'Tis the season (for excess)

Utilising every inch of oven space (I made 15 trays in all)

The making of the caramel

Patiently waiting in the 30 minute queue before being baked

Tis the season for scheduling the life out of, well…life. Here I am nearly 1.5 weeks post Potentino Pop-Up finally finding a bit of time to catch up with 'abiteof'. In today’s diary:

• 8 am – 6 pm: Catch up on an assortment of work tasks
• 6 pm – 7:30 pm: Travel home via Angel, purchase last minute Christmukah gifts before flight home to the US on Friday
• 8 pm – 9 pm: Prep for tomorrow night’s DB gig (sourcing a kitsch and cute après ski outfit from the hidden depths of my closet), possibly eat dinner depending on how much chocolate (3 pieces) / number of mince pies (none – HURRAH!) consumed this afternoon
• 9 pm – 10:30 pm: Back to work (ridonkulous conference call with client in Australia)
• 10:30 pm onwards: Write blog

It’s 10:45 pm folks, I’m getting a late start, but better late than never.

‘Tis also the season for excess (parties, long Christmas lunches, delicious treats of the savoury and sweet variety)…as such, I didn’t blink an eye when asked to come up with a pudding for Potentino’s Christmas Feast ‘Pop-Up’ last week. I mean really, I figured what better way to indulge than with:


9 liters (38 cups) single cream 


Yep, you read that right.  Also add to the mix:  

• 2.5 kg (88 ounces) Brown Sugar
• 2.2 kg (18 US sticks) Unsalted Butter
• 1.4 liters (6 cups) Whipping Cream
• 15 Panettones (if approx 455 grams or 1 lb each) regardless, 6.8 kilos or 15 lbs of panettone
• 1 liter (approx 4 cups) Orange Juice
• 4 dozen Eggs
• 450 ml (91 teaspoons) Vanilla Extract
• 4 packages dried Apricots
• 4 packages dried Cranberries
• 2.5 (5.5 lbs) kilos Sugar 

Toss it all together, (more or less), and you get Dana’s Panettone Bread Pudding with Caramel Sauce.

Panettone, traditional Italian Christmas bread is egg-y, sweet, and studded with dried and candied fruit.  However, I imagine that and egg-y bread (e.g. Challah) would work a treat as well.

The recipe below will serve about 8-10 depending on portion size.  The caramel recipe is even more generous than that. Although lets be honest folks, the caramel can keep in the refrigerator for a few weeks.  Just reheat and eat directly with a spoon.

Dana's Panettone Bread Pudding

• 1/3 cup Dried Cranberries
• 1/3 cup Dried Apricots
• 1/4 cup Orange Juice
• 1/2 stick (56 grams) Unsalted Butter, softened
• 1 pound Panettone (approx 450 grams), sliced 1 inch thick
• 3/4 cup Sugar
• 3 large Eggs, lightly beaten
• 2 1/2 cups (590 ml) Light Cream
• 2 tablespoons Vanilla

- Soak cranberries and apricots in warmed orange juice for about 10 minutes, then drain

- Meanwhile, butter panettone on both sides and bake in the oven until golden brown (flipping halfway) about 12 mins around 180°C/ 350°F. Remove from oven, but keep oven on

- Whisk together remaining ingredients

- Break panettone into bite-size pieces and spread evenly in a buttered 13-by 9-inch baking dish. Scatter fruit over top, then pour in egg mixture. Let stand 30 minutes

- Place in oven and bake until pudding is golden and just set, 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.  It's good for about 3-4 days.


Caramel Sauce

• 1 1/4 cups (packed) Dark Brown Sugar
• 1/2 cup (1 stick, 113 grams) Unsalted Butter
• 1/2 cup Whipping Cream
• 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
• Cinnamon to taste

Whisk brown sugar and butter in medium sized saucepan over medium heat until butter melts. Whisk in cream and vanilla and stir until sugar dissolves and sauce is smooth, about 3 minutes.  Add ground cinnamon as you prefer (not necessary but a nice addition if you fancy it).

Bali-Hai

Banana Pancake.
Altogether not a terrible way to start the day when complimented by some authentic rocket fuel Java and fresh fruit.

