Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice

Giving thanks feels so right.  It just feels good to know someone is grateful for what you do, and it is such a wonderful gesture to thank others for the kindness they have shown.

Thanksgiving was not a holiday that I grew up celebrating.  Having been raised Hassidic, we did not celebrate this holiday.  We didn't celebrate any holiday that wasn't Jewish.  It wasn't until I had left the community that I decided, hey - I'm an American and I am grateful to the country that allowed me to be free to live as I want (well, within a certain framework, of course), practicing the religion of my choice.  I am not happy with the way Thanksgiving originally came about.  I don't believe the natives of this fine country were treated fairly.  However, I am afforded a lifestyle that many others in the world can only dream about, and for this I am truly thankful.

Thanksgiving makes me think about the heady aroma of cinnamon, aromatic cloves, earthy allspice, spicy nutmeg.  It is a celebration of harvest, a time to be grateful for the plentiful bounty of apples and pumpkins and squashes and corn, of root vegetables and yams and all sorts of goodness.  I love the scintillating scent of holiday pies and stuffing and custards and caramels that are filling my kitchen at this time of year.  Turkey has its place, and I fancy myself a great cook, but I am the sweet queen and I reign supreme over my dessert domain.

This year I am preparing lots of delicious treats for friends, clients, family.  It fills my heart with warmth to have the opportunity to share the sweetness and spiciness of the season with others.  

For one client, I have prepared an Apple-Cranberry Pie.  The combination of apple and cranberry are so perfect together...the sweetness of the apples offsetting the tartness of the cranberries aided by a good dose of brown sugar, warm autumn spices and some gingersnaps to bring it all together.  All of this goodness buried in the belly of a buttery crust equals holiday perfection.  I topped it all off with a dough cut out of a turkey and some vent holes and it turned out to be quite a handsome pie.  

Next, I prepared individual Pumpkin Custards baked in teensy little Mason jars.  These adorable pots of silky deliciousness are topped with a crispy, buttery heap of ginger snap crumble.  Pumpkin pie is so yesterday...these lightened versions are heavy on flavor, but not on fat.  

This is the first time that I am actually going to try making Peanut Butter Pie!  I am so glad that I have friends and loved ones who believe, like I, that everything is better in miniature.  So I will be making these pies in individual graham cracker crusts.  One of the inspirations for these tiny treats is a miniature peanut butter cup that I discovered at Trader Joe's.  I LOVE that place.  When I discovered these delectable tidbits I fell for them immediately.  What's not to love?  Tiny? Check.  Peanut buttery?  Check  Milk chocolaty?  Check.  Perfect? Check.  These will be made tomorrow afternoon - so I will have to come back and post about them.

And then I will be making a lovely traditional favorite, Apple Crumble Pie.  I am using Martha Stewart's recipe.  It begins with a traditional buttery crust foundation to hold a 9" deep dish of spiced and sweetened apple slices.  She adds raisins, but there are some who don't like them, so I will omit them.  Then it is crowned with a glorious crumble topping.  I think it will be a hit.  That, too, will be baked tomorrow - so I will report back on this as well.

And, finally, adorable turkey table decorations...one for each person at the festive dinner.  I saw Giada De Laurentiis make these on her show.  The back and base of the turkey are made with Double Stuff Oreos, the head is a Whopper, the tummy is a Reese's Miniature Peanut Butter Cup, the feathers are Candy Corn, and the other features are drawn on with icing.  I am so totally looking forward to putting these together tomorrow.  I am pretty sure they will be the talk of the Thanksgiving table.

Here is to abundance, a fanciful feast, loads of laughter, jubilant joy, the goodness and kindness of those we hold dear, and the time to enjoy them.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Crispity, Crunchity, Snackity Deliciousness

I love snacks that are light, crispy, crunchy, sometimes nutty - sometimes not, almost always chocolaty, with just enough sweet to make it sinful, but not enough to make it cloying.  I like having the option of enjoying a second piece without feeling I've totally overdone it.

