Red Velvet Cupcakes

I have amassed quite a large collection of baking cookbooks in the past few years. Something about the pastel colors of the frosting, the old-fashioned look of a big tall cake slathered in butter cream, and the big plate of cupcakes just compels me to buy the books. (I'm obviously a marketing and sales team's dream consumer). Though I love all of these cookbooks, there is one that I always turn to when I actually want to bake something. The other ones I pull out when I want to get inspired by their glossy pictures or read through the recipe introductions to indulge my inner cookbook nerd.
The pages of my copy of "The Buttercup Bake Shop Cookbook: More than 80 Recipes for Irresistible, Old-Fashioned Treats" are tattered and gunked up with spilled frosting and batter, and when I close it there's always a puff of flour that's been wedged between the pages for who knows how long. But that's the way cookbooks are supposed to be- well-loved and worn in and covered in smatterings of all the delicious things you've cooked out of them.

I love everything I've ever baked out of this cookbook, but one of my all time favorites is their red velvet cupcakes. I frost mine with the cream cheese frosting listed in the frosting section- I love the not too sweet tang of the cream cheese against the deep chocolaty richness of the red velvet cake. Pair one of these with a big glass of cold milk, and I swear you can win over just about anybody.

I've dusted these ones with a bit of coco powder.

These ones have a bit of glitter sugar and some sugar pearls.

Bruschetta

For summer dinner parties, you don't want to spend your time slogging around your hot kitchen, fussing over some hot, complicated dish that you know is best saved for January, when sweating isn't such a problem. I absolutely hate being sweaty- I really can't handle it. I get very aggitated and uncomfortable and have to go lie down in a cold room for a while and regroup. At the gym I select my workout mahine based on which one is closest to the fan. I don't know what it is- I guess I'm better suited for cold climates and snow. I chose to study abroad in Sweden- like by the Artic Circle.

Anyway- in the summetime you want things that are light, quick, and simple to make, and preferably don't require you to turn on the stove or oven for too long. Fortunately- in the summertime everything is so fresh and seasonal that you don't need to do too much to make a really stellar dish. Its actually best if you don't fiddle around with the food too much, so cut some corners and make your life a little easier!

Here is the recipe for bruschetta, one of my favorite summer dinner party starters. Its perfect because you can mix up the tomato bit and slice the bread in advance, then just before your guests arrive you can throw it all together and leave it out for everyone to enjoy. Make sure you put out some plates or napkins, these can be very messy (in the best way).

Recipe:

Take two boxes of cherry or grape tomatoes and slice them all in halve so they can absorb all the good flavors you're about to add.

Drizzle the tomatoes with two tablespoons good olive oil, three tablespoons balsalmic vinegar, and one tablespoon honey. Summer tomatoes are sweet- so play up that flavor.

Dice up one or two cloves of garlic- depending on your taste, and add that to the mix. Finely chop two green onions or scallions (the white and the green parts) and add that too.

Gather about a half cup of fresh basil leaves and slice these into nice thin strips and toss them into the bowl. Salt and pepper the whole thing to taste, give it all a big stir, and let the whole thing sit in the fridge for a bit. You can let it sit for a few hours- but try to give it at least twenty minutes to let the flavors amalgamate.

When you're ready to serve, Slice a baguette into half inch diagonal slices and spread them out over a baking sheet. Drizzle with a bit of olive oil and some salt and pepper, and put it under the broiler for just a few minutes. Broiling the bread gives it a nice crusty texture that soaks up all the tomato flavor (it also keeps the hot oven sweat-inducing time to a minimum). Watch these closely- the line between golden brown and smokey black is a very thin one.

When the bread is all toasty and golden, plate it up and top with the tomato mixture. If you want to get fancy, drizzle the whole plate with a bit more olive oil and some chopped up basil. Serve these with a bit of chilly white wine and a big bowl of grapes and you will have some very happy guests.

Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova

One more picture- its just so pretty.

Business Time

Bear with me- the next few posts are going to be shamelsss promotion of my new baking and cooking business palmerbee. I just started it in June and so far I've done nineteen orders! Very exciting- or at least I'm very excited. Not too bad for a history major/ art history minor with zero business sense and even less math skills (I had to take algebra twice- enough said).

