Category Archives: party food

The Buttercream Problem 2: What Problem?

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Thanks for the support and thoughts on my previous buttercream post.  I appreciate knowing you are out there, lurkers and likers!

The title of this post might be a bit of a lie, because can you really call something “Problem, part 2” if it isn’t too much of a problem anymore?  Maybe “The Buttercream Project” would be more accurate.

Anyway, I owe this amelioration of gloop, sludge, and anxiety in part to my own intuition, but in larger part to Leah at “So, How’s it Taste?” and her recipe for Cinn-Chili Chocolate Cupcakes with Cinnamon Buttercream.  With a chapter draft submitted and a guiltlessly girly shopping trip/reward for my efforts over, I wanted to bake a little something for my officemates AND do a buttercream practice.

Here’s what I learned:

It’s important to sift the powdered sugar.  Otherwise you end up with little clumpy bits that don’t incorporate completely (which happened at New Year’s on the blue poo cake).

It’s important that the butter be fully softened, and that you whip it up well before adding any of the sugar, lest it not incorporate fully (which happened at New Year’s on the blue poo cake).

A couple of tablespoons of whole milk help smooth things out.

I probably should use champagne extract or flavoring, not champagne itself, because so little liquid is needed to keep this pipe-able and smooth (but not turning into blue poo.  I’m just saying…).

So the frosting whipped up really nicely – smooth and buttery and even – but the cupcakes were no slouch either. The combo of chocolate, cinnamon, and cayenne is, I’ve decided, one that should be present in everything from cupcakes to hot cocoa to coffee to a spread for sourdough toast. It was warm and toasty and dark and rich and left just a little lingering heat in the back of your throat after the last swallow of cupcake. The cakes were really, really dark – almost black – because I used Hershey’s “Special Dark” cocoa powder instead of just the regular stuff. They had a nice moist crumb and weren’t overwhelmingly sweet.

The buttercream was delicious too. It was pretty sweet, though that’s difficult to combat, I think, but the heat of the cayenne and the warmth of the cinnamon in the frosting cut the sugar. Also, after a night in the fridge the frosting seemed less aggressively sweet – giving the butter and sugar time to hang out together might have done something the mellow the cloying flavor buttercream can have. I used less cayenne in the frosting than Leah’s recipe specifies, though I did add the barest sprinkle over the top when the cupcakes were all frosted.

Here’s what I learned about the process of frosting: cupcakes are easy, and a properly made buttercream spreads with surprising smoothness over a flat surface (I made one tiny “cake” for the bride and groom as a taster and smoothed icing across the top). With an offset spatula or a metal scraper at my disposal, I bet I can get the thing even and gorgeous.

Here’s what I learned from the bride: she LOVES the idea of doing cupcakes and mini cupcakes as additions to the cake, and we’ve decided to use an asymmetrical cake stand  for the actual cakes. This means I don’t have to stack anything, just make three separate, differently sized cakes, and a Subaru-load of cupcakes.

So here’s the plan: the cakes will get frosted with buttercream and decorated in some as-yet-to-be-determined way. The cupcakes will get frosted with a star tip much like I’ve done here, and possibly drizzled with blue crystal sprinkles. As for the mini cupcakes, I found a tutorial for making pansy-like flowers out of buttercream on minis, and the next time I do a trial run I’m going to give this a try to see if it’s something me and my meager piping skills can pull off.

Next month: I’ll make the champagne batter the cake will actually be made of and bake it in cupcake form so I can start to get times down. It wouldn’t do to have dry cupcakes. Then I’ll try out this flower pattern on the minis and see how it turns out. With luck, it will go as well as this month’s new buttercream recipe did!

Stay tuned… I added a “wedding” tag, and all the buttercream and cake-related posts will end up in that category for easier access.

The Buttercream Problem

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Folks, I have a problem.  It’s called buttercream.

I’ve been offered the great privilege of making a wedding cake for some dear friends who are tying the knot this summer.  I’ve never made a wedding cake before.  I’ve made a lot of cakes, most of them chocolate (in truth, most of them this one), but this is the big time.

I know the cake itself is going to be champagne.

