rock me like a hurricane

chocolate cake with salted caramel buttercream
This cake was for a duel 3oth birthday party that was supposed to take place today. The party had to be rescheduled because of Hurricane Irene. We were half way through decorating when our client called us and told us the party was off---HURRICANES SUCK. Anthony delivered the finished cake last night. Jen, I hope you are eating it right now even though you had to cancel your party! Cake definitely beats the pants off of emergency canned goods.


The cake was an 80's Pac-man and Ms. Pac-man theme. Graphic shapes and bold colors are a cake designer's dream, so you can imagine how excited we were to work on this cake. The hardest part of the design was attaching the dots for the maze. We played some classic 80's tunes to motivate ourselves, talked about the new season of Top Chef Just Desserts and churned those dots out.


And here's a behind-the-scenes shot of the cake photo shoot. My ever-loving and eternally patient husband Chris holds all my "backdrops" (white posterboard!) for me and adjusts them as I bark orders at him. In return, I pay him with all-he-can-eat cake scraps. Not a bad deal, really.

a retrospective

s'mores cake
Layers of chocolate cake, marshmallow filling, chocolate fudge and graham crumb, all covered in toasted marshmallow frosting and a chocolate glaze. Yessiree. You remember this cake, right? I baked this cake for a wonderful friend and former coworker who wanted something special for her wife's birthday.

there is a season
I put my notice in at Gramercy Tavern this past week. I have worked there for a year and a half now, which is a long time for me. Since it was my first official pastry job, I've decided to share a few things that I've learned from my time in a restaurant kitchen.

You better have an end game. Working in a professional restaurant kitchen is nothing like baking at home. It's dirty, back-breaking work in a harsh environment with crazy hours, pitiful pay, and, in most situations, no benefits. Know what you want before you get into the business and try to reach your goal as quickly as possible. So here's my end game. I want an ice cream truck or shop down at the Jersey Shore. To get to that goal, I needed to work in a kitchen where I would have a chance to make large batches of ice cream every day. I have accomplished that goal and I am ready to move on. In the meantime, I will be doing some freelance graphic design work in order to fund my future ice cream business. Get ready everyone.

SUMMER 2013. JERSEY SHORE. ICE CREAM THAT WILL BLOW YOUR MIND.

Gordon Ramsay sucks. Why is screaming and cursing at employees acceptable in a kitchen but not acceptable in any other form of work? Screaming at an employee does not make them work better or faster. Gordon Ramsay and a good majority of restaurant chefs out there are perpetrating the kind of behavior that does not belong in the modern day kitchen. I never in my five years as a graphic designer had anyone scream and swear at me when I made a mistake. Yet you would not believe the shocking stories I've heard from kitchen coworkers. Lobsters or utensils being hurled at their heads. Violent verbal abuse anytime they messed up. This has got to stop. Very few people can do something perfectly on the first try. Most people have a learning curve and I am grateful that my boss at Gramercy Tavern, Nancy Olson, understood this. No screaming, no throwing things. Just excellent instruction with firm and patient correction when needed.

Local. Seasonal. I never understood what a real strawberry looked or tasted like until I worked at Gramercy Tavern. They get their fruit from local farms that come to the Greenmarket in Union Square. The strawberries they use are less than half the size of the Driscoll behemoths I grew up with and most folks buy at the grocery store. These tiny beauties taste sweet, slightly tart and not in the least watery. I'm not trying to be snobbish or elitist about this. Strawberries grown locally and picked in season just taste better. My goal, whenever possible, is to buy from local farms and eat only what's in season.

peachy keen

peach sorbet
I am working on something for next week that is a wee bit more complicated, so, since I was also on vacation this week, I decided to pick something simple.

I love sorbets because I don't like fruit-flavored ice creams. Dairy has a pervasive flavor that is always skulking about in the background, interfering with the taste of the fruit. I really am becoming more of a flavor purist every day. Fruit, sugar and little acid---that's all I want. A good sorbet should taste just like eating a perfectly ripe specimen of whichever fruit I choose to use.