This first recipe is one of my all time favorites. Its a Chocolate Raspberry Pavlova from Nigella Lawson's cookbook "Forever Summer." Whenever I bake it, the gorgeous pavlova is reduced to crumbs in a ridiculously short amount of time. I had one woman order this for Friday, and on Saturday she ordered another one to be delivered straight away!
Nigella Lawson's cookbooks were some of the first ones I attempted to cook from when I was around twelve or thirteen. Those were awkward years for many reasons (the haircut that made me look like one of the Beatles? Flared jeans?) but certainly for my lack of culinary skills. I made a whole series of absolutely atrocious things (they can't even really be called food because they were inedible), but finally started to get the hang of it as I worked my way through Nigella's books. Both the Food Network and The Cooking Channel have started airing her show again- which you have to watch both for the amazing recipes and for Nigalla's sassy unabashed passion for food. Any woman who ends her show bathrobe-clad at midnight, paddling down to the fridge for a few more bites of whatever decadent dish she made that day is certainly one I want to watch.

Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and line a baking sheet with some parchment paper.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat six large egg whites untill they are all satiny and marshmallow-y. If you have trouble getting egg whites to cooperate, make shure they are right out of the fridge, and try sticking your bowl and beater in the fridge for a bit before you use it.

With the mixer running, add one cup of granulated sugar spoonful by spoonful, and beat until the egg whites have been transformed into into a big glossy stiff pouf that sticks to the beater and holds firm peaks.

Sprinkle over three or four tablespoons of good coco powder, a splash (around a teaspoon) balsamic vinegar, the same amount of vanilla extract, and two or three ounces of dark chocolate (around 70% coco), chopped as finely as you can muster.

Gently fold all that chocolate into the egg whites, working under and over so you don't deflate the egg whites. Don't be too timid though, you want everything well mixed, and the egg whites can take a bit of mushing around.

Pile the mixture onto the prepared pan, and form into a big fat disk. Don't smooth it out too much though- you want some peaks to get a balance of crisped and soft meringue. Place in the middle of the oven, and then immediately lower the temperature to 300 degrees. This gives you the crispy crust while still keping the middle soft and delicious.

Bake for around an hour. You'll know its done when, according to Nigella, "it should look crisp around the edges and on the sides and be dry on top, but when you prod the center you should feel the promise of squidginess beneath your fingers."

Turn off the oven and open the door slightly, allowing the meringue to cool completly beofre taking it out. When you're ready to serve, plate the meringue and top with some freshly whipped heavy cream (about 8 ounces) mixed with a bit of vanilla extract and a bit of sugar. Pile the whipped cream into the sunken crater that formed as the meringue cooled, and then top with any combination of berries you have on hand. Raspberries are beautiful, but strawberries work nicely as well. You could also do passion fruit or pomegranate seeds in the winter when berries are exorbitantly priced and flown in from far-off places. If you want to get fancy, you can top the berries with some chopped chocolate, powdered sugar, or coco powder.

Gazpacho

If you've been overindulging a bit lately, or slacking with working out because you'd rather be at the beach or doing something else fun and summery, then gazpacho is the perfect dinner. Its also the best thing both to cook and to eat when its as hot and disgusting as it has been on the east coast lately. Who wants to turn on the oven or heat up the grill when its 109 degrees outside? I tried, and it wasn't too pretty.

This recipe is inspired by one of my new favorite cooks- Ree Drummond. She has the most amazing blog called The Pioneer Woman Cooks, and a new cookbook out as well. She is so sassy and honest and hilarious, you have to read her blog: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/. She also does really helpful frame by frame photos of every step as she cooks.

Recipe:
In the bowl of a food processor (you can use a blender too but it won't have quite the same texture), blitz together six cloves of garlic (I'm a garlic nut so obviously add as much or as little as you like), 1/2 a red onion, one large cucumber, six or seven large tomatoes, one zucchini, 1/2 a bottle of tomato juice, 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil, 1/8 cup red wine vinegar, 1/4 cup honey (depending on how sweet and ripe your tomatoes are), and six dashes Tabasco sauce.

