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April 29, 2008

Dear Cakehead: Pre Nuptial Cake Dispute

my blue heaven

Dear Cakehead,

My fiance and I are having trouble coming to a compromise. We can't agree on the color of the cake we'd like. Our wedding colors are Cornflower Blue and Champagne, and I'd like our cake to be Ivory, with Blue flowers. He'd like the cake to be Blue with Ivory flowers. Which cake would be best suited? Oh, my dress is Cornflower blue, so tradition went out the window a long time ago. Also, I'm not sure what flowers
would best work on the cake!!
Thanks,
Jen

Dear Jen,

This problem you pose is our most difficult quandary to date. The last thing we want is a bride and groom bickering over cake. Cakes were put on this earth strictly for tastebud pleasure, not to cause any kind of tension.

We want to turn the answer to your question into a metaphor for your marriage. I hope I'm not being presumptuous in assuming you fell in love with your man based on his insides and not the color of his hair, skin, or flower tattoo he made the mistake of inking into his skin.

With this in mind, why not make the inside of the cake the place where the celebration happens? Skip the blue exterior and save the food coloring for the cake's innards. Make the color burst in that private area tucked away under the frosting. (See the photo above for a sloppy example.)

Don't forget, while cake aesthetics deserve a conversation or two, be sure to quit the yapping long enough to put your teeth and tastebuds to work. You want your cake to taste good. The guests won't care about the color scheme if the "cake" tastes like cardboard and sweetened lard. You're the bride so travel far and wide to try all the free cake samples bakeries are eager to offer.

Let us know what decorating route you decide to take and send us a picture of the final results. No matter which exterior you decide on we hope that your tastebuds and marriage do cake dances for many years to come!

Cakehead

Posted by Cakehead at 09:33 PM | Comments (0)

April 25, 2008

Osman and my quest for a lunch date

photo from Filmsphilos

I'm not allowed to leave the office for lunch. That means if I want a date with my paycheck, I have to relinquish my dates at lunchtime. Lunch dates are "frowned upon," according to the person who signs my paycheck. And it would be "less disruptive" if I either bring my lunch or "order take out delivery service."

In my mind I have declared a secret mini-rebellion against this restriction and lunch time depravity.

Osman is my answer for what I declare to be an ongoing quest for my black market lunch date.
Grilled meat is what Osman does best. I met him when I went to pick up a couple of chicken skewers to take back to the office.

To venture out of the office to pick up food was rebellion enough. But on this beautiful spring day in New York I was not going to sit idly, waiting for a delivery service to bring me my lunch. I didn't have a date schedule, yet. Instead, I set out to pick up some food and make a fast friend who I could (in my rebel mind) call my lunch date.

Osman runs a street vending cart offering knishes, grilled chicken skewers and chicken shawarma on the western part of 42nd Street. A guy stinking like he bathed in beer was hanging out near Osman's stand asking for money.

"How much for a knish?" I asked, thinking perhaps if nothing else, he could stand in for my illicit lunch date.

"$2."

"I'll take one," I said, handing it to the drinker.

Osman noticed my rare act of generosity and asked, "when is your birthday?" (I suspect to do some sort of astrological calculation to try to come to terms with this strange mid-day act of kindness). Still feeling generous I told him not only my birthday, April 26 -- but also the year -- willing to offer my age if he was willing to do the math. Turns out there was no math necessary. He born on the same day and same year as me -- only in Cairo, Egypt, not rural Maine.

It was as though the lunch date was meant to be. I enjoyed a solid five minutes of conversation before the guilt set in and I told him I needed to return to the office.

He told me that I could back any day to talk and I didn't even need to buy anything. I'll be going back soon and I don't have any intention of bringing the food back to the office.

Posted by Cakehead at 04:45 AM | Comments (1)

April 24, 2008

Dear Cakehead: Help me get the pig into my cake

Dear Cakehead,

What cake would taste best garnished with bacon?

