spring

lemony strawberry cupcakes with strawberry meringue buttercream

For whatever reason, I tend to cook, and bake, in phases.

There was a point, a few years ago, when I was making scads of cupcakes. Up until that point pies were my thing, but then one day, suddenly, I started making cupcakes and couldn’t stop. Every chance I got; birthdays, special occasions, holidays, parties, picnics, you name it; I was there with a box of cupcakes in hand.

Then, a year or two ago, I started perfecting my layer cake technique and my cupcake phase was over as suddenly as it began. I started pumping out picture perfect layer cakes, and my overgrown stash of cupcake liners and muffin pans got pushed to the back of the cupboards and forgotten. I’m not positive, but this might mean I’m getting back on the cupcake train.

When a good friend of ours announced the other day that she was having a birthday party at a bar in her neighborhood, I knew right away that it was time to dust off the muffin pans and bake some cupcakes.

A lot of people have become disillusioned with cupcakes because they were so ubiquitous at their peak, especially in New York. I totally get it. I do. The cupcake trend was out of control, and there were a lot of bad cupcakes out there.

But! The cupcake craze is over! Like totally over. We moved on. We have gourmet donuts! And Cronuts! And Cragels!
You’re officially allowed to like cupcakes again. You don’t even have to make any references to Sex and the City when you eat them or anything. I promise! Really.

And, the thing about cupcakes is that they’re extremely portable and easy to eat without plates and forks and knives and all the other things you need to serve and eat a layer cake. Cupcakes are a whole lot easier, and a whole lot more fun. They’re the perfect single serving of cake and icing, they’re handheld, and they’re totally adorable and festive.

Not only are these cupcakes fun and easy to eat, but they also happen to be completely and thoroughly delicious. Our friend requested something fruity and summery, so I went all out and flavored both the cake and the icing with strawberries and lemon. To really pack in the flavor I pulsed the strawberries in a blender with a little bit of sugar, and cooked the mixture on the stove to reduce and concentrate the ripe berry flavor. This extra step makes a huge difference to fill these cupcakes with bright fruit forward flavor without the use of any extracts or artificial flavorings.

These cupcakes are incredibly moist and full of summery flavor. They’re sweet but not too sweet, and the lemon juice and zest adds a bold brightness to the strawberry flavor. Since the cakes are sweet enough on their own, I chose to go for a light and airy meringue buttercream, and it was definitely the right decision. Traditional American buttercream would probably have been too heavy and sweet here. Meringue buttercream is fluffy and light and just barely sweet, like whipped cream but much more stable. Not only is the texture and flavor perfect, but the icing is perfectly pretty in pink, with little specks of fresh strawberry showing through. Because these were for a birthday I added some festive pink sanding sugar for extra sparkle and shine, but to be honest, I probably didn’t need to.

Obviously, they were a huge hit.

Lemony Strawberry Cupcakes with Strawberry Meringue Buttercream

Servings: About 32 - 34 cupcakes
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Adapted from Martha Stewart’s Cupcakes

Reduced Strawberry Puree:
2 lbs of ripe strawberries
1/4 cups sugar
pinch of salt

wash and hull strawberries and either chop very finely, or pulse in a food processor or blender. You want them finely chopped, not liquified. Mix together with sugar and salt in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil over medium high heat and reduce for about 20 or 30 minutes, until thick and jammy. Stir regularly and watch carefully, it’ll want to boil over. I had about 1 1/2 cups of puree when I was finished. If you have more, or less, divide between the cake batter and the icing at a 2:1 ratio.

