So Much: A Diary of Decadent Desserts

The Friday Night Burger Crew Does Dessert

2012-01-27T17:20:00.000-08:00

The Friday Night Burger Crew, somewhat of a "thing" in December 2011, has come back in full force in January 2012 - though not always on a Friday, and usually with more than a burger. In fact, adding "Dessert" to our name would be appropriate! Let's review what we ate together this month.

Our first gathering featured a Fleming's burger and a Finale dessert, on a Wednesday, no less. If I had a picture of the burger, it would probably get blogged in this post, but I'll have to content myself with telling you all about a new item at Finale that combines two of my favorite things. This, dear readers, is Finale's peanut butter pie!

This immense dessert consists of a thin cocoa-peanut crust, one thick layer of peanut butter mousse, a thin chocolate ganache layer interspersed with peanuts, another thick mousse layer, and a substantive frosting-style topping of chocolate ganache. Garnishes include crumbled peanut brittle, chocolate gelato, and a creamy peanut drizzle.

The pie's crust is unremarkable. A dry blend of cocoa powder and peanut flour, it has less flavor than you would expect, and it crumbles too easily. The mousse itself is interesting, but not substantive enough to be the core, defining component of the dessert. It is extremely light and fluffy, with a very faint peanut butter flavor. It's more of a sturdy whipped cream than any mousse I've had, so I could more easily see it as a garnish on a cake or tart. The ganache layer separating the mousse layers is delicious, albeit too thin; fortunately, the topping makes up for that! The peanuts sounded like a nice touch but were actually disappointing. They had become too soggy in their proximity to the moist mousse, and as you may know, few dessert items are more unpleasant to me than soggy nuts. Moving on up the cake, we end with a gloriously thick topping of that chocolate ganache. Smooth, dense, and bittersweet, it is the perfect opposite to the airy, sugary mousse.

The garnishes are complex and interesting. The gelato, a chilly burst of bittersweet Valrhona chocolate, packs enough chocolate punch to compensate for any bites of pie lacking ganache. The peanut drizzle, seen at the tip of the pie, is boldly nutty and heavy with cream. The dessert as a whole benefits from the assertive peanut flavor; I only wish there was more of it on the plate! I do not recommend the peanut brittle, seen at the far side of the plate. Nuts, salt, sugar, and condensed milk do not make for a dessert, in my opinion, though the powdered brittle would be an interesting topping for the gelato or the ganache.

I'm not sure if I would order this pie again, but I appreciate Finale attempting a flavor pairing that is near and dear to my heart!

The Crew's next outing found us dessert-ing at an unexpected location. Firebrand Saints serves all manner of meats - the options include, and go beyond, mind-blowing burgers - in a bustling industrial space near Cambridge's Kendall Square. (I'm totally obsessed with the Kendall nightlife renaissance, btw.) I came to FS for the burger, and stayed for the cherry pie! They serve pies made from local fruits; we could choose from pear-cranberry, cranberry-nut, or cherry pie, to be served with chocolate or strawberry ice cream. The cherry/chocolate combination sounded the most appealing, and wow, did we make a good choice. Look at this beauteous slice, with its plump fruit, thick crust, and generous scoop:

The cherries were a delight, so tangy and juicy and bursting with flavor. I detected a hint of citrus in the filling, most likely to brighten the taste (as I have done with apples), and maybe even a faint nuttiness, though I saw no nuts. The crust was really unusual, giving me even more encouragement to try making a crust from scratch. It was simultaneously flaky and substantive, something I've never encountered. The surfaces browned so nicely, and you could taste the warm butter in every chewy, mouth-coating bite. The ice cream was a bit too dense on its own, but that became a non-issue when it was left to melt over and into the pie.

I would guess that FS switches up their pies based on whatever fruits are available on any given day; so, I'd love to go back and see what other varieties they serve. In the meantime, I have a renewed appreciation for fruit pies, particularly the cherry variety. I usually overlook that genre when considering what dessert to order or make, but I now have some compelling evidence to change my ways!

Boston's Best Winter Beverages

2012-01-16T12:52:00.000-08:00

...and by winter beverages, I mean hot chocolate (or cocoa, if you prefer).

Hot chocolate is ideal for SO many reasons. First of all, it lets you consume chocolate and satisfy thirst. Secondly, it's a perfect canvas for additional assertive, dessert-y flavors. Then, it's warm, making it the perfect extension of our heavy cold-weather armor to keep winter's chill at bay. If we want to stretch a bit, we can even say that it's healthy, being milk-based and all. (Always skim for me!)

These reasons have prompted me to explore a variety of Boston's hot chocolate offerings, and choose four that really stand out. Why did these four make the cut? Read on.

Diesel Cafe's turtle hot chocolate, pictured above - this may be the most beautiful drink I've ever seen, and it tastes even better than it looks! Diesel's milk chocolate drink is accented with hazelnut, almond, and caramel syrups. A dollop of homemade whipped cream tops it all off, along with a dusting of cocoa powder. I love everything about this, from the creamy, warm taste of the milk chocolate, to the smooth, silky caramel; the subtle nutty flavors, the cool yet melting cream on top, and the unabashed sweetness of it all (no artisanal x-percent-cacao stuff going on here!). If I lived in Davis Square, I would drink this beverage at a frequency near that of addiction. More than the other three drinks, this exemplifies the hot-chocolate-as-dessert idea.
1369's raspberry hot chocolate - little Julie grew up loving chocolate-raspberry combinations, most of them unique to the Midwest: raspberry Frangos, Portillo's chocolate-raspberry cake, raspberry starfish from the chocolate shop in Oakbrook, and so on. Grown-up, East-coast Julie still loves those two things together, hence my gleeful enjoyment of 1369's beverage. This quirky coffeehouse starts with a milk chocolate hot-chocolate mix, and applies enough tangy raspberry syrup so that the finished product is distinctly rose in color. So pretty, and so tasty. The tangy syrup really makes it - so often, fruit flavors can be cloyingly sweet, but 1369's syrup respects what a natural raspberry flavor is. It's strong, but it blends well with the milk chocolate, whose sweetness is a perfect balance to the not-as-sweet fruit.
Flour's fiery hot chocolate - as with so many things Flour-sourced, I have a soft spot in my heart for this drink: I ordered it the very first time I went to Flour, and it was the first of many spicy/Mexican hot chocolates I would try in the years following. All those drinks later, I still think it's the best! Instead of starting with a powdered cocoa base, Flour's baristas use large scoops of fudge-like solid chocolate, and blend it into a delicious, creamy froth with the steamed milk. Its appearance and taste remind me of the pastry chocolate used within croissants and finer cookies. Then, the "fieriness" comes from generous applications of cayenne pepper and cinnamon. Your mouth stings and burns at first, but it soon mellows out thanks to that smooth, deep bittersweet chocolate base. Most other spicy cocoas bring too much heat, or not enough; Flour's is the only one that strikes the perfect balance between spicy zing and quality chocolate.
Paris Creperie's Nutella hot chocolate - I'll admit it: more than once, I have traveled all the way from Cambridge to Coolidge Corner explicitly for this beverage. (An incidental accompanying crepe only sweetens [or savories?] the deal, mmm.) Unlike the above drinks, which use some form of chocolate as a base, this drink is all about the Nutella. That's right - we're talking milk and Nutella, heated and mixed together, into one perfect chocolate-hazelnut elixir. The baristas are very liberal with the Nutella, so that the end result is thicker and richer than most skim-based beverages. A side note: don't think you're out of luck once the weather gets warmer. The creperie also offers a Nutella frozen hot chocolate, which is the best dessert smoothie you'll ever have.

Of course, it's not always practical to travel for hot chocolate. When I crave this drink within my abode, I turn to Lake Champlain's organic mix...and Bailey's. ;-)

Am I missing anything? I'd love to hear others' thoughts on where to get mind-blowing hot chocolate. After all, this weekend's cold spell will not be Boston's last!

Max Brenner Disappointed Me.

2012-01-04T18:26:00.000-08:00

Happy 2012, fellow dessert fans! Before I jump head- (or, more specifically, mouth-) first into this year's desserts, let's serve, eat, and clean up a few outliers from the last weeks of 2011.

I was eager to eat at Max Brenner as soon as they opened a Boston location! I was familiar with the Max Brenner concept - serving elaborate chocolate drinks and desserts, with standard brunch and dinner fare also available, in a bustling brasserie-style space - thanks to their restaurant in New York City's Union Square; I've ducked in there multiple times to get a treat for the train ride home. But to actually sit down in Max's space, and linger over a dessert? It had yet to happen. I am happy to say that changed in December...though I could have been happier with the dessert in question.

Chris, Andrea, and I managed to find three seats together at their crowded bar on a Friday night - and so it began! Max's Sweets menu was smaller than I had anticipated, but the variety of cravings presented within were a challenge to deal with. I eventually chose the Deep Fudge Chocolate Cake & Shake, since it was essentially many desserts in one. Here it is in its multi-part glory; please forgive the dim bar lighting.

The two best parts of this dessert are pictured in the back - a few sips' worth of chocolate shake topped with whipped cream, at right, and a generous supply of warm chocolate ganache, at left. The shake was extremely rich, bursting with bittersweet chocolate flavor and a good amount of heavy cream. The tiny portion lasted a while, since each thick slurp took some effort. I then drizzled the ganache from the cocktail shaker over the rest of the desserts, and really enjoyed the flavor it added. It, too, was pungent bittersweet chocolate, of a somewhat grainy sort that really stood out against the treats it covered. I only wish it had been thicker. The desserts in front were less remarkable. The milky vanilla ice cream had an interesting garnish, flakes of sweet crepes. But the cake was supposed to be a molten chocolate cake, and it wasn't even molten; the center was barely gooey, and the edges were dry and comparatively tasteless. I would have expected a better signature chocolate dessert from, well, a chocolatier's restaurant.

Chris had the Chocolate Chunk Cookies, an inaccurately pluralized dessert - he only got one "cookie". It looked more like a flattened, dry brownie, and the taste was similarly disappointing. (For tips on how to do a cookie dessert, the Max Brenner folks should read this!) Andrea's White Russian, however, was exactly what she ordered!

Overall, I'd rate Max Brenner as average - workable, yes, but not outstanding in their supposed specialty. I'll go back to Finale if I want to dine on dessert, though I would give Max another try if encouraged. It's still chocolate, after all...

Julie Makes A Carrot Cake - or, Finger Food

2011-12-08T16:28:00.000-08:00

I made my first carrot cake this past weekend! It was one of my more eventful baking sessions.

Bon Appetit's recipes are rather rewarding, since they force me to grow my kitchen skills (by requiring a new ingredient or technique in the preparation) and never end up less than delicious (a readership of foodies would expect no less!). So, I knew this carrot cake recipe was worth a try.

Preparing this cake felt more like cooking than baking.

I had to use more counter surface and kitchen implements than the standard two-bowl baked good.
You use oil, no butter. The initial mixture of oil, sugar, and eggs had a peculiar consistency, at once both gooey and stiff. They blended together effortlessly into a slick, grainy liquid base for the cake.
I washed, peeled, and grated multiple carrots and ginger roots! Grating is a very satisfying and productive repetitive motion. I had three cups' worth of bright orange vegetable bits in no time, and a gloppy pile of ginger too. The ginger was an unexpectedly off-putting yellow.
I chopped nuts with my beloved chef's knife. I couldn't find chopped walnuts at Whole Foods (?!), so I got to work with a cutting board, piles of entire nuts, and the 8" Wusthof. I was making good progress against the recipe's goal of 1.25 cups, and about ready to call it quits, when I decided the batter looked like it could use maybe a few more nutty bits. (Why would I ever think that? Stupid girl.) So, I put a few more nuts on the board and thrust the knife downward...

...into my left middle finger.

I didn't feel any pain at first. But then there was blood flowing onto the cutting board, and I understood that something bad was happening - because, why, look, that was a sizable flap of flesh hanging away from the finger itself. Cue running water over the wound. applying pressure to it, and holding the whole thing above my heart. After 20 minutes of that did nothing to staunch the flow, I switched to a hack-ish apparatus of bandaids, paper towels, and tightly wrapped rubber bands. While this ultimately did the job it was intended to do, it made my left hand useless. Your impatient blogger loved that! Buttering and flouring the pan, pouring the batter, and cleaning up the dinner-scale mess were all challenges. But I got it all done, with my finger throbbing out a frustrated heartbeat in accompaniment.

I also managed to whip up the maple cream cheese frosting! I especially love how the maple syrup replaced some powdered sugar.

So, how did it all turn out?

I was very happy with the output, as was its birthday-celebrating recipient! The cake had a pleasantly autumnal, slightly toasted taste. The toastiness came from the nuts, which surprised me a little; I did not roast them at all prior to baking. The spices I used - fresh and ground ginger; cinnamon, tripled - were pungent before I put the cake in the oven, but they mellowed out while baking and made a pleasantly even, subtly aromatic contribution. The carrots softened considerably, and weren't too noticeable in the finished product. The cake's edges were a tad crispy, while the insides stayed soft and chewy. I would not attribute this to overcooking - instead, the results were consistent with other oil-based baked goods I've seen (1369's peach granola muffin, anyone?), and I actually like that oily kind of crunchiness! The frosting wasn't too sweet, in keeping with the somewhat savory nature of the cake. It was very soft, both at room temperature and when chilled. The maple syrup only gave it a hint of maple flavor, which was just enough of a distinctive, sweet taste to offset the tang of the cream cheese - but, I would have liked a little more. You can't have too much maple syrup!

The finger is also fine, healing marvelously. Consider my lesson learned re careful use of extremely sharp knives.

Lastly, I have recopied the recipe here in case anyone is interested in repeating it, with my minor modifications in italics. Happy (safe) baking!

2 C flour
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
1 T cinnamon
1 C sugar
1 1/4 C canola oil
4 large eggs
3 C grated peeled carrots
1 1/4 C coarsely chopped walnuts
2 T minced peeled ginger
dash of ground ginger
(frosting) 10 oz cream cheese, room temperature
(frosting) 5 T unsalted butter, room temperature
(frosting) 2 1/2 C powdered sugar
(frosting) 1/4 C maple syrup

Butter 2 9"-diameter cake pans. Line the bottoms of the pans with wax or parchment paper. Butter and flour the paper.
Whisk the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and ground ginger together.
Whisk the sugar and oil together in a large bowl until well blended. Whisk in the eggs, one at a time.
Add the flour mixture to the oil mixture, and stir until blended.
Stir in the carrots, walnuts, and fresh ginger.
Divide the batter between the pans, and bake them for 40 minutes at 350 degrees F.
Cool the cakes in their pans for 15 minutes; then, turn them out onto cooling racks and remove the wax or parchment paper. Let them cool completely.
(frosting) Beat the cream cheese and butter together until light and fluffy.
(frosting) Add the powdered sugar and maple syrup; beat until well blended.
(frosting) Chill until just firm enough to spread, roughly 30 minutes.
Frost and assemble the cake. Keep it chilled until 30 minutes before serving; the flavors do best at room temperature!

Publick House Desserts

2011-11-28T16:17:00.000-08:00

No, craft beer drinkers, not that Publick House. I'm talking about the colonial-style inn and restaurant in Sturbridge, MA. My family had our Thanksgiving dinner there this year, and the sumptuous 4-course meal plus the general holiday cheer of the place were really worth the 3-hour round trip. The dessert course involved a liberal slice of pumpkin pie topped with an even more liberal dollop of fresh whipped cream. The pie was smooth, pumpkin-y, and thoroughly spiced.

The restaurant kept on giving after the meal, too…and not just with turkey leftovers. We stopped by their top-notch bakery and chose 6 treats to bring home! We stretched them out over multiple days by cutting each dessert in threes for all to try. Here they are in their bakery box; please excuse the occasional wax paper obstruction.

I really enjoyed the majority of the desserts! The reviews are below, starting with the bottom right of the picture and moving counterclockwise.

Oreo roll cake – The first treat I tried ended up being my favorite. Here we have a slice of a fudgy chocolate cake log that had been rolled with a layer of sugary vanilla buttercream. That refrigerated filler frosting made for a particularly smooth, creamy, and refreshing eating experience. (Perhaps it was PH’s approximation of Oreo filling?) Said glorious slice was placed on its side, and coated all around with a lighter, more whipped vanilla frosting. The “side” of the cake was then rolled in Oreo crumbs, which stayed dry and crunchy despite their moist environment. Then, its “top” was finished off with a large dollop of Oreo buttercream! It had an occasional crunch from the cookie crumbs tossed on top, but overall it was like eating an Oreo…in frosting form. Seriously, the perfect cookies ‘n’ cream confection.
Turtle cheesecake – What a delicious miniature dessert! Its base was a thin graham cracker crust, topped with a slightly thicker layer of bittersweet chocolate fudge. The cheesecake itself had a good, creamy consistency, and a lot of subtle flavor; it was sweet and a tad tangy, with caramel notes. The whole thing was then topped with chopped walnuts and a pool of gooey caramel. Of course, the best forkfuls incorporated crust, fudge, cake, and caramel! Mmm, so many distinct yet complementary flavors in one bite.
Key lime pie – This little pie had a very sweet custard filling with a hint of lime flavor. It wasn’t nearly as strong as I like citrus desserts to be. You can see that it had a squirt of airy whipped cream on top, with a small piece of lime candy. The crust was made of (flavorless) sugar dough – sturdy, yes, but oh so boring to eat.
Spice roll cake – This dessert had so much promise! – but I was disappointed. It consisted of dry, crumbly spice cake rolled the thickest cream cheese frosting I have ever encountered. The cake was barely spiced, with no lingering flavor, and the frosting was barely distinguishable from actual cream cheese! Hardly any sugar or milk must have been added. The cake’s exterior was a bit better; we had whipped vanilla frosting coating the entire slice, which in turn was dusted with graham cracker crumbs.
Carrot cake – This cake showed me that PH can get cream cheese frosting right! The frosting here was much lighter and sweeter, without sacrificing cream cheese’s pleasant tang. The cake was moist and robustly flavorful, with lots of spices, visible nut crumbles, and plenty of tender carrot gratings. No raisins, huzzah!
Gingerbread bar – I was most excited to try this, since it looked and smelled so unique! I didn’t like it at first, but each bite grew on me to the point that I’d rate it a close second behind the Oreo roll. Three layers of dry, spicy gingerbread were separated by moister, slightly sweeter fillings, and topped with cream cheese frosting dotted with cranberries and drizzled in white chocolate. Fillings included sweet, chewy caramel; tart, juicy cranberries; finely-chopped nuts; and gooey molasses. This hearty dessert’s flavor range was one of the greatest I’ve experienced, straddling from the very sweet to the nearly savory. Textures were similarly varied. A distinct offering worth eating again.

So, if you’re ever passing through south-central Massachusetts, I’d recommend a diversion to this bakery. (The restaurant, too, for hearty American fare.) Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Pre-Thanksgiving Feasts

2011-11-21T18:30:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I'll digress from this blog's dessert focus and talk generally about awesome food. What better time to post such digressions than around Thanksgiving, when nearly every day involves epic eats?

Friendsgiving!

This is one of my favorite college traditions, which many of us BC alums still in the Boston area have kept alive in the years since. It all started our sophomore year, when we were living in suites and had access to our own kitchens for the first time. What could be better than a friendly potluck the weekend before we all went home for Thanksgiving? Mary offered to do the turkey and stuffing if the rest of us contributed sides…and as a result of these efforts, the common areas of Edmonds 333 were filled with feasting and fun.

8 years later, we still gather at someone’s apartment for Friendsgiving; Pat and Alyssa were kind enough to host this year. Here is my dinner plate!

As you can see, my portions were in no way moderate. (How can they be, when there is so much deliciousness to be had?) This made eating dessert difficult, as I had hardly any room for it. However, I managed to fit in a slice of my apple spice cake, a chocolate peanut butter cookie, and some chocolate pudding pie with an interesting cookie and nut crust. The only thing missing? One of Lena's "drunk pies". For the record, I would have had the chocolate-Frangelico pie!

*Burp.* I did not eat for 16 hours following that meal. I then broke the fast the following day with…

Sausagefest!

Dante regularly hosts spectacular food events. I had a blast at their Al Fresco Fiasco, so when Laura suggested we attend another event on November 20, I obviously said yes. Their yearly pre-Thanksgiving events have focused on a particular type of food – for example, a Ravioli Rumble or Soup Slurpdown – and this year’s sausage-themed event was…the Sausagefest. Chefs from area restaurants served bite-size portions of sausages and accompaniments throughout Dante’s restaurant space and patio.

I’m not traditionally a fan of sausage. I could rattle off a list of why: its composite nature, fashioned from what I consider the reject parts of its source animal(s); nausea-inspiring collegiate encounters with “street meat”; its (gross) best friends Onion and Pepper, and so on. However, I ate well at this event. I think the variety of meats presented – like wild boar! – and creative accompaniments – like cranberry jalapeno salsa! – piqued my interest. Also, Dante!

My favorites were:

ArtBar’s wild boar sausage in a miniature hot dog bun,
Stella’s pork sausage with pickled onion, citrus aioli, and crispy potatoes, and
Prezza’s mild fennel sausage with polenta, tomato sauce, and grated Parmesan.

Many attendees also liked these; Stella’s Evan Deluty was crowned “Sausage King” at the end of the event!

I then moved on to Brighton for…

Short Ribs and Dreamy Apple Pie!

Greg is an impressive cook! I knew this as soon he made me steak over the summer…and I was actually happy to eat it. (Believe it or not, your foodie blogger had never enjoyed a steak until then.) There have been many more delicious meals since that first cooking adventure. All the while, though, he has said that his short ribs are one of his best dishes. I got to see, and taste, that for myself this weekend...after quite the cooking process. The ribs were prepped with some oil, salt, and pepper, and then stewed in a savory sauce of red wine, tomato juice, onions, and shallots, all in a stock pot in the oven, for nearly 4 hours. The pieces of meat had fallen off their bones by the end of that time, and the sauce had taken on a deep, complex flavor.

Imagine tender, flaky, flavorful beef, with creamy mashed potatoes and the sauce the ribs had cooked in. If it’s possible for meat to very nearly melt in your mouth, I think that’s what happened here. I enjoyed mixing everything together for the best of all meal components in every bite!

Dessert, courtesy of yours truly, was supposed to happen after dinner. We ended up being too full to enjoy it then, but fortunately the next day – today! – has restored my appetite. One slice in, I know this is a go-to recipe. What is this dessert, you ask?

I came across this Dreamy Apple Pie recipe online, and was instantly intrigued by the creamy sauce used to coat the apples, as well as the pie’s substantial crumble topping. I followed the Pioneer Woman's guidance exactly, with these exceptions:

Trader Joe’s pie crust instead of homemade – I know, she who prides herself on from-scratch baking really needs to suck it up and just make a crust already. However, I thought the premade version would be easier to work with.
Cortland apples instead of Granny Smiths – would you have expected anything else?
Moar cinnamon. Obv.

A few comments on the making of the pie:

The heavy-cream-based filling, oh my! A nectar of the gods. This syrupy sauce smelled warmly of vanilla and sugar; my extra cinnamon was not enough to overwhelm the more subtle flavors in the mixture.
I assembled the crumble topping in the food processor as instructed. Wow, that thing can make perfect crumble topping…in less than 10 seconds! I actually over-processed the ingredients and ended up with larger, sticky chunks of topping; I manually broke them apart to achieve a more typical crumble appearance.
The premade crust was a tad too thin. I tore it in several places as I tried to get it in the pie dish. I can see homemade crust having an advantage here, since I could roll it to an acceptable thickness.
The pie baked for 1 hour, and was gently covered in foil up to the last 10 minutes. Those last, uncovered 10 minutes were all we needed to pleasantly brown the pie’s surfaces.

And now, thoughts on the finished pie! The crust was fairly typical and pleasingly buttery. The apples softened an appreciable amount but did not turn to mush, and some of their juice merged with the sugar-cream mixture. In fact, the Londonderry Cortlands' slight tang provided a pleasant and necessary contrast to that sauce. The sauce added a creamy heaviness to the pie, which wasn't a problem in a small slice - no ice cream topping needed! - but would have been overwhelming in a larger one. Still, it was very smooth and sweet, and just apple-y enough. The crumble topping was the best part. Of course, the crumble layer being nearly as thick as the apple layer immediately won me over. There was more to appreciate than just quantity, though. The chopped pecans added a nice nutty depth in both flavor and texture, and I'm still so impressed with the topping's consistency as achieved with the food processor. Overall, I love what this recipe does in terms of taking standard pie ingredients, doing something slightly different to them or adding new twists to the old favorites, and finishing with a really unique and memorable pie.