Love,
Mira

Dear Mira,

Pairing salty and sweet edibles is one of our favorite activities. To tackle this particular challenge was a special delight since we can think of little that we like to eat more than bacon and cake.

Salivating, we hit our test kitchen. We were pretty certain that chocolate cake would overpower the bacon, but afraid we might miss out on a surprising combination, we decided to give the flavor a chance. Sadly, we were correct. We want the salty fat rind of the bacon to cut through the sweetness. But instead the chocolate flavor was focus.

We whipped up a batch of old fashion yellow cake. Sprinkled with bacon, the cake didn't overpower, but was too sweet and left us very thirsty.

Carrot cake was too busy with the bacon. So finally, we tried a red velvet cake recipe (if you use this recipe replace the pecans with crumbled bacon). Not only was the combination absolute perfection, but we like how the red of the cake references the red of the bacon meat and the cream cheese frosting punctuates the crunchy fat of the bacon. We whipped up a big batch of itty-bitty cupcakes and called them bacon bitty cakes.

Give it a try and let us know what you think.

In case your tastes differ from ours, hereere are some links to others who discovered the magic of bacon cake:

Tender Lovemaking (okay, so the name of the blog makes us a little queasy, but they do like bacon cake)

Miss Ginsu likes the chocolate cake with bacon crumble combo.

Jews for Bacon's recipe for chocolate stout bacon cake turns a traif cake into something that's not even Kosher for the gentile gang.

Enjoy!
Cakehead

Posted by Cakehead at 01:14 PM | Comments (3)

April 21, 2008

Pony water

Pony-sized beer and water.

Girlfriend-size beer bottles may be one of the cutest inventions out there. But I'm not so sure about the pony-sized Poland Spring water bottles.

I've always been a bulk buying kind of girl. My tiny Brooklyn apartment doesn't stop me from stocking up on enormous cans of tomatoes, 5 pound bags of flour and the giant olive oil tin. That's why, when I saw a woman on the late night subway take out the tiniest bottle of Poland Spring water, take one gulp before it was gone, I wanted to cry out, "you've been bamboozled!" Instead, I'll vent on my blog.

At New York Beverage, where beverages can be bought at a discounted rate, a 24-pack of the baby waters goes for $11.99. Even if the packaged one-sip was purchased as part of a bulk multi-pack, that's still $.50/bottle. In these tough economic times that's a price so steep it's going to make a lot of people broke --or dehydrated.

But in the end, the bottle size decision should be left to your purse. Apparently Poland Spring (Nestle) conducted an interview with the bottle itself which said, "Small bags love me." A bottle that can talk. Hmm. Maybe that's one point for the baby bottle.

Posted by Cakehead at 12:34 PM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2008

Whole Foods Barbecue...no, not the grocery store

our muse: the spitted goat. we will cook our animals whole this barbecue season.

With the Brooklyn weather report calling for temperatures approaching 80 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow, we've declared the official start to barbecue season this Friday night. Every year we pick a barbecue theme and run with it. Last year the focus was on wild game, or as we like to call it, "game gone wild." The year before it was all about cooking meat as slowly and at the lowest temperatures possible -- aka "slow foods" meat. This year we're going for the "whole foods" theme. No, we're not getting corporate sponsorship from the grocery store. What we mean is we're keeping the animal intact (minus the innards and skin/fur) and slow roasting the animal whole.

This will be our first time trying our hands at the "whole" animal approach to barbecuing in our backyard. In Rwanda there was the attempt to roast a whole goat at our house in Kigali. We found a chef skilled at the art of skewering and roasting whole animals. The plan was that he would show up with the raw goat and teach us how to rub and prepare the meat, build a fire pit and skewer the kid up for roasting. But we knew our ability to communicate failed when he arrived with a towering platter of carved up goat meat -- very tender, but the cloven footed beast was not intact for roasting. Needless to say until now we're still virgins with spit cooking. Friday night this will change. And we plan to tackle the art of whole food roasting throughout the summer. Check back for updates on the fiascoes that we're sure will ensue.