Arguably the best chicken satay, served on my own personal mini barbecue.
 Indonesia is the original 'home' of satay (spelled sate by the locals). 

Early evening activity enjoyed with KC, ES, and an amazing sunset.
Occasionally Mr. Travel Scrabble joined in on the fun.

The iconic South Pacific song was never far from mind on a recent jaunt to Bali.  I say jaunt (as in quick trip) because 26% of the total vacation time (actually 26.7% of 10 days, I actually did the math) was spent in transit between London and Taiwan, Taiwan and Bali, and Bali and Lombok (times 2). After extensive debate we decided that yes, we probably should fly back to London. I'm still questioning that decision.

While the trip itself was everything I’d hoped for, great friends, sunshine, beautiful scenery, local artisan shopping, and a bit of adventure – the one slightly lacking department was exceptionally tasty grub. 

Of my travels through Asia to-date I’d say Indonesian or specifically Balinese food was likely the most uninspiring.  The most traditional dishes are Nasi Goreng (aka Fried Rice) and Mie Goreng (aka Fried Noodles).  Influenced by a lot of different types of Asian food, the most distinguishable quality about Indonesian food was that it was, in a word, undistinguishable.  

That said, there were a few superior nuggets, the most of which were appreciated overlooking the Indian Ocean from the Alang Alang Beach Resort.  Most notable were their made-to-order fresh fruit cocktails, ala mango daiquiris, banana pancakes (which I ate 6 out of 8 mornings, KC eating 8 out of 8 mornings), roasted red snapper served with a garlic and ginger sauce, and one of the tastiest chicken satays I've ever had, served to my delight - on my own personal mini-barbeque.

Desserts on the holiday were limited to some questionable choices in restaurants. I had the most success with the local gelato shop on Monkey Forest Road in Ubud (cinnamon one day, passionfruit another).  

Would I go back to Bali again? Absolutely! Perhaps I might just do a wee bit more recognisance work before hand to hunt out the best places to get your grub on. I've no doubt they were there, but we were too busy doing (blissfully) absolutely nothing to really bother too much.  Funnily enough, fine with me. 

Birthday Merriment –Take Two

Smorgasbord of Treats

Cake. Meringue. Whipped Cream. Berries.  

Other Specialties I made: Puff pastry with lentils, Boston cream cupcakes, Pork gyozas

Channeling my inner Bardot

Like any good birthday girl I decided to extend my ‘special’ day over two weekends instead of one (clearly so I could simply eat more cake). 

The first in Munich with beers and pretzels larger than my head and the second with a Champagne/ cake/ nibbles party Chez Dana.

Planning for the party I relearned a few things about myself:

1.    1. I am a kitchen / dinner party control freak. 

Except for a few select friends, when the offer to bring food was made I politely declined and asked that instead folks bring a bottle of their favourite bubbles / wine.  One lovely friend, bless her beautiful little face, decided she might be hungry so ignored my direction and brought some Tesco cocktail sausages  and placed them (still in the cold plastic container) on my dining room table alongside artisanal cheeses, home-made pork gyozas, potato and cilantro fritters with crème fraiche and smoked salmon, and spinach lentil yogurt cumin puff pastry bites.  After waiting about 5 minutes I snuck around to the table and hid them behind a plant.

2.     2. I can’t stop with one dessert.

I couldn’t decide what type of birthday cake to make. I was torn between the infamous strawberry Blitz Torte, Boston cream pie cupcakes with homemade chocolate ganache and pastry cream, or a salted caramel and chocolate tart.  Being Miss Indecisive I made all three (naturally).  Oh yes, and a batch of trail mix bark (chocolate covered raisins, peanuts and pretzels) in case people got peckish for something sweet before the other desserts were served.

3.     3. I am happiest when people tell me I remind them of Brigit Bardot.

Ok, maybe it was just that fact that as an extra Birthday treat KC took me to get my hair coiffed before the party and it came out looking fabulously like Miss Bardot's in A Very Private Affair. I'd like to think it was more than just the hair - but let's be realistic. Regardless of why, it still had me positively glowing with Birthday excitedness!

