Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Meringue

Like many New Yorkers, my kitchen is air conditioned only on special occasions. As luck would have it, I have several friends and family members whose birthdays fall during the summer. I grew up in a house where birthdays were always marked by a cake, so as an adult I feel compelled to extend the courtesy by baking birthday cakes for my friends. Those are the special occasions when I crank the kitchen a/c to its chilliest setting, which, to my liking, is just short of snowfall.

This weekend as our nation celebrates its birthday (“234?? You don’t look a day over…”) I’m lucky enough to have a friend who has invited me to watch the big fireworks display from her rooftop aerie. I’m using the description “rooftop aerie” more for fun than for accuracy. The truth is, her apartment is relatively modest, although she does have a postcard view of the Empire State Building and shared use of the roof. I’m not sure if her kitchen is air conditioned, even on special occasions. I’m too shy to ask. The question “Is your kitchen air conditioned?” seems a tad too close to “Is your refrigerator running?” for my comfort. I’m a little long in the tooth for what we used to refer to as “chicken calls.”

(You don’t remember “chicken calls?” When we were kids we’d pick folks at random from the phone book, call them, ask, “Is your refrigerator running?” and when they’d say, “Yes” we’d say, “Well you better run and catch it!” and then hang up.)

(Yes, I know it’s not funny. But I was – what – 8 or 9 years old? Where I grew up this was practically considered gang warfare.)

(No, I didn’t learn to cook at the reformatory.)

My second favorite modern convenience, after air conditioning – caller ID – has all but eliminated the scourge of chicken calls.

I am worried about the relative coolness of her kitchen because of the all American menu that has been planned — take out Chinese food and my cupcakes. The Chinese food can take care of itself: I’m worried about the cupcakes. If her kitchen is hot I’ll worry about them sitting out on the counter too long (The frosting will melt.) I also have what they refer to as a scheduling problem, that is, I don’t really have time Saturday or Sunday to bake and frost cupcakes. My only choice is to make them a few days ahead, and then stare fear in the eye by calling ahead to reserve fridge space.

Unlike Mrs. Weasley in the “Harry Potter” books, I don’t have the skills to wave a magic wand and make food appear. So, instead of magic, I’ll let chemistry do the work. I know that many folks insist that you can only bake cookies and cakes with butter. I, however, do not subscribe to such absolutes in baking (or in much else, to be honest.)

Bakers down south have agreed with this tenet for years. True Southern Red Velvet Cake is made with oil, not butter. Aside from making a lighter, springier, cake, oil has the further advantage of solidifying at a lower temperature than butter. What this means for me and you is that we can bake cakes with oil, store them in the refrigerator, and they’ll be light and springy right out of the fridge, unlike butter cakes which need some time to come up to room temperature. In addition, cakes made with oil freeze and thaw beautifully.

All of this got me to thinking about my sister-in-law. One of the “givens” of any chocolate cake made within my family is that it must be large enough for left-overs. After the stress of a long day’s work my sister-in-law eats forks-full right out the box without even removing it from the refrigerator. (And she’s what my Auntie used to refer to as a “mere slip of a thing.”) The point is, sometimes chocolate cake tastes better on the cool side.

On a warm summer Fourth of July night under the stars a nice cool piece of cake would be yummy. Frosting and fireworks. That’s my kind of holiday. Chocolate frosting is okay cold, although I admit it is better when the chill is off. There must be a frosting that tastes good and is the perfect consistency right from the fridge. (Not to mention saving me the round trip down stairs from my friend’s rooftop aerie to take the cupcakes out of the fridge to warm up.) Clearly it was time to get to work in the Butter Flour Eggs Frosting Lab.

I had already decided to bake Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes, an oil-based recipe. Red Velvet Cake is usually frosted with a cream cheese frosting but I usually frost Chocolate Cake with Italian Buttercream, which is a cooked meringue beaten with butter. It is smooth and fluffy. Splitting the difference seemed to be the obvious answer, as in Cream Cheese Meringue. I made the meringue as usual, and then beat in the cream cheese. The result was a bit loose, but the advantage of that was that instead of standing frosting cupcakes I merely dipped the tops of the cupcakes in the frosting. Each one came out smooth and perfect, with a little “Dairy Queen” swirly top that drooped as the cupcakes sat a while which lessened the cupcakes’ appeal not a bit.

Yes, yes, I know, Italian Meringue requires you to cook sugar to a specific temperature, and by extension requires the use of a candy thermometer. Never fear. You can substitute a jar or two of Marshmallow Fluff and beat that together with the cream cheese. The result will be a bit sweeter, and perhaps slightly overpower the delicate Chocolate Red Velvet cake, but that fear may be a reflection of my own preference for making things from scratch. Short of a blind side-by-side taste test who’s gonna know?

Either way, they’re Yankee Doodle dandy.

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Click here for the recipe for Chocolate Red Velvet Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Meringue.

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Blackberry Tart - deconstructed

A trainer at my gym related an experience he had a few nights ago. Just to set the scene, this guy is in tip-top condition; not an ounce of body fat. A seemingly virtuous paragon of discipline and self control.

Until the cookies called his name.

He reported that he woke up in the middle of the night and could not get back to sleep because a package of chocolate cookies was calling his name. He ate the entire package before returning to sleep.

Some of you reading this may think, “Well, if he has such discipline, one slip like that isn’t going to kill him.”

My reaction veers more toward relief: Relief that my struggle with will power is not as abnormal as I think. Relief that even those among us who seem to be paragons of self-control have their own “moments.”

And, relief that I am not the only one on a first name basis with his cookies.

Of course, it is my own darn fault. Nobody puts a gun to my head and orders me to bake cookies.

With that swirling in my mind, a friend called and invited me to a barbecue this weekend. Would I mind bringing dessert? (Is the Pope…?)

Fasten your seatbelts and get ready for the usual onslaught of news stories about how this is the “unofficial first weekend of summer.” For some folks this may mean that it is time to head over to Kmart for a new inflatable pool, but for me it means (and yes, I can tell you’re way ahead of me here) the official first weekend of summer eating.

