Baking Over Boys

Lately, I find myself daydreaming about sweets more than boys. My search for the most perfect, moist, chewy, fudgy brownie has overcome my search for the most cutest boy. And my craving for deep intellectual talks with oh-so-pretty guys has been conquered by a craving for a taste of the most decadent chocolate chip cookie - crispy around the edges, chewy on the inside and fresh from the oven.
What's wrong with me? I think the kitchen has taken over my life! I don't think I mind though. A rich, creamy slice of dulce de leche cheesecake will never disappoint you, but a cute boy surely will. I've been devoting so much of my time in the kitchen, and when I'm not baking, I'm Tastespotting or Foodgawking. In class, when I'm bored (which is quite often), I'm dreaming about new recipes that I'm gonna try or jotting down ideas on how to improve old ones. I think I go shopping multiple times a week buying the same old things - butter, sugar, flour and chocolate. And whenever I buy bananas, I purposely let them go bad so that I can incorporate them into a muffin or cake.
There's been so may occasions that call for baking lately. First, I started baking for my classes every week. Then, Lilly got a huge 106 oz can of pumpkin! So we had to think of ways to use it up before it went bad. And now I've volunteered my services for the Applied Psychology Bake Sale. My oven is constantly on and it gets so hot in my apartment now, but I really don't mind. Even in this perfect weather, I'm much happier cooped up inside making something delicious to eat =)

No more boys for me (for the meantime). I just want cookies =)

Caramelized Matzo with Chocolate & Sea Salt

I really love the combination of salty and sweet. Watermelon sprinkled with salt, mangoes with chili salt, and chocolate chip cookies with salt are all high on my list of favorite things to eat. That’s why when I saw a recipe for Matzo Crackers with Caramel and Chocolate and sprinkled with salt, I knew I just had to try it! And since Passover was coming up, I decided to bring it to my very Jewish-populated class. I think they appreciated them a lot=) I had to make another batch right after the first one because once people got a taste of them, they kept asking for more. So if you decide to make this, beware! They are like crack and once you have a piece you’ll be begging for more and so will your roommates, and your classmates, and random people whom you’ve never talked to before…
I got the original recipe from David Lebovitz and Smitten Kitchen, but I thought the 2 sticks of butter was a bit excessive (and expensive yo!) so I cut the butter down by a stick and reduced the sugar to 3/4 of a cup and threw in a tbsp or 2 of heavy cream. Trust me, you won't miss it.

Spread your crackers onto the sheet pan, covering all nooks and crannies.

Make the caramel and spread it over the crackers

After you take it out of the oven, cover it with chocolate chips and let stand for 5 minutes

Spread the melted chocolate and sprinkle with sea salt

Let it cool, break into pieces and prepare for people to love you!!

Chocolate Caramel Crack(ers)
If you want the full fat recipe, check out David Lebovitz or Smitten Kitchen

4 to 6 sheets matzo

1 stick unsalted butter, cut into a few large pieces

¾ cup packed light brown sugar

A big pinch of sea salt

1 to 2 tbsp heavy cream

1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups semi- or bittersweet chocolate chips (or chopped bittersweet or semisweet chocolate)

1 cup toasted chopped almonds, pecans, walnuts or a nut of your choice (optional)

Extra sea salt for sprinkling

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line an 11-by-17-inch baking sheet completely with foil, and then line the base of the foil with parchment paper, cut to fit.

Line the bottom of the baking sheet with matzo covering all parts. You'll need to break pieces to fit any extra spaces, which will be annoying because despite being perforated, it does not actually break in straight lines. I have some luck pressing a serrated knife straight down along a section between perforations, if that (hopefully) makes sense.

In a medium heavy-duty saucepan, melt the butter and brown sugar together, and stir it over medium heat until it begins to boil. Once it has begun boiling, let it bubble for three more minutes, stirring it well. It will thicken a bit as it cooks. Pour in the cream and stir until combined. Remove from the heat and add the salt and vanilla, and then quickly pour it over the matzo or crackers. You’ll want to spread it quickly, as it will begin to set as soon as it is poured.

Bake the caramel-covered crackers for 15 minutes, watching carefully as it will bubble and the corners might darken too quickly and/or burn. You can reduce the heat if you see this happening.

Remove from oven and immediately cover with chocolate chips. Let stand five minutes, and then spread them evenly across the caramel. An offset spatula works great here. Sprinkle a generous amount of sea salt onto the crackers.