Posted by Cakehead at 05:08 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2008

Menu Suggestion: How to convince the Pope to attend your dinner

Pope's 81st Birthday Cake

Since he's already satiated his sweet tooth with a giant birthday cake, entice and make him salivate with a menu featuring tender young kid. That's the mistake made by the chef planning tonight's White House dinner in honor of Pope Benedict XVI. No kid on the menu.

As a result, the Pope did not attend the dinner. But just because the kids escaped with their lives, don't think that all baby farm animals are going to escape passage from lips to loins. Baby cows will be eaten by the five Catholic Supreme Court Justices who are among 250 guests attending the dinner.

In addition to veal, the menu includes: morel-encrusted diver scallops, spatzle, angel hair asparagus bisque, white truffle-potato dumplings, carrots and mushrooms, lettuces and candied pumpkin seeds, squash carpaccio, pumpkin oil vinaigrette, raspberry crisp and mint coulis.

[from Breitbart and Huffington Post]

Posted by Cakehead at 05:28 AM | Comments (0)

April 15, 2008

Something smells fishy...Recipegate hits Republican Campaign

Passion Fruit Mousse: one of seven plagiarized recipes that Cindy McCain claimed as her own

The pressure on potential first ladies and gentleman these days is through the roof. Why else would Cindy McCain resort to stealing a recipe for Ahi Tuna with Napa Cabbage Slaw from the Food Network website and calling it her own?

It seems that Cindy McCain, John McCain's perfect, blonde beer-baroness wife is about to find herself painted as the latest example of plagiarism on the campaign trail. This past Sunday, Lauren Handel, an eagle-eyed attorney from New York, was searching for a specific recipe from Giada DeLaurentis, a chef on the Food Network. Yet whenever she Googled the different ingredients in the recipe, the oddest thing happened: not only did the Food Network's site come up, as expected, but so did John McCain's campaign site.

It also turns out that Mrs. McCain submitted "her" Passion Fruit Mousse recipe to the New York Sun for an article that ran on January 16th. Just like on the McCain campaign site, there is no sourcing other than McCain herself. [from Huffington Post]

How difficult would it have been to have an intern transcribe a few recipes scrawled on an index card by Cindy or John's grandmother?

We hear that's the strategy that Hillary's people are using to keep the interns occupied and away from potential first man, Bill. Cindy may be stealing the recipes for Passion Fruit Mousse and Farfalle with Turkey Sausage, but it's Bill whose trying to finger-feed the mousse and sausage to Hillary's underpaid, hard working staff.

If this isn't a good enough reason to vote for Obama, we're not sure what is. He married a woman who said, "Yeah, you know, cooking isn't one of my huge things." We're guessing that Michelle will make a better first lady since she doesn't waste her time pretending to have favorite dishes to cook for her husband.

To compare and contrast Cindy's recipes with those of the Food Network, continue reading.
The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Or in this case, it's in the mousse recipe.

Evidence of Cindy McCain's recipe-lifting:

Posted by Cakehead at 07:03 PM | Comments (1)

April 10, 2008

Sweden: More than just a Swedish Chef

Between the cute accents, the art shows, the music, and the cheap stylish furniture, the Swedes seem to be one-upping the world both at being adorable and cutting edge. But the real reason we love the Swedes is their appreciation of all things food. Just this week you can check out The Ice Cream Show at LOYAL gallery, head to IKEA for a new couch and indulge in Swedish meatballs or just chill out listening to Jens Lekman sing about "Sipping on the Sweet Nectar" which is not "The Opposite of Hallelujah."

But then there's the actual food of the country and those wonderful chefs who prepare it.