Recipes available upon request. :-)

Munchen Birthday Festivities

Fräulein Dana: A Bern-stein with a Beer-stein

Snack Time

Birthday Lunch - A diverse selection of sausage, kraut, and creamy mash

Birthday 'Cake' - A Germanic version of funnel cake and apple sauce

Over the years my love affair with hops, malt, and barley has evolved. No longer my first go-to libation, my beer drinking is usually strategically placed along-side summer BBQs, travels abroad, or grad-school get-togethers in pubs older than most parts of the US.  While I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for things beer-tastic, I more often than not find myself reaching for the vino instead.  I’ve been pondering why and came up with a couple possible reasons.

1. Beer is way more calorific --> Reason disregarded because:

a. I’m not sure if this is even true and 

b. you can often find me eating fries or cake so why would beer be any different?

2. Beer isn’t as sophisticated --> Reason disregarded because: 

a. there are some AMAZING artisanal beers out there and 

b. it’s just a stupid idea…a girl who loves Ritz Crackers and peanut butter can’t really claim ‘sophistication’ at all times

Then I realized the REAL reason.

With refrigerators in the UK around the same size as those tiny ones we had in our college dorm rooms…to be a beer drinker would require me to sacrifice every other food item.  Not really ideal for a girl who loves to cook and has every inch of her fridge maxed out with perishables.  Wine on the other hand  - no refrigeration really required until it’s time to chill the bubbles.

However, the age old saying…’when in Rome’ never rang truer than when I was recently in Munich to a) celebrate my birthday b) wear traditional German garb...or as traditional as ebay can provide at 20GBP and c) swing beer, eat sausage and sing German songs at Oktoberfest. 

Stein after stein, song after song.  I was like a kid in a Bavarian candy store - which I imagine would also be full of beer, pretzels, sausage, and lederhosen.

Rosh Hashanah Grub

Naked maple brown sugar apple spice cake

All Dressed Up for the New Year's Party

It's not a strange occurrence to hear me singing the praises of pork. Any given day you might overhear me saying, “I can’t imagine a world with out pork.”  Dramatic? Yes. True? Most certainly.

The way I see it, certain things like crispy American bacon, Chinese char sui, or Spanish chorizo just can’t be topped. Period.

That said, I've mused in previous blogs about growing up Jew-'ish' in New England and that even with my love affair with pork, there were still plenty of traditional meals and foods that I hold near and dear.

So with Rosh Hashanah, this week, I was excited to have an excuse to put my love affair with piggie aside for the day, and cook up 1 or 2 of my favourite holiday numbers, as well as introduce a new treat.

Complimenting the standard family stuffed chicken breast; I whipped up a caramelized onion and dill potato kugel.  And for dessert, individual maple brown sugar apple spice cakes. 


It's traditional to have apples and honey on any Rosh Hashanah table, signifying a 'sweet new year'.  Since honey wasn't really an option (read last week’s blog entry to know why I wasn’t going within 100 feet of the stuff), I tried these sweet little apple spice guys instead.   And having finished the last one 4 days after I originally made them, I have to say, they retained moistness like a sponge – they were as good if not better than the night I originally made them. 

Caramelised Onion and Dill Potato Kugel

I must admit I totally winged this one; so all measurements are a total guess.

1-2 large potatoes (grated)

1 onion (sliced fine)

1-teaspoon sugar

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

2-3 eggs

¼ cup oil

¼ cup sour cream

½ cup flour

Salt and pepper

1.Caramelise the onions on a low heat with sugar 

2. Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl, add more flour if it is too liquidy

3. Grease a small square cake pan (I used a pie plate, which was too big – resulting in a tasty but too thin kugel)

4. Bake at 375 / 170 for about 45 minutes or until crispy and brown on the top

Maple, Brown Sugar, Apple Spice Cake

Modelled after the following recipe, I skipped the cream, upped the spices and put three chopped up and peeled granny-smith apples directly into the batter before baking in individual muffin/cake tins.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Brown-Sugar-Spice-Cake-with-Cream-and-Caramelized-Apples-233995 

Honey. Not funny.