This week I was cleaning off the top of my refrigerator - you know, the place where we store our nuts, nut butters, cereals, other pantry items that simply can't fit in a NY sized apartment cabinet.  I found that I'd stocked up on way too many nut butters, and I had tons of raisin bran and crispy rice cereal.  I found some sliced almonds in the freezer.  I looked in my actual pantry cabinet and found some organic brown rice syrup.  I decided to try and create a cereal bar from the raisin bran, sliced almonds, almond butter, brown rice syrup, organic sugar.

I combined the brown rice syrup and sugar in a heavy-bottomed saucepan.  I heated them until the sugar melted.  Then I removed it from the flame and added the natural almond butter.  The delicious, roasted nut aroma rose from the pan and the sweetness blended with it and the scent of it all was so completely scintillating.  I poured this thick concoction over the measured out cupfuls of raisin bran and a couple of handfuls of sliced almonds.  I combined the mixture and then poured it into a prepared pan lined with parchment paper.  I pressed it down and evened it out and waited for it to cool.  Then I removed the plank of goodness and placed it (along with the parchment paper) onto a cutting board. With a very sharp knife I cut medium sized (1.5") squares and took a bite out of one of the edge pieces.  That's my favorite part...sampling a new recipe...and the edges make it feel completely guilt-free.  They were dense and rich and filled with roasted nutty flavor.  They were chewy, but not overly so.  I definitely created a successful treat.

A few days later, right before Halloween, I decided to make one of my favorite standby treats.  Peanut butter crispy treats.  Mmmmm.  They just taste like a bite of autumn...crisp as the leaves crunching under your feet, a feel-good treat that is nutty and chocolaty and delectable.

I heated up sugar and corn syrup.  Then removed it from the heat and added the peanut butter...I use the creamy natural kind.  Then I poured the goop over the crisp rice cereal and combined.  Poured it out onto a prepared pan lined with parchment paper (yep - that is basically the way it's done for most of my bar treats).  Pressed it into the pan.  Waited for it to cool while melting chocolate with a bit more peanut butter and a handful of Reese's peanut butter chips.  And on the side I melted some ghoulishly green Wilton's candy melts with a bit of shortening to decorate the bars.

I poured the molten chocolate peanut butter blend over the crispy treats and then drizzled a spiral of green  over the pan.  I drew a spider in the middle and then, using a toothpick, created a web out of the spiral making a very whimsical Halloween design.  I then lightly sprinkled the entire pan with a bit of orange crystallized sugar.  It added just a tiny bit of bright sparkle.  Perfection!

And, just in time for friends who stopped by for a bit of relief after a very messy Hurricane Sandy, I had treats to make everyone feel good and enjoy their Halloween.

Let 'em eat cake!

I have always admired beautiful cakes.  There is just something so breathtaking about the intricate architecture of a mile high tower of cake and frosting made into an object of beauty.  And it doesn't have to be extremely ornate.  There are some cakes that, in their simplicity, are just stunning.

I did imagine that, some day, I might like to try baking a nice single tier layer cake with some pretty flowers or some other cute design, probably piped with frosting.  I didn't know what fondant was back then.  But once I discovered that sweet, pliable, soft, play-doughy delight I was hooked.

A friend of mine just found out that the baby she was carrying would be a....well, let me not ruin the surprise just yet.  I asked her if, at her upcoming weekend barbecue, she might want to surprise her guests by revealing the baby's gender.  She loved the idea.  So I went at it and baked a gender reveal cake.

The cake, itself, was a simple vanilla white cake.  The frosting was a Swiss Buttercream...light, airy, fluffy, and so delicately sweet, with a hint of orange and plenty of vanilla.  It was simply divine.  And, when we cut into this cloudy delight, we found out she is having a.........
GIRL
Six layers in variegated shade of pink, each layer getting more intense, revealed the baby's gender.  And as soft and feminine as a tiny little baby girl, so was this lovely cake.
It was a great first cake project for me.


