Ginger Caramel Almond Butter Cups

I recently bought a jar of almond butter because someone told me that if you eat a spoonful of it every morning you feel energized all day. I have yet to eat it in the morning. So, I’ve been trying to think of a way to use up some of the butter and I decided to make something like a peanut butter cup, only with almond butter. I’ve also been making homemade dulce de leche for a while and thought that would be a nice layer in the cup as well. I went a step further (to use up more kitchen surplus) and decided to make it a ginger caramel (with a dash of rum!). For the chocolate cup, I used an organic dark chocolate that I had never tried before.

Considering this was an experiment, and that I didn’t pay much attention to making them look pretty, these treats turned out better than expected. The minced ginger added a mild spiciness to the salty, sweet, and nutty interior, and the dark chocolate provided a tasty cocoa shell for all the creamy goodness.

Talenti Gelato

Talenti gelato is my new favorite frozen dessert. The Texas-based company stands out from the crowd with their elegant packaging and interesting flavors. I saw them on sale at my grocery store recently so I decided to get six (!) different flavors at once. I had only ever tried the Sea Salt Caramel before and it was so creamy and delicious that I couldn’t wait to try others.

Of the five that were new to me, I started with Mediterranean Mint. Right away I noticed that my first bowl of it had an odd taste to it, a bit like plastic. I didn’t notice this when I had first tried the caramel flavor. Talenti doesn’t add any sort of protective seal between the inside of the lid and the top of the ice cream so it’s possible that first scoop was affected by being in contact with the plastic lid. As I got further into the container, however, the off taste went away and the cool, refreshing taste of the mint came through more. The shards of bittersweet chocolate were a nice complement to the mint.

Next, I tried the Belgian Milk Chocolate. Fortunately, there was no weird taste in the first scoop. It tasted like a premium milk chocolate. Or like a great cup of hot chocolate when you use whole milk instead of water. It wasn’t too sweet, and definitely had no artificial taste. I really like this one!

I was really looking forward to tasting the Caramel Cookie Crunch and it didn’t disappoint. The cookies were chocolate wafers, similar to the cookie part of Oreos. I found that some of the cookie bits were soft, but most were crispy. The caramel flavor reminded me of the Sea Salt Caramel gelato.

One of the reasons I like Talenti is that a little bit goes a long way. The flavors and texture are so rich, one small scoop is usually enough to satisfy my sugary cravings. Once I get through all the gelato flavors I can find, I’ll also try their sorbetto offerings.

Macaron Day NYC 2012

Six or seven years ago, the landscape of macaron shops in NYC was drastically smaller than it is today. Back then I used to get my fix from now-defunct Fauchon – oh, how I’ve missed having lunch at Fauchon! The price of their macarons was no higher than $1.50 each and I thought that was exorbitant at the time. The only other shops to offer decent ones were Payard on the Upper East Side (also now shuttered, but the parent of two downtown stores) and La Maison du Chocolat.

Fast forward to 2012 and we have a plethora of choices throughout the city, as well as an entire day devoted to celebrating this tasty treat. When I first heard of Macaron Day NYC approaching this year I dismissed it, not certain that I would be motivated to go all around town to try them at different stores. The day before the event, however, the anticipation of a gorgeous spring day put me in full-on macaron mode. I pulled up the map of participating locations and made a gameplan, charting my trick-or-treat route all along the east and west sides of Manhattan.

I got to the first shop on my list at around 10:30 in the morning and the final one at 3:00 in the afternoon (technically the eleventh shop I visited, although the man behind the counter at Payard was kind enough to stamp me for both of their locations, so I ended up completing the dozen needed for the special giveaway). I finally called it a day when I went to Macaron Cafe a few minutes later only to discover they had finished offering their free macarons. All tolled, I walked six miles and consumed nine regular sized macarons and two miniature ones. Sounds like a pretty good day to me.

I saw all kinds of macarons yesterday: big, small, sweet, savory, red, purple, yellow, green, some were pre-packaged for the promotion, and some were put on lollipop sticks and displayed like flowers. Some shops offered only one free flavor, while others had a large subset of their flavors available. I was hoping someone would offer a square one (a macarré, that is) for the occasion, but no such luck at any of the places I visited.

Along the way I tried not to repeat a flavor more than once, which I accomplished despite having chocolate four ways. I also tried to choose flavors that I normally wouldn’t order. However, I regret not getting coffee macaron at any point (I chose a rose lychee at Francois Payard and, while it was good, that would have been a good place to get the coffee flavor).

Here were my five favorites:

Passion fruit macaron from La Maison du Chocolat. This was the only flavor they offered for free. I was surprised to discover that instead of a fruit jelly, the filling was a passion fruit flavored chocolate ganache. Yum!

Raspberry macaron from Épicerie Boulud. They had several of their flavors available for free, but customers could not choose which one they wanted. Nice size, great fruit flavor, and excellent filling-to-meringue ratio.

Salted caramel macaron from Bosie Tea Parlor. They had several flavors to choose from for the promotion but I knew my day wouldn't be complete without a salted caramel. Also, this is not a fake background, there was an electric blue wall on their neighbor's facade. I thought it would be an interesting contrast. I was wrong.

Chocolate praline macaron from Mille-feuille. They had several flavors to choose from as well. I loved the way the colors looked on the inside, and the ganache filling was delicious.

Dark chocolate macaron, flecked with tiny shards of cocoa nibs, from Mad-Mac. This was a miniature macaron, and my very last one. A great way to end my Macaron Day!

I learned some things yesterday. The chef and co-owner of Mad-Mac was the executive pastry chef for Fauchon’s flagship store that I used to frequent. Candied bacon is always a good thing. The macarons at Bosie Tea Parlor are made in-house by a third-generation macaron maker. And, outside Dominique Ansel Bakery, an older fella who realized we had both requested the lemon macaron (which turned out to be great tasting, but disappointingly crumbly and dry) told me that tasting different macarons across NYC is like “kissing all the frogs before you find your prince”. Food for thought.

Some more of my Macaron Day:

Left-right-top-down: outside Francois Payard Bakery; chocolate praline macaron from Mille-feuille; lemon macaron from Dominique Ansel; lobby of Time Warner Center; counter display at bisous, ciao.; strawberry macaron at bisous, ciao.; rose lychee macaron from Francois Payard; candied bacon with maple cream cheese frosting macaron at Macaron Parlour; Payard macarons at Butterfield Market

Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Buttercream Frosting

I’ve made these cupcakes twice recently, first as regular sized cupcakes and then as mini cupcakes. They came out excellent both times. I used a recipe that I found on the Martha Stewart website but tweaked it just slightly because of several negative reviews on the site. Many people felt that the batter ended up too dry, so I added skim milk (between a quarter- to a half-cup) to my batter to thin it out.  I also ended up only baking it for about 20 minutes (the recipe indicates 20 – 25 minutes), but the required cooking time will vary with different ovens. The key is to check on it and not let it overcook.

For the chocolate frosting I used this recipe and changed it only by using light instead of heavy cream. It was still very delicious and very creamy. Using sifted dry ingredients definitely led to a smoother texture.

The cupcake recipe makes 18 regular sized cupcakes. These are not the airy, fluffy cupcakes that people might be used to; they’re very dense, rich, and velvety.