Everyone loves the warm weather (except for pale, sweaty me.) But, I think there’s an unacknowledged caveat here: in the warm weather we have less material with which we can camouflage our various bodily flaws. So yes, everyone loves the summer, but everyone is self-conscious about this bump or that bulge (or both, in my case.)

Under the circumstances, I feel guilty foisting my usual parade of sweets upon a sun-baked, half naked, will power-compromised audience.  I sympathize: if I eat enough of my own desserts, it’ll be hard to distinguish me from the pool float, so light and easy does it.

A trip to the market answered all doubts about my ability to provide something summery, sweet, and light (ish), but still hit the proverbial “dessert spot.” (I can’t stand getting home from a party and feeling like I need to root through my fridge for a little something, so I want to make sure the other barbecuees will be equally sweet tooth sated. I take the request, “Will you bring dessert?” as a job description, not a social nicety.)

This week, California blackberries and strawberries are in abundance and cheap at the market. There’s the backbone of my Memorial Day dessert right there, yes, but the question remains: what to do with them?

The berries are very sweet and juicy, so it would be a shame to bake them into a pie or crisp. Nevertheless, dumping them in a bowl, even with whipped cream seems anticlimactic. What if I made a pie – deconstructed? Perhaps I’ve been watching too much of the last half hour of “Iron Chef” (the only part of the show I like; that’s when they eat) but here’s an example of what I mean: You and I both know what an Ice Cream Sandwich is, right? But as seen through the lens of a pastry chef, an Ice Cream Sandwich is really just ice cream and cookies. You could serve them in any order and still call it an ice cream sandwich, granted, at times what a pastry chef serves may be stretching the name of the item to the limit.

(Some years back we had a happy family meal with our 90-plus year old aunt at one of “superstar” chef Bradley Ogden’s restaurants. Auntie reveled in the whole thing, giggling like a schoolgirl as the waiter described the ranch from which her Veal Chop was sourced. Dessert time rolled around and the chef presented us with an extra dessert, Fresh Citrus Agar. As we dug in, we all had the same reaction: “Oh! Lemon Jello!” Yes, we are a sophisticated bunch.)

But I digress from my digression. The point is that I can do whatever I darn well please with my berries and crust, and still call it a pie or tart.

I checked my freezer and found some Pâte Sucré waiting for an assignment. (Doesn’t everyone?)

(Pâte Sucré is the slightly sweeter version of pie crust.)

When I was a waiter, I used to see the old cliché berry tarts all the time: fluted crust, frangipane filling, and berries glazed to within an inch of their lives. Delicious, yes. Berries in their natural state? No. For Memorial Day I’m stripping away some of the varnish.

I started by rolling the thawed Pâte Sucré to ¼” thick, and cutting 3” diameter round disks. Before baking I washed them with egg and sanded them with granulated sugar. As they baked briefly in the hot oven, they puffed slightly. The result is like a dryer version of puff pastry, the dryness being desirable because I’m not a fan of puff pastry, which always seems tasteless and greasy to me.

I dabbed a bit of Crème Fraiche on the cooled rounds, and plopped a few chilled blackberries on top. Other rounds got Chambord-spiked whipped cream and sliced strawberries, the latter being too plump whole to fit on the pastry. An ample sprinkling of Demerara sugar added sweetness, a bit of amber twinkle, and a soft crackle in the mouth. Three or four of these little pastries on a plate swiped with very, very soft chocolate ganache should keep everyone happy.

Now the important question: do I really have to wait an hour after eating before jumping into the inflatable pool?

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Cornmeal Waffles

My Junk Mail Box has been inundated of late by offers of roses for Mom on Mother’s Day. Yes, I read the stuff that lands in my Junk Mail box. Even worse, I like some of the junk mail I get, although I admit that I’ve never consciously purchased anything from one of those offers. I think it appeals to the same “hunter / gatherer” instinct that causes me to spend way too much time trawling the aisles of the supermarket hunting new things. Don’t come with me to Zabar’s unless you have a bit of free time on your hands.

Anyway: the roses. My Mother likes roses, but whenever she has been given daisies she always claims those as her favorite. I distinctly remember her buying bunches of daisies for herself every now and then.

She’s not the only Mom who has expressed this preference: I have a friend (a Mom of an eight month old and a three and a half year old (!)) who agrees with my Mom.

So why all the fuss about roses? Note to 1-800-Flowers: some of these women want daisies.

The other classic gift for Mom is breakfast in bed. I’m afraid my Mom has never gone in for this either, but don’t let that throw you: breakfast is her favorite meal. She would just prefer to have it served on a beachfront terrace in some pampering resort. My kitchen is small. I can do breakfast. I can’t do beachfront resorts.

That’s okay.  As the man says on TV, “Make it work.” The breakfast foods my Mom likes are corn muffins and waffles. Why not combine the two? Cornmeal waffles anyone?

As I saw it, there were two roads I could take to get to my goal: Muffin Avenue or Waffle Boulevard. I thought that the ideal would be to serve Mom the waffle equivalent of a crunchy muffin top. Sounds like a good idea, yes?  I mixed a very basic corn muffin recipe and fired up my trusty waffle iron. The result was best described as pointless. I ended up with a waffle that just wasn’t the right consistency, and a muffin top that had some crunch but lacked the springy mattress of crumbs that always lies under the crunch of a muffin top. Most disappointing was that the direct heat of the waffle iron was too intense for the cornmeal, lending it a flavor that wasn’t burnt, just sort of over-toasted.

Better to let a waffle be a waffle. My dream waffle (dream waffle???) has a happy blend of flavors and textures: a little sweet, a little grainy, with its fluffy insides held in check by a lightly crisp jacket. Good waffles pair expertly with more than just scrambled eggs and bacon. Throw a couple of waffles on a plate and place a few slices of turkey with a touch of gravy and you’ll never look at an open face Turkey Sandwich the same way again. (Chicken and Waffles? Molto bene!)