My only complaint? There is absolutely no way to serve a clean slice of this stuff. Instead, you may expect a plate of pie...slop. It's all good slop, I promise!

~~~

After all that indulgence, I'm going to give my stomach a break - until Thanksgiving, that is. Stay tuned for more on that holiday in these pages!

A Sunday of Old Favorites

2011-11-08T14:17:00.000-08:00

Or rather, new things sampled at old favorites!

I love spending time in the South End, with its cobbled streets, quaint brownstones, and amazing restaurants. An unexpectedly warm Sunday gave me the perfect excuse to head down there and wander around. I stopped in for a snack at the South End Buttery, one of my favorite bakery-cafes. A rare window seat overlooking Shawmut Avenue opened up as I arrived, so I settled in for an hour or so of eating, reading, and people-watching.

The baked good is a "cinnapuff" muffin. What an adorable name! It looked, and tasted like, a puff of cinnamon. Imagine an airy, fluffy cinnamon coffee cake, in muffin form, brushed with a thin glaze and dusted in cinnamon sugar. A hearty crumb, just enough sweetness, and faint spice flavor made for satisfying eating. This was the most unique muffin SEB had that day; the others – blueberry, walnut, corn – just weren’t as inspiring. The beverage, predictably enough, is a mocha. SEB’s espresso is not the strongest, so while I wouldn’t rely on it to power me up in the morning, it provided just enough caffeine for a midafternoon perk. They use quality chocolate in the drink, too!

I hope I’m in more of a dessert mood whenever I’m next at the Buttery, because they have significantly expanded their cupcake range since my last visit…

I was in more of a dessert mood as the day went on. Post-dinner dessert happened at Athan’s, where I got to eat the (very last!) Bolero dessert. In it, we have milk chocolate mousse set on top of a sheet of chocolate genoise. The mousse is covered with layer of slivered almonds, and the whole thing is then drenched in milk chocolate ganache. A dollop of chocolate buttercream frosting with a piece of bittersweet chocolate garnishes the top. The mousse was a delight, fluffy and flavorful. The cake was forgettable; Athan’s genoise is always so boring compared to what’s around it. The slivered almonds added a nice depth of flavor, but they were slightly soggy from their proximity to the mousse. I would have preferred crisper, crunchier nuts – if there had to be nuts at all. All outer chocolates were great!

At right is a semifreddo. My partner in desserting described it as “bland-ish, light, milky ice cream.” Semifreddos are meant to be that way – traditionally, they are a mixture of gelato and whipped cream, partially frozen and set atop a cake. Apparently the syrup-soaked cake at the bottom was the best part – Athan’s has some great sugar/brandy syrups, most frequently drizzled on their breakfast breads, and one of those was most likely used here. The cake, of course, was their typical (vanilla) genoise. Far too many almonds were used as toppings.

One thing I love about Athan’s is their chocolate selection. They're the best desserts to go! I left with a piece each of dark chocolate mint and milk chocolate with crisped rice.

If The Bakery Has 'Flour' in Its Name...

2011-11-07T18:21:00.000-08:00

...I'm going to love it.

Greg has now recommended two establishments with this fortuitous word in their name. First came the Flour, over 2.5 years ago; this blog is pretty much a testament to how that introduction went! Then, just a few weekends ago, came Clear Flour Bread on the Brookline/Allston line, a happy discovery from his recent move to that area. I knew as soon as I smelled the buttery, doughy aroma of the block surrounding the bakery that we would have a memorably delicious breakfast!

The bakery itself has a tiny corner storefront, so tiny that there is room for maybe only 6 patrons inside. We lined up in an orderly fashion along the sidewalk with the rest of the to-be-patrons, and awaited our turn to be granted access. Such lines are a test of my patience, particularly when I can smell the delights I'm waiting for - but, we got there early enough that the line wasn't too long, and we had a box of four pastries ready to go in less time than I've waited in many lines at the other Flour. That Saturday morning was unusually bright and warm for October, so we repaired to a nearby park to share the spoils. Here they are, with their backdrop of Brookline grass.

This sampling of pastries really illustrates Clear Flour's versatility...and excellence. From the upper left, moving clockwise:

Currant donut - this is easily the most substantive donut I've ever seen. It was breadier than most donuts, too, forsaking all cake-like elements for a more rustic, natural taste. The currants were plump and moist, a far cry from the raisin-like items you usually see in scones. I don't know if they absorbed the batter's moisture, or if this bakery simply uses fresher fruit? Either way, this item was unique. My one bite was more than enough.
Gruyere croissant - I must wax rhapsodic about this. The croissant was the epitome of flaky, buttery, crisp yet chewy, melt-in-your-mouth pastry goodness. Imagine butter being spun into thin filaments or films, and then made solid, with so many warm, creamy flavors in each delicate flake. And then, to think - they filled that already-perfect baked item with cheese! Gooey, subtle, savory cheese! My tastebuds are whimpering for more as I write this. I challenge anyone to mention a better Bostonian croissant in the comments!
Chocolate croissant - the same buttery glory of the above, filled with bittersweet pastry chocolate. The chocolate was evenly distributed throughout the croissant's base, leading me to enjoy pastry and filling in most bites. A rare treat.
Plum tart - this rustic fruit tart was really exemplary, and it puts all daintier fruit pastries/danishes to shame. Heavy puff pastry dough formed the base and sides of the tart, which was then filled with plum slices, the occasional puff pastry dollop, some crumble topping, and a dusting of powdered sugar. Overall, the pastry was sweet, but no one component was overwhelmingly sugary. The puff pastry dough had an almost-sconelike taste, even. The dough touching the plums, and the plums themselves, were pleasantly gooey. I eat plums so rarely that their flavor and texture were an enjoyable surprise. Then, the topping crumbled nicely upon eating. I felt well sated, yet refreshed, after eating the tart.

Here is a close-up of the plum tart. Mmm!

There are few things for which I would gladly hop the T at 9:00AM on a Saturday morning, and honestly, with a Flour location within walking distance of my apartment, I didn't think another bakery 45 minutes away would be one of them. However, Clear Flour has now won that distinction. (As if there were any doubt, with a name like that!) I can't wait to go back.

New North End Eats

2011-11-07T17:14:00.000-08:00

Alrighty, readers - it's catch-up time! I'm presently writing about desserts you should have heard about weeks ago. But hey, delayed "real" posts are better than another Dessert Dump, right?

I've known of Modern Pastry, in the North End, for years - after all, what college eating excursion didn't end on Hanover Street, happily clasping a box of cannolis to go? Some friends really liked Modern's filled-to-order cannolis and their custard-like cream; I've never been a "traditional" cannoli, let alone custard, person, so I always chose Mike's chocolate-mousse-filled cannoli and passed over Modern entirely. I never considered the other treats within Modern's pastry case...until fairly recently, thanks to Adam! Take a look at this tempting box of treats.

Here they are again, cut for eating.

Carrot cake - talk about a classic, Julie-style carrot cake. There were no nuts or raisins in the actual cake! It was robustly flavored with carrots, spices, and that necessary hint of pineapple or citrus zing; it was also quite moist, most likely due to fresh carrots and fruit juice rather than overly-abundant oil. The whipped cream cheese frosting had the right amount of tangy flavor, and was not so heavy that I felt sick afterward. I hardly noticed the walnuts adorning the cake's exterior, the rest of it was so good.
Chocolate cake - This bakery version of the Hostess cupcake was a winner. Moist, crumbly dark chocolate cake; I'm guessing some pudding mix factored into it. A puff of vanilla cream filling at its center. A thin layer of bittersweet chocolate ganache enrobing it all. Wow!
Hazelnut torrone - The. Standout. Of. The. Bunch. (...which is saying something, based on the above comments!) We thought it was biscotti at first, but there was nothing dry or cookie-like about it. Torrone, it turns out, is an Italian dessert of nuts mixed in nougat. This particular version had three layers of nougat - semisweet, milk, and white chocolate - with the occasional hazelnut mixed in the top nougat layer. This nougat was not whipped to the airy, sticky point of an American nougat; I thought I was eating smooth, multi-flavored fudge instead! It melted in my mouth...and on my fingers...and disappeared all too quickly. The hazelnuts were almost forgettable because the nougat was so exceptional. It drastically expanded my understanding of nougat as a dessert...and made me realize that a nut-based dessert could be enjoyable.

Also consumed, but not pictured, were:

White and milk chocolate peanut butter cups - these massive candies were overwhelmingly sweet...and delicious! The half-inch-thick chocolate casing was extremely creamy and soft, so that it approximated fudge, and the dollop of peanut butter at the center was so gooey and sweet that it could have been a nutty caramel. The white chocolate PBC also had a garnish of maybe 6 peanut butter chips. Too cute!
Espresso and marzipan torrones - the above-mentioned torrone experience made me eager to try Modern's other torrones. The densely-nutted appearance of said other torrones should have given me pause, but no - we chose them and were promptly displeased with their overwhelming almond content and sparse, dry nougat. No amount of water-swishing could clear the sense of dry almond shards in my mouth for some time afterward...and the brittle nougat was suggestive of dry paste. Then, I don't think any leftover dessert has sat untouched in my fridge as long as those torrones. (For the record, they remained untouched until they were moved to the garbage.) Still, I can't fault Modern for a dessert that clearly isn't my thing.

So, I give 5 stars to this bakery, and will stay away from their blatantly non-Julie products if I'm ever back!

While on the subject of North End desserts, this blog needs a post on what I droolingly refer to as "THAT THING" from Bova's, the chocolate/oreo/PBC mash-up at Salem Street's 24-hour bakery which has been the goal of many a late-night pilgrimage over the years. It's funny, all the dessert stories that could come out of that neighborhood...

Summer Drinks and Desserts

2011-09-04T16:33:00.000-07:00

Earlier in August, Finale hosted another tasting at their Coolidge Corner restaurant. Katie and I were eager to try the desserterie’s seasonal confections and libations – or, to use the simpler words of the event’s official name, “Summer Drinks and Desserts.” The theme meant we were in for lighter, often-fruity, and always-indulgent treats. Executive Pastry Chef Nicole Coady described each dessert in detail, and a fellow staff member shared the ingredients of each tasty accompanying cocktail. Here are close-ups of the 5 miniature desserts, with drinks standing at attention in the background.

So, what did we enjoy?

Cheesecake – this light, silky dessert was probably the farthest thing, cheesecake-wise, from a New York-style cheesecake…and I was happy with that. It had a whipped, even frothy texture and a sweet, creamy taste that was buoyed up by a base flavor of Mexican vanilla. This earthier vanilla was a great contrast to the usual cheesecake ingredients, and added an unusual and unexpected depth to the dessert. I ate this dessert with very small bites to make it last as long as possible!
Lemon Tart – this tart consisted of a spoonful of lemon curd in a thin, crunchy sugar dough shell. Lemon curd has only a handful of ingredients – lemon juice, eggs, butter, sugar – but takes approximately eight hours to make. (That’s a lot of stirring over a double boiler!) Nicole uses European butter with 82% butter fat in her curd; it has a slightly sour and creamier taste compared to American butter, which has 80% butter fat. My palate is not refined enough to have noticed a difference in butter taste, but I appreciated learning about it. I absolutely love citrus desserts, so I was very happy with the curd. The flavorless sugar shell, on the other hand, was nothing special.
Crème Brulee – I had never really liked crème brulee…until I tried this happy spoonful. Similar to the lemon curd, it only has four ingredients: eggs, cream, sugar, and Tahitian vanilla. Tahitian vanilla is known for its floral, fruity taste, and while I couldn’t exactly pick such notes out in the dessert, I could appreciate that it had more depth of flavor than brulees I had tried in the past. The burnt sugar crust was pleasing, too.
Tiramisu – I’ve always been indifferent to tiramisu, and this one was no exception. You can see the layers of ladyfingers drizzled in coffee syrup, with a sweet mascarpone cheese mixture in between, and a thorough dusting of bitter Valrhona cocoa powder on top. Perfectly adequate, but not rave-worthy. Maybe more coffee syrup, and perhaps some cocoa powder dusted between each cake or cheese layer, would have made it stand out?
Chocolate Decadence – this champion of a dessert is a fixture of Finale’s to-go pastry case. While you buy it refrigerated, Nicole recommends eating it at room temperature or warmer. Why? This flourless, truffle-like cake is robustly flavored with 70% cocoa and a hint of coffee, both of which pack more of a sensory punch when not chilled. The cake as a whole is then coated in a slightly sweeter chocolate ganache, which is smooth and creamy. Our pieces had been sitting out for the length of the event, so I experienced the richness and complexity of flavor that comes with a warm, aromatic dessert. It really was like being sucked into a vortex of chocolatey excellence, with enough bitterness and coffee tang to keep you on your toes. Decadence, indeed!

The drinks were tasty, too. I enjoyed a tropical sunset cocktail, a wild berry mojito, a St. Germain sparkler (my clear favorite, unsurprisingly), and Finale’s signature Chocolate Bliss cocktail. Less enjoyable was the espresso martini, which was just too strong for the tiny portions of food.

So, Finale did it again! Their tastings really are a great way to try a variety of desserts in one sitting. My appreciation for cream-based desserts has grown, and I have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be treating myself to a full Chocolate Decandence sometime soon.

A Weekend of Celebratory Desserts

2011-08-29T17:15:00.000-07:00

I had a really fun birthday party the other weekend! Not surprisingly, I enjoyed a few desserts in the hours preceding it.

A cliff-diving event at the ICA – where, yes, people voluntarily plunged nearly 100 feet off the museum into Boston Harbor!?! – brought Greg, Rob, and me to Boston's Fort Point neighborhood. We had to eat lunch at my favorite outpost of Flour Bakery prior! I departed from usual Flour protocol this time, eschewing my tried-and-true favorites and ordering two untested items. Their BLT sandwich was truly exemplary, and will become part of my regular sandwich rotation. The purest joy, however, came with a new dessert offering! I hereby introduce you to Flour's Congo bar. Here is its richly textured surface…

…and here is the glory that lies beneath.

The bar’s rather thick base is a brown sugar cookie thoroughly marbled with pastry chocolate. A thinner layer of the same chocolate, mixed with caramel and coconut flakes, covers the cookie base. Then, the treat is covered in more coconut flakes and topped off with a few caramel drizzles. This was a very sturdy, dense, rich dessert. However, each bite melted into creamy, sweet goodness soon after I took it. Just think – a warm, buttery cookie; fudgy, fragrant chocolate; fluffy, sweet coconut; and milky, silky caramel, all mixed and layered together to create one ultimate dessert. Wow! I’ll surely be scanning Flour’s displays for this whopper of a treat in the future.

(You shouldn’t be surprised that I loved the Congo bar, since my weakness for robust layered cookie bars has already been documented. Speaking of which, I was in Belfast the other week…and had two Caramelitas. That’s right. Two.)

Party time was upon us before we knew it, so we hastily traveled back to Cambridge and considered Inman Square “dinner” options. I put the word dinner in quotes because Christina’s Ice Cream shouldn’t have fit the bill, but I guess one is allowed to get away with extraordinary indulgences on one’s birthday. Look at this most delicious of sundaes!

Coffee oreo ice cream, with an honest, unsweetened coffee flavor and large oreo chunks? Check. Peanut butter chip ice cream, with a similarly natural, nutty base flavor and tasty chocolate pieces? Check. Crushed peanut butter cup topping, made of candies that put Reese’s to shame? Check. Homemade hot fudge and whipped cream, both of which make you rethink all notions of what these toppings should be, in the best way? Check. The resulting amalgamation gave me all the energy I needed to dance the night away. And boy, did I dance :-)

But wait – there’s more!

Linda and I spent the following day putzing around Harvard Square. We dropped by Sweet for a cupcake later that afternoon. I enjoyed the Red, White, and You cupcake, which I first tried two years ago! It’s a vanilla bean cupcake injected with mixed berry jam, topped with a towering dollop of vanilla buttercream frosting, and garnished with an avalanche of crunchy red sugar. It’s still rather delicious, though the frosting was significantly lighter than I remember; they must be whipping it nowadays?

Lastly, here’s a huge shout-out to my wonderful friends, who made my birthday so special! Y’all are amazing. :-)

Summer Restaurant Week 2011

2011-08-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

With another Restaurant Week period over, I can cross two long-standing entries off my restaurant list! Both dinners piqued my curiosity, while serving tasty but not overly memorable food. The same goes for the desserts – they were good enough, but not rave-worthy.

Adam and I finally tried Toro, Ken Oringer’s trendy tapas bistro in the South End. It was a beautiful, balmy Boston night, so we sat on Toro’s sidewalk patio and enjoyed the relative quiet compared to the din within the brick-and-steel dining room and attached visible kitchen. How do RW’s three courses get figured out at a small-plates restaurant? It turns out that each person picks an appetizer; then, the table gets a certain number of tapas by occupancy (5 dishes, in the case of two people); and lastly, we each choose a dessert. I had an appetizer of tuna tartare garnished with cilantro, which had an excellent taste but an unusually chewy texture. Our tapas were:

Jamon serrano – the ham was a bit fattier than I like, and cured for less time. I was not impressed with this most favored of tapas.
Patatas bravas – the dish I always order when trying a new tapas place! Toro’s sauce is probably the spiciest I have yet encountered on this dish, and the large potato pieces were grilled to perfection.
Uni sandwich – I totally forgot that this fishy-tasting paste was actually sea urchin. It was tasty enough, and represented our most unusual order. Sadly enough, Toro was out of the octopus!
Garlic shrimp – some of the largest shrimp I’ve ever seen, sautéed with garlic. I wish there had been more than two per person.
Short rib – delectable, flaky beef in a red wine sauce. My sudden appetite for red meat continues to surprise me this summer!

Dessert came next. I had a churro dusted in a copious amount of cinnamon sugar, with a side of Mexican chocolate sauce for dipping. The doughnut stick was chewy and warm, with a faint vanilla flavor. I love how the dusting’s sugar crystals added a bit of grit and crunch to the otherwise soft dessert. I also liked the balance of flavors in the Mexican chocolate; neither too bitter nor too spicy, it was just enough of a contrast to the sweet pastry. Still, a churro is a fairly typical dessert at Spanish and Mexican eateries, so I would have rather been intrigued by a different – even if less delicious – option. Well, maybe I should take that back; Adam was underwhelmed with the Manchego cheese.

I would go back to Toro if the opportunity presented itself. Eating in the bustling dining room would be a lot of fun, as would trying the more atypical offerings on their standard menu.

Katie and I continued the Restaurant Week fun at Gaslight the following week. This cheerful, flame-lit French brasserie is owned by the same group as Aquitaine, a restaurant that has never disappointed – so, we knew the grub would be good. We somehow found opportunities to chew our food amid a few hours of rapid-fire catching up. :-) My appetizer was a field greens salad tossed in hazelnut vinaigrette, with chunks of fried Brie. The Brie was delicious as per usual, and I enjoyed the dressing’s subtle nuttiness; I would have preferred fewer bitter greens in the salad, though! I ordered trout almondine with beans and potatoes for dinner. The trout was pleasantly pink and flaky, with that freshwater fish taste I so love, but I was surprised at how thin the fillets were; I had seemingly equal parts meat and skin. The sliced almonds were a really great addition, as were the soft and savory vegetables.

I ignored my usual chocolate craving when it was time for dessert, opting instead for a strawberry layer cake with strawberry ice cream! I enjoyed this sweet and delicate cake. Its texture reminded me of genoise, but its crumb was a bit larger than that sponge cake. It had three layers, which were separated by mashed strawberries. (I appreciate that Gaslight uses fresh fruit, as opposed to the frozen slop you often see in, say, custard cups!) The thin layer of tart frosting on top used crème fraiche – so, this sugary treat got an unusual but welcome infusion of sourness – and was garnished with more strawberries. As if all those components were not enough, I got a scoop of strawberry ice cream on the side! It was more creamy than fruity. I chose to let most of it melt, so I could dip each forkful of (rather dry) cake in the resulting “soup”. Yum! Katie reports that the flourless chocolate truffle cake with espresso ice cream was also yum-worthy.

I would go back to Gaslight, too, though a different cuisine may win out if I were given options. This RW meal was mostly a hit, but I sometimes miss entirely with French food.

Now, about that restaurant list…

Weekend Wontons

2011-08-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

Here's a dilemma. It's 9:30PM on a Sunday. You last ate at 3:30PM, enjoying a later Friendly Toast brunch of monstrous chocolate-toffee pancakes, or a breakfast burrito with homefries. What are you going to make for dinner?

As I found out this past weekend, the correct answer is...wontons! Berry, chocolate, and bacon wontons, to be exact. It was a good answer. These dessert-like interpretations of the savory Asian appetizer are really easy to make, and they're tasty to boot! Here are the ingredients and process.

wonton "skin" / wrappers
frozen mixed berries (fresh berries risk turning into mush during the frying process)
chocolate chips
bacon, cooked
canola oil
powdered sugar (optional)

Lay out a wonton skin. Rub its edges with water.
Put a small amount of frozen fruit, chocolate chips, and/or bacon crumbles in the middle of the skin (for square wontons) or slightly toward one corner (for triangular/trapezoidal ones). I made berry chocolate or bacon chocolate wontons; never did the berries and bacon mix.
Fold the wonton skin over the filling onto itself, and press the wet edges against each other to form a seal.
Fold the sealed parts together, and press them securely. This extra step will help secure against breaking and bursting during the frying process.
Experiment with shapes and sizes! Multiple wrappers can be secured together, etc.
Heat approximately 1.5 inches of oil in a saucepan.
Drop the wontons in the hot oil, and fry them until done.
Remove the wontons from the hot oil, and let them cool to an edible, yet warm, temperature.
Dust with powdered sugar, if desired.
Enjoy!

Behold, our happy little confections! You bite through the crunchy outer shell, with its characteristic taste of oil and salt, and are met with a burst of warm fruit filling and melted chocolate. I was surprised at how much air snuck into the wontons, since they were folded rather tightly; this also disappointed me a little, because then I imagined the air space being filled with that much more gooey chocolate. Alas. Maybe the solution will be to stuff them more next time? The bacon chocolate wontons were also great, though obviously less gushy. If I make that variety again, I'll cook the bacon for less time. Chewier bacon may be a better complement to a crunchy shell than crunchy bacon. Either way, the salty sweetness was great.

It could be fun to start a series on dessert versions of traditionally savory foods. Heck, I'll even create a special tag for such posts. Anyone have suggestions to that end?

Another Foray Into Portsmouth Desserts

2011-07-25T18:53:00.000-07:00

The uncomfortable New England heatwave broke this past Sunday, and coastal New Hampshire experienced a beautiful day of temperatures in the mid-80s with a cool breeze off the ocean. I celebrated this pleasant change in weather by walking around Portsmouth, a favorite seaside town that I have raved about previously. I tried two new - or, in the first place's case, non-blogged - eateries this time around.

Bostonians may have heard of The Friendly Toast, a diner-style establishment originally in Portsmouth that recently opened an outpost in Cambridge's Kendall Square. I tried the Cambridge restaurant prior to the Portsmouth one, and loved its food enough that I just had to go to the original. I should make a note that delicious breakfasts are not the only things that make the restaurants memorable. The tacky decor is overwhelming, to say the least. Consider the fact that this ominous fellow may be overseeing your Cantabrigian meal of granola cranberry chocolate-chip pancakes drenched in Grand Marnier sauce:

The kitsch is more extreme in Portsmouth. It's densely packed and somewhat abrasive, with animatronic feet advertizing socks alongside eerily spinning farm animal caricatures. Still, all that clutter and noise should not distract you from appreciating the excellent food.

The Friendly Toast serves The. Best. Pancakes. I have ever had. They taste pleasingly of buttermilk, and have a texture that is difficult to categorize - soft yet sturdy, they soak up any nearby syrup and only flake slightly when cut. Their mixins are also the most creative pancake fillers I have ever seen. The above Grand Marnier example is a perfect illustration of their uniqueness, but their willingness to make veritable desserts out of their pancakes is what keeps me coming back. That's right, I indulged in toffee chocolate pancakes! Huge milk and semisweet chocolate chips melted alongside jagged toffee pieces to create a meal that was more candy bar than pancake. Unlike many purveyors of innocuous chocolate chip pancakes, the FT does not skimp on the good stuff. Copious drizzles of maple syrup pushed the meal ever closer to heaven. Another huge plus is these pancakes' size. One pancake is enough for one (large) meal, so I ordered two and got to enjoy the Toast's bounty all over again as leftovers.

I was too full after my pancake to eat another baked good, but there was a new bakery next to the FT that was just begging for me to take something home. The Portsmouth Baking Company had a simple sign outside their store - "NOW OPEN for LUNCH and CUPCAKES." I saw that last word and couldn't walk away. Enter an adorable modern bakery - as if Boston's beloved Flour chain were to get 25% more cutesy - where massive, picture-perfect cupcakes are displayed with geometric precision. Ah! I wish my phone had not died so I could share pictures with you. Fortunately, though, I have a picture of the cupcake I ate at home later that evening.

This chocolate tangerine cupcake held so much promise. (I love chocolate and orange together almost as much as I love chocolate and mint.) I breathed in the cupcake's rich aroma and hoped for a dark, bitter chocolate cake with intense orange peel flavor, and a sweeter orange buttercream frosting neutralizing the strength beneath it. The reality, however, was nothing like that. Instead, the cake itself was a particularly heavy and dry devil's food, and the odd-tasting frosting had no trace of orange within it. The only citrus I detected came in the form of two small pieces of candied orange peel atop the frosting. I am not kidding when I say I tasted more toothpaste than buttercream in the frosting. I don't know how I muddled through the entire dessert. I don't think I have ever known a cupcake to be so disappointing.

I wish the Portsmouth Baking Company luck, if only because (1) their store is the epitome of modern baker chic, and (2) their cakes are pretty to look at. Maybe I'll try their artisan breads at some point - but, I can safely say I will never willfully eat their "buttercream" again. Let's hope my next Portsmouth dessert experimentation is more successful!

The Dessert Dump - Or, What I Should Have Written

2011-07-25T17:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, my last post was in May. I've had many desserts since then, but I have not been so coordinated in my enjoyment of them to commit them to the blog within a reasonable timeframe. So, consider this "Dessert Dump" a woefully brief overview of what I should have documented in the past two months.

Something from Athan's...which probably happened after something from Publick House! Brookline's Washington Square is a favorite place to overeat. Chocolate and vanilla genoise cakes and mousses, layered and drenched in ganache, plus fig (?) gelato. Eaten at my favorite corner table.

Iced mocha and turtle hot chocolate from Davis Square's Diesel Cafe! Smooth, deep, chocolatey win. WIN in caps, even.

Some sort of flourless chocolate torte from Posto, also in Davis Square. Good, but not as awe-inspiring as their pastas and pizzas. The non-raisiny port wine glaze was a plus.

Shabby Chic's chocolate blackberry cupcake. Similar to their chocolate raspberry cupcake, but with blackberry! Who could say no to that purple frosting? Of course, both frosting and cake were out-of-this-world delicious, and SC remains the best cupcakery I have had the pleasure of sampling.

An array of finger desserts from Dante's Al Fresco Fiasco. I consider it a miracle that I made it to this early-afternoon event, since I was up through the sunrise the "night" before. My efforts were completely worth it, though - these macaroons, mousses, and fritters were exemplary, as were the savory non-desserts. I can't wait to have a real meal at Dante sometime!

An unbelievably rich triple chocolate cupcake - that's right, chocolate cake + chocolate frosting + chocolate bar - from a mystery bakery in Stoneham. An unexpected treat courtesy of my colleague Shannon! The frosting defies categorization, it was so dense and fudgy; the cake could barely stand under its weight! Taste buds were similarly overwhelmed by its robust chocolate-ness, though in the best possible way.

Next up: a real post, with more words on fewer desserts...

A Carrot Cake for Easter

2011-05-17T18:34:00.000-07:00

This Easter presented its first-ever dessert dilemma.

After two Christmases with Perfect Endings' perfectly chocolatey buche de Noel, I was determined to make a vanilla, lemon, and raspberry log for Easter. I wanted to flex my baking muscles by attempting such a complicated dessert, and it was easy enough to make a spring equivalent to the wintry treat by using citrus and berry flavors. However, I had forgotten that I would be making our traditional lemon cake for Easter breakfast...and the family decided that two lemon baked goods would be too much for one holiday. So, I had to find a replacement dessert...quickly.

