Delicious

The theme for my friend Josh's birthday party potluck was simple. "Delicious."

With that mission in mind, and in the spirit of birthdays as celebrations steeped richly in traditions of cake and ice cream and sweets in the name of you just being you, I decided to bring dessert. I immediately started to think of layers of cake holding up buttery frosting...but before I got carried away, I figured I should ask the birthday boy what he thought sounded, well, delicious.

"Josh," I said, "when you envision eating dessert at the end of a perfect birthday potluck, what are you eating?"

"Well," he pondered out loud, "I'm not a big fan of chocolate. And I like cheesecake, but I just had cheesecake last weekend, and I like apples, and fruit crisps, and things that are crunchy, and I always like caramel..."

So. Not cake and not exactly an exact answer. But birthday wishes should never go unfulfilled and dessert is not truly dessert if it is not indeed delicious, so I set my mind to thinking. A little cheesecake...apples...caramel...crunchy... Some mixing here and matching there, and before too long those ingredients spelled out a recipe for this:

Cheesecake cupcakes with oatmeal crisp crusts, sauteed cinnamon apples and apple cider caramel. Which, all together, spelled out this:

A mouthful of a name in description, we resorted to knighting the little creations, "Clayton Cups," after the honoree himself, though agreed the name didn't do the 3 bite-sized creations quite the justice they deserved (no offense Josh). But whatever the name, what these jumbly delights were was one big mouthful of tastiness! Creamy cheesecake was punched up with soft, spiced apples, the required element of crunch and the not to be forgotten, dark caramel fancied-up for the occasion with a hint of cider.

Bellies packed nearly full with the evenings perfectly delicious mish-mosh of captain crunch fried chicken, perogies, peach kugel and baked ziti, the apple crisp cheesecake-ettes were the perfect odd pairing to a good bottle of red wine and great company.

So not a seven layer cake, but a birthday done right all the same. I've always loved home cooking because, reminiscent of backyard mud pies and sandbox stews, no matter how strange or unexpected the ingredients you put together, it doesn't have to be about subtlety, complementing flavors, doing things right, or neatly or even that well. It's about having fun, making friends happy, stirring a bunch of things together in a pot and and sharing what you've stewed up. And sometimes, when life is good, and you're feeling pot-lucky on your birthday, everything comes out just, truly delicious.

Mini Apple Crisp Cheesecakes

1 recipe vanilla bean cheesecake

For the crust:
1/2 stick butter
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 cup oats
pinch of cinnamon
pinch of allspice

1. Combine sugar, oats, cinnamon and allspice. Cut in butter until mixture is crumbly.
2. Pat a thin layer of mixture into the bottom of cupcake liners. Bake at 350F for approx. 10 minutes, or until crisp.
3. Set aside.

For the apples:
2 Granny Smith apples
1 T butter
3 T brown sugar
3/4 t cinnamon

1. Peel apples and slice thinly. Cut each slice into thirds.
2. In a sautee pan, heat butter, sugar cinnamon and apples together until apples are soft, but still hold their shape.
3. Set aside.

For the caramel:
125 grams sugar
40 grams water
40 grams apple cider
1/2 can sweetened condensed milk
pinch of salt
1/4 t vanilla

1. Cook sugar and water over medium-high heat until golden brown.
2. Deglaze with cider.
3. Stir in condensed milk, salt and vanilla.
4. Let cool.

To assemble
Place three pieces of apple into each oatmeal crusted cupcake liner. Pour cheesecake mixture over apples, filling each liner 3/4 full. Using a piping bag, pipe* caramel ontop, in swirls, letters, dots or any shape that looks delicious. Bake at 250F, for approx 20 minutes, or until set.

*If you don't have piping bags on hand, fill a ziplock with caramel, twist it closed and cut a small hole in the corner of the bag. Voila; you are ready to pipe!!

Yield: 24 Clayton Cups

Where I've Been

Well hi there.

Remember me? I hope so. Either way, I remember you and it feels good to be back. If I know you like I think I do, you are tapping your finger right now with that look in your eye which says, "Sooo. Kaitlin. Where you been, huh?" Ok my friends. We'll start with that.

