Lemon Lingonberry Cupcakes

photo courtesy Lisa Webber

So the semester has begun and with it, the precious dwindling of my free time. I will try desperately to bring you quality recipes, but the postings maybe far and between for the next few months. As I learn to balance work, school and life, bare with me! This might be a phase of using pre-made foods and sprucing them up to become more healthy and quality meals.

For now, here is a wonderful Lemony Cupcake recipe I created for the return of our prodigal Swede, Malin. We feted her in fine fashion a few weeks ago with a spread of modern takes on traditional Swedish food. An excellent herring and egg salad a top fresh toast points, Nordic cheeses, fine wines and the required, Swedish meatballs from Ikea rounded out the food table.

Lemon Lingonberry Cupcakes

2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 cups sugar
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
3 eggs, separated, room temperature
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
juice and half the zest of one fresh lemon

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
Sift dry ingredients, except sugar, together.
Cream the sugar, butter, vanilla, lemon juice and zest together. Add in the egg yolks, beating thoroughly in between each.
Add the flour and buttermilk in three additions, alternating dry and wet, mixing completely between each.
In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff.
Fold the egg whites into the batter.
Put in baking cups and bake for 20-25 minutes, until they pass the Toothpick Test!

Frosting
2 packages cream cheese, softened
zest of 1 lemon
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
3-5 cups confectioner sugar

Beat the cream cheese, vanilla and lemon zest together. Sift in the sugar until desired sweetness and consistency is reached. Feel free to add more lemon for zing!
Chill until spreadable.
Frost each completely cooled cupcake and top with a dollop of tart lingonberry preserves. You can sub this with any other tart fruit spread, but it won't be Swedish!

Other Output of 312sqf

I have been putting my 312 square feet to good use. I made the dress above as my first sewing project in years. We'll see if I have the time to keep it up, but it was fun re-learning all the skills for sewing. I will keep posting my hand made clothes right next to my cakes!

Mole Cake Redux

The fantastic Lynly celebrated her birthday this past weekend with a home karaoke throw down! Chock full of delicious food like mini chopped beef sandwiches with pickles and bean and cheeses empanadas, and of course, amazing conversation from Lynly's ragtag of friends from all over the city and country.

To celebrate, I decided to take her Texas/South of the boarder flavor and re-work my Mole Cake. Less dense than the first and with a Dark Chocolate Ganache (sans the chilies this time), the cake was still richly spicy and had the perfect moist crumb. I love the Mole Cake! No one expects the sweet and the spice. It makes a cooling dessert on a hot night, especially when topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream!

Mole Cake 2.0

2 sticks butter, softened
2 cups sugar
1 cup light brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
3 cups cake flour, sifted
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups buttermilk
4 eggs
1 1/2 teaspoon ground pequin pepper
1 whole dried ancho chili
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
2 tablespoons ground pumpkin seeds

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease, flour and line the bottoms of two 9" cake pans with parchment paper.

Finely grind all the chilis and sift in with the cocoa powder and dry seasonings. Whisk together with sifted flour, baking powder, soda and salt.

In another bowl, beat the butter with the sugars until very fluffy. Beat in each egg, one at a time, beating thoroughly for each egg.

Add 1/3 of the flour mixture, combine very well, then add 1/3 of the butter milk, combine well. Continue until all combined into a smooth batter.

Bake 25-30 minutes until it passes the cake test and cool in pans for 10 min. remove from pans and cool completely before frosting.

Meals with the Man

Though I have been lax about posting lately, I have not been lax about cooking or baking!

Octavio guested at 312 square feet to make me his patented "Skate Fish with Chicken Sauce". I created the fresh mango salsa to go with it.

Then I whipped a nice mid summer meal of Fresh Herb Crusted Monkfish with New Garlic Sauteed Broccoli Rabe. I made a kind of compote with jarred artichoke hearts and capers, but it was a tad too over powering. Next time, I will sick just with some capers and lemon, or get fresh artichokes.

Honey for the First Year

We celebrated Miss Jackson's transcendence to her 29th and the 1 year anniversary of 312 square feet, in fitting fashion with a decadent, yet almost savory cake. The request this year was to honor the missing bees and bake with honey. I created a pistachio sponge cake with a deliciously rich, but not overly sweet French buttercream frosting.

The cake came out with a perfect sponge crumb, and next time I will take advantage of that by sprinkling the layers with combination of simple syrup and orange liqueur. You bake, you learn!

Pistachio Cake with Honey Buttercream

2 1/2 cups cake flour, sifted
1 1/3 cups sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
10 eggs, room temperature and separated
1 cup pistachios shelled and finely chopped

Pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees. Flour and line the bottoms of three 9" cake pans with parchment paper.