Cooling, waiting for their orange / honey bath

Finished product with a blackberry coulis

A lot of honey.  3.5 kilos to be exact.  Half of which ended up on my floor/ counters/ rug/ clothes

In the past 48 hours I have:

- Scrubbed my kitchen floor 5 times

- Wiped down my kitchen counters a dozen times

- Been on hands and knees with the carpet cleaner 3 times

- Removed all contents of fridge (including drawers and shelves) and hosed everything down – twice

However, my socks are still sticking to some residual goop when I walk on the floor.  How is this possible?

One word: Honey.

So why honey in nooks and crannies for months to come? 

Let me take you back 48 hours.

This past Sunday was my third time baking for the 'Potentino Pop-Up'. Normally, there’s a bit of creative banter back and forth around the recipe a few weeks before, allowing for practice runs, perfection of ingredients and ensuring proper equipment.  Not this month.  Only a few days before I got an email asking me to make an orange, honey, and ricotta tart, recipe scanned and attached.

Due to my travels abroad and an Ocado grocery delivery arriving at the last moment (Saturday, the morning before the Pop-Up), there was no trial run. It was going to be all or nothing.

Reading the recipe it seemed ridiculously easy, and thankfully, needing to make 10 tarts (each requiring 45 minutes in the oven) it was.  After baking a mixture of ground almonds, almond extract, eggs, ricotta and…quite frankly... a shit load of honey, the tarts were then covered in an orange and honey mixture that lovingly oozed all over the cake and down the insides of the tart pans.

Problem was this. I’d been told to use (and to be fair, totally agreed that it made sense) to use the 10 tart pans I’d purchased (and expensed) for the sciliian lemon tarts I made back in June.  Only problem here was that the lemon tarts required pans with removable bottoms for their pastry crusts. Not the case with the these tarts.

Since the orange, honey, and ricotta tarts had no crust, when I poured ¾ of a cup of orange juice and honey over them, except for the bit that sat on the top…it slipped down the sides and then out the crack in the removable bottoms.  Multiply this by 10 tarts.

No naturally you must be thinking? Well certainly Dana, after the first or second you must have come up with some sort of alternative solution?

Since there was no room for a real contingency plan (e.g. time to purchase the RIGHT pans) I tried improvising.  Each tart, before being covered head to toe in the honey-orange mixture got a condom-like wrapping of aluminium foil all around it.

It worked a treat until the tarts needed to be moved.  There was so much extra liquid on the top and on the sides that even with the foil, it still oozed up and over. Everything.

I’m not sure why I kept trying to keep up with the mess. Eventually, when they were all stacked into my fridge (which considering the diminutive size of my refrigerator required a significant number of my condiments to live on the counter for the night) I tried to salvage the floor, carpet, and counters.  I admitted defeat late that night.  I decided that I’d just finish it off the next morning once the Pop-Uppers (AG specifically) picked them up for delivery to the restaurant.

Note 1:  These orange and honey tarts, which were served with a blackberry coulis were not really my cup of tea (I'm not a fan of honey). Although much better when finally served the next day, allowing the flavours to settle.  Slightly controversial in taste they appeared to be either loved or tolerated.  Looking around the dining room, Pop-Up guests had either eaten every last morsel or had taken about 4 bites. I was of the 4 bite crowd, the others at my table eating up every last drop…

Note 2: AG who so kindly picked up the tarts early Sunday morning, informed me later that day that he had a small ‘problem’ he needed to deal with once the Pop-Up was finished that evening.  Apparently, the back seat of the car which hosted the tarts from my flat to the restaurant  (each of which had been given a fresh piece of foil for protection that morning) was covered in honey.  

Again, one word: Oops.

Lessons learned through experience:

1. Use the right pans when baking
2. Always allow trial run time 
3. Honey never comes off, ever
4. In excess, I like honey even less

Au revoir 15 Barry Drive

Not really food related. Not really drink related. But very Dana related.

