Earl Grey Cupcakes with Lemon Buttercream

My friend Emma had a birthday recently, so naturally some cupcakes were in order. I wanted something with a theme, and she's English, so it was either these or Spotted Dick, and I didn't think the latter would survive the trip in to work very well. And if you know me, you probably know that both my sister and I are tea-obsessives and love working it into recipes. These delicious, delicately citrus-scented cupcakes were just the thing.



You'll find plenty of recipes for earl grey cupcakes on the internet, but none of them really satisfied me, so I sort of made up my own, taking a basic vanilla cupcake recipe from Martha and embellishing it in various ways. These were quite tasty and seemed to be received very well, but to be honest, even though I used more tea here than in most of the other recipes out there, the bergamot flavor still wasn't strong enough for me. Next time I might have to spring for a preposterously expensive bottle of bergamot extract, available here.

Earl Grey Cupcakes
(This recipe makes 24 - I was feeling generous. You can probably halve it with no problems.)

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon salt
12 tablespoons (1 1/2 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/2 cups sugar
4 large eggs
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups milk
8 bags of earl grey tea, not too fancy
Zest of 1 lemon

Directions

1. Before beginning your cupcakes, heat the milk in a saucepan over medium-low heat until it starts to shake a lot. Dunk in 4 teabags, turn off the heat, and cover for 10 minutes or so. Then squeeze out the teabags into the milk, getting all of that tea-i-ness in there, and refrigerate the milk so it's not warm anymore when it's cupcake time.

2. Preheat the oven to 350 and ready your baking apparatus. Empty the contents of the remaining 4 bags of tea into a food processor and grind up the leaves as small as you can. (This step is optional, I guess, but you don't want big chunks of tea in your cupcakes.)

3. Mix together the ground tea, flour, salt and baking powder and in a small bowl.

4. In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter together until real fluffy, then add the eggs one at a time, beating each one in separately. (I don't know why this is important but everyone says it is.) Beat in vanilla and lemon zest.

5. Measure your tea-milk to make sure it hasn't evaporated; if it's not 1 1/4 cups, make up the difference with regular milk. Then mix in the flour mixture and the milk into your bowl of liquidy stuff, alternating, ending with flour. Mix until everything is just incorporated.

6. Fill up your cupcake liners (not all the way, of course) and bake for 20-22 minutes, or until they pass the fork test. Top with lovely lemon frosting and serve to the birthday girl.

Here they all are laid out for my friends at work. We had ourselves a little cupcake party.



Lemon Buttercream Frosting

This frosting has less butter than your average buttercream, which was really because I ran out of butter, but I think this ended up making the frosting more delicate. It suited the cakes better. (My friend Atalanti told me this, and she had a stint in culinary school.)

My methods are pretty inexact when it comes to frosting, so I'll just explain what I did. Squeeze out your zested lemon into a cup. Cream half a stick of butter with some confectioner's sugar, maybe a cup's worth. Add in a little lemon juice and beat. Keep adding more sugar and more lemon juice until you have an amount and a consistency that works for you. Refrigerate the frosting if you're not going to use it immediately, but let it sit out for 20 minutes or so before piping it onto the cakes.

Here Emma enjoys a birthday cupcake:



Our friends Camille (foreground) and Karina (background) eat their cupcakes.

Polenta Cakes with Carmelized Onions and Eggs

I love polenta and eggs - especially with tons of parmesan - but it's usually a binary proposal: either soft, porridge-type polenta, or set, firm, bread-like polenta. I, with my insatiable appetite for life, wanted the best of both worlds: a polenta that was soft and creamy inside, but with a crispy, delicious skin. I gave it a shot the other night, and I was quite pleased with the results. A perfect support for the eggs, and especially delicious with a topping of carmelized onions. And, like I said, lots of fresh parmesan.



First, you'll need some polenta. Cook it according to the package's directions (how much depends on how many polenta cakes you want - I can't decide that for you, child) but use broth instead of water and add some dried sage and thyme. Crumble the dried herbs between your palms as you add them; this is the way to release their flavor.

Meanwhile, grease a muffin tin and preheat the oven to 400. When the polenta thickens up and looks good, and is shooting yellow missiles all over your stove and skin, turn off the heat and spoon it into the muffin tin. Bake for maybe 15 minutes, then take out the tin and spoon just a little olive oil over each. Put them back in the oven and let them go for a bit, maybe 20 minutes or so. They'll fry a bit in the cups. Once there's no more oil to make funny noises and shapes, they're probably done. If you aren't finished preparing the rest of your meal by the time this happens, just turn the heat down to 200 and let them sit tight.

This is how the polenta cakes look fresh from the oven:



While the polenta cakes are cooking, carmelize some thinly-sliced onion in butter or earth balance. I used half a small onion for 2 cakes, but this of course is a matter of preference. When that's done put the onions aside and cook your eggs in the same pan. I recommend sunny-side up but anything works.

When everything's done, scoop the eggs onto your plate and top the polenta cakes with the onions. Since we didn't let the polenta set, the insides of the cakes should be smooth and creamy, but since we pretty much deep fried the outsides, you should have a lovely crispy golden skin. Top with lots of fresh parmesan and eat the shit out of them.



