishy.

Put the filling in the prepared pie shell and have someone come over to oooh and ahhh at all the pretty colors. Might be nice to throw some mint in here? Maybe next time.

I opted for the crumb topping, as I want to be just like "the pie lady" when I grow up. I'll be honest, I winged it but it turned out pretty good:
1/2 stick of unsalted butter, melted
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 cup oats
1/4 cup of flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg

While the butter is melting, stir all the dry ingredients together. Then mix the dry ingredients into the butter with a fork or your fingers, making sure to maintain clumps for a solid crumble topping effect.

Sprinkle all of the crumble topping on top of the filling in the prepared pie pan.

Stick in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce the oven to 350 degrees and bake for 25 more, or until crust has browned.

Everything looks pretty on track here. I imagine this would be kind of incredible straight out of the oven with some vanilla ice cream. Then again what's not? I'm handing this off to a friend tonight who requested that I make this for him about... oh, 4 months ago (I had to wait for the rhubarb!) and he's very blunt so we'll be getting an honest critique soon. I'll keep you posted.

**Update: Success! Quite delicious, excellent consistency, not too watery, just enough sweetness. The only change I'd make when doing this again would be to boil or sautee the rhubarb for a few minutes before mixing it with the other filling ingredients, just to soften it up a bit.

Night Shoot Test and Pate Brisee

2010-04-15T11:12:00.008-04:00

Pate Brisee is a deliciously flaky buttery salty all around great pie crust. It's so good sometimes I find myself nibbling on it pre oven (Is it bad that I just shared that outloud?). It's also incredibly simple and requires only 6 ingredients, one which comes out of your kitchen faucet! This recipe is courtesy of Nicole Kaplan via my Baking/Pastry class at ICE. Along with this pie dough recipe we were also given a sucree recipe (imagine this plus sugar and eggs - more a cookie crumble texture) and I've remained faithful to the Brisee with pretty much every pie I've made since.

Ingredients (for 1 pie crust):
8 oz. (or 1 3/4 cups) all purpose flour
4 oz. (or 7/8 cup) cake flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 pound (2 sticks) unsalted butter (very cold!)
3 fl. oz. (very cold!) water

Ideally you want to make the dough for the pie the night before and put it in the fridge overnight. A nice cold dough is easier to roll out and mold to the pie pan. Measure out your ingredients. If you love baking as much as I do, I recommend buying a scale as it measures things more accurately, especially with dry ingredients. Here to demonstrate is the cake flour:

Thank you cake flour, that was inspiring indeed. Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together.

Now, making sure the butter is very cold, cut it up into little cubes and add them to the dry ingredients.

Some people do this in a food processor or with one of those claw looking roll-y contraptions, but there's something about putting your hands in there (after washing them) and feeling the flour between your fingers that's much more satisfying. You basically want to take the pieces of butter and rub them into the flour mixture using your thumb and forefinger, until you have it evenly distributed but still have some fairly substantial pea sized lumps.

Like this:

Rubbing it all the way through would give you the cookie like texture of a sucree, but leaving some large pieces of butter in there gives you the flakiness of the finished baked pie crust. This is because the moisture in the pockets of butter evaporate in the oven, leaving behind layers of dough deliciousness. Or so they tell me anyways.

Add the cold water and mix it in with the rest of the ingredients in a bowl, and then turn it out onto a lightly floured surface.

Without overmixing which is something I sometimes like to do, form the dough into a flat disc, that way when you put it in the fridge, it is cooled evenly throughout.

Oh hey, see the pieces of butter still in there? That's okay, in fact it's awesome. Paula Deen would be proud.

Close up:
Now wrap your dough in saran wrap, stick in the fridge overnight, and stock up on your pie filling ingredients.

There might be a hint or two in this picture of what kind of pie this is going to be. Maybe. To be continued...

Dark Chocolate Chevre Brownies

2010-04-04T22:25:00.001-04:00

2 posts in one week! We're off to a good start here folks... or, restart I suppose. I based this recipe off of a cream cheese swirled chocolate brownie recipe on Smitten Kitchen. If there's one thing I like better than cream cheese, it's chevre... or goat cheese, but for some reason in dessert context chevre just sounds better. I did a test batch last week, but the chevre swirl, although perfectly cheesecakey in texture, was too much. The chocolate is amped up here and the tang of the goat cheese is perfect with the dark chocolate.

I just realized how scary the cactus looks in that picture.

For the brownies:
2 sticks of softened butter
6 oz. unsweetened chocolate
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
pinch of salt
1 1/3 cups of flour (although the batter was super thick - 1 cup would probably be better)

For the cheesecake swirl:
8 oz. goat cheese (room temperature)
1 egg yolk
1/3 cup of sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
chocolate chips (optional yet highly recommended, obviously)

In college my roommate asked why so many of my art projects were about eggs (sculptures, installations, videos, photos, drawings).

I hadn't really realized it until she brought it up, but she was right. I didn't have an answer that I can recall and I hadn't thought about that again until today...

...when I realized about half the pictures taken during this brownie session were of the eggs?

Although that little speckly guy is cute, there is one egg that surpasses all other eggs.

That's right. The Reese's peanut butter egg is the most superior egg in the world. I received it in my basket (USPS package) which suspiciously came from an "Easter Bunny" with the same address as my parents house in Florida. Oh, but that's not all.

Easter Bunny! (Mom!) Evil, evil Easter Bunny! (Mom!)

In a double boiler (or pot with a bowl on it), bring a couple inches of water to a simmer. You're going to melt the butter and chocolate in the bowl here. It is the best way.

plus heat equals:
Magical, isn't it? Once it's just melted, remove from heat and slowly whisk in the sugar, eggs, vanilla and salt. It will look like this(ish):

Whisk in the flour. Actually switch to a wooden spoon or spatula and stir in the flour. Don't do what I did, it's much harder.

Prepare a 9"x13" pan by your favorite method of greasing, whether it be a Pam spray or a good buttering. Then do this:

And this:
And this:
Until it looks like that:
Spread evenly in the pan and prepare the chevre mixture, by combining all ingredients and giving them a good beating. This is the only context in which you should giving anything a good beating.

Now dollop evenly on top of the brownie batter. This is why the softer (and more room temperature) the goat cheese and butter, the easier it will be to marble in with the brownie batter.

And whatever you do, don't zoom out.

Now here's where things get a little crazy. Grab a butter knife and swirl back and forth in both directions to evenly distribute the cheesecake swirl. Yes, it is possible to overmarble something and if you doubt me, please see picture below.

If you overmarble, you lose that awesome swirl pattern on the tops of the brownies. I retained it in some spots here, but I'm going to be honest. Beyonce happened to come on while I was marbling and whenever Beyonce is on, I no longer have physical control of my movements.

Throw enough chocolate chips on there to evenly cover the top - as many or as little as you like, and then throw that guy in the oven at 350 degrees for about 30-35 minutes, until its browned on the edges and all melty and delicious in the center.

Let them cool in the pan for about a half hour and then slice 'em up. Personally, I cut them so most of the brownies are non corner or edge pieces. I feel that that crazy maze brownie pan that was created so all the brownies are edge pieces is a load of haberdashery.

If there was a way to invent a pan to make all brownies look like this one (a la center pieces), then I'd make certain this was done. However, I'm afraid that's logistically impossible.

Thanks to Erin for this cute plate!

Double Cocoa Red Velvet Cake

2010-03-31T13:08:00.002-04:00

I'd like to start out with a preface: this is the first time I've attempted a post in it's entirety without Erin. Aside from some tears in the batter, this means that these pictures are sans her photography talent, flash, and amazingly weird chachkis (sp?). Throw in my introduction to a new artificial light and you have... well, what is here. These things definitely take practice.

And onto the subject matter... Red Velvet Cake! This concoction has always been a mystery to me. Why red and not blue? Why did it come out so mushy? Why does my kitchen look like a murder scene? After reading about the chemical reaction between the baking soda/vinegar/buttermilk/cocoa combination I've learned the cause of the red tint (however, I won't lie... I didn't really see it... until I put in the food coloring).

I was commissioned to do a cake for my boss's girlfriend's birthday, and originally chose a recipe out of one of my new cake books. However, upon closer inspection I noticed the recipe said it was 2 layers while the picture showed 3... and also called for a food processor with no reason why. The boyfriend hunted for a replacement and found one from Southern Living Magazine (but of course!), saying it got the best reviews. Turns out he was right. Again. Dammit. I tweaked a few things, pumped up the cocoa, and this cake was about as perfect as they come.

First off though, a shameless kitchen shot. I realized this was the first time I've posted since the move.

I'm sorry, I couldn't help it.

Double Cocoa Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting
(adapted from Southern Living Magazine)

For the cake:
1/2 cup crisco
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 oz. bottle red food coloring
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups sifted cake flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 tbsps cocoa
1 cup buttermilk
1 tbsp white vinegar
1 tsp baking soda

For the frosting: (I know it seems like a lot... I doubled the cream cheese and sugar and ended up using all of it)
2 8 oz packages of cream cheese
2 16 oz boxes of confectionery sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 stick of softened butter

The... how do I put this nicely... stunning(!) first ingredient for the cake is shortening. I'm not that experienced with this stuff and all I had was this butter flavored Crisco.

Turned out it works great. Whip up that 1/2 cup (!!!) until it's fluffy, then slowly add the sugar. Then run 4 miles.

Follow it up with those eggs, one at a time.

Add the vanilla and food coloring (carefully) (on low speed if you love what you're wearing).

Put to the side and sift some dry ingredients, the cake flour, salt and cocoa to be exact. My brother got me this old school sifter for Christmas - isn't he cute?

The sifter. Or my brother too I guess. Hey, want to see one of my favorite things in the whole world?

A perfect newly sifted flour mountain. Bet ya can't tell what side the open window was on. Hey, want to see it get even better?

It's times like these I wish I was 6 inches tall. We can get back to that. Now measure 1 cup of buttermilk.

