Merlot Fig Sorbet

Feels like it's been forever since I've blogged. I guess it has been. Unfortunately, by the time I get out of work and do everything I have to do, I don't have time for recreational baking! :(

Anyway, Emma tells me one day that she is upgrading her ice cream machine. I think she is crazy, but she offers me her "old one" so who am I to complain! ;) Her new machine is a monster and takes up half her counter space! (For those of you who do not know Emma, to say she loves to make ice cream is the biggest understatement.) So, when I finally had some free time to cook, I knew I had to try this bad boy out!

I noticed that figs were on sale at work and couldn't pass them by. I've loved figs for as long as I can remember. I used to eat them right off my grandmother's fig tree when she lived in Brooklyn and then when my Aunt Anna would harvest them and hand them out in egg cartons. Delicious! Naturally, I decided to make some fig sorbet.

It's been a while since I last made sorbet so I wanted to look for a recipe online. I couldn't find one that I really liked so I decided to throw caution to the wind and make up my own recipe. Typically, sorbets are just fruit puree and simple syrup. However, since figs have a mild flavor, I knew I wanted to use a complimetary flavor to give the sorbet some demension. The two flavors that came to mind were balsamic vinegar and merlot. The vinegar sounded a bit too aggressive for this, so I chose the latter.

I cut up the figs and tossed them into the merlot and added some sugar and a vanilla bean. I brought it to a boil and let the figs steep in the boozy goodness. After it cooled I pureed the mixture until smooth, ran it through a stainer and churned it.

Aside from the deafening noise, the machine is awesome! The sorbet came out good, too. I wish I had added a drop more sugar -to improve both the taste and the texture. Sorbet bases need to have the perfect amount of sugar content to come out just right. It is hard to tell if you have the correct amount of sugar unless you have a tool called a refractometer. This device is used to measure sugar density. Had I had one, my sorbet would have come out perfect - so I got one! Until next time...

Groom's Cake

I was going through my posts and realized that I wrote this blog WEEKS ago and forgot to post it! My bad!! Here you go...

So groom's cakes are becoming more and more popular these days. There really aren't any rules when it comes to a grooms cake so things can get confusing. How big should it be? Should it be able to feed wedding guests? The one thing that is for certain - it's always a fun cake! Our client decided to present the cake to her hubby-to-be at the rehearsal dinner, which I thought was a great idea...

The obvious theme of the cake was golf - more specifically, the 17th hole at TPC Sawgrass. (Google it if you have time and love golf. It is a spectacular course.)

The flavors were vanilla cake with almond buttercream.

Del Posto

I feel like it's been forever since I've had an opportunity to blog. Since I barely have time to wipe my ass after I shit, blogging has unfortunately been hard to do.

So, instead of telling you about something yummy I've made (Hopefully I'll have something good for next weekend!) I figured I'd tell you about my latest meal...

Tonight I went to dinner at Del Posto with my good friend and cake partner, Emma, and her hubby Chris. It was delish! I had actually trailed at Del Posto while still in school. (A trail is sort of a hands on interview. You go and work an unpaid day at a restaurant to make sure you like the food, the job, and most importantly, the people.) Let's just say, at the time, it wasn't for me.

Emma had her friend - the Pastry Sous Chef - make us a reservation. When we walked in, we were very well taken care of. We were escorted to our table and were given an amuse before we even received a menu. The amuse consisted of a lobster and caviar toast (Chris ate mine. There was no way I was going near that!), pickled cabbage wrapped in prosciutto, and what I'll call a bruschetta shooter.

We finally received a menu and chose to do a tasting. Emma and I started our meal with a primavera salad while Chris chose the calamari. The presentation of the salad was like a canvas - a boutique of herbs, lettuces, flowers and vegetables with a pea puree, lemon and goat's milk ricotta dressing.

Then they brought out bread. Rut roh. i don't even want to think about how much bread I consumed. All homemade, they were pretty tasty - Mini baguette, lemon-thyme focaccia, olive ciabatta and pine-nut multi seed roll. As if that weren't enough, they were accompanied by imported Italian butter and a housemade lardo flavored with roasted garlic.

Next came the pastas which I will have dreams about for days to come. We started off with a ricotta filled ponsoti (think tortellini meets ravioli) with green and white asparagus and black truffle butter sauce. Sigh. Because one pasta is never enough, we then had Garganelli verdi (think penne but hand rolled) in a classic bolognese sauce. I had to restrain myself from licking the plate.

Our entrees came next. Emma went with the Halibut, Chris with Rib-Eye and I was adventurous (for me, at least) and had breaded, baked veal stuffed with broccoli rabe and fontina cheese served in a jus. Two thumbs up, definitely.

By this time I was stuffed. This also happened to be the time that our server asked us permission to have the pastry chefs choose our desserts for us. We had no clue what to expect. Being that it was recently Chris' birthday, they brought out a chocolate cake decorated with berries, chocolate and edible flowers for him to take home. The cake was replaced with a dessert amuse - salted cashew ice cream with orange zest and olive oil. I wanted a pint to take home. It tasted like a salty creamsicle with cashews.