I know the filling is going to be a lovely light whipped mascarpone cream, possibly dotted with fresh raspberries.

I suspect the frosting needs to be buttercream, because the bride wants to cover the cake in fondant (it’s going to be hot, it’s a cleaner look, it can be painted on with beautiful blue coloring).  But just in case I get good enough at smoothing out the buttercream, maybe we can just leave it at that.

I’ve done one practice run, for a small New Year’s Eve party we hosted (the wedding is in July, so there’s some time here).  The cake was delicious.  The filling was amazing.  The frosting was…

a disaster.

It was a simple American buttercream containing butter, powdered sugar, vanilla, and a splash of champagne to go with the cake flavor.  I think the butter was too cold.  I think the powdered sugar wasn’t well sifted.  I think proportions were off.  The resulting frosting was gloppy and grainy and oozing, and when I spread it on the cake it clumped and ran and blubbered down the sides. You know how jeans that are too long for you puddle around your feet at the bottom?  Now imagine that in white, and made out of frosting, and on my cake.  That’s what it looked like.

When I was too frustrated to look at it anymore, I stuck it in the fridge for a while, hoping it would harden up a bit so I could spread it with more success.  While that happened, I mixed some blue gel food coloring into the remaining bowl of frosting and whipped that up, in hopes that a few rosettes on top of the cake would save it a little.

An hour later, I took on the icing again.  I scraped off some of the worst slumps and filled up my piping bag with the beautiful blue I’d created.  With a star tip, I piped on a rosette.  It dissolved into a blob and blurbed toward the edge of the cake.  I somehow lost touch with reality and instead of trying to scrape it off, I made four more around the cake.  They all slumped over the edge.  I tried to pipe a pretty pattern around the bottom edge.  It looked like a long ribbon of blue poo.  I shoved the cake back into the fridge and drank a couple of glasses of champagne before serving it. It was New Year’s Eve.  It was clearly the right thing to do.

So here’s the issue: I have to make a better buttercream.  I’ve done some research and found some killer looking recipes.  I’m planning to use champagne extract instead of actual champagne to avoid any issues with acidity or carbonation.  I’m planning to use fully softened butter.  I’m contemplating blending in some mascarpone to add body and lessen the overwhelming sweetness buttercream can have.

But I’ve also seen conflicting theories about how much milk to add during the whipping process and how long to whip and whether or not to add shortening so the color is a little whiter.  I’ve seen seen creamy dreamy looking recipes for Italian and Swiss buttercreams.  I’m in a buttercream frosting float.  Or, rather, I’m floating in ideas about buttercream frosting.

So I’m looking to you, tiny multiverse of readers.  Have you made buttercream?  How did it turn out?  What recipe did you use?  Was it American, Italian, or Swiss?  Did it spread smoothly?  Was it overly sweet?

Help!

September

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When I think of September, I think of two things: birthdays and school.  As a September birthday, I was always a little sad about the start of school, and not for the reasons you might think.  First of all, I was always one of the youngest in the class (I just made the district’s cut-off for the year I was in… everyone born only a week or two after me had to wait another year before starting kindergarten), and secondly, my birthday happened so soon after school started each year that the teacher usually hadn’t established how birthday treats would be handled yet.  Thus, we didn’t often celebrate my birthday in the classroom.  When I got to college, school on the quarter system meant my birthday happened during summer vacation.  This is fantastic in theory, but in practice it meant my friends were scattered across the country in their home towns, not collected around campus to gather.

So September is birthday month, and I make no apologies about allowing the celebrations to stretch out across at least a week in one direction or the other.  Or sometimes both!  In this phase of my life, I find myself surrounded by a lot of other September birthdays (think about it: nine months ago it was December, a chilly but also festive time…), and I never hesitate to celebrate by helping them celebrate.  As mine approaches this year, however, I must admit to having barely begun to think about the food that will go with it.

And on that note, I must also admit my school analogy: this week, I didn’t do my homework.  I had a Bittman recipe all picked out, I bought the ingredients for it, and then between indolence and a wave of unexpected (but, at least for me, not entirely unwelcome) heat, I never got around to making it.  Fortunately, however, I can give you some make-up work: a photo essay!  This past weekend I went to the first birthday bash of September, a joint affair for my friends B. and Ch., and a spread that put my hostess heart to shame.  Following are just some of the delights available to sample.


