News and Cupcakes

Ahem... is this thing on?

Just checking. It's been about two months since I last updated this little nook of the internets, and that's a long time, in blog years.

At any rate, I'm sorry - I didn't intend on leaving you all post-less for so long. Here's everything you need to know about the past few (fine, many) weeks:

1. I graduated from pastry school. I am now a pastry chef. (I'm doing my best to sound casual about this. Actually, I'm pretty damn excited about it. HOLLER.)

2. I went on a Eurotrip with my mom, dad, and sister, Casey. A week-long trip to Tuscany, with a day of Rome and a bonus day in Berlin, to boot. Oh, you want to see pictures? Well okay then.

Berlin's wurst wurst.

Beautiful Tuscany

First dinner in Radda in Chianti

Not at all life size Chianti wine cork

First breakfast in Raddi in Chianti

First cappuccino

Wild Boar - Cinghiale - regional specialty

Strega Nona?

I definitely didn't hang out here. Nope.

Not even a little bit.

getting mad air by the leaning tower of pizza. ...Pisa.

Tim Burton-ish Cathedral in Siena

Pretty window in Volterra

Just a couple of gladiators, out on the town. ...When in Rome?

3. I got a job. A real one, as the private chef to a New York City family of four. Oh, did I mention it's in the Hamptons? Yeah, I'll be "summering" in the Hamptons for the next few months, cooking my little heart out for my employers and all their well-to-do guests. I feel like I should get my own reality show.

4. Sour cherry cupcakes. Or muffins. But really, cupcakes. Cupcakes slash muffins...Cuppins?


Sour Cherry Cupcakes with Mascarpone Frosting


I adapted these (only slightly) from a recipe I saw on Smitten Kitchen. Deb uses fresh peaches in her cupcakes, but when my sister, Casey, and I saw some seductive looking sour cherries at the Ardmore Farmer's Market, we decided they'd be a welcome substitute. Turns out we were right.

Straight out of the oven, these guys are the fluffiest, most delicious muffins, but swirl on a bit of frosting and they turn into fluffy, delicious cupcakes with the perfect balance of sweet and tart. It's up to you - go sans frosting for muffininity, or pile it on for cupcakery. Either way, I don't think you'll be disappointed.




Ingredients:

For cupcakes:

• 3 cups cake flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup (1 1/2 sticks or 6 ounces) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs, lightly beaten
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 1/2 cups (12 ounces) sour cream
  
• 1 1/2 cups fresh sour cherries, washed, stemmed and pitted

For frosting:

• 1 1/4 cups light brown sugar
• 1/4 cup cornstarch
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 8-ounce packages of mascarpone cheese, at room temperature
• 1/2 cup (4 ounces or 8 tablespoons) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions: For cupcakes:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line 28 muffin cups with paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt and set aside. Cream the butter and sugars together, beating until fluffy. Add the vanilla and eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl between each addition. Gently mix in the sour cream. Stir in the dry ingredients and fold in the cherries.

Divide the batter evenly among the prepared cupcake liners. Bake for 18 to 22 minutes, or until a tester inserted into the center of cupcakes comes out clean. Cool the cupcakes for five minutes in the tin, then turn them out onto a wire rack to cool completely.

For frosting:

In a small bowl, whisk together the brown sugar, cornstarch and powdered sugar. In a large bowl, beat the mascarpone and butter until fluffy. Add the sugar-cornstarch mixture and vanilla, and beat until frosting is smooth and light. Chill the bowl in the refrigerator until it firms up a bit, about 30 minutes, then spread on cooled cupcakes.

Casey "helps" with the frosting

Makes 24-28 cupcakes.

View From the Farmer's Market

On a sunny, springy weekend in New York City.

Tulips, my favorite. Such deep color, but so friendly and familiar. Just so pretty. And here are some nice, fat French radishes.

It'd be a shame not to take some home and make them a cozy bed on a baguette with some salted butter. Just saying.

I almost bought one of these:

Just because. But then I decided that a 16-egg omelet for breakfast might be a bit much. So I bought some rhubarb instead, and made some strawberry rhubarb compote.

Which I scooped on top of a piece of warm butter cake, and promptly ate for breakfast. It may have been a bit much, but I think I might do it again tomorrow.


Nigella Lawson's Brittany Butter Cake

I like this cake. It's one of those everyday cakes - not terribly fancy... it's actually quite plain, but delicious nonetheless, and worthy of a few minutes in the kitchen - which is all you'll need, as this requires very few ingredients and comes together in a snap. It's moist and dense - it's texture is more like a blondie than like actual cake, but I don't know, I'm into it.

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups cake flour
• 3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, cut into cubes
• 6 large egg yolks

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Grease a 9-inch springform pan. Remove 1 teaspoon of egg yolk from your 6, and mix it in a small bowl with 1 tablespoon water. You'll use this as a glaze later on.

In the bowl of a stand mixer, stir together the flour and sugar. Add the butter and egg yolks, and slowly whir them together with the paddle attachment. (If you're making this by hand, make a mound of the flour on the counter, make a well in it and add the sugar, butter and eggs, kneading to mix thoroughly).