I checked Perfect Endings' site on a whim, and instantly fell in love with the appearance of their carrot-shaped carrot cake. Their product description did not go into detail - for example, I had no idea whether the item would harbor copious amounts of undesirable nuts and raisins - but I decided to fly blindly and take the risk, since (1) PE had already proved their mettle with the aforementioned buches de Noel, (2) I have met more carrot cakes I've liked than disliked, and (3) seriously, a carrot-shaped carrot cake for Easter - how much cuter could you get?!

Well, the risk was beyond worth it. Behold the newly-cut dessert, plated with jellybeans for effect.

Carrot, as the anthropomorphized cake was named, was perfect in every way, and was one of the finest desserts I have ever consumed. It had two layers of cake, plenty of cream cheese frosting, and festive fondant.

The cake itself was light yet moist, and positively bursting with flavor. Sugars, spices, and finely-shredded carrot bits, along with the daintiest-possible pieces of nuts and tiny flakes of semisweet chocolate, all blended together to create a baked item of incredible depth and complexity. No single flavor overpowered another; instead, the wealth of savory and sweet bakery flavors were all represented equally...and perfectly. I knew before I had swallowed my first crumb that this was the best carrot cake I had ever had.
Cream cheese frosting filled the space between the cake's two layers, as well as coated the assembled cake. This frosting was neither heavy nor overpoweringly creamy. It was light, fluffy, and sweet, with just a hint of tang.
The smooth orange coating and decorative green leaves were made of a smooth, sugary, faintly almond-flavored fondant. The fondant was rather dense and heavy, even in thin coating form, and I was surprised that the cream cheese frosting could support it! For all the conceptual fanciness of a carrot-shaped and -decorated cake, I love that this simple, tasty coating concealed a wonder within.

Perfect Endings has really raised the bar for bakery desserts! In fact, I would say that Carrot was more impressive than Buche. I would order it again, without entertaining the Buche-style folly of attempting to recreate it at home. Some things are best left to the professionals - and, in this particular case, I am more than happy to do just that.

Clearly, the dessert dilemma was resolved in the best possible way. I hope your Easter dessert(s) were similarly memorable and delicious!

Bell the Cat's Caramelita Bar

2011-05-17T17:44:00.000-07:00

One of the best things about business trips to my company's Belfast, Maine office is getting lunch at Bell the Cat. The emporium is a strange, yet instantly endearing, hodgepodge of cafe, sandwich shop, bookseller, and music store...in a way that is the epitome of mid-coast Maine, and nothing like a Barnes & Noble Starbucks. When I talk about BtC's excellent local flavor, though, I'm referring to more than its unique atmosphere - I'm complimenting some of the best sandwiches, and cafe-style baked goods, I've ever had. Even my favorite sandwich from Cambridge's beloved Darwin's doesn't hold a candle to Bell's Californian, a delightful assortment of my favorite veggies and cheeses piled high or melted on a toasted croissant. What, you'd rather hear about the baked goods? :-)

Well...one is immediately met with a stunning array of cookie jars, and bars piled on bars, upon entering the shop. The variety of cookies is really impressive - think any combination of chocolate, nut, spice, jam, etc - but if I had to single out one baked good to rule them all, it would be the Caramelita bar. I have enjoyed this treat on each 4-hour trip back to Boston since discovering it last year!

What makes this bar such a delight?

The base cookie is a rich, buttery blend of shortbread and oatmeal cookie. Dense, textured, and surprisingly warm and creamy, it's a perfect support structure for the decadence to follow.
A very thick layer of soft milk chocolate coats the base cookie. The chocolate is incredibly even and smooth, almost fudgy. Small semisweet chocolate chips are mixed throughout for flavor and textural contrast.
Large walnut chunks dot the chocolate's surface. Drizzled swirls of thick, milky, slightly-salty caramel coat and secure the nuts to the chocolate, and help meld the delightful dessert flavors.
Sugar cookie crumbles, with a hint of cinnamon and perhaps more brown sugar than usual, form the top layer of the bar. The crumbles are soft and give in easily to my teeth. They are the lightest characteristic of a bar that gets denser and more delicious the deeper you go.

So, each bite includes two distinctly delicious cookies, some of the best chocolate to be put near a pastry, hearty nuts, and gooey caramel. What's not to love?

Somehow, the Caramelita manages to combine an at-home look and feel with big-time bakery flavor. I could probably replicate the bar in my own kitchen without too much effort, but there is something to be said for letting it keep its place of honor in my Downeast gastronomic repertoire. I will always have something to look forward to, and my stomach can growl in anticipation, whenever I travel to Belfast!

Winter Restaurant Week 2011

2011-03-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

Another Restaurant Week has come and gone. I dined at three restaurants this time around!

I've had two previous Restaurant Week dinners at Harvest; their deliciousness, plus the restaurant's convenient Harvard Square setting, made me come back for more. I was surprised with how bland and average this meal was, though the dessert was a breath of tangy, fresh air. My appetizer was a white bean veloute, or soup, with pancetta, croutons, and olive oil. The soup tasted like mild, watered-down bean dip, and the tiny pancetta crumbles provided some crunch but little pig flavor. The entree was a smoked chicken breast served over polenta with golden raisins and cooked wilted chard. Sure, it was a nice chunk of meat, but the preparation was so ordinary, and the accompaniments so small and unseasoned, that this entire course would have been forgettable if not for the need to make blog notes. My dessert was a key lime parfait with gingersnap crust, lemon sauce, and raspberries. I have previously raved about Harvest's fruit desserts, and this one deserves equal praise! The parfait in question was a frozen treat, robustly flavored with key lime, of a consistency somewhere between ice cream, pudding, and whipped cream. It was smooth, light, occasionally crystalline, and pungently citrusy. The chewy gingersnap base crumbled at my fork's touch, and was thoroughly spiced. The lemon glaze and raspberries were the sweetest parts of the dessert; they tempered the tang and spice of the other components, and tied all flavors together nicely. Believe me, this picture does not do it justice! I only wish that I had more time to savor the dessert; instead, I hastily snarfed it down to make a performance in time.

My second RW dinner was another repeat adventure, this time to Sibling Rivalry in the South End. This dinner will go down as one of the best restaurant meals I've ever had, so please enjoy the images of all three courses! I started with ancho chile-spiced steak tartare, accompanied by salsa verde, avocado in cilantro oil, and a cheese pupusa with picked cabbage. How can I accurately convey this appetizer's sheer perfection? The degree of spicing on the steak was just right, and the meat itself (mixed with capers) was incredibly soft and tasty. I also loved eating bites of the pupusa, which had a seasoned maize-dought exterior, with pieces of oil-drizzled avocado.

My entree was mustard-glazed salmon paired with lump crab meat, tomatoes, spinach, and new potatoes. The mustard cream sauce had only a hint of spicy tang, which I liked; the fish it had been poured over was smooth and flaky. The crab meat - probably my favorite seafood - and spinach - definitely my favorite leafy green - were just icing on the proverbial cake. Sib Riv really knows how to do fish!

I had the orange pound cake with sauce Suzette and orange compote for dessert. The cake was not nearly as dense as the average pound cake, which helped it soak up the ample honey-citrus sauce. I would have called it a tea cake instead. The cake's orange flavor was quite subtle, but the assertively sweet yet tart sauce remedied any citrus deficiencies. The "compote" was actually orange slices drizzled in honey and garnished with almond slices. This pleasant and light dessert was a perfect way to end an indulgent meal, and was just as memorable - as well-executed citrus desserts must be! - as the phenomenal courses preceeding it. I really can't wait to return yet again to Sibling Rivalry!

I traveled to uncharted territory for my last RW treat. Bergamot, barely over the Cambridge line in Somerville, serves "progressive American cuisine" in a comfortable, intimate, yet fancy space. I really loved the mood of the place, and the food mostly rose to the occasion. I had a difficult time choosing an appetizer, as each had some ingredient I did not want - so, I ordered the goat cheese salad with shiitake mushrooms, oranges, and toasted hazelnuts, and left most of its frisee untouched. All non-greens fixins were tasty, and went together well. My entree was one of the most unique dishes I've ever seen! I ordered plantain gnocchi with black beans, avocado, red pepper, and portobello mushroom confit. I cannot extol the virtues of this delicious dish enough. Plantains are one of my favorite fruits, and I was amazed at how well they took, with slight seasoning, to gnocchi form. The beans were chewy and spicy; the avocado was tender and creamy; the mushrooms were smooth and earthy. All components combined into a dish bursting with flavor and satisfaction that did not burst my stomach. (I am so happy to have had gnocchi, and not been saddled with a stomachache afterward.) My dessert was also unique - a chocolate cremeux with olive oil dust and avocado - but Bergamot may have tried too hard with it. The cremeux itself was a fabulous whipped confection of cream and smooth milk chocolate, but the avocado accompaniments fell flat. The fruit was not ripe enough, so it did not have its full flavor potential. The balls and droplets seen in the picture, as well as the chunks encased within the cremeux (?!?!), were consistent with the chocolate dessert's texture, but were rather devoid of taste. I left them on my plate or carved them out, focusing only on the chocolate. Fortunately, my forkful of the grapefruit sabayon with madeleine was pleasing all around! I would give Bergamot another try based on their brilliant entree. Maybe their appetizers and desserts will rise to the occasion when not dealing in limited selections?

And now, for an alert from the non-food world: Happy Spring!

A Chocolate Crescendo Tasting

2011-03-11T12:38:00.000-08:00

You may have read my occasional commentary on the temptations available at the Finale desserterie chain. All my earlier Finale visits involved siting down in their Cambridge or Boston restaurants and ordering a plated dessert off the menu - the typical Finale experience, I'm sure. I was lucky enough to have an atypical yet equally delicious Finale visit earlier this week, thanks to a chocolate tasting at their Brookline location that was hosted by their executive pastry chef!

The Chocolate Crescendo plate is the newest sharable dessert on Finale's menu. The plate holds a combination of classic Finale desserts and adventurous accents. Nicole Coady, the aforementioned pastry chef, eagerly discussed her two inspirations for the contents of the plate: chocolate, of course, and the flavors of Thailand. Thai flavors, really? Yes! I hope that anyone who is apprehensive of such tastes entering the dessert realm will reconsider their position by the end of this post.

Each taster was presented with a plate of 5 miniature desserts, along with pours of 5 sweet wines paired specially to each dessert.

Peanut Butter Lime Truffle - this truffle was the most unusual dessert on the plate! A rich filling of peanut butter mixed with white chocolate, lime juice, and honey is enrobed in lime-tinged white chocolate and dusted with cayenne pepper. The smooth, peanutty center melded perfectly with the creamy white chocolate. The lime and pepper provided surprisingly welcome kicks, and their flavors worked perfectly with that of the peanut to create a unique savory/tangy/sweet experience. As my friend Jill exclaimed, "it's like pad Thai, in a dessert!"
White Chocolate Panna Cotta - (A disclaimer: I've never liked panna cotta.) White chocolate is added to the usual cream/gelatin mixture to create a slightly sweeter, more solidified cream dessert. The panna cotta square sits upon a forgettable biscuit "crust" that is supposed to be ginger-flavored, though I couldn't taste the ginger. The best part of this dessert is the spice-infused apricot slice sitting on top! You can't go wrong with spicy-sweet fruit, and I wish I could have had a dessert's worth of these slices in place of the panna cotta.
Creamy Coconut Truffle - this stellar truffle has a center of intensely sweet white chocolate and coconut cream. That sweet center is covered in rich but not bitter dark chocolate, which in turn is tufted with chopped coconut flakes. I love coconut's flavor, though not its flaky texture and questionable moisture (dried-out flakes are the worst!) - so, this truffle's coconut cream may be the best way I have ever experienced coconut! If this little treat had been available for individual purchase, I probably would have left the restaurant with several.
Chocolate Symphony - ah, the Symphony cake. So many desserts in one! Finale's version has layers of light, spongy chocolate cake at the center, with mousses of different Valrhona chocolates separating them. The mousses are spread beyond the edges of the cake layers, so that the exterior of the Symphony looks like mousse alone. We have bittersweet chocolate at the bottom, followed by white and then milk chocolates. A chocolate wafer imprinted with Finale's logo sticks jauntily out of the cake's surface, and a confection of crisped rice tossed with dark chocolate and crystallized ginger takes up the remaining area. The cake itself and mousses were tasty, though fairly typical. The chocolate-ginger-rice treat, however, was memorable for its airy lightness and tongue-tingling pungency.
Noisette Cupcake - Nutella is the best bread spread, hot chocolate additive, ice-cream topper, and...cupcake/frosting mix-in? Okay, the last one may be a bit of a stretch, but I still loved the miniature hazelnut cupcake! The cake base is moist and chocolaty, with chocolate pieces mixed in. The "noisette" addition cut through the chocolate and was very nutty, which makes me think that actual roasted and powdered nuts, rather than the aforementioned spread, may have been used to flavor it. The light buttercream frosting is smooth, creamy, and spiked with Nutella. The applied frosting is then dipped in a chocolate glaze, which gives the cupcake a smooth, polished appearance. The dramatic garnish extending off the top right of the image is a hazelnut dipped in cooked sugar, which is left to drip off the nut and solidify into a sticky-sweet prong. It sure looked pretty, but did not have much taste.

The dessert wines and ice wines paired with the first three desserts were exceptional, though I did not like the raisin-y sherries poured for the last two.

Overall, I think Nicole's inspiration really added to the overall dessert experience, even though I'm never one to be dissatisfied with chocolate alone. Carefully yet effectively executed spiciness, fruitiness, and nuttiness expand chocolate's appeal, to great effects! This tasting gets me thinking about what other cuisines could leave a footprint on an elaborate chocolate plate. Any ideas?

So Many More Cookies

2011-02-27T14:56:00.000-08:00

I tried two new cookie recipes this past month! One was a marriage of the most popular mass-produced cookie and the most popular homemade cookie, and the other was my second creation from the Flour cookbook.

My friend Leah, whose yearly Superbowl party has become a social institution, had sent me a recipe for Oreo-stuffed chocolate chip cookies. She hinted strongly that I should make these for the 2011 Superbowl, and I gladly obliged in the spirit of contributing to the outsize excess of sporting-event foods. "Excessive" is the perfect adjective for these behemoth cookies.

The recipe couldn't be simpler: make dough for chocolate chip cookies, mold dough around Oreos (or, if you're feeling extra-indulgent [as I was], Double Stufs), and bake. The cookie dough took some effort to incorporate, as it is designed to be stiff enough to maintain coverage of each Oreo within. The recipe said to use two cookie scoop's worth of dough per Oreo, but I eyeballed the amount in the absence of a cookie scoop. I may have been overly careful in covering the Oreos, as I could only cover 20 of them instead of the recipe's estimated 24. I baked the cookies for the upper time limit given, and they still looked underdone when I removed them from the oven; fortunately, 5 minutes of cooling on the baking sheet helped them settle into a solid-enough, yet still soft and chewy, state. I'd call that an ideal cookie texture!

So, was the excess worth it? The dough was wonderfully chewy, and the textural transition from it to the gooey chocolate chips was seamless. The cookie portion of the Double Stuf had softened somewhat, and had that falling-apart chewiness of Oreo chunks in ice cream. The Double Stuf cream was warm and gooey like the chocolate chips, and some of it had oozed around the chocolate cookies to mix with the dough and chips. Each bite presented new delights, since you could be met with Oreo cookie, nuggets of chocolate, a rush of warm cream, or all the above. The cookies can stand on their own, for sure, but the few bites that I dipped in milk were over the top - in a good way, of course. I would have to rule in favor of bringing on the excess...and my fellow partiers must have agreed, since there were no remainders to take home.

After experiencing the above cookies' chocolate and cream overload, I decided that my next baking project would involve neither - so, enter Flour's ginger molasses cookies. Two parts of the recipe gave me pause. Joanne's description says that she wanted the flavors of non-spice ingredients to be evident, so she uses less cinnamon and ginger than one usually might. Yours truly the Cinnamon-Tripler was apprehensive. Then, one is told to roll quarter-cup balls of dough for baking! (No wonder the recipe's yield was only 16 cookies; I ended up doubling it for my potluck purposes.) I was worried about how the large balls would fare on my cookie sheet.

Well, I (predictably) tripled the cinnamon - my logic being that if my usual tripling results in three times the normal amount of spice, tripling an intentionally lesser amount should break even with that norm. Otherwise, I followed the recipe exactly. The dough came together very easily, and was fluid enough that the recommended four hours of refrigeration really was necessary. I then scooped out quarter-cup dollops of cooled, hardened dough and rolled them in granulated sugar. I initially placed 12 cookies on a sheet, but most finished edges ended up touching - so, I only baked 8 per sheet after the first round. The doubled recipe yielded 32 large cookies as expected. It is difficult to judge scale from the picture below, so imagine the cookies being a tad larger than a spread palm.

Unsurprisingly, Joanne did it again! These cookies were the best spice cookies I have ever had, beating Dancing Deer's beloved molasses clove delights for the title. They were slightly crunchy near the edge, and pleasantly chewy on the inside. The ginger and cinnamon flavors were happily assertive, but I could still taste the smooth warmth of the butter and the dark syrupy richness of the brown sugar and molasses. The sugar dusting provided the tiniest, but still significant, counterpoint to the nearly-savory nature of this spice cookie, and gave each cookie a very pretty glitter overall. The cracks in the dough also added to the cookies' appearance. I can't wait to make these again, maybe around the holidays.

I was at Flour's Central Square bakery the other day, where I saw small - as in, not from 1/4 C dough! - versions of these cookies. I think I'll follow their lead when I repeat this recipe, as the large size isn't necessary. Hopefully a slight adjustment of the baking time is all I'll need to make that successful. Thanks again, Joanne, for a real potluck pleaser!

Then, I ended my February cookie marathon with a known restaurant delight. I have discussed Finale's Cookies and Cream dessert here before, but I just had to order it again the other night. Finale has switched up the cookies since I last wrote! The preponderance of snickerdoodles is gone, and has been replaced with a similar number of fluffy, sugar-encrusted sugar cookies. Also, the original nut and raisin cookies have been ousted in favor of two stupendous milk chocolate walnut cookies. Both changes improve the overall dessert. My one complaint? You now get two miniature whoopie pies instead of one glorious full-sized treat. This ends up being less whoopie overall, though there is an advantage to being able to eat one in the restaurant and take the other home. I suppose that if I were really intent on enjoying as much whoopie pie as possible, I could buy a full-sized one from Finale's bakery counter...

Happy cookie-ing!

Craigie on Main

2011-01-31T19:49:00.000-08:00

Craigie on Main may be my new favorite restaurant. The Boston area's premier locavore, "'snout-to-tail" eatery, it has won all sorts of accolades for its excellent food, sustainable principles, and customer service. Consider this post my humble addition.

I have enjoyed drinks and dinner there before, but my most recent Craigie experience, on a bustling Friday evening, started on a particularly high note and remained there over the course of the night. What made it so great? Was it the Northern Lights cocktail - St. Germain, citrus, and tiki bitters aligned so that I hardly noticed its Scotch base - that was waiting for me when I arrived? Was it my perch at the corner of the bar, achieved soon after arrival, that allowed me to take in the maneuverings of the bartenders, the distant activity of the kitchen, and the cheerful hubbub that existed about the fellow diners? Was it what came after I settled in?

To start, the atmosphere of the bar area really defies categorization. It manages to feel like a well-mannered bar, a bustling bistro, and an intimate restaurant. There is something festive yet relaxing about the space, as though you are simultaneously celebrating something special and settling in for a cozy night - even if neither mood is intended. The staff is friendly and knowledgeable, and the foodies sharing the bar space are chatty and enthusiastic. Everybody's smiling. Everybody's ordering more. Oh, you ask - what did I order?

My appetizer was a Julie-esque ragout of morcilla and local forest mushrooms, with farro risottto, poached egg, carrot puree, and herbs. (Of course, I had to order a dish with mushrooms!) I reveled in the tender mushrooms' robust earthiness, and enjoyed stirring the risotto in the herbed puree. Morcilla is a Spanish blood sausage, and therefore was previously-uncharted territory for me; I was pleasantly surprised by its soft texture and deep spicy flavor. I kept the egg at bay as long as I could, but when it did rupture and the runny yolk became unavoidable, I was not displeased by how it mixed with everything else.

Then, it was time for one of the tastiest pieces of meat I have ever had. (No, not the pig's head, however much my dining companion may have joked about us sharing it!) The famed Craigie burger is no longer on the menu, but if you are lucky enough to request it while the day's dedicated beef is not yet depleted, you can have one. I ordered mine medium rare. It was moist and slightly runny, as I would expect, but it did not turn the admittedly-sturdy and slightly sweet sesame bun into a sopping mess. The fresh-tasting grass-fed beef is enriched with marrow and miso, and the resulting umami-ness was really unique in this setting. The burger was topped with a rather sharp cheddar cheese, a bit of watercress, and some fried onion strings. I added some house-made mace ketchup to the mix, and the result in toto was an explosion of so many hearty, savory flavors that my tastebuds may have died. Oh, did I mention that there were equally-delicious fries served on the side? Those thick potato chunks were delightfully seasoned, and I dipped them repeatedly in whatever mace ketchup did not get slathered on the burger. There was so much food that I ended up taking half of it home; I can happily report that it was just as tasty left over.

This restaurant is also known for the subtle, talented mixologists behind the bar. They also stock a variety of unique liqueurs (we sampled Cynar, an unusually vegetabular yet sweet artichoke spirit I had not previously encountered) and house-made mixins (bitters, syrups). I was emboldened, after one or two Northern Lights, to ask the closest bartender, Carrie, for something special. After giving her a vague request ("something with St. Germain, that's different!") and an answer to one question ("yes, I like citrus"), she concocted this delight:

The beverage is equal parts blanco tequila, mezcal, St. Germain, grapefruit juice, and lime juice, with three dashes of grapefruit bitters and an orange peel for garnish. As with the appetizer, this was one Julie-esque drink. If the night hadn't been late, I would have ordered another.

After rolls, the shroomy appetizer, many cocktails, and that chunk of carnivorous heaven, I can't believe I still had room for dessert! I wasn't listening as well as I could have when Carrie announced the options - the aforementioned custom cocktail was monopolizing most senses - but I managed to hear that pumpkin was involved in the day's special, so that made the decision easy. Enter a cream-based dessert that was a complete departure from what I usually order.

The custard itself was sturdier than a creme brulee, and had a more assertive burnt sugar flavor. Despite its dense creaminess, it did not weigh me down. It was drizzled in a lightly sweet, somewhat salty caramel sauce, with bitter kumquats added for contrast. The aforementioned pumpkin was expressed in the thin, wavy cookie decorating the top of the dessert. The cookie was startlingly pumpkin-y and spicy, in a robust way that would have been shocking even in a sturdy, doughy cookie...or pumpkin pie. It was the most surprising aspect of the entire meal, and I wish there had been more of it - perhaps an equal amount of cookie in relation to the custard, so each bite could have had both? (I consumed the cookie far too quickly for it to be of any use to the custard.)

I can't wait to return to Craigie and order a different dessert, to see what else they're capable of.

What a meal that was! All in all, I give the food, drinks, and general restaurant feel each 6 stars out of 5. I wish I could eat and drink it all over again; maybe I will, if you go back with me? I hope this first attempt at expanding "the dessert blog" to contain other food reviews is adequately persuasive! :-)

The Christmas Hamper!

2011-01-20T18:59:00.000-08:00

Hello, dear readers, and happy 2011! Now that the joyous swirl of holiday revelry is over, I have resurfaced to share a very special Christmas treat.

I have a British stop-motion adaptation of The Wind in The Willows to thank for my introduction to Christmas hampers. Oh, how I loved that endearing series, especially the festive winter episodes! In one such episode, Toad challenges four weaselly troublemakers to a downhill race, and a Christmas hamper - or 'ampah, as the accent would have it - is the winner's prize. My young American sensibilities were amused that (1) a hamper would be a desirable prize - laundry, anyone? - and (2) said hamper was actually a large wicker basket, picnic-style, filled with fine foods. Hampers became a bit of a family joke, especially when other BBC period productions confirmed they were a "thing" beyond TWITW. Still, I never thought much of them beyond those laughs.

Then, imagine my surprise last summer when I was at Fortnum & Mason, in London...and I saw an entire floor of that great emporium devoted to hampers! I kept murmuring to myself, "they're real!", as I perused wicker box after wicker box filled with desirable confections.

I wanted one, badly. Bringing one back on the plane was out of the question, so I told myself I would order one for Christmas. What a great treat that would be for the family to enjoy, right?! Well, I was not as diligent as I could have been, and Christmas was upon us before I knew it. I had not ordered a hamper.

Fortunately, my father had been attentive where I had not. Christmas Eve saw a rather formidable box, with a very promising logo, positioned in front of our Christmas tree.

I honestly couldn't contain my excitement upon seeing the large Fortnum & Mason cardboard box. This excitement reached an even higher pitch when I noticed the wicker visible through the box's handles. I gleefully cut through the box's tape and lifted the hamper out of the box, pausing briefly to admire its weaving as well as the F&M emblazoned on its side. I unbuckled the hamper - yes, it is fastened shut with two leather buckles! - and unwrapped the well-cushioned treats within. I may have also done a little dance of happiness, both in and out of the original box.

So, what was in this hamper? You can see the treats, in their lovely keepsake tins and other such packaging, here. I should add that this was a "bespoke" hamper, with contents tailored to my family's dessert preferences!

Piccadilly biscuit assortment - Piccadilly biscuits are wafer-thin and rather crisp, yet they pack a lot of flavor! The lemon curd biscuits were a particular standout.
Explorer biscuit assortment - this tin contained many exotically-flavored biscuits, of a heartier nature than the Piccadillies, featuring different spices and nuts from around the world. The Lucifer biscuit, a pungent ginger cookie with chilli spice, is a great example of the tasting adventures found within this assortment.
Christmas tea - this tea was so, so flavorful! I detected hints of orange, clove, ginger, and cocoa. It paired perfectly with our holiday breakfast (orange rum coffee cake) and official dessert (buche de Noel).
Chocolossus biscuits - I have previously extolled the virtues of the Chocolossus biscuit, and this batch had an especially smooth chocolate coating and richly-flavored biscuit center. I have to add that the scent of Chocolossus biscuits will forever remind me of London. Sigh.
Christmas biscuit assortment - this musical tin played a music-box version of Jingle Bells and contained Christmas spice, lemon curd Picadilly, and traditional butter biscuits. The butter biscuits were very, well, buttery!
White and amber F&M sugars - the perfect addition to a bitter tea, these individually-wrapped sugar wafers with F&M imprint were quite welcome...and cute! I guess the British use "amber" to denote brown sugar?
Superb English creams - these dark-chocolate-covered candies blew me away. I've never really enjoyed American fruit creams, where the fruity filling usually looks like nougat and tastes like an artificially-flavored, overly saccharine marshmallow. Many American chocolatiers make this filling even more of an abomination by adding nuts. However, F&M's creams were filled with a substance I can only describe as a pleasantly sweet, crystalline version of the fruit, or bean, or root, they were meant to imitate. So, I tasted surprisingly robust forms of black currant, coffee, and ginger (to name a few), while enjoying the sensations of sugar dissolving on my tongue and rich dark chocolate melting in my mouth. Superb, indeed!
Dark chocolate bar with rose and violet - ok, I haven't tried this yet...but if F&M's other chocolates are representative of this bar's quality, I will enjoy it thoroughly.
Milk chocolate bar - repeat the above bullet's comments!
