Apple Cider Donuts.
I would like to state, to put on the record if you will, a little fact. A disclaimer. A truth that may be contrary to what seems apparently obvious. That is, I would like you to know—whom ever it is that reads this baking blog—that I actually do eat real food. I do, I promise. I enjoy salad, sushi, meat, tofu, vegetables, soup, cheese, pork buns, ramen, bacon, bread that’s not coated in sugar. Food that actually stays within that lovely food pyramid, food that does not contain more than a day’s worth of a the suggested fats and sweet stuff.
I want you to know that I do not only use caffeine, corn syrup, and lard. I promise. Sometimes, I even eat an apple.
So while, I may not have photographic proof of said ‘real’ food, it’s true. I do actually eat real things that haven’t been baked, glazed, frosted, or sandwiched with peanut butter or almond-sticky-goodness filling.
But what I do have are pictures of donuts. Delicious, freshly fried and rolled in cinnamon sugar Apple Cider Donuts of the fresh from the Midwestern orchard—though I may be a season or too late—that are hot and perfectly crispy, dense and spicy without being of the doorstop-variety. Perfect rings and holes of apple-pie-like donuts.
Filed under: Breakfast | 3 Comments
There’s something about trashy and low-end that’s appealing. Especially when it comes to good. Curly fries anyone?
So one of the more interesting food trends of the first decade of the new millennium—as I get closer and closer to two decades old, using all-encompassing time periods becomes more appealing—is the high/low-end mixture of food. And my little holiday-time visit to the Momofuku militia only confirmed that. Pork buns, ramen, and fried mochi sticks? Asian street-food, the equivalent of Ian’s Pizza and In-N-Out. But delicious and redone, with pork belly, spicy sauce, and ginger-noodle redux. The Milk Bar especially caters to all the foods-stuffs of a forgotten childhood from the infamous Compost Cookies, Cereal Milk Soft-Serve, to the streusel butter cream chunks on numerous cakes.
But the Cornflake Cookies, oh the cornflakes. While great in theory, the cookies were reminiscent of dim sum. (Which I’ll attribute to being a little old perhaps, quite unfortunate.) But I just couldn’t get over the idea. It was phenomenal. Combine marshmallows, cornflakes, and fine chocolate in the best kind of cookie, huge and caramelized with the requisite outer and inner rings of cookies texture. So I tried it and in the spirit of the high/low-end trend, I made these cookies—along with some tried-and-true Pecan Bars—for a little New Year’ après ski. (Yea, yea, it’s almost February.)
Filed under: Bar, Chocolate, Cookie | 4 Comments
Chocolate Babka, Redux.
I really have to apologize. I’m really, truly, sorry. So sorry, it’s embarrassing. You see, I’ve let you down. I heralded this Babka recipe as the best, the ultimate, the be-all and end-all of the best babushka-made Jewish food product. But I was wrong, so very, very wrong.
Don’t worry though, this Babka recipe, right here, is the best. I promise, I really do.
Why, you might wonder, is this recipe any better? It looks similar, it’s pretty much the same. And it is. But it’s really not. It’s the Babka, new and improved. This Babka Redux is the real deal, the kind of loaf that should make Jewish grandmas and children weep with delight. Real tears of absolute joy. It’s the kind of loaf that deserves to be weighed by the pounds, heightened to the status of the most unholy and delicious of foods. (Bacon, off the top of my head.) It’s the kind of loaf so marbled and striped with the creamiest, silkiest chocolate filling that each slice is absolute-zebra beauty. It’s the kind of loaf that brings out the defensive loaf-hide in a sorority girl. The kind of loaf that is hidden, because you do not want to share.
Filed under: Bread, Breakfast, Chocolate | 2 Comments
Lemon Pucker.
