Happy Easter and Peanut Butter Cupcakes!

Happy Easter! It's been such a relaxing weekend. I've been sitting around and catching up on leisure activities.

Last week, I was down by my old neighborhood to watch Tulpan at the Film Forum. I got there early and had some time to kill, so I finally stopped by Sweet Revenge on Carmine & Bedford. Confused by all the booze and sweets, I ordered the namesake Sweet Revenge - a peanut butter cake, ganache filling with peanut butter buttercream. The base was unremarkable (completely did not know it was peanut butter until I looked it up online), the ganache seemed misplaced, but they seemed to compliment the frosting perfectly. I had been toying with the idea of a peanut butter frosting cupcake for NYC's first Cupcake Camp. I've been avoiding experimenting with peanut butter because of a relative's severe allergy, but as I spooned the rich frosting (with a wooden spoon!) into my greedy mouth while waiting for Tulpan to start, I concluded that I'll finally carry through.

I was more interested in coming up with a rich frosting that was both sweet and didn't leave me with the feeling that peanut butter was sticking to the roof of my mouth (can you tell I'm not a peanut butter addict?). I haven't figured out a good base yet...except for the conclusion that i being chocolate is imperative and each cupcake should have a peanut butter cup hidden in the center. I did come up with the right frosting.

Peanut Butter Frosting

Frosts 12-15 cupcakes

1/2 c butter (1 stick)

1/2 c peanut butter

2 1/4 c powdered sugar

2 tsp vanilla

4 tbsp milk (Use as needed)

1) Blend butter and peanut butter in a mixer. Add powdered sugar and mix until lumps have disappeared (will appear grainy). Blend in vanilla. Add milk as needed. Don't exceed 4 tbsp milk or else frosting will be too liquid.

This is really only for those with an intense sweet tooth. If you don't have a good chocolate cake recipe, try this black magic cake recipe from allrecipes. It's very rich and moist. The coffee taste is barely noticeable and I'm still intrigued that it doesn't use butter...

xoxo,

lemonie

Palets Aux Raisins

When this recipe showed up in my workbook at ICE, I was reluctant to try this one out because...well...the raisin in the name and the thought of currants in my cookie made me uneasy. However, they turned out much better than I thought! They're no chocolate chip cookies, but still pretty good and super easy to make.

Palets Aux Raisins

4 1/2 oz butter

3 1/2 oz sugar

2 eggs

1 1/2 tbsp dark rum

5 1/2 oz ap flour

3 1/2 oz currants

1) Cream the butter with th esugar until soft and light. Beat in eggs one at a time. Beat in rum, then flour and currants.

2) Pipe on parchment lined sheet pans with 1/2" plain tube. Bake at 350 degrees for about 15 minutes.

xoxo,

lemonie

Eleni's Cookies

I don't know what exactly took me so long to get to Chelsea Market. I'm sort of disappointed in myself! It's weird...I had known about it, but I neer really thought about it being a place to go to until it was recommended by someone at my gym. So, I planned it into my weekend schedule and I went yesterday.

My goodness! The bakeries are so cute. I also like the transparency to it. I really like looking at kitchens so it was lovely getting to see the dough kneading going on at Amy's Bakery. I didn't buy any bread from there, although I feel like I should have, but I did go into a lot of the other stores to try them out.

Now I'm not going to buy almond flour from anywhere but Buon Italia. I've never seen the flour so fine before...and it's way cheaper than the stuff I pick up at Whole Foods. Fat Witch's brownies were completely disappointing. You would think that if brownies were their specialty, they would be better. Afterwards, they inspired me to make this blondie recipe I've been working on for dinner and they were well received, so it wasn't all bad. I ate my first rugelach yesterday and the judges are still out on that one. Taste good, texture...ehh. But the real treasure of yesterday was finding this cow cookie at Eleni's. Most decorated cookies don't taste very good b/c they need to be firm. This isn't an exceptional cookie, but despite being dry and hard, it's got good flavor. It actually reminds me of something, but I haven't been able to figure out. Right now, my best guess is Nilla Wafers. So, it has more flavor than the typical cardboard tasting cookies...and well...it's a cow. How can I resist the cow? I also wanted to get this googly-eyed dinosaur, but I knew if I ate one cookie, I wouldn't eat the other so I wasn't about to throw away $4 just to own the googly-eyed dinosaur. That's for next time.

Apple & Pear Strips

So what else can be done with puff pastry? Building on the puff pastry and the almond frangipane from the last post, we can add some fruits and sweets and make another delicious dessert.

This one, I really like...a lot of it is due to aesthetic reasons. I have a particular fondness for shiny foods. Somehow they look more delicious when they glisten. My only real complaint is that I would've liked all my apple/pear slices to be the same size...but to do that would've required the sacrifice of many more apples and pears...and a lot of waste.

Poached Pears on the left, Apples on the right

So to make these...

Apple Strips

1 lb puff pastry
1 egg for egg wash

1 lb almond frangipane
4 golden delicious apples
1 oz melted butter

2 oz apricot glaze
Optional Finishing: Sliced Almonds and Confectioners' sugar


1) Roll dough into a rectangle approximately 14"x18". Allow dough to rest in refridgerator for about an hour.
2) Cut dough into four 1" strips and two 5" strips. Place the 5 inch strips on a baking pan and dock (take a look at this if you don' t know what that means: Ateco 1357 Dough Docker). Paint the edges with the egg wash. Apply the 1" strips to the long sides. Press down on edge with the pointer and middle finger approximately 1/2 inch apart. Cut through all layers by taking a knife and slicing the dough between your fingertips at ~1/2 inch intervals. This is to get the 1" and the 5" strips to stick to each other. Refrigerate until firm.
3) Pipe frangipane between the 1" strips. Peel, core, and slice apples to 1/8" thick. Fan slightly and place over frangipane. Brush with melted butter and brush the edges with egg wash.
4) Bake at 350 degrees until the pastry is well colored (check the sides to make sure they aren't white), ~30 minutes.
5) Brush apples with apricot glaze.
Optional: If your sides didn't rise evenly or doesn't look very good, you can top with almonds or confectioners sugar to hide the "flaw."

If you want to do the pear version, poach some pears and follow same instructions. Note: Pears don't have be sliced as thinly.

Poached Pears
Cold water
1/2 oz lemon juice
1 1/4 lbs ripe pears
1/2 lb granulated sugar
1/4 vanilla bean

1) Combine water and lemon juice in a large pan.
2) Peel, halve, and core pears. Add to pan. Add sugar and vanilla.
3) Cover with parchment paper cut to fit inside the pan with a hole in the center (prevents the pears from getting too colored). Bring to a boil and remove from stove. Allow to cool.

I really like puff pastry. It might also be because I really like butter. However, mixing puff pastry with a nice fruit and the sweet taste of apricot...wowweee. The only downer is that this is definitely not as good the second day. In fact, it gets sort of stale and that's not cool! Or maybe that's just an excuse to eat it all in a day.

xoxo,
lemonie