Christmas spiced biscuits - these hearty biscuits were thick and chewy. They had plenty of spice flavor, and crumbled nuts plus bits of dates added textural variety. These treats really highlight the differences between English biscuits and American cookies. They're denser, creamier, less sweet, and more robustly flavored than the average cookie found on this side of the Pond.

I feel so lucky to have enjoyed this hamper, a delicious synthesis of childhood memories and present adventures! I'm pretty sure that Toad and the weasels would have approved. Both the packaging and the delights within surpassed all expectations.

While most of these treats may now be gone, the hamper will continue to serve us. My family has decided to make a tradition of filling the hamper each year! I can't wait to see what next Christmas will bring...

Pumpkin Spice Latte Cheesecake

2010-11-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

The August arrival of Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte is at first an unwelcome harbinger of fall, but as the mornings grow crisper and the evenings grow darker I find myself embracing this coziest of espresso beverages. It seemed only natural to try and express the comfort of the milky liquid in the stability of a dairy solid - so, enter the Pumpkin Spice Latte Cheesecake.

I used this recipe, and followed it exactly for my first pass. I did not triple the cinnamon (gasp), as I could count on the extremely moist cheesecake environment to heighten all spices’ intensity. Also, the pumpkin and latte flavors are more important. I liked Sprinkle’s suggestion for “authenticity” and used the strongest Starbucks Via packets to suggest the latte’s espresso.

I was pleased with some aspects of this first pass. I particularly liked the crust, which is crafted from wheat flour, almond flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter. It was dense and cookie-like, and the almond flavor gave it a nutty little twist. I had never used almond flour before this recipe, and had no idea that it was simply finely-ground almonds! Then, I liked the texture and mouthfeel of the cheesecake. It was smooth and creamy, but not too heavy. I could eat a slice without feeling belly-bombed. However, the original recipe calls for the separation of pumpkin and coffee.

The first issue with this was purely logistical. The pumpkin portion formed the majority / base of the cake, and the significantly smaller coffee portion was meant to be spread on top of the pumpkin layer. This may not be a problem for larger portions - layered cheesecakes are fairly common, after all - but it was difficult to spread the minimal amount of coffee-cheese mixture over the still-fluid pumpkin base. The final distribution was not as even as I would have liked. Secondly, such an approach seemed strange since the inspirational beverage's flavors are evenly mixed. The pumpkin part had a weak taste somewhere between pumpkin pie and plain cheesecake, and could have used something to kick it up a notch. The latte part was essentially espresso cream cheese, with more of a flavor punch than any espresso I’ve sipped. This flavor disconnect was, quite frankly, jarring, so I decided that any future attempt at this recipe would involve one mixture of…pumpkin spice latte cheesecake.

Fortunately, a pre-Thanksgiving potluck provided the perfect opportunity to re-test this recipe! I did not meddle with the already-perfect crust. Then, I threw all cheesecake ingredients together in one bowl while keeping the measurements the same. I am very glad I did this, as the end result was significantly superior to my first attempt. My test subjects...er, potluck attendees...definitely enjoyed it!

The cheesecake is a pretty brown latte color, with visible spice flecks. Flavor-wise, the pumpkin and coffee tastes integrate perfectly, and there's just a hint of spice to suggest the season. The mixture tames the overly assertive espresso flavor of the separate latte part, and is a much better approximation of Starbucks' fall treat. The pumpkin seems less wimpy when tasted in this context. So, the moral of this story is...if the drink is mixed, let its dessert be also!

We will see if these pages chronicle a future attempt at a Salted Caramel Hot Chocolate or Peppermint Mocha dessert...

Julie and Tony's Pumpkin Bakestravaganza

2010-11-21T11:02:00.000-08:00

How's that for an event name?

Tony and I had been discussing the possibility of a pumpkin-themed bake-a-thon for some time, and it finally happened last weekend! We may have baked enough items to blanket the entirety of Medford with a cinnamon-and-squash aroma, but even if that didn't happen we surely baked enough items to take care of a week's (and then some) breakfasts and desserts. So, what glorious bounty was produced?

We started with some cutely-named "cinnapastries", which are exactly what their name suggests - pastries flavored with cinnamon. (They use more butter and brown sugar than cinnamon, but those ingredients do not present such superior naming options.) The dough can be made from scratch, but premade pie crust is easier.

2 pre-made pie crusts (1 package)
1 1/2 sticks butter, separated into 1 stick (softened) and two 2T portions (melted)
lots of brown sugar
lots of cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Soften the stick of butter, and mix brown sugar in it until the result is uniform. Divide the mixture evenly among the 12 cups of a muffin pan.
Roll out the pie crusts, and let them reach room temperature. Spread each crust with the melted 2T butter. Sprinkle - or cover, if you're spice-obsessed like me - the melted butter with cinnamon, and then brown sugar.
Roll the crusts back up. Slice each roll/tube into 6 pieces. Place each piece into a cup of the pre-sugarbuttered muffin pan.
Bake the cinnapastries for 12-15 minutes. Let them cool for a while after in the pan, until the sugarbutter has hardened. Don't worry about any overflowing sugarbutter - there's still plenty in each cup to moisten and flavor the pastries.

These little treats, suggestive of miniature cinnamon buns, were quite buttery and sweet. The pie crust may look hard, but it was soft and chewy upon biting and essentially melted in my mouth. Each cinnapastry was 3 or 4 bites, but those bites packed the creamy pastry goodness and cinnamon warmth equivalent to a full-sized bun. I'll keep these in mind as bite-sized breakfast treats or cocktail-party desserts - and really, I can't think of a dessert that's easier to make. I also want to try a puff-pastry version.

Next up was the first recipe I made from the Flour cookbook! Flour's pumpkin muffins were an event-appropriate way to welcome the new book. I won't copy the recipe here, but its intricacies deserve some commentary. First of all, the recipe requests 3 T molasses. Neither Tony nor I had molasses, so we substituted the equivalent measure of maple syrup and threw in some brown sugar. Secondly, the recipe uses orange juice in place of traditional muffin moisturizers like oil or milk. Then, I tripled the cinnamon and added an extra dash of cloves.

The end result was truly unique. The orange juice really brightened the fresh pumpkin flavor and gave a pleasing hint of citrus zing to the squashy cake. The citrus was also great in tandem with the heavy spicing - cloved oranges, anyone? The muffins were beyond moist, but in a light and fresh way rather than the heavy way associated with oil. The syrup/sugar molasses substituion had no adverse effect on the muffins' consistency, but it did not add enough flavor. These muffins would benefit from molasses' robust, earthy heartiness - if only to take them away from the metaphorical farmers' market and closer to a cozy autumn hearth. Even with their fruit-and-vegetable quality, these muffins are still delicious - and the recipe makes a lot of them. The batter yielded 18 total muffins, 50% more than expected. I'm so glad I received an insight into the creative baking conducted at Flour, as well as a week's worth of breakfast delights. I've eaten these muffins for 7 days in a row, and I'm still not sick of them!

Our last treats were Pilgrim Pies - or, to those who don't give seasonal desserts seasonal names, pumpkin whoopie pies. Here is the recipe; remember to add my token tripling of cinnamon.

2 eggs
2 C light brown sugar
1 C vegetable oil
1 t vanilla
1 15oz can pumpkin
3 C flour
1/2 t cinnamon, 1/4 t nutmeg, 1/4 allspice - This is my equivalent of the recipe's 1 t of "pumpkin pie spice."
1 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1 t salt
(frosting) 4 oz cream cheese, softened
(frosting) 1 stick butter, softened
(frosting) 2 t vanilla
(frosting) 4-5 C confectioners' sugar

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Beat the eggs, brown sugar, oil, and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl until smooth. Stir in the pumpkin.
In a separate bowl, combine the flour, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
Add the dry ingredients to the egg mixture 1/2 C at a time, blending each time until smooth.
Drop a heaping tablespoon of batter onto an ungreased cookie sheet, using a moist finger or the back of a spoon to slightly flatten each mound. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes, then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Meanwhile, make the frosting. Beat together the cream cheese, butter, and vanilla extract in a bowl until light and fluffy. Mix in the confectioners' sugar 1/2 C at a time, until the desired consistency is reached. 4 cups of sugar resulted in a surprisingly stiff, but still spreadable, frosting.
To assemble the pies, turn half of the cookies bottom side up and spread a generous amount of cream cheese frosting on each one. Top them with the remaining cookies (turned right side up).

The recipe's expected yield is 10-14 complete pies. We decided to make 14 individual cookies, or 7 pies, and pour the remaining batter into two 8"x8" baking dishes to make a giant-sized pie. Fortunately, there was enough batter and frosting to make thick, fully-filled pies of both sizes. The large pie was left in the oven for three additional minutes, which was enough to cook it to completion.
The resultant Pilgrim Pies had moist, fluffy, pumpkin-y cake. The cake was much softer than the frosting, which was stiff and sugary with a faint cream cheese flavor. I would have expected the frosting to be grainier with so little cream cheese and butter to absorb the sugar, but its texture was surprisingly smooth. I preferred to eat my pies slightly chilled, so that the frosting was dense, cool, and refreshing - but, Tony's preferred 15-second microwave treatment resulted in equally-tasty warm pies dripping with gooey filling.

Here are the traditional pies:

And, here is the Macrowhoopie along with all other Bakestravaganza delights. My coworkers polished this monster off rather quickly:

What a tempting spread of autumnal desserts! Now, please excuse me as I help myself to another muffin...

Julie and Joanne?

2010-11-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

Flour obsessive that I am, it is somewhat surprising that I waited a few weeks post-release to purchase the new Flour cookbook. Maybe I wanted to wait until I was in a Christmas-shopping mood, since I knew I would be getting one as a gift in addition to my own copy? Regardless, the Moment of Purchase happened this past Veterans' Day. My company had the day off, so I was able to leisurely enjoy Flour's Central Square bakery around 10 in the morning. I was putting the new cookbooks in my bag when a fellow breakfaster struck up a conversation.

FB: Hey, have you baked anything out of that cookbook yet?
Me: ...No, I just bought it. But I can't wait to try!
FB: Maybe you could try baking all the recipes in a row, like that "Julie and Julia" movie. Only I guess this cook is Joanne. You could start a blog!
Me: I actually already have a dessert blog...
FB: Oh, that's perfect. What's your name? You could rename your blog to "Whatever I Am and Joanne."
Me: Julie.
FB: Even more perfect. Julie and Joanne!

I don't know which part of this exchange amused me more - the implication that I would have already made something out of a cookbook in my possession for 10 seconds, or my unknown name being represented as whatever I am (human? dancer?). Still, I have to thank this slightly-off-kilter patron for my newest tagging idea.

I won't repurpose this blog to be solely about Flour, even though I've likely discussed said entity more than any other bakery/desserterie/manufacturer. Instead, I will tag posts about my adventures with this cookbook as "Julie and Joanne" posts. Here's to baking under Joanne Chang's expert guidance - and the resulting book/movie deal, of course! :-P

From Hoboken, With Cupcake

2010-11-10T19:26:00.000-08:00

I just spent a fun weekend visiting good friends in the New York City area. Much of this time was spent in Hoboken, where two friends (and their comfortable couches) reside. We enjoyed several leisurely mornings there, with slow walks to and from our chosen brunch locations. (Yes, there were choices to be made - I did not know that Hoboken has the highest density of bars and restaurants per square mile in the US!) These walks took us by several tempting bakeries. I was always too full from brunch to enjoy these treats in passing, but I did take one cupcake from Crumbs Bake Shop back to Boston at the end of the weekend!

The Crumbs cupcakery chain actually has locations in California, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey, with plans to open additional locations in other states. I'm sure they'll be welcome wherever they go, because seriously, look at the contents of this display case:

So many tempting flavors, in such decadent portions! I ended up purchasing a Grasshopper cupcake due to my love of chocolate and mint.

This cupcake was different from most gourmet cupcakes. To start, it was massive - at roughly 3 inches in diameter and height, it put all Boston cupcakes to shame. Then, instead of being dense and finely crumbed, the cake was rather airy, with large crumbs that belied its smooth texture. I would liken the Crumbs cake to an unusually successful box cake - it had the appearance and mouthfeel of a cake mix product, but much more flavor than Duncan or Betty usually provide. It tasted of rich, buttery cocoa, and was almost ganache-like in its intensity.

The cupcake had a fudgy frosting injection at its center. I would guess that this was chocolate buttercream frosting blended with cake crumbs or batter, as the injection was not smooth throughout but somehow integrated perfectly with the surrounding cake. Then, the entire massive cupcake was covered in mild, sweet mint buttercream frosting. The frosting, like the cake, reminded me of the storebought product, only with a drop or two of peppermint extract - but, it could be that Crumbs just mixes an exceptionally oily and creamy buttercream frosting. It was cool and refreshing, and maybe a tad slippery. The mint flavor could have been more assertive, but generally speaking the frosting complemented the intensity and smoothness of the base cake. The frosting layer was then garnished with a small dollop of whipped cream and a sprinkling of soft, creamy semisweet chocolate chips.

Crumbs' best-possible-box-mix taste is unusual in today's baking world, and as such it was unexpectedly satisfying. I'm positively stuffed after eating the Grasshopper, but I do wish that I had more cupcakes for the days to come. My purchase survived a 4.5-hour non-refrigerated bus ride plus nearly 3 days in my fridge, so others - like the Espresso and the Half Baked, mmm - could have made the trip as well. The next time I'm in Hoboken, or someplace with a Crumbs franchise, I will have to take more cupcakes on the road, and possibly eat one on location too!

Homemade Oreos

2010-10-14T08:28:00.000-07:00

Sigh, fall - or potluck season, as it were! I decided that it was about time I bring something other than brownies to my first potluck of the season, though whatever I brought would (obviously) still be a dessert item. Flour Bakery had taught me the tastiness of a baker's oreo, so I thought I'd try creating my own version of this surprisingly complicated but delicious cookie. Here is the recipe I used, which is cobbled from various online sources with personal modifications. My commentary on the process is in italics.

1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1 1/4 C sugar
1/2 C unsweetened cocoa
1 t baking soda
1/4 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1 large egg
(frosting) 1 stick butter, room temperature
(frosting) 1 8oz. block cream cheese, room temperature
(frosting) 4 C confectioners' sugar
(frosting) 1 t vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 375 F.
Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder, and salt until uniform.
Using an electric mixer at low speed, beat in the butter and then the egg. Continue mixing until the dough is a solid mass.
Place rounded teaspoons of batter on a parchment-lined baking sheet, approximately 2" apart. Slightly flatten the dough. I spaced the cookies less than 2" apart to maximize the number baked per sheet (25). I should have heeded this recommendation, as most cookies had baked into each other. I cut them apart when they were just out of the oven and still soft, so no harm was done in the long run.
Bake for 9 minutes, rotating the sheet halfway through. Cool the cookies on a rack afterward.
(frosting) Cream the butter for 2 minutes. Add the cream cheese and vanilla, and mix well. This is a beautiful blend!
(frosting) Gradually add confectioners' sugar until the desired consistency is reached. I used 4 cups, but could have used more. The consistency was more like spreadable cake frosting than the stiff cream of the storebought oreo.
(assembly) Put frosting in either a pastry bag with a 1/2" tip, or a ziplock bag with a 1/2" tip cut out. My non-pastry-bagged self had to use the improvised ziplock. I regretted this within a few minutes.
(assembly) Add 1 T frosting to the center of one cookie. I couldn't get the frosting to come steadily out of my bag. Intense squeezing ruptured holes all over the ziplock, so that thick streams of frosting shot haphazardly about my assembly area. After sponging frosting off my clothing and cleaning up the spillage, I admitted defeat and took to the holey bag with a knife, using the utensil to spread frosting on my oreos per usual frosting applications.
(assembly) Place another cookie on top of the frosted cookie, and press lightly to spread the frosting to the cookies' edges. I had a lot of frosting, so my oreos were robustly filled! The average finished oreo measured 2" to 2.5" wide, and a little over a half-inch tall.

Behold the finished product!

This recipe made 30 total oreos - 60 individual cookies, and enough frosting to stick sets of two together. The cookies were crisp and crunchy on the outside and soft in the middle, which was a surprising variance considering their thinness. They softened over time, probably due to the proximity of moist frosting, which actually helped one take the best possible bite - a bite into a softer cookie does not displace as much frosting! They tasted like an exceptionally cocoa-y, buttery devil's food cake. The frosting was very smooth and creamy, with a cream-cheese tanginess that cut through the sugary sweetness. The flavor pairings were great - the cookie's butter and frosting's cream cheese amplified the perception of the other flavor, and the comparatively bitter cocoa powder was tempered by the powdered sugar. The contrasts in texture and density were also notable - the cookies were light and grainy, while the frosting was heavy and smooth.

My fellow potluckers and I were very happy with the outcome of this recipe, though I wish the execution had not been so troublesome. Maybe I'll have to get some pastry bags and hope for better results! I would make this recipe again in my quest to approximate Flour's quality in baking. :-)

Cupcake Conveyance

2010-09-30T19:32:00.000-07:00

As you may have read earlier, my Cupcakes & Cocktails class provided me with plenty of little baked goods to enjoy over the following days. They posed a question to me from the confines of their pastry box: what if you want to eat some of us at lunch? How can you bring us to work without messing up our frosting? Fortunately, I had the answer waiting in my kitchen cabinet.

The Cup-a-Cake container is perfectly shaped to hold one cupcake. Its interior plastic prongs dig gently into the side of the cake portion and hold it securely in place. It snaps shut nice and tightly. You can toss the container around as much as you'd like, and the cupcake won't budge! The frosting remains intact!

I would highly recommend investing $3 in one of these contraptions if you ever think you may want to move about with a cupcake...and yes, I enjoyed this happily-conveyed sangria cupcake at work. Yum!

Cupcakes & Cocktails

2010-09-30T18:56:00.000-07:00

I recently attended an exceptionally fun Cupcakes & Cocktails class at the Boston Center for Adult Education! 14 or so students came together in a large, well-equipped kitchen to be guided through the creation of three cocktails and three alcohol-infused cupcakes. I had expected the class to be more of an intensive learning experience than it was, but I came away with a few good tips and more than a few good memories. While each student got their hands in the pot - or rather, the mixing bowls and the ovens - at least once throughout the course, I was unusually lucky by getting to craft all three cocktails in addition to performing the expected baking tasks. I guess that's what happens when you (unintentionally) take a seat by the drink station!

So, what did we make?

Birthday Cake shots - pineapple juice, amaretto, and vodka shaken to the point of frothiness and then decanted into glasses, topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. This most cake-like of libations was simply adorable, and tasty too.
Jello Shot cupcakes - strawberry box mix plus strawberries and coconut rum, baked and then drizzled with un-set (liquid) strawberry jello. The frosting was simply pulped strawberries mixed with butter and more than one bag of powdered sugar. The cupcakes were topped with small squares of "mosaic" jello, which was an aggregate of small cubes of different-flavored jellos mixed together with plain gelatin. The cake itself was slightly too moist for the comparatively-thin consistency of a box cake. I couldn't detect any coconut or rum flavors, but the strawberry flavor was out in full force thanks to the incorporated berries and colorful jello drizzle. The frosting was faintly berry-flavored, assertively sweet, and surprisingly stiff. The jello was, well, jello.
Sangria - macerated apples, peaches, orange slices, and lemon wedges steeped in a mixture of shiraz spiced with cinnamon and cloves, Grand Marnier, and apple juice. The result was a good, dark, winey sangria with plenty of sweet and juicy fruit.
Sangria cupcakes - melted chocolate chips, cocoa powder, and red wine mixed in to a standard cake recipe, baked, and then topped with wine frosting and wine-soaked fruit compote. The very dense, finely-crumbed cake was robustly chocolatey, and there was a hint of berry jam flavor thanks to the wine. I think this treat had the best cake of the three. The frosting was like eating a concentrated dessert wine (sugar-wise, not alcohol-wise!), and while several fruits were used in the boiled wine compote, only the pineapples retained their shape and distinctive flavor. The strawberries and blueberries were lost to the wine.
Apple Cider hot toddies - hot mulled cider and a shot of whiskey poured over a pat of spiced butter, garnished with whipped topping, a cinnamon stick, and spiced graham cracker crumbs. The resultant drink was warm and comforting, with just the right balance achieved between a kick (generous spicing, alcohol) and smoothness (whipped topping and melting butter). The highlight of this drink was the butter, which had been softened in its plain state and then blended with brown sugar, nutmeg, and cinnamon. I'd love to make my own spiced butter, and use it for more than just drinks!
Tiramisu cupcakes - vanilla buttermilk cupcakes cut in half, with espresso-Kahlua syrup poured over the cut edges. The cupcakes were then reassembled with a dollop of marscapone-Kahlua frosting holding the halves together. The tops of the cupcakes were decorated with another dollop of frosting, plus some chocolate shavings. This was an excellent cupcake! I love the dense yet creamy-smooth texture achieved when baking with buttermilk and cake flour. The coffee flavor additions really shone against the plain cake canvas, and the marscapone frosting was unexpectedly airy and creamily smooth. It had none of the crystalline, faintly-crunchy texture of the stawberry frosting, though similar quantities of powdered sugar were used. I thought it complemented the cake very well, and I enjoyed the fact that it used so much dairy - it was almost as if I were eating a latte instead of straight-up espresso.

Here are some pictures from the class!

I really appreciated getting to work on several involved baking recipes and trying my hand at mixology. I even got to helm a KitchenAid standalone mixer - the appliance of my dreams! - as it whipped up some delicious frosting for our little treats. While a to-go box of 12 leftover cupcakes and all remaining strawberry frosting were delicious takeaways from the class, I hope the more practical skill- and knowledge-oriented takeaways will have more staying power. What are some good tips that I learned in this class?

Macerate your fruit. Toss the fruit you plan on using in baking, or a drink, with sugar, and let it sit for 20 minutes or so before use. The sugar, by creating a solvent imbalance with the fruit, draws the juices forth from the fruit and releases the fruit's flavor. I really noticed the beneficial difference made by this process in the sangria and the strawberry frosting.
Spices are welcome anywhere. I feel like a whole new world has been opened to me now that I am acquainted with spiced butter.
Use an ice cream scoop when filling cupcake liners. The amount of batter held by the 2oz. half-sphere scoop is usually just right, and if it isn't, it's a lot less messy to correct the amount with a clean-edged scoop than a runny spoon.
Don't fill your cupcake liners more than 3/4 full. That may be common knowledge, but as a traditionally overenthusiastic filler it was good for me to hear.
Frosting shouldn't flow. When whipping up frosting with a mixer or beater, you can tell it's ready when you lift the whisk attachment from the frosting. It should stay static, in a column of sugary goodness, between the elevated mixing apparatus and the bowl.

I do wish I had learned more about baking with alcohol, since it's not as simple as arbitrarily replacing a "dry" recipe's wet ingredients with spirits and such. Fortunately, I have a new cookbook that should educate me on that topic.

Here's to baking, drinking, and any combination of the two!

So Many Cookies

2010-09-23T09:43:00.000-07:00

The Finale desserterie chain recently added a new treat to their restaurant menu, just in time for the fall season and its attendant comfort-food cravings! The menu suggested that the Cookies and Cream dessert offered more, quantity- and variety-wise, than their other plated desserts. I was already familiar with Finale's smaller, fancier indulgences, so I was eager to try something potentially bigger and better. Plus, I knew a plate of warm cookies would feel oh so cozy on an unexpectedly chilly September evening.

As you can see, we have an eclectic cookie assortment, accompanied by a vanilla gelato float crafted with Izze blackberry soda and garnished with white and dark chocolate wedges. This fizzy, fruity float counted as the cream. The cookies, moving clockwise from the float, are:

Chocolate Chip - a basic cookie filled with melty chocolate slivers. The batter had run rather thin, resulting in a crispy, crunchy cookie - but, this contrasted so nicely with the warm, gooey chocolate bits.
White Chocolate Cranberry - huge white chocolate chunks, plump cranberries, and small walnut pieces studded a chewy, buttery mound of a cookie. I was really impressed with the robustness and quality of the mixins, as well as the base batter's flavor.
Brownie - a fairly basic fudge brownie topped with sweet, smooth chocolate ganache.
Oatmeal Raisin, 3 scattered across plate - alright, I'll admit it. I left these behind. Readers who know my distaste for raisins will understand.
Linzer - this unusual spice dessert has a cookie base spread with raspberry jam, with dough latticed over the jam layer. This made me think of holiday treats, with plenty of assertive spices that were suggestive of gingerbread.
Snickerdoodle - a light sugar cookie coated in cinnamon sugar. This wasn't a traditional snickerdoodle in the sense that I know, as the spice was not mixed throughout the batter. Still, Finale's airy version was a welcome respite between bites of heavier cookies.
Raspberry Shortbread - a thin layer of raspberry jam and evenly-distributed small-crumb streusel topping cover a soft, buttery, salty shortbread cookie. A real winner, probably my second-favorite dessert of the bunch.
Peanut Butter - a crumbly, dry, and intensely nutty peanut butter shortbread.
Whoopie Pie - I thought this "pie" might be the best cookie on the plate, so I saved it for last. Goodness, was I correct! Two sizable chocolate cookies - which are stiff but chewy, surprisingly fudgy and almost brownie-like when bitten, and exploding with full dark chocolate flavor - sandwich a thick smear of fresh, tangy white chocolate cream cheese frosting. I wish I had been given 3 of these beauties instead of 3 oatmeal raisin cookies! I made a mental note that the whoopie pies can be ordered individually at the desserterie's to-go counter.

So many cookies, so much dessert! Tasting each cookie was like unwrapping a new present. Dessert as entertainment, even.

Apparently Finale has a prize for whomever manages to eat this entire dessert, but the waitress had not yet seen anybody do so and win it. I put forth a valiant effort and ended up taking home bits and pieces of most cookies. I would definitely order the Cookies and Cream again, as it was delicious; fun; and, considering my little bag of leftovers, two desserts in one! I should also mention that this sweet abundance costs the same as Finale's finer, tinier treats, so it's a great value as well.

Summer Restaurant Week 2010

2010-08-30T16:32:00.000-07:00

Where did I eat this Restaurant Week?

Masa, on the eastern border of the South End, serves delicious Southwest-style food with occasional New England influences. It's one of my favorite Boston restaurants. Since I hadn't been there for dinner in a while, I thought it was worth going back to try their Restaurant Week menu. With a sangria margarita in one hand and a fork in the other, I enjoyed a great meal! I had a flavorful yellow gazpacho for my appetizer, and ate a smoky, pungent, and moist achiote chicken breast with yucca fritters and corn-avocado salsa for dinner. I ordered a chocolate truffle tamale for dessert, but was presented with a molten chocolate cake (apparently the tamale did not exist?). Fortunately, Masa's MCC was unique and enjoyable. I would describe its texture as somewhere between a flourless chocolate torte and a typical MCC - in other words, it wasn't exactly molten, but was delightfully soft and gooey throughout. It had a deep, creamy chocolate flavor that made me think of chocolate mousse in cake form. The cake was complemented by a generous drizzle of sweet and tangy raspberry sauce, plus a small scoop of vanilla bean ice cream that melted over the warm dessert. Clearly, I'm loving chocolate/raspberry duos this month! A thorough dusting of powdered sugar and a sprig of mint added to the presentation. I may have had a better dessert here once upon a time - a rustic apple tart, perhaps? - but I can't complain about this fresh and tasty molten chocolate cake.