My friends, the non-muppet models of Swedish chefs presented me with a recipe solution to a conundrum I confront every summer. Wild rose bushes line the northern beach where I take my icy summer dips when the air is more humid than I like. As I tromp down to the chilly water I always take a moment to admire the plump rose hips, swollen with vitamin C and begging to be plucked and eaten. The temptation always leads to disappointment since the seeds get in the way of appreciating the condensed flavor. Well, those Swedes make a sweet traditional soupy sauce made with rose hips called Nyponsoppa. Nyponsoppa is delicious if served hot over a big bowl of vanilla ice cream. But be careful. Rumor has it the soup is an aphrodisiac. We're not sure if it's the sauce or those cute Swedes who are responsible for giving the libido a little shove. [thanks, Were Rabbits]

Recipe for Nyponsoppa
Ingredients:
400 g fresh rose hips
1 whole fresh lemon
3/4 l water
c. 1/2 dl sugar
1 tbsp. potato flour
4 dehusked (shucked) almonds
vanilla ice cream

Directions:
1. Cut the flower and stalk off the rose hips, and rinse them under the tap.
2. Boil the rose hips in the water for c. 20 minutes, with the zest of the lemon.
3. Strain the soup to separate the boiled-out rose hips and lemon zest. Throw away everything but the liquid part.
4. Add sugar to taste, and bring the soup to a boil. Thicken it with potato flour, according to preference.
5. Chop the almonds into slices, lengthwise.
6. Squeeze the juice from the lemon.
7. Serve piping hot over ice cream with almonds sprinkled on top.

Posted by Cakehead at 03:28 AM | Comments (2)

Now we can stop searching for a bad piece of pork

[from Carl Huber via Trevors.com. Thanks Mira!]

Posted by Cakehead at 03:18 AM | Comments (2)

April 08, 2008

For the bachelorette who has everything: A restaurant with balls and more...

"I think I'll try the yak penis tonight, honey"

Having trouble deciding where to take the gals for yet another bachelorette party? Afraid that it's going to be yet another night of men in drag dancing on a table while you try to avoid bankruptcy slurping down the overly priced drinks that you're required to order at least two of? Here's an idea of how to have a ball and eat it too.

Book a flight to Beijing with your matrimony-bound friend and head to Guo-li-zhuang restaurant, China's very first specialty penis restaurant in " an elegantly restored house beside Beijing's West Lake." Here you will be presented with more edible inter-species penises than your friend will know what to do with. We suggest ordering a cock-eh-hem-tail to sip while you peruse the menu.

For beginners, Miss Zhu recommended the hotpot, which offers a sampling of what the restaurant has to offer - six types of penis, and four of testicle, boiled in chicken stock by the waitress, Liu Yunyang, 22.

The Russian dog was first. It was julienned, and rather gamey. The ox was, of all six, the most recognisable for what it was, even though it had been diced. In texture seemed identical to gristle.

The deer and the Mongolian goat were surprisingly similar: a little stringy, they had the appearance and feel of overcooked squid tentacles. The Xinjiang horse and the donkey, on the other hand, were quite different. Though both came sliced lengthwise, and looked like bacon, the horse was light and fatty, while the donkey had a firm colour and taste. The testicles were slightly crumbly, and tasted better with lashings of the sesame, soy and chilli dips thoughtfully provided.[ from Telegraph]

Just make sure you order your Canadian seal penis in advance. Apparently it requires a little extra preparation time -- but isn't that what marriage is about: schedules, communication.... Just think of it as good training.

You'll know you've done your job if you notice your bride friend is feeling cock-eyed and longing to have just one penis for life. [from the Sunday Times London and via Buzzfeed]

Posted by Cakehead at 07:52 PM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2008

Dear Cakehead: The Case of the Carrot Cake Conundrum

This photo of the perfect piece of carrot wedding cake comes from Ethicalweddings.com

We're introducing something new to Cakehead. Everyone's been doing it since the dawn of man. But it wasn't until we received a desperate plea in the form of a facebook message that we decided to enter into the advice-giving cakescape (a cakescape is like a landscape but in a world made of cake).