This is the recipe Chef uses for peach sorbet at work. She has found that cooking the fruit and letting it sit overnight not only makes it easier to puree the next day, but also intensifies the fruit flavors.

peach sorbet
3 lbs roughly chopped ripe peaches (weighed after chopping)
12 oz sugar
12 oz water
2 oz lemon juice

Bring all ingredients to a rapid boil in a large pot. Transfer to a container and let sit overnight in your refrigerator.

The next day, puree thoroughly in small batches in a blender. Strain to remove any remaining pulp. Churn in an ice cream maker and enjoy.

twofer

sour cream ice cream with blueberry swirl
I love this ice cream. The amount of fat in it is positively evil, but boy does that fat make it taste rich and exquisitely creamy. Best of all, this is hands down the easiest yolk-based ice cream I've ever made. There is no cream in this recipe because all the fat you need comes from the sour cream. Choose a good brand because it will drastically affect the taste of your final product. I used Organic Valley for its tangy deliciousness.

The blueberry swirl is nothing more than a quick and dirty version of a jam. Feel free to use any summer fruit you have a surplus of. This recipe would be equally delicious with peaches or cherries. If you use cherries, throw in a BAY LEAF while it cooks. Trust me. You'll love it.


zucchini bundt cake
I have an obsession with zucchini bread. Whenever I see a recipe for it that I've never tried, I have to bake it. It's a compulsion. I have tried at least thirty different recipes since I started baking. When I saw this recipe for a zucchini bundt cake in the latest issue of Martha Stewart Living, I cackled with delight. A new recipe! In a bundt pan! From Martha Stewart! A baking trifecta if I do say so myself.

The finished cake looked beautiful, but in all honesty, tasted bad. It was heavy and and the zucchini flavor didn't come out at all.

There's always next time, I guess. And, given my obsession, there definitely will be a next time. Bwahahahahaha.

sour cream ice cream with blueberry swirl
2 lbs. sour cream (full fat)
14 egg yolks
380 mL whole milk
8 oz. sugar
1 tsp. kosher salt

Place the sour cream in a bowl with a strainer on top.

Bring the sugar and the milk to a boil.

Whisk the yolks together, then temper in the hot liquid a little at a time. Pour the mixture through the strainer into the bowl with the sour cream. Add the salt. Whisk all together until all the lumps are gone and the base is smooth.

Chill for at least four hours in your fridge.

Churn in your ice cream maker. Layer finished ice cream with dollops of blueberry swirl. Freeze at least four hours or overnight.

blueberry swirl
2 C. blueberries
1 C. sugar
pinch of cinnamon or cardamom

Combine all ingredients in a deep pot. Bring to a boil, stirring constantly with a rubber spatula.

Continue to boil for 6-8 minutes on medium heat, until berries are completely broken down and mixture has reduced.

Strain mixture and cool in fridge.

taste of fall

sweet potato ice cream with toasted marshmallows
The heat wave this week had me planning to make several quarts of ice cream this weekend. I went with another recipe from Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. It's a fall recipe, but I had a rather large, leftover sweet potato in my fridge and an unexplained hankering for marshmallows, so I went with it.

I started by boiling cubed sweet potatoes in milk, then pureeing the mixture with my handy-dandy immersion blender. LOVE that thing. I then added the heavy cream, granulated sugar, dark brown sugar and molasses and brought everything to a boil. Next I whisked in the tiny bit of cream cheese that Jeni calls for in all her recipes, along with some cinnamon and sea salt. I then placed my base in an ice bath to cool and moved on to making marshamallows.

I used Alton Brown's marshmallow recipe, which my partner Anthony swears by. I bloomed the gelatin in my mixing bowl with some of the water. I then combined the rest of the water, the corn syrup, granulated sugar, vanilla bean and salt, and boiled the mixture in a pot until it reached 240 degrees. Once it reached the proper temperature, I turned on my mixer (fitted with a whisk attachment) and poured the hot sugar slowly down the side of the bowl. I let the mixer go until my marshmallow mix was lukewarm, then poured it into a well-greased half sheet pan.