I’m getting ahead of myself: first I have to make the waffles. I didn’t want to go through the fuss of yeast waffles; this was definitely a make and bake exercise. The burning question (well, hopefully NOT burning) was: how much cornmeal should I add to my waffle recipe to give it a lingering hint of corn muffin while still remaining a waffle? Too much cornmeal would prevent the waffles from puffing up in the iron, too little and why bother?

My favorite plain waffle recipe (from The Baker’s Manual by Jospeh Amendola and Nicole Rees) seemed like a good starting point. It makes a thin, eggy batter that I assumed would hold up to my addition of cornmeal like a good soldier. The recipe calls for ¾ cup of cake flour. I swapped that out for ½ cup of yellow cornmeal. This, along with the addition of a bit of extra sugar and stingy amounts of cinnamon and nutmeg was ideal.

The result was a moist waffle with an almost malty sweetness. The next time I’ll feel free to add perhaps another tablespoon or two of cornmeal, but it really isn’t necessary. These are waffles that are definitely waffles, but there is that faint undercurrent of muffin, and that’s all I need. A dusting of confectioner’s sugar, and a sliced strawberry or two were all I needed to be happy, and I’m sure Mom will be too. (If your Mom likes Maple Syrup, serve her the real thing. It’s a special day, right?)

In the meantime, Happy Mother’s Day to Dori, Alexandra, Leslie, Betsy, Cindy, Rosemarie, Sylvie, Barbara, Nancy, and all the other moms who have made our lives so happy.  (And oh yeah: my Mom too!)

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Click here for the recipe for Cornmeal Waffles.

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The Easter Bunny has been here...

I have to admit I love the kitsch aspect of any holiday. Paper honeycomb fold-out turkeys on Thanksgiving? Please put mine front and center. American flag toothpicks on Fourth of July? Can’t have enough. But for true kitsch lovers I think the real competition is between Christmas and Easter, although admittedly, Christmas wins by the sheer volume of electrically-driven things that light up, flash, and spin. Easter is slightly more analog.

Surely you can’t not smile at all the carrot-clutching stuffed Easter Bunnies currently lining store shelves? After a winter like we’ve had in the Northeast, I almost feel like I could get a tan from the jelly beans and yellow and pink Marshmallow Peeps smiling at me in the drug store. If their shiny pastel colors can’t cut through the gloomy weather, then the sugar buzz they deliver will.

My cousin Hope has invited me to her Easter egg hunt. She’s been arranging these hunts for her boss’ kids every year for a long time and I think she invites me because she has always thought of me as her “little cousin.” (We grew up a couple of doors away from each other, and she’s a decade older, so I think she’ll always think of me that way.)

I’ve always looked up to Hope for her artistic ability – there’s a strong artistic strain that runs through our family – and for her ability to marry a great business mind and entrepreneurial spirit with that ability. (She’s a catalogue merchant and jewelry designer.)

She’s also an excellent cook, although I suspect that what she really enjoys is supervising while her husband and I do the actual cooking.

This is my way of explaining that I find the thought of bringing her something from my kitchen a little intimidating. She is never less than supportive and complimentary of my baking, but in the past I have always copped out and brought candy. This year, there’s the blog you’re currently reading, evidence of my kitchen skills, and therefore an implied obligation to do more than just supply the elusive Avatar-blue Peeps.

I decided that a routine research trip down the Easter candy aisle at Duane Reade was the best way to start. While cruising this sugary Amazon, perusing the M&M’s bagged to look like carrots, the glowing jelly beans, and the foil-wrapped chocolate eggs, I realized that what I really wanted was to make something that included all of the above.

“Is there a way to bake an Easter basket?” I wondered. Hmmm. Why not?

Shredded coconut was my first thought – it would imitate the fake grass that people use in real Easter baskets. From that my mind went to the sticky, old-fashioned coconut cake I used to see protected by a plastic dome at Howard Johnson’s. That seemed ideal, except in scale. When the discussion centers on cake, scale is easily remedied by breaking out the trusty old cupcake or muffin tin. A cottony white cupcake, fluffy white frosting, the coconut, and just a few pieces of Easter candy on top. Each Easter egg hunter would have their very own, very edible, Easter basket, and that seemed just right to me. (And no chocolate mess.) (Well, from the cupcakes.)

White cake recipes usually try to dress up the end result with almond extract, but for my purposes the cake was merely there as a pedestal for other things, so no almond extract here. And to keep the coconut firmly attached to its pedestal I decided to use enough über-fluffy Italian Meringue to make the clouds in the sky jealous.

Obviously you’re free to use whatever Easter candy you prefer as the ingredients of each “basket,” but my choices were distinguished little gold-foil wrapped Lindt Milk Chocolate bunnies, a few Dove Milk Chocolate eggs, and a smattering of jelly beans. Enough sugar to sink a battleship. I skipped my original idea which was to tie licorice whips to each cupcake to simulate a basket handle; in theory it was cute, but in practice it set off the kitsch alarms.

If you’ve never made Italian Meringue, yes, it’s a bit convoluted. But don’t confuse convoluted with difficult;  with a Kitchen Aid mixer, a candy thermometer, and a little bit of patience, in short order you’ll be spooning little clouds of the stuff on top of cupcakes. (Meringue is also fat-free, not a bad trade off for all the sugar.)

The end result of my trial run was placed before a panel of experts pre-Easter to make sure kids would like the cupcakes. The panel (my brother, a rather large kid) declared that they were “…all about the meringue on top.”

Lavish praise indeed. Wait until the Easter Bunny tastes them.

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Click here for my recipe for Easter Basket Cupcakes.

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I couldn't wait. I started without you. Sorry.

It shouldn’t surprise you that I define holidays by the anticipated food, not unlike the way a teenager weighs where to spend Saturday night based on which friends they expect to see at which party. (“Omigod, Heather will TOTALLY be there!”)

The difference is that I divide holiday food into two categories. Category One: holiday food that I love. Category Two: holiday food that I tolerate due to nostalgia. At no time are these two categories more distinct than during Passover, the Jewish holiday that celebrates the Jews’ escape from slavery in ancient Egypt.

