Anyway…those changes. Well, I moved, still in Brooklyn, but a different part. It’s got lots of parts. It’s big. My reason for moving is related to my love life and how there is someone new in it. I like him. Lots. The third change is related to my job. Very soon I won’t be all alone, so lonely, tweaking out about making all the desserts myself. We’re opening a second, much much much bigger restaurant a block down the street and guess who’s in charge of all things sweet o’er there. Yeah. So, it was decided that production for both places would be in the nice big shiny new kitchen, and that I could hire helpers.

Helpers! My very own army of minions! Three of them! Yup. Three makes an army, right? Okay. I’m basically trying to assemble a team of totally awesome Pastry Superfriends. With unique abilities and special powers. The applications are in, I hate my inbox and the interviews have begun. My little calendar app has never seen so much action. And I’ll be continuing this saga shortly so totally come back and stuff.

So, here’s a thing I make at work a couple of times a week as a petit four. Consider them Rice Krispie Treats, perfected. They started out as these. Then they evolved.

That's as good as the photos get these days, folks.

Dirty Rice Krispie Treats

1. 2.75 oz. unsalted butter
2. Large pinch Kosher salt
3. 15 oz. marshmallows
4. 9 oz. Rice Krispies (or generic puffed rice cereal)
5. 4.5 oz. cocoa nibs

Place the butter and salt in a large-ish pot, something with a wide bottom. Heat over medium until butter melts and begins to brown, stirring occasionally. Cook the butter to a dark brown (not black).

While the butter browns, spread the marshmallows in a single layer in a large mixing bowl or on a clean baking sheet. Torch the heck out of ‘em. You could also put them under a broiler if you have no torch, but a torch is really the way to go here. You want a burnt, black, crispy shell on at least 2 sides of those marshmallows. With gooey insides. Once the butter and marshmallows are done, turn the heat down to medium-low and add the marshmallows. Stir occasionally with a buttered heat-proof spatula until completely melted.

SUPER DANGEROUS ACTION SHOT

Combine the cereal and cocoa nibs in a large mixing bowl and mix well. Butter a medium rectangular baking dish (or a half sheet pan, if you’re in a professional kitchen…I cut them 1×1.5″ for petit fours so they don’t need to be that thick, but they’d be too thick to fit a quarter sheet) and line it with parchment. Liberally butter the parchment. Butter, butter, butter. Once the awesomely burnt goo in the pot is totally melted, add the cereal and nibs and stir to combine as evenly as possible. Scrape into your buttered vessel and smooth evenly. At work I use a liberally buttered large offset spatula. If you’re into cake decorating you’ll have one. If not…use whatever a home cook would use to spread and smoosh Rice Krispie Treats. I don’t know. After this, I butter another sheet of parchment and lay it on top, then wrap and let it set up for a few hours. Then I turn that sucker out and cut it up with a buttered knife.

Not sure what the next post will be. Banana jam? Toasted almond milk? How to make lame-ass cultivated blueberries taste like wild ones? Perhaps the infamous ANIMAL CRACKERS, the recipe for which I’ve only shared with one very special person?

Animal crackers! (via TribecaCitizen)

I don’t have any good pictures of my desserts so far, so here’s a bad one…bad picture, that is, this dessert is rad.

Carrot Sandwich

Since I spend my days in a somewhat dark basement with poor lighting, and I only have my phone for use as a camera, I won’t be getting any good shots on my own…not that I have time to mess with more than a quick snapshot anyway.

…But if YOU are ever in TriBeCa, and have some nice photography skillz please come by and take pictures and share them (and your thoughts!) with me.

A cake that didn't make the cut.

I have some idea what you might be thinking.

“That’s nice, Anna, but what about the recipes?”

I’m not sure about that yet. Honestly I’m using a lot of base recipes that have appeared on this blog, but some things are completely new…like those animal crackers. I’ll share a few things, when/if I have the time. Right now I’m a little more preoccupied with nailing my fifth dessert…and wondering if I have too much orange on my menu (it’ll be pinker soon).

The other day I was flipping through my copy of Joy of Cooking and I found a recipe for a sponge cake with rice or potato flour instead of the traditional wheat flour. I had just picked up a fresh box of mochi flour and thought to myself that a mochi sponge cake would be just about the most wonderful thing I could put in my mouth.

It so soft.

I wondered if it would even work at all, since mochi flour is so insanely heavy and sticky. I worried a bit once I had the egg yolk batter all mixed together. It was a thick yellow paste! But in the end I prevailed. Cake is not the boss of me.

Blubberries!

As you may remember, I do not own a regular sized cake pan. I have two tiny ones. So I made three quarters of the recipe here (because it’s next to impossible to whip less than three egg yolks in a stand mixer) and went for it. I filled the pans all the way to the top which was apparently too much, because the cakes souffled and spilled (all over the pan I’d placed them on as a preventative measure). I can’t guarantee that the full recipe won’t be too much for the recommended pan, but I can tell you that the cake will, remarkably, not fall despite the weight of the mochi flour.

Anything tart 'n' citrusy will do the trick.

I finished baking the cakes last night and realized that, besides a few blueberries, I had nothing to serve them with. So I whipped up a quick lemon curd and let it chill overnight. Passion fruit curd would also probably be exceptional here, as well as flavors like yuzu or lime. So sunny!

Taste the sunshine!

This would make a tasty and unique strawberry shortcake and would probably take wonderfully to delicious additions like matcha and black sesame powder. I plan on experimenting with baking these in cupcake papers to see what happens.

You don't even need frosting!

Mochi Sponge Cake

A satisfyingly chewy gluten-free sponge cake.