Thick & Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies with Browned Butter Icing

I’m taking this really interesting class this semester, called Introduction to Group Dynamics. I didn’t know what I was signing up for when I registered but I’m glad I did it! So basically, the goal of the class is to ‘observe yourself in the here-and-now’. The class is divided into two groups and each week, one group sits in a circle in the middle of the class and interacts with one another while the other group watches and analyzes them, Then we switch.

The first two weeks were nerve-racking for me because a)I hate it when people look at me and b)when I get nervous, everything I say is incoherent and irrelevant. I felt like I wasn’t contributing enough to the group, so during the 4th session, I decided to bring some baked goods to class! They were very well received and made me feel better about my lack of intellectual contributions=) So now, me bringing baked goods has become somewhat expected, not that I mind, of course. As long as it makes people happy I’m willing to do it.

For our termination session (which was not as scary as it sounds), I decided to bring oatmeal raisin cookies. I only had two hours in between classes so I had to find a recipe that incorporated most of the items in my pantry and that tasted great as well. Of course I looked on Smitten Kitchen for a reliable recipe because it has yet to disappoint me! This recipe was no different. However, although the cookies were good, they needed something that would put them over the top, so at the last minute, with 15 minutes to get to class, I made a quick browned butter icing which I drizzled on top, and ran out the door!

Thick, Chewy Oatmeal Raisin Cookies
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen
The last trick to getting a really thick, chewy cookie is to chill the dough before you bake it. You can scoop it and then chill it, or, if you’re like us, scoop it, freeze them and store them in a freezer bag so you can bake them as you wish. I find they’re always thicker when baked from the cold — only a couple extra minutes baking is needed.

1 cup butter, softened
1 1/3 cup light brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
3 cups rolled oats 1 ½ cup raisins 1 cup walnuts, chopped (optional)

Preheat oven to 350°F (175°C).
In a large bowl, cream together the butter, brown sugar, egg and vanilla until smooth.
In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt together. Stir this into the butter/sugar mixture. Stir in the oats, raisins and walnuts, if using them.

At this point you can either chill the dough for a bit in the fridge and then scoop it, or scoop the cookies onto a sheet and then chill the whole tray before baking them. You could also bake them right away, if you’re impatient, but I do find that they end up slightly less thick.

The cookies should be two inches apart on a parchment-lined baking sheet. Bake them for 10 to 12 minutes (your baking time will vary, depending on your oven and how cold the cookies were going in), taking them out when golden at the edges but still a little undercooked-looking on top. Let them sit on the hot baking sheet for five minutes before transferring them to a rack to cool.
Drizzle with Browned Butter Icing

Browned Butter Icing
1 c. confectioners' sugar
4 tbsp. butter
2 tbsp. milk
1 tsp. vanilla

In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium-high heat until nut-brown in color, about 10 minutes. Remove pan from heat, and pour butter into a bowl, leaving any burned sediment behind.
Add sugar, vanilla, and 2 tablespoons of milk; stir until smooth. If the icing is too thick, add some more milk, a little at a time, until consistency is thin enough to drizzle. Let cool 5 minutes. Use immediately

Banana Muffins with Dulce de Leche Whipped Cream Frosting

At 19 cents a banana, Trader Joe’s has got to be the cheapest. So that’s why, whenever I do my grocery shopping there, I go crazy and buy like 25 bananas at a time. I really really love bananas=)

But often times, I can’t finish them all because you can only eat so many bananas a day (3 is my usual amount). Knowing this, I could a) buy less bananas each trip or b) make some type of baked good with bananas as the key ingredient. I always choose the latter and I’m always looking for new applications for uber ripe, almost black bananas. So far, there’s been banana cake, banana ice cream and banana bread. Today though, I decided to make banana muffins topped with dulce de leche whipped cream frosting leftover from a genoise cake Lilly made for Derrick’s birthday. The recipe is adapted from Smitten Kitchen, a blog which I adore. I made my own substitutions, which I put in parenthesis. I wanted a lighter texture for the muffin so I used cake flour. I also tried my hand at piping on frosting. My handiwork isn’t fantastic but I tried!!

Jacked Up Banana Bread
Adapted from Smitten Kitchen

3 to 4 ripe bananas, smashed
1/3 cup melted salted butter (I browned the butter beforehand)
3/4 to 1 cup light brown sugar (depending on the level of sweetness you prefer, I always use the smaller amount)
1 egg, beaten
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 tablespoon bourbon (Optional, I used rum)
1 teaspoon baking soda
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
Pinch of ground cloves
1 1/2 cup of flour(or cake flour)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. With a wooden spoon, mix butter into the mashed bananas in a large mixing bowl. Mix in the sugar, egg, vanilla and bourbon, then the spices. Sprinkle the baking soda and salt over the mixture and mix in. Add the flour last, mix. Pour into paper lined muffin tins and bake for 18-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the muffin comes out clean. Allow cupcakes to cool completely before frosting.

