I have to admit I was a bit skeptical going into Mark Bittman‘s lecture on a homework-ridden Tuesday night in November at the Museum of Science. Sure, I had some of his cookbooks and liked his column in the New York Times, but I really didn’t get what he was coming here to talk to us about. Was it how to cook for the health of the planet, or for the health of ourselves? Soon, my questions were answered as I sat in a 150-person auditorium, perched upon a small velvet seat and hanging upon this bald man at the front of the room’s very words.

As his slideshow progressed, I started to become more and more uneasy. A plant-based diet future? Never heard of it. The cheapest food as the most unhealthy? Never thought about it like that. He promised that, at the end of his presentation, we would have some hope for the future, but I was left with only lingering worries. There is almost no one I know, save the odd vegetarian, that has an entirely plant-based diet. How could the food industry be so cruel as to take advantage of people who have fast food as their only option by packaging the least healthy things as the largest. How can America–how can the world–have gotten to this place. Food is supposed to be a basic need, a basic right, and how have we gotten so far away from the nutrients our body needs? How have we allowed that to happen?

What does 1 1/2 feet of snow, 30 mile per hour winds and a school-free Chloe add up to? HOMEMADE OREO TIME. Yes. I confess that I may have gotten a little swept up with the crowd on this one. I mean, who can say no to a good oreo? Hmmm. That should be their new slogan–I’ve always thought that it might be a little legally incorrect to proclaim your product as “Milk’s Favorite Cookie.” Have they ever asked the milk? Injustice I tell you.

Anyway, I, too, love a good chocolate sandwich cookie. This is in no way my first experience with trying to make them. Years back, I had a scarring afternoon with a chocolate sandwich cookie that turned out much too whoopie-pie like. To say the least, I’ve stayed away from the idea for a while now. But when I saw that the blogs were abuzz at about a certain Smitten Kitten’s recipe, I felt it only my duty as an American to try it out too. The dough was incredibly simple and I felt pretty confident going in. Shaking my shoulders out, my eyes whipped back and forth between the lump of dark brown-almost black dough and the parchment lined tray. How to make them crispy? I decided to go for the oh-so-classic roll into a ball and then flatten it out as much as possible method. My brain cringed at the thought of another oversized, soft, overly-sweet filled cookie sandwich. But, I battled on, taking extra time to pound those tiny lumps of dough until impossibly thin and finally I wisked them away to my preheated oven, silently daring them to come out puffy and experience my wrath. After a strict eight and a half minutes, turning once and hyperventilating twice, out they came. In a split second, I grabbed those cookies and threw them on the rack. Crispy, crispy, cripsy I chanted. And oh they were. Crisp, chocolately, and begging for some white, fluffy icing to tie them all together.

I have to admit that I’m really not a homemade icing fan. I know, I know, you’re all cringing out there, but I have to confess that I sort of have a thing for the cans of shortening and sugar icings from my childhood. They just taste so good. You can’t deny me that much. But, this paragraph is not just for griping or to tell you that I took the wimpy way out and cracked open our old Betty Crocker, because I think these chocolate spheres of love deserve more than that. I really don’t like that classic, super-sweet, super-buttery, tried and true vanilla buttercream recipe. It’s good…for the first bite. But then it just becomes sooo sweet and sooo buttery and I just find the cake getting lost in the sauce. On the other hand, I love 7-minute, marshmallowy frostings. They’re a cinch, and just all around incredible. But there always seems to be something missing, a note of complexity absent. So I set out for the first time to create a frosting to stand up to those cripsy, crunchy gourmet Oreo cookies. After all, isn’t the oreo all about the filling?

Warning: I’m not one to go halfway on things, so as this recipe does take longer than a normal buttercream, I really do think it’s worth it.

I began my quest with a half-batch of classic 7 minute icing. After all, how can you beat  7 minutes?  Then, I set that aside and whipped 1/3 of a stick of butter with some powdered sugar and vanilla, the traditional buttercream base. Then, I folded the 7 minute goodness into the overly sweet and dense buttercream. A few minutes of whipping and an extra splash of Madagascar vanilla and I was in heaven. Light, marshmallowy yet buttery and sweet, this icing was just what I was looking for. The only problem with this icing was its slightly loose texture. Normally, Oreos have a stiff, piped filling, but I decided to go ahead and dollop a spoon of my icing into the center of a cookie and top it off with another corresponding hat anyway. After 20 minutes a bit of firming up, I was there. Homemade Oreos, you no longer defeat me.

December 24, 2010. One thing is for sure. Scooping mexican wedding cookies sure does build character. I stopped by the dessert section of the Snow Park Lodge at Deer Valley and, amidst the pieces of chocolate silk pie and truffle cake, spotted Chef Letty Flatt and was invited to come check out the kitchen again! It was exactly how I remembered it, and I was immediately put to work scooping cookies and bagging granola and generally soaking in all the hustle and bustle of the Park City pastry kitchen. After a thoroughly delicious meal the night before at the Mariposa, (ending with a chocolate snowball of course) I was so excited to see the inner workings behind the pastry scene of Park City. And what I saw was cookies, cookies, cookies and more cookies. James Taylor was playing, casting a cozy atmosphere about the small workplace. Pastry chefs wearing whites whisked and beaters whirred and wooden spoons stirred pots of melting chocolate with Letty watching over the whole place with the eyes of a hawk. I received my fair share of the “who are you” looks that always accompany a brief stunt in any kitchen. After about two hours in the warm little sugar haven I stepped out back around the dessert case, braved the wind, strapping on my skis and hit the slopes.