Since I consider myself a Harvard Square regular, I am somewhat embarrassed to say that I had never been to Casablanca before this meal. I look forward to returning to the subterranean Mediterranean restaurant, as I enjoyed their Restaurant Week menu. My appetizer was grilled mission figs with prosciutto, Vermont blue cheese, and balsamic drizzle; I then had salmon with fresh tomato salad and yogurt tahini as my main course. Even though the waiter recommended the local-blueberry creme brulee, I could not say no to the unusual-sounding flourless chocolate-polenta cake with Chantilly cream, creme anglaise, and strawberries. The cake was rather dense and somewhat dry, but it fortunately didn't fall apart or crumble during eating. I could not taste the polenta, but it definitely gave the cake a sturdier texture than flour would have done. The flavor was that of assertive cocoa powder rather than deep chocolate, which I attribute to the relative lack of moisture. I also noticed that there wasn't much sugar in the cake, though its accompaniments made up for its lack of sweetness. The custardy, lightly-vanilla creme anglaise clung to the cake, and the airy, sugary Chantilly cream had a smooth, cool mouthfeel that lightened each bite. I'll keep my eyes open for polenta cakes going forward, as I'm curious about what varieties are out there (moister, sweeter, etc). I'm glad I expanded my dessert horizons with an unconventionally-"leavened" cake!

The Birthday Cupcake Society

2010-08-21T11:51:00.001-07:00

To say that my birthday involved cupcakes would be an understatement.

I started the day by having brunch at Flour Bakery's Central Square outpost, which included one of their impossibly rich and chewy chocolate cupcakes with airy vanilla frosting. I'll let this picture do the talking.
I thought my daily cupcake quota - hitherto an unimagined and unnecessary metric - would have been filled after Flour's contribution, but this was not the case. Imagine my excitement when Greg presented me with a box of Sweet cupcakes later that afternoon! I have discussed Sweet here before, but the delights within that birthday box deserve honorable mention. From left to right in this picture:

Lemon - dense, lightly-flavored lemon vanilla cake was topped with tangy lemon frosting and a lemon candy. I would rather have assertive citrus flavors in baked goods, especially in ones as substantive as Sweet's. The frosting, however, was lemony enough to compensate for the cake's blandness. I could easily eat spoonful after spoonful of lemon frosting!
Lemon Raspberry - the same lemon vanilla cake was injected with a generous glob of raspberry jam. Their signature vanilla frosting, which may or may not have had a hint of lemon flavor, was the third contributor to a triumvirate of complementary textures (much like their Red, White, and You cupcake). The best bites included cake, frosting, and jam! A raspberry on top was a cute and tasty touch.
Chocolate Vanilla - cheerfull yellow sprinkles coated the cupcake's first dollop of vanilla frosting, which in turn was topped by an elaborate frosting peak. This frosting was so delicious and creamy that I paid less attention to the chocolate cake beneath. The chocolate cake was as rich as the vanilla cake, though less sugary and somewhat drier.
Chocolate Chocolate - yes, I loved this cupcake's purple sprinkles. Fortunately, the cupcake's chocolate flavors were equally pleasing. The bakery's dense, sugary frosting is especially delicious with creamy milk chocolate blended in.

So, my birthday's cupcake quota was stretched a bit. I enjoyed the Lemon Raspberry confection that evening, and consumed the others - at a rate of one per day! - later.

Then, I went to New Hampshire for a few days' fun with the family. I knew there would be a birthday dessert waiting for me. I was looking forward to my mom's beloved dark chocolate layer cake with peppermint frosting, so I had a cat's reaction of alarm plus curiosity when I saw a baker's box on our kitchen counter. So much for what I had been told! That's right, I wasn't getting my traditional cake. I was getting cupcakes - the best cupcakes I've ever had.

Windham's Shabby Chic bakery is a recent addition to the New Hampshire dessert scene. Within 6 months of opening, they won all sorts of acclaim, including a feature on New Hampshire Chronicle and a cover mention for Best Cupcakes in New Hampshire magazine's 2009 Best of NH issue. After eating a few of their delightful confections, it is easy to see - and taste! - why. I had four different cupcakes, all variations on the same basic chocolate cake with light, creamy buttercream frosting. For the record, each cupcake measures slightly less than 3 inches in diameter and slightly less than 4 inches (frosting and topper included) in height! Here are the treats in the order they were eaten:

Chocolate Salted Caramel - this cake had extremely salty, slightly-crystallized caramel swirled within the batter. The saltiness actually shocked me at first until I embraced the union of flavors in each gooey bite - chocolate, caramel, and salt, oh my! - as well as the sweeter caramel frosting. I felt like I was eating a moist, chewy caramel brownie rather than a cake! The light frosting reminded me of dulce de leche, and was only slightly salty; you do have the option of picking flakes of fleur de sel from its exterior. Sweet caramel drizzle ran down the sides of the frosting, and a chewy dark-chocolate-covered caramel marked the top of the frosting peak.

Chocolate Raspberry - raspberry puree was mixed throughout the chocolate cake to create the most successful dessert of this bunch! The tart, fruity puree complemented the cake's smooth chocolate sweetness, and moistened the batter so that both flavors shone. Each bite was deliciously fudgy, and there was a nugget of puree at the cupcake's center. Of course, the raspberry frosting was equally excellent! The pale pink buttercream had tiny pieces of fruit mixed in, and really tasted like a whisper of raspberries and cream. The topper was a fudgy chocolate with a sour berry coating.
Chocolate Mint - no mint syrup saturated this base cake. Instead, small pieces of dark mint chocolate and light-green white chocolate studded the batter. The candy bits were dry and hard, so the cupcake had none of the gooey fudginess noted above. The candies' fresh mint flavor lightly permeated the batter. The pale green buttercream frosting featured a stronger, more pungent mint. I prefer sweet peppermint to fresh mint, so I was slightly disappointed in this cupcake. A chocolate-covered malted milk ball with a gorgeous robin's-egg coating topped it all off.
Chocolate Peanut Butter - when devoid of mix-ins, Shabby Chic's standard chocolate cupcake is moderately chocolatey-sweet and somewhat dry, with a coarse crumb. This basic cupcake was paired with the most decadent of frostings. As you can see from the picture, the peanut butter frosting departed from the usual Shabby Chic buttercream by being thick - so thick that it was more like dense peanut butter ice cream than frosting! The taste echoed the texture, suggesting incredibly sweet and milky peanut butter. Clearly, a lot of actual peanut butter went into it! The frosting became somewhat crusty on the outside after spending a day in my refrigerator, but the inside remained creamy. I was blown away by the frosting's richness and how it paired so well with the chocolate cake. The cupcake was topped with a milk-chocolate-covered peanut.
What excellent cake varieties and frosting flavors! I am so glad that my family saw Shabby Chic's press, realized the cupcakery was only minutes from our home, and decided to give it a try. I look forward to returning to this adorable desserterie to try some more treats - maybe a vanilla cupcake with orange or lemon swirls?

...as if 9 cupcakes in 8 days weren't enough! Happy Birthday to me. :-)

OMG!

2010-08-05T06:38:00.000-07:00

I went to Stonewall Kitchen's flagship store in York, Maine this past weekend, and stopped by a nearby farmers' market afterward. This market had the usual assortments of fresh veggies and baked goods, but one baked-good display caught my eye. Kate's Designer Delights was advertising a treat called the OMG. Having used that phrase to a fault, I had to investigate its dessert incarnation. OMGs are essentially 5"-diameter tarts, with a shortbread crust and the filling/drizzle of your choice - either homemade caramel with milk chocolate, or raspberry jam and white chocolate. I chose the caramel-filled OMG since Stonewall Kitchen had satisfied my jam needs just minutes before.

The dessert's name couldn't be more appropriate! The shortbread base was deliciously buttery and soft, yet still crumbly, and much thicker than the usual tart crust. A shortbread lover like myself would be overjoyed. The caramel, in a layer approximately 1/8" thick, was thick and sweet. The minimal chocolate drizzle was smooth, milky, and flavorful, so I wish there had been more chocolate. Each bite melted in my mouth, and the sweet butteriness of it all was oh so pleasing. I wish I had thought ahead to purchase another, as the caramel-shortbread combination is too delicious and too rare.

OMG, indeed!

London Calling: Buns 'n' Biscuits

2010-07-21T15:48:00.001-07:00

A few more British treats deserve a blog mention!

With Euston Station's food court – and Underground access! – one block from our hotel, we weren’t going to find a more convenient breakfast stop. Delice de France and Caffe Ritazza both offered an over-the-top version of a revered baked good that I enjoyed 7 mornings in a row. Their triple chocolate muffins consisted of chocolate dough with white, milk, and dark chocolate chips mixed in, and injected chocolate frosting. DDF’s muffin was drier and less sweet, as a muffin should be, but it had far too much frosting. CR’s muffin essentially was a moist cupcake, but with minimal unnecessary goo. Despite their outrageous ingredients, the muffins were considerably smaller than American bakeries' muffins. I may have justified their repeated consumption on this fact.

A tour guide in the original Cambridge recommended Fitzbillies' Chelsea buns, so we had to investigate further. Chelsea bun dough is flavored with orange, lemon, and spices, and rolled with currants and sugar. Once the buns are rolled and cut, much like cinnamon buns, they are topped in a sugary, buttery glaze. I'm glad I tried this local specialty, but in the end I'm more of a frosted-cinnamon-bun girl. The spice and citrus flavor combination recalled winter holiday treats, and it felt out of place on a sweltering summer day. The dough itself was tougher than expected. Also, the currants were too dry, chewy, and flavorless for my liking. I did enjoy the sweet glaze, but it made the bun difficult to hold and eat. Maybe we would have been happier getting the local creamery's ice cream for dessert!

Fortnum & Mason of afternoon tea fame sells a variety of biscuits, or cookies. Knowing my dessert tastes, it was the most natural thing in the world to purchase Chocolossus biscuits, and they were such a success that two Chocolossus tins were flown back over the Pond. The dessert's core is a large (nearly palm-sized) dark chocolate biscuit studded with pieces of macadamia nuts. The biscuit proper is dry but not stale, and is surprisingly robust in chocolate flavor. The nut fragments are small enough that they don't overwhelm the biscuit, yet are still assertive enough on the palate. That biscuit is then enrobed in a quarter-inch-thick layer of smooth dark chocolate. As your teeth sink through the chocolate layer and crunch the biscuit within, as you enjoy the rich aroma and savor the multiple mediums of chocolate, you realize that Chocolossus really is the perfect cookie.

Lastly, I had to try some everday chocolate, British-style! The convenience stores and subway kiosks dazzled me with their displays of countless unknown candy bars. I ultimately selected a packet of Revels since I'll be performing in a production of the same name back in the new Cambridge. I assume they are called Revels because of the unexpected party you may enjoy while eating them. The candies are balls of milk chocolate, filled with one of six flavored centers: coffee, toffee, orange, raisin, malted milk ball, or more chocolate. I was impressed with the rich, creamy consistency of the chocolate. The fillings were dense, sugary, and rather tasty, with the exception of the never-enjoyable raisin. I ate one bag in Heathrow airport and am saving one more for the day my Revels show opens at Sanders Theatre. :-)

London Calling: Afternoon Tea

2010-07-16T14:55:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of traveling to London for a week’s vacation! When deciding which sites to see and activities to do, one food-related splurge became a priority: I had to take afternoon tea in the country where the ritual originated. I made reservations for the St. James Restaurant at Fortnum & Mason, just outside Picadilly Circus. That stunning specialty food emporium did not disappoint – the experience was everything I wanted it to be, and more!

The tea room was warm, sunlit, and decorated in a soft blue. Plush armchairs and low-lying sofas with embroidered pillows surrounded delicate coffee tables set with the tea service’s china and drinkware. After settling in on the comfortable furniture, we cleansed our palate with brightly-flavored sparkling lemonade and ordered our tea. I enjoyed the strength and full body of the Assam Superb offering.

Next came four categories of delicate gastronomic treats – a plate of canapés followed by a 3-tiered display with sandwiches, scones, and cakes. You may behold the glorious tower below:

Canapes – asiago breadsticks, pesto breadsticks, salmon crostini topped with roe, and sausage in puff pastry
Sandwiches – egg salad, curry pasta and raisins on rye, cucumber and watercress on white, chicken and watercress on white, salmon on wheat
Scones – plain and current scones, madeleines
Desserts – raspberry jam sandwiched between shortbread, light lemon cake soaked in lemon sauce, vanilla cake topped with vanilla cream and white chocolate, brown sugar puff pastry glazed with confectioners' sugar and filled with custard and raspberries, lemon-almond petit four with blue white-chocolate frosting, sacher torte sans jam topped with gold leaf

My favorite treats, predictably enough, were the desserts, but the scones plus toppings were the best surprise.

Scones as I have known them in America can be a tough sell. More often than not, they are large mounds of floury, heavy dough that can barely redeem themselves via glazes or mixed-in fruit. Fortnum and Mason’s scones, however, were light, fluffy, buttery, and slightly tangy. This made them a treat in their own right, though they became even better with choice accompaniments. We could choose from strawberry jam, lemon curd, and clotted cream. I had to try the pale yellow clotted cream, a traditional British spread whose consistency is between whipped cream and butter. It was excellent when spooned over a dollop of jam! The lemon curd was excellently tart, with none of the cloying sweetness that usually turns me away from the spread.

Afternoon tea is a slow, relaxing, and above all indulgent meal. The richness of these treats gave me a fullness I would usually associate with twice the volume of food. We were so satisfied by the afternoon tea that we didn’t even eat dinner – and, we were able to browse the extensive F&M food halls without needing to sample everything in sight! This special time was one of the highlights of my vacation, and I encourage any visitors to Britain to seek out the same. Cheerio!

Dessert at the Mandarin Oriental

2010-05-19T12:12:00.001-07:00

The Mandarin Oriental’s M Bar has intrigued me for some time. Its posh hotel setting and swanky décor suggest a certain restricted luxury, while its street-facing window/wall – enabling occupants and passersby to observe one another – hints at a curious openness. So, I found myself on the inside of the wall this past Friday. My good experience was not limited to delicious drinks and an enviable window perch; the bar had a very tempting dessert menu! Take a look at the treats (with interloping cocktails) below.

The dessert on the left is a creatively-executed apple crisp. I usually prefer tight, well-packed fruit desserts, but M Bar’s deconstructed version was remarkable. To start, the apples were cut in cube-like chunks rather than the usual slices. The conventional-tasting fruit (Golden Delicious?) was tossed in a thin cinnamon-caramel sauce, and the resultant mixture made me think of an especially chunky fruit soup. The crumbles covering the apples were large and cereal-like; I admired their remaining crunchy amidst their moist surroundings. Typical crumble flavors (cinnamon, butter, brown sugar) were assertive in the granola-y medium. I really appreciated the generous application of this topping! The remaining dessert components were unconventional and unanticipated. I finally tasted molecular gastronomy in action, enjoying a caramel foam that covered the crisp. The foam was every bit as flavorful as a standard caramel drizzle, but with a predictably lighter mouthfeel. The tiny, pale-cream bubbles stayed intact as I made my way through the dessert. Next up was a dollop of Calvados-flavored ice cream. The alcohol was barely noticeable, but the sharp apple and brandy notes were strong. The ice cream melted quickly and added a perky flavor to the chunky “soup” below. Lastly, three paper-thin apple chips were poised in the ice cream. Brightly-flavored and crisp, I enjoyed eating them dipped in the caramel foam. So, both the individual components and the dessert as a whole were great!

A “bento box” of three flavored crèmes brulees plus chocolate sorbet is on the right. The ginger crème had a sweeter ginger flavor, which was disappointingly diluted – if any dessert medium could benefit from a helping of bold flavor, it would be the already-sweet and milky crème brulee! The hazelnut version tasted average, though its pale-brown color was rather pretty. The orange was by far the best of the three, with a fresh citrus zing that cut through the creaminess. The dark chocolate sorbet was a tasty, if fairly common, palate cleanser.

M Bar’s menu had many other interesting desserts that may require sampling – for example, I had a hard time choosing between the apple crisp and their orange cheesecake. If you’re looking for a fancy night out at a bar with good drinks and sweet treats, put this place on your list!

Portsmouth Pleasures

2010-05-12T13:11:00.000-07:00

I recently had the pleasure of visiting Portsmouth, NH two weekends in a row! I love this seaside town for its cheerful downtown, seaside park, cute and eclectic shops, and fun food. Of course, two of my favorite food vendors are dessert shops.

Annabelle’s Ice Cream is served in a cheerful basement off a waterfront side street. Their all-natural ice cream has a certain creamy, thick solidity that really packs a punch in a small volume. Because of its density, I find that it tastes best after being out of the freezer for a few minutes. Flavors are fairly common mixed creations that are made unique by the foundation ice cream’s quality.

Peanut Butter Fantasy – sweet peanut butter ice cream is swirled with fudge and small chunks of peanut butter cups. The base ice cream is rather like sweet cream ice cream with peanut butter mixed in; I prefer this approach to the more extreme scoop of frozen peanut butter. Thick ribbons of fudge are mixed throughout this flavor, but there are rather few candy chunks.
Mocha Mud Pie – chocolate chips and crumbled Oreos are mixed into a robust mocha ice cream. The signature Annabelle’s creaminess is great in this base flavor, as it really approximates a frozen version of my favorite espresso beverage. As with the Peanut Butter Fantasy, I wish there had been more mixers, but all in all this is a solid flavor that I would order again.

Our party enjoyed certain bolder flavors as well, like Ginger Fruit (sweet cream and crystallized ginger). I hear it was pungent yet refreshing!

Byrne & Carlson Chocolatier and Confectioner, a relatively recent find, has a one-room, antique-looking shop in a Portsmouth brownstone. The high ceilings, cream walls, dark wood cabinetry filled with candies, and clean, old-fashioned label type make me feel as though I have stepped into a treat shop of yore – a very fine one, mind you. Truffles and dark chocolate bars are their specialty, though in my two visits I sampled a range of their product.

Chocolate-covered sea salt caramels – a nearly one-inch-square cube of stiff, sugary caramel is enrobed in a thin layer of dark chocolate and dusted with large crystals of fleur de sel. The salt lingered in my mouth after the chocolate coating had melted, so it blended nicely with the sweet caramel. I would have preferred a thicker layer of chocolate, or even a milder variety that would have been less distinct from the caramel; I would have guessed the percent cacao was around 70.
Chipotle sea salt bar – I was intrigued by the variety of flavors in this bar, but it didn’t live up to my expectations. I think the 75% cacao content is too much bitterness for a bar with two savory components. The fleur de sel was robust and slightly smoky, and the chipotle pepper asserted itself with a spicy burn that lasted long after the chocolate had melted. The chocolate, as with all their offerings, was even and silky, and I may have been able to enjoy it as a pure chocolate bar, but I really needed something sweet to counter the salt and pepper! Lovers of intense dark chocolate, this bar is probably exactly what you need.
Malted milk balls – I couldn’t get enough of these, they were so delicious! (Please keep in mind, this is coming from the girl who pouted if some unsuspecting neighbor gave out boxes of Whoppers for Halloween – so, praise indeed.) B&C’s Ultimate MMB has a small malted-milk center, followed by layers of dark, milk, and white chocolate. A speckled tan candy shell coats the treat. There were so many delicious chocolates in each bite, arranged in an ideal flavor progression, and the rough malted milk was surprisingly sweet and texturally satisfying against the smooth, bitter dark chocolate neighboring it.
Truffle eggs – yes, eggs; we couldn’t ignore the corner of Easter remainders. Each miniature truffle egg has a sweet, slightly tangy truffle filling enrobed in creamy milk chocolate. The eggs instantly softened in my mouth, and melted into a buttercream-like chocolate paste that was pure decadence but not nearly enough volume. These treats lasted too briefly! I’ll seriously have to consider supplementing next year’s Fannie May Easter candy with a haul from Byrne & Carlson.

I have already decided that whenever I’m next in town, I will have to sample more milk chocolate, a different type of malted milk ball (there were several!), and maybe even a truffle. Care to join me?

Treats in Transit

2010-04-19T07:42:00.000-07:00

Why transport desserts in boring Tupperware or foil containers when you could use a lively cupcake-printed tin? I found this adorable vessel at Borders the other day, and just had to bring it home. It’s the perfect size for a pan’s worth of brownies and would probably hold an equivalent batch of cookies. I can’t wait to bring the tin – filled with my beloved Epic Brownies, of course – to this afternoon’s Marathon Monday party!

Easter Treats

2010-04-09T11:59:00.001-07:00

I love Easter candy. In a way, this love is less about its taste and more about its appearance. The Easter palette and decorative motifs – gentle creamy colors, shimmering pastel foil wrappers, flowers, spring – are all so lovely, and are particulary welcome after harsh winters and muddy March deluges. (If I could embellish my life with pale metallic purple accessories, I just might; I already own some [but not enough!] floral-printed/inspired clothing and jewelry.) However, this year’s Easter treats introduced me to some new tastes worthy of appreciation, as well as whisked me back to childhood with a few nostalgic basket fillers.

My family purchased this nest to be the centerpiece of our Easter table; the nest’s advertized purpose, as a home for hazelnut truffle eggs, was purely incidental. Still, the speckled eggs looked just perfect in the nest, and they tasted good too! The pale blue candy coating with darker blue speckles was pleasantly sweet, and it softened in my mouth to produce the faintest crackle at my tongue’s pressure. The coating’s slight roughness was evocative of an actual eggshell. A sweet, smooth layer of white chocolate was immediately under the candy coating, which eventually gave way to the hazelnut filling. The filling had a grainy texture, though I could not identify actual fragments of nuts. I ascribe this more to the use of a powdery, nonassertive milk chocolate, but regardless the centermost part of this treat was pleasantly earthy and substantial. I do wish the milk chocolate had somewhat mitigated the hazelnut flavor, but its nuttiness was tamed by the egg’s sweeter outer layers.

Our official Easter desserts were these petits fours, ordered from California’s Divine Delights bakery. The tiny treats were enrobed in the prettiest icing, which was surprisingly resilient but still smooth. Each petit four involved a rich, buttery cake and a variety of creams or fillings. The purple eggs were a base of dense chocolate cake topped with a mound of thick vanilla buttercream, while the light-green duckling squares were vanilla cake with a central layer of almond paste. Lemon cream and raspberry jam added flavor to other petits fours. Yet the bunnies stole the show by containing vanilla cake, chocolate ganache, and a heap of strawberry buttercream. The cutest treat had to be the nest, which sheltered several chocolate-covered sunflower seed eggs.

And lastly, my Easter basket was filled with the sweet treasures of my suburban-Chicago upbringing. When we lived there, my family enjoyed Fannie May candy at special times. The lack of Fannie May stores in the Northeast caused concern whenever the first holiday rolled around after our move to New Hampshire, but my parents kept the tradition alive through mail order. Each Easter, I look forward to the treats I have known since I was a little girl. Sure, pretty much any candy shop can sell you pretty foil-wrapped eggs, jellybeans, and a solid (yes, solid) chocolate bunny. Some may even have milk chocolate eggs filled with vanilla buttercream, or coconut-cream-coated chocolate buttercream eggs. But only the Fannie May versions of those confections taste “right.” To me, they’re the best-tasting candies ever, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Happy belated Easter!

A Restaurant Week Write-Up

2010-03-28T18:52:00.001-07:00

Another Restaurant Week session has come and gone, and I have three new desserts to share with you!

My first meal occurred at ArtBar, in Cambridge's Royal Sonesta hotel. The restaurant's location, in a corner of the hotel's lobby, and innocuous "art" did not impress, but the food was definitely memorable. I enjoyed a rather creamy lobster bisque, well-populated with lobster chunks and garnished with truffle creme fraiche, as my appetizer, and a medium-rare petite filet mignon served with lobster risotto and red wine reduction as my main course. According to the menu, my dessert was simply a key lime ricotta cheesecake with fresh berries, but said dessert was more complex than the description suggests. The plate was drizzled with a sweet peach glaze, and a square of vanilla genoise cake was in the center. A dome of sweet, whipped ricotta cheesecake with a faint key lime flavor sat on the cake, and a dimple at the dome's crown held a reservoir of thick, tart key lime syrup that also flowed down the ricotta. The intense citrus flavor was tempered by sweet, creamy white chocolate, which fully enrobed the cheesecake dome. The smooth white dome was further embellished with a limey white chocolate drizzle, and two wafers of pale green chocolate. Plump, juicy berries dotted the rest of the plate. I was very impressed by this innovative execution of a common cheesecake variety - the counterpoint of sweet, smooth ricotta and tart, tangy citrus syrup was delicious. I also appreciated the use of complementary yet offsetting fruit flavors as garnishes. The berries and peach glaze occupied the flavor range between the cheesecake's extremes. I was happily smacking my lips and hoping for more at the conclusion of this dessert!

I next dined at Davis Square's Gargoyles on the Square. This hip newcomer's simple decor - the minimalist dining room is accented with a small number of dark, heavy drapes and classic film posters - was an ideal setting for for the restaurant's classic dishes with an uncommon twist. My appetizer was a hearty salmon cake served over white bean and ham soup, which was followed by moules frites served in lobster bisque. I ended my meal with the salted caramel cheesecake with blackberries and creme fraiche, which was the star of this particular dinner. This dessert was a very dense New York-style cream cheese cake evenly imparted with a subtle caramel flavor. Even more subtle was its saltiness, which I'm guessing was reached by adding a mere pinch of salt to the cake mixture. The cake's thick milkiness plus caramel sweetness reminded me of dulce de leche. It was hard to fit the substantial slice in after a filling meal, but I couldn't let this unexpectedly complex twist on an old standby go to waste. I did, however, push the berries and creme fraiche to the side - the dessert really didn't need sour dairy in its flavor palette, and the berries were far too seedy with hardly any juice.

My last Restaurant Week dinner was at Grotto, a warm, intimate cave of a restaurant in the basement of a Beacon Hill brownstone. Their Italian kitchen brought me a fresh salad of mixed greens, cherry tomatoes, and pecorino cheese tossed in olive oil, as well as crab ravioli bursting with lumps of meat and topped with asparagus and almonds. Their dessert menu did not excite me at first - being neither a panna cotta nor bread pudding fan, I settled on the ubiquitous molten chocolate cake - but as soon as I bit into the cake, I knew I was in for a treat. Unlike the typical MCC, which I would characterize as a thin, burnt-brownie-like outer shell filled with grainy, somewhat-coagulated chocolate sauce, Grotto's was a quality, fudgy cake that evenly transitioned to a rich molten center. I enjoyed the subtle textural differences throughout the cake, and the rich bittersweet chocolate really popped against the French vanilla ice cream that accompanied it. I could really sink my teeth into this one!

I have no idea if this was intentional or not, but I couldn't help but notice a trend of simple or common desserts being kicked up a few notches. Did you try any exceptional restaurants, or similar desserts, this Restaurant Week? I always appreciate suggestions on where to go next. :-)

How It All Began

2010-03-02T19:12:00.001-08:00

Many people have stories about how they became interested in their hobbies. My baking story is rather simple, but why not share?

The first Christmas after my college graduation, my Aunt Janet gave all her nieces a red heart-shaped NordicWare Bundt pan. My only prior bakeware had been a 13x9" metal pan, used regularly for brownies and box cakes - so, the arrival of a new format, generally associated with baking from scratch, inspired excitement and no small amount of apprehension. Could I succeed? I was also amused by the pan's segmentation, which is not how one would normally interpret an affectionate heart. In fact, I was reminded more of bicoid expression gradients from my developmental biology classes than the international symbol of love. Nerd alert!

Aunt Janet included a recipe for her Death by Chocolate cake in the pan. With a new pan and a recipe to go along, what choice did I have but to use the pan to bake the recipe? Somehow, a baker was made alongside the dessert. The rest is history, much of which is chronicled in this blog.

I bring this up now since my beloved heart Bundt was used two times in the past two weeks - first, to make this apple spice cake for a dinner party...
...and then to make the Death by Chocolate cake for Valentine's Day. I'm going to keep the DbC recipe a secret, so if you want to experience this dessert beyond this post I guess I'll have to bake it for you! However, here is a slice topped with vanilla ice cream and drizzled in Milat Winery's port chocolate wine sauce.

