- 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.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
Petsi Treats
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.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
A New Use for Goat Cheese
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:
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.
- 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?
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.
Sunday, January 10, 2010
Flour Bakery vs The Snack Aisle
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!
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!
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Yule Love This Log
...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!
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!
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