But if that wasn't challenging enough, I decided, for the same friend's baby shower, to try my hand at a 2-tier cake.  Now, my oven, as I may have already mentioned somewhere, is tiny.  It has one rack, and it is not calibrated.  Well...imagine having to bake two three-layer tiers of cake in a tiny oven, one layer at a time!  So, what did I decide to try?  I decided to bake a 3" cake and cut the cake into 3 layers.
Not. A. Good. Idea.  The cakes, both the 8" and 10", burnt on the outside.  Ugh.

Not wanting to have another failure on my hands, I reached out to my best buddy and pal.  He lives in Manhattan and has a lovely huge oven with two racks.  Hallelujah!!  He came all the way to Brooklyn to pick me up (along with my daughter and half of my kitchen) in his valiant Mini-Cooper, and away we rode.  Now his oven is not calibrated either, but I was wise to the possibility, and made sure to buy an oven thermometer so that I could monitor the temperature and avoid another disaster.  The cakes turned out just fine.  He dropped us all off again at around midnight, and I began to work on my delectable, dreamy Swiss Buttercream.  I was up until about 2:45, making buttercream, frosting the cakes, putting them away in the refrigerator to solidify overnight, cleaning up the kitchen.  Preparing for the final steps of decoration.

I woke up at 5am that very same morning.  I rolled out my fondant and started covering the top tier first.  Horror of horrors.  The fondant was misbehaving, tearing all over.  I was ready to cry.  But from the living room I hear my 5 1/2 year old saying, "It sounds like you are having a rough time!  Don't give up...you can do it!"  My heart melted.  I knew she was right.  I always teach her the same lesson...and she was throwing it right back at me.  That has to be the greatest reward ever.  I know it stuck!!!  And so I went on, coming up with ways to hide the naughty tears in the fondant.  And here is the way the top tier turned out.

Then I proceeded to work on the bottom tier.  It was a lot more manageable.  And here is it

And just in the nick of time...I got a phone call from my friend's mom and her mom's boyfriend.  They were downstairs waiting to take us to the shower.  But the cake wasn't done yet!  They were an  hour early.  So I packed up my tools and my fondant and some food coloring, dowels, cardboard discs and other fun stuff...and off we went.  Once we got to my friends' home on Long Island, I got to work assembling and finishing the cake.  

The cake was very well received.  Everyone kept marveling at the details and they were all saying how light and delicious it was.

And if anyone knows anything about Jewish mothers, it is that we absolutely love it when we make tummies and mouths happy.

Can't wait to welcome this special little girl into this world.  She is due to arrive in just at the end of November.

Cara Mia! My Beloved, My Caramel!

Making caramels is truly a labor of patience and love.  One has to pay close attention to the sugar and be at one with it, knowing just the right moment to add the cream to get the perfect soft and chewy consistency so that it is not too hard, but tough enough to resist slightly and yield with the heat of your mouth.  Sugar is temperamental and can really give you a hard time if you don't coddle it and keep it from crystallizing around the edges of the pot.  I find that using high quality ingredients helps produce a much finer and more elegant product.

When making my Double Grey caramels, I steep the organic, loose earl grey tea in the cream for a good while, straining it carefully before adding it to the bubbling sugar syrup.  I finish the caramels with a sprinkling of grey salt, which adds just the right  balance of salty to sweet and actually plays very nicely with the bergamot in the tea.  The bit of crunch that the salt lends to the creaminess of the caramel is so playful in the mouth and it bursts and makes you salivate and that is one happy experience.