Death by Chocolate incorporates three expressions of chocolate - cake, pudding, and individual chips. The end result is very moist and fudgy at the center - thank you, pudding! - and slightly drier but still soft and chewy at the perimeter. Semisweet chocolate chips are scattered throughout the cake, and have incorporated well with their surrounding batter while maintaining their integrity. The edge of each chip softens from the cake's moisture, but a pleasing crunch remains as you chew the smooth baked chocolate. This treat is best at room temperature or slightly heated, and I usually top it with ice cream (vanilla or mint) and hot fudge. While the cake is chocolate perfection on its own, the additions make it an even better Death.

Thank you, Aunt Janet, for a delicious recipe and the countless treats that your gift has inspired!

Bacon Bakin'

2010-02-23T12:48:00.001-08:00

I really enjoy combinations of sweet and salt. So, why not have bacon chocolate chip cookies join the Sweet/Salt Shortlist of peanut butter cups, chocolate covered pretzels, and sea salt caramels? Call them a meat/sweet violation…OR call them delicious!

I thought I’d stick to a simple chocolate chip cookie adaptation to test the meat’s mettle. Here is the recipe, with my commentary in italics.

2 1/4 C flour
1 t baking soda
1/4 t salt
1 C (2 sticks) butter, softened
3/4 C granulated sugar
3/4 C packed brown sugar
1 t vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 C cocoa morsels
10-12 slices bacon, cooked to a crisp and then finely chopped. I underestimated the amount of bacon I needed, not realizing that the 7 huge-looking slices in a package would cook down so much. At slightly less than double what I put in, 12 slices is probably an ideal amount of bacon.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.
Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl.
Beat butter, sugars, and vanilla in a large mixing bowl until creamy. Add the eggs and beat well. Gradually stir in the flour mixture.
Add chopped, cooked bacon and mix in to the batter. Stir in the chocolate chips.

Drop by rounded tablespoon onto ungreased baking sheets. Bake for 10-12 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on baking sheets for 2 minutes, and then remove. 8 minutes was actually sufficient in my case, knowing that the oven in question has a history of blackening anything by the recommended cooking time. Watch your cookies closely to determine when you should remove them.

I was impressed with the end result. The actual batter was rather sturdy – it was never runny, not even while in the oven, and it held the chocolate chips and bacon well – plus, it baked into thick, chewy cookies. The maple bacon gave off a delicious syrupy aroma while cooking, and retained a hint of maple taste once done. Its crunchiness, saltiness, and, well, bacon-iness go without saying. The bacon softened somewhat in the baking process, and imbued its neighboring batter with its flavor. I can’t stand this softening / absorption when nuts are involved, but it was most appreciated with the bacon. Any way to further convey the opposing flavors within the cookie is appreciated. I should have used quality milk chocolate chips rather than Whole Foods’ house-brand semisweet chips: the chips were rather waxy, and a sweeter chocolate would have been a better counterpoint to the meat. However, I still enjoyed every cookie bite…and dough ball! Each bite gives you substantial yet soft dough, melted chocolate, and salty, somewhere-between-crispy-and-chewy bacon. It’s even more tempting than a hilariously horrible cult film, as this picture attests.
The recipe made 36 cookies, which would have been 40 if I hadn't snacked on the dough. I clearly enjoyed this taste of "extreme" baking. If I bake with bacon again, I’ll kick the adventure factor up a notch, maybe by incorporating another salty ingredient.

A Very Flour Valentine

2010-02-19T17:38:00.001-08:00

Flour's Fort Point outpost whipped up all sorts of tasty Valentine’s-inspired treats this past Sunday. I managed to be lured away from their red-and-white-frosted chocolate cupcake by a variety of donuts. Greg has extolled the virtues of Flour's donuts for some time, and I finally experienced why.
The donuts are rolled in slightly-sticky sugar. This guarantees that your fingers, lips, and tongue get a helping of grainy sweetness right off the bat. I may have even tasted a hint of vanilla-y lemon, though that could be the faint flavorings of the donut proper being more noticeable in the pastry’s crust. The pastry part of the donut is unusually sturdy but spare in terms of density and flavor. It is more similar to a slightly-sweet roll than a breakfast pastry; however, there’s a sugary chewiness to the dough that reminds you that it is, in fact, a donut. Such a roll is a great canvas for the sugar…and filling! The filling is plentiful and well-distributed throughout each donut. The same raspberry jam that gives the pop tarts such character fills the donut on the left – the intense raspberry flavor, robust seeding, and thickness still apply. My donut on the right is filled with rosewater raspberry cream. Imagine a very light, whipped frosting that tastes like a creamy bouquet of roses and smells even better, with raspberry jam evenly mixed throughout. The floral-fruit combination is absolute bliss!

However, this Very Flour Valentine doesn’t end with the donuts. How could we resist these adorable conversation-heart sugar cookies? I knew they'd be much tastier than their chalky inspirations. The thin, crunchy vanilla cookie is covered in a layer of hard confectioner's-sugar frosting. Each crisp bite delivers equal parts cookie and icing, though the cookie softens and melts away in your mouth before the icing. The sugar lingers in your mouth like a Valentine's kiss. So good!

Lastly, I had to bring this miniature chocolate cream pie home. It reminded me of the pies I’d find everywhere growing up in the Midwest, down to the shaved chocolate on top! Chewy semisweet chocolate shavings, in the cutest curlicues, sit on a bed of vanilla whipped cream. This cool, refreshing treat covers the heart of the pie, a thick chocolate cream of admirable richness. The chocolate's cacao content lies somewhere between those of milk and semisweet chocolates, and heavy cream keeps the mixture smooth. However, my favorite part of this pie was the crust. The crust’s restrained flakiness – substantive and sturdy on plate and in fork, flaky in mouth – is its standout characteristic. It is also less buttery than many pastry crusts, and more flavoring agents, potentially cinnamon and brown sugar, make up for any butter I may have otherwise missed.

Bravo, Flour!

Petsi Treats

2010-01-24T15:56:00.001-08:00

Petsi Pies, as their name may suggest, is known for their excellent pies and tarts. This Somerville bakery also offers a variety of other treats, which a few us sampled after lunch today. I may have found the best cupcake in Boston, as well as other inspiring cakes and cookies.

Whoopie Pie Cupcake - this cupcake was better than any whoopie pie I have ever had, and could be better than the products of most cookie-cutter cupcakeries in the area. (Yes, the excellence of this item makes me question my earlier devotion to Sweet!) The cake part proper is dense and fudgy, with moist crumbs. I could see the rich semisweet chocolate used in the batter being equally at home in fudge, or a dense chocolate sauce. The cake eclipses average cupcake content and could be served as a torte in the finest restaurants. The center of the cupcake is injected with a refreshingly light, whipped vanilla cream. This cream comes as a surprise, though, since the cupcake's top is covered in a thick layer of smooth dark chocolate ganache. The union of these three flavors and textures is just perfect, and I found myself sad after taking the last bite.
Carrot Cake Cupcake - this confection pushes the boundary of what a cupcake can be. Most carrot cakes are sweetened, or deprived of certain savory ingredients, to better pass as a traditionally sugary and dainty cupcake; Petsi Pies does not take that step. A hearty helping of carroty, nutty, raisiny cake is frosted in a dome of barely-sweet cream cheese icing. The requisite carrot accent of orange and green icing is the only concession to cuteness this cupcake makes. I respect them for not compromising the integrity of their standard recipe; though, as someone who doesn't go for nuts or raisins in baked goods, I won't order this one myself.
Ginger Molasses Cookie - This large, thick cookie is crunchy at the edges, but becomes chewier towards the center. The taste of light molasses, reminiscent of a generous helping of brown sugar, is the dominant flavor, while ginger serves as an accent. Each bite includes a bit of sugary crunch and sweetness, thanks to the cookie's sparkly coating of turbinado sugar. In other words, this cookie is a great interpretation of a winter classic.
Sweet Potato Crumb Cake - I thank this bakery for introducing me to my first sweet potato cake. A moist sour-cream-based crumble coffee cake conceals a center of mashed sweet potato mixed with hearty brown sugar crumbles. What an unexpected treat! You may see an attempt at recreating such a treat chronicled in this blog come fall.

I had visited Petsi once prior, and thoroughly enjoyed a lemon scone that was pertly flavored with zest and topped in a strong, tart glaze. I will also be enjoying one of their blueberry muffins, purchased to go during today's visit, for breakfast tomorrow. After that, I might have to go back for a fruit or chocolate pie!

A New Use for Goat Cheese

2010-01-13T15:01:00.001-08:00

I added a springform pan to my bakeware arsenal this past weekend. What better way to inaugurate it than to make a cheesecake, and an unconventional one at that? A love of goat cheese and cranberries inspired the latest dessert to emerge from my kitchen. The recipe was begging to be tried for several reasons:

The from-scratch crust requires a food processor. Is there a new food processor currently sitting in my kitchen? Yes!
You get to candy your own orange peel. I am now slightly more experienced in making garnishes; also, why not apply this skill toward making orange chocolate in the future?
The cranberries become an enticing drizzle when coated in warm honey. I’ve wanted to use some Napa Valley honey, obtained in October 2009’s California trip, for a few months, and here was my chance. My cranberry love goes without saying.
Goat cheese in a dessert – need I say more?

Here's the finished cake, along with the orange and cranberry garnishes. Highlights of the production process include making the sugared and spiced graham cracker crust, something I have always enjoyed eating yet have not made until now; mixing turbinado sugar in the cake over granulated sugar, with the goal of giving the cake a grainier sweetness; peeling oranges with a vegetable peeler and sauteeing the julienned peel in melted sugar; and removing the pan's side after refrigerating the cake overnight – yes, it actually worked!

Most of the resulting tastes and textures were unexpected. The cheesecake itself looked runny, but it held its shape. It then melted instantly on my tongue. This strange state did not last – the cake has dried out since its weekend baking, and its texture and firmness have come to approximate "regular" cheesecake. The goat cheese flavor was not very distinct, with the finished product resembling ricotta cheese and cannoli filling more than the cheese I used. The turbinado sugar initially added graininess to the cake, but that roughness disappeared as the granules dissolved in the days post-mixing. Both versions of raw-sugar sweetness were enjoyable. The candied orange peel looked great on the cake, and it was pleasantly tangy for the first few chews – however, after that, the innate bitterness of the peel revealed itself. I don't know if we should have peeled thinner swaths of zest, or if the julienned strips should have been boiled longer. Either way, I was disappointed in this garnish and would like to improve or refine the process going forward. The honeyed cranberries were a delight, and were the one outcome of this recipe that tasted as I had expected. The extreme sweetness and tartness was perfect with the cheesecake, whose flavor profile sat squarely between those extremes.

This dessert gets a high score for creativity, though I plan on exploring traditional cheesecakes with my newly-initiated springform before I return to the goats' pen.

Flour Bakery vs The Snack Aisle

2010-01-10T16:27:00.000-08:00

In eating lunch at Flour Bakery's Fort Point location this weekend, we decided to break away from our usual cupcake-and-muffin baked-good order and try their take on two snacks known to grocery shoppers everywhere: the Pop Tart and Oreo cookie! Needless to say, both were infinitely tastier than their processed-food counterparts.

Flour's pop tart is a thick shell of puff pastry dough folded around a pile of thick, seedy, flavorful raspberry jam. The baked tart is then covered in a thin confectioner's sugar glaze with a barely-perceptible taste of lemon. It sounds so simple - and it is! - but I had never had a filled fruit pastry that was so successful in fruit, pastry, and overall taste. The flaky, buttery, vanilla-flavored pastry was a delight on its own or with the glaze, but the best bites included the robust jam. You won't find this kind of flavor in the breakfast aisle! I only wish that the jam had been spread more evenly throughout the tart.

Flour's oreo is a sandwich of two thick, dry, yet chewy cocoa-powder cookies and vanilla filling that tasted equally of buttercream and cream cheese frosting. As for the cookies, the traditional oreo taste was kicked up a notch due to more cocoa powder than the mass-produced inspiration, as well as a good amount of butter to hold it together. The slight chewiness was also appreciated. Why? (1) 'Tis a sign of freshness! (2) The buttery cocoa flavor could be more thoroughly enjoyed. (3) The moist filling would have slipped out upon biting two harder, cardboard-style cookies. The filling was a delight - while I initially thought it was the whipped buttercream frosting used in Flour's cupcakes, I detected a taste of cream cheese in later bites that served the filling well. Cream cheese would have thickened the frosting and therefore made it more stable for inclusion in a cookie, and it also added a slight tang to the overall flavor that blended marvelously with the bitter cocoa in the cookie. I'll definitely order some oreos again - if not for immediate eating in the bakery, then to go as a snack for later!

Yule Love This Log

2010-01-07T15:03:00.000-08:00

...trust me!

The centerpiece of my family’s Christmas (dessert) table was a Buche de Noel, or French yule log cake, courtesy of Napa Valley’s Perfect Endings bakery. The cake’s description in Williams Sonoma’s holiday catalog was just too mouth-watering to ignore, so we summoned the delicacy in its dry-ice-cooled and bubble-wrap-protected glory from the Left Coast. It lived in the freezer after its arrival, and then thawed in the fridge starting Christmas Eve so it would be ready for eating on Christmas Day. We brought it out in the open at dinnertime so it could warm further while we ate. Here she is!

The dessert was a thick roll of cake and ganache, which was then covered in frosting sculpted to look like bark. Sprigs of evergreen and white meringue mushrooms dusted with cocoa powder were also arranged around the log to enhance its woodsy design. And oh, the smell! A variety of chocolate aromas with a hint of pine floated up from the uncovered cake, inspiring the best thoughts of winter and tasted decadence.

The cake came with very detailed handling instructions (temperature of knife to cut cake, best way to cut, etc), so we attended to it with reverence. The reverence deepened into nearly-religious devotion upon eating the dessert. The cake itself was spongy semisweet chocolate genoise, which felt light and airy despite its tiny pores and obvious sturdiness. Rolled along with the genoise was a thick layer of sweet ganache. This dense milk chocolate filling complemented the semisweet cake well. The softened surfaces of the cake that touched the ganache – or, the ganache that was barely integrated with the cake! – was my favorite part of the Buche. Lastly, the surface frosting was a rich, bitter chocolate buttercream. The chocolate had a pungent bite, which was largely subdued by the frosting’s butter and cream and transformed into a smooth, lingering meditation on the depth of dark chocolate. I did not eat many of the meringue mushrooms, but the few I did enjoy melted instantly in my mouth, leaving behind the crunchy residue of sugared cocoa powder.

Since the cake was so rich, we cut ½”-thick slices; as a result, we enjoyed 5 days’ worth of Buche after Christmas dinner and subsequent leftovers. I am fairly confident in saying we will reorder this dessert for Christmases future, unless I make my own version!

In other Christmas dessert news, I must mention 2009’s version of our holiday dessert traditions first mentioned in this Christmas 2008 post. We reverted to vanilla sugar cookies this year, which I thoroughly enjoyed. They, plus the chocolate-butterscotch peanut candy and some peppermint bark, are the best holiday nibbles! And, I shall leave you with an image of the happily glazed and sugared cranberry coffee cake. Some things just taste like Christmas, and this is surely one of them.
Happy New Year; may only the best desserts come your way!

Peppermint Bark Cookies - Or, An E for Effort

2009-12-14T14:57:00.000-08:00

I've been searching for an innovative Christmas cookie recipe that I can bake and bring home for the holidays. Bon Appetit's peppermint bark cookie recipe immediately grabbed my attention, since it combines two favorite treats - shortbread and peppermint bark - in one bite! So, I tested the recipe this weekend. My eagerness for the recipe's end result caused me to overlook the unusual amount of effort required to get there, which was hinted at in the recipe but proved to be even greater in execution. The recipe is below, along with my commentary in italics.

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
2 C all-purpose flour
1/4 t salt
1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 C sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1 large egg yolk
6 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped (This is about 3/4 C, but I put 1 C in and still could have used more.)
1/2 C finely chopped red-and-white-striped hard peppermint candies or candy canes
2 ounces high-quality white chocolate

Preheat oven to 350°F. Spray 13x9x2-inch metal baking pan with nonstick spray. Line bottom of pan with long strip of 9-inch-wide parchment paper, leaving overhang on both short sides of pan.
Whisk flour and salt in medium bowl.
Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until creamy, about 2 minutes. Gradually beat in sugar. Continue beating until mixture is light and fluffy, stopping occasionally to scrape down sides of bowl, about 3 minutes. Beat in vanilla, then egg yolk. Gradually add flour mixture, beating on low speed just to blend. I beat well beyond a "just blended" state in an effort to achieve a dough-like consistency - no such luck.
Drop dough by tablespoonfuls into prepared baking pan, spacing evenly. Using moistened fingertips, press dough to form even layer over bottom of pan. Pierce dough all over with fork. The dough was so crumbly, I didn't think it would form into a continuous layer. The moistened fingers, plus a few minutes of pressing, made all the difference. I've made shortbreads before, but none have been this resistant to forming proper dough or easily spreading throughout a pan.
Bake cookie base until light golden brown and slightly puffed and edges begin to come away from sides of pan, about 30 minutes. Place pan on rack when done.
Immediately sprinkle bittersweet chocolate over cookie base. Let stand until chocolate softens, about 3 minutes. Using small offset spatula, spread bittersweet chocolate over top of cookie in thin even layer. Immediately sprinkle chopped peppermint candies over. My semisweet chocolate chips took over 3 minutes to cool enough for spreading. The melted chocolate was easy enough to spread, but of course I did not immediately reach an even chocolate distribution. I hammered candy canes to get peppermint shards, but the canes resisted the force well and left me with peppermint powder and larger-than desired candy chunks. I ended up taking a sharp knife to the bag of candy, which was slightly more effective at creating small pieces than the hammer. Still, I wish the pieces were consistently smaller.
Stir white chocolate in medium metal bowl set over saucepan of simmering water until melted and smooth. Remove from over water. Using fork, drizzle white chocolate all over cookies. Chill until white chocolate is set, about 30 minutes. I enjoyed using the double-boiler method to melt the white chocolate, and I even added some candy cane powder to the chocolate for additional color and flavor, However, the chocolate did not drizzle particularly well. Also, it took the melted chocolates more than the recipe's suggested half hour to cool. The cookies were ready for removal from the pan approximately 2 hours after I applied the white chocolate.
Using paper overhang as aid, lift cookie from pan and transfer to work surface. Using large knife, cut cookie into pieces. The parchment paper was a great idea - cookie removal was a breeze. I cut 28 total cookies.

I had never put so much time and effort into making cookies! Fortunately, the results were pleasing. The shortbread was buttery and surprisingly chewy for such a thin cookie - the immediate application of chocolate on top must have kept a lot of moisture in! The semisweet chocolate layer was smooth and tasty, though it did not consistently stick to the shortbread. The candy pieces were also surprisingly chewy, so what initially concerned me about their size was a non-issue upon eating. Of course, the mint-and-chocolate combination was a winner. Lastly, the white chocolate drizzle with hints of peppermint powder was delicious! Ghirardelli chocolate is so sweet and smooth, and the hint of peppermint taste and cool crunch was the perfect finishing touch on this multifaceted delight.
I would make these cookies again, but I hope an easier yet equally delicious recipe will come my way!

Not Your Average Thanksgiving Dessert

2009-12-09T15:01:00.000-08:00

My family challenged me to make a “lighter” Thanksgiving dessert. This was a reasonable request – Thanksgiving dinner is a huge affair, and even I have trouble coaxing the “dessert stomach” open after heaps of delicious turkey and plentiful, delectable sides. So, it was out with the pumpkin pie, and in with a flavorful, holiday-appropriate, and deceptively light treat from Martha Stewart’s Great Food Fast cookbook. Here’s how to make the Cranberry Upside Down Cake:

8 T unsalted butter
1 C sugar
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/4 t ground allspice
1 3/4 C cranberries
1 large egg
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/4 C all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/4 t salt
1/2 C milk
Sweetened whipped cream

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Rub the bottom and sides of an 8" round cake pan with 2 T of the butter. (Note: this degree of buttering is not necessary, but give the pan a better-than-normal coat.)
In a small bowl, whisk together 1/2 C of the sugar with the cinnamon and allspice. Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the bottom of the pan, and arrange the cranberries in a single layer on top.

Cream the remaining 6 T butter and 1/2 C sugar until they are light and fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla; beat until well combined.
In another bowl, whick the flour, baking powder, and salt together.
Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture in three batches, alternating with the milk, until well combined.
Spoon the batter over the cranberries in the pan, and smooth the top. Place the pan on a baking sheet, and bake it until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean (30-35 minutes). Then, let it cool on a wire rack for 20 minutes. When it is time to remove the cake from the pan, run a knife around the edge of the cake and invert it onto the platter.

There was not enough bursting of cranberries to significantly soak the cake with juice – so, this is more of a tea cake with a well-secured cranberry-sugar topping than an upside down cake proper. You can see from the post’s first image that the recipe’s recommended amount of berries did not completely cover the pan. I wonder if adding additional cranberry coverage would improve the juiciness - I'll test that out when I bake this next. The topping is a refreshing combination of sweet and tart, with the allspice providing a hint of bite that initially catches you off guard. The caramelized sugar is somewhat crunchy, and that plus the warm, soft berries is a textural treat. The cake below has a pleasant buttery vanilla flavor, and its texture is somehow creamy and light. Whipped cream is not necessary, but it doesn't hurt to add another light, sweet flavor (and texture!) to the dessert.

It goes without saying that I was able to make room for this after the holiday meal!

How About Them Apples!

2009-12-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Oh, the fun of baking with apples! I must share two treats made with this fall’s Londonderry Cortland harvest.

My classic apple dessert is apple crisp. It’s hard to find a dessert that’s easier to make than this. Cut four peeled, cored apples into thin slices; array the slices within a greased 9x9 square baking dish; cover in a crumble topping made of ½ cup (each) oats, flour, and brown sugar, with cinnamon to taste (oh, a tablespoon?) and enough butter to make coarse crumbs when blended with the other crumble ingredients (usually 1 stick). Bake for 30 minutes at 350 degrees, let cool, and enjoy! Doesn’t it look tasty?

Once the obligatory crisp was baked and consumed, it was time to branch into new dessert territory. I made my first apple pie this fall, and the results were promising enough that I look forward to making more. I wanted something slightly different than the standard apple pie, so I turned to Ina Garten of Barefoot Contessa for inspiration. This citrusy apple pie recipe yielded an unusual dessert that grew on me with each bite. The lemon and orange zest and juice added so much citrus that the filling resembled an apple chutney more than simple spiced apples. Fortunately, scoops of vanilla ice cream tamed the tang when needed. Apart from the citrus, the pie filling was conventional - flour, sugar, and warm, cozy spices. You can see the pie in its various stages of progress below. To start, note the heap of fruit! This was only 5 apples; though the recipe called for 8, I didn't want to deal with an even taller mountain. Then, it was difficult to secure the top crust over the mound, but we succeeded and even brushed it with the recipe's sugary egg wash for extra cripsness and sweetness. Next, the steaming finished product is removed from the oven, juices dribbling. Lastly, we have a slice of pie with ice cream at the ready.

And, I must share a postscript. I revisited this cake for 2009's Thanksgiving breakfast, but added one recipe component I had previously ignored: a brown sugar sauce for drizzling and dipping. The result was like a thin caramel, which I poured over the warm cake as soon as the cake came out of the oven. This added delicious, sweet, chewy moisture to the cake, and the caramel taste went really well with the spiced apples. The glaze recipe made a lot of extra sauce, which I saved and poured over individual slices at breakfast time. I also dipped the occasional piece of chocolate in the pseudo-caramel, which was a most welcome treat! I might make the glaze again, cool it, and roll balls of it in melted chocolate in an attempt at caramel truffles.

An Ode to Athan's

2009-11-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

Athan’s Bakery was originally a curiosity to be observed from the windows of the C line while traveling downtown from college. Since then, I have realized its utility as a perfect way to complement meals eaten (or beverages purchased) in Brookline’s Washington Square. Regardless of what type of dessert you want, and what quantity, Athan’s has something that will make you happy. Cakes, mousses, butter cookies, gelato, chocolates, candies, Greek pastries, and cream desserts are all there, along with café beverages to wash them down. I can’t help but rave about the sweet treats I have had there.

Let's start with the Cookie Crème confection (above left). Light, airy barely-chocolate cake alternates with smooth, deeply-flavored, and well-whipped chocolate mousse to create a pleasing dessert of various chocolate textures. The dessert is shot through with miniature chocolate chips and small chunks of chewy cookie dough; both of these exist in a higher density at the center. Dark chocolate ganache frosting drizzled with a thinner chocolate sauce enrobes the cake and mousse layers, and the whole thing is topped with a dollop of vanilla cream and a chocolate wafer. With so many chocolates, how can this dessert not deliver? I was very pleased with its rich flavors and deceptive lightness. The cheesecake, to the right of the Cookie Crème, is another example of a heavy cake made light and bearable. The packed graham cracker crust is covered in a layer of strawberry cream, which in turn is topped with sweet, whipped meringue cheesecake. This airy, creamy confection was a true delight, especially after the filling cheeses I had eaten with my dinner before! I cannot advocate enough for a bakery that creates lighter yet equally flavorful versions of traditionally-filling desserts.

Athan’s chocolates, on the other hand, are black holes that fit in your hand – but one would expect that from fine truffles. The chocolates’ best advantages are their size and truffle fillings. These confections are larger than the average piece of chocolate, but smaller than a candy bar, brownie or cookie. In other words, if you want something sweet after a filling meal, and don’t want to burst but still feel like you had a legitimate dessert, these are the way to go. Also, the flavors! I have seen Nutella, fig, mint, amaretto, marzipan, caramel, and ganache fillings in these truffles. The Nutella filling was delightful, and I have a mint truffle awaiting me at home. I’m sure it will be delicious…just like I’m sure I will be back for more. I may not be in college anymore, but the C line is still worth traveling for these treasures!

California Dessertin': Baked Beauties

2009-11-09T19:29:00.000-08:00

This baked-good entry is entirely devoted to Kara's Cupcakes...6 particular cupcakes, to be exact. If you recall the multitude of cupcake entries written thus far in this blog, you can easily imagine my glee at stumbling upon a cupcakery in Ghirardelli Square that rivals my favorite East Coast cupcake haunts! We snacked on Kara's excellent baked treats twice in San Francisco:

Fleur de Sel- a moist chocolate cupcake was filled with soft, sweet caramel and topped in thick, dark, creamy chocolate ganache. The ganache, in turn, was dusted with crystals of fleur de sel. I really enjoyed the bits of salt in an otherwise smooth and silkily sweet cupcake. One of the best cupcakes I have ever had!
Vanilla Chocolate - a vanilla cupcake was topped with sugary chocolate buttercream frosting. This simple treat was tasty, but could have used some additional moisture.
Meyer Lemony Lemon - a dense, somewhat dry vanilla cupcake was injected with tart lemon filling. The frosting was a smooth, barely-lemon vanilla buttercream whose potential citrusy tartness was negated by its creaminess. Fortunately the tart filling more than made up for the lack of lemon flavor elsewhere in the dessert.
Passion Fruit - the same vanilla cupcake had intensely sweet...yet tart...passion fruit filling within, and vanilla buttercream frosting on top. The filling provided the moisture necessary for the cake, and the passion fruit flavor's strength stood out against the cake and frosting's comparatively mild vanilla.

Four cupcakes, however, apparently were not enough! We were surprised to see a second Kara's outpost a few days later in downtown Napa.

Raspberry Dazzle - the same moist chocolate cake used in the Fleur de Sel cupcake was filled with sweet raspberry preserves and topped with smooth raspberry buttercream frosting. Here, the frosting's creaminess worked well with its fruit flavor, as berries are more easily made sweet than citrus fruits. This cupcake dazzled me, for sure.