Halloween. The one day that ingesting ridiculous amounts of sugar and dressing up like an overweight lunch lady are socially acceptable. In a moment of procrastination I whipped up some whoopie pies for english class. Best compliment I’ve received: “This tastes like happiness.” Hmmm. So it does.

Yesterday afternoon we had a cross-country race at Groton. It’s safe to say that every time someone would shout “Go Groton!” I couldn’t help but think of the potato dish. Yummy yummy yummy.

Kol Nidre Evening. 4:47. One unwieldy turkey worth of congealed refrigerated drippings. 13 minutes to make something happen. So who am I gonna call? MYTHBUSTERS! Incorrect. I mean I thought it was obvious. Who else do you turn to…? Barefoot Contessa. I have to say she’s basically genius. I mean with some onions, butter, flour, chicken broth and cream, I had some kicking gravy in 13 minutes. It was delish.

I spent three weeks this summer at a writing camp at Sewanee outside of Nashville, TN, so now biscuits have become a food very close to my heart.  I had them almost every morning for breakfast before camp.

The big question when it comes to these Southern comfort classics is this:

What is better?  Fluffy or Flaky?

I had mostly fluffy biscuits in Nashville.  So, back in the comfort of my grandmother’s Jersey Shore kitchen, I set out to see which type of biscuit reins supreme. Biscuit wars here we come!  The first day I tried making fluffy biscuits. With nothing more that heavy cream, flour, baking powder, salt and sugar, my biscuits were in the oven baking up only 10 minutes after I was hit with the craving. Smothered with clover honey, they were delicious.

But what if I was missing out on something big with the layered, buttery, cholesterol-laden flaky type biscuits. So 2 days later I set out with “The Best of America’s Test Kitchen’s” flaky biscuit recipe to see which biscuit was superior. After about an hour (I kid you not) of chilling and rolling and folding and rolling and folding and rolling and cutting and preheating, my biscuits (which very much resembled hockey pucks) went into the oven.

All I was left to do was pray. And threaten. I kept saying, “these better be good, because this is taking an incredibly long time.” I stood guard next to that oven for the full 15 minutes (except for one bathroom break) …but even then my thoughts were plagued by the image of hard, flat and burnt biscuits. After the timer dinged, I held my breath and opened the oven door. And, oh, were they beautiful. They rose high and were golden brown and oh so delicately flaky. It was truly unbelievable how perfectly flaky they were.  And when I whisked them out of the oven and onto the counter, that long hour of work left my brain and all I could think was “it was worth it!” I’m a convert.

My biscuits

 

But even though the flaky, buttery biscuits went over unanimously well in the Rosen household, I personally will be saving that recipe for special occasions, and sticking to the fluffy biscuits that can be out of the oven and in my mouth 25 minutes after the craving hits again.

It’s really easy to miss the Icing on The Cake Bakery, nestled behind a Laundromat and next to a Karate place, if you’re not looking. But I promise you that stepping through the door is an unforgettable experience. As soon as you reach the glass table covered with sample cakes, the scent hits you. The scent of a million cakes being baked. Okay, so it’s not a million cakes but I have been told more than once after leaving the premises that I “smell like icing.” This is where I spent many long summer days this past July and August, stamping out fondant polka dots, covering cake boards, icing cupcakes, cutting samples and generally learning the ways of a professional cake shop. As the “managing,” “chief,” and “only” intern, my duties were very varied and provided an interesting and diverse place to work. So if you’re ever in the Washington Street area, stop in and say hi to Paula and who knows…I might be in the back room with Debbie swirling fondant together for autumn leaves.

This March, I went to China with my family to visit my friend Molly who lived in Shanghai for the year.  The food was very different there; I saw dishes on the menu and things in the grocery store that I had never seen before.  Some ingredients I encountered were pig’s feet, octopus, turtle, and something called Bird’s Nest!

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups flour

1 cup sugar

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking soda

4 bananas, very ripe

2 eggs, well beaten

1/2 cup butter, softened

Mash the bananas up with a potato masher.  Then add in your eggs (which already were beaten).  Then, cut in the butter., using a pastry knife and set aside.  Mix all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.  Then combine the dry mixture with the wet ingredients so that you have a thick, bananaey mixture, all moist.

Pour into a lightly greased loaf pan and bake in a 350 degree oven for 50 minutes.  Stick with a knife to determine if it is cooked through.  Bread should be golden brown on the outside.  Set aside to cool and then enjoy!

Looking for more award-winning recipes? Check out this recipe for my Double Trouble Chocolate Zabaglione!

Sliced and Ready to Serve!

Photo and video courtesy of www.how2heroes.com