Add the vinegar and baking soda and cue the hardest shot I think I've ever taken without trying to blind you.

Can you still see? Bubbles! Now begin adding the flour mixture and new bubbly mixture to the shortening mixture, in about 3 parts, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. You'll end up with something like this:

Butter (or Crisco) and flour 3 9" pans, and distribute the batter evenly.

Bake at 350 degrees. My cakes were done at exactly 25 minutes.

Cool on wire racks for 10 minutes, then invert and cool to room temperature.

When the cakes are cooling, make some cream cheese frosting! Beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth, slowly add the confectionery sugar (on low speed) and then the vanilla. Then resist the urge to get out the spoon...

Level out all 3 cakes with a long serrated knife, take the least attractive one and put it on the bottom. No one wants to see that. Get yourself some parchment paper strips and put them between the bottom of the cake and the plate. That way when you're finished frosting you can just remove them and have a perfectly clean plate.

Now everyone wants to see that. Since these layers were on the thin side, I made the frosting layers about the same thickness as the cake.

Save the prettiest layer for the top, and put the middle guy face down, repeat frosting layer.

Try to keep the sides as even and smooth as you can... less work later.
Now these it is what bakers and pastry chefs call a "crumb coat." I call it "Oh my god I'm going to run out of frosting aren't I."

The top is pretty though so I guess that's what is most important. See I told you you'd use all the frosting...

Slab on a final coat of frosting to make it beautiful, then remove that parchment paper.

I was able to practice my cake writing with this project and went with red lettering to hint at what was on the inside...

...raspberries were boyfriend's idea #2 and it turned out to be a nice touch and a nice separation between the cake and the white plate. Although perhaps misleading flavorwise.

Who can say no to those babies though, honestly?

I'll leave you with the wise words of my coworker Cricket: "Never trust a red velvet cake recipe without vinegar" And it's true! Sour cream may be great for chocolate cakes, but this is the only red velvet cake (and cream cheese frosting) recipe I will ever use. Hands down. (Erin, my hands are actually down).

Hello November!

2009-11-03T11:34:00.001-05:00

We haven't forgotten about Bushels and Pecks - nor have we forgotten about baking. Erin got a well deserved promotion at work and is working her little behind off with late nights and early mornings. Understandably, she likes to do what she pleases with her weekends, which sometimes includes delicious baked goods.

I recently moved and now with an (almost) permanently clean and sexy kitchen, it's easier to bake whenever I so please. Having enrolled in a 5 hour baking/pastry class every Sunday evening, the mood strikes me at home less but overall I'm baking more. For an updated look at what's been in production over the past 4-5 months, you can take a peek at the ol' twitter. Glamor shots these are not, so without full access to the proper equipment I felt they were twitter appropriate only.

Bushels and Pecks will be up and running again as soon as my lights and card reader arrive in the mail and I get the setup working for those times when natural light is not available... which is most of the time.

Happy baking season 2009 everyone! You'll be hearing from us soon :)

Pina Colada Cupcakes and a Lime Tart

2009-06-04T15:53:00.001-04:00

Can you tell by the subject that we're feeling summery?? Erin and I spent all last weekend in yards or parks and intend to do the same for pretty much every weekend to come, just as long as we're physically able. Oh, and add kitchen in that list of locations too. Though we were feeling the heat for sure while slaving over the stove/oven next to the open windows that weren't letting in that much breeze, did we mind? That's a big fat no. It tastes better when you work for it :) And these little pretties were delicious...

Pina Colada Cupcakes
adapted from Ina Garten's Coconut Cupcakes

This recipe is stated on the foodnetwork site as yielding 18-20 regular sized cupcakes. In Erin's experience, that's usually way less than what she comes up with. So she halved the following recipe (also because she, rightfully, refused to pay the organic bodega's butter fee of $9.00 for 4 sticks... ?!?!) and came up with about 15 cupcakes.

For the Cupcakes:
3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
5 eggs, room temperature
1 1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 tsp dark rum
3 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 cup light coconut milk
7 oz sweetened, shredded coconut
1/2 cup crushed pineapple

For the frosting:
1 lb cream cheese, room temperature
3 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1/2 tsp dark rum
1 1/2 lbs confectioners' sugar, sifted (or whisked)
7 oz sweetened, shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes.

With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the pineapple, vanilla and rum and mix well. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the coconut milk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in 7 ounces of coconut.

Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each liner 3/4 full with the batter. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.

Meanwhile, make the frosting. In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, on low speed, cream together the cream cheese, butter, vanilla and rum. Add the confectioners' sugar and coconut and mix until smooth.
Frost the cupcakes and smile upon witnessing such summery goodness. Oh and eat one. Or 3.

Lime Tart
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's French Lemon Tart in Baking: From My Home to Yours

Dorie Greenspan describes this tart as being extraordinary and versatile as far as different fruits you can use on top or beneath the lemon cream layer and topping it with whipped cream or a meringue. I'd never met a tart before reading up on this one and was feeling especially nostalgic for key limes in my native Florida. Though she has recipes for lime pies, my quest was to conquer a tart in the pan my parents got for me for Christmas and still haven't used. Something simple and bright. So I swapped out the lemons for limes.

For the Crust (page 444 of the same book, Sweet Tart Dough)
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 tsp sal
9 tbsps very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

For the filling:
1 cup sugar
zest of 3 limes
4 eggs
3/4 cup lime juice (from about 5-6 limes)
2 sticks and 5tbsp unsalted butter, cut into squares, room temperature

I did the crust first and then froze it overnight. We've definitely used this recipe before on here but let's just do a refresher.

Preheat the oven to 375. Place the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times. Slowly add the pieces of butter until everything is combined and the you have pea sized crumbs. Break up the yolk in a separate bowl and add slowly, pulsing after each addition. Process the mixture in long pulses until the dough forms clumps. When this happens, remove the dough and knead on a floured surface. Press the dough into a buttered 9 inch pie or tart pan and freeze or bake.

If/when you're baking, butter the shiny side of a piece of aluminum foil and press it against the dough. Pop it in for 25 minutes, take it out and remove the foil. If you're baking the filling, add the filling and put it in the oven for 8 more minutes or so. But if you're like me, and not baking the filling, put the tart back in uncovered for the same amount of time.

This tart was a bit work intensive, but ab. so. lute. ly. worth. it.

Bring a pot a couple inches full of water to a boil. While you're waiting for this, put the sugar and lime zest in a heatproof bowl and work it through your fingers until you feel moisture and it starts to smell like the best thing you've ever smelled in your life. And by that I mean limes. It was about 5 minutes if I recall correctly.

This pictures is deceiving because 1) I said fingers, not a fork and 2) It looks like it's maybe over heat or something. I used my fingers after mixing it up a bit, and it's not over any heat... we just ran out of counter space :)

Whisk in the eggs and lime juice and set on the boiling water, whisking constantly until the cream starts to foam.
It'll start to thicken and the whisk will leave tracks, but don't stop now! Do you have a thermometer? Use it now. She recommends you keep on whisking until it's 180 degrees in the center. It took me about 10-15 minutes and then I took 4 showers. Now pour the cream through a strainer into a food processor and let it cool for about 10 minutes.

Oh um... just ignore all the butter on the side there, that's nothing, pay no attention, moving on... Turn on the food processor and add the butter a few pieces at a time until it's all combined and continue to blend for another 3 minutes. Pour the cream into an airtight container and refrigerate for 4 hours or up to 4 days.

When you're ready to use it, just whisk it up a bit and then pour it into the shell.

Fondant!

2009-06-01T13:16:00.001-04:00

So I know in the last post I promised to get something up on here within 3 months... and guess what?! I kept my promise! ...by 2 days. But yes, here we are! We'd never lie to you...

We've been baking various things behind the scenes every week and Erin just sold me her old Nikon D50 so I'm learning how to use that sucker. You can probably tell that today's post contains pictures that were not taken with said camera, but with my little iPhone cam. They're grainy and small and just don't compare to the other beautiful photographs that we've put up on here. Let's just say that the task of working with fondant for the very first time is enough work in itself without having to also learn how to work said camera that I've never used before. That's happening tomorrow and those pictures hopefully will make up for these.

And yes! I said FONDANT! What a crazy wonderful thing this stuff is. I bought a great big tub of it at New York Cake and Baking Supplies here in the city (along with many many other things I didn't plan on getting and probably don't need but will definitely find a use for someday) and just started playing around with coloring it and rolling it out. It reminds me so much of playdough, but it tastes a lot better...

I've been wanting to work with fondant for awhile and a couple weeks ago when at Barnes and Noble, found Elisa Strauss's book, Confetti Cakes. My boyfriend's niece's 3rd birthday was the following week and it was the perfect opportunity to play around with it. She recently got a pug named named Hercules, so the subject matter was obvious. Strauss's recipes and techniques seemed straightforward enough that even I might be able to figure it out.

I used her chocolate cake recipe, but instead of baking it in a half sheet pan, I baked it in an ovenproof bowl to get the dome shape for the head. The cake itself turned out to be more "cocoa"y than sweet, which balanced out perfectly with the swiss buttercream meringue frosting and sugary fondant.

Elisa Strauss' Chocolate Cake
2 2/3 cups flour
1 1/4 cups plus 2 tbsps unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsps baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup sour cream
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract (I'm sure this would be delicious, but I discovered too late that I was out of this and so I used Grand marnier instead. It also turned out delicious)
2 sticks unsalted butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups of coffee

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and brush the bottoms and sides of an ovenproof bowl with melted butter. In a large bowl, sift together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside. In a separate bowl, combine the sour cream, vanilla, and almond extract. Set aside. In the bowl of a standing mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, combine the butter and sugar and beat on medium speed until smooth. Set the mixer to low speed and add the eggs, one at a time, scraping thoroughly between each addition. Alternately add the flour and sour cream mixtures to the butter mixture in two batches, starting and ending with the flour mixture. Gradually pour in the coffee. Scrape down the bowl and beat until thoroughly combined. Pour Batter into bowl. The baking time for the bowl was a bit longer than if you were to bake the cake in her recommended half sheet, about an hour. I let the cake cool overnight, and made the frosting and applied the fondant the following evening.

