Happy Birthday America!

Happy Fourth of July! I hope you're all out celebrating with family, friends, fireworks, food, and festivities. Here's a patriotic parfait to get you in the spirit. Blackberries, strawberries, whipped cream, and chopped up Madeleines. Perfect for summer!

Dessert Hall of Fame: Churros con Chocolate

Those who can't do, teach.
Those who can't eat dessert because they are on a self-imposed low carb diet, daydream about desserts they once ate before said diet began.
That being said, feast your eyes on this:



Today's Hall of Fame inductee hails from the sultry city of Madrid, Spain. It's tall, thin, blonde, and likes to party with the rich and chocolaty. Please give a kind welcome to churros con chocolate from Chocolatería San Ginés!

A couple of months ago, Delta had a crazy flash sale to Europe which allowed my long-lost roomate Akshaya and I to fly round-trip JFK <--> MAD for $230. BTW when I say long-lost I mean it: she's currently living in a tent in South Sudan. (Yes, that South Sudan. The place that is not technically a country yet).

My memories of the weekend are snapshots of sunshine, museums, parks, and tapas bars. (There was also a run-in with a bachelor party of French men decked out in fanny packs and pink tshirts, save the extremely attractive groom-to-be who was sporting an off-the-shoulder cow costume onesie, but let's not go there). Our first night, after doing a tapas crawl down Cava Baja, tired but tipsy on wine and pretty damn proud of our jetsetting awesomeness we rambled over to Chocolatería San Ginés and pulled up two chairs at one of the little aluminum tables on the quiet cobblestone street. We asked for two orders of churros and sat back to see what the fuss was all about.



The churros themselves are neither dense nor sweet- the light and airy dough is fried in olive oil and if one ignores the whole "deep frying" thing actually could be considered a light dessert. They are crunchy on the outside and airy and fluffy on the inside. But they are served with the thickest, richest hot chocolate you can imagine. We're talking Max Brenner-style thick, gooey, dark chocolate goodness. Absolutely fabulous. We came back two days later for more. But only one order that time. I swear.

Is that an empty plate I see in the background?

These are not your garden variety carnival-style cinnamon-and-sugar sprinkled churros. These are the real deal. Welcome to the club, boys!

Nigella Lawson's Chocolate Honey Cake

For the past couple of years I've been engaged in a serious internal debate: Who is more awesome- Ina Garten or Nigella Lawson? Both have fabulous life stories. Both make great food. Both make a fabulous living making great food. I just can't decide. I will tell you though, this cake gives Nigella a bit of an edge (well, the cake and the British accent). I've made it several times for special occasions. It is beyond rich and sweet and would go perfect with some vanilla ice cream in the summer. I like to decorate the cake with almond slivers shaped into flowers and blackberries (above). Blackberries are so underrated in baking. Why? WHY, I ASK YOU? I love them. Nigella's original recipe called for marzipan honeybees, which I made once, but was underwhelmed by.

The number of my pictures which have wine in them are astounding. At least in this one you see several glasses, so I wasn't drinking alone.

I will not write out the whole recipe, which you can find here: Deliciousness Ahoy!

Tip: the consistency of the icing is key. Make sure you do not pour it over the cake while it is still too hot, or everything will run off and form a giant puddle on the plate below (and possibly on the table below the plate below). Also, when in doubt make more icing than the recipe calls for- better have too much (which, oh i don't know, you could dip blackberries in) than to run out and make more, which inevitably will be a different color than your first batch.

Proof that I do in fact eat vegetables

See? I had these for dinner one night. Bell peppers. YUM.
Of course, I added chicken and cheese (and some fajita sauce) due to my love of protein.


And yes, this means I'm eating meat now! BIG life decision! Chicken, turkey and fish. Never red meat or pork or bacon or any of that. And not when served in a form that reminds me that I am in fact eating an animal (i.e. No bones please. And if I eat fish, I don't want it looking at me). Cognitive dissonance is key. But the siren song of lean protein was too tough to resist.