I spent my formative years frequenting the home-style establishment of 15 Barry Drive.  Night after night, day after day there was an assortment of meals, birthday cakes, chocolate whipped cream cake when the head chef was tired and needed a night off 'baking from scratch', cottage cheese pancakes,  cream cheese french toast, stuffed chicken, brisket, and of course, toffee squares, brown sugar brownies, rice custard and an assortment of other delights such as 'broken glass' - an assortment of fruit flavoured jello and cool whip cut into little pieces and put into a 1950's jello mould. Equal parts bizarre and tasty.

We has instant hot cocoa with mini marshmallows in winter, an endless supply of ice pops in summer, and of course Cape Cod potato chips year round.

15 Barry Drive was a wonderful place to eat, develop my love for cooking, and generally spend the majority of my time when not in school, dance, drama or soccer. There were the occasional misbehaved ‘guests’ (aka, my siblings) who in retaliation of my endlessly endearing trait of being an annoying little sister would lock me in rooms, dunk my head in paste (yes, true) or sit on me whilst letting off a maelstrom of extremely toxic gas.  And of course, there is the night that will live in the history books for generations to come, the infamous wall punching, spaghetti throwing, ice water and Reebok high top sneaker chucking night.  It's a nugget of a story folks.

Last week, 15 Barry Drive closed it's doors after having been open for 35 years.  It saw it's fair share of  laughter and tears, was privy to some absolutely stunning pieces of canine brilliance...Dakota tricking MB into getting up out of his favourite seat, eating the entire smoked fish platter and sneakily hiding the evidence, and of course…. who can forget when he ate the entire bag of Hershey’s kisses?  Chocolate may be lethal for dogs, but not when you grow up at 15 Barry Drive.

There was a little blood, a fair amount of sweat, and a whole lot of tears over the past few weeks.  But mostly, lots of wonderful memories to keep us going for quite a few more years to come.

Pop-Up Part Deux

Pine Nut and Rosemary Cookies

About 160 Pine Nut and Rosemary Cookies (I think I ate about 20 because they weren't 'perfectly round' enough - that was my excuse anyway)

First Batch of Syllabubs made with Potentino's wine and Lemon Simple Syrup

Syllabubs Chilling Out in the Walk-in Fridge

7 days later and I’m officially recovered.

Last weekend was my second pastry chef Pop-Up, again for Potentino.  It also coincided with Guilty Pleasures at Koko. The physicality of it all was something else.  It went something like this…

Friday: Prepping until the wee hours making lemon simple syrup, 4 batches cookies, and a batch of Hawaiian macadamia nut cupcakes (Guilty Pleasures theme for the month was Hawaiian Beach Party)

Saturday: Costume arrangement, rehearsal, cupcake assembly, run-throughs, performance, non-stop dancing until 3 am, sleep at 4 am

Sunday: Alarm at 7:15, at restaurant for 9 am, 128 syllabubs later, collapse

Monday: Hobble (can’t walk), limit coughing and laughing (can’t move abs), no lifting (shoulders and arms feel like they’ve been pulled out of sockets)

General physical state can be summed up here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbgyppGqBgg

Call me crazy, but I loved nearly every moment of it. (There was a 'brief' second Sunday morning when my alarm went off after only 3 hours sleep – if it hadn’t been attached to my iphone it would have been thrown against the wall and smashed into tiny pieces).  Except for that little 'blip' there was a smile plastered across my face the entire weekend.

So what was on tap for last weekend’s Potentino Pop-up?  Syllabub with pine nut and rosemary scented cookies/biscuits.

Syllabub was a new one for me and not something I’d normally slip out of my back pocket. Having a slightly less than enthusiastic attachment to creamy desserts (for those of you not in the know, syllabub is a creamy chilled dessert, essentially whipped cream with lemon, sugar, and sweet wine mixed in). With no actual baking involved it seemed (at first) something that the Pop-Up folks could have had a line cook whip up easy peasy. 

That said, once a complimentary biscuit was agreed (I'm a baker, I need to bake - not just whip and chill) I felt happier about putting my name to the dish.  I had visions of guests breaking off pieces of deliciously baked biscuits and dunking it in the sweet creamy glasses of syllabub.  Success was on hand when that’s just what I saw looking around the dining room at guests Sunday afternoon.