Banana Caramel - a banana cupcake, whose texture walked the line between banana bread and cake proper, was filled with sweet caramel and topped with cream cheese frosting. The frosting was reminiscent of carrot cake topping, but silkier; the caramel was smooth against the comparative roughness of the cake. These three flavors went unexpectly well together, and made this cupcake the most (pleasantly) surprising.

Overall, Kara's cakes were better than the average Boston cup cake, with frosting to rival Sweet's. If you travel to the San Francisco area and need a delightful dessert to go, make a stop - or two - or even three! - at Kara's.

California Dessertin': Feeling Fruity

2009-11-08T12:19:00.000-08:00

Peach Cobbler at The Monk's Kettle

This dessert ended my favorite meal of the vacation, and one of my favorite meals of the year. The Monk's Kettle features Belgian-style beers and fresh, quality interpretations of comfort classics. Bostonians, imagine a smaller, Californified Publick House. I wasn't sure if their desserts could reach the same degree of excellence as my pot pie of the day, but our dessert choice definitely did. The cobbler was served in a small crock fresh out of the oven; the juices dribbling out of the crock may have been bubbling! The peach slices within the cobbler were a variety of thicknesses and the perfect degree of ripeness. Some sugar was mixed in, clearly, but not enough to mask that fresh peach tartness or make the dessert overly syrupy. The crumble topping was thick and oaty with a hint of cinnamon. It may have walked the line between savory and sweet, which I historically consider perfect for peaches. The crumbly dough was then topped with vanilla bean ice cream and garnished with mint. The ice cream melted rather quickly given the oven freshness of the dessert - so, each bite was a delightful combination of tart peaches, buttery cinnamon crumble, and cool vanilla. Does it get better than this?

California Dessertin': Chocolate, (Not So) Plain and Simple

2009-11-08T11:58:00.000-08:00

I will not waste your time with excuses for why I haven’t updated since…July? Consider this notification that I am alive and well, and have been consuming desserts at just as alarming a rate as when I posted more regularly.

A week-long October vacation to San Francisco and Napa Valley yielded plenty of dessert-sampling opportunities, organized into Chocolate, Fruit, and Baked Item posts for your reading pleasure!

Ghirardelli Peanut Butter Squares – Ghirardelli chocolate is made in San Francisco, and while their factory is not open to the public, they still provide a treat for visitors in the form of an extensive gift shop and chocolate restaurant at Ghirardelli Square. Shoppers receive a complimentary chocolate square upon entering the store, so we were able to sample their recently-released peanut butter squares. The milk chocolate was smooth and creamy, as always. The peanut butter was thicker than the average creamy peanut butter, without much salt or buttery flavor. I would have preferred a tad more salt, as few desserts are as joyous as those that combine salty and sweet tastes. Some buttery smoothness would have been welcome as well, rather than bland solidity enrobed in tastier chocolate. I’m sure Ghirardelli will refine their recipe over time – after all, I can find no fault with their long-tenured mint and caramel squares.

Ghirardelli World Famous Hot Fudge Sundae – The chocolate restaurant had oh so many ice cream delights to choose from, but in the interest of being as objective as possible we ordered the classic Ghirardelli sundae. The dessert was a massive quantity of French vanilla ice cream drizzled in chocolate sauce made from ground and melted Ghirardelli candies. The chocolate-to-ice-cream ratio was among the best I’ve seen, which you would expect from a chocolatier! The milk chocolate sauce had a creamy taste and was mostly smooth, with a hint of cocoa-y graininess that may be a result of its freshness. Whipped cream and a maraschino cherry topped off the sundae.

Tcho Chocolate – In wandering the Embarcadero area, full of old piers and warehouses converted to trendier ends, we stumbled upon Tcho’s chocolate factory and shop. Instead of marketing their chocolates by percent cacao, or bean origin, or added flavor, Tcho makes chocolate from beans with unique flavor profiles. So, a bar of Citrus chocolate didn’t have lemon extract added to the melt – instead, the source beans are just naturally tart and tangy, and those properties are drawn out in the chocolate-making process. The Citrus was my favorite, though Fruity was an effective complement to nuts and dried fruit (ha). I returned to Boston with a Citrus bar, some Fruity-covered cashews, and Chocolatey organic baking chocolate! A side note: coffee drinks featuring Tchocolate are extraordinary…and pack a lot of caffeine. We enjoyed the Tcho Shot (equal parts espresso and chocolate) and Tchocha (replace “Tch” with “M”).

Milat Chocolate Port Sauce – The Milat winery in Napa Valley is a small, family-operated business that partners with a Napa chocolatier to make this dessert. A basic chocolate sauce is fortified with Milat’s port-style wine. The excellence of this sauce owes more to the sweet port than the barely-dark chocolate; the black cherry, assorted berry, and brandy flavors really assert themselves. This would be a good sauce for drizzling over vanilla ice cream, berries, or flaky pastries. I wonder which we’ll do!

Mulligan's Farms

2009-07-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

It is finally time for Mulligan’s, the storied ice cream stand of my New Hampshire days, to get the blog mention it deserves. Well, I must clarify a few things first: while I might live in the Boston area currently, I still frequent Mulligan’s whenever I head back to Londonderry to visit my family. So, the NH days still exist, in a manner of speaking. Secondly, this purveyor of desserts is not even in NH – it’s in Tyngsboro, MA, a town bordering NH, which is about 25 minutes from where I grew up. Lastly, my family and I are the only ones who know this place as Mulligan’s. Any other person would call the stand Sullivan Farms Homemade Ice Cream. Why do we call it Mulligan’s, you ask? Well, that doesn’t have any impact on the quality of the ice cream made there…and believe me, it is delicious.

The actual ice cream used at Mulligan’s is thick and creamy, but not creamy to the point of tasting fatty. The flavors are enjoyable – chocolate is light and milky, almost like Swiss chocolate; French vanilla is creamy with the palest yellow color; strawberry strikes the perfect balance between fruit and milk tastes; mint is strong yet sweet, and of course a lovely light green. With these ice creams as bases, Mulligan’s uses the typical ice cream mix-ins to put the best possible spin on the usual flavor combinations. Any chip variety is packed full of chips of varying sizes and textures. Candy ice creams are filled with candy pieces. Cookie flavors contain ground-up cookie powder as well as huge cookie chunks. Swirl ice creams contain enough of the swirled item – fudge, caramel, etc – to be considered a frozen sundae. Two of my favorite inspired flavors are:

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup –Swiss chocolate ice cream swirled with peanut butter, and peanut butter cup chunks as well as full cups mixed in
Mopman’s Grasshopper Pie – a Julie flavor if there ever was one, this ice cream has pretty much all I would want in a dessert, in one scoop: mint ice cream with chocolate chips, Oreo cookies (both crumbs and pieces / entire cookies), and thick, luxurious fudge swirls

Essentially, I can’t think of a better place to fulfill one’s need for traditional, homestyle ice cream. If you’re in the mood for something other than a scoop or two, their sundaes are also delicious, with plenty of rich homemade fudge drizzled over mounds of ice cream. The deal is made even sweeter when you consider the value for your money – a “kiddie” at Mulligan’s is the equivalent of a generous medium, or skimpy large, at any Boston-area creamery; and yes, that’s the smallest size they offer.

So, if you’re in southern New Hampshire for any reason, or taking Route 3 north to a vacation in the Lakes Region or White Mountains, or are simply in the mood for a dessert-themed escape from urban Massachusetts, you owe it to yourself to stop at Mulligan’s. Bring me back a tub of Mopman’s – yes, they will pack mass quantities to go!

Baking at the Brewery

2009-07-20T13:45:00.000-07:00

This most recent summer weekend came to a delicious close in Portsmouth, NH. After spending the day sunning ourselves at local beaches, we decided that few things could be better than eating pub food and drinking local beer - so, I recommended the Portsmouth Brewery's restaurant, long a family favorite for its hearty sandwiches and relaxed, airy dining space. Even I was pleasantly surprised with the excellence of the establishment's appetizers and dinners - the menu has grown more varied, and the food's quality has increased, over the years - as well as the desserts! The following desserts found their way to our table.

Chocolate Stout Cake - this monstrous two-layer cake was made with the brewery's own "Black Cat" stout, frosted with milk chocolate icing, and drizzled in chocolate sauce. A hearty dollop of freshly-whipped cream accompanied the dessert, and its purpose became apparent after the first bite. The cake was extremely dense thanks to the stout, and any cool attempt (in cream form) at lightening it was welcomed. Even glasses of beer and water couldn't help the entire cake down. The beer taste was noticeable, but not too distracting. Overall, I found the cake to be too dense, and slightly too dry and bitter - probably nothing that a little extra oil in the recipe couldn't fix!
Fruit Cobbler - imagine a large ramekin filled with mixed fruit (strawberries, blueberries and raspberries), topped with an inch-thick layer of hearty crumble topping and a finishing dollop of vanilla cream. Such was the glory that I ordered and enjoyed. The berries were fresh, and the crumble topping was well-spiced, with plenty of oaty chunks to crunch. My only objection was to the walnuts strewn throughout the topping. Otherwise, consider this repeat-order-worthy and an inspiration to my own kitchen.
Vanilla Saffron Pound Cake - this unusual offering was from the "Brewer's Table No. 22" menu, a rotating list of specials with custom beer pairings. The pound cake had a pleasant vanilla flavor with only a hint (fortunately) of saffron, and the clear vanilla glaze drizzled over the confection had the faintest hint of lemon. A cassis-moscado sorbet accompanied the cake, and I thoroughly enjoyed this unconventional medium for black currant flavor.

Impressive for a local pub, eh? We were all stuffed after dining so heartily, so we had no room for Annabelle's Ice Cream, another Portsmouth food favorite. Maybe next time?

Cookies, Cupcakes, or Muffins?

2009-06-25T10:23:00.000-07:00

My latest baking adventure proved to be one of the most surprising, and most delicious, adventures yet! I departed from my custom of only baking pumpkin items in fall and winter, and tried a recipe from this book for pumpkin butterscotch cookies. I substituted milk chocolate chips for butterscotch ones (apparently butterscotch chips are too processed for Whole Foods) and was blown away by the results. Here is the recipe:

2 C unbleached all-purpose flour
1 1/2 t baking powder
1 t baking soda
1/2 t salt
1 t ground cinnamon (per family baking tradition, I slightly-more-than-doubled this)
2 large eggs
1 C sugar
1/2 C canola or corn oil
1 C canned pumpkin
1 t vanilla extract
1 C butterscotch chips (or milk chocolate chips...I definitely put in more than 1 cup)

Position a rack in the middle of the oven. Preheat the oven to 325F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and butter the paper.
Stir the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together in a medium bowl and set aside.
In a large bowl, using an electric mixer on medium speed, beat the eggs and sugar until smooth and lightened in color, about 1 minute. Stop the mixer and scrape the sides of the bowl as needed during mixing. On low speed, mix in the oil, pumpkin, and vanilla until blended. Mix in the flour mixture to incorporate it. Mix in the chips.
Using a 1/4 C measuring cup, scoop out mounds of dough onto the buttered parchment paper, and smooth them over. This method makes approximately 16 cookies.
Bake the cookies one sheet at a time until the tops feel firm and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out dry, about 15 minutes. Cool them on the baking sheets for 5 minutes, and then transfer them to a wire rack to cool completely.
Dust the cooled cookies lightly with powdered sugar. The cookies can be stored in a tightly covered container at room temperature for up to 4 days.

The dough was so easy to make, and as you may recall from previous entries I always appreciate the use of oil in place of more fattening / less flavor-friendly dairy ingredients! I was initially apprehensive of the 1/4 C of batter per cookie, but the end result allayed all concerns. These baked items are less like cookies, and more like the plump tops of large cupcakes or muffins. They are unusually moist and pumpkin-y, and the extra cinnamon really complemented the rich pumpkin flavor. The edges of the chocolate chips got slightly crispy as they baked in the oily batter environment, but the chips' interiors stayed rich, creamy, and melted *just* enough. Plus, the crispy crunch isn't a bad thing in the context of the extremely soft, smooth cookie. They taste delicious right out of the oven but also keep extremely well, retaining all moisture several days after baking. While they taste phenomenal as is, one particularly fun way to enjoy them is to frost them in warm chocolate icing - it really is like having a pumpkin-chocolate cupcake! I have never experienced a pumpkin-chocolate combination that worked as well as these, or any baked good that stayed so moist over time.

With the success of my chocolate improvisation in mind, I hope to repeat this recipe as it was originally intended, with butterscotch chips. White chocolate chips, cranberries, or apple chunks may also be worthwhile...

Brooklyn and the Lower East Side

2009-06-21T09:15:00.000-07:00

May's trip to New York City, plus recommendations from current and former residents, inspired a new round of dessert tasting when I was back in town in mid-June.

When impromptu city wandering led us to the Lower East Side, we couldn't pass up the opportunity to visit Sugar Sweet Sunshine, baker of delectable cupcakes. These cupcakes are infinitely superior to Magnolia's (though, alas, I did not see a single instance of purple frosting) in both cake and frosting. The cakes themselves are light - you can eat two cupcakes after a large meal, no problem - but are also moist and packed with flavor. The frosting is also light, but sweet and creamy and not airy. In addition, I appreciated the fun frosting colors and sprinkles. Behold the cupcake bounty below, with details from top left to bottom right:

Black & White (chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream) - the chocolate cake was simply but richly flavored, and so moist! I think the bakery managed to find the perfect cocoa-powder-to-oil ratio. The vanilla buttercream frosting was light and fun, though I am still on the fence as to whose frosting I prefer (this bakery's or Sweet's). Of course, I greatly appreciated the cheerful pink coloring.
Lemon Yummy (lemon cake with lemon buttercream) - this is the best lemon baked item I have ever purchased. The cake itself was citrusy and sweet - and almost creamy, as if it were a lemon tart that begrudgingly assented to being a cupcake. The frosting, of course, was pure heaven, and I am now motivated to make my own (confectioner's sugar, lemon juice, butter, and heavy cream, perhaps?).
Ooey Gooey (chocolate cake with chocolate almond buttercream) - of course, the cake itself was divine. The frosting's almond flavor was a bit overpowering, most likely created via the more aromatic, and hence initially more flavorful, almond extract. Despite my antipathy towards nuts in baked goods, I think I would have preferred the actual-nut method - the extract permeated the chocolate, while discrete nuts would have added textural variety and isolated bits of flavor.
Sunshine (yellow cake with vanilla buttercream) - this cupcake was pure vanilla excellence. If a bakery can do this simplest of cupcakes well, no wonder everything else is so good!

Sugar Sweet Sunshine will get my regular business on future New York trips. Next time, I am eager to try their Spiced Pumpkin cupcake with cream cheese frosting!

That evening, we traveled to Brooklyn's Cobble Hill neighborhood to satisfy a long-time dessert desire. My roommate, a former Brooklynite, recommended The Chocolate Room when she first learned of my obsession, and while I wish I had made it there sooner, it was still worth the wait. Here, you can see the Brownie Sundae and Chocolate Pudding.

I was impressed with the majority of the sundae. The homemade brownie was moist and dark; the fudge sauce was bittersweet, which gets us to two distinct chocolate flavors in one dessert; the whipped cream was oh-so-light and sweet; the cherry on top had been rolled in chocolate shavings. The ice cream flavor was of your own choosing, and I went with mint chocolate chip, hoping for a tasty yet traditional take on that classic flavor. I was slightly disappointed. The chips were actually very thick shavings of delicious milk chocolate (three distinct chocolate flavors in one dessert, mmm), but the mint flavor itself was slightly too fresh and leafy. It did not go well with the bittersweet chocolate, and left an almost sour taste in my mouth. The chocolate pudding, however, was just what a chocolate puddding should be, with perhaps an extra kick of robust chocolate flavor. Other things in the Chocolate Room's favor: they serve you a small scoop of Vahlrona chocolate sorbet upon sitting down, and offer a variety of unique chocolate items (both Chocolate-Room-specific and other brands) for purchase at their bar in the front of the restaurant. What could have made our experience better? Maybe a chocolate martini to mask that mint taste!

Not Gingerly with Ginger

2009-06-07T17:22:00.000-07:00

I recently made a ginger cake for Greg's birthday - or, more accurately, a double ginger cake. This baking adventure represented somewhat of a departure from bakings past, as your blogger does not share the cake recipient's enthusiasm for ginger. In fact, it's probably one of my least favorite sweet spices. However, Bon Appetit came through (again) with an innovative recipe that maximizes the ginger flavor for ginger lovers, all within the framework of a delicious sour cream cake coated in raw sugar crystals that can be appreciated by any lover of baked goods. The intense ginger flavor comes from two sources - ground ginger, which I use regularly in spice cakes and whose taste I find pleasant in that context, and chopped crystallized ginger, which is infinitely stronger, gooey, and sticky. The result was well-received! Here is the recipe, in case you have a ginger lover to please:

Softened butter (for brushing pan)
1/2 C raw (turbinado) sugar
2 1/4 C all purpose flour
4 t ground ginger
2 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 C (2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 C sugar
4 large eggs
1 large egg yolk
2 t vanilla extract
1 C sour cream
1 C chopped crystallized ginger

Position rack in center of oven and preheat to 350°F. Brush softened butter generously all over inside of 12 C Bundt pan. Sprinkle raw sugar over butter in pan, tilting pan to coat completely.
Whisk flour, ground ginger, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl.
Using electric mixer, beat 1 C butter in large bowl until smooth. Add 2 C sugar; beat on medium-high speed until blended, about 2 minutes. Add eggs 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Beat in 1 egg yolk and vanilla, stopping to scrape down bowl as needed.
Add flour mixture in 3 additions alternately with sour cream in 2 additions, beating on low speed just until blended after each addition. Mix in crystallized ginger. Spread batter in pan, being careful not to dislodge raw sugar.
Bake cake until top is light brown and tester inserted near center comes out with a few small crumbs attached, about 55 minutes. Transfer to rack; cool in pan 15 minutes. Gently tap bottom edge of pan on work surface while rotating pan until cake loosens. Place rack atop pan and invert cake onto rack; remove pan. Cool completely.

The cake mixes and bakes easily. Once you are ready to eat it, it tastes fine at room temperature, but a warmed slice will release its aroma oh so nicely. The sour cream batter provides a hint of sweet tang, which goes well with the spicy sweetness of the ginger. A delicious counterpoint to both tang and spice is the turbinado sugar crust baked over the exterior of the cake. Its sweet crunch really made the cake! I rarely rave about baked-item crusts, but this cake's edges are worth a rave and more. In fact, I think I will try crusting future Bundt baked items (my aunt's famous double-chocolate cake, perhaps?) in the sugar. One technical recommendation: be very precise about dollopping batter into the Bundt. Try to not have to scrape the batter around the pan to get an even distribution, as this will dislodge the sugar.

In other ginger news, I have a handful or two of crystallized ginger still left over from this baking...anyone want?

Red, White, and You

2009-06-05T12:35:00.000-07:00

Sweet Cupcakes, already an inspiration for a past entry, recently released their summer cupcake lineup. One variety in particular stood out among the fruit-inspired confections: the “Red, White, and You” cupcake. Sweet describes this as “the vanilla bean Sweet [i.e., standard tasty offering] cake filled with Berry Bash jam and topped with homemade vanilla buttercream.” Behold the adorable little cupcakes, just released from their travel box.

And here, you can see them partially eaten through.

This cupcake is exceptional for several reasons. Firstly, the vanilla cake is dense, well-flavored, and somewhat crumbly. I welcome the confident vanilla, as the flavor is rarely employed beyond the token teaspoon in any given recipe. I also favor a slightly crumbly cake, as this suggests sugar and/or butter are not overused! Secondly, the berry jam is a pleasant mash of berries – I could taste blueberries and raspberries – and an enjoyable burst of color at the center of an otherwise-pale dessert. Lastly, the two tiers of frosting are, as with all Sweet frostings, delicious! I could eat just the frosting and forgo the cupcake if needed. Vanilla bean specks in the creamy white buttercream reinforce the vanilla theme. I particularly appreciate the first dollop being crusted in colored sugar – not only is it visually pleasing, but it provides an unexpected and fun textural change in a glob of gooey goodness. It sealed the deal, so to say, on this bold pronouncement: this is the best Sweet cupcake yet!

If Sweet Entry No. 1 did not convince you to get a cupcake, I hope this Entry No. 2 will!

So Much Goes to New York

2009-05-20T18:29:00.000-07:00

Your blogger spent a recent weekend in New York City, and must share two noteworthy dessert instances with you!

To start, imagine my glee while wandering near Union Square on a Thursday evening, and stumbling upon a truck dispensing a variety of free desserts! Yes, that's right - the Dessert Truck had just finished taping an episode for the Food Network, and they had a truck's worth (ha) of desserts left over that staff were giving to passersby. It didn't matter that we were on our way to dinner - we nabbed brownies, a chocolate cupcake, cheesecake, and a waffle with vanilla creme fraiche. The waffle, creme, and cupcake were tasty, but average; the other two desserts were definitely superior and memorable. The brownie was fudgy and melted in my mouth, and packed a lot of chocolate flavor in a small square; the cheesecake was smooth, light, creamy, and moist. We had so much dessert...for so little! New Yorkers and visitors to the city, check the Dessert Truck's website for upcoming locations. Enjoy the desserterie-on-wheels concept as long as you can! (Boston, please start something similar?)

The other dessert experience was much more conventional. Magnolia Bakery, on Bleecker Street in the West Village, earned some level of popular awareness thanks to SNL's Lazy Sunday skit and a Sex and the City episode. The merits of snacks for the Chronicles of Narnia aside, the bakery's biggest draw, in my opinion, is their exceptional frosting. This sweet buttercream icing comes in a range of pastel colors (standard buttercream flavor) and a rich chocolatey brown (chocolate).

Ever loyal to my favorite color, my preferred Magnolia cupcake is a chocolate cake with purple buttercream frosting - but, I had to settle on pink frosting during this most recent visit when they ran out of purple. Much like the Dessert Truck cupcake, the cake itself is average if not slightly disappointing; however, the quality of the frosting more than makes up for any batter shortcomings. The best way to eat such a cupcake is to eat away at the base of the cake, leaving a thin layer for consumption with a mouthful of frosting.

The vanilla cupcake with yellow frosting was similarly average, but a hint of lemon in the batter proved to be a pleasant surprise.

I would go to Magnolia again to enjoy the frosting, but several native New Yorkers have recommended both the cake and frosting available at Sugar Sweet Bakery. Next time...

What Sweet Cupcakes!

2009-05-03T14:18:00.000-07:00

There is a new cupcake shop in Cambridge! Sweet Cupcakes, whose first location is on Mass Ave by the Comm Ave intersection, now has a second location across the street from Cardullo's in the heart of Harvard Square. The attention of passersby will be grabbed by the gleaming, brightly-lit storefront - you can see a sparkling, spare space decorated in white, pink, and brown, with a refrigerated case containing brightly-colored cupcakes, from the street. I will admit that I was grabbed in such a fashion, though buzz about the Mass Ave location would have been enough to get me in there as well. Once you are inside and drooling over the case's contents, you may have two initial worries - I thought that (a) the cupcakes were rather small, and (b) there would be no seating available [two small tables are all they provide]. However, both concerns were readily allayed. Customers do not take a long time to eat a cupcake, so the seats rotate quickly - plus, you can always take your dessert to any bench or grassy expanse in Harvard Square if desired. And, oh my, the cupcakes! I would not have wanted a bigger cupcake considering their richness and intense flavor. Three varieties got the honor of being part of the initial taste test.

DARK CHOCOLATE (Rich chocolate cake baked with Dutch cocoa, topped with buttercream frosting in vanilla or chocolate) - this cupcake was the perfect chocolate cupcake. The homemade buttercream frosting was also excellent, with a prominent creamy flavor. A fun added bonus of this cupcake selection was the choice of sprinkle color; yours truly (predictably) chose purple.
CHOCOLATE CARAMEL (Chocolate oozes from inside moist chocolate cake topped with Sweet's delicious chocolate buttercream frosting and drizzled with melted caramel) - this cupcake had so many textures and flavors! Dense chocolate cake, fudgy chocolate cream, smooth chocolate frosting, and light, flavorful caramel all combined for a win of a cupcake.
CAPPUCCINO (Delectable espresso flavored cake baked with Callebaut chocolate crowned with signature Sweet frosting and a dusting of cinnamon) - the cake could have had a stronger coffee flavor, and the chocolate was not readily apparent, but the cappuccino frosting was easily the best frosting in this taste test. The dusting of cinnamon was an extra bonus!

And, yes, Sweet gets extra points for stocking organic milk to help wash down the desserts! I had been hoping to find cupcakes on this side of the river that actually were kickass (Davis Square residents will accurately interpret that comment as derision toward an inaccurately-named cupcakery); thanks to Sweet, I no longer need to hope. Next time I stop by, I think I'll try the Big Poppy.

Beacon Hill Chocolates

2009-04-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

Beacon Hill Chocolates is a quaint shop on the corner of Pinckney and Charles Streets (equidistant from the Common and the Charles T stop), in the heart of Beacon Hill. I first heard of this establishment while on a Boston Chocolate Trolley Tour – yours truly won a box of (4) chocolates from them, all of which were delicious. Over a year later I decided that four pieces were not enough, so I had to go back. What makes this chocolate shop unique?

Beacon Hill. How could you lose with all those connotations implicit in the location?
The shop stocks artisan truffles and various other chocolates from around the world. The candies – most in unique, tempting shapes and colors – are well-displayed in a lit refrigerated case at the front of the store.
The rest of the store showcases the gift boxes for which they have become well-known: nostalgic seasonal and holiday prints, or classic Boston images, superimposed on light papier-mache boxes. I saved my tiny gift box, with a period image of the State House and Common, from the Chocolate Tour.

What was initially a casual check-it-out trip became a let’s-buy-chocolates trip after I saw the decadence within the truffle case. I purchased the following delights:

Caramel Sushi (Chewy butter caramel and vanilla marshmallow rolled ever so slo-o-o-wly and dipped in dark chocolate) – the caramel and marshmallow were of a perfect texture, so that they were stiff enough to retain their shape but soft enough to melt happily in your mouth. The dark-chocolate dipping at the base of the spiral was the perfect touch. Mmm, mmm.
Cookies and Cream Cone (Chocolate cookie & vanilla cream in a cone of dark & ivory chocolates) – I really enjoyed the vanilla cream, with flecks of chocolate cookie crumbs, alongside the different chocolate shells. This is probably the fanciest way I have tasted cookies and cream…and I would taste it again.
Champagne Truffle (Dark chocolate blended with champagne and coated in cocoa powder) – the champagne flavor was very subtle, especially in the context of the strongly-flavored dark chocolate and cocoa coating. However, the subtlety worked in this case.
Blood Orange Fleur de Lis (Dark chocolate ganache in a dark chocolate Fleur de lis shell) – the dark chocolate shell was enjoyable, and the shimmery orange-red coating on the fleur-de-lis was visually stunning, but the orange-flavored ganache seemed a bit artificial, and strong.
Ginger & Lime Dragonfly (Dark chocolate blended with ginger & lime flavours) – the texture of crystallized ginger was noticeable in the candy, but both ginger and lime flavors were lost in the chocolate, and needed to be stronger.

These were a bit pricey, but I guess that is explained by the import process and neighborhood. The chocolate was interesting enough that I’m sure I will make several return trips!

A (Partial) Vegan Victory

2009-04-15T16:43:00.000-07:00

I tasted the best vegan chocolate cake I had ever had a few weeks ago, when a coworker brought in said cake plus shamrock cookies for St. Patrick's Day. (Random, don't you think?) Fortunately, my coworker shared the recipe...which means I can share it with you! It's amazing how flavorful and moist a butter- and egg-free cake can be.

2 1/2 C flour
2 C sugar
2/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
2 t baking soda
1 t salt
2 C warm water
2 t vanilla extract
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 tsp distilled white or apple cider vinegar

Preheat the oven to 350, and grease your pan(s).
Mix the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt.
Add water, vanilla extract, oil, and vinegar. Whisk until all is smooth.
Bake for 30 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