Oreo Truffles

As you may recall, a couple months ago I made some peanut butter pretzel truffles for my dear madre. And it was so easy it got me thinking- couldn't I basically make truffles out of anything? Like, I don't know... Oreos?

And so I did.

And they were delicious.

Why does it looks like this pic was taken with Hipstamatic?

So delicious, in fact, that I had to get them out of my house before I ate them all. So I brought them with me when I went for a nighttime stroll with my friends Paul & Pete. They each ate a few... and then I ate the rest.

Mission divest-self-of-calorie-bombs FAIL. But whatevs. Totally worth it. And we walked all the way down to 72nd street and back so I like, totally burned off all the calories... right?

Oreo Truffles

Why yes, in addition to the truffles I did in fact dip a few Oreos in the leftover chocolate.

Ingredients:

• Oreos
• Vanilla icing (premade is fine)
  
• 1/2 cup melted chocolate chips

Crumble oreos (as many as you want, depending on how many truffles you want). Mix in icing one tablespoon at a time until the mixture is the right consistency for molding. Form teaspooon-sized balls of mixture and place on wax paper. Place in refrigerator for 30 minutes. Melt chocolate chips, roll balls in chocolate, place back on wax paper and chill 30 minutes or until chocolate sets.


What else do you think would be good as a truffle? White oreos? Chocolate chip cookie dough? Peppermint patties? The possibilities are endless.

BAM DanceAfrica

For anyone who lives in the NYC area, you should try to check out the BAM DanceAfrica festival Memorial Day weekend:

http://www.bam.org/view.aspx?pid=41

I've gone the past two years. There's a really fun street fair with crafts, food, clothes, etc. There's also movies and dance performances, and usually art and photography inside BAM itself. I went to a dance performance last year and it was AMAZING. I've been to a lot of dance shows in my life (normal New York families get season tickets to the Yankees, my family gets season tickets to the American Ballet Theatre), but that one was one of the best.

Plus, this year there is going to be a "Late-Night Dance Party" on Saturday night. Hey-ohh!

Awesomely Bad Analogies

So I stumbled across this today:

56 worst/best analogies of high school students

High school teachers submitted the worst analogies they had seen in their students' assignments. Some of them are obviously meant to be a joke. Others... it's not so clear. Some favorites:

He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.

She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.

He was as bald as one of the Three Stooges, either Curly or Larry, you know, the one who goes woo woo woo.

I laughed so hard I cried. Alone. In the law school clinic office. Freezing cold. Surrounded by evidence outlines. It was a real highlow.

I'll leave you with this awesome song courtesy of my friend Krishna. AK and I are hosting a fiesta on Thursday and this will def be on the playlist.
Drake vs. M.I.A. vs. AR Rahman

Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles

This recipe is super yummy and super easy. It has only three ingredients: peanut butter, pretzels, and chocolate.

Peanut Butter Pretzel Truffles

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup natural peanut butter
  
• 1/2 cup finely chopped salted pretzels
  
• 1/2 cup melted chocolate chips (semi-sweet, dark chocolate, white chocolate.. up to you)

Mix the peanut butter and pretzels in a small bowl. Stick in the freezer for 15 minutes to set. Remove mix from freezer, form teaspoon-sized balls of mix and drop onto wax paper (should make about 10- 15 balls). Place in freezer for at least one hour until firm.

Now if you're like me, you're thinking 'Gross. Natural PB has no flavor and a weird texture!' Believe me, this recipe is the only reason I will ever willingly bring natural PB into the house. Reduced Fat Creamy Jif is my 6th food group. Seriously. But natural works better here because of that weird aka "natural" flavor and texture. Plus let's face it, the reason processed peanut butter tastes so good is because of all the added sugar- enter melted chocolate, stage right:

Melt chocolate chips. Roll peanut butter-pretzel balls in the chocolate, place back on wax paper, place in the refrigerator at least 30 minutes or until chocolate sets.



I'm going to find a fun way of packaging these guys and give them to minha mãe for Mother's Day. I already got her a jar of Sarabeth's Plum Cherry jam (she's obsessed), but I think she deserves a little more than that!