I spent a lot of time hemming and hawing over which cookie to serve with the syllabub.  Needing to stay true to Potentino’s request of ‘simple’ and ‘Italian’ I went against my natural tide of cookie flavour combinations and decided on the pine nut and rosemary duo.  I was cautious and a bit concerned. While the recipe I’d decided on was easy, I did wonder for a minute if I was going to end up with a cookie that was going to compliment roast chicken more effectively than the lovely syllabub.  Thankfully for all those involved in consumption – there was no desire for poultry to be found.

Essentially sugar cookies, but with the added complexity of olive oil, ground pine nuts, ground ginger, and a wee bit of chopped rosemary (I used half of what the recipe called for) – the cookies were sweet but just a little bit savoury as well. They were stellar and mapped to the syllabub perfectly which was served with large rosemary sprigs as ‘spoons’.

Pine Nut and Rosemary Cookies: 

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/pine-nut-cookies-with-rosemary 

Syllabub: 

Recipe given to me by the Potentino folks (initially in Italian, which clearly did me no good since my Italian language skills peak at Gelato flavours). Once translated, the recipe was essentially as follows:

1. Dissolve (in the microwave) 1/2 juice and zest of lemon and 1/2 cup sugar

2. Once chilled add 1/4 cup sweet wine - set lemon wine mixture to the side

3. Whip up about 300 ml whipping cream and 1-2 egg whites until firm peaks

4. Fold in lemon wine mixture

5. Serve in individual small glasses, sprinkle with nutmeg, chill for at least 2 hours

6. We served the syllabubs with a sprig of rosemary, you could also serve with a stem of red currants

7. And don't forget the cookies for dipping. Any simple / crispy number will do!

Bad Boys, Bad Boys...Whatcha gonna do?

Whatcha gonna do when they come for you?

3 heads, being treated to some serious TLC

Crust o' aubergines

Getting ready for a big night out

Heaven

This is no time to mince words.  I’ve fallen. Hard. Fast. I’ve anticipated, looked longingly, had heart palpitations and even salivated (no one said I was pretty about it).  I’ve devoured and been left wanting more.

‘Bad boys’ aren’t good for me.  I’ve always known that. You may try to change them, but really what’s the point? It is in fact, part of their overall appeal, no? And let’s be honest, would we really want it any other way? Naughty qualities are fun and can’t be avoided for long. Would I go back and do it all over again, and again… you betcha.

Caramelised Garlic Tart (with more dairy than the Blizzard Fan Club)

Right, so I did attempt a few tweaks (don't judge, I can't help it, I like to reform) as the recipe called for a month’s intake of saturated fat and dairy. As a woman who has a healthy love affair with olive oil and soy products I knew that I was asking for trouble.  But boy, it the best kind of trouble ever.

The caramelised garlic tart came straight from my foodie hero, Yotam Ottolenghi’s new veggie cookbook, Plenty. The actual recipe can be found here:

http://britishfood.about.com/od/adrecipes/r/caramelisedgarlictart.htm 

So my small tweaks and attempts to tone this bad boy down?  I replaced the all-butter pastry crust with thick slices of grilled aubergine.  Means that it won’t freeze well, but I’ve rallied the troops so not really an issue there.  Also, managed a reduced fat crème fraiche without much disarray.  Otherwise recipe as stated.

So bad. So naughty. Doesn't seem right not to share.

Brazilian Carnival Beach Party

Doce de Leite (caramel) Cheesecake Bars

Gooey Residual Deliciousness

Keeping with the beach-tastic Club Tropicana theme from last month, June’s Guilty Pleasures was a feather and sequin adorned Brazilian Rio Carnival Beach Party. 

Back in 2005 when I visiting Rio I remember first falling in love with maracuja (passion fruit) before it became a popular staple in trendy restaurants and ‘body butter’ flavour.  I haven’t checked lately, but I’m guessing there might even be a fruit roll-up flavour that incorporates it. 

