It’s Mardi Gras, it’s President’s Day weekend- it’s just madness over here! Yesterday, we drove from Brooklyn out to Patchogue to visit our only Long Island outpost, Queen City Cupcakes (GORGEOUS!!! A must visit if you’re out east). After Patchogue, we drove out to East Hampton to see my aunt, then to Maidstone, then back to East Hampton, then to Bridgehampton, then Southampton, the Quogue to give our class at the Quogue Library (also gorgeous! Seriously- Bay Ridge looks like crap after this weekend!), then back to Brooklyn to get the kids, then to Staten Island, and now finally to Monroe Township in Central New Jersey.
I. Am. Exhausted. So I get to blame all typos, poor segways, and idiotic sentence structure on that today. It’s nice to finally have a real excuse for it, in contrast to all the other days the blog is comprised mostly of that stuff anyway. Those times it solely because I’m lazy and/or writing the blog while simultaneously screaming at “Days of Our Lives” on SoapNet.
Here’s some random stuff I have to talk about that has really nothing to do with each other. I really tried hard to find a thread to tie it all together, but the magic is just not happening today. I must admit, I’m half tempted to make some crack like “the magic’s not happening - except in my pants!”, which can only mean I have spent entirely way too much time hanging out with my husband this weekend.
1. A big THANK YOU to all the people who sold out our master class in Quogue. We are both so floored that you all took the time out of your busy schedules to come and spend an afternoon listening to us ramble on and on and on and on……
Also a big thank you to Ann Marie Borghese of Borghese Vineyards who provided us with the merlot we will now be using in our Chocolate Merlot brownies. You can catch her at the Union Square & Grand Army Plaza Greenmarket on select days- we heavily suggest the Merlot, which in our eyes is a great basic table red. And as for those merlot brownies- expect to be able to find them regularly at our DeKalb shop starting on 4/6, and potentially out east soon…..
2. …..speaking of out east - the last time we were at my aunt’s house out east was seven whole years ago. Now most of you, rightfully, are probably wondering what the hell is wrong with us, since anyone who has an open invitation to stay out in the Hamptons any time they’d like should probably go three times a week. And I will tell you what was wrong with us: we had kids. Then the kids weren’t enough so we threw a small business on top of that!
Within five minutes of being back on Route 27, I instantly remembered all the days I had spent as a child catching blue crabs and digging for clams like they were yesterday. The weekends spent fishing off the back of my aunt’s kayak, bringing a bag of porgys back to my aunt’s one room cottage and spending the night cooking and eating in our bathing suits. It made me realize that one quick overnight stopover during a business trip after a seven year absence was not remotely enough.
Now the kids are old enough to take out east, but we still have that little problem of us being entrepreneurs, meaning that it is next to impossible for Matt and I to turn “off” and justify being off from work for more than two days. So if anyone out there can come up with any way to rationalize an extended stay in the Hamptons, let us know. You know a shop we can run a week-long pop-up in? Have a wedding you want us to cater? Want us to give private baking classes? Give a lecture for your organization? Bake pies for charity? Want Matt to clean your pool?
We just need leads, because that place is totally unrecognizable from when I was a kid. Seriously, my old toy store is a Juicy Couture now, and my favorite candy shop is now home to the Corcoran Group. I DO, however, still know the best spot to go to catch frogs, so don’t think this would be a one-sided information exchange!
3: LOGO SEARCH 2012: Current results- #1 and #3 are TIED, each with 40% of the vote, and #2 has 20%. So I’m going to give this a few more days.
CLICK HERE TO VOTE FOR YOUR FAVORITE FIRST DRAFT OF OUR NEW LOGO. Note that I put “First Draft” in bold. These are not close to final- we’re picking a design to use as a starting point, hoping to get a final in a few weeks. I had a lot of people say they hated #3, but voted for it because it said “Brooklyn”. We can put Brooklyn on any of the logos- we probably will. We’re also changing the colors. Those will all be future polls- we promise. Right now, we’re going straight for gut reaction.
What is your gut telling us to do? Because mine is telling me to take a 5 minute writing break in order to eat some ice cream sandwiches.
Yes, sandwiches. I meant that to be plural.
4: MAAAARRRRDDDDDIIIIIII GRRRRAAAAASSSSSS!!!!
This is a very special cupcake day, because we’ve got a bunch of N’Awlins inspired flavors on the menu, including two brand spanking new ones: Pecan Praline & King Cake!
When researching King cakes, we found about 1,000 recipes, all of them radically different. Then we learned that we’ve been making the original King cake for years, except in our house, we called it by the name we learned from our French training: Pithivier. Not only delicious, but really really really fun to say out loud. Almost as fun as saying “Me montrer votre belle poitrine” (WOOOO MARDI GRAS!).
Pithivier is a very simple cake, made with frangipange (aka almond cream) sandwiched between two disks of puff pastry, then baked until puffed and golden. If you buy the puff pastry (we recommend Dufour all-butter puff), it’s an amazingly easy dessert to try and make on your own. Here’s a link to Jacques Torres’ recipe, which is the first one I ever made when I was 16 years old, and the basis of the recipe I use til this day.
Our “King Cupcake” is an almond cake filled with almond pastry cream, topped with an almond custard buttercream, then rolled in feuillitine (aka crispy puff pastry). And since it’s a special occasion, we’ve airbrushed the cupcakes the traditional colors of purple (for justice), green (for faith), and gold (for power).
I know, I know - we don’t use food coloring! But all the cajuns we talked to stressed how important the colors were, and coincidentally we were just introduced to 100% natural line of non-chemical food coloring! It’s a Mardi Gras miracle!
So we’ve got the King Cake, Pecan Praline & Bananas Foster cupcakes to celebrate, but there’s always a 4th cupcake. What else could we be celebrating?
5: HAPPY BIRTHDAY RUE McCLANAHAN!!!!
Happy 78th birthday in heaven, beautiful. We still love you down here.
Now let’s go make Fat Tuesday live up to it’s name!
Clockwise from front: King Cake, Pecan Praline, Rue McClanahan, Bananas Foster
NEW! King Cake: Almond cake, almond custard filling, almond custard buttercream, feuillitine
NEW! Pecan Praline: Pecan cake, vanilla buttercream, homemade pecan pralines
Bananas Foster: Banana cake, rum-salted caramel buttercream and drizzle
Rue McClanahan: Peach cake, cheesecake buttercream, brown sugar & peach compote
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Cupcakes Available at:
Cafe at Sam’s Bakery: 94th off 3rd, Bay Ridge
Aloha Grinds: 77th and 3rd, Bay Ridge
Crespella: 7th Ave off 9th Street, Park Slope
Tazza Cafes: Clark off Henry AND Henry off Atlantic, Brooklyn Heights
Cake Shop: Ludlow btwn Stanton & Rivington, LES
Joe Columbia University: West 120th btwn Broadway & Amsterdam, Morningside Heights
By Brooklyn: 261 Smith Street
Queen City Cupcakes: West Main Street, Patchogue, Long Island
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Whoopie Pies Available At:
Red Hook Lobster Pound: 284 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook
Tazza Cafes: Clark off Henry AND Henry off Atlantic, Brooklyn Heights
Queen City Cupcakes: West Main Street, Patchogue, Long Island
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Brownies Available At:
Queen City Cupcakes: West Main Street, Patchogue, Long Island
Oaxaca Tacos: 250 4th Avenue- Park Slope Brooklyn; 251 Smith Street Cobble Hill Brooklyn; 16 Extra Place, LES Manhattan