Here’s the deal: Passover food is a challenge game. Make anything you want, just make sure there’s nothing leavened. If you’re really strict (and I’m not), anything that is allowed to bake too long and puff up too much – even if it does not contain yeast, baking powder, or baking soda – will leave you out of compliance with the rules. The Rabbis who supervise the official baking of Passover matzo will force the bakers to discard a batch if it stays in the oven too long.

Flour? Sorry, no. The various Passover flours are versions of ground matzo. Some smell like wet paper when used in a recipe, also a challenge.

Some folks may find this sacrilege, but to me matzo is like Christmas. It should only happen once a year. I love them both, but any more than an annual visit and you wouldn’t appreciate them. The novelty is in the nostalgia value. I was probably 10 years old the last time I ate my Grandmother’s Passover Potato Kugel, and I can still taste its greasy, salty, goodness. But I’m a realist: I know that if I ate her Potato Kugel now, the word “agita” would get a sweaty workout. (My Nana was many things, but good cook was not one of them. I don’t remember her ever baking anything, but she did open a mean box of cookies.) (Sorry Nana.)

You get the point. Speaking solely for me, the main appeal of Passover food is its once-a-year novelty. The frustration is that those of us who enjoy baking and cooking and are spoiled by the fresh simplicity of the great stuff we make all through the year have a tough time eating macaroons from can. Or worse.

I think the answer can be found in a sort of a recipe for Passover recipes. The ingredients are big flavors, lots of texture, minimize the ground matzo, and find stuff that you would gladly eat and serve to anyone at any time of the year.

A while ago I remember seeing a cake baked on TV that was rustic and what I imagined to be typical of what you’d find if you’d been invited to dinner at a farm in cooler Northern Italy. It was a hazelnut cake that contained mostly ground nuts, sugar, and egg whites. That seemed like a good place to start. (I think with food it is always hard to goof if you start with Italian.)

I googled “Piedmont Nut Cake” and found “Torta di Nocciola,” which is indeed a traditional cake from that alpine region. A little tinkering would be needed to suit my needs. Well, one big tinker: I needed to find an elegant way to include a generous dose of chocolate with the cake. My sister-in-law is hosting our family Seder this year. If I arrive without chocolate in hand I will be turned away at the door. Naturally I am happy to comply with this requirement.

The basic recipe isn’t that far from Angel Food Cake. Whipped egg whites supply the loft; the only fat is whatever is in the ground nuts. Usually when you want to add chocolate to Angel Food cake you fold in ground chocolate as cocoa powder requires a lot of mixing which could deflate the egg whites. Why not apply the same principal to my Piedmontese Passover cake?

One stumble on the way to the altar: I couldn’t find hazelnuts anywhere. Channeling my inner Alice Waters, I grabbed what was fresh and available: whole raw almonds. (Use nuts with the brown skin still on. They’ll dot the cake with their earthy flecks.)

The resulting cake has a large-crumbed dampness that is usually missing in Passover cake. The egg whites reveal themselves in the cake’s snappy crust. The cake feels light, but beware its deceptive richness. The chocolate and the almonds skip hand in hand; a well-known match made in heaven. The almonds were actually a better choice in this version of the cake. The gods of baking were obviously smiling on me when they forced me to substitute almonds for hazelnuts.

All that was left was to test the cake on some unsuspecting victims to prove that it could be more than just a Passover dessert.

A tiny group of us met for dinner a few nights ago. I arrived, Piedmontese cake in hand, with visions of the old “We’ve replaced their gourmet brewed coffee with Folgers’s Instant Coffee” TV commercial dancing in my head. Fortunately our host was making pasta. As dessert rolled around I tried to act casual but failed. Yes, they loved the cake, but there was no equivalent of the “This is instant coffee? Really??” moment from the old commercial. I kept saying, “It’s a Passover cake!” They kept eating. Couldn’t have cared less.

Oh well, you take success where you can get it.

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Click here for my recipe for Torta di Mandorla per La Pasqua (Passover Almond Tort)

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Write to me at the email address below with any thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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Irish Brown Soda Bread with smoked salmon

When I was a kid my Mother wouldn’t let me eat Lucky Charms breakfast cereal. She said they were too sugary, and while I suspect she was correct, I still yearn for those hard little marshmallows. There was something so wrong about them that they were oh so right. I only mention all of this because I am trying to highlight how un-Irish I am. Yes, my name is Michael, a name not uncommon to the Irish, but even if you dressed me in a green suit, stuck a pot of gold in my hand, stood me at the end of a rainbow, and made me shower with Irish Spring for a month, I still wouldn’t be Irish. Not unless my forefathers traveled here from Minsk by way of Dublin.

Hey, what are you gonna do?

I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do: I’m gonna bake Irish Soda Bread. And I’m gonna bake the most authentic Irish Soda Bread you ever tasted, even if it takes hours of research and travel.

Conveniently, Bon Appétit magazine just published an article about actor / writer Andrew McCarthy’s drive through Ireland looking for what he thought of as the perfect, true Irish Soda bread, saving me countless hours, and thousands of dollars in travel expenses.

(You may remember McCarthy as one of the “Brat Pack” stars of ‘80’s films like St. Elmo’s Fire and Pretty In Pink.)

Irish Soda Bread is really a lesson in the chemistry of leavening. As its name implies, it relies on baking soda for its rise as opposed to the yeast that is used in other breads. Baking soda requires an acid to work, so a generous dose of buttermilk (a heavy duty source of lactic acid), along with a bit of butter are the sources of moisture in most soda bread recipes. The buttermilk plus a generous ration of sugar give it the familiar gluey sweetness everyone expects.

The recipe printed in Bon Appétit magazine, Mrs. O’Callaghan’s Soda Bread, appealed to me because it uses a mix of regular flour and whole wheat flour, promising a truly rustic brown bread. I was hoping for the sweetness and richness you expect from soda bread, along with the ascetic, rough hewn character that whole wheat flour brings to the mix. (Reminds me of John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara, but in bread instead of in The Quiet Man.)