Starting out, the "Ask Cakehead" advice column is intended as a place to turn to with all your cake-making emergencies. But we're also hoping to offer food-based solutions to any other problems -- whether it be a broken heart, a P.R. nightmare, a nosedive demise of a political career, or a workplace drama that seems solutionless. Bring us your problem and we'll show you the solution is a piece of cake, literally. We'll tell you what cake you need to bake to end your troubles so you can have your cake and eat it too.

And now, our premiere letter:

Dear Cakehead,

After seeing that you're interested in all things having to do with cake, I thought you might have some ideas for my current cake conundrum.

I'm supposed to be making a carrot cake for the wedding of two friends in a couple of weeks. Although I never make carrot cake, since chocolate is my default mode, I found a recipe I like. My main concern, really, has been decorating with cream cheese frosting. When I did a test run yesterday it was kind of runny.

Do you have any tried and true carrot cake decorating methods? I've thought about doing cream cheese frosting between the layers and butter cream frosting on the outside. Or maybe pressing shredded coconut into the frosting on the sides. But I haven't hit on any solutions that grab me yet. Any advice?

Thanks,
Lucy

Dear Lucy,

We are very impressed with your ambition and you've earned your experimental kitchen street cred with your willingness to tackle a new recipe and decorating method just two weeks before the wedding. Sticking to the tried and true is so Home Ec circa 1952. That said, let's try to help you make a cake that is not only delicious, but has a firm, creamy frosting

My first question is how big is the cake you're making. Are we talking three-layers with multi-tiers and waterfalls? Unless you're hiring an architect and engineer, we recommend that you keep it simple. How about covering a whole table with tube cakes - lots of quantity but not much height? Then you don't have to worry so much about the frosting as an adhesive agent.

As for the frosting, let's troubleshoot. Was the cake really cool when you started the frosting process? Any warmth is gonna melt your icing. But I'm sure you've already thought of that.

Also, make sure you're using enough confectioners sugar in the frosting. That will help that creamy cheese to keep its form, making for a less runny frosting. You could also try making the frosting, then briefly chilling it before beginning to coat the cake. The butter cream frosting may have the same problems as the cream cheese version if you don't get the butter-to-sugar ratio just right.

When it comes to carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, my problem is always an aesthetic one. How do you keep the cake crumbs from getting all mixed up into the white cream? The solution is doing two layers of frosting. The first is the primer and with this layer, allow those crumbs to get mixed in. The second coating is the one they'll see, so make it pretty!

Such tricky stuff -- but very ambitious and I support you all the way!

Let me know what you work out with the cake/frosting combination. And I want to hear how your own wedding planning is coming along.

xo,
Cakehead

P.S. There are enough raisin-haters out there so for a large occasion like a wedding it is considered proper etiquette to make the carrot cake without them.

Hi Cakehead,

Because I was concerned about stacking (and transporting stacked cakes), I have been planning to do a couple of individual cakes instead of tiers.

Thanks for your other suggestions. I didn't let the cake cool completely and I hadn't really considered the effect that would have on the frosting.

I was also a little sloppy making the frosting. It seemed too stiff right up to the end when I added the vanilla and optional lemon juice. Then it seemed too wet, and I thought about adding more sugar, but didn't. Those two considerations give me hope though! When I do the real thing, I'll budget enough time for the cakes to cool -- I'm actually planning to make the cake the night before; hopefully that's not sacrilegious. I'll also check out some other cream cheese frosting recipes to see how much confectioner's sugar they call for and I won't be shy about adding extra if need be.

Maybe if I'm feeling really ambitious I'll try the 'crumb coat' the night before and see if I can minimize the number of crumbs that make it into the frosting that way.

Thanks again for your cake advice,
Lucy

Posted by Cakehead at 04:19 AM | Comments (0)