Orange Yogurt Cake

I'm trying something new here; I'm going to try to make this blog ever so slightly more like a normal blog where I discuss more than just food. Not that it won't remain food focused. Every post will still start and end with whatever I've baked and many will, I'm sure, never vier from my tied and true formula of discussing the recipe I've used or developed. But in at least a smattering of posts I will talk about me and what happens to be going on in my life.

Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cookie Sandwiches

I made these for Sophie and her family. The cookies are the chocolate cream cheese snacking cookies from Baked's latest cookbook. I've made them before and had wonderful feed back. The main thing about these cookies is that people who say they don't like sweets or really chocolatey things like them and people (like me) who would live on chocolate if they could like them. I figured that'd be good since Sophie's parents aren't as into sweets but her sister is and Sophie herself falls somewhere in between.

Almost Healthy Pantry Apple Crumble ~ With Recipe

The last weekend I was with my friend Sophie we went to her place upstate. It was lovely and we picked up some beautiful peaches and apples at a local farm stand. I picked up some oatmeal at the store and planned to make a peach crumble, but it turns out all the peaches had been eaten...oops! So I decided on apple crumble instead.

Blueberry Muffins with White Chocolate Chunks

Remember the plum muffins I made a while ago? All the fruity muffins I've made since haven't managed to live up to those. They were pretty much the perfect muffin. But I love plums (and strawberries, a variation I made) and I don't like blueberries. Sophie loves blueberries and had some left from a batch that were so gorgeous I enjoyed them when they were baked in pancakes, so I figured I'd use them up before they went bad. Of course buttermilk pancakes with maple syrup are good enough to make up for blueberries--would the muffins be enough? My answer is an emphatic yes!

Fresh Red Currant Scones (with recipe)

Sophie loves red currants. Apparently when she was young there was a giant currant bush near her house and she used to nosh on them until her tongue went numb from the tartness. So when her mom found gorgeous fresh currants at a famers market she got them for Sophie. Unfortunately, Sophie's tolerance for tart isn't what it was and she couldn't eat them raw.

What to do with fresh berries? Muffins or scones. She had some blueberries that were going to turn and I wanted to make them into muffins, so I figured currant scones. I based my recipe off the strawberry and chocolate scone recipe from Alice's Tea Cup, but with the fresh currants instead of strawberries (obviously) and no chocolate. They were excellent! The sweet(ish) scone dough contrasted nicely with the tart currants (which were not overly tart since they were slightly over ripe and slightly baked from the oven).

White Chocolate, Blackberry and Lime Eton Mess

As I understand it, Eton mess was first served at Eton and was a messy dessert of strawberries (or bananas) and cream (or possibly ice cream). Later they started adding meringue to the dessert and thus the dessert we know today--meringue, strawberries, and lightly whipped cream--was born.

I love traditional Eton mess with strawberries, but I decided that after our dinner of onion tart and filet mignon I couldn't just serve plain old strawberries and cream. I decided to substitute blackberries for the strawberries. That's not really much of a change so I figured I'd add some white chocolate (it's so good with blackberries) to the whipped cream. But white chocolate crème d'or, no matter how delicious, mixed with blackberries is no longer Eton mess. So I whipped up some cream with a bit of lime juice and zest (both pretty and delicious) and folded the meringue pieces into that.

Savory Onion Tart, the remake

Remember this? I first made this in culinary school and loved it so much I made it at home a couple times. One of those times happened to be for Sophie. That may have been a mistake. Ever since, she's been asking (nagging...begging...) me to make it again. If you don't remember it, basically it's a flakey, tender, buttery tart crust topped with sauteed onions, heirloom tomatoes, walnuts, and stilton.

Sophie's Mushroom Ragu

I have never used The Joy of Cooking and I don't think I've ever eaten anything someone else has made out of it. Until yesterday. And now I realize I've been missing out on something. This mushroom ragu--ragu or ragout refers to a main course stew, in case you were curious--was delicious! I'm not sure exactly what the recipe called for; Sophie--the same Sophie who recently made me that delicious lemon pasta with caviar--said she's changed it a bit over the years, but I assume she's captured the spirit of it since she did have the cookbook open to the very stained page with the recipe on it.

Chocolate Cake with Peanut Butter Buttercream~with recipe

My friend Sophie's birthday was a few days before I went to visit her so I had to make her a (belated) birthday cake. I knew I wanted to make chocolate cake (because who doesn't love chocolate birthday cake?) but I was torn between coconut buttercream (since it was such a hit with the coconut macaroons) and peanut butter buttercream. I thought the coconut and chocolate would be nice, sort of mounds bar like. But of course chocolate and peanut butter is a classic combination. I was leaning towards coconut, but I figured I'd let the birthday girl decide. I'm glad I did and I'm glad she chose peanut butter. It was delicious! The peanut butter buttercream was perfect. The taste was sweet and rich and perfectly peanutty--it reminded me of the peanut butter nougat I made in class and for my final exam. The texture was surprisingly fluffy for something made primarily of butter and peanut butter.

The buttercream recipe is:

Sophie's Famous Lemon Pasta with Caviar

Alright, maybe it's not famous. But it should be. Whenever I have dinner a my friend Sophie's house, I request this dish. Happily for me, I'm staying with her for the next three weeks, so I bet I can convince her to make it again before I leave.