Once the marshmallows set, I cubed them and indulged my inner pyromaniac by torching them until golden brown. It was hard to wait for them to cool before folding them into the ice cream. They tasted so good---crispy on the outside and meltingly gooey on the inside. I had to leave the kitchen because I kept snacking on them.

This recipe was a lot of work, but well worth it. I thought this ice cream tasted like the best pumpkin pie I've ever had. Chris even liked it, though marshmallows are probably number one on his most hated foods list (ricotta is a very close second). The best part is that I have a ton of marshmallows left over. I'm going to dig up some chocolate and graham crackers and have a s'mores party!

T-Fuzz rollin'

baby shower cake with almond cake and blackberry buttercream
Crazy things happen when Anthony and I work late at night on a cake. We trash talk, start inventing ridiculous stories and generally have a lot of fun. When we began putting together the bear on this baby shower cake for my friend Marietta, we decided he needed a name. Chris, who sits in the living room and throws in wry comments while Anthony and I bake, came up with the winner.

T-FUZZ.

Yeeeeeeeaaaaaaaaaah.


He be gangsta y'all. You remember that black bear that was roaming around Newark a while back? That black bear was surely coming to find T-Fuzz because he wanted roll with his crew.

Now for the nuts and bolts. We made the bears' head out of rice crispy treats and his body out of cake so that his head wouldn't be so heavy that it would crush his body.

The block ended up being nine layers high and a perfect eight inch cube. I will be the first to admit that eight inches was just too big. I always have that problem, though, and Anthony always makes fun of me afterward when I can't fit the cake in my fridge, let alone lift the thing. In order to make sure that this giant Borg Cube of a cake was stable, we decided to insert a cardboard square halfway up the block and support the square with wooden dowels.


I also made a batch of strawberry macarons to bring to Marietta's party. Aren't they lovely?

my ice cream idol

salty caramel ice cream
Thursday night I went to a book signing for Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams at Home. Ohio native Jeni Britton Bauer has been making amazingly flavor-packed, rich and creamy ice creams since 2002. I first became aware of the brand when I did my restaurant project in school at FCI. I new I wanted to create a prototype for an ice cream business, so I began scouring the web. I found Jeni's website and fell in love. She is a former artist and you can tell from the presentation of the site and the design of the interior of her stores. I actually didn't get a chance to try her ice cream until a few months back. Dean and Delucca sells an assortment of her flavors, so I made my way down to Prince Street to get a taste. I tried the salty caramel and was extremely impressed by the creamy, rich texture of the ice cream and assertively bitter taste of the caramel. When I heard that she had a book coming out, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it and learn her her secrets.

At the signing, Jeni explained the base recipe that she uses to make all her ice creams. She prefers to make cornstarch-thickened ice cream bases instead of egg-based custards because she doesn't want any of her flavors to be obscured by the eggs. Once the bases are made, she whisks in a small amount of cream cheese to give them a bit more body and richness. Brilliant.

As soon as I got my copy of her book home this weekend, I knew I wanted to make the salty caramel ice cream first. To start, I let the granulated sugar melt over high heat and caramelize before adding in the cream. I added the milk next. After it came to a boil, I added in the cornstarch and returned it to a boil. I then whisked in the cream cheese and sea salt and chilled the finished base over an ice bath. I spun the ice cream yesterday and Chris and I dug in immediately afterward. We loved this ice cream so much that I completely forgot to get a good picture of it before we ate it all. Below is all that is left of the salty caramel. You can see the stab marks from the fork that Chris attacked the ice cream with. Geez.


The book is beautiful and the recipes extremely easy to make. So go buy it! And while you get churning, I'm going to sneak back to the kitchen and lick up that last little bit of the salty caramel ice cream before Chris realizes there's still some left...