Whisk the four and baking powder together to combine. In a separate bowl, beat the egg yolks with the sugar until thick. Longer than think about 15 minutes.

In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites together until light and fluffy and stiff peaks form. Again, this will take longer than you think! Get a magazine in one hand and your mixer in the other. (Please! Some one get me a Kitchen Aid!)

Fold this into the egg yolks, fold in the flour and then fold in the pistachios.

Bake until the cake test comes out clean, about 25-30 minutes.

for the icing
6 egg yolks at room temperature
1/3 cup honey plus 1/2 cup honey to add to taste
2 cups butter, softened

You see "room temperature" in all of my cake recipes. I can not stress enough how important it is to bring you butters and eggs to room temperature. They bake better cakes, especially butters. Since they will combine better with your sugars.

This recipe is not for an American buttercream, which is basically butter and powdered sugar, which I love, but can have over power sweetness. I wanted to have an icing that really emphasized the savory cake and the deep floral nature of the local farmer's honey.

Beat the egg yolks until pale yellow, again longer than you think! they should be very, very light.

Heat the honey over medium heat until just bubbling. Slowly pour in stream into the eggs. Be careful to avoid the beaters. Beat until very well combined.

Beat in the butter, pat by pat until you get the consistency you like. It will be much more shiny and soft than other frostings. Add more honey until you get the flavor you desire.

Tapas for Dinner

It's been over 95 degrees for the last fours days in New York City. It's too hot to cook. All you want to do is take cool showers and blast the air conditioning. I also had a lovely visit from my mother here at 312 square feet, but it was way too hot to cook while she was here. Instead, we enjoyed many of my favorite places to eat in the city. Mermaid Inn, New Pastuer and Robin du Bois, were all visited by 312 square feet and Mom. I wanted to take her out to perennial favorite, La Sirene, but we ran out of time!

Octavio came over for a restful Monday night in. Since it was prohibitively hot still, I made a no cooking meal of tapas. Cobbled together from condiments and jars in the cabinet, the meal turned out to be really delicious and would make great cocktail snacks at the next party.

On the menu:
Italian Hot Pickles
Fresh Tomato Salad with Balsamic Vinegar and Fresh Thyme
Toast Points with Goat Cheese and Roasted Red Peppers
Pan Seared Scallops with Lime and Garlic

Toast Points with Goat Cheese and Roasted Red Peppers

Fresh Baguette sliced long and toasted
Chevre or other soft goat cheese
Sriracha or other hot sauce
Clove of Garlic
Salt and Pepper
Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Rub the bread with half of the garlic clove and toast. Spread with goat cheese, drizzle with hot sauce and olive oil. Place the roasted red peppers over it and season with salt and pepper. Serve immediately. Great with Kir!

Smoothest Birthday Ever

Lisa's birthday was a day long meander through Brooklyn's best! Masterminded by the other habitant of the 381, Miss Kelly. We all surprised her at the Botanical Garden and spent a leisurely morning walking barefoot on the grass, smelling the flowers, embarrassing the other patrons and fully enjoying the beautiful spring day.

Then we moved on the Macy's, where we scandalized the genial photographers at the portrait studio. Our dysfunctional family portraits came out, well, nice? We get them tomorrow, so expect to be scandalized as well!

We rounded out a full day with a late lunch at Brooklyn Heights outpost Frannies. Washing down excellent appetizers of Bruscetta with Ramps and Marscapone and an excellent salad of pea shoots and ricotta salada with 2 bottles of a refreshing Lambrusco ($42 and worth the splurge!). The sparkling, dry red had a lush deep garnet color and a lovely lavender froth from the fine bubbles. Served chilled, this is going to be the summer jam! Frannies has flavorful thin crusted pizzas in a variety of tempting flavors. We sampled the Provalone with Red Onions and the Margherita. Both were delicious and a value at $14-$16 a piece. If you are out in that part of Brooklyn, I highly recommend paying a visit to the friendly staff at Frannies.

And the denouement to the day was, or course, the grand fete at 381 complete with Red Velvet Cake. I ended up using the recipe from the Buttercup Bakeshop but I did experiment with frosting. I made several chocolate versions before landing on a classic chocolate butter cream with the twist of almond.

Chocolate Almond Buttercream Frosting

1lb confectioner's sugar
2/3 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 stick butter, softened
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 teaspoon almond extract
5-6 tablespoons milk

Sift powdered sugar, mix in cocoa and salt and sift again.

In a large bowl, beat the butter until light and fluffy, about 3-5 minutes. Add in about 1/3 of the sugar/cocoa mixture and beat until well combined. Add 1-2 tablespoons of milk near the end to wet. Repeat two more times with the rest of the sugar. At the end add milk in little spoonfuls to get the desired consistency.

Frost your cake!