Muito fácil e muito delicioso! nom nom.

*UPDATE*: I went to the local chocolate shop and got a tin and some papers to put the truffles in. Only 8 fit in the tin, so the rest will be traveling in the ever-classy tupperware:

Birthday Brownies: The Sequel

Ok two things first:
1) Evidently I lied in the last post about starting to do work, because I've done none since I wrote that and here I am again
2) I just enabled targeted advertising on this site and the first ad I saw was.. Magnum ice cream! One of my all time favorite things in the world. Man these google people are good.

Alright, now back to the brownies.

Well all, just as I share my culinary triumphs with you, I must also share my non-triumphs (let's not use the word failures). The brownies were sub-par. Why, you might ask? Well, I kind of didn't follow the recipe. As you may recall it asks for ChocoBake or, in a pinch, cocoa powder. Evidently I was in more than a pinch because I used solid baking chocolate. Perhaps not enough? Perhaps at the wrong temperature? All I know is something went awry. The brownies were not as moist or chocolaty as they should have been. They were more like cake. Pretty good cake, but not what expected. I also place some of the blame on the hardware (evidently living in a prewar building means getting stuck with a prewar oven). Whatever, I stand by the recipe, and I just ordered a ton of ChocoBake from Amazon.

On to the decorating. I wanted to draw something with candles (since it was Akshaya's Bday, after all) but figured drawing a cake on brownies would be kind of weird (like a dessert turducken). For reasons unbenownst to me, I decided that I should draw a chandelier. So here's what I did.


First, I let the brownies cool to room temperature, and then drew a chandelier on a piece of computer paper. Actually I drew half of a chandelier, folded the piece of paper in half, held it up to the window, and traced the other half to make sure it was symmetrical.

Here's my drawing.

I cut out a few pieces of the sketch so I could use it as a stencil and block out the design. In retrospect, I wish I had done more of this and/or marked more spots with toothpicks because it was hard to reconstruct the design.

I made a simple buttercream frosting, dyed some of it yellow and some blue, and used a size 4 pastry bag tip to draw on the chandelier. The beads are the same candy pearls I used on the buttercup bundt cakes from last week. For the writing and the border I used a size 16 pastry tip.

Voila! Not too bad. Next time I will do more tracing and less eyeballing to avoid some of the squiggliness. ( And maybe I'll spend more than 20 seconds on the text to avoid the kindergarten-macaroni-collage look.)

Happy Birthday AK! xox

Warning: This post is not edible. Final exam mix!

Hi Hi.

So I haven't posted in a few days because I've (finally) buckled down and started doing some studying. Took an 8 hour take-home exam today. (Not fun). I'm making peanut butter pretzel truffles right now to give to my mom for Mother's Day on Sunday. (Fun)

I still don't quite have time to post brownie pics or truffle recipes, but I want to share my **Spring 2011 Final Exam music mix (!!)** because the more I study the more in love with it I am. I tried to pick songs that were relatively down-tempo, because anything with a strong beat tempts me to jump out of my seat and start dancing, but I also made sure to pick songs that I really like and can listen to repeatedly without getting sick of them. So here it is:

1. Let Me Be- Xavier Rudd
2. Wasted Hours- Arcade Fire
3. Rich Woman- Robert Plant & Alison Krauss
4. Cler Achel- Tinariwen
5. I'm Good, I'm Gone- Lykke Li
6. Farmhouse- Phish
7. Inchana Massina- Ali Farka Toure
8. Long Long Nite- Mano Negra
9. New York City (Lazy Sunday in Prospect Park Remix)- Norah Jones
10. The Only Living Boy in New York- Simon & Garfunkel
11. Little Bit- Lykke Li
12. Kala- Ali Farka Toure & Toumani Diabate
13. Buckets of Rain- Bob Dylan
14. Penda Yoro- Ali Farka Toure
15. Saa Magni- Oumou Sangare
16. Long Haul- Voxtrot
17. Me Gustas Tu- Manu Chao
18. Dream Machine (Downtempo Remix)- Mark Farina & Sean Hayes
19. La Vida Tombola- Manu Chao
20. Heart it Races (as played by Dr Dog)- Architecture in Helsinki
21. Ghostwriter- RJD2
22. Siempre Me Quedara- Bebe
23. Stay Don't Go- Spoon
24. Clandestino- Manu Chao
25. Love and Happiness- Al Green
26. Haiti- Arcade Fire
27. I Turn My Camera On- Rock Kills Kid
28. El Microfono- Mexican Institute of Sound
29. Lights Out- Santigold
30. Forever Young- Youth Group
31. El Carretero- Buena Vista Social Club
32. Young Folks- Peter Bjorn and John
33. Cello Song- Nick Drake
34. Collie Man- Slightly Stoopid
35. Mexico- James Taylor
36. 50 Ways to Leave your Lover- Paul Simon
37. M'bife- Amadou & Mariam

Enjoy!

Birthday Brownies!

Huzzah! Today is my darling roommate and dear friend Akshaya's birthday! Unfortunately we are in the midst of final exams so the festivities will have to wait until next week. However, in honor of the day of her birth I am making some brownies.

The recipe is one I got from my mother, who probably got it from her mother. These brownies were a staple growing up in my house. My parents have a home video of me at approximately 4 years old making them with my dad. After we stick the pan in the oven he asks if I want to "lick the bowl," at which point I literally pick up the mixing bowl, stick my head into it, and start licking.

These days I use a spoon, but the enthusiasm is the same.

Mom's Brownies

Ingredients:

• 1/3 cup butter (melted)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 eggs (room temperature)
  
• 2 envelopes ChocoBake (this can be hard to find, so if you don't have it, substitute with 6 tablespoons cocoa powder and 1 tablespoon vegetable oil)
• 2/3 cup flour
• 1/2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
Thoroughly mix together the butter and sugar. Most baking recipes call for the ingredients to be at room temperature, but you really want the butter melted here to avoid clumping. Add eggs one at a time, then add Chocobake. Set aside.
In a smaller bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, and salt. Gradually add flour mixture to the sugar and eggs, stirring until totally combined.
Add vanilla extract, stir again.
Bake in a greased 9x9 inch baking pan for 30 minutes or until a toothpick stuck into them comes out clean.

These are in the oven right now and they. smell. so. good.
I'll be back later a picture of the final product!

Recipe: Vegetable Chili

In dietary penance for the past couple of posts, today's recipe is totally healthy, fresh, and sugar-free. I call it chili, mainly because I dump tons of chili powder into it, but its relatively low on beans and completely lacking in meat so perhaps that's not the best name. At any rate, its simple, delicious, low-fat/calorie/carb/etc., and for the vegetarians out there it packs a good amount of protein (you can also add vegetarian ground beef if you wish). I often double the recipe and then freeze some of it so I have it around for awhile. The mechanics of the recipe are simple so feel free to experiment with different beans and vegetables.

Vegetable Chili

Ingredients:

• 2 onions, chopped
  
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 3 celery ribs, chopped
• 2 green bell peppers, seeded and diced
• 2 zucchini, sliced
• 14-oz can red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
• 14-oz can chopped tomatoes
• 2/3 cup passata or tomato sauce
• 2 tablespoons tomato paste
• 1 tablespoon ketchup
• 1 teaspoon each hot chili powder, ground cumin, and ground coriander (I usually double this... sometimes triple...)
• salt and freshly ground black pepper

1. Put the first 5 ingredients (the green stuff) in a large saucepan and mix together

2. Add the next 5 ingredients (the red stuff)

Add the spices, season with salt and pepper and mix well

Cover, bring to a boil, then simmer for 20-30 minutes (this may vary depending on how finely you chopped the vegetables)


Serve with a sprinkling of cheese or a spoonful of plain yogurt sprinkled with cayenne pepper
It's not very photogenic, but I promise its delicious.

