This posting is originally from October 17, 2005. I’ve made this buttercream recipe again and again, and I often get requests for the recipe. So, here it is…

My uncle used to be a chef. He worked for a catering company in the 80′s. On his last visit, we were chatting about the work he used to do, hors d’oeuvre de riguer, and monstrous brides. Somewhere in this same conversation we were discussing wedding cakes, and he mentioned that apricot buttercream was all of the rage in the 80′s. Apricot buttercream? Why that sounds delicious! How did such a delicious combination of butter, powdered sugar, and apricot preserves ever fall out of favor? Why aren’t people making huge vats of apricot buttercream and frosting everything in sight? This delightful concoction was something I had to try.

Now longtime readers know that I claim to not be much of a baker, but I love a little something sweet on an almost daily basis. And while I might not be a baker of grandiose proportions, I do have an active imagination, an imagination that dreams of creating adorable confections that lead me to semi-homemade creations of the week.

In my book, there is nothing wrong with using a cake mix from time to time. In fact, there are people out there (you know who you are, and wave your cheating flag high) who have never made a cake entirely from scratch. While cake from a mix is fine, homemade frosting is truly delicious, easy to make, and will bring the cake from an average, perfectly acceptable dessert to a stupendous, dreamy sweet of immense proportions.

How about some Babycakes with Apricot Buttercream and Chocolate Ganache? Bigger than a petit-fours yet smaller than a slice of cake, these cakes feel all the more special because they are individual, self-contained units. It’s like receiving your very own diminutive cake for dessert. With a biscuit cutter, simply cut out individual rounds from a standard sheet cake. Slice the rounds in two, fill with the homemade buttercream of your choice, and spoon luscious, rich chocolate ganache over the top. I adorned each babycake with a single candy violet, for both color, and the crispy, perfume-like flavor.

There is something so delightfully greedy, and self-indulgent about having a babycake versus a slice of actual cake for dessert. Both are charming and decidedly sweet, but only one is well…bourgie. So go ahead, all you cheaters out there (me included), mix up a batch of buttercream, and go to town.

There is a lot of street food to be had in New York. Some of it is tantalizing (candied nuts of all assortment, crisply coated in a nubby sweet shell), others sub-par (like those steely coffee carts on wheels, that serve coffee so weak it is as if the bean was simply waved through boiling water), and some are staunch standards– like the good ol’ pretzel. But for those of you who are not living in a city teeming with street vendors, they can be made at home, using this recipe.

Yeasty, and warm from the oven, making, then eating these pretzels, gave me a sense of accomplishment– the dough was shall we say, ELAS-TIC! I would actually say the recipe is a good place to start for the yeast novice. The dough is sturdy and malleable, and if the directions are followed, you will have a mound of soft dough in no time, just waiting to be played with, and play with it you will. I rolled, and rolled, and rolled, but my intended cigarette shaped dough looked more like a big, fat cigar.

Frustration got the better of me, and after knotting just a few pretzel shaped rolls, I went instead for the straight log, calling them mini-baguettes to make myself feel better about the whole ordeal. For the toppings I went for the traditional salt, using coarse Kosher salt, and the sweeter, cinnamon sugar. Both were delightful, the pretzels were wholesome, just the right hand-held snack. So give these a try, maybe you will have better luck with the rolling. Or maybe I’ll see a bunch of buff, tricep-strong people cruising around this holiday season.

Well, I’m off to California for awhile. There is family to see, and strong coffee to drink, but check back in every once in awhile, I’ll be posting the greatest hits of Nosheteria from the archive. Write soon!

I love getting new cookbooks, scurrying home from the store, fresh books in hand, cracking the spine for the very first time, and voraciously reading each recipe, the promise of trying a new dish that will perhaps become an old favorite. Sometimes though it can be a bit anti-climactic, the recipe just, ehh. But there are times when it can be revelatory, and I just had one of those times.

My purchase was rather simple, a copy of Camille le Foll’s compendium entitled, Modern French Classics. But it wasn’t until that evening, when I properly sat down with a cup of tea, and the book poised neatly on my lap, that my stomach began to rumble with anxious hunger. Each recipe looked better than the next, but the dessert section, with assortments of cakes, tartes, clafoutis, and delicate cookies, is what really had me.

For the inaugural recipe I decided on Kouign-Aman, a yeasted sweet bread, one half puff pastry, one half hearty bread. Kissed with sugar, and laden with butter, this homey dessert proved to be just the cake that calls to you in the early morning to be eaten with a smooth cup of cafe au lait.

The dough does contain yeast, giving the “cake” an airy consistency, but have no fear, this is not a delicate dough. It goes through several rises, but you musn’t be hush-hushed around the house while the yeast does it’s magic. This is a delightfully elastic dough, smooth, with bubbles of air throughout. Folding in the butter, and sprinkling the dough with a bit of sugar, then baking the handmade patty on a bit more sugar, which caramelizes during the baking process, the Kouign-Aman did not disappoint.