One of the best Christmas presents of the year was, of course, not necessarily one of my own. Not to be ungrateful or trite, it’s just honestly hard to beat the over three hundred glossy—oh so glossy—wide and satisfying pages in Thomas Keller’s newest book Ad Hoc. For anyone even vaguely interested in food, so most of the well-fed and happily pneumatic human race, it’s a sort of pilgrimage to Mecca Delicious, reading that book. A strange a delicious enlightenment if I may be excessively hyperbolic. Excited to fangirl status am I, really, and Trekkies got nothing on me.
But even in my slightly embarrassing infatuation, there are moments when, reading Keller’s instructions, I just have to sigh. “Really, Thomas Keller?” I ask, sometimes aloud. It’s like my best Seth Meyer’s impersonation. “Really, Thomas Keller, really?”
Filed under: Bar | 3 Comments
Rainbow Cookies.
This post is being written in secret. It wouldn’t have to be a stealth mission, but something bad happened. Something really awful has struck this kitchen in these times of holiday glow and glory.
All the Rainbow Cookies are gone.
For the holidays we’ve gone east, to that big noisy place that sometimes goes as New York. Where the snow is always yellow, there’s dog excrement all over the ground, and everyone’s in a big, great hurry somewhere. But oh, yeah. It’s also that fantastic place where there’s always something going on, there’s museums and culture coming out of everywhere—buildings that go on for miles, an obelisk or two—there’s a whole world’s worth of cuisines and people on one island, and there’s something about that park in the middle. Right. It’s beautiful in the snow. It’s a pretty good place, second only to California if I may add a little bit of bias. Which—revelation number two, here it is—I can. A blog, what a wonderful thing.
So why, in this winter wonderland, am I hiding out? Why am I sitting in the cupboard? It has to do with the cookies. Those seven-layered, rainbow hued cookies. What do you find at the end of the rainbow? Not a pot of gold that’s for sure. But some cookies, in this family? That’s what everyone’s chasing light for.
Filed under: Bar, Chocolate, Cookie | 1 Comment
Gyoza.
There’s something about small, bite-sized, purse-shaped food that’s really quite appealing. To both the purse-carrying and not-carrying parties. It may be the element of surprise, that when biting into the crispy and browned exterior and then getting a little taste of something extra flavorful. And best of all, there’s absolutely no limit to the variety. There’s sweet and steamed, ala char shu bao or the pork buns of Momofuku fame. There’s baked and glazed pork puns, garlic chive and shrimp dumplings, sweet and fried bean cured pastries, crispy and floury taro balls…. and maybe the best part is, one could, potentially, eat them by the handful.
After all, there’s a reason recipes produce 75.
Amongst all this dumpling glory however, the best have always and will always be the gyoza my Japanese grandmother turned out. By the hundreds. They’re really quite perfect, a fresh and flavorful potsticker in a thin, crispy skin. Dipped in some ponzu, and at ten years old I could eat twenty over the course of a day. Really, I could.
But of course, any recipe from Nana comes with the added excitement of, you know, not really having a recipe. “Just pour in some sesame oil,” she said when I called over the phone. How much cornstarch, I asked. “A couple tablespoons, until it looks right.” Yea, sure Nana. Whatever you say.
Filed under: Savory | 8 Comments
Chocolate Caramel Pecan Tart.
In case you were under the impression that this was a health-conscious blog—for some reason that does not appeal to any sort of logic, at all—this may come as a bit of a surprise. But when recipes are considered, when ideas are floated around, squeals of delight and giggles most commonly coincide with the recipes that contain the absolute maximum amount of fat, sugar, and fat. “Oh Ina! That extra cup of cream is a great idea!” Or, “Martha! Five sticks of butter? Of course!” If there were a god, he would be make of churned cream. And lard.
If there is an extra stick of butter thrown in, for no apparent reason except good measure, the recipe is more likely to get made. A pound of chocolate, a box of sugar, it just makes the little piggy recipes waddle up to the front of the queue.
Filed under: Chocolate, Tarts and Pies | 5 Comments
Pink Flufferoons.