For the Cupcakes:
3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
zest and juice of 2 lemons
3 eggs
1 egg white
1 cup buttermilk
1 cup reduced strawberry puree

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line standard muffin tins with paper liners.
Whisk together flour, baking powder and salt; set aside.
With an electric mixer on medium-high speed, cream together the butter, sugar, lemon zest and vanilla until pale and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and egg white, one at a time, beating until each is fully incorporated & scraping down the sides of the bowl as needed. Reduce the mixer speed to low and add the flour in two batches, alternating with the buttermilk, and beating until well combined. Add lemon juice and strawberry puree, and blend until just combined.
Divide the batter evenly among the lined cups, filling each three-quarters full. Bake until golden and a cake tester inserted in centers comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes. Transfer to pans to wire racks to cool for 15 minutes; turn out the cupcakes onto the rack and let cool completely. Cupcakes can be stored up to 1 day at room temperature in airtight containers before frosting.

Strawberry Lemonade Meringue Buttercream:
4 egg whites
1¼ cups granulated sugar
1½ cups unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons, at room temperature
1/2 cup reduced strawberry puree
zest and juice of 1 lemon

Combine the egg whites and sugar in the heatproof bowl of a stand mixer set over a pan of simmering water. Whisk constantly by hand until the mixture is warm to the touch and the sugar has dissolved (the mixture should feel completely smooth when rubbed between your fingertips).
Attach the bowl to the mixer fitted with the whisk attachment. Starting on low and gradually increasing to medium-high speed, mix until stiff (but not dry) peaks form. Continue mixing until the mixture is fluffy and glossy, and completely cool (test by touching the bottom of the bowl), about 10 minutes.
Reduce the mixer speed to medium-low and add the butter a few tablespoons at a time, mixing well after each addition. Once all the butter has been added, scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula and switch to the paddle attachment; continue beating on low speed until all air bubbles are eliminated, about 2 minutes. Add the strawberry puree, lemon zest and juice; and beat until combined. Stir the icing with a rubber spatula until smooth. Keep the buttercream at room temperature if using the same day, or transfer to an airtight container and refrigerate up to 3 days or freeze up to 1 month. Before using, bring to room temperature and beat with paddle attachment on low speed until smooth again, about 5 minutes.
Spread or pipe the buttercream onto each cupcake. I used an Ateco #846 tip and piped a large swirl, then sprinkled on a bit of pink “raspberry rose” colored sanding sugar. They’re best eaten the day they’re made, but can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 1 day, or refrigerated for up to 3 days.

blueberry buttermilk bundt cake

Okay. I think it’s officially safe to call it spring without fearing that it’ll snow tomorrow.

Russell and I, along with our pups, have been spending a TON of time out in our little yarden lately. We plan to do a lot of entertaining back there this summer, so we’ve been trying to get the space lookin’ purdy and comfortable. As I said in my last post, we didn’t have stairs to get out there until the end of last summer, so now that we do, we really want to make the most of the space. I also mentioned in my last post that there used to be a big picnic table back there when we moved in, but it was really poorly built and rickety, and the heavy snowfalls this past winter finally caused its demise.

For a while now we’ve been looking into getting a new table to replace it, and over the weekend we actually went and got one! A while ago we found a nice large (and relatively affordable) outdoor table at Ikea but we didn’t end up buying it because it was too big for us to get home. We don’t have a vehicle so trying to transport a big ol’ table takes some serious planning. Shipping would essentially double the price, renting a car in the city is outrageously expensive, and as soon as you utter the word, “IKEA”, car services and taxis see $$$ signs and find fun new ways to charge extra.

We have some friends who have a truck, but at first we thought it was too big a favor to ask of them. If you’ve never been to the Ikea in Brooklyn, or driven home from it, let me tell you, it’s a serious ordeal. Basically it’s like asking someone to drive you into the center of hell and back. As much as I love Ikea, the Ikea in Brooklyn (especially on a weekend) is a total madhouse filled with pushy grumpy humans who would happily gouge your eyes out if it meant they got their swedish meatballs before you did. After much hemming and hawing, we finally we decided to swallow our pride, cross our fingers, and just ask them. Miraculously, they actually said YES!