Raw vegetable medley cups.  The delicious spicy hummus and masala spread provided to dip them in not pictured.

 

 

 

 

Homemade jumbo sized “oreo” cookies, with all the cruch and creaminess of the Nabisco favorite.  I am pleased but also slightly concerned that I acquired the recipe from my hostess…

Lemon raspberry cupcakes.  Alas, somehow I neglected to sample one of these beautiful summery treats, but they looked amazing.

 Look how lovely these chocolate-dipped pretzel rods are!  Bakery case beautiful, but I’m almost positive Ch. dipped them herself.

Here’s what really delighted me (besides these chickpeas, which were flavorful and crunchy and addictive): next to each item, Ch. made these lovely little cards not only naming the treat, but providing its dietary specifics.  Dishes were marked as “vegan,” “dairy,” or “gluten-free” so guests could determine for themselves what was safe for them to eat.  How kind and thoughtful, in today’s world with growing restrictions.

Thanks, Ch. and B.  It was a delightful party, and I was p-leased to celebrate you both.  I’m glad you were born!  Thanks for ushering in the birthday season with such tasty taste.

   Happy birthday!

2010 Thanksgiving Menu

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I get excited about holidays that involve cooking waaaayyyyy earlier than I should (then again, since our Target already has a Christmas section erected, complete with at least six artificial trees, maybe I’m not totally unhealthy).  I even told my mom over the phone this past Sunday that I’d probably go grocery shopping for the holiday late this week or this weekend.  Right, with two weeks to go.  I was already a week ahead of myself and willing to completely skip seven days of reality so I could buy a turkey.

But I love the way food impacts a holiday, and not just because I love eating.  For my family, food has a binding quality.  I love to cook, my mom taught me how and she loves to cook, my sister is developing an enjoyment and adventuresome spirit in the kitchen, and my dad… likes eating the food we make.  But still, it gives us something to talk about, something to share with each other, and something to do together, when we are in the same kitchen.  I feel close to them through the food we create.

At Thanksgiving, my mom and I make most of the dinner, my sister pipes in with seasoning suggestions, my dad carves the turkey, N. tastes things and generally tries to stay out of the way, and Lucy’s nose never stops twitching.  Every hour or so, little click-clacking dog claws tiptoe into the kitchen to take a sniff and clean the floor.

So I’ve already thought through the entire menu.  I know exactly what we’re having.  I’m even contemplating spending my evening tonight making a detailed grocery list for the big shopping trip.  Excessive?  Premature?  Perhaps.  But so delicious.

Here’s the menu for our Thanksgiving this year:

Appetizers: whole heads of roasted garlic with soft goat cheese and toasted baguette, roasted nuts with brown sugar and rosemary, assorted dried fruit.

Dinner: herb roasted turkey with giblet gravy, stuffing, chipotle mashed sweet potatoes,  creamed spinach and artichoke bake, and whole berry cranberry sauce.

Desserts: Mom’s pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and pumpkin cheesecake squares.  My sister doesn’t love pumpkin pie, so this year there will be two desserts.  If the recipe I invent for her works out well, I’ll post it here.

What are you having for Thanksgiving dinner this year?

Three-Bite Tableau

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I like small sized food. I like its charming appearance, its potential for fanciness, and, not least, its ability to fool otherwise intelligent people ((i.e. yours truly) into thinking they can eat extra, because it’s so petite it must be calorically harmless as well.

To qualify, I think this sort of food must be consumable in three bites or less. Ideally this should be possible without a fork, but of course (especially with desserts) there are exceptions to this ideal. At any rate, three-bite foods should be attractive to the eye, enticing to the nose, and should carry far more flavor than seems possible for their small size.

