Bakery Tour: NYC Winter 2010

The shiniest holiday cheer.

Normally, I spend my days off sleeping and shuffling around like a zombie, but today I went to New York. Yes, there are museums and parks and all that good stuff, but I came to eat. Planning a bakery excursion is like Halloween for a semi-adult such as myself. The run-down:

Featured (Clockwise): Raspberry Bomboloncini and Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie (Levain), Hazelnut Choc-o-Lait Sticks and Dolfin Chocolate Assortment (Chelsea Market Basket), Oatmeal Raisin Cookie (Sarabeth's Kitchen). Not Featured: Apple Turnover, Chocolate Chip Cookies (Sarabeth's)

Yup, just like Halloween, only I got to keep all my treats and my parents didn't give any of it to childless co-workers. The haul was glorious. I've never heard of "bomboloncini," but according to Levain'swebsite, it's a baked jelly doughnut. Is there a downside. No? No, no. Nom, nom. Yeasted dough is great to work with and once I figure out how to get jam inside it, I'll attempt these bombowhatevers.

Bombomathing.

Apparently, Levain started with a recipe for the perfect chocolate chip cookie and has been using it ever since. Personally, I don't like chocolate chip cookies for the same reason I am picky about cupcakes: too many people think it is about the sugary candy-like part and not the cake part. This cookie is teeming with chocolate chunks (I'm pretty sure they crammed two or three layers of chocolate in mine), but it is so delicious. It has everything I'm looking for when I want something special. So. Delicious. If time and effort gets that, it might be worth it to figure out my own perfect cookie recipe.

And Sarabeth's, where have you been all my life (aside from the jars of preserves I seem to have been using in my rugelach for the past 4 months)? I ate everything I bought there within the half hour and not just because I like eating. I'll leave it at that, except if anyone wants to get me the book "From My Hands to Yours," I could get behind that.

The chocolate I have yet to sample, but I've had everything else on the table and then some, including a falafel  from Chelsea Market, so cut me some slack.

Crème Brûlée: Attempt the First

I was in my kitchen today, proud of myself for having started this blog and promising not to write another post until I can add pictures. Indeed, I even distracted myself by making dinner: broiled beef short ribs and brown rice with peas. But while my brain was patting my back, my body pulled a Leroy Jenkins and had eggs, heavy cream, and a vanilla bean on the table. Crème brûlée? Silly body, real desserts have flour and sugar in it. But fried dough yesterday, something lighter today. 
Why every time I make something, I gotta have 5 friends to share it with? Well, I don't have 5 friends, so this serves 4. Warning: This is a thrown together version of two different recipes and some guessing. 


Crème brûlée
Serves 4


3/4 cup skim milk
1/3 cup heavy cream
1 vanilla bean
3 egg yolks
2 tbsp sugar
4 small ramekins
1 large cake pan


1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Place milk, cream, vanilla pulp, and bean in saucepan. Bring to boil briefly, then turn off heat. Let sit for 10 minutes. Take out bean.
3. Beat egg yolks, then whisk in sugar. Whisk in warm milk mixture little by little.
4. Evenly distribute mix between ramekins. Place ramekins in cake pan and fill pan with water to halfway up the sides of the  ramekins. Bake for 35-40 minutes.
5. Remove ramekins from pan and refrigerate for at least 2 hours.
6. Take ramekins out and let sit for half an hour before sprinkling sugar and burning it. 


Yes, 2 whole hours. It has to cool down, set up, and  get creamy.When it comes to cooking, my downfall is being overly concerned with food safety, leading to overcooking, and being mind-numbingly impatient, leading to under-waiting. So, egg safety, courtesy of the FDA: 
In order to kill any potential bacteria (which are not a huge threat anyway), cook until eggs are firm. In this case, after baking, the custard should be more firm, but still "tremble," meaning if you were to move the ramekin, it should move slightly. If it moves a lot, it needs more time. To play it very safe, pasteurized eggs are specially treated to eliminate bacteria and can be found in many grocery stores.


No pictures yet, but soon. Oh soon...

Red Velvet Cupcakery: Why.

I have a lot of love for the cupcake and the cupcakeries that dispense them. Nothing wrong with a tiny cake in a paper wrapper, no cutting, no mess, no leftover cake seducing you with its gyrating cartoon aroma. And the shops have become a safe haven for the Wall Street weary and *cough* unemployed architects *cough*. According to foodie skeptics, a bust must follow this “cupcake bubble”. But my hope is that it will simply separate the deserving few shops from the wannabe, sand+FRRRRROOSSSTING mongers.

Red Velvet Cupcakery is the latter. Not knowing the story of the place, I cannot accuse it of jumping on the bandwagon. Maybe the product has always been this dry and lacking in flavor. Maybe I’m just blinded by the Georgetown Cupcake hype and the delightful ways in which they back it up. Moral of the rant: To my future cupcake-craving self, Red Velvet’s Sandcake is to be avoided with extreme prejudice. Unless it’s an absolute emergency. Then shell out the $3 and gripe as long as you like.

Egg Whites and Sorrow

Why does everyone act like beating egg whites is the easiest thing ever? I have tried 3 times now and nothing works, not vinegar, not cream of tartar, not stupid damned stupid salt. Which is stupid. I attempted this recipe under the assumption that, despite my previous attempts, I, a novice could whip the egg snot into firm glorious white peaks. This false hope was sponsored by Jeff Potter’s Cooking for Geeks, which I love but raises my spirits only to let them fall like a young post-bac’s cheese and herb soufflé.

In other baking news, the secret to really fudgy brownies is an extra egg yolk. The more you know, am I right? I’m right.

Apple Cider Doughnuts

This week, I saw a recipe at Serious Eats that reminded me of Millburn Orchards, an apple farm that a friend introduced me to sophomore year. And oh! What jams! What apples! Yet, the most wondrous thing of all were the apple cider doughnuts. So soft, so tasty, so smothered in granulated sugar. Oh joy! She's a good friend, that one.

Tired student + hot oil. Probably not the best idea, hence a blackened and charred first doughnut attempt. Several trial and errors later I found the following:

- I don't have a candy thermometer, but I did see somewhere that placing a chopstick in the center of  the oil would show if the oil was hot enough. If bubbles start rising steadily around the stick, the oil is ready. In this case, a steady but slow bubble stream was hot enough. Too fast = too hot. 

- If the dough is flattened (and I mean flat) before frying, I could make sure the dough cooked all the way through. Don't worry, it puffs up nicely.

No special reason for the hearts, just thought tiny doughnuts would be better for a first try (read: I'm kind of a wuss). Next time, I'll try different flavors and maybe be less of a wuss.