Kouign-Aman
from Modern French Classics

1 sachet dried yeast
3/4- 1 cup warm water
2 1/2 cups ap flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
6 ounces butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar

Mix the yeast with 3/4 cup water. Put the flour and salt in a bowl, mix, then make a well, add yeast mixture. Mix and then knead for 10 minutes, this can be done in a electric mixer with a dough hook attachment. Add additional water if needed. Put the dough in a bowl, cover with a kitchen towel, and leave to rise in a warm place for 1-2 hours, or until doubled in size.

When dough has doubled in size, place on a floured work surface, and punch down to allow dough to breathe. Shape it roughly into an oval, then roll into a rectangle. Spread 5 ounces of butter, mixed with 1/2 cup sugar, stopping 3/4 inches from the edge. Fold down top 1/3 of dough, then fold the bottom 1/3 on top, making 3 layers. Roll out to rectangle once more. Repeat folding, but do not roll out again. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove the dough from the refrigerator, roll out again, this time into a circle. Butter a 9 inch, deep pie plate with remain ounce of butter. Sprinkle with 1/4 cup sugar, and place dough in plate. Leave to rise for an additional 30 minutes at room temperature.

Bake for 20-30 minutes, or until carmelized and golden brown. Eat when cool.

I am not the best about eating my own leftovers. It’s not that I don’t enjoy the foods that I prepare, because I do. I suppose it is eating the same items that I prepared, two meals in a row that gets me. Let’s face it– it can be a bit boring. But refashioning one meal in order to make it into an entirely new beast? I am all over that . Case in point, the Meatball Hero.

There are sandwiches of all sorts: paninni, open-faced, subs, croque-monsieurs, cheesesteaks. Many of these sandwiches mentioned are quite substantial; I can’t imagine gulping down a cheesesteak, cheese, onions, and all, right before say, doing a 12k run. In California I guess you could say we eat a bit lighter, we can’t just dash down to the corner deli and order a sub– a roast turkey on whole wheat, yes, but a ginormous, meat-laden submarine sandwich, no. But I don’t live in California anymore, I live in New York, land of the soft on the inside, light-as-a-feather Portuguese sandwich roll, the perfect sandwich rolls on which to make Meatball Heroes.

Last week I made an adaptation of these meatballs for dinner, with a more judicious hand when seasoning with the suggested red pepper flake, and lemon zest. They were terrific, crisp on the outside, meaty and succulent on the inside, truly homey and superb. But what to do with all of the leftover meatballs rolling around? I have never really grasped the fact that it is only Brian and I eating, and that recipes can easily be halved. So, with the prospect of a gloomy lunch looming over me for the next day, I went to the market.

I had a bit of marinara sauce, simple and seasoned with fresh basil. All that was needed was a fresh ball of unctuous mozzarella, and the fabled Portuguese rolls. Once home, I slathered sauce on the rolls, cut slices of cheese, about one-quarter inch thick, and placed the saucy bread under the broiler. I then reheated the meatballs while the cheese melted to a blistery finish. Placing the meatballs on the bread, and pressing firmly down to affix the sauce to the meat, I took a bite of this hefty handful. And it was just as I imagined it to be, hearty and delicious, with just the right amount of sauce and cheese. It was so good in fact, I might just make the meatballs for the express purpose of making a meatball hero. But maybe I will halve the recipe next time.

Vintage Cheddar and Red Onion Chutney.
Oven Roasted Chicken with Lemon and Thyme.
Peking Duck and Hoisin Sauce.
Thai Sweet Chili.
Smoky Bacon.
No, these are not elements that made up an outrageous and unique Thanksgiving dinner served at my house. They are flavors of crisps, or chips, as they are more commonly known as in the United States.

My brother-in-law is English, so whenever he and my sister travel to the U.K. to visit family, I always have a few requests to be filled. Marks and Spencer underwear, because they make VPL moot; British milk chocolate, so smooth and creamy; and of course, crunchy crisps, so delightfully bizarre. And this year they delivered.

Compared to the Brits, our Classic, BBQ, Sour Cream and Onion, and if you get really racy, Ranch Style, seem so tame. Now that is not to say that roast chicken flavor chips, chock full of preservatives, brimming with salt and MSG are necessarily good for you, but they do present an interesting side note. Just what is a junk food anyway? Sure chips are garbage, but when they are flavored with something as wholesome as roast chicken , or as avant as Peking duck, it makes the chips seem almost good for you.

Oh… and these meat flavored chips are bizarrely vegetarian– ?yes even vegetarians can enjoy an additive laden, chicken dinner chip, without the guilt. But is the American palate ready for a side of Hoisin sauce with their hot dog and Coke? Something tells me no.