So I hunted and found a passion fruit cupcake recipe that I was very excited to make. Only to wake up on the day and realise it was going to be about 90 degrees out.  Hot weather and whipped cream frosting is clearly a recipe for disaster and schlepping them across town would have resulted in passion fruit road kill. While perhaps arguably less tasty, I thought I’d attempt something slightly more durable. 

Also super popular in Brazil is Doce de Leite (Dolce de Leche to you Spanish speakers).  Cheating a little and just using plain old caramel instead, I thought I could gussy up the bars with the sea salt and label them Doce de Leite cheesecake bars.  To be honest, it’s usually about 3 am in the Guilty Pleasures night when they get eaten with wanton abandon so I’m pretty sure my knock-off Doce de Leite slipped by even the most advanced dessert eaters.

Not nearly as 'durable' as I'd hope (not sure what I was thinking replacing the passion fruit cupcakes with a dessert that needs to be refrigerated) - they still tasted great as a late-night dancing treat.  Whilst a lot of the caramel topping had oozed over their tops and onto the bottom of the containers there was no shortage of people scooping up the glorified salted caramel bits.  My GP friends have no shame (part of my love for them and their appeal to me).

The following recipe was followed pretty closely:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Dulce-de-Leche-Cheesecake-Bars-359393 

• If you can't find the Doce de Leite, just plain caramel will do...although in addition to the heat it might have also been why when left out the caramel topping got a wee bit too soft. 

Note: I solved this problem by placing the remaining bars in the freezer.  They are without a doubt - best eaten frozen.

Sicilian Lemon Tart with Mascarpone Cream

'Sicilian' Lemons (Actually from Amalfi)

Assembly Line of Pastry Crusts

Egg Graveyard (70 in total)

First Plating of the Day

I’m thinking about coming out with a new workout DVD, entitled – ‘Dana B’s Lemon Tart’ – Butter and sugar your way to a sculpted upper body.

I kid you not.

I awoke Monday morning from a 19 hour lemon-tart-athon covering both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Saturday was spent making the pastry crust and lemon curd filling (which involved “constantly stirring” 15 batches of lemon curd), and Sunday was spent rolling out the pastry, baking them, assembling with the lemon, baking again, making 8 cups of mascarpone cream and then plating up 120 servings (15 tarts in total)

Exhausting? Yes. Sore muscles? You betcha! Spending the weekend as a ‘professional’ pastry chef for my friend’s ‘pop-up restaurant’ – absolutely phenomenal.

Rewind back a few weeks to when AG originally rang me to get my thoughts on helping him out with his Pop-Up endeavour. I’d sent through a number of dessert suggestions that fit with his Tuscan inspired menu, but new to this ‘professional baking’ thing I didn’t think about the effort involved in making so many of one particular dish. Lesson learned. The effort involved in lemon tarting is exponentially greater than let’s say, a mascarpone cheesecake with balsamic berries. Sure the cheesecake take a lot of time to solidify etc....but it’s ready to go on the day. More of a love ‘em and leave ‘em approach. No faffing about with pastry crust and assembly. And second degree burns covering a 2 inch by 2 inch space on my arm...

The other somewhat comical bit was that of the hundreds of desserts I’ve ever made, I’d never actually made a straight up lemon tart. And with so many different opinions on pastry crust and lemon filling, I knew I needed to do a bit of homework to make sure I got it 'just right.'

Homework manifested itself in 4 lemon tarts the week before the Pop-Up. I had lemon tart coming out of the wazoo. Luckily, I have generous friends (ES, LM, KC) who were ever so kind as to come take the tart off of my butter and sugar coated hands. Probably a good thing because even though I tried to give most away, I still knocked back half of a whole one. But as I was the lead taste tester, it was a rough job that I had to take on – the tart needed to be perfected and we all know practice makes perfect.

And to add calories upon already thousands of calories, May Guilty Pleasures fell into the middle of my Lemon tart practice runs so I also was ‘forced’ to squeeze in a batch of lime and coconut cupcakes with lime cream cheese frosting as well. It was a rough week, one that I’m not entirely sure even 3 dance rehearsals and 2 trips to the gym could even out. Which reminds me, I need to buy stock in Spanx. Note: Lemon tarts and cupcakes are not a match made in heaven with fishnets and sequin shorts.

