I just tested my candied bacon recipe and it was a success! Will take pictures next time, as the 6 slices of bacon went straight from the pan into my mouth in about 20 seconds flat.
My recipe is inspired by the candied bacon I used to eat at Shopsin's (which I would get with their mac'n'cheese pancakes). I used a little dijon mustard in my recipe for some depth. But be careful with this one-- it's a little too easy to eat!
Candied Bacon
Ingredients
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 Tbs brown sugar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
6-8 slices regular cut bacon
Preparation
Combine maple syrup, sugar and dijon mustard in a large bowl. Cover bacon with mixture (I used my hands to roll the bacon around in the bowl).
Assemble the bacon in a single layer on baking pan lined with parchment paper.
Bake on top rack at 375", flipping once, to desired crispness. I typically drain the fat halfway through.
NOTE: The recipe might also work with granulated sugar, if that's all you have. But I do think the hint of molasses is a great addition.
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
My Favorite Things: NYC Edition
I was looking through my scribble book and found this list I forgot I was making: my favorite places in NYC, Brooklyn and Queens.
Here's some super yummy stuff that tops my list...
Coffee: Abraco (they're very serious about their espresso; try their saffron cake) and Blue Bottle (a west coast transplant)
Tea: Cha-Am (perfect Japanese tea house; their green tea float with sake ice cream is fab)
Brunch: Clinton St. Baking Co and Five Points
All-you-can-drink Brunch: Kittichai (i like their lychee martini, but my friends favor their bloody maries) and Calle Ocho (six kinds of sangria!)
Pizza: Bleecker St. Pizza, PizzaMoto and Grimaldi's (you can get it to go to avoid the lines)
Deli: Sorriso Italian Pork Store
Diner: Shopsin's and B&H (get their grilled cheese on challah; fyi, they're vegetarian)
Kosher: 2nd Avenue Deli (yum pastrami sandwich and fried chicken livers)
Middle-eastern: ilili (some of the best brussels sprouts and lamb dishes)
Italian: Morandi and Cafe Condessa
Senegalese: Joloff (try their signature dishes)
Korean: Hahn Mi Oak and Bonchon Chicken
Venezuelan: Caracas Arepas Bar
Chinese: food court in the Flushing Mall
Gastropub: The Spotted Pig (famous for their burger, but apps are great, too)
Vegetarian: Red Bamboo (awesome lunch specials)
Raw Food: Quintessence and Rockin' Raw
Fine-Dining (raw food): Pure Food & Wine
Fine-Dining: Gramercy Tavern, Jean Georges and Saul Restaurant
Bar: Little Branch (a throwback to the speakeasy era), Manhattan Inn (great decor, interesting cocktails) and Crocodile Lounge (mainly for the free pizza and skeeball)
Wine bar: Ten Degrees
Happy hour: Sushi Samba and Haru (both b/c I love cocktails and sushi)
Chocolate shop: L.A. Burdick
Supermarket: Garden of Eden and Fairway
If you're looking for something specific...
Chai: Chocolate Bar (they make theirs from chai leaves)
Donut: The Dougnut Plant
Bagel: Ess-A-Bagel (if you're on the westside, for the love of God do not go to Murray's and just go to Brooklyn Bagels instead) and Tasty Bagel
Candied bacon: The General Greene
Falafel: Oasys (open late, if you're bar-hopping in Williamsburg) and Mamoun's (it's $2.50 and on St. Marks)
Sandwich: Choice Market (their roasted salmon sammie is incredible) and Bite (i always get their Sabih Sandwich)
Gyro: food stand at the southwest corner of Penn Station
Cheese: Murray's Cheese, Bedford Cheese and Tedone Latticini Dairy Products
Cupcakes: Butterlane (love their french buttercream) and Magnolia (plain with chocolate buttercream)
BBQ wings: Samantha's Southern
Burger: Corner Bistro and BLT Bistro
Roti: Ali's Trinidad (the oxtail one is my fave)
Mussels: Chez Oskar
French fries: Five Leaves (truffle fries)
Steak: BLT Prime
Brownies: Fat Witch (peanut butter)
Shake: Stand4 (the toasted marshmallow shake is my fave)
Frozen custard: Shake Shack
Cookies: Milk & Cookies and Jacques Torres
Croissant: City Bakery (pretzel croissant)
Cheesecake: Artisanal (the crust tastes like almond roca!)
Lobster roll: Pearl Oyster Bar and Luke's Lobster
Chocolate Milk: Ronnybrook Dairy
Bread pudding: DessertTruck (only when the weather permits)
Cake: Momofuku Dessert Bar (banana cake truffles) and Baked (chocolate cake with salted caramel buttercream)
Ice cream: Go! (for fried green tea ice cream), Sundaes & Cones (they have cool flavors like corn and wasabi) and Blue Marble (organic, hormone-free and delish)
Making this list got me feeling nostalgic. So excited to be going back in a couple months. Will be packing pants with elastic waist bands 'cause I will be eating the heck out of NYC when I'm back.
Here's some super yummy stuff that tops my list...