My Sassy Rose caramels blend the exotic flavors of pure Bourbon Madagascar vanilla and rose water.  When I was creating and testing this recipe I thought it would be fun to sprinkle the top with Himalayan pink salt.  I thought it would be dainty to pair a pink salt with the rose flavor.  What really sealed the deal for me was not only the delightful tone that it set, but I had read about its healing benefits.  Think about it.  What does a women want most when she is suffering from PMS?  Something sweet, something salty, something comforting, something exotic, and something that will make her feel a whole lot better.  Well, check out these stats!  Himalayan salt helps control the water levels within the body.  Bloat much?  Not a problem!  It aids in the reduction of the common signs of aging.  Goodbye botox, hello caramels!  It reduces muscle cramps.  Hellooooo...need I say more?  Ummm, maybe not, but I will.  It increases bone strength.  And it prevents cellulite.  What?  Did you hear that?  Eating caramels with Himalayan pink salt can help prevent cellulite?  Well...maybe the caramels won't do that, but the salt is supposed to, and that makes these caramels a bit better than those plastic wrapped little squares they sell in the supermarkets.  Himalayan pink salt is just the perfect match for this comforting caramel.

These are just a couple of the many flavored caramels that I've created, and they are my favorites, by far.

The next time you are looking for that perfect sweet, make it a high-quality caramel.  You don't need a lot of them to get some gratification.  One superb caramel lasts a while if you let it melt in your mouth, and if you just can't bear the wait and have to chew, that really gives your mouth a workout and the sticky bits that stay on your teeth will be savored for a little while longer.  (Just make sure to brush well afterwards. LOL)

Sweetie Pie

I have often wondered who coined the term "sweetie pie". I mean, I guess it makes sense, right? Pie is often sweet.  And sweetie pies generally melt our hearts, as would a scrumptious piece of pie.  And there are so many pies from which to choose, aren't there?

When I think about all of the pies I've eaten in my life, I can practically write a book.  I don't think I've ever met a pie I didn't like.  True, I've loved some and liked others.  But I can't recall trying a pie and not wanting to even take a second bite.

I have really become quite adept at crust making.  I love it when a crust turns out crisp, yet tender. Rich, yet light. Buttery and flaky and melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  But I've also discovered crusts that are crunchier, more robust, and very gratifying.  I have written about my raw pecan pie (and the wonderful help provided by my trusty young assistant).  This crust was so rustic and nutty and perfectly accompanied the sticky sweet date and pecan filling.  What a delightfully symbiotic duo.  And then there are those lightly sweet, slightly toasty, crumbly, graham cracker crusts that create a layer of texture under the creamy, nearly cloying, and often fruity or chocolaty cheesecake.


Whoopie pies are a delectable anomaly.  Are they really pies?  They seem more like cream filled soft sandwich cookies to me.  But I'll let them stay in the pie family.  I did manage to create some delightful chili chocolate whoopie pies filled with cayenne peanut butter cream.  They were the talk of the town (okay...more like a little buzz around the office).  They were not too sweet, rich but still feather-light, and they coated the tongue with velvety smoothness that I'll never forget.



And how can I exclude savory pies, like quiche or even the very un-pie-like Bajan delicacy, macaroni pie? The cheesiness, the spiciness, the oniony, peppery, warm and homey goodness. They are unparalleled. They put American mac and cheese to shame.

Here's another pie we all run to when we need comfort, have a ballgame to watch, want something quick and inexpensive...you know the one.  It's gotta be a pizza pie.  My choice would be a thin, slightly charred, delicate but sturdy crust with just the right amount of zesty sauce to season but NEVER dominate the milky, salty, oozy, generous coating of mozzarella (on occasion I like fresh, but comfort generally comes from the other stuff).  And I am a garlic powder, red pepper flakes and parmesan cheese garnisher.  I also love anchovies on my pizza, but my little one would balk and beg for broccoli or mushrooms.  I won't turn them down, and I like her style.  She does sometimes opt for a plain pie, though.  And always asks for her sprinkly cheese.

Pies are the perfect food.  You have the crust, which becomes a bed for the most cozy, silky, creamy, crunchy, sweet, savory, cheesy, meaty, vegetably, ooey, gooey, happy-making fillings ever imagined.