This dish is actually quite simple and perhaps I should start making it for myself, but I think half the fun of it is that it's something I only get on special occasions with Sophie (of course the other half is that it's caviar on pasta!)

Eating Out

Sorry I've been offline. I've been on vacation with limited Internet access. In the spirit of being on holiday I've been eating out. A lot. At some very nice restaurants.

It's been strange being back in NYC as a tourist, but nice because I've never had an excuse to eat at Bar Boulud, Jean-Georges' Nougatine, and Cafe Fiorello over the course of only two days--lunch, lunch, dinner. (The excuse was actually my mom's birthday, but if we'd been living in the City we certainly would have had at least one of the meals at home.)

Coconut Macaroon Sandwiches

These were AMAZING! I always love coconut macaroons and they just so happen to be gluten free. But it's not Passover and Pops (who loves my "coconut do-dads") wasn't around so I didn't want to make boring old plain coconut macaroons. I happened to have some left over plain buttercream lying around and decided to make macaroon sandwiches (inspired, of course, by traditional French macarons). Martha Stewart has a recipe in her Cookies cookbook for just such a thing. I used her proportions for the macaroon "dough" which was pretty much perfect for scooping and molding once chilled. They baked up beautifully and didn't fall apart at all (a problem I sometimes have with macaroons).

Healthy Breakfast

For something a little different, I thought I'd make something that wasn't sweet. Actually I cook a reasonable amount, I just don't usually think it's blog worthy. This, however, is definitely worthy of my blog.

My mom and I are trying to eat healthier. This means that breakfast has mainly been fat free yogurt with berries and granola or oatmeal made with water (I make a mean oatmeal, but it does get old). Occasionally an egg white omelette breaks the monotony. I decided to mix things up. And about an hour later (my time management isn't great when I'm cooking...) we had oven baked home fries, sautéed mushrooms, and scallion scrambled eggs.

Individual Berry Crumbles

My mom has always loved Nigella Lawson's jumble berry crumble recipe. So from time to time I make a crumble mixture and leave it in the freezer so I can toss it on top of a ramekin of frozen berries and have dessert with almost no effort. Generally, I do this in the winter since I serve it hot out of the oven.

But then I thought about it and realized that a crumble would be the perfect use for fresh berries that were maybe getting a little sad. My cousin was coming over for dinner so I needed a gluten free dessert and my strawberries weren't fresh enough for Eton mess (the dessert I'd planned to make). What a perfect opportunity to test my theory.

Scribble Roses

A few months ago I saw a good guide on Arty McGoo's blog on how to paint scribble roses onto royal icing coated cookies. I decided I had to try it and did so with pen and paper (well actually with a finger on a drawing app on my iPad).

Anniversary Cake, con't

Various views of the finished product

Okay I lied before, I'm not just leaving you with one photo! Here's another montage:

The cake at various stages of not-done-ness

Anniversary Cake

As I mentioned, my mom and I volunteered to make my a cake for our cousin's 40th anniversary. We decided on an impressive, 4-tiered confection. You can see the baking process, as well as a generalized timeline for making a large scale cake here. In addition to that guide for making a wedding cake, I'd like to share some thoughts specific to making this cake:

The cake that inspired me

Sugar Dahlias

A finished dahlia.

Sugar paste dahlias, as it turns out are made with daisy cutters of varying size. They aren't terribly hard, but then again they are quite tedious. You have to work quickly but still carefully and relatively precisely when you are frilling the petals. You have to brush each layer with petal dust before you put them together and then touch up the whole thing at the end (unlike roses which are typically dusted at the end only). But they aren't as difficult as roses, since the petals are all attached to each other and you just have to put on layers of them.

In the process of making the outer petal layers.
Notice the parchment between the petals to hold them
in position as they dry.

How to Make a Wedding Cake

As I mentioned, I'm making a wedding-style cake for my cousin's anniversary party. Making a large, tiered, fondant-enrobed cake takes time and planning; the key to a successful large-scale project is making a schedule. At culinary school, we had to make schedules that accounted for every minute of class time. At home I don't get so granular, but I still need a general, but still relatively comprehensive schedule.  I personally prefer to devote large chunks of time to working on the cake with days off when needed, rather than working on it for small amounts every day. I also like using buttercream when it's freshly made (when I can, at least). Given those preferences, here's the schedule I worked out:

My final sketch

Sugarpaste Practice

My cousins are celebrating their 40th anniversary quite soon and my mom and I volunteered to make the cake. We want it to be really special so I'm practicing making gumpaste/sugarpaste flowers (I haven't made any since my wedding cake and final exam showpiece at school so I definitely needed practice). Right now the plan is a 4 tier white fondant covered cake with brown accents. We want a few, large, hot pink flowers for a pop of color, so my plan is to try a bunch of different flowers and decide on one type to make.

I made a ranunculus (pictured at the top of the post). It's rather like making a rose, but you don't have to frill/curl the edges so it's a bit easier. Of course you also have to put on a ton more petals so it's much more tedious. I really happy with it, especially for my first try. Unfortunately they are a little small for the cake because we want a few larger flowers not clumps of smaller ones.