Cupcake Marathon
May 6th, 2012
Don’t ask why — the reasons are long and complicated, involving at least four countries and more than one birthday — but this week I made 11 dozen cupcakes and one layer cake. Luckily, I happen to own a stainless steel mixing bowl that could eat Chicago.
First, I made four dozen vanilla cupcakes from my favorite “California Cake” recipe (circa 1865). Then came four dozen chocolate cupcakes, using a fantastic vegan recipe learnt from a fellow member of the Fourth Street Food Coop in NYC. That was followed by a dozen gluten-free chocolate lavender cupcakes from a mix. And last, but not least, two dozen carrot cupcakes and a two-layer carrot cake.
With the exception of the carrot cake and cupcakes, which require cream cheese icing as a matter of course, I topped the cupcakes with butter cream in various flavors:
- Vanilla cakes with pink rosewater cinnamon butter cream
- Vanilla cakes with milk chocolate butter cream
- Chocolate cakes with purple vanilla butter cream dipped in shredded cocoanut
- Chocolate cakes with coffee butter cream
- Gluten-free chocolate lavender cakes with purple vanilla butter cream
Here’s the majority of my handiwork. A few cakes didn’t make it out of my kitchen…and it wasn’t long before a few more were swiped by passersby once I delivered them to the lodge. We hid the layer cake until it was time for the candles to be lit.
The cupcakes were a hit — and I even saw a few people eating them the next day for breakfast! The remains of the carrot layer cake are in our refrigerator, haunting us with every overwhelming mouthful.
Pumpkin Scones
November 28th, 2011
Remember that leftover pumpkin from my Thanksgiving pie? I mixed it into a batch of scones this morning.
Here they are, ready for the oven, brushed with milk and sprinkled with demerara sugar. I also threw in some golden raisins and traditional pumpkin pie spices. The scent wafting through my apartment as they baked was maddeningly delicious. With plenty of spice already in the scones, I’d probably serve these with a strong, straightforward tea — something smoky, perhaps Irish, with a drop of cream.
Real Pumpkin Pie
November 26th, 2011
There was a shortage of carving pumpkins this year, thanks to some inclement late summer weather. So for Hallowe’en this year I bought a pair of petite pie pumpkins to make Jack O’ Lanterns. Only I was too tired to carve them. They sat on my kitchen shelf for nearly a month before I decided to use them in a Thanksgiving pie.
This was the first time I’d ever used real pumpkins — not canned. According to the directions I found online, the first step was to cut the pumpkins open and scrape out the seeds and pulp.
I washed the seeds and put them aside to dry out and roast the next day.
Apparently it doesn’t really matter how you cook the remaining pumpkin flesh. Microwave, oven, or steamer. Steamer seemed the best choice in my tiny garret kitchen.
After about 20 minutes, the pumpkin was dark and soft and fragrant. As soon as the pieces were cool enough to hold, I scraped it off the skin.
It looked a little stringy at first, but after a good stir with the fork, voila!
I needed 2 cups of pumpkin (plus 1/2 cup brown sugar, 3 beaten eggs, 1/2 cup heavy cream, and spices to taste) for my pie filling. I had about 2 and a half cups in all, so I put the remainder away for later. I poured the mixture into my crust and . . .
Plenty O’ Pumpkins
November 16th, 2011
The pumpkin is a native American squash, beloved for centuries for its sweet flesh and savoury seeds. American Indians dried strips of pumpkin during the fall harvest for use through the winter. Today, thanks to canning and freezing, we can eat pumpkin whenever we please. But for me, pumpkin is one of the few foods — like hot apple cider — that retains its exclusively fall appeal. And suddenly it’s pumpkin season!
In the past few days, I’ve found myself nearly swimming in pumpkin. Yesterday it was a slice of pumpkin pie with whole wheat crust at lunch and criminally decadent pumpkin and coconut ice cream (two different flavors sharing the same bowl) after dinner. Tonight, I treated myself to a box of fresh pumpkin ravioli from Raffetto’s* to go with the rest of my homemade sun-dried tomato pesto and a bottle of Wild Horse central coast pino noir that pairs perfectly with sweet and savoury.
And I mustn’t forget the two sweet pie pumpkins waiting in my larder to become Thanksgiving dessert. Needless to say, there are a number of pumpkin pie receipts from the mid-19th century. I’ve got my research homework cut out for me this weekend.
*Raffetto’s is a small, family-owned Italian food store on West Houston Street that has been supplying Greenwich Village with delectable fresh pasta for more than 100 years. They’re still going strong and tasty, one of the few holdovers from the early 20th century when Little Italy stretched north to the south eastern section of the Village. If you’re in New York, or planning a visit, you owe yourself a taste!
Salmon Croquettes
October 9th, 2011
If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years, it’s to be resourceful. When life leaves you with massive amounts of left-over baked salmon, make croquettes!
Before this week, I was well acquainted with croquet, but not so much with croquettes. I’m not sure if the relation between the two words goes any further than their obvious homographic tendency, but I now have a full appreciation for the latter. Thanks to Feeding America, I found this receipt in a cookbook compiled from reader submissions to The Los Angeles Times, published around 1905:
The bread crumbs were a bit tricky, as the only thing remotely akin to bread that I had on hand was a box of Swedish rye crisps. But a few minutes in the food processor did the trick. They were dry though, and I think I may have had more than a pound of salmon — I had to add an extra egg to make it all stick together. I used paprika instead of pepper and threw in a few minced scallions for good measure (one of the salmon croquette receipts I didn’t use, because it called for cream, included paprika, another called for scallions).
The mixture was very light and fluffy. I shaped it into little cakes and fried them in butter. My kitchenette smelled incredible as they began to heat through — the rye from the crackers adding to their fragrance.
I’m pleased to report that they were delicious. Very light, almost airy, and delicately flavored. Not fishy at all. We ate them over nutty short grain brown rice with lightly steamed asparagus.
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