Elisa Strauss' Swiss Meringue Buttercream Frosting
In Confetti Cakes, she describes this as being an ideal frosting for sculpting cakes because its incredibly sturdy.

2 3/4 cups plus 3 tbsp granulated sugar
1 1/4 cups egg whites
5 sticks softened unsalted butter
1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp vanilla extract

In the bowl of a standing mixer, thoroughly whisk together sugar and egg whites. Set the bowl over a pot of boiling water. Whisking constantly, heat the mixture until all the sugar crystals have dissolved and the mixture is hot to the touch, and take it off the heat before the eggs start to cook. Put the bowl back in the mixer fitted with a whip attachment and beat on high speed until the mixture forms a stiff meringue, about 10 minutes. Stop the mixer and replace the whip attachment with the paddle attachment. Set the mixer to low speed and add the butter, a few cubes at a time. When all the butter is incorporated, turn the mixer to medium speed and beat until fluffy. Set the mixer to low speed and add the vanilla. Once the vanilla is incorporated, scrape the bowl and continue to mix on medium speed until you have a smooth, creamy texture.

After I made the frosting, I shaved the sides off some of the cake with a knife, to create more of an oblong head shape, and put these extra pieces in a separate bowl. I sliced the head lengthwise in half to create 2 layers in the cake and filled the middle with frosting. Elisa explains the height of the filling should be about half of a layer of cake. I mixed about a half a cup of frosting with the extra cake pieces that I cut off the sides to create a moldable consistency and stuck it on the front to create a face.

Then I put the cake in the fridge for a few minutes to keep it solid. It's good to do this whenever you feel its losing any of its substantialnes (is that word?) but make sure its not frozen or cold underneath the fondant or else it'll sweat and get mushy. I then put frosting over the cake in its entirety except for the face. I figured there was already frosting in there and didn't want to overdo it, or damage his little face.

Then rolled out fondant in the tan color I had created by combining other colors to about a 1/4 inch thick and covered the entire head. It then looked like something out of Silence of the Lambs so I very quickly cut out ears and the nose/mouth pieces and put them on before it turned into nightmare material.

From here on out though, it's basically just cutting the fondant to make it look like whatever you're trying to make it look like. I overworked it at some points and broke it, so the frosting came out... just do some patching and extra fridge time if you have to. The only problem I had was that after the fondant was in place, parts of it began cracking a little bit. It wasn't dry and was still completely edible but I guess it's just the sort of thing where practice makes perfect. Maybe. Hopefully.

We've Been Partying

2009-03-03T11:46:00.002-05:00

Oh me oh my. It has been 3 months since our last posting... and though it is indeed unfair to you our loyal and loving readers, we've been spreading the dessert love all over New York City and even as far as California. You see, we've discovered that people love to eat yummies for special occasions and if you're the one to provide said yummies, the praise is overwhelming. What's better than doing what we love on behalf of those we love? Nothing, I tell you.

Last year I made a batch of The New York Times Jacques Torres chocolate chip cookies for my grandmother and brought the leftover bunch over to my boyfriend's parents house (recipe here). This resulted in not only an empty tupperware, but also a request to bake them for his brother's wedding. Given that there were 180 people invited and that it was in Santa Cruz, I was a bit hesitant. I emailed Deb of Smitten Kitchen with my little predicament and she immediately responded with some very solid advice. I could make the dough in New York, freeze it into logs, and then transport it via carry on in an appropriately sized cooler. That way all I had to do after landing is find an oven and a window of a couple hours. I must admit, I was nervous going through security, but they didn't even ask me to open the cooler. Turns out, 8 pounds of homemade cookie dough is an acceptable carry on for cross country flights.

I made these with the Jacques Torres 60% cocoa dics because I'm fortunate enough to work directly across the street from the Jacques Torres factory and spend many a lunch break perusing the chocolates and watching the machines and Jacques himself in the magnificent little world he has created after surely dreaming about it for years.... um, the dics, yes I love how they melt perfectly into these chocolate layers in between layers of cookie instead of tiny chocolate pockets that you get with chips. Also, sea salt is the icing on the cake. Literally. Sprinkle some on top of the each little dollop before they go into the oven. It brings the rest of the flavors to life.

Erin's also been busy being recruited to bake for surprise birthdays of boyfriends of various friends (Did you follow that?). I help where I can but she deserves most of the credit when people ask, "What bakery did you go to?"

The first cake was for a fellow named Mike. Erin made a vanilla birthday cake with buttercream frosting from the recipes of famous new york institution, Magnolia Bakery (recipe here or here...)

For those who like variety, she also made red velvet cupcakes (recipe here) with cream cheese buttercream frosting (recipe here).

Being the ever prepared baker, Erin had the platter, box and even the candles all ready to go as part of her one woman cake delivery service (I held the doors). Everyone was really impressed and the entire cake was gone so fast that she even was even able to take the platter back home with her.

This led to a second commission just this past weekend for a lad named Jim that she works with. Pulling together all her supplies, carrying all her cupcakes from brooklyn via subway to the upper east side, and sweet talking her way into the bar using her wares as her ID, she finally was able to deliver the chic black and white cupcakes to the waiting crowd as promised.

In the end, though we didn't stay for very long, we heard via multiple texts that Operation Cupcake Jim was a wild success.

Did we mention we bake for parties and weddings? We'll be back within 3 months, I promise :)

Chocolate Coconut Bars, Potato Chip Cookies and Bill's Big Carrot Cake

2008-12-09T11:57:00.001-05:00

Oh hey there! Hope this post finds you all well... we've been busy baking and not taking pictures, as well as traveling, etc. But to make amends with you, our adorable and loving friends, we're posting 3 whole recipes. YES! Erin made these first two...

Chocolate Coconut Bars
adapted from Taste of Home magazine

2 cups graham cracker crumbs
1/2 cup butter melted
1/4 cup sugar
2 cups flaked coconut
1 can (14oz) sweetened condensed milk
1/2 cup walnuts (crushed)
1 plain chocolate candy bar (7oz) -I doubled this amount and used Jacques Torres chocolate discs
2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter - I more than doubled this amount as well

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine crumbs, sugar and butter and press into a greased 13x9" baking pan. Bake the crust 10 minutes. While that is baking, combine crushed walnuts, can of condensed milk and coconut. Spread this over the crust when it is done baking. Bake this for 15 minutes. In saucepan, melt chocolate and peanut butter. Spread over bars and cool until chocolate is set. MMMMMMMMMMM.

(That's word for word, mind you... her need to include the M's at the end of this recipe stemmed from the same feeling I had when I ate one. She actually took a picture of my face while this was happening but I absolutely refuse to post it.)

That's our bearded friend Eric who came over from the boy cave to partake in the baking activities. Actually, mostly just the eating ones.

Potato Chip Cookies
adapted from Taste of Home magazine

1 cup butter flavored shortening
3/4 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 sugar
2 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
2 cups crushed potato chips (I used ruffles!)
1 cup butterscotch chips (I used 1/2 cup choc chips & 1/2 cup butterscotch)
1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream both sugars & shortening. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Combine the flour and baking soda and add it slowly to creamed mixture. Stir in potato chips.

If you want to do both chocolate chips and butterscotch chips, split the potato chip dough into 2 even proportions in 2 different bowls. Add the butterscotch chips to one bowl and the chocolate chips to other.

Drop tablespoon sized pieces of dough about 2 inches apart onto a couple ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes and allow to cool for a minute before moving to wire racks.

Those are the chocolate chip ones cooling on the wire rack. And these are the butterscotch ones ready to be eaten by eric or someone like him:

Bill's Big Carrot Cake
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Baking: From my Home to Yours

For the cake:
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp salt
3 cups grated carrots (approximately 6 or 7 carrots)
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (I omitted these of course)
1/2 cup raisins (ew, raisins?? I used dried cranberries...)
2 cups sugar
1 cup canola oil
4 large eggs

For the frosting:
8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 pound of confectioner's sugar
1 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 cup shredded coconut (optional - but I used it and everyone loved it, even the coconut haters)

Dorie made this cake a trip decker, however on my recession budget I can only afford 2 9x2 inch round cake pans and just being two layers, it turned out just fine. In fact, it turned out kind of perfectly. Butter the insides of your pans and dust with flour - set aside.

Shred those carrots! You could use a food processor with a fitted blade, but there's something satisfying to me about lifting the box grater and seeing all your hard work collect in a little pile. It was over before I knew it. As you can see below, this ghost did it quite easily.

Preheat the oven to a cool 325 degrees. Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. In a separate bowl, stir together the shredded carrots, nuts if using, coconut and raisins (dried cranberries).

The coconut I used seemed like it was not only shredded, but also chopped. I really liked how you got the flavor this way without ever really noticing the texture. You might not, it's all up to you. Or the people who own the grocery store closest to your house.

Working with a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together the sugar and oil until it's smooth. Add the eggs one at a time and continue to beat until the last one is combined. When adding dry ingredients to wet ingredients, it's important to turn the stand mixer to low. I learned this the hard way.

After everything is mixed, gently fold in the carrot mixture and Divide the batter among the prepared pans. Bake for about 40-50 minutes. Mine took the full 50 - It might've had something to do with my 2 pans instead of 3 experiment.

Unmold the cakes and invert them onto a drying rack to cool. This is a good time to prepare the frosting.

Again, in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat the cream cheese and butter together until smooth and creamy. Slowly add the sugar until it's all combined, then add the lemon juice.

In her cookbook, Dorie puts tons of extra frosting in between the layers and on the top, leaving the sides exposed. Although this is a viable option, I myself like a beautiful completely frosted double layered white cake. Like my mom said her mom always said, "it takes all kinds."

Please excuse the borderline inappropriate apron that my cousin gave me. Those are cherries!