Then we were each served a plated dessert. Emma had celery sorbet with figs in a balsamic glaze and breadcrumb coated goat cheese mousse. Chris was served Strawberry gelato with strawberries and pea cakes (I think!?) I was given lemon cake with slow-roasted nectarine and basil ice cream. Very good.

Then came "the cheese grater" It is basically a cheese grater with petite fours. We had little toffee pops, bomboloni filled with citrus pastry cream, a tartlette, dehydrated grapefruit and caramel candy.

Just when I was about to throw up, Roger brought out a chocolate tree. Basically, a hunk of chocolate decorated with... chocolates.

Can't wait to do this again!

Butterbeer: Lindsay's Belated Birthday (cup)cake!

Anyone who knows my good friend Lindsay knows she's a Harry Potter fanatic! A few weeks before her birthday I told her that I would take care of her cake because I wanted to make her something fun! Well, because I couldn't find pipettes (you may have noticed my begging for help on facebook!) I wasn't able to make them in time for her birthday.

I wanted to use the Butterbeer that is served in The Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Studios as a reference. Basically, it's a cream soda with a underwhipped, butterscotch flavored cream on top. I made a buttery vanilla cake and topped it with a butterscotch whipped topping. This is where the pipettes come in. I filled them with cream soda.

To eat, remove the pipette and squirt the soda into your mouth and chase it with a big bite of cupcake and frosting.

It was magical..... touche.

European Flashbacks- Part 1 - Bienenstich

Every now and then my OCD kicks in full-force and I do something obnoxious like organize all my photos in my picture library. I have to make folders and sub folders until everything looks neat. I wound up going through many of these photos - specifically the photos from my last European adventure. As I was skimming through, I came across pictures I took of some regional foods that I tried. I though it would be fun to research these desserts and find authentic recipes.

My first stop was Germany. I flew into Frankfurt on a cold, snowy day and discovered that it was very commercial. This was slightly disappointing. However, after speaking with the concierge, I was given directions to a quaint part of the city known as Romerberg. It was an adorable square with some shops, a few restaurants and a bakery. Of course I had to try something. The bakery was very small. There was a counter filled with all different treats, each with its own little sign saying what it was. I looked for the most "German-looking" thing and came across Bienenstich. Bienenstick, or "Bee sting cake," is a dense cake (some may even say sweet bread) with a thin layer of honeyed almonds and filled with a whipped cream or vanilla custard.

Romerburg

Bienenstich from the bakery in Romerburg

The bottom layer with the honey-almond caramel
My finished version of Bienenstich

The Bienenstich in Romerburg was filled with whipped cream. I finally came across a recipe that looked right to me - and boy was it dead on! I prepared the cake batter and got the two layers into the oven. While it was baking, I made a caramel with some honey, sugar, butter and heavy cream. When the caramel was done, vanilla and almonds are stirred in. The almond mixture is then spread onto the bottom layer of the cake and baked some more. After the cake is cooled, I made a not-too-sweet whipped cream and piped it onto the layer with the almonds. The other half is placed on top and then sprinkled with some confectioner's sugar.

I brought this to my aunt's house and it was a hit. I'll definitely be making this again.

Salted Caramel

With Emma in Italy this past week, I had some time to do some recipe testing. For the past year or so, salted caramel has really been a "trendy" flavor. I do occasionally come across someone who hears about it and says, "Ew! That's gross." If you've never experienced the flavor combination, put a grain or two of salt on some (quality) caramel candy and enjoy.

To achieve a salted caramel buttercream, I made a salted caramel sauce. This is where things can get tricky. I like an American style caramel - think Milk Duds (so much for quality, eh?) I think most people like this kind of caramel but that's probably because it's what people are used to. Then there's the other caramel - it's usually a dark copper color and has a bitter aftertaste. Because Emma prefers this type, I decided to compromise and meet half way. Plus, I feel the salt goes better with a darker caramel.

I paired the salted caramel buttercream with out moist chocolate cake and garnished it with some salted caramel sauce and a sprinkling of Maldon sea salt. Yum!

Something Savory

I was skimming through the channels a few days ago and landed on PBS. Sometimes I like watching old school cooking shows like Yan Can Cook, Julia Child, etc. I happened to stumble across one of my favorites - Ciao Italia. The host, MaryAnne, was cooking artichokes and they looked yummy. I made a mental note to try them out one day. Surprisingly enough, we had artichokes on sale at work and they looked amazing.

There were only a few ingredients to her recipe - artichokes, garlic, chicken broth, salt, lemon, pepper, mint and parsley. I'm not a mint person, so I skipped it. My only suggestion would be to hit it with a splash of freshly squeezed lemon and ground pepper right before serving.

Here's the recipe...

INGREDIENTS

4 whole large artichokes Globe or Romanesco if available
Juice of two lemons
1/4 cup fresh chopped mint
1/4 cup chopped Italian parsley
2 large cloves garlic, minced
Three cups of chicken broth
Salt and pepper to taste

DIRECTIONS

Remove the tough outer leaves of the artichokes.

Use a vegetable peeler to trim the outer layer of the stems.

Cut the artichokes in half lengthwise

Place in pan. Add chicken broth, salt, parsley, mint and garlic and cook until tender.

Remove from pan, scoop out chokes.

Serve warm with cooking juices.

As seen in Program 21o1