Here are two I’ve constructed recently: one that turned out to be a snack superstar, and one that carries as yet underrealized potential for true greatness

Artichoke Spinach dip cups

Two of our colleagues and dear friends got married in Long Island recently. As N. and I were both teaching a summer class (and subsisting on graduate student salaries), we were unable to jet-set across the country to attend. But to our delight, G. (the bride) informed us that her father would make a toast to friends and family not physically present. We gathered with some friends, some wine, and some snacks, and at 4:10 pm PST we raised our glasses to G. and T. I brought these little dip cups, bubbling and creamy in brown crisp phyllo shells. This is an adaptation of a recipe for hot artichoke dip that I usually make in a pie plate, but the elegance we were attempting to emulate and the stark truth of half a box of phyllo sheets in my refrigerator made me change my plan. Note that these ingredient amounts are almost all approximations.

In a medium bowl, I mixed:

4-6 oz. cream cheese

½ cup mayonnaise

5 oz. spinach, steamed or boiled, drained, and roughly chopped

1 14 oz. can artichoke hearts in water, drained and roughly chopped

2 TB parmesan cheese, divided

black pepper to taste

After a serious taste test and careful alterations, I set the dip aside and considered my phyllo. I had about 10 sheets, which I swept with butter and layered in the usual way, before cutting into twelve even stacks (3×4). I pressed each stack carefully into a mini muffin tin, letting the edges point out every which way in hopes of creating crisp, crunchy tips, and then loaded the buttery vessels with spoonfuls of dip. I probably used about 2 TB per cup, topped each with a generous extra grating of parmesan cheese, then stowed them in a 400F oven for 20 minutes. Depending on your oven, they are ready when the edges of the phyllo cups are dark golden and fragile, the parmesan cheese atop the dip is beginning to color, and the dip itself is slightly bubbling. Or just when the phyllo is brown, if you are impatient.

We were impatient. How could we not be, when the smell of cooking cheese was filling the kitchen, and the promise of that perfect balance of crispy and creamy whispered how wonderfully it would compliment our champagne?

Crab cakes

Now visiting family in California for a few weeks before the term begins again, my mom and I have been bonding the way I like best: in the kitchen. Three days ago, we decided to make crab cakes and salmon cakes to go with a half dozen luscious ears of sweet corn.

I like crab cakes, but like pesto, I am still searching for the right ratios in my collection of ingredients. This version, while tasty, is no exception, particularly because while we did look up a recipe, we ended up barely consulting it and, ultimately, not following it at all.

Working delicately in a medium bowl, so as not to break up the crab too much, we mixed:

3 6 oz. cans of crab meat (1 lump, 2 regular if you’re skimpy like us, all lump if you’re really looking to impress)

1-2 TB each, or to taste, finely chopped green onions, dill, and flat-leaf parsley

2 TB lemon juice

2 tsp lemon zest

scant 1 cup or less fresh bread crumbs

1 egg, lightly beaten

salt and black pepper, to taste

I recommend adding the egg last, so you can taste and test flavor balances and add extra herbs or lemon before dousing the mixture in raw egg. I also recommend adding the bread crumbs a little at a time, because depending on how you like your crab cakes, a full cup might be too much. Crab has such a sweet delicate flavor that too much bread or too many herbs will hide it completely.

Again, with extreme care, we patted the mixture into five palm-sized cakes, trying to help it hold together without overworking it. We plopped our fragile quintet onto a plate and refrigerated them for about 45 minutes to let the flavors meld and the cakes mesh together more firmly.

While they were chilling, I mixed up a little dipping sauce in the food processor, dropping in:

½ cup mayonnaise

2-3 generous TB strong horseradish

5-6 basil leaves

3 TB flat-leaf parsely

3 garlic cloves

generous squeeze of lemon juice, to taste

When the cakes had thoroughly chilled and our stomachs were rumbling with anticipation, we heated just enough vegetable oil to cover the bottom of a large skillet and carefully patted the cakes with dry bread crumbs, sliding each into the heated oil as soon as it had received its crisp coat. We fried them for 4-5 minutes a side, or until the bread crumb coating had become crunchy and golden. They threatened to collapse into pieces, and two cracked severely down the middle, but with careful coaxing and dextrous spatula work, we managed to keep them together fairly well.

