Petit fours have been becoming increasingly popular over the last few years. They're perfect for those of us concerned about portion control. You can satiate your sweet tooth without overindulging with the bite sized sweets.
There's a certain conception that most people have of petit fours. Most of us think the treats have to be small square or round cakes with a poured fondant icing and a piped decoration on top. There's much more to it than that. Petit four translates from French as 'small oven,' which refers to the ovens after the large items had been baked. The heat in the oven was a lot lower after the bread or large cakes (in the case of the nobility) came out, so things like smaller cakes and cookies that needed lower temperatures could then be baked.
In a strict sense, a petit four can be any small cookie, cake, creme puffs or tartlet. Even sugar coated nuts and fruits could be considered petit four, technically speaking. According to Larousse Gastronomique, petit fours became popular during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King himself.
When we work on the small desserts for teas or buffets in my pastry kitchen, we use almond cake to make the petit four glacés. It's a very dense almond cake that we then layer with different flavors of marmalade, top with marzipan (only on the top layer), and then pour fondant over in a very thin layer (after cutting the cake into small squares of course). They're so rich it's a good thing we cut them in such bite-sized pieces.
Being a foodie with a degree in English, not much is better than the mixture of food and words. Usually, that manifests in a wonderfully written essay or book, but sometimes it comes out in the actual making of food.
BoingBoing has posted about a designer named Chris Dimino who took an old Corona typewriter and made it into a waffle maker called the Corona-Matic. How cool is that? Boring circular waffles will never seem as good now. Unfortunately, there's no DIY instructions yet (not that I have the prowess to pull them off), but here's to hoping this could become a little business -- I'm not talking about fake keyboards, but those actual typewriters repurposed into wonderful machines of waffle goodness. Who's with me?
I can remember watching commercials for Burry Fudge Town cookies as a kid. My mother would rarely buy them always telling us that they weren't a good value. I can't really tell you how they compared to the other fudge cookies of the day price wise, but the few times that Waldbaums would have them on sale we would get a box or two, and they were the best of the all-chocolate sandwich cookies.
Funny that the other fudge sandwich cookies of the day are also gone. My next favorite, and a good alternative to the Burry was Keebler's Chocolate Fudge Sandwich Cookie. These were almost as good, and must have been a better value in moms eyes, as they were frequently in the house (along with another cookie from the past, the Keebler Rich-N-Chips). At some point I discovered Sunshine's Bavarian Fingers, an all chocolate version of the Vienna Finger. Last but not least was the all chocolate version of the Keebler El Fudge. Both of these are gone now too! Does the public really loathe chocolate redundancy that much?
I love making cakes, and after I made a few for friends, I became the resident birthday cake baker -- not with a box mix and a quick lather of frosting, but rather a myriad of flavors, frostings, and marzipan decorations on top. And now it might be time to take the whole practice to the next level.
Disney's FamilyFun.com is having a best cake face-off and they have some super funky cakes on display, one of which won their "Great Cake Contest." These definitely aren't those simple, old-school cakes. There's a cake-filled dear head mount for hunters, elaborate castles, Pooh in the honey, and some really, really great food-themed cakes -- spaghetti, a bucket of KFC with a whole slew of chicken, and the awesome cheeseburger above. What's even better about this whole thing -- there are recipes for each so you can try them on your own.
Check out the cakes and weigh in below: Do you think the best cake won?
Okay, I'm going to get something out in the open here: I am somewhat biased when it comes to Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Just in case the title of this post wasn't enough to make my feelings clear, I want you to know that, from where I stand, the famed ice cream makers share moral ground with Kim Philby, John Walker, and Robert Hanssen. In my house, we don't use the term "Benedict Arnold." For us, the gold standard of betrayal takes the form of two Vermont pseudo-hippies, and the phrase "You're a total...Ben and Jerry!" can be the prelude to a massive battle royale.
Even so, I'll try to be fair.
When I was a kid, long before Ben and Jerry's became a household term, I met the pair at a book show in Washington D.C. They were hawking their ice cream cookbook and, as a young cook and avid bibliophile, I eagerly snapped up the signed first edition of their tome. Although I left the DC convention center that day with several huge bags of books, Ben and Jerry's slim volume was in my lap, and I read it and reread it repeatedly over the next few days.
Although it was to be a long time before Ben and Jerry's came to our neck of the woods, I mixed up several of their recipes in my little ice cream maker. I loved them all. In Massachusetts, where my family spent our summers, B&J's was available in a few of the markets, so my sisters and I were able to try out a few of the famous flavors. We absolutely adored them.
While I pride myself on my willingness to accept a weird culinary challenge, this trait has led me to put more than a few strange things into my mouth. Codfish pancakes? No problem! Raw fish in Tijuana? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Scorpion vodka? Slightly chitinous tasting, but it did the job. Rendered pork fat on toast? Well, once was enough...