I hasten to add that I do not have a great deal of experience baking Irish Soda Bread. It was not something I saw with much frequency as a kid. As an adult I have noticed that much of the Irish Soda Bread that hits the shelves in anticipation of St. Patty’s Day tastes more like a big buttermilk scone studded with raisins and, sometimes, caraway seeds. What I liked about Mrs. O’Callaghan’s recipe was that none of that silly stuff is invited to the party. I also liked the fact that the Mrs. O’Callaghan quoted in the article (she bakes the bread for the Ballinalacken Castle Country House and Restaurant in Doolin) recommends a slice of her bread with a bit of butter and a slice of salmon.

I am making the dangerous assumption that she meant smoked salmon. True to any food-porn magazine’s mission, I could practically taste the smoked salmon as I read her recommendation. If I am going to be truthful here, I need to admit that pairing the sweet, wheaten bread with some oily, smoked salmon was my real motivation for trying the recipe.

On a lark I decided to also check out the recipe as posted at Bon Appétit’s website – and it’s a good thing I did. It seems that folks had some trouble with the recipe as printed in the magazine, so the editors went back to the drawing board, or in this case, the Test Kitchen, to make a few changes. For my money I think the 425˚F baking temperature is still a bit high. I may recommend dropping this to 400˚F, or even 375˚F and letting the loaf have a longer, slower bake. I was seriously worried that mine was going to burn. In any case, use the recipe on their website (linked below), not the one in the magazine, and keep your eye on the loaf towards the end of the baking time.

(By the way, I totally sympathize with the folks at the magazine. While baking is an exacting scientific endeavor, it can also be curiously inexact, captive to the vagaries of how my oven differs from yours, and whether you measured your flour by the dip and level method or by the scoop, fill, and level method.)

In spite of whatever problems there may have been translating the recipe from Mrs. O’Callaghan’s “little bit of this, little bit of that” measurements, the basic method for making soda bread can only be classified as easy. Very easy. Especially using a Kitchen-Aid stand mixer.

The bread itself was exactly as I had hoped. In the bargain, I have discovered a brown bread that is very easy to bake and that pairs well with smoked salmon. This will prove useful in my repertoire. A smear of butter, a slice of smoked salmon, a restrained rain shower of lemon, and I was a happy man. Granted, the bread was baked by me in New York, the butter was from Vermont, and the smoked salmon was Scottish. If not authentically Irish, then authentic in spirit, yes?

And on St. Patrick’s Day aren’t we all Irish?

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Click here for Mrs. O’Callaghan’s Soda Bread Recipe from Bon Appétit Magazine.

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Write to me at the email address below with any thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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Profiteroles

“One nice thing eez, the game of love eez never called on account of darkness.” – Pepe Le Pew

Pepe Le Pew: now there’s a true romantic. He never gives up on love. He approaches it with a single-mindedness that could almost be enviable. And yes, you may have noticed that he is as French as une baguette. The last bit makes sense, given that Parisians, indeed all French, have had a reputation for romance grafted onto their identities like a tattoo. (That Pepe Le Pew happens to be a cartoon skunk is irrelevant to my thesis.)

I have been trying to find out why Paris is considered the most romantic city in the world. No matter who I ask or where I look on the internet, the closest answer I can get is that “it just is.” Songs have been written about it, movies have been made, and books have been published. So who am I to argue?

Perhaps you are familiar with the famous “French Paradox.” This is the observation that the French suffer a relatively low incidence of heart disease, despite having a diet relatively rich in saturated fats.

Pepe Le Pew

But herein lies my French paradox: how can it be that a place and a people so famous for being romantic can also be famous for rudeness? (Not like New Yorkers, who are sooooo nice.) It reminds me somehow of what Socrates said about love, “The hottest love has the coldest end.” So perhaps my paradox is explained by twisting Socratic reason: French passion burns white hot, but is icy cold when you ask for your vin ordinaire to be refilled. They may be rude, but they’re rude with style.

(Quoting Pepe Le Pew and Socrates in the same story must be some kind of journalistic breakthrough.)

The following bit of news is unlikely to come as a surprise: for me all roads lead to food, and any place where your visit isn’t considered complete unless you’ve partaken of an éclair or two (or three) gets a gold star on my map. So if the people are rude, I figure I can always drown my sorrows at les patisseries, non?

Valentine’s Day is this weekend. Last week I described baking Valentine Heart cookies. They are a sweet and wonderful thing to make for your special someone, but if something more transcendent is called for then may I suggest a really cheap trip to romantic Paris?

No, I am not saying that you should fly to Paris for a day in the middle of winter (although if you want to that’s good too.) But the Butter Flour Eggs Travel Bureau would like you to know that Paris can be as close as your kitchen, and just as romantic as the real thing. All that is needed is a touch of atmosphere, and, yes, some butter, flour, and a few eggs. Oh, and a big hunk of chocolate. Okay, two big hunks of chocolate.

Here’s the bottom line: if Paris is the most romantic city in the world, then why not toss out the flowers and the candy, and instead serve something typically Parisian? Life may be a box of chocolates, but for me, Valentine’s Day is all about Profiteroles.

Profiteroles are a staple of Parisian patisseries. In simplest terms, they are small cream puffs filled with ice cream and drizzled with chocolate sauce. Such an underwhelming description, yes, but like Paris, it’s more about the experience and the sum of the parts than about the mere bricks and mortar.

I don’t remember the first time I had Profiteroles, but it wasn’t in Paris. I’ve had them through the years here in New York at the venerable Café Un Deux Trois. While I was preparing to write this article I Googled, “Who serves the best Profiteroles in Paris?” Number one on someone’s list was a patisserie named Carette. (Warning to office dwellers, their website site plays music.) If you’ve been to Paris it is likely you are familiar with Carette as it is hardly an undiscovered secret. For several days I have been fixated on their website, specifically the pictures. Looks like a place I could spend an afternoon, eating.

You may be thinking, “Are you crazy? You want me to make cream puffs?” I’m not crazy (at least not measurably), the effort is all in the name of romance, and cream puffs – Pâte à Choux – are ridiculously easy to make. Really. Meatloaf is harder, I swear.