This is a great cake to give to your boyfriend's friend for his birthday, especially if he asked for carrot cake specifically. Thanks for expanding my horizons Tim! It sure was silly of me to never think of making this before. It's beautiful and wintery and everyone really liked it. And it improved our eyesight.

Halloween Cupcakes

2008-11-02T16:25:00.001-05:00

Halloween here in New York kind of sucks... after the 3rd year. The first one's awesome and you dress as some sort of profession, go to the parade and hang out with some cartoon characters. The second one you think of something a little more creative to dress as and you go to a friend's friends' overcrowded party or wander around looking for somewhere cooler to go, all the while carrying that annoying prop. If it involves face paint it usually rains and then it takes you an hour to get home. The year after that you can predict the costumes of the year and as you watch other people rock them, decide to go home and bake festive cupcakes instead. I guess all those times I said "you" I really meant "me." But I'd be willing to bet I wasn't the only one who followed this pattern. This halloween was quite relaxing for me due to these little friends below who kept me company and in the spirit despite my normal attire.

Halloween Cupcakes
adapted from marthastewart.com

I'll start off by saying I love Martha Stewart. I bit her steeze and copied her ideas for these "creepcakes" as they're called on her website and just adjusted some candies accordingly. I also didn't take her recommended vanilla cupcake recipe because I'm a loyal Amy Sedaris vanilla cupcake fan and don't see myself making any other vanilla cupcake recipe for a long long time, if ever. You know what they say, if it ain't broke...

But the chocolate cupcake and Swiss Meringue Buttercream frosting recipes are hers, the chocolate cupcake recipe listed below. I had issues with the frosting, so I'll just say you can find it here. More on that later.

Martha's Chocolate Cupcakes
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
3/4 cup warm water
3/4 cup buttermilk
3 tbsp vegetable oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

I didn't have buttermilk so I did the milk+white vinegar trick. If you're unfamiliar, you basically put 1 tbsp of the vinegar into a measuring cup and fill the rest of the cup with milk. Then let it sit for 5 minutes. It seemed to work fine for me.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line cupcake pans with liners and set aside. In a large mixing bowl, sift together cocoa, flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Add the eggs, warm water, buttermilk, oil, and vanilla. Mix batter until smooth, about 3 minutes.

Divide batter evenly among liners, filling each about half full. I used some normal sized cupcake liners and some little mini ones for the spiders. The regular ones were finished in about 20 minutes, while the minis were done in about 10. Always check with a toothpick before removing from the oven.

Amy's Vanilla Cupcakes
1 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups of sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp salt
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
2 1/2 cups flour
1 1/4 cups milk

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Beat the butter and sugar in a stand mixer until smooth and creamy. Add the rest of the ingredients in order of the list above and mix until combined. Evenly distribute the batter among the muffin cups (I got about 24 out of a batch) and bake the cupcakes for 18-20 minutes.

Now the frosting. As the name implies, it was a meringue base which means you whisk the egg whites and sugar in a double boiler until the mixture is smooth and hot to the teach... Then you beat it into a meringue and add the butter. The recipe calls for EIGHT sticks of butter. Paula Deen would be proud. It's exactly this amount of butter...

...not including the butter that is piled off camera. I made my roommates and Erin leave the room while I made this for fear of the gasps, comments, screams, etc. After all it is a SCARY amount of butter. bwuahahaha...

Anyways, the frosting turned out to be the most photogenic frosting of all time, as seen here:

Don't you just want to dive right into it?? However it tasted like... well, you guessed it. Butter. Call me old fashioned but I just plain outright don't trust any frosting that don't include confectioner's sugar on the ingredient list.

Now to the fun part! You basically just mix food colorings and candies until you maximize the creepy out of your cakes. I can't think of another situation where I'll ever be able to say that sentence again. Oh hey! Along came a spider.... (licorice, chocolate chips, white jelly beans)

Has anyone see that movie, arachnophobia? Did I spell that right?

Erin made these. Her method was placing a candy and then laughing a whole bunch. Repeat. These were called both zombies and goblins.... zoblins or gombies (life savers, jelly beans, taffy, gumdrops and tic tacs.)(I almost said bumdrops)

And these were the easiest and my favorite... Mumtastic (frosting and jelly beans)

Hope you all had a happy halloween!

Cheesecake Brownies and an Apple Tart

2008-10-28T15:40:00.001-04:00

Today's accidental theme: cream cheese! We added a layer of it to already yummy things to make them even better. I've recently become a fan of David Lebovitz's blog and tried his Cheesecake Brownie recipe and Erin experimented with Dorie Greenspan's Normandy Apple Tart, but added a layer of cream cheese mixture to the bottom. We know fruits and cheeses to be best friends.

Cheesecake Brownies
adapted from David Lebovitz

Just a reminder: the following recipe is what i did as a non expert, non experienced, brownie loving amaeture who can't even spell the word amateur. My polish store only had pre melted semisweet chocolate for some reason. I'd never heard of such a thing and should've known not to trust any chocolate that is permanently melted... but i did and I think it made the the brownie batter much thinner. Also, with cream cheese swirled brownies, I always have a tendency to overcook them. Much to my chagrine, this time was no different and it resulted in a crust at the bottom of the brownies. I guess my point is, trust David Lebovitz, not me. That being said, these brownies still disappeared in under 30 minutes when I brought them into work. And it's a small office.

For the brownies:
6 tbsp. unsalted butter, cut into pieces
4 oz. pre melted semisweet chocolate
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup flour
1 tbsp. unsweetened cocoa powder
1/8 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1/2 cup chocolate chips

For the cheesecake swirl:
8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1 egg yolk
5 tbsp. sugar
1/8 tsp. vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 9-inch square pan with foil, and spray with cooking spray. Melt the butter with the chocolate in a microwave or saucepan, stirring until smooth. Remove from heat and beat in the sugar and then the eggs. Mix in the flour, cocoa powder and salt, then the vanilla and chocolate chips. Spread evenly in the prepared pan.

In a stand mixer, beat together the cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar and vanilla until smooth. Pour the mixture the top of the brownie batter in the pan, then take a dull knife or spatula and swirl the cream cheese mixture with the chocolate batter.

Bake for about 35 minutes, or until the brownies have just set in the pan (no longer!). Let cool and cut into yummy bite sized pieces for your co workers or in 9 pieces for yourself and 8 of your closest friends.

Apple Tart
adapted from Dorie Greenspan's Normandy Apple Tart in Baking: From my Home to Yours

Erin and her grandmother made the applesauce for this recipe at her grandmother's house in upstate New York, where apples are from. She's going to post that recipe on here in some bits, but for now, let's just say applesauce for that part.

Let's start with the crust, which is on page 444 of that very same book - Sweet Tart Dough.
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 tsp sal
9 tbsps very cold unsalted butter, cut into small pieces
1 large egg yolk

Place the flour, sugar and salt in a food processor and pulse a couple of times. Slowly add the pieces of butter until everything is combined and the you have pea sized crumbs. Break up the yolk in a separate bowl and add slowly, pulsing after each addition. Process the mixture in long pulses until the dough forms clumps. When this happens, remove the dough and knead on a floured surface. Press the dough into a buttered 9 inch pie or tart pan and freeze for 30 minutes before baking.

While this is freezing, go ahead and prepare the apples for your topping. Peel and core 2 golden delicious apples, then slice as thinly as you can. The concentric circles you make on the topping will be much easier and more flexible if your slices aren't thick and stubborn. Set the sliced apples aside for when you're finished assembling the other layers.

For the cheesecake layer:
1 8oz package of cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 egg

Combine all the ingredients together using a mixer of any kind (even if its just your hand), pour the layer into the prepared crust and lick the bowl it used to be in.

Pour the applesauce onto the cheesecake layer until it's almost to the top of the rim of the tart shell and place on a baking sheet.

Go ahead and begin to assemble your topping. You could probably do about 2 circles and then improvise the middle. We tried to do a flower. I'm pretty sure it was the first time I've used my art degree since I graduated (sorry mom!).

Brush an egg wash of 1 egg with 1/2 tsp. of water over the top of the tart and bake on a rack in the center of an oven at 400 degrees for about 50 minutes.

Are you asking yourself, "Hey what's that orange stuff on top?" Well it's funny you should ask...

Optional Glaze:
About 3/4 cup of apple jelly (or if you're feeling over appled, another flavor of your choosing. Apricot might be nice.)
1 teaspoon water

Bring the jelly and water to a boil. When liquified, brush a thin layer onto the top of the tart and cool to room temperature before serving this beautiful thing.

Close up time:

Pumpkin White Chocolate Muffins and Black Bean Brownies

2008-10-11T13:23:00.001-04:00

"Knock knock"
"Who's there?"
"October"
"...What?? how?!"
"Yes, I'm almost halfway over. Where have you been?"
"Oh man, really? ...I have no idea!"

Here at Bushels and Pecks, we think it's important to bake. Obviously. And we have been doing so... in a "behind the scenes" kind of way. I can't believe it's been almost a MONTH since we've posted. Oops.

But without further adieu... Cooking with vegetables! We've been hearing a lot about this phenomenon lately and wanted to give it a go. Is it possible that vegetables can taste great in baked goods? Is the consistency going to be weird? Am I going to lose 10 pounds by eating muffins and brownies? Imagine the possibilities!

Pumpkin White Chocolate Muffins
adapted from culinaryconcoctionsbypeabody.com

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1 2/3 cup all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp ground cloves

1 tsp ground nutmeg

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

2 eggs

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 cup pumpkin

4 oz unsalted butter

6 oz white chocolate chips

This recipe makes approximately 12 muffins.

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.

In one bowl mix dries: flour, sugar, spices, baking soda/powder, and salt. In another bowl mix wets: eggs, pumpkin, and unsalted butter. Add chips and nuts to wet bowl. Slowly combine both bowls. Scoop into muffin cups and Bake 20 minutes.