And, for the record, here is what I found.  It is said that the term was first used in Sinclair Lewis's 1943 novel, Gideon Planish.  It was used as one would use the word sweetheart.

You know...I've got to agree.   The heart of a pie is definitely suh-weet.

Autumn Air

Autumn is one of my favorite seasons.
I don't know whether it's the color of the leaves, the bright crisp air, the sense of change in the atmosphere, the crunching of dry leaves beneath my feet, or the intoxicating aromas associated with the season.
I love the thought of baking spicy shortbread cookies and cutting them into ghosts, pumpkins, skulls, monsters and other ghoulish figures and icing them with great care and attention to detail.
The thought of smores on a bonfire on a gorgeous, star-filled, frosty night makes me tingle with delight.
And who doesn't relish in the feeling of goopy, stringy, seedy guts being scooped from a pumpkins center?
Yummy pumpkin and sweet potato pies fill the air with scintillating, warming aromas.  Rich, crimson cranberry sauce hinted with the scent of orange adds a tart note that complements the other glorious smells in my kitchen on the morning of Thanksgiving.
And then there is the coconut coated jelly apple or peanut ensconced caramel apple that is very common during this time of year.  We've all seen them in the supermarkets in their hard plastic coats of armor.  But they are so much more yummy when made at home.  And the smell of caramelizing sugar and the dance of the cream hitting the molten lava sugary syrup...something to behold.  It's simply magical.  Decorating these apple masterpieces has become quite the craft project as well.  How about adding layers of peanut butter caramel and then some melted dark chocolate and then topping it all with crushed pretzel pieces?  Or maybe raspberry caramel topped with melted white chocolate and the rolled in toasted pecans?  And then there is the option of the harder red candy coat rolled in miniature marshmallows.  Or maybe even adding some cinnamon oil to the candy coat and then rolling it in graham cracker crumbs.
I can go on and on.

Autumn is a catalyst for change.  It welcomes the new school year, it ushers in the rest of the holidays like the tip of a domino trail, starting with Halloween. And then brings us to blustery winter - which delivers a whole new treasure trove of sweets.

Rosh Hashana...Blessings for a Sweet New Year

It is customary to wish friends and loved ones a sweet New Year on Rosh Hashana, literally translated The Head of the Year, the Jewish New Year.  Rosh Hashana is traditionally observed by eating sweet foods, along with a host of symbolic foods that are each accompanied by their own special blessing.  Apples are dipped in honey, as is Challah (traditional egg bread, which is normally formed in the shape of a braid all year long, but during the High Holidays - nope, not getting high on the holidays...more just an elevated state of mind and consciousness - are shaped in rounds to symbolize the cycle of life and the cyclical nature of the year.  It also resembles a crown, for the head of the year.  Often, raisins are added to further sweeten the loaf.  I add apples and a thread of honey to mine, to incorporate the tradition of eating apples dipped in honey.

It is also customary to bake honey cake.  This year I decided to switch things up a bit, and rather than bake the traditional loaves of honey cake, I made them into cupcakes.  To further enhance the spicy sweetness of the cake I topped them with a cloud of orange honey cream cheese frosting.  Then, to add a touch of whimsy, I topped each one with the most adorable little marzipan and fondant honeybees.
My daughter made a bee of her own.  She had such fun trying to get the almond slice wings to stay on, and then enjoyed painting on their little eyes and stripes and stingers with a food coloring marker.
It was fun to see everyone's reaction to the honey cupcakes and the bees.  Watching how one attacks the bee on a cupcake is definitely entertaining.  Some picked the wings off first, others worked around the bee.  Some just picked it off first and popped them in their mouth, and others left them on the side of their plates...not sure they wanted to eat them at all.  I will definitely be making these again.  They were a hit!

Here's to a bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzy year filled with fun, love, happiness, joy, prosperity, abundance, and - of course - sweetness!