While I was at my local market, I spotted them, in a produce box, plunked down in the middle of the aisle. But it’s November, hardly the time for squash blossoms, and beautiful ones at that. They were perfect, large and delicate flowers, unblemished, each firmly affixed to a burgeoning, little zucchini. Every person at the market simply walked past the blossoms, glancing at the contents of the box, then moving right along to the string beans beside them. Now I like string beans as much as the next guy, but when posed with the alternative of a more rare, fresh looking bit of produce, I’m going to go for the rarity.

I guess the general lack of clamoring proved to be a good thing for me. I wasn’t really up for an out and out battle over produce at the market. But I would have gone to fist and cuffs if need be– anything to prepare a new vegetable. I knew what I would do with these precious flowers when I got them home, fry them up and eat them straight from the pan, unadorned save for a dusting of Parmesan cheese.

I had prepared squash blossoms before, just not in the classic, artery-clogging way. I had just moved back to Berkeley, and I think that I let the spirit of Alice Waters enter a bit too much into my brand of cooking. I loosely followed her recipe for stuffing the blossoms with fresh ricotta cheese and herbs, steaming the stuffed blossoms in a basket steamer, and them simmering them gently in a clear chicken broth. I imagined a vegetal dumpling of sorts, what I got instead was a watery mess. It’s not that this recipe didn’t work, the cheese remained neatly enclosed in the orange blossoms, it’s just that the end-result was rather blah, and far too labor intensive.

So you can imagine my glee when here the venerable blossoms were again. Now I could try them once more– new state, new recipe. I dipped the blossoms in egg, then in a mixture of flour and finely ground cornmeal, seasoned well with coarse salt and pepper. Then came the frying in a shallow pool of olive oil, and moments later, my fried goodies were ready. A quick dusting of Parmesan cheese, and before I knew it, the blossoms were gobbled down faster than you can say, “Long live Alice Waters, but I prefer my blossoms fried!”

Brian eats yogurt every day for breakfast. Every. Day. He says that it’s the only food that truly fills him up in the morning. My good little, nutritiously minded husband, opening up some berry flavored yogurt each morning before he heads out to work. Me, I’m more particular (surprise, surprise!). The wholesome nature, the sustenance of yogurt, is exactly why I don’t partake of this morning ritual. Many times it’s just too much for me, all those milk products first thing in the morning makes my stomach gurgle with lactose intolerance. Give me a piece of toast anyday!

But for every rule there is an exception. And that exception for me is Greek Yogurt. Thick, whipped almost, with exceptional body, and a delicate, slightly sour taste, this yogurt I love…in moderation. It’s true, that traditionally, Greek yogurt is made with an obscene amount of fat. It could be equated with tipping your head backwards, holding your mouth agape, and squirting in enormous amounts of whipped cream in– straight from a can. But there is a low-fat variety, and this is perfect. So perfect in fact, I find myself making morning parfaits, and gobbling them up with a restrained gusto.

What do you make these morning treats with, you may be asking yourself? When the crunch of an apple is too startling a soundtrack with which to start your day, and a tangerine, is still hollow, and woody in flavor, there is only on thing to do, and that is, to make your own apple-pear sauce to layer in the parfaits. I used a tried-and-true recipe for making the sauce. Scented with a vanilla bean, for depth and interest, apple-pear sauce is chunky and hearty, and so simple to make.

The sauce stores well in the fridge, so I made these parfaits for a few days afterward. A spoonful of my precious Greek yogurt, and a dollop of the fresh, homemade sauce, and I too had a little breakfast ritual, with only the minor gurglings of lactose intolerance!

Back in September I entered a contest through Food and Wine Magazine. It was a an online, food photo contest. So I sent off one of my favorite pictures from this site, a picture of a frozen treat, cooling yoghurt and strawberry pops. Made back in July, they were some of the last confections put together in my old kitchen in California. Well, look closely, in the bottom, left-hand corner of the gallery of pictures from FoodAndWine.com.

I never win anything! Seriously. No trips to Cancun, no new washers and dryers, and certainly not the Lotto. (Because if I did, it’s hard for me to say if I would be toiling away in front of my computer, and not lounging about on a lush, tropical island.) And while I did not win this food photo contest, I did win honorable mention. This means my photo is on display on the site. Pretty exciting, at least for me anyway. I guess from this point on, I will no longer be the girl who never wins anything, but rather, the girl who sort of wins something. I only hope that I am up for all of the challenges that this new title brings.

I remember my grandma’s waldorf salad– an interesting mix of both fruit and vegetables, all mixed up with a paste-like dressing. I have never been a huge mayonnaise fan, but yet I was enthralled with the waldorf dressing. A little mayonnaise, a touch of whipped cream, could it be? Sweet yet tangy, light and lustrous, this dressing seemed to have it all. I would sit at the table, a dish of the mellifluous concoction before me, both repulsed and intoxicated.