That's it, you say?! Yes it is. Now you don't have any excuse to not make your kitchen smell of pumpkins, fall spices and love within 20 minutes. What's even crazier is that we didn't even have nutmeg and they turned out amazing. Erin used 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice mix from Trader Joe's instead.

Black Bean Brownies
Adapted from 101cookbooks.com

Various versions of black bean desserts - brownies, black bean muffins, black bean cupcakes with tomato frosting - have been floating around in the blogosphere and since visiting Costa Rica earlier this year, the black bean is officially my favorite bean. Ever. I saw this recipe on 101cookbooks.com, and though I knew these brownies wouldn't solve any serious chocolate cravings, I thought it might be fun to have people eat them and guess the ingredients.

Silly me, I didn't buy butter. I know, baking without butter is pretty scary, but I figured with a recipe like this, why not go all out and use avocado instead? Also, this called for agave nectar and I used honey.

4 oz unsweetened chocolate
1 cup avocado, mashed
2 cups soft-cooked black beans, drained
1 tbsp vanilla extract
¼ cup instant coffee
¼ teaspoon sea salt
4 large eggs
1½ cups honey

This recipe makes about 45 small brownies.

Preheat your oven to 325 degrees. Line an 11"x18" baking pan with parchment paper and spray with non stick cooking spray. In a bowl, melt the unsweetened chocolate and combine well with the mashed avocado and set aside.

In the bowl of a food processor, place the beans, vanilla, and half the chocolate mixture. Puree until smooth and batter should be thick.

With the remaining chocolate mixture, mix in the instant coffee and salt. Set aside.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, beat the eggs until light and creamy, about 1 minute. Add the honey and mix until combined. Remove about 1/2 cup of the mixture from the bowl and set it aside (I guess there's a lot of setting aside in this recipe so make sure you're working with ample space).

Add the bean mixture to the coffee mixture and mix until combined. Stir it into the egg mixture in the stand mixer and combine thoroughly. When everything is combined, pour the batter into the prepared baking pan and spread evenly with a spatula.

Beat the remaining 1/2 cup of the egg mixture in a stand mixer with a whisk attachment until light and fluffy. Drizzle over the top of the batter in the pan and swirl with a toothpick. Place in the oven for about 30-40 minutes, until the brownies have set. Allow to cool and then place in refrigerator. Brownies will be best served cool.

The consistency turned out to be successfully fudgey... however when finished, one couldn't help but think for a moment that they'd just eaten a burrito.

End of Summer Muffins and M&M Blondies

2008-09-17T13:34:00.001-04:00

The pictures were saved! This turns out to be a really great thing because now that i'm looking at these, i realize that my drawing just wouldn't have sufficed. i really only know how to do that one angle...
yay erin!

End of Summer Muffins
adapted from Mrs. Betty Crocker

For the Muffins:
2 cups flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1 8oz. can of crushed pineapple
1/2 tsp salt
1 egg beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, melted
2 soft bananas, diced
1/2 cups sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a mixing bowl, stir together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Drain the pineapple from the can, but save 1/4 of the juice. Create a "well" in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the 1/4 cup of pineapple juice, egg, milk and the melted butter. Stir into fully combined, and then add half of the diced bananas. Spoon the batter evenly into prepared muffin cups. Over each filled muffin cup, carefully spoon some crushed pineapple, diced bananas and a sprinkle of coconut.

And that's it!
just kidding.
The best part is yet to come...

For the "streusel":
1/4 cup of butter, melted
1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
"dashes" of allspice and nutmeg

Mix all of these ingredients into a small bowl until combined.

Let's get a close up of that there goodness.

Beautiful. Okay, then spoon some of the streusel topping over the fruit in each muffin cup.

Bake the muffins for 30 minutes at 375 degrees and your house will never have smelled better.

Allow muffins to cool before removing them from the pan, eat and... well, enjoy the end of your summer!

M&M Blondies
adapted from cooksillustrated.com

As I've stated before, I suffer from a bit of an aversion to nuts. Not all the time though... why, in fact just last week I made these striped nutty shortbread cookies using powdered almonds and walnuts and couldn't stop putting them in my mouth. But they were powdered, so to me it was all the great flavor without the need for dental floss. It was wonderful. Anyways, my point is sometimes I'm missing that extra something. In the case of blondies, I thought of something much more fun and colorful - M&Ms! What if I just substituted M&Ms for everything that called for nuts? ...whoa. You stop that.

Cooksillustrated.com has the best blondie recipe I've found. I've made them a couple times and the first time I did, I used granulated brown sugar instead of my usual packed brown sugar. In the end, I think some carmelization occured, causing them to be more... well, caramely. This was good too, but if you're looking for straight up brownie consistency, packed brown sugar is the way to go.

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1 1/2 cups packed light brown sugar
2 large eggs
4 tsps vanilla extract
3 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
2 packages regular M&Ms (or peanut butter! that would be good...)(or just peanuts too i guess)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Cut 2 pieces of foil to fit 13 by 9-inch baking pan, one lengthwise and one widthwise, allowing excess to overhang pan edges. The blondies will be easiest to remove from the pan this way.

Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt together in medium bowl and set aside.

Mix melted butter and brown sugar together in medium bowl until combined. Add eggs and vanilla and mix well.

Using rubber spatula, fold dry ingredients into egg mixture until just combined. Fold in chocolate and M&Ms and turn batter into prepared pan, smoothing top with rubber spatula.

Bake until top is shiny, cracked, and light golden brown, 20-22 minutes. I like 'em a little bit on the undercooked side, but it's up to you. Allow blondies to cool and remove from pan by lifting foil overhang. Transfer to a cutting board, cut and serve.

And there you have it! numnumnumnumnum... i like to think that the cookie monster would enjoy these blondies as well.

Technical Difficulties

2008-09-12T15:12:00.002-04:00

Dear friends/family/fans/fellow bakers/surfers of the internet,

I'm writing to inform you that we've experienced a slight malfunction with our high tech equipment involving a red bull. The good news is that Dr. Erin has spent the past few days performing surgery and thinks the pictures will be recovered. Before I got this update though, I decided to illustrate the m&m blondies I made last week in another way. See kids, sometimes you have to think outside the box. Even if it doesn't look as yummy.

Check back next week!
xoxo,
Bushels and Pecks

Tasty Toasty Coconut Macaroons and Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake

2008-09-03T13:04:00.001-04:00

Happy pretty-much-the-end-but-hopefully-not-to-close-to-the-end of summer! I'm so torn this year, because I hate that feeling when your bones are cold and you're just shivering uncontrollably from your inside out until you can't remember the last time you weren't shaking and you start to think that maybe you'll just shake forever. Maybe I just need to get a new coat. But the optimistic in me says, hey! we can bake to our little hearts delight and not have to worry about sweaty, sticky, oven kitchen... and by oven kitchen i mean the space where you're not sure where the oven ends and the kitchen begins. Baking season is almost here!

And with that, we bring you some coconut macaroons and a chocolate peanut butter cake. These are both made with ingredients that we both just love love love... erin with coconut and I with peanut butter. I'm surprised we've been able to hold out this long without using them... no longer!

Tasty Toasty Coconut Macaroons
adapted from Ina Garten, Barefoot Contessa

Erin was literally done making these before I could even put my cake in the oven. And then she just started dunking them in melted chocolate at the end, just like that. What a show off... (They were amazing).

14 ounces sweetened shredded coconut
14 ounces sweetened condensed milk
1 tsp. pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 tsp. salt

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
Combine the coconut, condensed milk, and vanilla in a large bowl.

Whip the egg whites and salt on high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until they make medium-firm peaks. Carefully fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture.
Now apparently it's possible to run out of such things as salt. All we had was the big stuff so we ended up do this:

It was kind of ghetto, but also kind of fun. Sometimes in baking, you just have to improvise...
Drop the batter onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper using either a 1 3/4-inch diameter ice cream scoop, or 2 teaspoons. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool and serve.
Erin put some in cupcake liners just to see how they would fair (hmmmmm macaroon cupcakes...)

I think maybe there were some sticking issues so maybe do a once over with the non stick spray? These babies turned out toasty and tasty. I wish this is what my desk looked like right now:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cake
adapted from smittenkitchen.com

In the time between our previous baking night and the posting of our previous baking night (there's a bit of a delay sometimes, I'll admit) smittenkitchen posted this cake that seemed to scream my name from the pictures. I oogled at it until I decided that no, it's not going to be as beautiful as hers and yes it is going to push me over my max calorie intake for the day(s). I made it anyways.

For the chocolate cake:
2 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 cups sugar
3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 cups water
2 tbsp. distilled white vinegar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Butter the bottoms and sides of three 8-inch round cakepans. Sift the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and whisk to combine. Add the oil and sour cream and whisk to blend. Gradually beat in the water. Add in the vinegar, vanilla and eggs and beat until blended.

Divide among the 3 prepared cake pans. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out almost clean. Let cool in the pans and then invert to cool completely.

This chocolate cake itself is amazing. It's extremely soft and delicate, not dense at all.. which is great for when you're eating it, but when you're trying to work it, it's a little bit difficult. Just treat them with love and you should be fine.

For the Peanut Butter Frosting:
10 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 stick (4 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
5 cups confectioners’ sugar, sifted
2/3 cup smooth peanut butter

In a stand mixer, beat the cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy. Add the confectioners' sugar 1 cup at a time, mixing thoroughly after each addition and scraping down the sides of the bowl often. Continue to beat on medium speed until light and fluffy, 3 to 4 minutes. Add the peanut butter and beat until thoroughly blended.

Here's the part where I started tasting (licking spoon after spoon without changing any of the ingredients because it tasted like magic).

After the cake has cooled, lay the first layer down (don't forget the love) on whatever you plan on serving it on. Spread the peanut butter frosting evenly on top of the layer. You don't have to ration this too much - I had a lot of frosting left that I cried over when it was time to throw it away.