We knew that this big favor deserved a BIG thank you, so we decided that the best thing to do was to fill their bellies with something wonderful. Since the weather somehow seems to be getting warmer and warmer, I thought a nice summery blueberry bundt cake would be just the thing.

I know I’ve said this before, but I really do LOVE bundt cakes. Perfectly impressive and elegant without being too much hassle or fuss. I think it might be their retro 1950s ladies-society-club kind of feeling that I find so charming about them. Or maybe it’s because they remind me of my grandmother. Do I really need a reason?

I know it’s technically still Spring, but I just decided to dive straight into Summer with this cake. Unfortunately the markets aren’t as ahead of schedule as my appetite so I had a hard time finding fresh blueberries that weren’t a gazillion dollars. I suppose I could have tweaked my recipe a bit and used another berry, but I’m a taurus and my mind was set on blueberries. I ended up using frozen ones and was a little worried about how it’d come out, but they actually worked really well. I mixed them into the batter while they were still frozen so they wouldn’t be get mushy, and tossed them in a little flour first to make sure they were evenly distributed throughout the cake. You’ll want to do this step even with fresh berries, btw.

Not to toot my own horn, but this cake is freakin’ incredible. It’s crazy moist, super delicious, and wonderfully tender. It’s a bit like a pound cake, but not quite as dense, and is full of ripe berry sweetness without being cloyingly sugary. The berries are juicy little flavor bombs that practically burst when punctured with your fork. The tang from the buttermilk pairs perfectly with the lemon, which is the ideal complement to the flavor of the blueberries, and the blueberry lemon glaze is the cherry on the sundae. Can you believe the color of that glaze by the way? I knew the blueberries would give the glaze some color, but I wasn’t expecting it to be such a bright vibrant pink!
Pretty and tasty! The total package!

This cake is sure to be a hit at your next picnic or barbecue. If you’re like me, I’m sure you’re going to want to invent some occasion to have people over, just to have a reason to make this cake. I promise your friends won’t mind.

blueberry buttermilk bundt cake

Servings: 12-16
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adapted from Smitten Kitchen

Cake:
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for dusting pan and berries
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon fine sea salt or table salt
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup buttermilk
juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
Zest of 2 lemons
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
3 large eggs, at room temperature
2 1/2 cups blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Glaze:
2 1/2 cups confections’ sugar (or more, if desired)
Juice of 1 lemon (about 2 tablespoons)
1/2 cup blueberries (fresh or frozen)

Preheat oven to 350°F. Generously butter and flour a 10-cup Bundt pan.*see note.
In a medium bowl, whisk or sift flour, baking powder and salt together and set aside.
Add lemon juice and vanilla to buttermilk and set aside.
In the bowl of a stand mixer, mix sugar and lemon zest until well combined to scent the sugar. Add the softened butter and beat until light and fluffy, about 3 to 5 minutes. With the mixer on a low speed, add your eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between each addition. Alternate three additions of flour and two additions buttermilk, beginning and ending with flour, scraping the bowl between additions. Do not over-mix. Toss the blueberries with about 2 tablespoons of flour to coat, and gently fold them into the cake batter. The batter will be very thick so don’t worry if the berries squish a little.
Spread batter in the pan and smooth the top. Bake for 55 to 60 minutes, rotating the cake 180 degrees after 30 (to make sure it browns evenly). If using frozen berries, you may need to add 5 to 10 minutes more. The cake is done as soon as a cake tester or toothpick comes out clean. Set cake pan on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes, and invert cake onto rack to cool the rest of the way.
When the cake is completely cool, prepare the glaze. Mash the blueberries in the lemon juice with a fork or potato masher. Press through a sieve or fine mesh strainer to remove the skins and get out the maximum amount of juice. Add the powdered sugar to the juice and whisk until smooth. Add more sugar if you like a thicker glaze.
Place cooling rack and cake into a clean jelly roll pan or baking sheet to catch any glaze that drips off the sides. Pour glaze over cake, letting it trickle and drip down the sides. If desired, you can collect any excess glaze in the baking sheet and pour another coat. Let the glaze set for at least 15 minutes before serving. Cake can be stored, covered, at room temperature for 3 to 4 days.

