Recipes for the holidays: Barefoot Contessa’s gingerbread

The Contessa has never let me down. Her recipes are some of the most flavorful concoctions of all the Food Network stars. And usually pretty simple to make, to boot. Her food inspires such devotion that I once went through the entire foodnetwork.com database, printing out almost every recipe she’s got on there.

I modified this gingerbread recipe, since I don’t like candied ginger, and Mr. X-sXe doesn’t like raisins. In retrospect, leaving out those two ingredients made the gingerbread less spicy and sweet than you might want it (despite the cup of molasses, it was hard to detect any sweetness). So next time I make this, I’m going to add quite a bit more ground ginger, and probably at least 1/3 cup sugar. Also, instead of the orange glaze, I made the rum whipped cream to go with it (recipe also below).

Don’t worry about the fact that there are no eggs in the recipe. It rose just fine, with a light and fluffy, moist texture. Make sure to smooth out the batter in the pan before baking. Unlike cake batter, this one’s so thick that it doesn’t redistribute evenly in the oven.

Barefoot Contessa’s Old-Fashioned Gingerbread

• 1/4 cup dark rum or water
• 1/2 cup golden raisins
• 1/4 pound (1 stick) unsalted butter
• 1 cup unsulphured molasses
• 1 cup (8 ounces) sour cream
• 1 1/2 teaspoons grated orange zest
• 2 1/3 cups all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/3 cup minced dried crystallized ginger (not in syrup)

For glaze (optional)

• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon freshly squeezed orange juice

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease an 8 by 8-inch cake pan and line with parchment paper. Grease and flour the pan.

Place the rum and raisins in a small pan, cover and heat until the rum boils. Turn off the heat and set aside. Place the butter and molasses in another small pan and bring to a boil over medium heat. Pour the mixture into the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment. Cool for 5 minutes, then mix in the sour cream and orange zest.

Meanwhile, sift the flour, baking soda, ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and salt together in a small bowl. Mix with your hands until combined. With the mixer on low speed, slowly add the flour mixture to the molasses mixture and mix only until smooth. Drain the raisins and add them and crystallized ginger to the mixture with a spatula. Pour into the prepared pan and bake for about 35 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. Set aside to cool completely.

When the cake has cooled, whisk together the confectioners’ sugar and orange juice and pour it onto the gingerbread, allowing it to drip down the sides. Allow the glaze to set. Cut the gingerbread into 9 squares.

Rum Whipped Cream

• 1 cup (1/2 pint) cold heavy cream
• 3 tablespoons sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 1 tablespoon dark rum

Whip the cream in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. When it starts to thicken, add the sugar, vanilla and rum. Continue to whip until it forms stiff peaks. Serve cold.

Gingerbread recipe here: http://bit.ly/74lMCe

Best cake tattoo ever. Make that the best tattoo ever.

Steve H. and I were enjoying swine sandwiches at Porchetta in NYC when we noticed the woman behind the counter had this on her knuckles. I believe she’s training to be a pastry chef (correct me if I’m wrong and you’re reading this, woman-with-the-raddest-tattoo-ever).

Clearly this a kindred spirit who understands the passion that cake inspires in people. She likes pies, too, but obviously not enough for the “bake pies” knuckles tattoo. On second thought, we didn’t see her toes.

Home-grown DC whoopie pies from B. Hall, Baker

I know I’ve been harping on about how macaroons are the next cupcakes. But given the fact that whoopie pies are in every grocery store and bakery lately, I’ve had to reconsider. (Also, if you think about it, whoopie pies are close cousins to cupcakes. Just lop off the bottom half of a cupcake and reattach it to the top, like a cupcake sandwich. You end up with a whoopie pie-like creature.) 

The thing that bums me out about most whoopies pies is that they taste like a variation on a Devil Dog. So it’s exciting to see that B. Hall, Baker (featured in DailyCandy DC today, http://bit.ly/2jGZLs) is bringing us ones made with gourmet ingredients. With flavors ranging from Raspberry Red Velvet to Dulce de Leche, this ain’t no Hostess creation.

These babies are available by mail order and for local pick-up on select dates.

And for you bakers out there, this white-chocolate whoopie pie recipe from The Washington Post is pretty good. http://bit.ly/8Jhv1

NYC sugar rush: Rice to Riches and Butter Lane Bakery

It’s hard not to marvel at the number of food places in NYC that specialize in one thing only, and somehow manage to cover their bills–even turn a profit. The Macaron Cafe (http://bit.ly/HFNJJ), a store dedicated to selling French macaroons in rainbow colors, is a prime example. Yeah, they do sandwiches too, but I’ve never actually seen a customer order one.

On a recent business trip there, I only had a couple of hours before I had to catch my train back. But I couldn’t go home empty-handed. My sweet tooth (and greed) wouldn’t allow it.

Thanks to Sex and the City and the national obsession with cupcakes, you can pretty much find a cupcake place every few blocks in NYC. So one of the things I picked up was a dozen organic cupcakes from Butter Lane. They have a limited number of cupcake bases that you can pair with their frostings. I believe the ones in the photo are caramel on vanilla cake and strawberry on vanilla cake. We thought they did a better job with the frosting (perfectly sweet, creamy and flavorful) than their cakes (the vanilla was dry, but the other cake options were more moist).