Coffee: Abraco (they're very serious about their espresso; try their saffron cake) and Blue Bottle (a west coast transplant)
Tea: Cha-Am (perfect Japanese tea house; their green tea float with sake ice cream is fab)
Brunch: Clinton St. Baking Co and Five Points
All-you-can-drink Brunch: Kittichai (i like their lychee martini, but my friends favor their bloody maries) and Calle Ocho (six kinds of sangria!)
Pizza: Bleecker St. Pizza, PizzaMoto and Grimaldi's (you can get it to go to avoid the lines)
Deli: Sorriso Italian Pork Store
Diner: Shopsin's and B&H (get their grilled cheese on challah; fyi, they're vegetarian)
Kosher: 2nd Avenue Deli (yum pastrami sandwich and fried chicken livers)
Middle-eastern: ilili (some of the best brussels sprouts and lamb dishes)
Italian: Morandi and Cafe Condessa
Senegalese: Joloff (try their signature dishes)
Korean: Hahn Mi Oak and Bonchon Chicken
Venezuelan: Caracas Arepas Bar
Chinese: food court in the Flushing Mall
Gastropub: The Spotted Pig (famous for their burger, but apps are great, too)
Vegetarian: Red Bamboo (awesome lunch specials)
Raw Food: Quintessence and Rockin' Raw
Fine-Dining (raw food): Pure Food & Wine
Fine-Dining: Gramercy Tavern, Jean Georges and Saul Restaurant
Bar: Little Branch (a throwback to the speakeasy era), Manhattan Inn (great decor, interesting cocktails) and Crocodile Lounge (mainly for the free pizza and skeeball)
Wine bar: Ten Degrees
Happy hour: Sushi Samba and Haru (both b/c I love cocktails and sushi)
Chocolate shop: L.A. Burdick
Supermarket: Garden of Eden and Fairway
If you're looking for something specific...
Chai: Chocolate Bar (they make theirs from chai leaves)
Donut: The Dougnut Plant
Bagel: Ess-A-Bagel (if you're on the westside, for the love of God do not go to Murray's and just go to Brooklyn Bagels instead) and Tasty Bagel
Candied bacon: The General Greene
Falafel: Oasys (open late, if you're bar-hopping in Williamsburg) and Mamoun's (it's $2.50 and on St. Marks)
Sandwich: Choice Market (their roasted salmon sammie is incredible) and Bite (i always get their Sabih Sandwich)
Gyro: food stand at the southwest corner of Penn Station
Cheese: Murray's Cheese, Bedford Cheese and Tedone Latticini Dairy Products
Cupcakes: Butterlane (love their french buttercream) and Magnolia (plain with chocolate buttercream)
BBQ wings: Samantha's Southern
Burger: Corner Bistro and BLT Bistro
Roti: Ali's Trinidad (the oxtail one is my fave)
Mussels: Chez Oskar
French fries: Five Leaves (truffle fries)
Steak: BLT Prime
Brownies: Fat Witch (peanut butter)
Shake: Stand4 (the toasted marshmallow shake is my fave)
Frozen custard: Shake Shack
Cookies: Milk & Cookies and Jacques Torres
Croissant: City Bakery (pretzel croissant)
Cheesecake: Artisanal (the crust tastes like almond roca!)
Lobster roll: Pearl Oyster Bar and Luke's Lobster
Chocolate Milk: Ronnybrook Dairy
Bread pudding: DessertTruck (only when the weather permits)
Cake: Momofuku Dessert Bar (banana cake truffles) and Baked (chocolate cake with salted caramel buttercream)
Ice cream: Go! (for fried green tea ice cream), Sundaes & Cones (they have cool flavors like corn and wasabi) and Blue Marble (organic, hormone-free and delish)
Making this list got me feeling nostalgic. So excited to be going back in a couple months. Will be packing pants with elastic waist bands 'cause I will be eating the heck out of NYC when I'm back.
Saturday, September 18, 2010
Mocha Rum Cake In The Sky
Today was my first entree into baking a cake at high altitude. 4,350 feet, to be exact. I don't think I've ever lived this far up. I feel like I'm living in a desert in the sky.
The first week we got here, I tried baking cookies to disastrous effects. I had no idea why my tried-and-true chocolate chip cookie recipe was so flat and hard and dry. It was the fine print on my bag of Nestle Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate morsels that clued me in:
"FOR HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING: Increase flour to 2.5 cups. Add 2 tsp. water..."
I thought, wait a second... there are mountains everywhere here, and it's awfully dry and the air is kind of thin... holy mother, I'm living at high-altitude and by some law of physics it's affecting my baking! So I tried it Nestle's way. And my cookies still turned out crappy. I had my heart set on baking cookies for the leasing office and maintenance staff at our apartment complex (to thank them for helping us get settled in) and I wasn't about to give them rock-hard cookies.
Three batches of cookies later, I finally got it right. Thanks to this high-altitude chocolate chip cookie recipe I found online. The gals at the leasing office were very pleased.