*To prevent sticking, I coat every inch of the pan with softened butter using a pastry brush, and then dust the inside with flour and tap out the excess. Refrigerating your pan while you prepare the cake will help firm the butter for extra insurance.

a little yardening

I’m aware that yardening isn’t actually a word (yet), but I don’t actually care. Our outdoor space doesn’t have a solid identity or clearly defined purpose, so rather than fight it, I just let it be what it wants to be, a yarden.

Easter Sunday was warm and sunny here in Brooklyn so we spent the bulk of our day in the yarden and I thought I’d tell you a little bit about the space. I plan to do some work back there this year so I thought it would be nice to give you some back story and show you what it looks like now (and what it used to look like). About half of the outdoor space is made up of a cement patio, which is pretty great for entertaining, and a mix of exposed dirt and a few plants that I’m trying desperately to keep alive. There isn’t enough sun to sustain grass, so it’s not quite a “yard”, and there aren’t enough thriving plants or well-defined beds to call it a “garden” so I just combine the two terms and there you have it: Yarden.

When we chose our apartment, one of the biggest selling points was that we would have access to some outdoor space. The house was a mess, as we discussed here, but the garden space was even worse. We knew it was going to be a lot of work, but the (relative) affordability, the prospect of outdoor entertaining, the size of the outdoor space, and the possibility of getting a dog, made us move quickly to sign the lease.

The first time we came to check out our apartment it was late in the spring, but the weeds had already grown high enough to disguise the heaps of nasty lurking back there. We arranged our lease agreement to give us access to our new place 15 days before we needed to leave our old digs. We used the bulk of that time to deep clean and paint the interior, but on a few occasions we ventured into the back yard to investigate. We immediately realized we hadn’t been paying very close attention on our first visit. We knew there was a lot of crud back there, some of it was in plain sight from our bedroom, but as we went further out into the garden area we realized it was much worse than we thought. I don’t know if the previous tenants were criminally insane, or just slobs or what; but there were literal bags of garbage, like big black contractor bags full of yuck, hiding between the weeds. Once we started clearing the tangle of weeds all sorts of disgustingness started turning up. Beyond bagged garbage, there were also rotting stuffed animals, rotting outdoor furniture cushions, rotting articles of clothing, rotting pieces of wood, rusting sheets of metal, various plastic bags and toys, and lots and lots of broken glass. LOTS of broken glass.

When it came to the plant life back there, there was (and still is) a huge old mulberry tree that basically shades the entire yard and drops big juicy disgusting mulberries all over for about a month out of our short summer, along with a small dying fur tree that I ended up deciding to cut down, a sickly plum tree that always tries to produce fruit that never quite gets ripe before they rot and fall off the branches, a gigantic climbing rose vine that was plagued with some kind of mildew which caused the flowers to shrivel and die before blooming, a large patch of old day lilies that refused to flower, and a 3 foot high jungle of assorted weeds. My first order of business was to cut down the dying fur tree and cut back and dig out the rose vine, which was so large and old that it had started to grow into the plum tree and choke it out. Once I got the vine out of the way, I also had to do some major trimming to the plum tree in the hopes of nursing it back to health.

I’m no gardening expert, so the past few years have been a bit of trial and error. Even cleaned up and tidy, our outdoor space is a challenge. The two horrible words that have turned my green(ish) thumb into a brown(ish) one are… DRY SHADE. We have no connection for a hose, and the soil refuses to hold onto moisture. It’s full of sand and weird construction materials (I’m still digging up bricks and chunks of cement), and tends to go bone-dry very quickly in the summer. The mulberry tree shades about 95% of the yard so anything that needs good sun refuses to thrive. In the beginning I was simply focusing on the shade aspect and planting things like ferns and other lush leafy shade plants, but the dry soil has caused the untimely deaths of MANY innocent plants. A few things have done alright, but one of the only things that seems happy back there are hostas. This year I’ve decided to focus my attention on planting a jungle of big leafy hostas in many sizes and colors, so the yard at least appears to be lush and healthy. I’ve also been researching drought tolerant shade plants a lot recently, so hopefully I’ll have some better luck this summer than I have previously.