Recently, however, an Asylum post about weird ice creams made me realize that there might be limits to what I'm willing to consume. Forget red bean ice cream and wasabi sorbet; those are just the table stakes, the bare minimum that you need to get through the door of bizarre frozen desserts. For something really different, try bacon and egg ice cream from The Fat Duck, a British restaurant. If that doesn't float your boat, how about a frozen dessert made from horse flesh, or perhaps a nice bowl of Japanese ox tongue ice cream? If you're in the mood for something a little more savory, there's always Rosa Mexicano's Tomato Habañero sorbet or their avocado, strawberry and white chocolate ice cream!
Okay, I'll admit it: I might be going down to Rosa Mexicano to try a few of these out. After all, the place has never failed me before and there are few culinary horrors that can't be rectified by the addition of a pomegranate margarita. That having been said, it'll take more than a couple of glasses of sake to put a double scoop of frozen ox tongue anywhere near my mouth!
This time of year, I much prefer eating fruit-based desserts to ones involving chocolate or lots of cake. Give me a nice crisp or cobbler and I'm a happy girl. Despite those seasonal preferences, I saw this cake and immediately started salivating. There's no recipe link along with the picture, but I believe that it's the one from Nigella Lawson's gorgeous, slightly tongue-in-cheek cookbook, How to be a Domestic Goddess. It's a cake I've always intended to make, but have never gotten around to it. I think it's moving to the top of the list now, having seen this tasty reminder.
Some associate San Francisco with Rice-A-Roni, cable cars, and the gay lib movement. I, however, take the shallow route and associate it with fine American chocolate. Between The San Francisco Chocolate Factory and Ghirardelli, San Fran is just about the only city in the contiguous United States that produces decent corporate chocolate. [Note that I said corporate; there are plenty of lovely indie chocolate shops around.]
To wit: Upon her return from the golden state, a colleague presented me with The San Francisco Chocolate Factory's new "Book Lover's Chocolate". The bookshelf-ready packaging evokes an old leather-bound novel (albeit a tiny one, at only 5 inches), and contains rounds of milk chocolate (also available in dark and dark espresso). The schpeel: "Chocolate has been proven to boost brain power, so let our luscious bite sized discs help you devour your new book while pleasing your palate." Uh, okay, whatever you say, Book Chocolate.
But lo, this book chocolate is divine! The disc shape is perfectly contoured for mindless tongue-palate melting (no impatient biting here!), and the flavor is so creamy and rich, they're like little poppable drinking chocolates. I also test-drove the chocolate's promise of enhancing any reading experience, and while they didn't make the oeuvre of Ann Coulter any more digestible, they sure make it more palatable.
Cake Wrecks features cakes that people have actually paid for that have turned out less than stellar. I am glad of the blog's stance to not mock home bakers as I've certainly made some regrettable looking creations, but if I'm going to pay for something, I would expect it to look good.
As for the cake in this picture, the blog offers no explanation. However, the commenters came though. One commenter, Jen, pointed out that the characters say "Happy Birthday" in traditional Chinese and another commenter, Tom, said, "A little pile of poo is a good luck symbol in Japan." It seems that there is an explanation for everything.
Check out Cake Wrecks for more cake disasters that you can't help but stare at.
I've never been a cake for breakfast person unless you count pancakes as cakes. In a recent post by Cakespy (who I can't help but adore due to my love of cupcakes), she makes a strong case for eating cake in the morning. By writing about this, I am not advocating cake as a daily breakfast treat, but rather as an extra special morning indulgence.
Cakespy gives many slices of information on why cake for breakfast can be good. Here is one of my favorites: "You can't deprive yourself all of the time. If you wake up craving cake and instead eat something virtuous like oatmeal, it's likely that you'll still be craving the cake all day. This will undoubtedly lead to idly munching various non-cake items throughout the day in an effort to fill the void. Really, you should have just had the cake. So have it!"
I am not a pie person. I enjoy eating them, but I find the process of making crust, rolling it out and getting it into the pan more bother than I can really deal with. However, I happily embrace all varieties of crisps and cobblers because they are hugely easy and are a wonderful way to use all that great summer fruit.
Yesterday, I made the easiest cobbler ever. It requires just one bowl, one measuring cup and a baking pan. Butter your favorite baking pan and set it aside. Pour five or six cups of blueberries into a medium-sized mixing bowl and add a few cubed nectarines (not required, but very tasty). Sprinkle cornstarch, sugar, cinnamon and grated nutmeg over fruit and squeeze half a lemon in. Stir to combine and pour into the baking pan. Use the same bowl to mix up the biscuit-style topping (recipe after the jump) and spoon it over the top.
