Tiramisu

So last week one of my interns told me that if I could successfully make tiramisu and post about it, his wife would officially start following/reading my blog. Well! I'm never one to turn down new readership, so....challenge accepted.

If I had known how difficult it would be to track down all the ingredients for tiramisu, I probably wouldn't have been quite so enthusiastic about accepting the challenge. I had to hit up to two different Safeways before I managed to get my hands on marscapone cheese, and then neither store had ladyfingers. In fact, none of the store employees had even heard of ladyfingers. "Lady Bingers?" one guy repeated in confusion. "No. Lady FINGERS. They're cookies that look like fingers? No? Nevermind." In the end, I had to just make my own. Oy.

So...espresso is basically just really strong coffee, right? I didn't have a fancy espresso maker, but I did have an electric drip coffee brewer. I also had a giant tub of Folgers coffee grounds from BJs, but I didn't think that would taste very good in a dessert, so I bought some espresso grounds and hoped that would make a difference. The espresso certainly smelled significantly better than the Folgers. And then when a splash of rum got thrown in the mix...yum! No wonder everyone likes tiramisu.

Aside from the grocery store debacle, tiramisu-making proceeded smoothly for the most part until the very end. Then, as I began building the cake layers, I realized that (1) I had made too few ladyfingers, so the tiramisu was going to be significantly more cream than cookie; and (2) the baking dish I was using was too long and shallow, so the whole thing was going to be a lot flatter than those gloriously thick cakes you get at Italian restaurants. Bummer! Still, it was too late at that point to change anything, so I just barreled onwards and hoped that even if my tiramisu didn't look great, it would at least taste good.

And it did! Shockingly good, in fact. 12 hours in the fridge had firmed the cream up to the perfect consistency, and while there was very little sugar in both the ladyfingers and marscapone cream, the whole concoction was pleasantly sweet, with distinct notes of coffee and rum. Mmm, rum. My tiramisu was definitely rummier than the usual restaurant version, but the stronger boozy flavor was not at all off-putting. Delicious! Are you reading yet, Heather? :)

Recipe can be found here, courtesy of the Barefoot Contessa.

Apple Cheesecake Cupcakes

Last night I was seized with the most irresistible urge to bake something. But what to bake? Nothing chocolate. I'm sick of chocolate, if you can believe it. Maybe a pie? Nah, too much work -- no pre-made pie crusts in the freezer, and I'll be damned if I'm going to start rolling out my own crust at 9pm on a Wednesday. Then I remembered that Dan had been talking earlier in the day about his love of apple turnovers and sugary apple filling. Apple cheesecake cupcakes are topped with something similar to apple pie filling...

The first time I made this recipe was 2 or 3 years ago, the summer of my 1L year. I was working at the FDA in Rockville, MD, but living in DC. My friend Karen, who was also working there, lived down the street from me, and we took the Metro to work together every morning. After several failed attempts to get her to go running with me after work (Dan was living with me that summer, but he is lazy), I devised a plan to change her mind. I whipped up a batch of these cupcakes, then casually started to bring her one every morning "for breakfast." Karen has IBS, so she is generally a light eater, but she has a weakness for cheesecake. After a few days of eating cheesecake for breakfast, she started feeling guilty about indulging her sweet tooth -- but, these cupcakes were too good to resist!  It was easy to bully her into working out with me after that. Love you, Karen!

When I made these cupcakes the Summer of Karen's Downfall, I used peach/mango topping, but any kind of fruit would work just as well. This was my first time using apples, but I think I like them the best. If an apple pie and a cheesecake were to fall in love, mate, and produce a baby, these cupcakes would be it. Dense and creamy, not too sweet, with a hint of tang from sour cream, and topped off with sweet apple pie filling. Yum!

Apple Cheesecake Cupcakes

Ingredients:

(Cheesecake)
- 1-1/2 8oz packages of cream cheese
- 2 eggs
- 2/3 cups sugar
- 1 tbsp vanilla
- 1 tbsp cinnamon

(Sour cream topping)
- 1 cup sour cream
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 3 tbsp sugar

(Apple topping)
- 1 large apple, peeled/cored/diced
- 4 tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tbsp white sugar
- 1 tbsp cinnamon
- 2 tbsp lemon juice
- 1 tbsp corn starch

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 300. Line muffin tin with cupcake liners. Set aside.
(2) In a large bowl, mix cream cheese and sugar until smooth and creamy.
(3) Add eggs, vanilla and cinnamon. Mix well.
(4) Spoon cheesecake mixture into cupcake liners, each about 2/3 full.
(5) Bake for 40 minutes. Pull out of the oven and set aside to cool. Leave oven on, and do not remove cupcakes from the tin.
**Cupcakes will come out puffy, but the middle will sink in drastically -- this is good!
(6) In a small bowl, combine sour cream, sugar, and vanilla. Mix well.
(7) When cupcakes have cooled, spoon about a tablespoon of the sour cream topping into the sunken middles of each cupcake.
**Use more if necessary -- I like to see a heaping mound peeking over the edges of the cupcake.
(8) Stick cupcakes back in the oven for 5 more minutes.
(9) While you're waiting for the cupcakes to cool again, start the apple topping. Place apples in a small pot or saucepan, and cook on high heat.
(10) Add sugars and stir. The apples should start getting juicy right away.
(11) Add lemon juice and cinnamon. Keep stirring.
(12) When the apple pieces start to look soft, throw in the corn starch. This will thicken up the juices and leave you with something similar to preserves.
(13) Let the apple mixture cool before spooning on top of cupcakes.
(14) Cupcakes are good warm, but even better after some time in the fridge/freezer.