To get the year started right, Russell and I recently took a trip to the farmers market hoping to find some new plants, a flat of annuals, and maybe some herbs to plant in containers. Unfortunately it was a bit too early for plants at the market so we went to Home Depot to see what we could find there instead. Even there it was too early for most things, but we were able to find some pretty purple pansies and a few herbs.

When we were married last summer we used some big galvanized aluminum pails at the bar as ice buckets, and after the wedding we hung onto them. We also bought some nice rich garden soil to fill them with and have been hoarding it under our stairs and waiting for spring. So, when we came back from our plant hunt we busted out the drill and made some drain holes in the bottoms of three of the pails to turn them into planters. I decided to use one of them to re-pot a lemon tree I planted from seed several years ago. It’s never given me any fruit, and since it needs to live in a pot and come indoors for the winters, I don’t know if it ever will. Regardless, I really like my little tree and decided it was time to give her a bigger home this year.

Now that things are warming up, the few plants that have survived the arid conditions are starting to poke their heads up to say hi. We have a few daffodils in bloom and the spiky points of the hostas are starting to push their way up through the soil. We’ve also done our best to improve the soil with composting, and the day lilies are doing better now too. For now they’re short and grassy looking, but a few of them flowered last year so I’m hoping this summer they’ll be even more productive.

It’s a bit too early to do much of anything else, but I hope to set to work beautifying the yard in the coming weeks. For now we’re doing our best to clean up anything the wind may have blown into the yard over the winter, make sure anything that is coming up is happy and healthy, and tidy up the patio space as much as possible.

As for the furniture and entertaining aspect of our outdoor space, we have a few chairs and benches and a swinging love seat that was back there when we took the apartment. There used to be a big table back there too, but it was really poorly built and basically fell apart over the winter, so we’re hoping to replace that very soon. When we first moved in the only way to access the yarden from our apartment was by hopping down onto a chair from our bedroom window, which is about 4 feet from the cement below. For the first few years we and all of our guests would climb out the window and hop down onto that chair. We used to have to lean way out the window to set the dogs on the chair so they could go out and do the things they needed to do back there. Much alcohol has been consumed out there since we’ve moved in so, as you can imagine, there have been a few spills and tumbles. Thankfully none of our friends were ever seriously injured! My amazing mom came to visit last summer and helped me build a set of stairs, and we could not be more happy or grateful to have them. It’s hard to imagine a time without them now, but they have improved the function of the space more than you’ll ever know!

So there you have it, our humble little yarden.

Have any of you been working on any yard work our outdoor projects lately? Do you have any horror stories about disgusting yards, challenging soil conditions, or drunken tumbles out apartment windows?

boozey strawberry lemonade

The arrival of warm weather, and the ability to leave the windows and doors open, has a very distinct affect on my state of mind.

Primarily, it puts me in the mood for day drinking. If you’re unfamiliar with the idea of day drinking, it’s pretty simple. You drink (alcohol) during the day, preferably outdoors. Boom. I know. Can you think of anything more wonderful?
Day drinking is something that most people consider a weekend activity, but since I work in retail I’m usually working on Saturdays. When it’s bright and pleasant outside and the rest of Brooklyn is out eating brunch and laying on blankets at the park, I’m indoors selling picnic baskets and wine thermos’, and grill tongs. Don’t shed any tears for me just yet though, I do usually have Sundays off so if the weather is just as warm and sunny, I still get one day to join in the fun.