There’s also a dirty little secret about Profiteroles: they can be made a day or two ahead and stashed in the freezer until you need them. Just thaw them for a fleeting twenty minutes or so – long enough to unwrap jewelry (hint hint) – glaze with the intense, oozing gloss of a special chocolate sauce and l’amour is alive in your kitchen. Feel free to eat them with a spoon, but they’re small, so why not pull a “Mickey Rourke” and feed each other with your hands? Messy? Ah, you’ll figure it out.

If your kitchen isn’t especially atmospheric, light a few candles and fire up some classic French love songs on your iPod; anything by Charles Aznavour, Edit Piaf, or Yves Montand will do the job, and they’re all available on iTunes.

As one of those songs says, “C’est si bon / Lovers say that in France / To the tune of romance / It means it’s oh so good.” I think that is as true for romance as it is for Profiteroles.

Of course on Valentine’s Day, I know a few folks who may prefer a little ditty sung by Beyoncé that beseeches the listener to, “put a ring on it.”

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Click here for my recipe for Profiteroles.

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Write to me at the email address below with any thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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Valentine's Day Cookies

A couple of classmates from elementary school “friended” me recently on Facebook. To protect the innocent I won’t say how many years have gone by since I’ve seen them. As happy as I was to hear from them after all these years, I also found that it raised some strange emotions for me. I think the passage of time has always had an ineffable quality for me; I can count the time passed in numbers but I can’t quite wrap my head around what it means.

One of these long lost school mates reminded me that when we were kids I always gave everyone in our classroom a Valentine’s Day card. I admit I found this a bit disconcerting:  you mean everyone DIDN’T give everyone in class a Valentine’s Day card?? What was going on there? Were they raised by wolves?

I remember vividly that every year there was the ceremonial carving of the shoe box: everyone decorated a shoe box with a slot cut in the top. Everyone placed them on their desks to serve as a Valentine’s Day mailbox. I remember a flurry of activity as everyone ran around the classroom delivering their cards. I do not remember why I was so generous with my little paper hearts and cupids. Was I sentimental or romantic? Was my Mom teaching me some early lesson about etiquette and letter writing? Maybe it was the simple math of me observing that there were twenty-something cards in the pack, and assuming that I was supposed to use them all?

Whatever the reason, it is a relief to know that for once, I had it covered. Phew.

Living here in New York, I am a witness every year to the adult version of this ritual. I always get a laugh out of seeing the long line of quietly panicked men at the florist and at the Godiva store much too late on Valentine’s Day. I never see women in those lines. I’m not sure why, but I got a hint the other day when my Baby Niece (or “B.N.”) called me – more than two weeks before Valentine’s Day – and asked if I would help her make a special treat for her boyfriend (lower case.) I think she’s trying to make him her Boyfriend (upper case.)

She wants to surprise him with cookies (he doesn’t read this blog so this won’t ruin the surprise.) I think this is a great idea. Anyone can go out and buy chocolate, but the extra step of making something or planning something is what makes a gift romantic on Valentine’s Day. It says, “I was thinking of you, and you mean enough to me that I took the time and planned something special.” I am not advocating stalking, rather, I am merely suggesting consensual obsession.

Nor am I advocating that you should forego including jewelry as part of your Valentine’s Day gift. If I did that I would likely be disinherited by my Mother and have to endure the scorn of the other women in my family, as well as countless others. Jewelers everywhere can now breathe a sigh of relief.

I was more than willing to bake the cookies for her and let boyfriend (lower case) operate under the delusion that she baked them – the sugary equivalent of Cyrano de Bergerac. (How’s that for romantic?)

But no, B.N., an intrepid young woman, insisted that she needed to do it herself under my supervision. My only concern was that my kitchen is a bit snug for two adults to comfortably work. Also, we were planning on dipping the cookies in chocolate; to bake them, wait for them to cool, and then dip ‘n decorate (can I trademark that term?) would mean perhaps a longer day than either of us was willing to give to the project.

In the past I have described my usual division of labor for projects of this type. To be brief, I prefer to break the work into pieces. For these Valentine cookies I decided that the pieces should be: A) I’ll make the cookie dough B) I’ll bake the cookie dough C) B.N. will decorate the cookies.

That weighty decision done, I unearthed a very simple, not too sweet, shortbread recipe I had cobbled together. This is one of those “double duty” recipes I always like. You can use it for cookies, but if you omit the egg it makes a great crust for lemon bars, or pecan bars. As B.N.’s boyfriend (lower case) prefers milk chocolate (I approve!), I thought this humble cookie would be the best delivery system for the milk chocolate.

We had a bit of time between “cookie day” and Valentine’s Day, so I knew I needed to be extra careful with the chocolate. During that time the chocolate could become streaky or discolored – especially if refrigerated. Tempering chocolate is a process that allows you to melt it and let it set again without streaking or discoloring. Tempering chocolate requires raising it to a particular temperature, then cooling it slowly by folding it over on itself on a cool marble slab. It requires a bit of skill, patience, and space. I’m one for three. Barely.

Instead, I found a shortcut technique in a really beautiful book titled, “Baking At Home with The Culinary Institute of America.” Their shortcut involves simply melting two thirds of the chocolate on top of a double boiler, then adding the remaining un-melted chocolate and allowing it to melt while stirring until the chocolate reaches 84˚F to 87˚F. Sounds convoluted? The fault is in my description, it is really very simple.

B.N. and I had a blast. This is a really low stress project. One of the reasons for the lower stress is the sheer scale of the project: at Christmas you feel compelled to bake enough cookies to feed a small country. On Valentine’s Day you can get away with as few as three or four and as many as a dozen. Unless you’re baking enough for the whole class.

You can see samples of our collaboration in the picture above. The question remains: will boyfriend (lower case) be promoted to Boyfriend (uppercase)?

We’ll see. But for now I’ve got another Valentine’s Day covered. Phew.

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Click here for my recipe for chocolate dipped shortbread cookies.

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These are a few of my favorite things...