Repeat this with each layer and then spread the rest of the frosting over the top and on the sides. Some people have fancy frosting utensils, but I just used a plain old knife.

When completely frosted, stick in the freezer while you make the chocolate peanut butter glaze (yes more chocolate AND peanut butter!)

For the chocolate peanut butter glaze:
8 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
3 tbsp. smooth peanut butter
2 tbsp. light corn syrup
1/2 cup half and half

In a bowl set over simmering water, combine the chocolate, peanut butter and corn syrup. Whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Remove from the heat and whisk in the half-and-half, beating until smooth. While the glaze is still warm, pour evenly over the top of the cake.
I have not yet become a master at tempering my chocolate... so I'm pretty sure I burned it. I think that's why it has that texture. Did it make the cake taste bad or worse? No, it tasted great.

And this is one of those cakes that actually gets better with time. I put it in the fridge and each of the layers became distinct, including the glaze layer that actually acted like a yummy chocolate shell around the whole thing. Kind of like that chocolate shell stuff that you put on your ice cream when you were a kid. These pictures were taken before it did all those wonderful things though so it was still kind of messy.

This cake also doubles as payment for a friend who's there for you when you need help with your website (Thanks Eric!)

Grandpa Party Hor' dourves

2008-08-28T11:49:00.001-04:00

As some of you know, we recently celebrated the birthdays of... well, pretty much the August babies in general, and seeing that we're now reaching ripe old ages of mid to late 20's, we thought it'd be most appropriate to celebrate with a good old fashioned grandpa party. We were very pleased with the turnout as everybody got really into it, dressing to the nines, making themselves comfortable on our plastic covered furniture and even spending part of the evening cutting the rug to some great old records. Erin and I prepared for the party goers by making various favorite old people munchies. I mean, Grandma and Grandpa wouldn't have it any other way...

We thought it'd be fun to share with you some pictures from our table spread.

These were tiny crustless tea sandwiches, half with turkey or pastrami cold cuts, kraft singles and dill mustard. The others were with cucumbers and a cream cheese/marscapone blend.

Erin made a delightful Strawberry jello mold with cranberry sauce and apples, which as you can see, guests were eager to get into.

Who doesn't love pigs in a blanket? These were made old school style - just pop open a can of cocktail weiners and wrap those bitches in pillsbury doughboy croissants.

Erin's cheese ball was a hit as you can see. She used Amy Sedaris' famous recipe and added bacon, therefore making it better. I watched her squeeze through the crowd using her camera as a weapon to get this picture before the cheese ball disappeared. She barely made it.

And yes, I saved the best for last. Her vision and ultimately the hit of the party, this picture speaks for itself.

Old-Fashioned Banana Spice Cake

2008-08-23T12:58:00.002-04:00

Those who adore banana bread as much as I do will love this recipe! I don't know what it is about banana bread that I find so delicious... Maybe it's how moist and sweet it is or how cozy it makes me feel or that I don't feel guilty eating it for breakfast even though it's loaded with butter!

This cake is a perfect balance of banana bread, creamy custard and spices. The buttermilk gives a wonderful tenderness to the cake and really brings out the banana flavor--after baking with buttermilk a few times, you'll discover that it's pretty much the secret to mouthwatering baked goods. It is not only easy to bake, but it's easy to assemble without having to strive for perfection. In fact, the more the custard oozes from the layers the more rustic and delicious it looks!

I found this recipe in one of my go-to baking books called "Birthday Cakes: Recipes and Memories from Celebrated Bakers". It's a lovely book with great birthday cake ideas (like this one!) and little stories from the bakers about how the cakes were relevant in their lives.

So, here it goes:

What you'll need:

1/2 cup unsalted butter (1 stick) at room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup mashed ripe banana (about 2-3 bananas)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract*
2 cups cake flour**
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground allspice
Pinch of ground mace
1/2 cup buttermilk at room temperature

* When it comes to vanilla extract, I think it's always best to use the real deal instead of imitation flavor. You can really taste the difference and it's such a crucial ingredient in most sweets. There's nothing better than that subtly delightful vanilla flavor in baked goods.
**Cake flour is a very fine soft-wheat flour that is bleached. It is often used in baking foam cakes, like angel food cake. It is very important to use the flour specified, otherwise the cake will not rise properly. Also, cake flour should always be sifted before measuring. In this recipe, the use of cake flour allows for a light and moist banana bread. Using a different flour could result in a very dense cake that would be too heavy for the creamy custard filling.

What to do:

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees

Butter and lightly flour the sides and bottoms of two 8-inch round cake pans. Knock off the excess flour. (If you have Pam for baking, that will suffice)

Using an electric mixer on medium speed, cream the butter and sugar together in a large bowl until it's light and fluffy.

Beat in the eggs, mashed banana and vanilla.

Sift the flour, baking soda, salt and spice together onto a piece of waxed paper.

Stir the flour mixture into the butter mixture alternating it with the buttermilk.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pans and smooth the tops with a rubber spatula.

Bake the cakes for 25-30 minutes, or until a cake ester or wooden toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

When the cakes are done, set the pans on wire racks and let them cool for about 10 minutes.

Unmold them onto the racks and let them cool completely.

While the cake is baking, you can make the filling!

Here's what you'll need:

1 1/2cup milk (I used Nonfat, but 2% or whole milk will do just fine)
1/2 cup sugar
4 large egg yolks
6 tablespoons flour (regular flour this time, not cake flour)
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1-4 tablespoons of heavy cream (optional)
4 bananas, peeled and sliced thinly

How to make the filling:

In a small, heavy saucepan heat the milk until small bubbles form around the edges of the pan. (Fun Fact: The "heavy" saucepan makes the heat distribute more evenly)

While you wait for the milk to bubble, beat the sugar and egg yolks together in a small bowl.

Beat the flour and salt into the sugar mixture.

Once the milk is heated, gradually beat it in.

Return the mixture to the saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until it begins to thicken and comes to a simmer.

Lower the heat to low and continue stirring for 2 minutes.

Remove from head and beat in the butter and vanilla.

Pour into a bowl, cover with a piece of plastic wrap pressed onto the surface of the custard. Let it cool slightly, then put it in the refrigerator.

At this point, your cakes and custard should be cooled.

Now for the assembly:

Split each cake layer in half.***

Now, the custard should be thin enough to spread. If it is too thick you can thin it with a little bit of heavy cream.

Once the custard is at the proper thickness, spread one-third of the filling and arrange one-third of the banana slices evenly on 3 of the layers.

Stack the cake layers and top with the fourth layer.

Cover the entire cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 2-3 hours.

***I have this nifty little tool that's a wire cake cutter. It allows you to cut cake layers in half (or thirds or quarters) so that your layers are perfectly even and level. I couldn't live without it!

It's available on Amazon.com for $12. You can find it at any baking supply store. I purchased mine at Sur La Table.

The topping and serving:

For the topping you will need:

1 cup heavy cream
3 tablespoons confectioner's sugar (powdered sugar), sifted
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Make the topping just before serving:

In a deep bowl, whip the cream until it forms very soft peaks.

Beat in the sugar and vanilla.

Spread the whipped cream frosting over the top of the cake, allowing some to drip down the sides. You can really pile it on so it looks like a big cloud on top, or just use enough so it drips slightly like the custard.

And voila! You have a tasty, homey, old-fashioned banana spice cake.

When I made this cake, my guests loved it so much they asked me to bake mini ones for a cocktail party they were having. I used the same recipe and the same cake pans, I just cut the cakes with biscuit cutters.

Happy Baking!!

-Elise

Crisp vs. Crumble and Homemade Bagels (and cream cheese!)

2008-08-15T11:39:00.001-04:00

We took a little hiatus there in prime vacation time - end of july, beginning of August - when all we were baking were ourselves, but NOW... now, we are back in full force. My new favorite hobby is seeing Erin come through my door with her bag of perfectly measured ingredients, getting an nice ($5) bottle of (cheap) chardonnay, ordering rotisserie chicken from Pio Pio Rico, and covering my kitchen with flour/butter/sugar. I have wonderfully understanding roommates/taste testers.

This week, Erin decided she loved breads and wanted to continue with homemade bagels - and cream cheese! Why buy premade when you can just cook up some bacon and scallions and make your own? The flavor isn't even comparable. I, on the other hand, have been trying to master the perfect fruit crisp/crumble for quite some time now and when I realized crisps and crumbles were different, decided to make one peach of each and compare. One peach of each...

Homemade Bagels
adapted from fooddownunder.com

This is a great recipe to have for those of us who feel better about eating bagels if they're wheat, but are disappointed in the fact that all the yummy versions are separate from the wheat variety. I think the only non plain wheat bagel I've seen is everything, and even that's a rare occasion. Don't fret kids, make your own! It's so worth it in the end.

This recipe makes about a dozen bagels. You will need:
2 cups warm water + 3 qts. and 1 tbsp. room temperature water
2 packets active dry yeast
4 tbsp. honey
3 tsp. salt
2 cups whole wheat flour
2 3/4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup wheat germ
1/2 cup cornmeal
1 egg yolk

In a bowl, whisk together the whole wheat flour, all purpose flour and wheat germ. Set aside for use later. In another bowl, whisk together the 2 cups of warm water, yeast and 3 tbsp. of the honey. Let sit for 5 minutes and then stir in the salt.

Gradually mix in 4 cups of the flour mixture and beat at a medium speed for 5 minutes in the bowl of a stand mixer. Switch to a dough hook and with a large spoon add 1 1/4 cups more flour to make a stiff dough. (If you do not have a stand mixer, use a hand mixer and do entirely too much work).
Cover a surface (Erin used a cutting board) with all purpose flour and knead the dough for about 15 minutes, or until dough is no longer sticky, adding more flour as needed. Work your biceps and triceps because you won't have time for the gym tonight.