Dulce de Leche

I am obsessed with dulce de leche and have experimented with the 3 ways of making it:

1) From scratch with whole milk and sugar for a few hours over the stove.

2) By opening a can of condensed milk, pouring it into a pie pan with salt, covering it with foil and baking it in a water bath for a few hours (recipe here)

3) Boiling an unopened can of condensed milk in a pot for 3- 3 ½ hours, making sure that the can is completely submerged.

Out of all the methods I’ve tried, the third option is definitely the easiest, even though it can be a little nerve racking as you cross your fingers hoping the can doesn’t explode. Of course, the first option will taste the best, but it’s the most labor intensive and sometimes you just don’t have time for that! So here is my recipe for the frosting.

Dulce de Leche Cream

Adapted from Sky High: Irresistible Triple Layer Cakes

2/3 Cup Dulce de Leche (prepared by your preferred method)

3 Cups Heavy Cream

In a large chilled mixer bowl with chilled beaters, combine the cream with dulce de leche. Beat on low speed to combine and dissolve the dulce de leche. Raise the mixer to medium high and whip until stiff peaks form.

Don't forget to fully submerge it! Or else!!

Wait till it cools before opening. We were really nervous!!

But everything turned out fine and delicious=)

To decorate

Place a piping tip into a plastic bag and snip off the corner, pushing the tip through the hole. Fill the bag with frosting and decorate as you please!

The Other Side of Chinatown

So I’ve been in the city for a year and a half already and I’m ashamed to say I haven’t done much exploring. I usually stick to the places I know – 5th Ave, Broadway, and certain areas of chinatwown. When Lilly, Mel and I went to Chinatown in search of Xi’an Famous Foods, I discovered a side I’d never seen before. When we walked east on Canal, towards the Manhattan Bridge, we came across a whole bunch of fruit and vegetable vendors selling groceries for a lot less than Hong King Supermarket (my usual go to place) or the vendors on Mott. They were selling fuji apples by the trayful for only $5! We were so tempted to get them but didn’t want to carry it back, I did get a bunch of other stuff though – oranges, grapefruit, carrots, a baby watermelon for $1, and some asian spinach type of thing that the lady was trying to sell to me at the price of 2lbs for $1. This is where I’ll be buying my groceries from now on.
We also found the $1 Skewer man under the bridge. I asked for cuttle fish but he gave me fish balls that tasted good anyway. And Lilly got lamb, which I really liked. Both were covered in a sweet dark soy sauce. Lilly said they tasted exactly like skewers she and Yawei had in Beijing. So when Yawei gets back from London, we are definitely going to take her there=)

My sister is going to New York for the first time next week and I can't wait! I'll finally get to do all the touristy things I've never done before like having frozen hot chocolates at Serendipity and seeing the Statue of Liberty. But most importantly, I'm gonna eat!!!! I have a long list of places I need to take her to and honestly, in order to get through that list, we're going to have to be eating constantly for the entire duration of her stay. Sighs. It's a hard task, but someone has to do it!!!

ME! ME! ME!

