me and julie in boston

Oldies but goodies from a trip to Boston several months back. Good weather and lots of tasty treats! Again, bonding over foodventures. We've got a lobster roll from James Hook & Co., fancy shmancey dinner at the Eastern Standard in celebration of my promotion at work (was that the occasion? I can't remember anymore), cupcakes from Georgetown Cupcakes!

 

the burger bistro

 

When Julie was here – weeks and weeks ago now... this is a very late post – we had dinner at the Burger Bistro in Bay Ridge (also located in Park Slope and the Upper East Side). I freaking love this place and wish I still lived as close to it as I used to. Make-your-own burger menus, fries, tater tots (we love our totz), and ICE CREAM SANDWICHES. Not to mention local sodas that come in fancy bottles and in flavors like "ginger root" and whatnot. Ahhh.

molly's cupcakes

A while back I got to meet up with Allie, one of the most elusive friends I have. We met on our study abroad trip to London and fell in platonic love. After graduation, she proceeded to disappear off the face of the earth, but I've managed to reign her back in. (No, that is a lie.)

We had dinner at a sushi restaurant in the West Village that is not even worth mentioning, really – what is worth mentioning is the cupcake shop we went to afterwards: Molly's Cupcakes. Allie's sister just started working at their Chicago location and has been raving about it apparently, so we decided to try it out.

Gulp.

DE-LISH.

Molly's has a great selection of in-house flavors, all filled with some special concoction (Boston creme pie, caramel butterscotch, blueberry cheesecake, cookie monster, cake batter, and one called "the Ron Bennington"). They also let you put together your own cupcake – i.e., you choose the cake, frosting, and any toppings you want.

Gulp. Gulp. Gulp.

I love this place so much that when my sister came to visit slash help me move, I forced her back here as well. Their red velvet is regal. Their cake batter cupcake is literally (no, not literally) a party in your mouth. Their cookie monster cupcake is fab.

Molly's Cupcakes is a bit pricier than my beloved Sugar Sweet Sunshine – but then the location is much larger, the flavor options are fancy-schmancier, and there is more cupcake to go around. Also, West Village versus Lower East Side? I mean... yeah.

sour cream coffee cake with pears and walnuts

The annoying thing about following recipes is that you always end up with a large container of some obscure, random ingredient that you purchased for the sake of two tablespoons, only to stick in the pantry or in the back of the fridge, never to be seen or used again.

(See: apple cider vinegar for Madam Rosmerta's Butterbeer, buttermilk for Irish Soda Bread, or sour cream for Jamie Oliver's Green Goddess Salad Dressing.)

 

I'm clearly not the only person who finds this irritating and highly wasteful because my mother also requested that I find a recipe to use up the 7.9oz of sour cream remaining in the 8oz container. After poking around on Epicurious, I found a seemingly promising recipe for a sour cream coffee cake with pears and pecans, which I adapted due to our lack of pecans.

The recipe is included below. This coffee cake has a great flavor, but I'm warning you, it is a pain in the PATOOTIE to make, unless you have a sous chef around to pour everything into a separate bowl and stir everything in a separate bowl and clean up your five bajillion dishes when you're done. Yeesh. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

Sour Cream Coffee Cake with Pears and Walnuts
Adapted from Bon Appetit | October 2003

Topping ingredients
1-1/2 cups walnuts
1/3 cup light brown sugar
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons chilled unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch cubes

Cake ingredients
2 sticks unsalted butter, room temperature
1/3 cup granulated sugar
3/4 cup light brown sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon lemon zest
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2-3/4 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 cup milk
3-4 pears, peeled and chopped

For topping:

Blend walnuts, brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in food processor until walnuts are coarsely chopped. Add butter and pulse on and off until coarse crumbs form.

For cake:

Preheat oven to 350°F and prepare a 13 x 9 inch baking dish with nonstick spray.