Where have I been all this time? When I left you last there was blueberry jam on the stove and I was on my way to Maine. Well I made it there, and man oh man oh lobster and sea spray... It was a glorious time. At a campsite by the ocean Russ and I feasted on beer and oysters, more blueberries and smores every night. I ate my first live lobster, carrying it home on my lap squeemishly as it wriggled in a brown paper bag. I also ate my second live lobster and a number of lobster rolls, dressed in butter and piled between toasted white bread.

Back in New York, fall crept in and I turned another year older, celebrating my birthday with the annual tradition of an oversized breakfast at Clinton Street Baking Company: huge biscuits, a pile of eggs, thick sliced country ham and hot chocolate barely contained in a bowl of a mug.

Fall leaves and chilly winds accompanied a unique weekend trip which took me from city to farm. As a participant in Flying Pigs Farm's new program Farm Camp for Food Professionals, I gathered eggs, stomped around with heritage pigs, went maple sugar crazy at a sugar shack with syrup piled high on windowsills, sipped farm fresh, creamy milk and slaughtered a chicken. Yes. That's right. I killed a chicken.

One farm fresh-roasted chicken, a first coating of snow on city streets, 20 pounds of turkey, an ambitious pot of mashed potatoes, pie, latkes, Christmas cookies, a spice rubbed roast and two glasses of New Year's champagne later, I find myself catching up with you now in 2010.

Lately, I've been occupied with a project I'm really excited to share. It has always been a dream of mine to start a business of specialty cakes and well gosh darn it, I'm giving it a try. With a few projects under my belt I'm putting my whisk to work. Here's a peek at my most recent project, a 60th anniversary cake for a lovely Brooklyn couple, recently having renewed their vows over lemon curd and sweet vanilla bean cream frosting:

When I say I'm putting my whisk to work, what I really mean is that I've turned our apartment into a veritable workshop covered in sugar petals, cake forms, sketches, website plans, paper flowers, piping bags, cake scraps, and lots of hope.

I have a feeling this year is going to be great. Full of cake, stories and heaps of other grand things. I have a lot in store for your neglected bellies too. Paging through Julia Child's autobiography I plan to journey through a "boeuf bourginon" while we are in the height of stew weather. I have an enormous new flame colored dutch oven which is crying for a leg of lamb, red wine, figs and a dinner party. I have an oversized crate of eggs from my dear friends farm and an upcoming birthday for a certain cheesecake hungry friend we fed last year around this time.

So, I'm back. Thanks for missing me and hold on, because I'm feeling like if we plan the recipe just right, this year is going to be one heck of a feast.

Something Old, Something Blue

I realize it may be premature for me to write about blueberries a week before I leave for a camping extravaganza in Maine, home of the best blueberries I've ever had to date (I'm remembering my first venture with pie crust in college, a wibbly-wobble-fantastic lattice top over a Maine blueberry filling)...but as I've had blue on the mind I think I'm going to go ahead and talk blueberries right now.

Historically it hasn't always been a love affair between me and blueberries. While I do remember picking sour little berries from a bush that grew wild in my childhood backyard, even then it was more the thrill of eating something off a branch than it was the flavor of the berry. A current fan, searching for an explanation as to why I've so long ignored blueberries, I think the answer is I just needed time. Strawberries are so sweet and beautiful, raspberries alluring and tartly distracting. I believe the truth is that each summer I've been inching towards blueberries but it hasn't been until just these past few months where I've finally been ready to sit down and have a one on one with the little blues.

A fresh, soft and bright pint of blueberries is a wonder I'm newly excited about. As you may remember I'm also newly excited this summer about jam. I look at fruit stands in the Greenmarkets around town and think, "Oo! Strawberry jam. Oh, raspberry jam. YES! blueberry jam!!" I know summer is an especially hot time of year to commit to standing in front of the stove top constantly stirring sugar and fruit as it cooks down. But it is also the ideal time to find ingredients for the best jams. So with a little sweat, and a big love for jam, I recently tied my hair back and set to the burners to whip up a batch with some market-fresh blueberries.

For something different I replaced a third of the sugar with light brown sugar. The result was a slightly warmer flavor but let's be real; it's really about the fruit and the fruit surely made itself known. Turning brilliant purple, and growing incredibly thick from the pectin in the berries, the finished product was truly mouthwatering; a proper challenge to strawberries and raspberries worldwide.