Xi'an Famous Foods

I think the last thing anyone would ever catch me wearing is a business suit. I hate being constricted by pants or button downs or skirts that go to the knee (I need them to be at least 3 inches above). I just don't enjoy being prim and proper. Bottom line: I don’t see myself going into the corporate world. This attitude towards suits also extends to food. You know, I always assumed that as I got older, my taste would become more refined and I would only eat in high end, sophisticated restaurants and whatnot. But I really don’t think that’s true anymore. It sounds weird, but I would prefer eating at the hole in the wall under the Manhattan Bridge in Chinatown over a fancy expensive five star restaurant uptown. I mean, this doesn’t apply in all cases because eating in nice restaurants is great once in a while but it just doesn’t give me the same excitement as the tinge of fear of getting food poisoning after a delicious but slightly questionable meal=)
Case in point: Xi’an Famous Foods. Based in Flushing, they just recently opened up a store in downtown Manhattan. Anthony Bourdain featured it in one of his episodes=) The shop is super tiny so beware! There’s counter space for 3 people to eat standing up and room for maybe 2 more people to stand, order their food and leave. Me, Lilly and Melanie went the other day and pounced on the table after the couple eating finished and left. The menu is pretty extensive and almost everything is $5 or less. As an appetizer, we ordered the Liang Pi Cold Skin Noodles($4.00). You must get this, it was the best thing we ate and my mouth still waters when I think about it. It’s made with hand pulled noodles, bean sprouts, green onions and this spongy tofu thing all tossed together in this spicy, vinegary, red sauce. The dish is pretty spicy though, so spicy that Mel (the weakling) couldn’t take it and ran to the bubble tea shop down the street to get some cold liquid relief. She also thought the dish was the yummiest though. Also as an appetizer, we each got one of their burgers ($2.00 -$2.50 each). Mel and I got the Stewed Pork Burger and Lilly got the Savory Cumin Lamb Burger. I would stick with the lamb. The pork was good, but less meat flavored and more salty. The lamb was tender and heavy on the cumin and the bun was crispy and delicious. These were both pretty greasy though, well, all the food there was pretty greasy so let’s just pretend that I’m NOT on a diet=) At this point, I was already pretty satisfied. But we were being especially gluttonous and ordered two more dishes: the Mount Qi Pork Hand-Pulled Noodles in Soup($5.00) and the Savory Cumin Lamb Hand-Pulled Noodles($5.00).
The soup was good but really greasy (if you can see from the picture) I had to take a spoon and scoop off some of the oil on feel better about myself. The noodles had great texture and the meat was nicely season.
The noodles were a little pit plain for my taste though and they kinda skimped out on the meat, but maybe that was because it was the end of the day and they had a rush of customers come in.
All in all though, the meal was delicious. We paid $20.50 total for 3 burgers, cold noodles, stir-fried noodles and soup noodles. And the best part? We didn’t get sick! Yay=)

Xi'an Famous Foods

88 East Broadway #106 New York, NY 10002

(outside of building, on Forsyth side of bridge)

Everyday 11:00AM-8:00PM

Too much eating out....

School started two weeks ago! Sighs! And I've been too lazy to cook or take pictures of what I cook when I actually do. The lighting in my room is horrible! I have been eating though!! Lots of sooo good but very bad things! Lilly got me the cake book that i've been wanting for so long -
Sky High: Irresistible Triple-Layer Cakes by Alisa Huntsman. I was so excited that the moment I got it, I baked a cake the chocolate chip banana cake! Sorry there's no pictures bc I was too lazy to decorate it. We just ate it straight from the oven. I think I will make it again though, because it was definitely a keeper. There's Chinese 5-spice powder in it! Isn't that odd? Tasted good though!
It's Restaurant Week in new york and this year we actually participated. Me and Lilly went to Alto for their prix fixe lunch special - an appetizer, entree and a dessert for $24.00. It was a pretty good deal considering that's a 2 Michelin Star restaurant!
Here's a run down of the meal in case anyone wants to check it out before Restaurant Week is over!

So this was my appetizer! It was crudo with blood orange and a mayonnaise kind of dipping sauce. Yes it was as small as it looks. And to be honest, I didn't really like it. It was kind of plain and I didn't like the texture of the fish. The blood orange segments were good though!

Lilly got the Fagioli soup, which was the better of the two. The server poured the bean soup over a butter piece of bread.For the entree, I got the Vitello, or braised veal cheek. This dish was reallly good, but oh so tiny. The veal was like butter and it smelled like Thanksgiving.
Lilly got the Branzino on top of a cabbage salad. There was supposed to be preserved lemon in it, but I didn't really taste it. Lilly says she got bits and pieces of it though. I think the veal won this round.
The chocolate dessert was the best part of the meal. I got the Budino. Which had three layers. The bottom was like this really dense chocolate cake, the middle was a chocolate mousse and the top was this toffee jelly like thing. It was placed on top of some toasted marshmallow and served with reallly intensely dark chocolate ice cream on the side. The ice cream was so good. I highly recommend this dish.


Lilly got the Torta, which was a pistachio cake with lemon curd and lemon yogurt sorbet. I personally thought the cake was a lillte dry and that the sorbet was wayyy to tart! Choose the chocolate one instead!
The restaurant was soooo fancy, I really felt uncomfortable. It was hard taking pictures because all the waiters and stuff were staring at you and judging you. Oh god. I did manage to sneak in one last pic before we left though!
Afterwards, we were still hungy! So we went to get chicken and rice from Platters just a couple blocks down. So cheap and so much more fulfilling. To make the juxtaposition between uber fancyness and delicious cheapassness even more extreme, we proceeded to find the closest McDonald's to eat our meal in=)

Doesn't look very appetizing right? Don't let the looks decieve you! It was delicious. I got half lamb and half chicken smothered in white and hot sauce=) All for 6 bucks!And to be honest, I enjoyed eating street food in some grungy McDonalds more than sitting uncomfortably straight in some fancy high class restaurant. But that's just me.