Scoop the dough into the pan and smooth the top with a floured hand (dough will be sticky!)

Brush the cake with the yolk/water glaze, and mark a lattice design on top with the prongs of a fork.

Bake the cake for 15 minutes, then turn the oven down to 350ºF and give it another 25 minutes or so, until it's golden on top and firm to the touch.

Let it cool in the pan, then unmold.

Serves 8-10.
This cake will keep well in an airtight container.

Sugar

(doo doo dee dee dah dah) ahh honey honey.

Just wanted to post a few pictures of what my classmates and I have been doing at school these days - mostly playing with sugar. Poured sugar, blown sugar, pulled sugar, rock sugar... it's uh, pretty sweet. (heyo!)

Lollipop anyone?

Candy cane!

Ribbon candy

Poured sugar pets

My partner and I made a guitar-playing marsupial. Naturally.

Jessica's blown sugar fruit basket. She's kind of awesome.

Kristyn's blown sugar giraffe. Also awesome.

Hungry hungry caterpillar


Chipmunks in love in sugar

Sugar Scrabble board

You sunk my sugar battleship

Operation!

The most delicious board game of all


Pretty sweet, huh?

Death By...

Chocolate, duh. Or, more specifically, death of mini chocolate "cupcakes" by ferocious, mean-faced chocolate cupcake monster.

Don't follow? It's okay. Look:


This is my latest FCI-assigned chocolate project. The assignment was to design a chocolate showpiece that embodies this theme: if you were a creature or monster, what would you be?

This is me.


I'm calling it (me?) a "quarter-life cupcake crisis monster." What do you think? Can you see the resemblance? Notice the swirly chocolate "frosting" - maybe brunette curls?

And these are my poor, delicious little chocolate victims:



It's too bad they're so adorable and delicious. Maybe if they weren't made out of pure chocolate, I wouldn't want to eat them.

...Yeah who am I kidding? Of course I would. I'm a pastry school student, for pete's sake. Eating cupcakes is like, homework.

Life is really hard sometimes.

Merry...

No one's hangin' stockin's up,
No one's bakin' pie,
No one's lookin' up to see
A new star in the sky.
No one's talkin' brotherhood,
No one's givin' gifts,
And no one loves a Christmas tree
On March the twenty-fifth.

- Shel Silverstein

Pastillage Cake Stand by Sarah K.

He's Going To Ask For A Glass Of Milk.

Just wanted to show you what I made at school this week:


It's a cake stand! Made of pastillage!



Pastillage. Pah-stee-YAHJ. It's really just a paste made from sugar, cornstarch, vinegar and gelatin - you roll it out like pie dough and cut it into shapes, and it dries hard. Then, barring any major disasters (this stuff is de-li-cate. It likes to crack and shatter), you can glue your shapes together with royal icing or isomalt, and voilà!

Cute little guy, isn't he?

You know, I'm sort of sensing a trend with these showpieces. I think someone has a Peter Pan complex.

Oh, what, you think it's me? Just because I happen to like chocolate chip cookies? And adorable mice? Tiny little sugar mice who like to wear overalls and cookie crumbs?

...Fine. But I mean come on - have you ever read If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, by Laura Joffe Numeroff (great name, by the way)?

If you haven't, you should. And if you have, you sorta like my cake stand, don't you?

Admit it. You want a cookie.

I wonder what happens when you give a blog-reader a cookie. Let's find out, shall we?

Salted Chocolate Chip Cookies

Ingredients:

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 1/2 sticks butter
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 cup dark brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 12 ounces semi-sweet chocolate chips
• 1 tablespoon sea salt, such as fleur de sel, for sprinkling

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

About 2 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, divided

10 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup vanilla sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

12 ounces bitter chocolate chips

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Chip-Cookies-with-Salt-104371#ixzz0j2Lck3Wu

Directions:

Working in a large pan over medium-high heat, brown the butter. Just swirl the pan of butter over the heat until the milk solids start to separate and turn brown. Once the butter is browned, pour it into a metal bowl and put it in the freezer to cool.

Preheat the oven to 375ºF. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt.

Once the butter has completely cooled to room temperature, whisk it vigorously with the sugar until it is light and pale yellow. Whisk in the eggs one at a time until thoroughly blended. Mix in the vanilla, then stir in the flour mixture gently, until combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Using an ice-cream scoop or two spoons, drop the batter by the tablespoon onto the prepared baking sheets. Sprinkle each of the cookies with some sea salt, and then bake for about 12-15 minutes, until the edges have browned and the cookies are golden. Allow to cool, about 5 minutes, before enjoying... with a glass of milk, naturally.

Makes about 50 cookies.

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

About 2 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, divided

10 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup vanilla sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

12 ounces bitter chocolate chips

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Chip-Cookies-with-Salt-104371#ixzz0j2Lck3Wu

3 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

About 2 1/2 teaspoons sea salt, divided

10 ounces unsalted butter, at room temperature

1 cup vanilla sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

12 ounces bitter chocolate chips

Read More http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chocolate-Chip-Cookies-with-Salt-104371#ixzz0j2Lck3Wu