Place the dough in a greased bowl and let rise until it has almost doubled in size (about 40 minutes). Knead the dough lightly and separate into 12 equal sized pieces. Then shape them into bagels! Any imperfections you feel are in your bagels will likely disappear when they rise and bake in the oven. Put your little bagel friends back on the floured surface and lightly cover, letting them sit for about 20 minutes. Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

During these 20 minutes, bring the 3 quarts of water and the remaining tbsp. of honey to a boil in a large pot. Prep your baking sheet by lightly greasing it and covering it evenly with cornmeal. Begin boiling your bagels! It's easiest to do 4 at a time, depending on the size of your largest pot. Flip them often and leave them in the bubble bath for about 5 minutes. Remove them with a slotted spatula, gently dry with a clean towel and then place them onto the prepared baking sheet.
Whisk together one egg yolk and the remaining one tbsp. of water and brush onto the tops of the bagels.
Bake for 35 to 40 minutes, during which you will of course be preparing your awesome homemade cream cheeses with whatever flavors you so choose.

And that's it! I had one for breakfast, lunch and dinner... not on the same day (maybe).

Crisp Vs. Crumble
adapted from Cooksillustrated.com

So, the ingredients for the following crisp and crumble are essentially the same. The main difference between the two is that the topping on the crisp is placed on the fruit before the whole thing goes into the oven. The topping for the crumble is toasted separately first, before being placed on the fruit and baked longer. Another difference is that for the crisp, we had Erin's fancy camera, and for the crumble, I tried to make due with my little digi. We're not trying to win any awards here though, so I just hope you'll be able to see the difference. Because in the end, this little difference turned out to be very big.

Peach (Blueberry) Crisp (I added blueberries to this one to add some separation - and because they're still wicked cheap)

For the topping:
6 tbsp. all purpose flour
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp. table salt
5 tbsp butter, chilled and chopped
3/4 cup sliced almonds

For the filling:
5 cups of peaches, peeled, cored, sliced
1 cup of blueberries (optional)

1/4 cup granulated sugar 1 1/2 tbsp. lemon juice Preheat the oven to 375 degrees (please). Put all the dry topping ingredients in a food processor (except for the almonds) and pulse until blended. Add butter and pulse until crumbs are pea-sized. Add almonds. Do not over process or the topping will become doughy. Stick in refrigerator while making the filling. What took the longest for me here was peeling, coring, and slicing all the peaches. This shouldn't be too much of a problem for you because... well I was making BOTH experiments and therefore needed twice the peaches. No matter, this will take the longest - and it's really not that long at all.

I'm glad I dress to match my ingredients.

Once peaches are sliced, toss them with the sugar and the lemon juice (and the blueberries, if using). Scrape the fruit mixture into an 8 inch square pan or pie dish using a rubber spatula. The rubber spatula is important here... I just recently got one for my birthday and it's wonderful. I use it for everything. Well, not everything... but basically everything that I used spoons for before. Except for eating soup.

Anyways! Distribute the chilled topping over the fruit and bake for 40 minutes. Increase the temperature to 400 degrees and bake until the topping is brown and the fruit is bubbling up on the sides, about 5 minutes longer. Serve immediately - with butterscotch ice cream if you still have some leftover from your homemade ice cream sandwiches.

Now, herein lies my problem. Hopefully you can see from the above picture that something is wrong. Any guesses, class? My topping... my poor little topping shrunk and sunk into the filling in the oven. And what remained was soggy and not at all "crisp"y. Maybe my peaches released too much juice? Maybe there were too many of them? See, THIS is why I want to go to culinary school. How the heck to I know? But I do know that maybe, just maybe, there was a better way...

Peach Crumble
Preheat your oven to 350 (please).
I won't waste your time with the listing all the ingredients since they're basically the same anyways, except for these key differences in the topping:

1. Add one cup of flour instead of just 6 tbsp. This adds substance.
2. Add 2 tsp. of vanilla extract.
3. Add 1 more tbsp of butter.
4. Instead of putting the cinnamon and the nutmeg into the topping, add it into the fruit mixture. The flavor comes out more there.
5. Add 1 1/4 tsp cornstarch.

For the filling, toss the peaches in with the sugar and let it sit for 30 minutes so the peaches release their juices. Add 1/4 cup of the juice with the corn starch, lemon juice, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg. Toss this mixture in with the fruit and put in an 8 inch square baking pan or pie dish.

For the topping, combine the dry ingredients in the food processor and pulse until combined. Add butter and nuts and pulse until you have pea-sized crumbs. Then (here's where it gets exciting!) spread the topping mixture evenly onto a parchment covered baking sheet and bake until it's lightly browned... for me it was about 20 minutes.

Now grasp the ends of the parchment paper and slide the topping onto the fruit, spreading evenly with your wonderful perfectly handy and irreplaceable spatula. Pack topping down lightly and place back in the oven, this time at 375 degrees for about 30 minutes, or until fruit is bubbling up along the sides.

Now THIS, ladies and gentlemen, though still not my ideal perfectly baked and crispy peach crumble, was much closer. I'm only a couple steps away from achieving the perfect topping, and I think I know why. As I've said before, nuts really kill my baking buzz so I'm just going to leave them out next time and replace them with oats. I really love toppings with oats and it was my mistake not to include them in this experiment.

Also, food processing the toppings sometimes leave parts of them looking much like their original form - sugar. i want crumbs, pieces, clumps... can i say clumps? So let's nix the food processor and simply press the chopped, chilled butter into the dry ingredients with a fork until you have what you're looking for. I found this technique over on www.thepioneerwomancooks.com. She's wonderful.

Pretzel Bread

2008-08-11T15:15:00.001-04:00

adapted from Epicurious.com

2 3/4 cups bread flour
1 envelope quick-rising yeast
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon sugar
1 teaspoon celery seeds
1 tablespoon flax seeds
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons (about) hot water (125°F to 130°F)
Cornmeal (as needed)
8 cups water
1/4 cup baking soda
2 tablespoons sugar
1 egg white, beaten to blend (glaze)
Coarse salt (yield is about 12 rolls)

***NOTE: Baking these rolls was one of the most rewarding baking experiences I've ever had. Hands down. Its certainly no walk in the park BUT the reward at the end of the grueling 4 hour process is definitely worth it. In the end, you will have a dozen beautiful, delicious, rolls and a new found love for baking breads.

On to the baking....

Start by measuring all your dry ingredients (flour, yeast, salt, sugar, celery seeds & flax seeds) and blend all in food processor. Slowly add hot water through the feeding hole on the food processor. Dough should look elastic-ish. Take out and knead dough for 4-5 minutes.

Add dough to a greased bowl and cover bowl with plastic wrap, then a kitchen towel; let the dough rise in warm draft-free area until doubled in volume, about 35 minutes.

Punch dough down and knead on lightly floured surface until smooth.

Divide the flattened dough into 8 pieces. Form each dough piece into a fist shaped ball. Place dough balls on a flour'ed baking sheet, flattening each dough ball slightly. Using serrated knife, cut a pretty lil "X" in top center of each dough ball. Cover with towel AGAIN and let dough balls rise AGAIN until almost doubled in volume, about 35 minutes.

Preheat your oven to 375°F. Grease another baking sheet and sprinkle it with cornmeal. Bring 8 cups water to boil in large saucepan. Add baking soda and 2 tablespoons sugar (water will foam up all pretty like). Add 4 rolls and cook 30 seconds per side.

Using slotted spoon, transfer rolls to prepared sheet, arranging X side up. Repeat with remaining rolls.

Brush rolls with egg white glaze. Sprinkle rolls generously with coarse salt. Bake rolls until brown, about 25 minutes. Transfer to racks and cool 10 minutes.

Serve rolls warm or room temperature. Or eat them as soon as they come out of the oven. Either way. These babies are freakin delish. Who doesn't love pretzels? Who doesn't love fresh rolls? Who wouldn't love a fresh baked pretzel roll!?

Eat these rolls as soon as possible. The egg wash on the top of the roll doesn't lend for very good storage. After 2 days or so the top of the roll no longer has its harder outer shell, it becomes more like a soft squishy brain surface. It still tastes good when it looks brain-ish but doesn't look pretty. So eat within the first day or two of baking (not that it should be a problem).

Chocolate Mint Mini Cupcakes and Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches

2008-08-08T18:23:00.001-04:00

When its eighty seven plus degrees above ground and sweaty swampy plus degrees below, it's hard to go home and stand in front of a hot oven unless you know the outcome will be well worth it. We tried to think of recipes that would be cool and refreshing, but the fact that we did fruity bakings last time left us somewhat bewildered pretty much up until the oven went on. But that my friends, is why it's so important to have a polish "natural" grocery store less than 3 blocks away that also happens to be open until midnight. And who needs the labels in English? A little common sense, some poking and prodding of the package, and and a game of charades with the beautiful blond deli girls usually gives you an idea of what you're about to buy (Unless it's baking soda/powder... then you're usually on your own).

Chocolate Mint Mini Cupcakes
adapted from chockylit

For the Cupcakes:
200 gram bar of Valrhona 61% cocao
3 sticks butter
2-1/4 cups sugar
8 eggs
1-1/4 cup flour
1/4 cup cocoa powder, unsweetened
1-1/2 tsp. baking powder
pinch of salt
1/2 tsp. all natural peppermint extract

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. (ew, that's hot i know... just do it). Chop chocolate and transfer to a double boiler. Add butter and stir until chocolate melts and butter is combined. Remove from heat and transfer to the bowl of a stand mixer. Add sugar and let mixture cool for 10 minutes. Beat in mixer for 3 minutes. Add one egg at a time, mixing for 30 seconds between each. Sift the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, and a pinch of salt into the mixture and mix until blended. Add mint extract and mix until combined.

Let's get a close up of that baby.

Ohhh yeah.
Okay.
Wait.
Where was I....
Okay, Scoop into mini cupcake cups and bake at 350 F for 12 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Erin tells me that the time was actually a bit too long, so cut back to 10 or 11.

Check out our cool camouflage plate! Is that a plate or is it just the counter? Are these cute little friends residing next to a peaceful rocky stream? aha! you'll never know. Camera tricks.