Using a mixer, beat butter in a large bowl until light and fluffy. Add granulated and brown sugar and beat well. Beat in one egg at a time. Add lemon zest and vanilla extract.

Sift flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda into a medium bowl.

Mix sour cream and milk in a separate bowl.

Beat in sour cream mixture with butter, alternating with dry ingredients, in three additions each.

Spread half of cake batter in baking dish. Sprinkle over half of crumb topping; cover with pears. Spread remaining batter over. Sprinkle remaining crumb topping.

Bake for about 50 minutes, until top is brown and cake tester comes out clean. Allow cake to cool in pan on rack. (Can be made 1 day ahead. Cover and store at room temperature.)

roasted applesauce

Jo and I made a chunky roasted applesauce for a giant potluck dinner Friday night, and it only required 5 ingredients: half a peck of apples (or 13 small apples - a mix of Empire and Honeycrisp... it's nice living in upstate New York), cinnamon (we used ground cinnamon because uhhh who do you think we are?! - but cinnamon sticks would be a treat), nutmeg (same deal), salt, and water (assuming water even counts as an ingredient?).

We used a recipe from Improv Kitchen as reference (by the way, I am crazy about the whole premise behind this blog: "recipes made to be broken" - my kinda girl).

I don't even like applesauce, but I thought this was sooo delicious. It had a nice texture, soft and mushy (talk about unappetizing words...) without feeling like baby food. The flavor was really deep and intense - we didn't add any sugar, so all the sweetness came directly from the roasted apples themselves - and the dish itself was really pretty too! Kind of a blushing pink color thanks to the skin. Ah, lovely... and something to make the apartment smell divine.

Roasted Applesauce
Adapted from Improv Kitchen

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Chop apples into bite size pieces, removing seeds and stems and other sketchy bits. Toss with cinnamon, nutmeg, and a pinch of salt. Bake for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and pour in a little bit of water to help break down the apples some more. Bake for another 30 minutes - or until soft and smashable. Remove from oven and mash everything up with a fork. (Careful, don't burn yourself.) Serve warm or at room temperature. Accept compliments with grace and a curtsy.

Also, speaking of apples... a few weeks ago I read John Seabrook's article about apples in The New Yorker. You'll have to pay for access to read it online, but if you manage to find the Nov. 21 issue, I strongly recommend purchasing it because it's all about food and there are some really fascinating reads. If you're interested in learning more about the different types of apples, this blog, Adam's Apples, is great fun as well.

pumpkin bread pudding

 

While surfing this great food blog a few weeks ago, I encountered the masterpiece that is pumpkin bread pudding. Naturally, I forwarded the link immediately to my friend Jo (with whom I also made the butterbeer, carved the pumpkins, and attempted to make ghost cake pops which sort of failed and floundered into sad-looking cake "truffles").

Over the weekend we decided to take on this bread pudding recipe with some minor adjustments. Most notably, we left out the ginger, cloves, and bourbon - only because none of these were on hand at the time. We also used plain white sandwich bread this time around, though a much better option would have been challah. The bread pudding was still delicious, but there are a lot of small ways you could make it even more decadent and special.

Next time you go to a potluck, sign up for dessert and bring this dish. I mean it. Everyone will gush over your incredible cooking skills (while secretly thanking God that it's not another plate of brownies), and you can sit back and twiddle your internal mustache and marvel at how smooth you are.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

1-1/2 cups milk (not sure what kind... it was swiped from the dining halls)
3/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup sugar (could easily reduce to 1/3 cup)
2 large eggs plus 1 yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
5 cups bread, cut into 1-inch chunks
3/4 stick unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Put the butter in a baking dish and place into oven to melt.
Whisk together milk, pumpkin puree, sugar, eggs, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg in a large bowl.
Once butter is melted, remove from oven and toss with bread.
Pour custard mixture over bread, making sure everything is coated well.
Bake for 25-30 minutes until set.