Homemade Hostess Cupcakes

Happy Valentine's Day, everybody! Hope you all have someone nice to share it with, and if not, hopefully you have a ton of delicious chocolate treats on hand for immediate consumption. That's the only reason anyone celebrates Valentine's Day, right? An excuse to go on an all-out, gluttonous chocolate binge? Yes? Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, I've been thinking long and hard about what I wanted to make for my Valentine's post. Something chocolate-y, obviously, but beyond that there were too many possibilities. Chocolate truffles? Maybe. Molten lava cake? Mmmmm. Chocolate covered strawberries? Decadent and healthy-ish, and possibly an aphrodisiac! But at the end of the day I settled on homemade Hostess cupcakes. There's something about reproducing homemade versions of popular commercial brand foods that really tickles me pink. Don't ask, I can't explain it either.

Is there anyone who didn't love Hostess cupcakes as a kid? Tender crumbly cake, sweet creme filling, rich chocolate topping that can be pulled away and eaten separately. Mmmm. Sure, the whole thing was a little too sweet and artificial-tasting, but I loved 'em anyway. I ate them every single day in high school until the day I discovered the wonders of glazed Honey Buns.

So, the homemade version. Awesome, but different. The cake is less sweet, probably because there is not a ton of sugar in the recipe. And, the entire outside is slightly crusty, like the top of a muffin -- I didn't use cupcake wrappers, so that could be why. But the cream filling, ganache topping and piping? Spot on. Tasted exactly like a Hostess cupcake should. 

This was a very time-intensive dessert (so many steps -- baking, filling, icing, piping), but I was very pleased overall, and Dan gave his stamp of approval -- always a win in my book. 

Recipe can be found here.

Wonton Cups with Spinach and Mushroom Ricotta Filling

Happy Superbowl Sunday, everyone! And...happy 1 year anniversary to my blog! To celebrate both momentous occasions, I spent the better part of the afternoon cooking: crab quesidillas, pizza dip, fresh guacamole, and...wonton cups with spinach and mushroom filling.

Why wonton cups? Well, I got really into cooking-themed books last year, and these cups were mentioned in passing in one of my books. There, the cups were filled with tuna tartare, but I had a feeling the people coming to my Superbowl party weren't going to be thrilled with raw fish, so I went with something a little tamer.

Who knew wonton wrappers were so versatile? I'd only ever used them to make wontons and crab rangoons, but they're actually quite effective as Tostito-esque scoops. And aren't they pretty? This is definitely something that looks fancier and more complicated than it actually is.

You can fill the cups with just about anything -- hummus, crab dip, salsa -- but I can tell you that sauteed spinach/mushrooms with ricotta was very tasty. The only downside is that, once filled, the cups lose a lot of their crisp/crunch over time. Maybe more time in the oven would fix this? Or perhaps frying vs. baking? 

Wonton Cups

Ingredients:

- 1 package of wonton skins

Steps:

(1) Preheat oven to 350

(2) Grease a mini muffin pan.

(3) Press a single wonton skin into each muffin cup. Make sure the skin doesn't fold in too much -- there needs to be enough space to fill with good stuff.
(4) Bake for 7-9 minutes, until lightly brown and crispy.
(5) Fill with anything you want, or serve as dip scoops.

Kimchi Bokumbop (Kimchi Fried Rice)

Happy Lunar New Year, everyone! All last week I had grand plans to make jiao zi (dumplings) and dou sha bao (steamed buns with red bean paste) and other Chinese goodies, but somehow I never got around to it. Fortunately, the New Year is supposed to be celebrated for 15 days, so I've still got plenty of time to make everything.

In the meantime, I just had to satisfy my craving for kimchi fried rice. My friend Grace posted a picture of her husband cooking it for a midnight snack a few days ago, and I've had kimchi on the brain ever since. It's just so pungent and tangy and delicious! So good as a side, but possibly even better in fried-rice form. It's definitely way better comfort food than mac and cheese or ice cream. And, I just happened to have a small jar of very ripe (best if used by 12/10/10...but still tasty in February!) kimchi sitting in my fridge, waiting to be eaten.

Since Dan and I live together now, it's pretty rare for me to cook a meal just for myself, especially on  weekends. Everything I cook these days is tailored to both of our tastes. So, it was with some trepidation that I asked Dan how he felt about having kimchi fried rice for lunch today. I love kimchi, but he hated it the last time we went to a Korean BBQ restaurant, and has steadfastly refused to eat it again since. Fortunately for me, however, he has terrible long-term memory when it comes to stuff that he eats, so by the time I asked about lunch, he had already forgotten that he'd ever eaten kimchi, and was willing to give the fried rice a shot. 