I’m ending the year with a moment of revelation. I had sidled up to the dessert table at a holiday party, and was licking my chops, surveying the goods. Suddenly I became aware of two women working at the same task and leaned in to hear the whispers between them:

Woman 1: “Everything looks so good!”

Woman 2: (Gasping) “Look at those cookies!”

Woman 1: “Will you share one with me?”

“Will you share one with me?” That’s what caused my moment of revelation—enough that my attention was momentarily diverted from the sugar wafting into my nostrils like a soothing opiate. I realized that this was not the first time I had heard that question while standing before a mountain of sweets. I’ve heard it waiting in line for cupcakes at Magnolia Bakery. I’ve heard it while surveying 31 flavors of ice cream, and then again at the party a few days ago.

This reminds me of a friend who is a playwright. He gets a lot of comments about his work. Comments from the people who help him actually get his plays on stage. Comments from the directors who help him shape the story and bring it alive.  Comments from the actors who speak with a supposed inside knowledge of what their character may or may not really do. Comments from friends like me who make suggestions veiled as silly questions.

I assume though, that his most valuable feedback comes from eavesdropping on audience members in the lobby during intermission. There, he hears truths that people can’t or won’t speak to his face.

That’s what I was doing when I was listening to the two women next to me at the dessert table: eavesdropping, and what I took away was that people want smaller, less intimidating goodies.

Hmmmm. Is this my resolution for 2010? Have I started the “tiny foods” movement? Hardly. But out of respect for a world where people live in a seemingly never ending state of “on-a-diet” I am here to declare that you can have your tiny cake and eat it too.

Here’s my theory: Make everything smaller in size and larger in flavor. Each bite should be a punch in the mouth. A chocolate jab to the right? An upper cut of cheese? Okay, okay, I’m painfully straining the boxing metaphor. Mind you, I’m not counting calories here; this is merely an exercise in taking the intimidation out of the stuff you’ve been told not to eat. I think you get my drift: small bite / big flavor = sated with less.

With New Year’s Eve only minutes away, I propose to use the last night of the aughts and the first morning of the teens as a laboratory to prove my theory.

Ines Rosales and Serrano Ham

My first choice? Easy. A few months ago I wrote about pairing Ines Rosales Sweet Olive Oil Tortas with Serrano Ham. I’ll be breaking the tortas into bite sized shards and wrapping them with paper thin slices of the ham. The tortas are a touch sweeter and a great deal crunchier than the usual melon that accompanies Serrano ham or Prosciutto, and less slippery too. To remove anything intimidating from the mix I’ll carefully peel the fat from the ham. Heresy to purists, I know, but still delicious.

Raindrops on roses and whiskers on kittens? Forget those. Gougères are one of my favorite things. For the uninitiated, Gougères are classic French cheese puffs. I’ve decreased the bass and increased the treble: mine are button sized, and instead of the usual sweet, nutty gruyere cheese I found a Double Gloucester cheddar that is almost unbearably sharp—and bearably inexpensive. The sharpness of the cheese will be muted by the rich, eggy pastry; they’re small but they have big, big mouth feel.

Gougeres

Gougères are made from pate á choux—cream puff pastry. Intimidated? Don’t be. Using a Kitchen Aid stand mixer these are so easy to make it’s silly. The added bonus is that if you don’t add the cheese you can use the same recipe to make your own éclairs, cream puffs, and profiteroles. (Ahhh, profiteroles! Another favorite. Watch for an entire blog posting about those soon.)

Don’t forget dessert! Feel free to make those micro cupcakes, but those won’t tempt me. I need chocolate, and will be filling a large bowl with button sized chocolate chip cookies. I’ll be using the plain old Toll House cookie recipe but to give these minis some added punch, I’ll be adding half again as many chocolate chips as the recipe calls for, and adding a jolt by sprinkling an ever so light dusting of instant espresso powder over the teaspoon-sized cookies just before putting them in the oven.

Asiago Cocktail Bread and Eggs

If you’re the type who will be staying up to greet the first dawn of the new decade allow me to recommend Asiago Cocktail Bread. Adding this to your repertoire gives you a yeast-less recipe that can work triple-duty tasks. Toast skinny slices of this cheese infused bread, and you end up with biscotti that can be dipped into glasses of red wine. A smear of onion dip (or just caramelized onions) on the biscotti and you have a no stress hors d’oeuvre that can be piled on a tray. Best of all, skip the toasting step and give folks greeting the dawn a little breakfast nibble by topping thin slices of the bread with a bit of scrambled egg. The untoasted slices give the gratifying starchiness of biscuits, minus the heaviness. (These are really good for those who the sunrise may find a bit “over-bubbly-ed.”)

If you’re wondering which bubbly to buy without breaking the bank, don’t overlook Prosecco, the Italian sparkling wine. Sweeter than most champagnes but much less expensive, Prosecco is very approachable—more so, I think, than the equally inexpensive but much drier Spanish Cava. That’s just my preference. I’m a lightweight and will spend most of the night drinking a non-alcoholic bubbly so you are allowed to take my opinion with a (very small) grain of salt.

Hey: see you next year!

Santè!

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Click here for the recipe for Gougères and click here for the recipe for Asiago Cocktail Bread.

In case you missed it, read my original posting about Ines Rosales Sweet Olive Oil Tortas. More about this next week…

Write to me at the email address below with any thoughts you may have. I’ll be happy to hear from you.

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In glorious Technicolor, and Stereophonic Sound

Every time I watch a holiday movie, an angel gets its wings. I can’t help it. During the holiday season my fascination with food as it is portrayed on screen dovetails with an obsession I’ve long had with holiday-themed movies. Yes, I know everyone loves “It’s A Wonderful Life”—me too. But there are other movies I watch that are perennial favorites which also tickle my foodie-bone.