Still, after all the difficulty I had baking cookies, I wasn't sure if I had the energy to wrestle around with a cake recipe for two days like I did with the cookies. Knowing me, of course, I decided that today would be a good time to bake a Mocha Rum Bundt Cake-- while sleep-deprived and fighting off a cold. Thanks, masochistic inner voice!
I chose rum cake because a Swedish friend of mine from elementary school baked it almost 20 years ago for me and to this day, I still remember it. We lost touch and I never got the recipe, but if my version tastes anything like the one she made, it's going to be rum cakes for the holidays forever.
The original recipe is from a 1994 issue of Gourmet magazine. I altered it according to comments from others and then adapted it based on these high-altitude baking guidelines. That means I increased the rum and oven temperature and decreased the baking soda, coffee and sugar.
How did it turn out? Amazing. Super, super moist. Definitely making it for the holidays. Baked it with 1-1/4 cup dark rum, but that might be too much for most, so took it down to 1 cup in the recipe below. Make sure to grease your bundt pan heavily so it doesn't stick! Mine just slipped out. Easy peasy.
High-Altitude Mocha Rum Cake
Ingredients
cocoa powder for dusting
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup dark rum
1-1/3 cups strong brewed coffee
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, beaten lightly
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
confectioners' sugar for dusting
lightly sweetened whipped cream
Preparation
Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter a 4 1/2-inch-deep (12-cup) bundt pan and dust with cocoa powder, knocking out excess.
In a bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. In a large metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Remove chocolate from heat and stir in rum, coffee, and granulated sugar. With an electric mixer beat in flour, 1/2 cup at a time, scraping down side, and beat in eggs and vanilla until batter is combined well. Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake cake in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Let cake cool completely in pan on a rack and turn it out onto rack. Cake may be made 3 days in advance and kept wrapped well and chilled.
Dust cake with confectioners' sugar.
The first week we got here, I tried baking cookies to disastrous effects. I had no idea why my tried-and-true chocolate chip cookie recipe was so flat and hard and dry. It was the fine print on my bag of Nestle Tollhouse semi-sweet chocolate morsels that clued me in:
"FOR HIGH ALTITUDE BAKING: Increase flour to 2.5 cups. Add 2 tsp. water..."
I thought, wait a second... there are mountains everywhere here, and it's awfully dry and the air is kind of thin... holy mother, I'm living at high-altitude and by some law of physics it's affecting my baking! So I tried it Nestle's way. And my cookies still turned out crappy. I had my heart set on baking cookies for the leasing office and maintenance staff at our apartment complex (to thank them for helping us get settled in) and I wasn't about to give them rock-hard cookies.
Three batches of cookies later, I finally got it right. Thanks to this high-altitude chocolate chip cookie recipe I found online. The gals at the leasing office were very pleased.
Still, after all the difficulty I had baking cookies, I wasn't sure if I had the energy to wrestle around with a cake recipe for two days like I did with the cookies. Knowing me, of course, I decided that today would be a good time to bake a Mocha Rum Bundt Cake-- while sleep-deprived and fighting off a cold. Thanks, masochistic inner voice!
I chose rum cake because a Swedish friend of mine from elementary school baked it almost 20 years ago for me and to this day, I still remember it. We lost touch and I never got the recipe, but if my version tastes anything like the one she made, it's going to be rum cakes for the holidays forever.
The original recipe is from a 1994 issue of Gourmet magazine. I altered it according to comments from others and then adapted it based on these high-altitude baking guidelines. That means I increased the rum and oven temperature and decreased the baking soda, coffee and sugar.
How did it turn out? Amazing. Super, super moist. Definitely making it for the holidays. Baked it with 1-1/4 cup dark rum, but that might be too much for most, so took it down to 1 cup in the recipe below. Make sure to grease your bundt pan heavily so it doesn't stick! Mine just slipped out. Easy peasy.
High-Altitude Mocha Rum Cake
Ingredients
cocoa powder for dusting
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoons baking soda
3/4 teaspoon salt
3 cups bittersweet chocolate (not unsweetened), chopped
3 sticks (1 1/2 cups) unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 cup dark rum
1-1/3 cups strong brewed coffee
2 cups granulated sugar
3 large eggs, beaten lightly
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
confectioners' sugar for dusting
lightly sweetened whipped cream
Preparation
Preheat oven to 325°F. Butter a 4 1/2-inch-deep (12-cup) bundt pan and dust with cocoa powder, knocking out excess.
In a bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. In a large metal bowl set over a saucepan of barely simmering water melt chocolate and butter, stirring until smooth. Remove chocolate from heat and stir in rum, coffee, and granulated sugar. With an electric mixer beat in flour, 1/2 cup at a time, scraping down side, and beat in eggs and vanilla until batter is combined well. Pour batter into prepared pan.
Bake cake in middle of oven until a tester comes out clean, about 1 hour and 20 minutes. Let cake cool completely in pan on a rack and turn it out onto rack. Cake may be made 3 days in advance and kept wrapped well and chilled.
Dust cake with confectioners' sugar.
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