The result? I'm going to remember this moment forever as a shining victory in my Dan-feeding adventures. He not only ate the rice, but pronounced it delicious and went back for seconds. Awesome.

For the recipe and quick explanation of kimchi fried rice, check out www.trifood.com. 

Sushi -- Unagi Rolls and California Rolls

Hello, all. I'd like to introduce everyone to my third guest blogger -- my good friend Christina Feng. We were near inseparable in our first two years of college, but the only time I ever saw her in the kitchen was the time we made fortune cookies for our friend Jimmy's birthday. Turns out she was hiding secret cooking powers from me! But now the cat is out of the bag, and she's here today to share a recipe with us. I'm ghost-writing the blog entry, but all pictures are courtesy of Christina. Thanks, Stina!

So Christina's boyfriend's parents are in town this weekend, and like the good girlfriend-in-law that she is, she decided to treat them to a delicious home-cooked meal. Miso soup to start, unagi and california rolls as the main course, and mochi ice cream for dessert. Yum!

I've never made sushi before, but Christina tells me it's easy so long as you have one of those bamboo mat thingies for rolling. I remain skeptical, but I suppose it's one of those practice-makes-perfect situations. Meanwhile, doesn't that eel look scrumptious? California rolls will always have a special place in my heart -- for the longest time it was the only kind of sushi I could convince Dan to eat -- but I love unagi the most. If you ever go to a sushi restaurant with me, be sure to call dibs on the eel as soon as it gets to the table, 'cuz I'm definitely going to eat it all.

Jason sure is a lucky guy! And after a meal like this, how can his parents not love Christina too? Will you make this for me sometime, Stina???

And now a word from Christina herself on the actual recipe:

OK soooo in terms of a recipe, I don't really have one particular one that I went with because I did this once before and I kinda just made it up as I went along and/or took bits and pieces from random recipes I found online.

Ingredients: 

- Frozen unagi kabayaki (from Asian store)

- Imitation crab sticks

- 1 avocado cut into thin strips

- 1 cucumber cut into thin strips

- Sushi rice (4-5 cups makes about 5 to 6 rolls)

- Sushi vinegar

- Sushi seasoning

- Roasted seaweed

(Need bamboo sushi roller)

Steps:

(1) Cook unagi per package instructions (the one I got I just heated in boiling water for 10 minutes), then cut it into strips. Set aside.

(2) Cover bamboo roller with saran wrap and place one sheet of roasted seaweed over it.

(3) Prepare sushi rice, mix with small bit of sushi vinegar in a bowl before placing on seaweed.

(4) Spread rice over roasted seaweed in a thin, even layer, and press it into the seaweed to maximize stickiness.

(5) Sprinkle sushi seasoning over rice. (Some people who like wasabi can then mix wasabi into the rice, but I didn't cuz I hate wasabi)

(6) Place strips of either imitation crab or unagi across seaweed, depending on which roll you're making.

(7) Place sticks of cucumber and/or avocado across seaweed.

(8) Use bamboo roller to tightly roll the sushi.

(9) Cut roll into 1/2" pieces (Since sushi is sticky, use a really sharp knife. Neat trick here is to use water to wet knife then cut if the knife gets too sticky)

(10) Serve! (with soy sauce of course...)

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Truffles

So I'm going to a wine and cheese party tomorrow night, and I've been put in charge of making something chocolate-y to go with the dessert wines. Something chocolate-y? So many things come to mind, but I've been dying to make these chocolate chip cookie dough truffles since I saw them posted on my friend Lucy's blog last summer. 

No matter how you look at it, these truffles fit the dessert specifications of the wine and cheese party perfectly. They're chocolate-y on the inside and out, they're just the right size for individual consumption, and they're going to be delicious with port. Plus, they are egg-less, so they can be eaten freely without the usual fear of salmonella poisoning associated with raw cookie dough.

I wonder if a lack of skill in cake-frosting translates at all in the truffle-coating department? Because I definitely stink at both. I had an embarassingly hard time getting these suckers fully coated in chocolate. It was pretty much impossible to drop the balls of dough inside the bowl of melted chocolate and pull out a fully covered, un-smudged truffle. My fingers kept getting dirty, and anywhere they came into contact with a truffle, the chocolate would be completely smudged. I finally had to spear each dough ball with a skewer, dip it 90% of the way into the melted chocolate, swirl once, slide the whole thing off the stick, then smear another glob of chocolate onto the remaining 10% of the ball for full coverage. Phew. Pain in my ass, for sure.

But, I'm pretty sure all my blood/sweat/tears were worth it. The truffles turned out pretty great! Not very attractive, but definitely delicious. Sinfully delicious, even. Super rich and chocolate-y, but not so over-the-top-sweet that you can't eat more than a couple in one sitting. I think they're going to be a hit at the party.

For the recipe, check out Lucy's blog.

For other amazing dessert ideas, check out Sweets for Saturday.