Rice to Riches, which JDang introduced to me a while back, specializes in a smorgasbord of rice pudding flavors (20+ kinds a day). I picked up the Coconut Coma and Hazelnut Chocolate Bear Hug. Check out the funky UFO-like packaging.

The coconut was disappointing, a bit bland with a faint sour taste to it. But I could probably bathe in the chocolate-hazelnut. Rich (more dark chocolate than milk chocolate, flavor-wise), creamy and nutty. It’ll be hard to go back to Nutella after you’ve tried it.

Butter Lane, 123 East 7th Street, (212) 677-2880

Rice to Riches, 37 Spring Street, (212) 274-0008

Neiman Marcus Christmas Book: The Cupcake Car

Just when you thought there was a recession going on and that conspicuous consumption was out, Neiman Marcus brings you its annual Christmas Book, with their limited-edition Jaguars selling out in record time.

One of this year's offerings from the Neiman Marcus Christmas Book.

And offers this: a cupcake car. At $25,000 a pop.

Who is buying these? Can I be you?

Another DC cupcake war contender: Red Velvet cupcakery

I tried Red Velvet (the lime and red velvet flavors) when they first opened and remember being indifferent. They seem to have stepped up their game a bit since then. Pretty impressive presentation, right?

We liked the chocolate ganache better than the red velvet, but both were good. If chocolate ganache is your thing, I still recommend the Gianduja cupcake from Hello Cupcake over this though. Sorry, Red Velvet. That Italian hazelnut paste in the Gianduja edged you out.

However, Red Velvet recently did have a limited-time flavor that we thought was pretty amazing: honey fig. We bought the very last one of the day. I had to mentally will the woman in front of me not to buy it. The honey buttercream, paired with the cooked fig center and flavorful cake was heaven. Although not exactly ecofriendly, I appreciate how the individual box kept the cupcake intact on the journey home. (Some places give you individual cupcakes in a bag, so half the frosting winds up stuck to the bag).

I’m also really happy that they partner with Tangysweet. The Tangysweet in Penn Quarter is right next door to Red Velvet. Plus, the Dupont Circle Tangysweet location actually carries 4-5 flavors of Red Velvet’s cupcakes on any given day, so you can get your froyo and your cupcake on–at the same time!

cake wrecks now a book. celebrate with cake!

The New York Times had an article today on this. Cake Wrecks has been the hub for cakes with terrible spelling/grammatical errors (“I LAVE YOU”), cakes that look like they survived Katrina and cakes that are just odd. Example below.

Photo: cakewrecks.com/Andrews McMeel Publishing

Read this article here: http://bit.ly/k02QN

Buy the book here: http://bit.ly/Ed4d

Related post: http://pievcake.wordpress.com/2009/09/10/please-proofread-your-cakes/

Whole Foods pineapple upside-down cake

Yet again I victimize my wallet by going shopping hungry. Well, I must’ve been ravenously hungry, because pineapple cake isn’t something I usually go for. I believe this was $3.99 for a mini cake. It’s not bad, but not crave-worthy. After 4 days, half of it is sitting in my fridge.

DIY healthy vegan muffins

DailyCandy featured this line today, Purely Elizabeth, whose muffin and pancake mixes are free of dairy, wheat, gluten and sugar. It’s a line started by a holistic nutrition counselor, available online and in health foods stores.

Incidentally, I was reading this morning about the new Alicia Silverstone lifestyle book that, like Skinny Bitch, encourages a vegan diet. Silverstone insists that you don’t have to give up on flavor by going vegan. Hopefully this muffin mix proves that to be true. Sometimes it seems the bar is so low for vegan treats that my vegan friends end up gushing about any halfway-decent goodie, simply grateful for its existence. So I feel for them.

Meamwhile, don’t mind me while I keep on scarfing down my unhealthy buttery, sugary, egg-based baked goods.

http://bit.ly/21L8ND

Yocake (Montgomery Mall) is open

Frozen yogurt and cupcakes. In a mall, no less. Not a bad combination to bring to the masses. Also, it seems like a pretty sound business model. Since frozen yogurt sales suffer during the colder months, the cupcakes can pick up the slack, like at Red Velvet-TangySweet. (TangySweet rolled out a gourmet hot chocolate last winter before it began offering cupcakes). Meanwhile, Sweet Green’s Sweetflow Mobile is going to keep rolling this winter, but still figuring out how it’s going to diversify its products for the cold-weather months.

Anyway, we’ve been eagerly awaiting the opening of Yocake (see related post) and went this past weekend to try it out.

http://pievcake.wordpress.com/2009/09/07/yogurt-cake-yocake/

The storefront looked like a cross between a cupcakery, with its platters of cupcakes, and Iceberry, with its TV screens.

Yogurt: It reminded us of the frozen yogurt at Sweet Green (true to the flavor of vanilla yogurt that you’d pick up in the dairy case) minus the sour tang. We liked it but missed the tartness.

Hazelnut-praline-ganache cupcake: The ganache was everything you want a ganache to be. Rich, creamy and slightly bitter. The cake had a cinnamon-type swirl with pecan pieces throughout. I liked it; Mr X-sXe found it a little dry. We both wished there was more icing, but it’s probably hard to layer it with a ganache of that consistency.

Would we go back? We probably wouldn’t drive out of our way, but if we were at the mall and needed a snack, definitely.