So what did my research prove?

1. Pastry crust need not be secondary to the lemon tart filling. And while being able to stand on its own two feet, should not just be a conduit for the lemon but a complementary partner in crime.

2. You can make a ‘Scicilian Leman Tart’ with a pastry crust recipe written by a French chef. I used Joël Robuchon’s which included your typical ingredients of flour, butter, eggs, etc. but also calls for ground almonds and vanilla beans (in an attempt at cost savings I used extract instead of the bean).

3. Lemon tart filling recipes should not be complicated. I tried the ‘sabayon’ method – it ended in disaster and all over me. However, recipes can be doubled but should most definitely NOT be tripled or quadrupled.*

*Note: I was getting exhausted and tried combining the lemon curd batches, three or four at a time... only to have to separate it back out into two pots so it would finally thicken, because it wouldn't with so much in one pot. Just picture me sitting by my stove top (yes sitting, I was EXHAUSTED) with 2 whisks, one in each hand ... ‘stirring constantly’...for a few hours. At least when I was only doing one batch at a time I had one free hand for playing scrabble on my iphone. Not. A. Joke.

4. Sorry folks, but mascarpone cream, whilst indescribably delicious, tastes pretty much exactly like plain whipped cream, only with a slightly more dense consistency. Not sure it’s worth the extra bucks/quid/yen to make it with mascarpone, but it did give the lemon tart a slightly more Italian nuance.

Time to make the doughnuts

There’s a first for everything, and a few weeks back was my time to foray into the world of homemade doughnuts (also known by New Englanders as the donut).

For years I’d hoped Santa would bring me a deep fat fryolater in my stocking so that I could whip up delicacies like tempura, chips, and of course – hot and deliciously-fresh doughnuts.

I’m sure my bathroom scale and cholesterol are secretly happy not to have received a contraption that’s sole purpose is to be a big vat of bubbling oil, but as such I figured I had to take the bull by the horns and come up with a different solution to my doughnut-making excitement.

Low and behold, the answer manifested itself when I was stranded Stateside last month due to the Volcano. Note: Not a sentence that I thought I’d ever actually write.

I was visiting my favourite bakery, Clear Flour, in Brookline, MA when I spotted a new addition to their ever-perfect bread and pastry menu – baked doughnuts with dried currants. Once again, so delectably perfect in its creation I was barely out the door and was covered head to toe in cinnamon and sugar deliciousness. Even though not filled with anything, the dough they make the doughnuts from was so creamy and rich it made for a sweet moist custardy-like interior.

I knew that there was no way I was going to be able to make the same thing at home without finding out their exact recipe, so I did the next best thing – an excessively sad amount of web research to see what I could find in the way of baked doughnut recipes.

What I came up with was based off of this amazing blog I came across by a woman named Heidi Swanson, 101 Cookbooks, and a whole lot more research to ensure I was going to get the right consistency. Because of my hectic schedule I hadn't had time to go to the ‘real’ grocery store and get the required yeast, active dry. Instead I was stuck with fast action. Now for those of you who’ve tried to use a different yeast than what the recipe calls for, you'll know of the excessive differing opinions on how and in what like-to-like quantities it should be used.

Ever the management consultant I consulted numerous sources of data and came up with a solution that would result (I hoped) in the most successful outcome. I used approximately 2/3 the amount of the active dry, and instead of a dough hook attachment which I’m pretty sure I’ve lost under my couch, pummelled that dough within an inch of it’s life. I couldn’t find dried currants so instead swapped in some highly successful dried blueberries.

4 hours, 2 dough rising sessions, and head to toe flour coverage later, I took the doughnuts out of the oven to quickly cover them in melted butter and more cinnamon and sugar than should be legal. They were at their peak eaten immediately, but managed to make their way to Curley’s 'curry extravaganza' later that night to the welcome bellies of friends who, also now covered in cinnamon and sugar, were singing their praises.

Note: Not quite to the Clear Flour calibre I shall continue practicing until either a) I can find that magical recipe or b) my ‘practice’ at doughnut making (and consumption) exceeds the weight limitation on my bathroom scale.