Campaign for a Sweeter America

Politics and baking...these are a few of my favorite things!
Pillsbury is currently promoting their new line of reduced sugar mixes and frostings (possibly the only time boxed atrocities shall be mentioned here). I check gothamist.com everyday and saw that the Pillsbury Doughboy would be passing out cake 4 blocks from my office. Of course I had to go!!! I dragged a co-worker with me and we took pictures and got pens and buttons! Because they are using a campaign theme, Doughboy had "Secret Service" protection as well...very cute.
Also, there is a picture of the croissants I made last weekend-learning to make puff pastry was one of my goals during this week free from school (the other you'll see in my next post). I ran low on chocolate, so I made some with strawberry jam and some with brown sugar & cinnamon filling. They did get a bit overdone, so they're darker than what I would have liked, but they still tasted really good!

Fluffernutter Cupcakes

Like most sane people, I love love love peanut butter. With jelly or honey on bread, in cookies, Reese's cups, any which way. I used to know kids who ate PB and fluff sandwiches-fluffernutters! We never had fluff at our house (why, Mom???) That doesn't sound so great to me for lunch, but I figured the PB and marshmallow combo would make a great dessert. So, I give you: peanut butter cupcakes with marshmallow frosting. This cake was really great-it's a butter cake, but very dense like pound cake. The frosting was a bit annoying to make because you start by heating egg whites along with corn syrup, sugar and some other things. The egg whites kept cooking and I had to strain them out. I eat egg whites every day for breakfast but didn't really want them in my frosting. :)

From Food Porn +

From Food Porn

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Recipe from Sarah Phillips

Off to the Races!

I put before you a very profound question: which is more important to a good Kentucky Derby party-huge, fantastic hats or delicious Southern sweets? I'm tempted to say hats, because of these two lovely gentlemen whose acquaintance I had the pleasure of making last Saturday:



For obvious reasons though, I must say that sugary goodness is of at least equal value. I made lavender meringue puffs with white chocolate chips, pecan tarts and fried apple dumplings (basically just took an apple pie recipe, made smaller portions, then deep-fried them). I don't have pictures of those because they just look like boring lumps of dough-looks are so deceiving! Below you can see the tarts and meringues (they look like clouds!). You can also see me in my hat! I do have eyes, I swear...they're just hidden under that blue monstrosity!
Oh, and for the first time ever, I placed money on a horse at the OTB-Eight Belles. Note to self: you are bad luck to horses! RIP.

60th Birthday Cake

I made this cake for a co-worker's 60th birthday. Chocolate cake, raspberry filling, chocolate-raspberry buttercream frosting...not a lot to say besides that! I think I'm going to alter the recipe sometime to make chocolate cake with hazelnut filling and lemon cake with blackberry filling.

Black + White=YUM!

I love this classic New York treat, which can be found in almost any deli or bodega in the city. The lemony cookie, topped with vanilla and chocolate frosting is a delicious treat! However, even though I use real butter and sugar in all of my baking, I do worry about trans fat and preservatives in foods that I buy. So I really wanted to try to make fresh black&white cookies. Because I love lemon, I flavored the frosting with lemon instead of vanilla. It was yummy!

Strawberry Cake!

Few things make me happier than the first beautiful spring day in New York. I know I'm not alone-you can just feel that everyone around is feeling good and being a little nicer. I went for a long run to Astoria Park and it was nice to see many other runners, bikers, kids on the playground, ice cream trucks and the usual crowd of guys who bring their lawn chair with them just to sit and watch girls run by.
I had dinner plans with some friends and figured I would have them over for dessert afterwards. The gorgeous weather called for a change of pace from the chocolate and cream-heavy desserts that I feel like I made all winter. I recently found a recipe for strawberry cupcakes and decided I would convert it into a 2-layer cake.
The cake itself was delicious-very moist and full of strawberries (I used nearly 2 1/2 cups in the recipe). However, next time I make this I'll use a different frosting recipe. I hardly ever follow recipes to the letter, preferring to change things a bit and make the recipe "mine." This time I did follow the recipe and was unhappy with the frosting. It was very runny and just kind of slid down the sides of the cake into a puddle (you can see this in the pictures). When the cake was sliced, the top layer wouldn't stay-it kept sliding off the bottom layer onto the plate. No big deal, though-it still tasted great and next time I'll improve the frosting!

Big thank you to Judith!

Local food critic extraordinaire Judith is the creator of one of my favorite blogs, The Foodista. Check it out-she gives detailed reviews of many great restaurants in Astoria (and beyond). She recently contacted me about a review she was writing for another blog. It was all about red velvet cupcakes and Judith wanted to profile three Astoria bakeries and an at-home baker (that would be me!). You can read her comments at Joey in Astoria (contributed on 4/4/08).