Greg and I whipped up this tasty treat in no time, and had a hard time restraining ourselves from licking up all the batter. Here, you can see the smooth, fluid batter (with occasional bubble) pre-oven.

30 minutes and 350 degrees later, voila - a cake (represent)!

A good cake demands good frosting - so, I was hesitant to top this dessert with vegan frosting, which can be salty with an odd consistency. Enter the following (resolutely dairy-based) frosting recipe. I would suggest adding the heavy cream to the butter along with the dry ingredients, as I had a dusty mess on my hands prior to the cream's incorporation.

1/2 C butter
3 C powdered sugar
3 T unsweetened cocoa powder
4 T heavy cream
1 t vanilla extract

Cream the butter.
Mix the cocoa and sugar; gradually add to the creamed butter.
Add the cream and vanilla, and beat until frosting is well-blended and fluffy.

The finished product was delicious! The cake is light, moist, and chocolatey, and the frosting is cool, creamy, and sweet. This is the best chocolate cake - counting both conventional and vegan recipes - and chocolate frosting I have ever made from scratch! We washed this rich delight down with a dessert-like beverage which, like the baked good, had vegan and non-vegan components. The blend of dairy milk, soy milk, and Godiva white chocolate liqueur is a winner.

Don't you wish you could have a piece?!

My Latest Bakery Obsession Is...

2009-03-29T16:34:00.001-07:00

...Flour Bakery and Cafe, in the western part of the South End.

After hearing multiple impassioned recommendations of this establishment, I realized that I had to go - and, it has since become a weekend fixture, with a Flour baked item and/or meal characterizing three of the past four weekends. So, what makes Flour so incredible?

The baked goods, both breakfast items and desserts, have exceptional, unique flavors, and you can simply taste the quality:

Orange chocolate muffin (in image, upper center) - this muffin has orange-flavored dough with bits of orange zest, candied orange, and possibly marmalade mixed in. It is covered in a thin, sweet, faintly-orange glaze. The chocolate used in the muffin is so rich and dense flavor-wise, and is so soft and pliable to the touch, that I think it might be either trufffle chocolate or extra-thick ganache. The orange flavor is neither too tart nor too sweet, and the chocolate-to-batter ratio is perfect! [A side note - stay tuned for a blog entry on my attempts at recreating this muffin!]
Ginger pear muffin (lower center) - this muffin has a pleasant, faint ginger flavor, and moist chunks of pear are mixed throughout the batter. The pear chunks are the perfect texture for a muffin, meaning they are neither too mushy nor too raw. The top of the muffin is sprinkled with sugar crystals to counteract the faint gingery tartness.
Vegan chocolate cupcake (to the right of the ginger pear muffins, dusted with powdered sugar) - this is the only "average" item I have yet encountered at Flour. The same chocolate bits found in the orange chocolate muffin are in this cupcake, which are delicious, but the cake itself has too many air pockets and not enough chocolate flavor. It is also extremely dry for a vegan baked item, considering the general vegan recipe convention of substituting oil for eggs.
Chocolate cupcake - this is a cupcake to remember! It is extremely dense (one cupcake has considerable heft, more than a muffin 1.5 times its size!), and I'm guessing that the recipe started as a devil's-food recipe but was customized to allow for a more flavorful - and darker - chocolate. The replacement chocolate is rich, and the cupcake is almost creamy as it melts in your mouth. The finishing touch is an ample helping of white vanilla buttercream frosting, concentrically swirled across the top of the cake.
Boston cream pie - I am usually ambivalent / leaning towards "meh" regarding Boston cream pies, but Flour's take on this traditional Omni Parker House dessert is worth eating! They get several things right that most BCP bakers don't: (1) instead of skimping on the most important ingredient, they use plentiful delicious chocolate on the top and sides of the dessert; (2) the cream filling is light, rather than globular and custard-like; (3) the cake layers in between the cream filling are actual vanilla cake, rather than the spongy, eggy excuse for cake frequently employed elsewhere.

I can't wait to expand upon this list! It has been hard to set a limit thus far. On top of the baked goods, they have delicious cafe fare AND cafe beverages:

Turkey sandwich with cheddar cheese, mixed greens, and cranberry chutney (oho, chutney!) on homemade bread
Lamb sandwich with goat cheese, mixed greens, and tomato chutney (another chutney? wow!) on homemade bread
Tomato-fennel soup containing assorted mashed vegetables
Made-to-order pizza with fontina cheese and slightly-sweet dough
Spicy hot chocolate - in the increasingly-popular tradition of Mexican chocolate, Flour adds cinnamon and cayenne/chili powder to their standard cocoa to create an invigorating, mouth- and eye-watering beverage. You can customize the milk; I notice no weakness in ordering skim. The spicy-sweet combination is a winner, and while I may have become more used to that pepper punch after several helpings, it still poduces the same reaction!

So, who wants to go to Flour this very minute?! I am all for making two trips in two days. :) If not today, how about next weekend? Also, they have a second location along the Fort Point channel, so any Southie residents in search of exceptional cafe items can satisfy their needs. Happy Flouring!

Restaurant Week's Wins

2009-03-29T12:38:00.000-07:00

The Winter 2009 Restaurant Week period has come and gone, and during its two weeks I was fortunate enough to experience several noteworthy restaurants. The desserts, for the most part, were also noteworthy!

I had wanted to dine at Sibling Rivalry in the South End, affectionately referred to as "Sib Riv," since summer 2008's Restaurant Week. This restaurant experience was well worth the wait, and will be worth a repeat visit! While most restaurants offer a limited menu for RW, Sib Riv let its guests choose from the full menu. The variety of Chef David and Chef Bob (yes, sibling)'s creations was impressive, though both my appetizer and main course were from David's side of the menu. My appetizer was handmade pappardelle pasta served in a mushroom sauce replete with rabbit meat (surprisingly tasty, although stringy), chanterelle mushrooms (flavor burst!), and dried tomatoes. This dish would have been a standout as a main course, and it was surely the best appetizer I ate in these two weeks. [An aside - you may notice a mushroom theme as a counterpoint to the dessert theme in this entry.] My main course was salmon, baked in a crisp pastry shell with spinach and mushroom duxelle, with a creamy lemon sauce and tomato fondue on the side. I really enjoyed this unexpected assortment of ingredients - I had never had salmon with mushrooms or spinach (two of my favorite foods) prior! The dessert was a rich little bit of caramel chocolate mousse. The mousse, which had hints of both milk and white chocolate, was complemented by a dollop of caramel creme anglaise as well as swirls of two different caramels across the plate. I enjoyed mixing the mousse, creme, and sweeter caramel (one was too bitter) into a bite of dense chocolate, airy sweetness, and sticky sauce. While the portion looked small, the mousse was dense enough to make you full when you were halfway through. Other Sib Riv items of note: (1) their bar uses Sailor Jerry rum in their house drinks - a rarity! (2) A delicious bottle of lighter-than-usual syrah was enjoyed. This restaurant has quite the wine list! (3) The dining room is not partitioned, and our booth along the leftmost wall had a full view of the restaurant, but it seemed acoustically separated from the general hubbub and gave a nice feeling of intimacy. I highly recommend Sib Riv for any special dining experience!

I cannot give the same ringing endorsement of Tangierino, a Moroccan restaurant on Charlestown's quaint cobblestone-and-gas-lamp Main Street. The decor and atmosphere are phenomenal - the booths and hallways are draped in sumptuous fabric; assortments of geometric lanterns with brilliant stained glass are suspended from every ceiling; framed "portraits" of veiled faces with strong, haunting eyes hang on vibrant red walls; seating is low, plush, and comfortable; strains of Mediterranean music (and the occasional elaborately-garbed belly dancer) make their way through the dining space. The food, however, does not merit enthusiasm. I considered my chicken b'stila appetizer to be a meat-sweet violation - and I am normally tolerant of bizarre flavor mixes. Imagine baklava...with chicken...and mint yogurt. Each ingredient alone would have been tasty, but the combination left me raising my eyebrows and pushing half of it to the side of my plate. I really enjoyed my main dish - seven-vegetable couscous - but a vegetarian friend who ordered the same dish found scraps of meat in hers. Those with dietary restrictions, beware! The last course was a flourless chocolate torte that would have been more accurately described as grainy chocolate gelatin. The "torte" was garnished with whipped cream, strawberries, and chocolate sauce; at least those tasted as they should have, though the chocolate sauce was somewhat weakly-flavored and thin. This dessert disappointment closed out a questionable meal. I had never tried Moroccan cuisine before, and I won't write it off entirely because I did enjoy my couscous, but Tangierino has definitely given me pause.

In the second week of RW, I found myself returning to an old favorite. Harvest, in Harvard Square, delivered a delicious meal yet again! The outdoor seating was understandably closed for the season, but our table was against a glass wall overlooking the courtyard - which, although empty, was still charming due to a fire blazing in a stone fireplace. Regardless of the time of year, this restaurant manages to be charming, inviting, and natural. My appetizer was a panzanella (bread salad) with crispy artichokes, parsley crostini, and burrata drizzled in balsamic vinaigrette. The burrata, or creamy mozzarella, was so smooth, and it provided a good textural counterpoint to the crunchy, bitter croutons. For the main course, I enjoyed a tart of forbidden black rice that was cooked with carrots, turnips, bok choy, and hen of the woods mushrooms. The explosive flavors of the rice and mushrooms were made even better by the faintly-spicy chile oil drizzled across the plate. I would love to recreate this in my kitchen sometime - while the spices may be difficult to replicate, the rice and mushrooms wouldn't. Dessert was a chocolate peanut crunch. This mousse-cake-like confection had a creamy white chocolate layer, a slightly denser milk chocolate layer, and a dry dark chocolate layer with peanuts and crisped rice interspersed. I was reminded of the Cheesecake Factory's chocolate tuxedo cream cheesecake, though this was fortunately lighter. A spoonful of vanilla creme fraiche and chocolate ganache completed the dessert. I enjoyed it, but I would have liked less white chocolate and cream / more crispy crunch!

My last Winter 2009 RW night was spent at Aquitaine, also in the South End. I had wanted to have dinner at this restaurant since going there for brunch once in 2008; dinner did not disappoint! To start, this restaurant has the perfect evening-dining atmosphere. There are high ceilings with exposed pipes and ducts, nearly-as-high (and wide!) windows, brick walls, mirrors, and soft incandescent lighting in the form of large globes pendant from the ceiling. The occasional Toulouse-Lautrec-esque poster completes this modern take on a traditional French bistro. The food was equally perfect! The tomato bisque appetizer had a robust tomato flavor, and was not overly creamy. Noteworthy details on this comfort classic were a drizzle of extra-virgin olive oil, and a large crouton thickly spread with goat cheese. I ordered tagliatelle with mushrooms as my main course; the hearty pasta was cooked in madeira cream and tossed with an assortment of mushrooms as well as spinach. Aquitaine's dessert was THE best of this four-restaurant tour - a dark chocolate torte with espresso-chocolate ganache and vanilla chantilly cream. The torte was warm, rich, and textured (hints of espresso powder added a pleasant graininess); it melted in my mouth! The ganache, warm enough that it was thin and spreadable / plentiful enough that it covered the entire plate, soaked perfectly into the torte and filled plenty a spoonful, and the vanilla creme acted as a breath of fresh air against the intense, dark flavors of the other ingredients. I could have eaten this dessert all night. Sigh, if only it were included on Aquitaine's regular menu...the thought of never eating it again is somewhat distressing! Perhaps this can be an inspiration for me to expand my baking into the world of fine desserts - a torte from my kitchen seems rather ambitious, but hey, I'll do what I have to to get a good dessert.

If you have not already, I hope you have the opportunity to try (most of) these restaurants! I, in turn, need to reevaluate my restaurant list, now that several of my top picks have been sampled. At this point, Bonfire and Sel de la Terre - oh, and Olives! - are pending...

Valentine's Day with Dancing Deer

2009-03-23T17:10:00.000-07:00

Valentine's Day is personally synonymous with good chocolate, for two reasons - (1) tradition demands it, and (2) with the holiday being a celebration of love, I must pay tribute to, yes, my ardent love and appreciation of all things dessert. In addition to the standard chocolate hearts (milk, white, and dark chocolates this year), I more-than-dipped in to a Dancing Deer Baking Company Chocolate Lover's Medley. This desssert quartet was much more satisfying than the bakery's Christmas offerings, though as with most commercial bakeries I can think of several areas of improvement:

Chocolate Espresso Cake - this is a moist, dense dark chocolate cake, with coarse ground espresso bean mixed throughout. The rough texture and bright taste of the beans are a pleasant surprise, though the coffe flavor in the batter is a bit sharp. The cake is drizzled in a rich white chocolate glaze. It comes in standard Bundt sizes - so, perfect for slicing and enjoying with vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and a mocha. Wait, did I say that...?
Chocolate Chunk Brownies - these brownies' claim to fame is their wonderfully high chocolate-chunk-to-batter ratio! Large pieces of semi-sweet chocolate are found throughout these fudgy brownies. Quality of chunks aside, the brownies themselves are average. I am sure that these are delicious right out of the oven; however, you can't expect that fresh taste to last in the weeks post-baking, and it doesn't. After being raised on from-scratch brownies, and perpetuating the same in my own kitchen, it is difficult for me to advocate for the processed variety.
Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies - these cookies, conceptually, are the Best. Cookies. Ever. The rich chocolate batter has dark, milk, and white chocolate chips contained within. However, the cookies are rather dry, and the chocolate chips are small. How would I do this cookie differently? Use a heartier base (I'm guessing this one was on the runny side, as the cookies were rather large, flat, and thin), and larger chips or chunks. My goal would be a dense, chewy batter, with melt-in-your-mouth chips of every flavor. I look forward to trying my own variation sometime, and appreciate the inspiration!
Triple Chocolate Heart Cookies - these cookies are the cutest, and most Valentine's-y, of the set. Small, thick heart-shaped chocolate cookies are drizzled in pink frosting and lightly dusted with pink crystallized sugar. That sweet frosting complements the slightly bitter cookies well; chunks of semi-sweet and dark chocolate, plus a dark chocolate base, constitute the cookie proper. I would like to see a softer, moister version of these cookies, but I understand that baked-good age and general need for preservation make those states difficult to achieve.

So, I felt the dessert love this Valentine's Day, yet I have several ideas of what Chocolate and I can work on to improve our relationship. I wonder where we'll be a year from now...

Let's Recap a Month's Worth of Desserts!

2009-01-31T13:24:00.000-08:00

The holidays have come and gone, and here it's almost February 2009! What desserts have happened in that time? Christmas, of course, inspired plenty of baked goods and candies.

Sugar cookies - we made these traditional cookies in several festive shapes (angels, bells, reindeer, large and small stars, snowflakes, trees), and used lemon juice to flavor them. This was a departure from years past, in which we gave the cookies a hint of vanilla. I plan on returning to vanilla in future years, as the lemon was an unexpected bit of tartness in a season of cozy, warm, spiced flavors. We tempered the tartness by coating the cookies in red and green sugar. The cookies were rolled slightly thicker than in years past, which meant there was more cheery deliciousness per bite!
Peanut candy - these candies are so simple, yet so addicting! I can sum up the recipe in four sentences. (1) Put equal parts semi-sweet chocolate and butterscotch chips in a casserole dish; microwave them until they melt. (2) Mix the melted chips into a smooth mixture. (3) Pour a jar of peanuts into the casserole; mix them around until they are coated by the chocolate-butterscotch mixture. (4) Spoon dollops of candy-coated peanuts ono wax paper, and let them cool. Voila! I'll admit, I hoard these...and still have a handful or so pieces left.
Cranberry coffee cake - this holiday breakfast classic is a typical sour cream coffee cake flavored with almond extract, with whole-berry cranberry sauce swirled throughout the better. The baked cake is then topped with an almond-flavored glaze. Put a sprig of holly in the center, and it looks like one of those classic Christmas puddings - but fortunately, it tastes much better! Yum.
Dancing Deer Baking Company cookies - yes, commercial baked goods were consumed in addition to the homemade treats. We tried several different cookies. The best were the Molasses Clove cookies, which are moist, sugary, and spicy; these will become a fixture of Christmases future! The Holiday Shortbread comes in three flavors and multiple shapes (vanilla, chocolate, and snickerdoodle; stars, snowflakes, and drop); they were okay, but a bit dry. I liked them best dipped in hot cocoa! The Gingerbread Folk were rather lackluster. As you can see, there was a variety in the quality of the baked goods, but all of them were beautifully packed. I am a sucker for stylish tins and boxes; Dancing Deer wins on both fronts. I'd be interested in trying their other products, particularly their brownies and blondies. Also, their Valentine's cookies are so cute!

Since Christmas, I have baked a few items - Funfetti cupcakes and my classic Epic Brownie recipe for work events, and a cherry brownie recipe as a test to see if it was party-worthy. The best parts of baking and frosting with Funfetti are the colorful sprinkles that are embedded in the cake mix and sprinkled on top of the light pink frosting. The cheerful colors and bright vanilla flavor make Funfetti an easy crowd-pleaser. The Epic Brownies will receive an entry of their own in the future - yes, they are that good! :-P The cherry brownie recipe is similar to the chocolate-raspberry fudge cake baked in December, but slightly better. Better does not mean there will be a repeat baking, however. The sour cherry flavor, imparted by yet another Stonewall Kitchen jam, is really good, but the chocolate flavor isn't as strong as I would have expected from 8 ounces of baking chocolate. Also, the brownies are cakey rather than fudgy. I have had enough of baking with jams!

Here's hoping 2009 will have plenty of good dessert stories to share with you. :-)

From My Apartment's Christmas Table

2008-12-19T14:27:00.000-08:00

My roommates and I enjoyed a homemade meal together this past Wednesday, prior to heading our separate ways for Christmas. Laura took care of the main course, which was macaroni with artichokes, mushrooms, and scallions, all tossed in a light cream sauce. I, of course, made the dessert. I tried this Stonewall Kitchen recipe for a chocolate-raspberry fudge cake. Once I got past the general unhealthiness of the ingredients (how many sticks of butter? cups of sugar? eggs?), I was able to enjoy the promise of chocolate - as derived from cocoa powder - and raspberry - as derived from seedless jam - flavors. The cake itself is very dense, but not as moist, smooth or rich as I would have liked. Its aroma is better than its taste. In the finished product, I noticed the dry, plain flavors of flour and butter more than the chocolate, sugar, or jam. I would replace some of the butter with oil in future bakings, and see if that moistens the batter and causes it to bake more smoothly. Also, the oil might draw out the flavors more than the solid butter. Aesthetically, it looks rather plain coming out of the 9" round cake pan. In order to enhance both the presentation and the flavors of the dessert, I served it with fresh raspberries and warm bittersweet chocolate sauce. Both additions were delicious!

This was probably the least successful baking experience / dessert yet recorded in these pages, but hey, the recipe was worth a try. I now have the goal of making an appropriately smooth, rich, and flavorful fudge cake!

The Cheesecake Factory's Latest Delight

2008-12-14T14:55:00.000-08:00

...is a peppermint bark cheesecake.

The base is a chocolate-mint graham cracker crust. The cheesecake itself has a faintly peppermint flavor, with small chunks of candy and red food coloring swirled in. (The flavor and coloring fade toward the outer crust of the cake, where it is replaced by plain - though still delicious! - cheesecake.) The result truly gives you the impression that you are looking at a slice of peppermint bark, albeit in cream form. There is a layer of vanilla cream on top of the cheesecake, which is sprinkled with more peppermint candy chunks. A dollop of whipped cream, topped with more candy bits, plus two thin wedges of smooth dark chocolate finish off the dessert.

This cheesecake may be my favorite Cheesecake Factory dessert, with the other contenders for that title being Linda's Fudge Cake, Chocolate Mousse Cheesecake, Chocolate Tuxedo Cream Cheesecake, and Key Lime Cheesecake. The only way this particular cake could have been better? More chocolate, of course. (In my experience, peppermint bark has consisted of just as much chocolate as peppermint!) I would recommend enjoying this seasonal delight as soon as possible, as I don't anticipate it being around much after the holidays.

For a Cheesecake Factory restaurant near you, go to http://www.thecheesecakefactory.com/locations.htm.

The Holiday Breakfast

2008-12-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

Yes, this entry on Thanksgiving baking is several weeks overdue. I know, I know. I will limit it to the Thanksgiving breakfast, which I baked, rather than including the Thanksgiving desserts as surreptitiously prepared by my mother (she knew I'd be upset if I heard she was baking dessert in advance).

I must start by telling you that I am an apple snob. I didn't choose to become such a snob; it just happened that way. I grew up in Londonderry, New Hampshire, a town with four commercial orchards and, as the local phrase goes, "more apples than people." The most popular of the orchards, Mack's Apples, is the ultimate New England fall destination, with apples, cider, pumpkins, other veggies, baked goods, and maple products available for purchase from the orchard shop. (You can also pick your produce straight from the tree/vine, via several "U-Pick" stations; in the summer, you can enjoy locally-made ice cream by a pond with sociable waterfowl.) The orchard grows a variety of apples, which I have sampled throughout the years; my favorite is the Londonderry Cortland. Cortland apples are crisp and tart, with sparkling white flesh covered by red-and-green blotched skin. They are neither too sweet nor too tangy, and produce the most satisfying crunch possible in an apple - I've never encountered a mealy Cortland. Whenever I go to NH in apple season, it is guaranteed that I will return to Boston with a box of Cortlands. Present me with a different apple, and I will look at it in disdain.

Londonderry Cortlands are big apples, and a Mack's box contains a lot of them - so, I was making applesauce on a weekly basis for a while. I didn't add any sugar or other flavors to the applesauce - the Cortland flavor is strong enough that it doesn't need any enhancement. Other favorite apple recipes are apple crisp, applesauce-maple bread, and an apple spice cake. The apple spice cake had the honor of being the recipient of the last Cortlands of the 2008 season (tear), as well as being the 2008 Thanksgiving Breakfast. Since my parents would be eating the cake over the holiday, I asked for their input on the recipe prior to baking. My dad suggested replacing the Cortlands with Granny Smiths (overrated), Golden Delicious (how boring can you get?), or - wait for it - Honeycrisps (blasphemy). Apple snob that I am, I did not appreciate the joke. I ignored the "input" and baked the cake with my beloved Cortlands.

The cake was an instant hit! It's dense and flavorful. I attribute its success and exceptional taste to the following:

grated apples - grated apples introduce more juice to the batter, so the apple flavor better permeates the cake than if the apples were diced into small pieces.
lemon zest and juice - the extra tartness of the citrus fruit enhances the apple flavor.
butter - yes, there is a lot of butter in this cake, but butter is preferable to cups of oil. Oil tends to weigh down these cakes and give them a moist, heavy quality. The butter gives this cake a creamy texture and keeps the batter somewhat light.
liberal application of spices - it's a family tradition to double the spices in baking recipes; cinnamon gets the star treatment of frequently being tripled. Mmm, aromatic compounds.

Here is the recipe, courtesy of Bon Appetit magazine, for your baking pleasure.

Nonstick vegetable oil spray
3 C flour
1 t baking soda
1 t ground cinnamon (double/triple as desired)
3/4 t salt
1/2 t ground nutmeg (double as desired)
1/4 t ground cloves (double as desired)
1/4 t ground allspice
1 3/4 pounds Cortland apples, peeled / cored / coarsely grated (2 apples, to make 2 cups)
1 1/2 C (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C golden brown sugar, packed
1 t grated lemon peel
3 large eggs
1 t vanilla extract
1 t fresh lemon juice

Position the rack in the center of the oven, and preheat the oven to 325 F. Spray a 12 C Bundt pan with nonstick spray.
Sift the flour and the next 6 ingredients into a medium bowl.
Grate 2 C worth of apples; set aside.
Using an electric mixer, beat the butter, both sugars, and lemon zest in a large bowl until fluffy. Beat in the eggs, one at a time. Mix in the vanilla and lemon juice.
Beat in the flour mixture, and mix in the grated apples. Transfer the batter to the prepared pan.
Bake the cake until a tester inserted near the center of the cake comes out clean, about 1 hour. Cool in the pan on a rack for 20 minutes.

Enjoy the cake warm, whether by eating it straight from the oven or zapping it for a few seconds in the microwave. You will not be disappointed!

Londonderry apple season is now over, but Christmas is right around the corner - so, that will inspire me to new heights of baking. Will there be pumpkin pie? Something chocolatey? Sugar cookies in holiday shapes? Stay tuned...

The Great Political Bake-Off, Part II

2008-11-08T07:29:00.000-08:00

This bake-off (as rated by myself, roommates, and party guests) AND election both ended in favor of the same candidate! Michelle's shortbread reminded me of a cross between shortbread and a lemon square - a very enjoyable mix of flavors and textures, since I'm not a particular fan of straight-up shortbread or lemon squares. The citrus zest provided a strong, fruity flavor, which was tempered by the almond extract and the smooth creaminess of the butter. I plan to bake this recipe again, closer to Christmas, in my family's holiday shortbread pan.

Here's to the Obama landslide, in both votes and cookies!

The Great Political Bake-Off, Part I

2008-11-02T18:05:00.000-08:00

With so much at stake this election season, there is no way that any self- and country-respecting American can just sit idly by. After casting our votes on November 4, my roommates and I will do our part to foster civic awareness by hosting an Election Night party. During said party, we will snack on the prospective First Ladies' favorite cookie recipes. This afternoon, I donned my imaginary "Baking for Barack" apron and whipped up some tasty treats.

Cindy McCain's Oatmeal-Butterscotch Cookies - makes approx. 4 dozen

3/4 C unsalted butter, softened
3/4 C granulated sugar
3/4 C packed brown sugar
2 eggs
1 t vanilla extract
1 1/4 C flour
1 t baking soda
1/2 t ground cinnamon
1/2 t salt
3 C rolled oats
1 2/3 C butterscotch chips

Preheat the oven to 375.
In a large bowl, beat the butter and both sugars together. Add the eggs and vanilla, beating well.
In a medium bowl, stir together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt. Gradually add the flour mixture to the butter mixture; stir until blended. Stir in the oats and butterscotch chips. Drop the dough by tablespoons, about 2 inches apart, onto ungreased cookie sheets.
Bake at 375 for 10 minutes, until the edges begin to brown. Transfer to a wire rack to cool immediately after pulling the cookies from the oven.

This recipe is straightforward and easy to make, with a delicious dough that yielded dense, richly textured cookies. There is an unusually high filler-to-batter ratio, with the combined oats and chips taking up more space than the wet and dry ingredients together. As with any butterscotch baked good, the finished product is a bit oily. The oats, by compromising the integrity of the batter, also make the just-baked cookies difficult to work with. Once the cookies have cooled, they are a bit hard and brittle; a quick microwave reheat solves that problem. All that said, these are the best oatmeal scotchies I have ever had.

Michelle Obama's Shortbread Cookies - makes approx. 30 pieces

1 1/2 C unsalted butter, softened
1 1/2 C plus 2 T sugar
2 egg yolks
2 T amaretto (can substitute 1/2 t almond extract)
1 t each of orange and lemon zest
3 C cake flour
1/4 t salt
1 beaten egg white

Preheat the oven to 325. Line a 17x12x1 inch baking pan with nonstick foil (or, grease the pan). In a large bowl, cream the butter and 1 1/2 C sugar together.
Slowly add the egg yolks, and beat until smooth. Beat in the amaretto and zests.
Stir in the flour and salt until all is well combined.
Flatten the dough evely and smoothly into the prepared pan.
Brush the top of the dough with the beaten egg white, and sprinkle it with the remaining 2 T sugar.
Bake at 325 for 25 minutes, or until brown. Turn off the oven and allow the cookies to sit in the oven, with the door ajar, for 15 minutes. Cut the cookies while they are still slightly warm, with a smooth-bladed (i.e., non-serrated) knife.

I have not yet sampled these cookies, as I am saving them for the party due to a comparatively low yield. However, if the ingredients and my kitchen's aroma are any indication, this is not your mother's shortbread - in a good way. The citrus zest and almond extract seem like an unusual combination at first, but their scents mingled very pleasantly; I will hope for a similarly-pleasant mingling of flavors in the finished product. Also, the egg-white-and-sugar topping helps retain some moisture in the battter, so I doubt this will be the crumbly, dry sort of shortbread most people recollect. The touch of sweetness in the topping will also be a pleasant surprise. It was difficult to adequately mix, and then spread, the stiff dough, but I hope to be rewarded for my efforts.

Family Circle magazine has traditionally published these recipes, and has polled its readers as to which cookie they preferred. Legend has it that the winner of the cookie contest will win the White House. Stay tuned for a poll of the election party's attendees!