Be careful not to overly blend the mixture- you're aiming for a slightly chunky look where you can still discern what vegetables are actually in it.

Pour the mixture into a large bowl, and add the kernels of two ears of cooked corn. Add salt and black pepper until it tastes right to you, and add a bit more tomato juice if you're going for a more soupy gazpacho. Slap on some plastic wrap and throw the whole thing into the fridge for a few hours to let all the flavors amalgamate and come together properly.

After the gazpacho has chilled, give it another big stir and check the seasonings again. Dish it out into big shallow bowls (or whatever you have on hand), and top with some sliced avocado, some grilled shrimp, a snipping of chives, a drizzle of olive oil, more salt and pepper - whatever you have the energy for. The gazpacho is equally delicious eaten straight from the fridge with no fanciness added. If you want to make a meal of it, serve with some crusty bread drizzled with olive oil and toasted until golden brown.

Magic Squares

Today I made some Magic Squares- also known as Seven Layer Bars depending on who you ask. I went to an all girls Catholic high school, and when our dining hall would bake up a batch of these for lunch, the girls would just go wild. Those pleated kilts hid a few extra pounds, and because of the lack of boys, the girls were unabashed about their zealous need to grab as many bars as they could carry. Okay- I'm not going to pretend I didn't do it too. I jumped up with the rest of my class as the dining hall man whispered to  his coworker "I give it sixty seconds," as he lowered the tray stacked high with Magic Squares. It probably took closer to thirty seconds for the plate to be wiped clean. Thank god there weren't any boys around- they would have been horrified at the stampede of gluttonous girls launching themselves at the dessert.

This recipe is my attempt to recreate those stampede-inducing Magic Squares, and I think I've gotten pretty close. These never seem to last very long whenever I make them. I give it four hours...

Recipe:
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees, and grab a baking pan about 12'' x 6'' and about 2'' deep.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, crush one box of graham crackers and combine with one stick of room temperature butter and a splash of good vanilla extract.

Tip the graham cracker mixture into the pan and smoosh it all down so its evenly distributed and as smooth and flat as you have the patience for.

Over the graham cracker mixture, layer any combination of chocolate chips, peanut butter chips, white chocolate chips, crushed heath bars, M&M's, slivered almonds, hazelnuts, whatever you like. It should end up covering the graham cracker crust in a thin even layer- probably 1 1/2 cups in total (depending on how gluttonous you are).

On top of your chocolates of choice, spread a thin layer of shredded coconut, and as many mini marshmallows as you like.

Once you're satisfied with your layers of deliciousness, pour one can of sweetened condensed milk over everything as evenly as you can.

Bake for 20-25 minutes, until the coconut is browned, the chocolate slightly melted, and the marshmallows all golden and puffy and caramelized on top.

Allow to cool in the pan (or if you're desperate just throw them in the fridge). When they're cooled, cut into squares. You should get between 12 and 14 bars- depending on how fatty you want your bars to be.

Salted Caramels

I made the most insanely good salted caramels today. I'd never made any sort of candy before and had to buy a candy thermometer to make sure I didn't mess them up. But they were actually really easy to make- and they look impressive when they're all wrapped up in parchment paper.  They won't last very long though- get ready to crumple up all the pieces of parchment paper you carefully cut and wrapped them in!

The recipe is from Ina Garten- The Barefoot Contessa, who is one of my all time favorites. Whenever I watch her show I find myself wishing I was invited to one of her ridiculously delicious Hamptons dinners- and then I just end up trying to recreate whatever it is she was making. That's how I was inspired to make these- and now I'm starting to regret it because they are completely addictive. But make them none the less- your friends and family will love you forever.

Here's the recipe: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ina-garten/fleur-de-sel-caramels-recipe/index.html

I used Maldon sea salt because that's just what I had- and they turned out deliciously and just as pretty. I also stuck the pan right in the freezer once I'd poured the caramel in- I was feeling very impatient and wanted them out as quick as possible. After about five minutes they were good to go and ready to roll and slice- so do what your level of patience allows you.