For the Mint Buttercream frosting:
1 cup (2 sticks) butter
4-5 cups powdered sugar, sifted
1/4 cup milk
1/8 tsp. all natural peppermint extract

Beat butter in stand mixer until creamy, scrape bowl. Add 4 cups of sifted powdered sugar, milk, and peppermint extract, and beat until combined. Add more powdered sugar as needed to get piping consistency.

Erin actually had trouble keeping the buttercream from melting immediately, so depending on the temperature in the room, you might need to add more than 4 cups. I always have extra on hand for these situations. Actually, I just forget I have some already and buy more, so by "extra" i mean 6 boxes extra. This is just a suggestion, obviously. Better safe than sorry, I always say!

Also, to get that cool minty swirl effect, you can use just a little bit of food coloring in half the frosting in the piping bag. She's so clever. Oh yes, and don't forget to add the Ande's mint halves. This error could be fatal. Not really... but forgetting them means they won't look as pretty.

Homemade Ice Cream Sandwiches
adapted from smittenkitchen.com

For this little experiment I went to one of my favorite blogs, Smitten Kitchen. She has these great homemade ice cream recipes and I found the butterscotch one extremely intrigung. Pair this with her homemade Oreo cookie recipe and viola! I have no use for you anymore, Mr. Softie.

Butterscotch Ice Cream:
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. vanilla
2 tsp. Whiskey
1 1/2 cups whipping cream
2 cups half-and-half (light cream)
6 large egg yolks

In a small pan over medium heat, stir brown sugar and butter until butter is melted, sugar is dissolved, and mixture is bubbly, 3 to 4 minutes. Whisk in 1/2 cup whipping cream until smooth and remove butterscotch mixture from heat. Add vanilla and whiskey. As this cools, you'll see it thicken and caramelize. It's quite lovely, but no pictures seemed to do it justice. So we'll just leave it up to your imagination.

In a larger pan over medium-high heat, combine remaining 1 cup whipping cream and the half-and-half. Bring to a simmer.

While you're waiting for this simmer to happen, beat your egg yolks in a bowl. Whisk 1/2 cup of the cream mixture into egg yolks, then pour egg yolk mixture into pan with cream. Stir constantly over low heat just until mixture is slightly thickened, 2 to 4 minutes. Immediately remove from heat.

You'll notice some slight "thickening" of the cream and egg mixture. I dont' want to say chunks but I'm finding it difficult not to. You can rectify this situation by pouring through a fine strainer.

Me being the fancy girl I am, just used a plain ol' colander and it seemed to do the trick just fine.

After you've strained into a clean bowl, whisk in the butterscotch mixture. Chill until cold, stirring occasionally, for somewhere between 2 hours and a day.

I got really anxious, so I chose to only freeze the mixture for about an hour. Don't do this. It seemed to nip me in the butt later one when we did the final assembly. When (and only when) it's ready, pour frozen mixture into an ice cream maker according to manufacturer’s instructions.

You'll eventually see it start to thicken. I think mine took about 20-25 minutes to turn into what resembled ice cream.

Serve softly frozen, or transfer ice cream to an airtight container and freeze until firm.

Homemade Oreo Cookies (Just the chocolate part):

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup unsweetened Dutch process cocoa
1 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons room-temperature, unsalted butter
1 large egg

Preheat your oven to (an even hotter... i know, just do it) 375 degrees. In a food processor mix the flour, cocoa, baking soda and powder, salt, and sugar. While pulsing, add the butter, and then the egg. Continue processing or mixing until dough comes together in a mass.

Notice that the dough is going to be thicker, saltier than most chocolate cookies. This is what makes it akin to it's Oreo ancestors. (ed. note. dough is still prone to being entirely eaten with a large wooden spoon).

Take rounded teaspoons of batter and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet approximately 2 inches apart. With moistened hands, slightly flatten the dough.

Bake for 9 minutes, rotating once for even baking. Set baking sheets on a rack to cool. And then make a tower with them. Maybe play some cookie Jenga.

I hope I'm not being too bossy... But after your tower, I think you should probably do this:

Your friends will thank you. And yes, those are my alien fingers putting on the top upside down. Let's just pretend you didn't see that. What can I say, I wasn't very focused at this point.

We Wish...

2008-07-23T19:22:00.002-04:00

Popsicles & Sur La Table

2008-07-21T12:48:00.002-04:00

Last week, I attended the most amazing roof-top party to celebrate the 25th birthday of our lovely friend, Lindsay. I left flying high with a full belly full of wine and a new culinary obsession...

The homemade Popsicle!

The party's host (the fabulous Miss Alyson) had made a pineapple-basil rocket pop and it was one of the most REFRESHING things I had ever tasted! I'm still extremely sad I did not take a picture of those Popsicles...

Fast forward to Sunday, I was sweating my way through SoHo in 90+ degree weather,when across the street I notice the store, Sur La Table. And, wow. For someone who loves food/baking/kitchen supplies SO much, I felt almost embarrassed that I had never been in this store before! It is THE kitchen supply mecca!

In the window, front and center, what do I see? Star shaped Popsicle molds!

I brought them home immediately and went to work. With the help of my roommate Sarah, I made a concoction of:

2 Cups Trader Joes Blackberry Currant Juice
1 Cup Pineapple Juice
1/2 Cup of Plain Yogurt
splash of splenda

After the 5 hours of anticipation, I was a bit disappointed. I got the sherbet consistency I was looking for, but they were just good-ish.

SO - I'm now on the hunt for the perfect Popsicle recipe. If anyone has any good homemade Popsicle recipes please share them here. Sarah is dying for some fudgsicles so if anyone knows how to make them please contribute!

PS - Is it wrong that I want to go back to Sur La Table today and I was just there yesterday?

Blueberry Muffins and Apple Cupcakes

2008-07-16T12:49:00.003-04:00

Right before summer graced us with it's presence, Erin and I had a massive bake fest one Sunday that lasted the entire day in an attempt to warm the apartment via oven and make our friends fatter than us. Or maybe we were just bored and wanted to hone our culinary expertise while having an excuse to drink wine and taste batter all day. I can't really remember - winter seems like so long ago. Any season where I can't bask myself in the sun in anything sleeveless is something I don't really mind forgetting about anyways.

We were going through her amazing collection of old cookbooks and basically decided to bake everything.

It's always good to start simple and work with what's in season, and Erin managed somehow to get like, a gallon of blueberries for something around a Sacajawea or some pocket lint or a wink of her beautiful eye. I for some reason had a whole drawer full of red delicious apples and was looking for a way to get rid of them. The recent BBQs we've had to get rid of all the food from the previous BBQ has only done the opposite and filled our fridge to the brim. If you want meat, condiments and apples, I'm your girl.

Erin decided to make blueberry muffins with a lemon glaze and baked them both in the standard cupcake tray and super cute mini one that our friend and fellow baker Elise had on hand.

Yummy Lemon Blueberry Muffins
adapted from cooks.com

For the Muffins:
2 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 6 oz. containers of lemon yogurt
2 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. grated lemon rind
1 cup fresh blueberries

For the Glaze:
1/2 lemon
2 tbsp. sugar
1 cup warm water

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix together eggs, sugar and butter. Add lemon yogurt. Mix dry ingredients together and add to batter. Add grated lemon rind and blueberries.

Bake time for the regulars were 25 min, while the minis were done at 12 (and were absolutely perfect, especially for those of us who are on a bite sized food only diet for our equally tiny bikinis).

While the yummies are cooling off, go ahead and make the glaze while you tell a really funny story. They turn out great if you do this, believe me.

The glaze is easy, just go ahead and mix all 3 ingredients together until it gets nice and... glazey. Taste and add more of one of them if need be. Pour right on top and serve! They're so lemoney and refreshing and perfect for snack or breakfast. How many things can you say that about?

Apple Cinnamon Cupcakes with Almond Buttercream Filling

For the cupcakes:
4 apples, peeled and diced small
2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. vanilla
2 cups flour
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. cinnamon

For the filling:
6 tbsp. butter, room temperature
1 cup confectioners sugar
3/4 cup almond butter
3 tbsp. half and half (It wasn't my first choice, okay?)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix apples and sugar in large bowl. Add vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. In a separate bowl sift together flour, salt, soda, and cinnamon. Add to the apple mixture in two parts and stir until just combined. Divide batter evenly into cupcake papers, filling them about 2/3 of the way. Bake for about 2o minutes or until toothpick (or in my case, knife) comes out clean.

They look burnt but they're not... they're just fresh out of the oven, spongy and delicious.

While the cupcakes were baking I was thinking of flavors that might compliment the apple cinnamon. I know nuts are sometimes used in these instances but I usually omit them from recipes in which they are optional because I don't really like how the crunchy interferes with the smooth and I hate when the little ones get stuck in your teeth. It's a weird personal quirk because I really do like the flavor. This is around the time I saw the Trader Joe's Almond Butter in the fridge door squeezed in between all the condiments. And then I had an idea.

Basically where things went wrong here was I didn't have the whipping cream that the half and half should've been, so if I were to change one thing, it would be to switch that and cut back a bit on the confectioners sugar. If you do this, you might have the frosting that I was going for. Mine turned a filling. So instead of fighting it, I embraced it and put it in bold font.

Mix all these ingredients together and beat until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. And then do this:

See how the cupcake puffs up when you fill it? It was fun, so I kept doing it. Until my arm hurt. then I stopped.

And then, if you cut them in half they look like this:

You could probably go a little lighter on the almond but I just love that stuff so I loaded it up.

As I was writing this, I started thinking... what's the official difference between a cupcake and a muffin? Is it the frosting? What if it's a filled, unfrosted cupcake... is it then a muffin? Can muffins be only glazed and not frosted? Can I keep my cupcake unfrosted and have it for breakfast? What is the Newton part of a Fig Newton? Do they sell it on it's own? Have they filled it with chocolate yet? Who keeps taking my scissors?