Ingredients

1. 4 eggs, separated
2. 1 cup sugar
3. 2 Tbsp lemon juice
4. 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
5. Pinch salt
6. 1 cup mochi flour

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 325F. Butter and flour a 9″ springform pan (use potato starch to keep it gluten-free).
2. With a hand mixer or with a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, beat the egg yolks until thick and pale.
3. Gradually beat in the sugar, then the lemon juice, vanilla and salt. Gradually beat in the mochi flour, scraping down the bowl as you go.
4. If using a stand mixer, remove the batter so far to a large mixing bowl. Clean the beater or stand mixer bowl and attachment thoroughly, then whip the egg whites until stiff but not dry.
5. Sacrifice a dollop of the meringue into the batter to loosen it up, then fold the rest of the meringue into the batter until there are no large streaks of unincorporated mixer, but don’t overwork and deflate the batter.
6. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for 20 minutes, then turn the oven up to 350F and bake for at least another 15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of the cake comes out dry (a couple clinging crumbs are ok).
7. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 5-10 minutes, then release the springform and turn the cake out upside down onto a rack to finish cooling. Once cool, trim, slice and fill however you like.

Prep time: 15 minutes

Cooking time: 35 minutes

Total time: 50 minutes

Diet (other): Gluten free

Number of servings (yield): 12

Meal type: dessert

Lucky for me, I had ingredients for muffins after filling a St. Patrick’s Day request for Chocolate Chip Whiskey Muffins. Add to that a need to develop a super tasty blueberry muffin recipe for brunch. Then add to THAT some sour cream (leftover from tasty tasty tacos) and you’ve got the ingredients for a one woman muffin smackdown.

Hello, breakfast.

The base recipe I use for the whiskey muffins is an easy yogurt batter, but a lot of great blueberry muffin recipes (including the one we made in pastry school) call for sour cream instead. Having both on hand, plus a trusty base recipe that was easy to divide in half meant that I was in business and ready to reveal the results in less than an hour.

Yumberries!

One thing I knew my Ultimate Blueberry Muffins needed was lemon zest, so I added that, along with a little vanilla and a sugary sprinkle. I do really love my blueberries with cinnamon, but feel that it goes a little better with the wild ones than with the gigantic cultivated berries I’d be more likely to have on hand. Cultivated blueberries can be really one-dimensional in flavor and the lemon brightens them up considerably.

Giant explosions of BLUE!

You probably want to know who won. DID either of them win? The batters should have been completely identical, except for the yogurt vs. sour cream. Well, they weren’t identical. The yogurt batter was fluffier and stiffer, the sour cream batter a little runny. I figured the yogurt muffins would come out on top. So I stuck them in the oven. And waited. And rotated the pans. And waited. And pulled the pans from the oven. And waited. And stuck the muffins in the fridge to hurry their cooling. And waited. And made tea for a muffin-and-tea party when Zack got home. And waited…

Love these wrappers. Wonder if I could use them at the restaurant?

I decided to try a yogurt muffin first. It was soft, the lemon was subtle but detectable, the blueberries had exploded into lovely pockets of juicy indigo pectin stickiness. It was good.

I moved on to the sour cream muffin. In the oven, the stiff-looking yogurt batter had melted a bit and looked a little flat in the wrappers. But the sour cream muffins rose evenly and didn’t develop too much overhang in the pan (muffin tops may be lovely but I’d rather have a smaller, tasty-all-over muffin than one with an overblown, crispy top and a dry stump). I admired the crumb and the berries…so far very similar. But then I tasted one.

I am now convinced that sour cream is magical when combined with blueberries in a muffin batter.

There’s a certain flavor and texture that just strikes me as ideal for a blueberry muffin. These muffins have it. They’re not too cakey, not too sweet, very light but still substantial. They’d hold up fine to being buttered. They’re like a bright little ray of sunshine in your kitchen. Best of all, they’re easy to make. Almost as easy as Whiskey Muffins.

The ideal muffin.

Blueberry Ultimuffins

1. 1 3/4 cups AP flour
2. 3/4 cup sugar
3. 2 tsp baking powder
4. 1 tsp baking soda
5. 1/2 tsp salt
6. 1/4 cup oil (canola or light olive oil work well)
7. 2/3 cup sour cream
8. 2/3 cup milk
9. Zest of 1 lemon
10. 8 oz. blueberries
11. Raw sugar, for sprinkling (optional)

Preheat the oven to 400F. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a medium mixing bowl, whisking thoroughly. Combine the oil, sour cream, milk and lemon zest in a large measuring cup or small mixing bowl and whisk or stir with a fork until well mixed. Dump the wet mixture and blueberries into the dry mixture and gently stir with a wooden spoon or spatula until there are no more large streaks of flour, but don’t overmix. Spoon the batter into a paper-lined or floured-and-greased muffin tin. Sprinkle fairly generously with the raw sugar, if using. Bake 15 minutes, then rotate the pan and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow the muffins to cool for at least 5 minutes in the pan before removing to wire racks to finish cooling. Serve within a day or 2. Makes 12.

You may notice that in my Whiskey Muffin recipe, I used melted butter originally. I’ve switched to oil for muffins because I think it produces a much lighter final product. I really like what it did to my most recent batch of Whiskey Muffins. I also increased the amount of blueberries called for – I used 6 oz. but I think the muffins need 8 oz.

Next time I make these (hopefully in my new station but I’d be ok with making them at home again) I may try slightly decreasing the amount of liquid, which is a change I made with the Whiskey Muffins (though that was to make them less like eating straight whiskey). I feel like the batter could be a little stiffer and it might produce even higher, rounder muffins if the batter wasn’t so wet.