Now I know how she got a job with the Food Network

This recipe from Rachel Ray is amazing. Very complex though. Not sure I could manage it.

Rachel Ray's Recipe for Late Night Bacon

Ingredients: 8 slices bacon

Directions: Place 2 sheets of paper towel on a microwave safe plate, lay the bacon out on the paper towel not overlapping the slices. Place 2 more sheets of paper towel on top. Place in the microwave on high for 4 to 6 minutes.

The best part, by far, is the comments. How to adapt the recipe if you want to make bacon in the morning? Or what if you only have six slices available??

Dessert Hall of Fame: Pastéis de Belém

Once in awhile a dessert’s reputation grows to the point that it transcends its humble status as a foodstuff and is catapulted into the realm of tourist destinations. Sometimes the fuss is deserved (e.g. beignets from Café Du Monde), and sometimes its not (Magnolia cupcakes, I’m looking at you). Today’s inductee into the Hall of Fame fully deserves its stellar rep. In fact, it bears the distinction of being, quite literally, the best dessert I’ve ever had. And so of course I have to share it with you. Ladies and Gentlemen, may I introduce:

O Pastel de Belém

Pastéis de Belém, aka Pastéis de Nata, are made at the Lisbon bakery that bears the same name. They are basically custard tarts, traditionally eaten warm with a sprinkling of powdered sugar and a bica, or shot of espresso. I encountered these little lovelies during a solo backpacking trip through Spain and Portugal a couple of years ago. It was my third day in Lisbon and I was in desperate need of some alone/downtime (perhaps due to the bottle or two or seven of vinho verde I shared with a group of German bankers at my hostel the night before). I figured a quiet day out in Belém visiting the Jeronimos Monastery, the Torre de Belém and the Monument to the Discoveries would be a nice change of pace.

The Monument was awesome. The Torre was small. The Monastery was old. And the pastries were an afterthought really, one that I indulged in because I had 30 minutes before the tram back to the Baixo would arrive, it had started to rain, and I had read about them in my guidebook. The truth is I really don’t like custard. At all. Ever. The thought of flan makes me gag. And wrapping the custard up in a pastry shell is not enough to get me to change my mind. So suffice to say, I was skeptical.



But these pastries were different. The crust was warm, flaky, thick and dense enough to be satisfying. The custard had a teeny tiny crispy skin where it had carmelized on top, and was warm and gooey with just a hint of sweetness. The espresso was perfect. The waiter understood my Brazilian Portuguese. I was reading (though I didn’t know it yet) one of my favorite books of all time. It started raining harder. I ordered another pastel. It was glorious. And then I took the tram back to the hostel, took a nap, and spent the night hopping into fado shows and bars across the Bairro Alta, drunk on hard cider and happy as a clam.



Throughout the rest of my time in Portugal I tried to duplicate the experience at other bakeries but alas, none came close. The singleton I got at a downtown Lisbon pasteleria? Bland. The duo I ordered at a sidewalk café in Obidos? Soggy. The grocery store premades in Porto? Great... for feeding the ducks. Pastéis de Belém are the real deal. And so it is with great pride that I bestow upon them the honor of being the first ever inductees into the TORTS & TARTS DESSERT HALL OF FAME!


Do you have any nominees for the Hall of Fame? Let me know!

**Fun fact** The Belém bakery is right next to O Mosteiro dos Jerónimos, a gorgeous monastery built in the mid-1500s. Back in the day Portuguese monasteries needed large quantities of egg whites both for starching clothes, like nun habits, and for the clearing of wines, like Port. They had tons of egg yolks left over, and so they developed tons of sweet recipes based on the yolks.

Food Porn: Jessica's Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie

I tend to use the phrase “food porn” rather broadly, to refer to any yummy-looking pictures of food. Obviously food porn is not actual porn- its a figure of speech. But every once in awhile, I come across a picture that makes me wonder. A picture that I feel kind of uncomfortable looking at in public. A picture that’s borderline obscene. This picture of Chocolate Chip Cookie Pie from How Sweet It Is is one of those pictures. I mean, its pretty much NSFW, am I right? (Ok, so maybe it would only be NSFW if you worked at a diabetes research center or something like that, but still). Wow. Yum. I will never make this, because I would probably eat it all in one sitting. But I might just bookmark the recipe...