Now it’s been years since I have partaken in this salad of yore. And just the thought of it, I must say, repulses rather more than intoxicates me. But the basics of the waldorf salad are good ones. It has good bones. It’s just the dressing that must be updated, made more palatable for my 21st century tastebuds. And so I resorted to a vinaigrette; and I added chicken. Think of this salad an an ode to ladies who lunch.

The chicken salad, like the waldorf, harkens back to a more simple day. Let’s put it this way, when ladies (because, come on, they were mostly the diners) were nibbling upon their chicken salad served on toast points, they were not then racing home to illegally download the latest episode of The O.C. onto their Powerbook G4. But that is not to say that we cannot consume the updated chicken salad during said episode.

Earlier this week I made a roasted chicken. It was delicious, steaming hot from the oven, skin crackly and brown. But it was too much for Brian and I to eat in one sitting. Enter the Waldorf Chicken Salad. Some shredded chicken, sliced celery, chucks of sweet-tart apples, toasted pecans, and the piece de resistance, blue cheese, and there you have it. I added a warm vinaigrette of sliced shallots, white wine vinegar, oil, and honey. The warmth from the dressing melted the cheese a bit, creating a rich, and sumptuous sauce.

The salad was a perfect mix of old and new. And I even thought of my grandma’s staunchly sweet waldorf salad while I gobbled up my lighter version. However, this recipe can be made without the chicken as well. It works out wonderfully as an accompaniment to grilled sausage.

Waldorf Chicken Salad

Serves 4 as a main dish or 6 as a side

For the dressing:

2 shallots
2 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons red wine vinegar
3 tablespoons walnut oil (or any nut oil)
salt and pepper, to taste

For the salad:

1 cup pecans or walnuts, toasted and loosely chopped
5 ribs of celery, cut into ½ inch dice
3 medium sized, firm, semi-sweet apples like Braeburn or Jonah Gold, cut into ½ inch
chunk
1-1 1/2 cups shredded, skinless chicken
1 cup maytag or buttermilk blue cheese, crumbled

Thinly slice the shallot and add to a small saucepan with the rest of the dressing ingredients. Whisk over medium heat on the stove until the mixture comes to a boil. When brought to a boil and honey is completely incorporated, shut off heat but leave the dressing in the pan on the stove while you make the rest of the salad.

If using whole walnuts, secure in a ziploc bag and bash with a mallet or the bottom of a heavy pan. The nuts should be crushed loosely, not pulverized. Put nuts in a pan and toast over medium high heat on the stove. Nuts should begin to smell toasty and take on a darker hue when finshed. When complete, add walnuts to a large mixing bowl.

Chop the celery into ½ inch dice and add to the same mixing bowl. Cut your apple into six or eight equal pieces, core, then cut into ½ inch dice. This step should be done close to serving, so apples do not turn brown and oxidize. Add both the celery and the apples to the bowl with the nuts. Add the chicken, and crumble blue cheese over the mixture and mix together.

Pour warm dressing over salad ingredients and toss together. The heat from the dressing causes the blue cheese to melt adding yet another layer of flavor to the salad. Taste, and season with salt and pepper.

The year is just about coming to a close. Yes, I realize we have just over two months to go, but a girl must plan accordingly. The year of no more food taboos is winding down; and I must say it has been a successful one. So successful in fact, I am finding it difficult to find foods that I do not like, or at the very least, don’t eat. So when I was at the market, and I saw a pile of fresh dates, a fruit that had typically been a foe, I decided to give them a try.

In the past, dates had been a bit much for me– too sticky, too cloyingly sweet. And that is saying something from a girl who thinks dessert after every meal, including breakfast, is appropriate. But I was desperate, not only for a new task to confront, but also for fruit. Come late October there seems to be a dearth of produce at the markets. We’re just in that intermediary time. So I extracted a stalk of fresh dates from the pile. And yes, they were sticky, but I ignored it for the sake of my stomach.

When I got home I tried just a nibble, and that nibble soon became a bite, and several dates later, I could safely say that I had been cured of the date taboo. Earthy, sweet, and buttery, like toffee, and I loved the caramel color and the delicate nature of dates. But before I could eat all of the dates on their own, I began thinking of ways that I could cook with them. I had heard about sticky toffee pudding, but I wanted something more simple– I wanted gelato.

I found this recipe on the Web, for vanilla gelato, which I followed, yet substituted real vanilla bean seeds for the extract. In the final minutes of freezing in my ice cream maker, I added chopped dates, and shavings from a rich, semi-sweet chocolate bar. It turned out ideal, luscious from the cream, chewy from the dates, and full-bodied from the chocolate. The pairing of the chocolate and the date was sublime, and the fruit remained chewy throughout the freezing process. But really, how bad can anything be when frozen in ice cream.