Birthday Snickerdoodles

snicker_1 snicker_2

I made these snickerdoodles early Sunday morning (Oct 4th) for my Dad’s birthday. He loves Guava Chiffon Pie, macaroons, shoefly pie (I think), and snickerdoodles. He likes coconut and hates chocolate, so I thought I’d try my hand at the easiest recipe out of the bunch. Unfortunately, I cooked these on the broiler rack (~3″ from the top of the stove), so they didn’t cook that evenly. They also seemed a little too buttery for my taste, but it might be because I didn’t incorporate the butter/crisco as well as I should have. When making the balls, I found a whole chunk of butter not even blended into the batter. I chucked it out, but these were still too rich for me. I think I’ll try Smitten Kitchen or Bakerella‘s version next. This recipe was from my boyfriend’s mother. We’ve both had her cookies using this recipe and they taste so much better, I wonder what else went wrong on my end?

Snickerdoodles

  • 1/2 cup Crisco
  • 1/2 cup butter
  • 1 1/2 cups sugar
  • 2 eggs
  • 2 3/4 cups flour
  • 2 teaspoons cream of tartar
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 Tablespoons sugar
  • 2 teaspoons cinnamon

Heat oven to 400 degrees.  Mix Crisco, butter, sugar, and eggs thoroughly.  Sift together dry ingredients and mix in.  Roll into small balls.  Roll balls in mixture of 2 T. sugar and 2 t. cinnamon.  Place on ungreased cookie sheet.  Bake 8-10 minutes.

Salted Plum Dressing

saltedplumdressing

A local restaurant, Zentan, has a salad with a dressing that I really like. The only problem with this dressing is that it has insane ingredients and weird proportions. You can see the full recipe here, but I tried to quarter it and skip the blender step.

Salted Plum Dressing

  • ¼ c. or 1 tube salted-plum (ume) paste
  • 1/8 c. rice-wine vinegar
  • ¼ tsp mirin
  • ¼ tsp dashi
  • 1/3 tsp to ½ tsp onion oil
  • 1½ tbsp sugar
  • 1/8 tsp. grated ginger
  • dash of sea salt (~1/16th tsp)

Whisk until all ingredients combined. If you want a smoother texture, place in blender and purée until smooth.

Onion Oil

  • 1/3 to ½ cup vegetable oil
  • ½ cup loosely packed chopped leeks, white part only
  • ½ green onion, chopped (1/4 white part, 1/4 green part)
  • ¼ medium onion, chopped

In a medium saucepan set over high heat, combine all the ingredients. Cook for 3 to 4 minutes, stirring occasionally. Decrease the heat to medium-high and cook for another 5 minutes, then decrease the heat to medium. Cook the mixture for 10-15 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the onions and leeks are crispy and brown. Remove the pan from the heat and strain the oil into a bowl through cheesecloth. Discard the solids. Let the oil cool before transferring it to a jar. Keeps in the fridge for up to 1 month (which is good considering the dressing only calls for a little bit of it)

Hello Cupcake

Pastry Chef Special w/ Skim Latte

In the past two weeks, I’ve visited Hello Cupcake twice. In the beginning (a year ago to the day), Hello Cupcake was one of my favorites because of the interesting flavors and convenient location. Unfortunately, I think their quality and recipes have changed and gone downhill.
Most recently, I’ve eaten the Bailey’s/Guinness cupcake (March), Pick Me Up, Velvet Elvis, Root Beer Float, and Pastry Chef’s Special (Almond frosting with vanilla cake). All of the cakes were too dry and the icing too sweet, but I’ll highlight the two that stood out the most below:
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Root Beer Float Cupcake
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I missed out on this cupcake flavor last summer, and as a result I think I built it up more than I should have. It tasted like a pumpkin muffin, but instead of pumpkin, it was licorice flavored. The frosting had a hardened crust on the outside that gave way to a soft, sickeningly sweet inside. I could see where they were going with this, but it was entirely too sweet. I actually wondered if I was going to get sick from eating this. I scraped the icing off (read: the cupcake fell icing first onto my desk while being eaten), but without the icing, the cake was too dry.
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Pastry Chef’s Special (8/17/09)
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This cupcake was being offered with either a vanilla or chocolate cake and I figured the vanilla cake would complement the almond frosting the best. I liked the smell of the cupcake and the added almond slivers on top. The icing itself was hard and looked like a supermarket cupcake. It was ridiculously hard and did nothing to offset the dryness of the cake. I was expecting a nice, nutty flavor from this, but it tasted strongly of almond paste (marzipan) that had probably been sitting on the shelf for a few winters. This made me wonder if the pastry chef actually tasted this before calling it their “special” of the day! After breaking through the icing crust, I proceeded to slowly eat this over the span of an hour, balanced out with a bland latte. This was the closest I’ve ever been to a diabetic coma, and not the good kind. I was seriously sick after eating this.

I also tried their latte and it was alright. The coffee tasted a bit burnt and on it’s own, the latte was flavorless and needed some sugar. Fortunately, I had plenty of sugar to go with it in the cupcake that I purchased.

Back from New York City

I just got back from New York City! I went this past weekend with my boyfriend for a much needed vacation/belated 5-Year anniversary celebration. I was so tired when we got back that I collapsed on the bed and woke up this morning, not even remembering going to sleep. I’ll be posting all about my food-related adventures in a bit, but here’s an overview of what’s to come:

Thursday

  • Washington Square
  • Aki on West 4th
  • Tokyo Bar

Friday

  • Pax
  • Japanese Culinary Center – Closed
  • Kinokuniya @ Rockerfeller Center – Closed
  • Nintendo Store
  • Gramercy Tavern
  • Shopping (Sur La Table, Uniqlo, Pearl River, Muji, CB2, TopShop, Kidrobot, Voseges, CO Bigelow)
  • Angelo’s Coal Oven Pizzeria

Saturday

  • Kinokuniya Bryant Park
  • Max Brenner
  • Momofuku Ssam Bar
  • Crumbs
  • Shopping (Kinokuniya, Penguin)
  • Ten Ren
  • Lucky Bakery
  • Kee’s Chocolates
  • Jewel Bako
  • Magnolia Bakery

Sunday

  • Metropolitian Museum of Art
  • Kyotofu
  • Ess-a-Bagel