Mini Honey-Almond Buttercup Bundts

Last weekend was exciting for two different reasons: 1) Sunday was Easter and I got to see all of my mom’s side of the family and 2) I bought a cake decorating kit. What better way to celebrate than to make some cakes to bring to my Aunt’s house for Easter? And what better cakes to make than these adorable miniature buttercup cakelets? None, I tell you. None.

I am the first to admit that I am a total sucker for kitschy cake pans. The amazing thing about this adventure in culinary cuteness is not the fact that I do indeed own such a thing as a miniature buttercup cakelet pan, but rather that I had to decide between using this pan, a beehive cake pan, and a honeycomb cake pan. A true abundance of springtime-appropriate cakeware. It may or may not have taken me an hour of internal debate to decide. But in the end, buttercup cakelets won out because they presented the greatest opportunity for practicing my nascent cake decorating skills.


I love these little guys because they look like you put hours of work into them when in fact they are quite easy. (OK I totally DID put hours of work into them, but I swear only because it was the first time I used the cake decorating set!).

For the cake I used a basic bundt recipe, adding 1.5 teaspoons of almond extract and 1/3 cup honey. I used a little extra of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar) and a little less of the wet ingredients (milk) to compensate for the change in consistency caused by the honey. I am very happy with the way it turned out, but for a more reliable recipe you may want to try this recipe here from Martha Stewart

Also keep in mind that, if working from a normal bundt recipe, the bake time required is about 1/3 to 1/2 of that for a full-sized cake, so keep an eye on these guys! It also turns out a bundt recipe makes about twice as much batter as you need to fill these cakelets, so when I popped the pan into the oven the molds overflowed (causing my dad to remark “I suppose that’s where the term ‘muffin-top’ comes from”). But once they came out and cooled I just sliced the bottom off, so no harm no foul.

After the cakes cooled and I did some cosmetic surgery on the muffintops I made a simple buttercream frosting, loaded up my pastry bags, and went to town! I also used some candy pearls for some springtime bling bling (spring bling?). For my first time working with the decorating set I am pretty happy with the way they turned out, although if you look closely you can see where my hand shook and the icing got a bit wiggly.



The cakes were a HUGE hit. They look adorable (especially all lined up together!) and the almond taste was enough to make them interesting without being overwhelming. I’ll definitely be using the cakelet pan again soon… maybe with brownies next time? Or pound cake, with fresh whipped cream and strawberries in the center? The possibilities are endless!

Torts & Tarts Grand Opening!

Why hello there, and welcome to Torts & Tarts! My name is Julianne and I’ll be your hostess. Thanks for stopping by! Pull up a chair and let me tell you a bit about myself and about this place.

Basically, my life’s dream is to open a bakery. Unfortunately, I have neither the financial means nor the early-rising tendencies necessary for such an endeavor. I graduated college in 2007 with the vague notion that I would go to law school at some point, but definitely not right away and preferably not anytime soon. After spending two years doing what my mother called “frittering my life away” and I called “having an awesome time” (translation: baking, traveling, impulsively moving to Australia, etc.) I decided it was time to pick a career. And so I made the fateful decision between law school and culinary school. And I picked law school. Was it the right choice? Time will tell. But I still love baking, and cooking, and hosting parties, and until the day when I’ve paid off my student loans and saved up enough money to open a real place, this blog will be my virtual bakery-cum-cafe-cum-salon. I’ll post recipes, pictures, baking tips, decorating ideas, restaurant reviews, product reviews, and any other random thing I feel like posting. I promise the legalese will be kept to a minimum, with the exception of gratuitous legal puns which only law students find funny and of which I am exceedingly fond (e.g. Torts and Tarts).

So take a seat, get comfortable, and let’s see what’s on the menu. What say you we skip dinner and head straight to dessert…