They tasted good. They were light and herbaceous and not eggy at all, but they didn’t scream “crab.” Oh they suggested seafood, but I think we overdid the quantity of bread crumbs, and playing it cheap by adding leg and claw meat might have been a miscalculation. Topped with the horseradish mayonnaise, however, they were delightful. It was creamy and smooth, but the spice hit the back of your tongue just as you swallowed, and lingered for a moment or three.

Three moments of spice, three piles of herbs, three cans of crab. What does it really matter, then, that it took me five bites to finish my cake? At its core, this was a three-bite item. Matching delicate flavor with delicate table manners was my downfall. I should have, as my tongue urged, anxiously cut bigger pieces, urgently indulged, finished the whole little patty in only three tasty bites. Everyone else did.

Envision whirled peas. And weddings.

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There are two stories to be told here.  One is the story of a wedding.  Well, a wedding reception.  Well, a backyard barbeque eight months after the wedding that was my way of providing the couple with a reception.  The other is the story of a van.  Both occur in mid-July.  Let’s start with the latter.

I had completed my first year as a bona fide college student and was, like any bona fide college student, enjoying the summer in between shifts at my first job.  I was changing into a tank top in the back of my friend’s car at the Santa Clara beach boardwalk before heading out to the beach when I saw a van parked a few spots down.  Okay, so it wasn’t a van, it was a vintage old style VW bus, complete with tie-dye paint job, beads in the window, and Grateful Dead stickers everywhere.  But there was, as I discovered after straightening myself out and exiting my friend’s car, only one bumper sticker.  It read “Envision Whirled Peas.”  Read out loud, of course, it emerged as the hippie/peacenik/ flower child ultimate mantra.  Peace + food + word play = my day was made.  Maybe my week.

But back to the wedding story.  Ah, weddings.
The love, the beauty, the glowing smiles…

On the eve of my own wedding anniversary, a hot, beautiful day three years ago, I bring you a tableau of another.  A reception, at least, where my role was slightly different:
The heat of the kitchen, the stress of catering, the need for perfection…
I’m being overdramatic.  I’ve never catered a wedding before, and I still haven’t.  I simply cooked for our dear friends K. and T. this weekend.  I made a whole collection of things (full list is here), but I want to tell you about the crostini.
Thanks to A. and her delectable food sense, I made a pea, lemon, and mint puree to spread on crostini.  She called it “whirled peas.”

I defrosted one 16 oz. bag of petite peas and jangled them into the food processor.
Joining them: the zest of about ¾ of a lemon (one spot didn’t look so nice),
the juice of half that lemon,
probably ¼ cup of mint leaves,
coarse salt,
freshly ground black pepper.
This fragrant mixture received an ample dose of olive oil (½ cup or so?  I didn’t measure) as I whirled it in the food processor for a good minute or two.  I wanted it as smooth as possible, but I still wanted it to be impossibly bright green.

As the time for the party approached (our first guest’s feet were practically climbing the front steps!), I sliced a slim sourdough baguette on an angle and, shielding each slice with a glug of olive oil, broiled them until they turned golden and crisp.  While the little toasts cooled, the lovely and accommodating K. helped me pick some nasturtiums from our front garden to top our creation.  Even a simple backyard barbeque needs a fancy-pants appetizer option!
I spread a generous helping of minty, citrus-y bright “whirled peas” onto each crostini before gently pressing the calyx of each flower gently into the emerald spread.  They looked like flower arrangements – miniature edible gardens that looked and smelled of springtime and fresh birth.

K. and T. loved them (and seemed to love everything about the evening – a hostess-and-wanna-be-caterer’s dream!), but I was a bit nonplussed.  The flavor was minty and fresh, but seemed to be missing something.  Perhaps tang.  Peas are naturally sweet, and mint paired with some sweetness reads as more sweetness.  I wanted something to tell my tastebuds this was a savory bite.  The pepperiness of the nasturtium was too mild to do the job.
Because I have plenty of leftovers, I am considering adding some lime juice, perhaps some basil and a zinging shaving of Parmesan, and turning this into something more like a pesto.  Whirled peas pesto.  Say it out loud with me… “world peace” pesto?

Envision it: One little crostini, two happy people, global cooperation and betterment.

Aren’t weddings fun?!

Stay tuned for results and additions!