I was lucky enough a couple weekends ago, just before that last cold snap, when the weather was just nice enough to go out and spend some quality time in our back yard. We decided to make a day of it and called some friends over, fired up the grill, and cooked up some delicious lemon herb chicken thighs (which I told you about here). Of course, I also dove head-first into the task of crafting some seriously amazing spring-time cocktails. I thought hard about what would pair well with the spring-y weather and decided strawberries, lemonade, & vodka were the just the ticket.

Our good friends Karen and Mari of Crown Street Productions wanted to join in the fun too, so they came over to bask in the sunshine with us. Since I was whipping up some cocktails, they brought along their equipment to capture the moment. They’re so much fun to work with, and the best part is that they’re complete videography geniuses. I don’t know how they do it. I’m a total awkward weirdo in real life, and they somehow manage to make me appear charming and professional!
Check out this amazing video for a complete tutorial on how to make these delicious boozey strawberry lemonades. I hope you enjoy the video as much as the cocktails!

Did that make you thirsty or what?

If you want to make this for a crowd you could easily do it in large batches by tossing the strawberries into a blender or food processor. If you went this route, I don’t think adding the extra sugar to the strawberries would be necessary. If you like the idea of a big pitcher or punch bowl with some chunks of strawberries floating around, just pulse your blender until the berries are mashed but not pulverized. If you want to serve these from a drink dispenser with a spigot or pour spout though, you’ll need to completely puree them so that none of the chunky strawberries get stuck in the spout.

Normally I’m not a big vodka drinker, and prefer my tipple to have a bit more backbone. For this drink though, I thought that the neutral flavor (or lack thereof) of vodka would let the other ingredients be the stars of the show. To add an extra hint of citrusy goodness, I also added just a bit of orange liqueur. Any orange liqueur will do just fine, but I think the mix of bitter orange and cognac in Grand Marnier gives this cocktail the cojones that the vodka’s missing.

The combination of sweet tangy lemonade, ripe red strawberries, orange liqueur, and vodka is really phenomenal. There’s just enough alcohol to make you feel gooood without tasting too strong. Muddling the strawberries with a bit of sugar helps them to give off their juices and flavor the drink without turning to total mush. This way you get some little chunky bits of juicy fresh berries floating around in your drink, soaking up all the boozey goodness. All stirred together in a tall glass with plenty of ice, it tastes like you’re sipping on springtime.

You may have have noticed that I served these drinks in quilted mason jars. I know they’re really trendy right now, but before you roll your eyes, here’s the thing. Not only are they cute and homey, but they’re also made of really sturdy glass and they’re really affordable! You can take them outside for your next bbq because if they break they’re easily replaced, and they’re only about $2 each! The 12 oz quilted jars are tall and skinny so they also make great highball glasses in a pinch. Russell and I have a bunch of them because we used them as glassware at our wedding last summer!

No matter what you serve it in, this cocktail is perfect for sunny days spent with friends. Odds are that your friends will agree, so you should call them up and get to drinkin’!

Boozey Strawberry Lemonade

Servings: one 10 oz cocktail
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2-3 strawberries (depending on size)
1/8 – 1/4 teaspoon sugar
1/2 oz orange liqueur (such as Grand Marnier)
2 oz vodka
6 oz lemonade

Roughly chop your strawberries and place into a mixing glass or cocktail glass. Top with sugar and muddle until well mashed and juicy. Top with orange liqueur and vodka and stir. Add ice, top off with lemonade and stir again. Add a lemon slice as garnish, if desired.

Homemade Lemonade
makes about 6 1/2 cups of lemonade

3/4 cups of sugar
5 cups of water, divided
1 cup of lemon juice

In a small saucepan make a simple syrup by bringing sugar and 1 cup of water to a boil, stirring frequently. Once all sugar is dissolved, remove from heat and let cool. In a pitcher, combine remaining water, lemon juice, and cooled simple syrup; and stir until well mixed.