I took it to a cookout last night and it was the perfect finish to a meal of hamburgers, potato salad, grilled corn and fresh, garden squash.
I have a co-worker that has the ability to find some of the most amazing cakes on the internet. Knowing that have an unhealthy obsession with anything edible, he is nice enough to send links to those cakes in my direction on a near-daily basis.
The cake you see above is another creation of Zoe Lukas (the woman who was also responsible for the Robert Indiana cookies, the Battlestar Galactica cake and the patriotic wedding cake). She has was charged with making a sushi-themed cake and so came up with a spiced carrot ginger cake with cream cheese icing. She topped the whole thing with fondant and used it as a "serving platter" for her tasty veggie sushi. Coconut stands in for the rice in the pieces and rolls, and she even made pickled ginger out of colored fondant.
In his forty-plus year career, Elton John has had no lack of awards: in addition to an Oscar for his work on The Lion King, he can boast five Grammys, a place in the Songwriter's Hall of Fame, a spot in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a CBE and a Knighthood, as well as hundreds of other honors, great and small.
However, in some ways, none of these honors is as sweet as the one recently bestowed on the famed singer/songwriter. This week, Ben and Jerry's will launch Goodbye, Yellow Brickle Road, an Elton John-themed flavor that it will sell in its scoop shops from July 18th to July 25th. Named after his seminal 1973 breakthrough album and unveiled in honor of his first-ever concert in the Green Mountain State, all proceeds from the sale of the ice cream will go to the Elton John AIDS Fund.
A chocolate ice cream base with peanut butter cookie dough, butter brickle, and white chocolate chunks, one wonders if "Goodbye Yellow Brickle Road" might spawn sequels. After all, is it hard to imagine a market for "Rocky Road Man," "Can You Feel the Carbs Tonight" or "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blueberry Bonanza"?
Kind little rituals seem to go a long way toward making marriage work, so almost every weekend, I make my husband some sweet tea. He's a Southern boy by birth (Brooklynian by marriage), and having a big ol' pitcher easily grabbable in the fridge seems to right any Mason Dixon imbalance he might be suffering at the time. I've got it down to a science, proportion-wise, but this past weekend, his itch for a sugar fix kicked in while I was at the grocery store. What he made tasted divine, but there was just too much for one pitcher, and not enough refrigerator room for a second.
If nothing else, the nuns at St. Scorpacciata instilled in me the mortal fear of wasting food, and seeing how I'd been at the store to buy milk (which neither of us usually drink) for a Bolognese, I decided sherbet would be what saved our souls from eternal damnation. I suppose we won't know for a while if that worked, but it did taste pretty damned delicious.
I have a foodie confession: While I do like fruit, I almost never eat it in its full form. I try -- really I do. I buy fruit and eat some nibbles, but before I get to the rest, it inevitably goes bad and I have to either have to throw it into a smoothie pronto, or freeze it for a smoothie later. But that's not the case with my beloved banana.
Banana is the wonderful fruit that's good even when it's bad. The blacker and more shriveled that the skin is, the better it is for baking up a batch of banana bread. I picked some up a few weeks ago, with the best of intentions, but they went black before I could eat them. But they're bananas! So, no matter how hot my apartment was, I knew what I had to do.
As if that wasn't good enough -- recipes that allow you to make the most of fruit going bad -- banana bread is one of the easiest and most forgiving foods to bake. The above was whipped up half-assed. I doubled my recipe. I didn't level off my measurements. I smushed and mixed it all together in the end with a potato masher. But still, the end result was a nice warm cakey bread with a little bit of melting butter.
I love making cakes, and after I made a few for friends, I became the resident birthday cake baker -- not with a box mix and a quick lather of frosting, but rather a myriad of flavors, frostings, and marzipan decorations on top. And now it might be time to take the whole practice to the next level.
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Okay, I'm going to get something out in the open here: I am somewhat biased when it comes to Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Just in case the title of this post wasn't enough to make my feelings clear, I want you to know that, from where I stand, the famed ice cream makers share moral ground with Kim Philby, John Walker, and Robert Hanssen. In my house, we don't use the term "Benedict Arnold." For us, the gold standard of betrayal takes the form of two Vermont pseudo-hippies, and the phrase "You're a total...Ben and Jerry!" can be the prelude to a massive battle royale..jpg)
While I pride myself on my willingness to accept a weird culinary challenge, this trait has led me to put more than a few strange things into my mouth. Codfish pancakes? No problem! Raw fish in Tijuana? Been there, done that, got the t-shirt. Scorpion vodka? Slightly chitinous tasting, but it did the job. Rendered pork fat on toast? Well, once was enough...
Kind little rituals seem to go a long way toward making marriage work, so almost every weekend, I make my husband some 
Chocolate-stuffed bananas on the grill
Tyler Florence welcomes new daughter
Beware kids' menus!