I've also found that these keep pretty well; you can put them in tupperware and toast them on high for 10 or 15 minutes. Of course, the insides will be set, but they'll still be delicious.

I dreamed the polenta cakes up to go with eggs, but I'm sure they'd work with other things too. Any ideas?

Hamentaschen for Purim!!

Happy Purim everybody!! This is a particularly upbeat Jewish holiday where we celebrate our escape from the clutches of a genocidal Persian guy named Hamen who wore a 3-cornered hat. I can't get into the whole thing now but basically, Hamen wanted to kill all the Jews, but Queen Esther saved us, so now we eat his hat. boo Hamen!!! On Purim you are pretty much commanded to get drunk and to share cookies with friends and loved ones and pretty much everybody really. Poppyseed fillings are most traditional; I made a tasty apricot one.



Hamentashen ("Hamen hats")

Ingredients

3/4 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup sugar, white or light brown
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3 tbs milk or orange juice (they're not kosher with milk)
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 1/4 cups flour
apricot filling (recipe follows)

Directions

In a large bowl, cream the sugar and butter until smooth. Beat in the egg, then stir in the milk/juice and vanilla. Mix in the baking powder and salt, then gradually incorporate the flour til you get a big ball of dough. Wrap it tightly in plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight (you could probably get away with just a few hours).

Then, preheat the oven to 375. Roll out the dough to 1/4" thickness. Take a cookie cutter or just a thin-lipped cup and make circles. Place these on your cookie sheet and place a dollop of jam in the center of each. Pinch them together to form 3 corners. You can brush an egg wash on the dough if you're feeling fancy, but I skipped this on mine and they were still delicious (as my friend Molly said when I asked her whether we should've: "I have no regrets").

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, erring on the side of slightly undercooked, then let them cool and then get drunk and give them to all your friends. Yay cookies! Boo Hamen!!

Rolling out the dough with my fabulous silicone rolling pin:



Apricot Filling

Ingredients

A bunch of dried apricots (I don't know, maybe, 15-20?)
1/3 cup honey
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Directions

Cover your apricots in water and let them sit overnight. When they get all nice and bloated, puree them in a food processor, stirring in the honey and cinnamon. It makes a lovely and colorful filling for hamentaschen. As for what to do with the leftovers of this, I have no idea. My friend Daniel liked it over ice cream.

Molly:



These were surprisingly delicious (not to mention attractive) with chocolate gelato that Molly brought.

Mom's Polish Cabbage Soup

Oh man, am I excited about this one. I can't even convey it to you over the internet. You see, that "Mom" in the title of this post is not an abstracted standard of home cookin,' but rather actual Mom, the woman who gave birth to me and Erica. In case you don't know, she is a really fantastic cook, and our interest in food definitely comes from her. (Our dad is interested in food too, but his passion is more on the consuming side than the preparing side.) When we were growing up, our mom used to make this amazing cabbage soup as part of her regular winter soup rotation. It was very simple: onion, lots of cabbage, beef broth, bacon and rice. I remember how the little bacon bits got juicy in the soup, and how the wild rice blend my mom always used added an interesting texture. But once we went veg, this was just one of those things we figured we'd never see again. Sure, we can veganize muffins and marinate tofu with a marinade originally intended for scallops, but such a simple soup, so reliant on strong beefy and smoky and bacony flavors? No way it would have the same punch.

Well, my friends, I am here to tell you: yes way.



Sorry the pictures are so ugly, but this is pretty much stewed cabbage, after all. My veggie version, while of course not exactly the same, tastes similar enough to mom's original to transport me back to those family meals. It's delicious and just the perfect thing on a cold winter night, especially with some crusty bread, the way our mom always serves it. Since the flavor is so reliant on the broth, make sure you use a good stock. As usual, I recommend Better Than Bouillion. Or you can make your own if you're badass.

Cabbage Soup

Ingredients

1 good size yellow onion, chopped
1/2 a medium size green cabbage, shredded or chopped into strips
3 cups veggie broth
3 cups mushroom broth
7 strips fake bacon (Morningstar is best, but it's not vegan)
1-2 cups cooked wild rice blend
1 parmesan rind (optional)
Parmesan cheese or nutritional yeast

Directions

First, put a great big pat of butter or earth balance in your soup pot. You're going to carmelize the shit out of those onions; that'll really give the soup some flavor. Stir them around over medium heat for a while - it could take 20 minutes or so - until they get brownish and smell awesome. This is not the place to be stingy with your butter or butter substitute. Cabbage is super good for you anyway so we need to counteract some of that.
Then you can add the cabbage and the stock. If you have a parmesan rind, throw that in too; it will add a real depth of flavor to the soup. Bring the pot to a boil, then reduce to a simmer. This is a good time to cook your faux bacon, and crumble it into small pieces (though they don't have to be tiny). Simmer the soup until the cabbage is tender and translucent. Then stir in the bacon and rice, turn off the heat, and remove the parmesan rind, if using.
Stir some grated parmesan or nutritional yeast into your bowl; experiment with how much you like. Whichever you choose, I don't recommend skipping this; the richness it brings is important to my memory of this soup.

Last night I had mine with an apple salad. Cabbage and apple are a classic combination, or so searches on Epicurious would indicate.