The first time I made macaroons I did not know about feet. I did not know about aged egg whites, egg white powder, powdered food coloring, or the proper technique to obtain the signature glossy macaron shell. Really, I did not know what a ‘French Macaron’ was which, in retrospect, hinders the actual making of said cookie. Not that my initial result wasn’t tasty, it just didn’t look like the picture Martha had provided me. But I chalked that up to my domestic goddess inadequacies and went off to fall quarter at school blissfully unaware of what I was missing. And what I was missing were feet.
Feet, the signature of a real macaron. That perfect little base of puffed egg and sugar which elevates that macaron above other cookies in elegance and appearance. It’s a pretty cookie, let’s be honest, and after some research and enlightenment in the way of the oven, I returned home for winter break determined to perfect a macaron recipe that rose with feet for me.
Somewhere along the path of enlightenment, I learned that the Oreo, another beloved sandwich cookie, is the cookie of the United States and that the Macaron is the cookie of France. I was a little perturbed. The Oreo, while delicious in it’s own right, falls a little short of the classy Macaron which, if we’re being honest, is a little bit of a snobby cookie. So—logically—I decided to make a Macaron with the same amount of elegance, but at the same time with a little bit of an American twist.
Now, understand, this is just my long justification for using the all-American food-product known as Fluff. Seriously, I wasn’t just curious, I had a real reason for using Fluff. And the irony of a ‘Flufferoon’ is just a plus.
Filed under: Chocolate, Cookie | 4 Comments
Pumpkin Whoopie Pies.
I’m just going to come out an admit it. Sometimes, just sometimes—which translates into almost all the times, without fail and in rain, sleet, and/or snow—I talk to my recipes. It’s not strange, I promise. It’s totally, completely, absolutely normal. Right? Right? So on these, rare, rare, occasions when I may let out a sigh and a little chatter it’s more often along the lines of a “Oh Paula, why?” Or “Oh, Martha, why?” Or “Oh Lydia, why?”
Or, most frequently, “Oh Ina, why? Are five sticks of butter necessary, on top of the pint of heavy cream?” (Which, if you’re wondering, the answer is always, always yes.)
In this case, when I was baking up some Pumpkin Whoopie Pies for a friend’s birthday, it was “Oh, Martha. This is not 12 Whoopie Pies. This is 30 Whoopie Pies. Oh Martha.” I mean, really. I only have a limited number of baking sheets, and after that fiftieth rounded tablespoon goes scoop, scrape, plop onto the countertop, I’ve had enough.
But then the come out of the oven, all nicely baked up and innocent. And after they’re frosted, sitting there lined up like a Pumpkin Whoopie-Army, it’s a little better. And these Whoopie Pies are worth it. They’re perfectly spiced, and with the addition of Pecan Praline to the frosting, every taste comes together in the best kind of cozy fall treat. You know it’s good, I mean, how can it not? These Whoopie Pies are a combination of Martha and Paula, i.e. a lot of fat, a lot flavor. “Oh, Mar-aula, why?”
Filed under: Breakfast, Cookie, Tarts and Pies | 3 Comments
Pecan Balls.
There are cookbooks and magazines, there are the food blogs and newspapers, and there are the online recipe engines. There are televisions shows, web casts. Today all it takes to find a recipe is a little bit of Google and a couple keywords. But before all of this, before all the posts and drops downs, the pages and printouts, there were mothers. And before the mothers came the grandmothers. Or the Nana, prefix included.
Nana, a Japanese import to the Marina District in San Francisco as I’ll always remember her, is a funny lady. She wouldn’t share her recipes with her daughters, but hey, as a granddaughter I think I have a little extra pull. From Nana I’ve probably inherited an over-appreciation of sugar, and under-appreciation of a balanced diet. She was the one with Ghirardelli chocolate squares and Italian hard candies in her purse. At all times.
Filed under: Cookie | 1 Comment
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