Joan Nathan's Pistachio Macaroons

Happy Passover!

This recipe is so ridiculously easy that now that I've tried it and love it, I will be making it year round. We're serving it tonight at a Passover seder, but the three ingredients in the cookie are not specifically sold for Passover. Pistachios, sugar, and egg whites - that's it. The result is a chewy, flavorful, attractive, light green cookie.

Pistachio Macaroons

Recipe by Joan Nathan in Jewish Cooking in America

Makes about 2 dozen

3 cups shelled pistachio nuts

1 cup sugar

3 egg whites

Sugar for dusting

1. Whirl the pistachio nuts in the food processor until ground but not pureed.

2. Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper and set aside. In a medium bowl mix the ground pistachio nuts, sugar, and egg whites. Refrigerate for about 10 minutes. Drop the batter from a tablespoon onto the cookie sheets, leaving 1/2 inch between macaroons. Bake in a preheated 325-degree oven for 12 to 15 minutes or until lightly brown. Dust with sugar when cool.

The Grilled Cheese Invitational

One of the more interesting events ever invented, The Grilled Cheese Invitational is a fierce competition of amateur grilled cheese "grillers" using the beloved sandwiches (or "sammiches" as they endearingly call them) to make all sorts of gourmet versions or freakishly weird things. My friend will be in attendance at the Los Angeles event; she's preparing to build a grilled cheese wedding cake and I don't doubt it will be perfect and awe-inspiring. In fact, I'm sure she has a hundred grilled cheeses in her fridge right now (and nothing else), rarin' to go.

She blogged about her experience last year. Pretty funny stuff.

Her cake, first in three layers, then assembled and beautiful...





And here's a video from last year...



You'll get a kick out of the rules and regulations. You will find things like the Definition of Bread, Cheese, and Butter.

The definition for bread, for example, states:

Any leavened or unleavened, flour-based and baking thing that looks like bread, you idiot.

You will also find the competition categories, which I'll let you read on your own, but are titled:

• The Missionary Position
• Spoons
• The Kama Sutra
• The Honey Pot

Fast Facts
What: The Grilled Cheese Invitational
When: Saturday, April 19th (tomorrow!) from 5 to 9:30pm/Grilling starts at 5:30pm sharp (cheddar?)
Where: Top secret location (but I hear it's in Griffith Park)
Price: Supposedly sold out now. But see what you can do with your begging skills, make friends with a judge, whatever, just to get in and observe or participate! Befriend the security guard at the door. Or just wait anxiously for the photos post-event. They'll be amusing, I'm sure.

~~~~~~~~~

And one final kinda gross concoction in last year's competition: A grilled cheese jello mold. Ew.

Mom's Freezer

Biiiiiiing. New email. From my mom. I open it. It's a photo of the inside of her freezer. I giggle. Then I read her photo caption and giggle some more:

"My freezer cleaned out and organized. Photographed because it hasn't looked this good for many years!"

I completely get why my mom had to snap this pic. Makes perfect sense. If I had a freezer this clean, I'd want to document it, too. But I suppose she and I are pretty weird to share photos of our freezer innards with others.

There's something special going on between this mother and daughter.

L.A. Cupcake Challenge

Violet's Cakes

Imagine bringing ten of the best cupcake bakeries under one roof, getting to taste mini-cupcakes from each, vote on your favorite, and crown a winner.

You don't have to imagine!

In just over a month, event company Drink:Eat:Play is putting on this awesome affair in Playa Vista Hollywood and they're aptly calling it the L.A. Cupcake Challenge.

They have a pretty good selection of cupcake bakeries in attendance, though a couple of important-in-my-book bakeries will be MIA. Of those coming, I have personal taste bud experience with Violet's Cakes, Yummy Cupcakes, Milk, and Hotcakes Bakes, all great. They'll also have Vanilla Bake Shop, My Little Cupcake, Essential Chocolate Desserts, BabyCakes, Lucky Devils, Famous Cupcakes, and Lark Silver Lake Cake Shop.


In addition to dining on mini-cupcakes, you can also sip from a dozen wines. Please don't drink and vote, though. We want a fair crowning of the Best Cupcake in Los Angeles and wine may impair your judgment!


Fast Facts
What: L.A. Cupcake Challenge
When: Sunday, May 18th at 1p.m.
Where: Playa Vista Center Point Club LOCATION CHANGE! Montmartre Lounge, 6757 Hollywood Blvd. in Hollywood
Price: $60 through Drink:Eat:Play or $40 through Goldstar


And for sheer amusement, can you find the hidden cupcake in this Highlights image?

When the Cookie's Name is Enough

Is there anything wrong with having a hankering for a cookie merely because of its brand name? I mean, Keebler is a cute name, but I don't yearn for a fudge stripe cuz of the Keebler name. Pepperidge Farm is another example - fine name, but not the reason I want an orange chocolate milano.

I pose the question because I was reading the latest email newsletter from Food 411 and shockingly, what caught my eye more than any of the email content was the skyscraper ad on the right hand side. The ad was for Marnee's Cookies. A couple of thoughts immediately entered my mind:

1. Oh my gosh! My name on a cookie!
2. What a strange spelling for my name.
3. If my name's on it, these better taste good, dammit!

After spending a fair amount of time on their website, my hunch is I'll be plenty satisfied and my name safely untarnished. The first cookie on the list to try will be Marnee's Destiny, concocted of cinnamon, sugar, toffee, and walnuts. Yum. Then I'll go for Marnee's Xanadu, a cookie comprised of semi-sweet chocolate chips, butterscotch chips, coconut, and walnuts. Their store, called Marnee's Cookie Bistro, is located in Bath, Maine, but you can order all the goodies from the website, too.

Marnee's Cookie Bistro in Bath, Maine

I have yet to make the trek to Bath or order them online, but I really really really really want a Marnee cookie!

Honk if You Want Dessert from a Truck

Photo by Richard J. Velasco

My coworker sent me a link to Ed Levine's post today about a dessert truck at the corner of 8th Street and University Place in NYC. A dessert truck. Did you hear that? A DESSERT TRUCK!

For $5, take your pick of:

• Homemade s'mores with homemade vanilla marshmallow and Valrhona dark chocolate
• Homemade deep-fried brioche, dusted with cinnamon and sugar, and filled with vanilla pastry cream
• Chocolate Bread Pudding
• Molten Chocolate Cake
• Slow-Baked Apples and Cinnamon
• Vanilla Creme Brulee
• And more (download the pdf of their menu from the Dessert Truck website)

This is not your run of the mill food truck, like the taco cart outside the public hospital. Pastry Chef Jerome Chang, formerly of Le Cirque, is in the driver seat.

I am so jealous! Maybe if we demand it on Eventful, it will make a road trip to Los Angeles...

New Yorkers out there, have you been?

The Purple Chocolate Cake

In honor of my sister Beth's birthday, which is today, I made a chocolate cake. But this was not just any chocolate cake. It was purple. She made very clear to me that she wanted our Bubbe's buttercream frosting recipe instead of a chocolate one. But who leaves a buttercream frosting white when you have every color of the rainbow on your palette? Beth's favorite color is purple so the answer was easy.

I took this cake assignment as an opportunity to try a new recipe. I don't make birthday cakes that often, and I have 10 billion cookbooks, so I made the brave decision not to use our grandmother's chocolate cake recipe (GASP!) this time around. As it turns out, I quickly realized while following the recipe, that this one is not all that different from my grandmother's. Main differences are the use of semisweet chocolate (instead of German chocolate) and separating the eggs to beat egg whites to medium peaks (instead of mixing the eggs right in).

The cake turned out great, though I'm not going to lie, I'm partial to my Bubbe's.


~Classic Chocolate Cake~
Recipe by Cathy Burgett, Elinor Klivans, and Lou Seibert Pappas in Williams-Sonoma's Essentials of Baking
Makes one 9-inch layer cake

4 oz. semisweet (plain) chocolate, finely chopped
1/2 cup boiling water
2 1/2 cups cake (soft-wheat) flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2 cups granulated sugar
4 large eggs, separated, at room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup buttermilk, at room temperature

Position a rack in the middle of the oven, and preheat to 350 degrees F. Butter two 9-inch round cake pans. Line the bottoms with circles of parchment (baking) paper cut to fit. Butter the paper and dust the bottoms and sides of the pans with flour.

Place the chopped chocolate in a small, heatproof bowl. Pour the boiling water over the chocolate and stir to melt. Set aside to cool.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, and salt onto a sheet of parchment paper or onto a plate. Set aside.

In a large bowl, combine the butter and granulated sugar. Using a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment or a hand mixer, beat on medium-high speed until the mixture is light in color and fluffy, about 5 minutes. Beat in the egg yolks and vanilla, then beat in the cooled chocolate mixture. Remove the bowl from the mixer.

Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in one-third of the dry ingredients until almost fully incorporated. Fold in one-half of the buttermilk, then fold in another third of the dry ingredients, followed by the remaining buttermilk. Add the remaining dry ingredients and, using a light lifting motion and turning the bowl continuously, fold in until the batter is smooth and the dry ingredients are thoroughly incorporated. Do not fold too vigorously, or the cake will be tough.

In a clean bowl, using a balloon whisk, a stand mixer fitted with the whip attachment, or a hand mixer, beat the egg whites until medium peaks form. The whites should fall over gently when the whisk or beaters are lifted. Using a rubber spatula, gently fold the egg whites into the batter.

Pour the batter into the prepared pans, dividing it evenly. Bake the cake layers until a toothpick inserted into the center of a layer comes out clean, 30-35 minutes.

Transfer to wire racks and let cool in the pans for 5 minutes. Place a wire rack on top of a cake and invert them together. Lift of the pan and peel off the parchment. Repeat with the remaining cake layer. Let cool completely on the racks. Cover the cake layers with a clean, slightly damp kitchen towel so that the outsides do not dry out as they cool.