“Holiday Inn” is a veritable buffet. Most folks would be content with Fred Astaire dancing and Bing Crosby singing “White Christmas” beside a glowing hearth in an empty inn. Not me. I look for the scenes where Bing is in the kitchen plating New Year’s dinner to music, and later, lovesick over losing the girl (you know the formula: boy gets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back), he refuses to eat “Mr. Jones”, the Thanksgiving turkey, claiming he knew “Jonesey” too well. The Thanksgiving dinner he refuses always makes my mouth water – startling when you consider that the movie is in black and white.

Crosby is perhaps better known for singing “White Christmas” in a later movie named for the song itself. As much as I enjoy that movie, and in spite of the fact that it is also set at an inn, it doesn’t have the same culinary appeal as “Holiday Inn.” The most we get to see is a glass of Coke and the remains of a sandwich. But that’s okay, the movie has other charms.

This year though, my attention has been drawn to a lesser-known holiday movie, “Christmas in Connecticut.” I have been writing this blog for several months and writing about the charms and limitations of cooking in my small New York apartment is, I think, part of what makes the engine run. “Christmas in Connecticut” shares a similar theme, albeit with the conceit that in addition to working from a tiny New York City apartment, the protagonist, Elizabeth Lane, “America’s Best Cook” (played by Barbara Stanwyck), actually can’t cook. (I can!) But here’s a taste of what I mean, and why, this year, I am so tickled by this film:

The camera pans from a close up of a woman’s hands typing on a portable typewriter to a grimy window from which we can see the backs of several New York City buildings. In the foreground, waving in the wind, laundry is drying on the clothesline of a neighboring apartment.

Elizabeth: “From my living room window as I write, I can look out across the broad front lawns of our farm like a lovely picture postcard of wintery New England.”

The camera tilts down to a radiator, which is hissing loudly as steam escapes from a valve.

Elizabeth: “In my fireplace the good cedar logs are burning and crackling.”

The camera pans back to the desk to reveal Elizabeth Lane as she takes a bite of her breakfast: a plate of sardines.

Elizabeth: “I’m just about to go into my gleaming kitchen to test the crumbly brown goodness of the Toasted Veal Cutlets á la Connecticut in my oven. Cook these slowly…”

I’ll spare you the plot synopsis—rent the DVD from Netflix—but suffice it to say that Stanwyck finds herself in a bind and ends up having to go to great lengths to live up to the farm housewife image she has created. It’s a charming film, perhaps a bit old fashioned, but if you’re looking for lessons about life to reflect on during the holiday season, this is not the movie to screen. Stick to “It’s A Wonderful Life” for sermonizing; this flick is purely a romantic comedy.

But it’s that small patch of real estate that Elizabeth Lane and I share that makes me reflect on some of the hoops through which I must leap in my own cracker box-sized urban kitchen. The flip side is, of course, that I think I could teach a thing or two about project planning, including risks, milestones, and scope creep. Cooking or baking is the supreme exercise in organization. Start with a concept, make a list, end with a birthday cake; it’s not magic, it’s organization. (That thumping noise you hear is yours truly patting himself on the back.)

I always joke that if, someday, I am blessed to have a huge, fully tricked out kitchen, due to my experience in my itty-bitty kitchen, I will still use only a few square inches of space, and continue to balance all the bowls on the edge of the sink (uh, the huge, deep, white porcelain farmhouse-style sink.)

Ha ha ha.

The truth – hopefully—will likely find me luxuriously spread out around a marble-topped island while in the background, the oven of my six burner restaurant-grade stove is preheating. “Where did I leave those eggs? Uh-oh, they’re all the way over there.”And ‘round and ‘round that island I will trot, lap after lap, burning off the calories of the goodies I am preparing.

Ah, one can dream. Are you listening, Santa?

Many years ago I waited tables in a distinguished Manhattan restaurant run by an equally distinguished chef. The dirty little secret was that the kitchen was smaller (and hotter!) than most home kitchens, including some New York apartments. Yet, they turned out four-star cuisine (still do.)

I always consider eating to be one of life’s great pleasures. There’s a reason food tastes good. There’s a reason why food in every culture is an expression of love. Consider the word “feed.” We feed our stomachs. We feed our souls. Sometimes if we’re lucky we accomplish both in the same exercise. Food maintains us, helps us thrive and grow—sometimes to excess, yes, but you get the point.

So, it isn’t the size of the kitchen, is it? It’s the size of the heart.

(I’ll just keep repeating that over and over the next time I feel hemmed in by my kitchen.)

Okay, my holiday sermon is done. I’m hungry! Let’s eat!

You’re wondering: what is that big, fat, chocolaty concoction in the picture above? That’s the Buche de Noël I made for a friend’s Christmas party. Also known as a Yule Log Cake, it is not exactly subtle or delicate. Calling it sweet would be an understatement. While transporting it to the party I kept referring to it (in my mind) as “The Beast”—understandable, as it was large enough to serve at least fifteen people. What makes me laugh is that folks at the party were a bit intimidated by it. Someone had to drag me out of the kitchen (where all good parties end up) with the exhortation that, “Everyone wants to eat the Yule Log, but they’re afraid to touch it unless you make the first cut.”

Really? That wouldn’t have stopped me: I would have asked, “Hey, where’s the knife?”

Of course I also made cookies for the party, but I wanted some kind of special focal point on the dessert table, something epic. If I were in the movie business this would be my big holiday release. Consider it my “White Christmas in Connecticut at Holiday Inn.” It stars two flavors of buttercream (chocolate and coffee), with cocoa biscuit á roulade (jellyroll cake) in a supporting role. A chorus of beautiful meringue mushrooms rounds out the cast.

I hope you are duly entertained.

Happy Holidays to you and the ones you love! Don’t forget to leave cookies for Santa and the reindeer.

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A few days ago I had the great pleasure of spending time with a wonderful woman named Helen Stafford of the Ronald McDonald House of New York. Helen gave me a tour of this amazing facility which provides a temporary “home-away-from-home” for pediatric cancer patients and their families. The Ronald McDonald House is supported entirely by private donations. Please read about this amazing place, and keep them in mind when considering your year-end charity donation.

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Want to make your own Buche de Noël? Write to me at the email address below if you want the recipes and process for the Buche de Noël—or any other thoughts you may have. Thanks!

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