And just the thing to top off a dinner party cheesecake (a recipe you may remember from the winter, but summer-spiffed-up here with 1 tablespoon orange zest and about a teaspoon of cinnamon).

The result was a blue-finger lickin' good cake! The natural sweetness of the berries, brown-sugar enhanced over the slightly tart and warmly spiced cake is a combination I am excited to pass along to your own kitchens and dinner parties alike. And sure, you could use any berry you'd like and the recipe would work and be delicious. But with, well, I suppose a bit of a crush on blueberries at this point, I'm giddy to put them in the spotlight here.

So to long time blue fans, and young blueberry lovers, this jam is for you.

Brown Sugar Blueberry Jam

360 grams blueberries
100 grams brown sugar
150 grams granulated sugar

125 grams blueberries

125 grams blueberries

1. Over medium-high heat, let a medium sized sauce pan warm up, empty.
2. Once the pot is hot, add the first amount of blueberries and both sugars.
3. Cook, stirring constantly (with a heat-resistant spatula), until the blueberries cook down to a thick, jam like consistency. As it get thicker, the sugar will want to start caramelizing; if you see it turning brown on the bottom of the pot, take the pan off the heat, stir some more, and then throw it back on. Make sure you stir constantly! Use the spatula to scrape the bottom and the edges around the pan.
4. Once the blueberries are thick and you can almost smell them caramelizing, add the second amount of berries.
5. Stir until blueberries soften, and mixture returns to a boil.
6. Add the last measure, stirring for just a minute or two, until the mixture returns to a boil again.
7. Let cool in a heat resistant bowl...the jam will be really hot when it comes out of the pot!
8. Once cool, refrigerate (or eat).

Yield: a little over half a quart

*for the cheesecake recipe, go here. Do everything the same (though I'd use a regular graham crust rather than the pretzel version), and at the end add 1 tablespoon orange zest and 1 teaspoon cinnamon to combine.

CAKE.

Wedding cake that is. My first one!

An fanciful idea 6 months ago quickly, this past month, become a reality. For my high school friend Rose (ie-posie, mop head and a long list of other old time nick names), I very excitedly assumed the role of wedding cake maker extraordinaire...though the extraordinaire was a gamble as the whole of the experience was new and challenging at every turn. New and challenging and wonderful, I should add. I feel like the occasion calls for fewer words this time around, and more pictures. Care to take a peek?

After a lot of eggs, butter and sugar, flour misting the air, chocolate to make frosting, some fondant and a lot of gum paste (sugar!) flowers, after the pink wore off my hands from dying frosting, after one long drive from New York, NY to State College, PA, air conditioning blasting, me white knuckled in the front seat hoping the cakes were okay back there in the trunk, pulling off at every other rest stop to check...we arrived at the day of the wedding, in the reception hall, ready to put it all together.

With the help of my expert assistant we cut dowels for support, placed cakes veeeery carefully, and attached flowers (at times strategically to cover those first-timer bumps and wiggles in the outer frosting). We chose to do this all in our fancy pants which means we are either natural born, hard core cakers, or a just a touch crazy.

White shirt and pink dress still white and light pink, we successfully put everything together just in time to scoot ourselves to the ceremony. It was beautiful and joyfully tear-filled, with a fine spritzing of good-luck rain hanging in the air around all the happy friends and family.

From rosie posie to Mrs. McLaughlin!

Back to the reception hall I paced around nervously in my sequined flats, waiting for the doors to open. Had the cakes survived the few hours past? Would they have collapsed into a pile of red velvet, chocolate frosted, top layer yellow cake mush?? Would they have melted and sagged into a sad sack of sweetness? I threw back a stiff, double gin and tonic while I waited for the verdict.

Finally, showtime. And folks, the show was great! Both cakes in tact, standing in the glow of little glass-cupped white candles...did I mention there was a grooms cake? A football field, by request of the bride for her forever PSU true fan, now hubbie.

I have to say, man oh man did I feel professional! But most of all, I was so proud and just so happy to be able to make my dear friend so pleased on her special day.

It was a great adventure from start to finish. Challenging at many points, though with a pay off priced so high I'd do it again in a second. Which I truly hope to do again soon (hear that Brooklyn brides? If you need cake, you let me know!)

I do...hope you enjoyed the show!