Sunday Night Dinner at Sheffield - Catered by Vinnie's

Continuing our tradition of the Sunday Night Dinners at Sheffield Series, we gathered last night at my apartment to dine and enjoy each other's company. This time we had a special guest by way of my older brother, Drew. He was in town for a fancy New England wedding and decided to grace his little Brooklyn-dwelling sister with his presence for one night only.

Of course, because this is how the Universe operates, his 24 hour visit happened to fall on the exact same day is the Lost series finale. What to do? What to do? The obvious plan was to ply him with delicious food in exchange for his silence and cooperation during the 4 and a half hour epic Lost event. This seemed to be a success.

For years, Drew has heard my friends and me rave about Vinnie's pizza in Williamsburg. First revealed to us by my roommate's charming boyfriend, Vinnie's has been a big part of our gastronomical lives. This is no ordinary pizza. I wouldn't even consider it New York pizza. Vinnie's is its own genre. Legend has it that the unusual recipes were hijacked from the original location in Massachusetts and used to set up shop amongst the hipsters in Williamsburg. Whether that's true or not, I am eternally grateful to those pizza-burglars, whomever they may be. Forget everything you thought you knew about pizza. They shouldn't even call this pizza. They should call it crazy, delicious, unique toppings nestled on a bed of crispy crust. But that's a pretty long name.

This place is tiny -- maybe 4 or 5 tables. There isn't really a menu, you just press your face up against the glass that separates your taste buds from the dazzling array of strange and creative slices. Some of their options include cheese tortellini; barbecue chicken; tomato, avocado, and black bean; chicken quesedilla; macaroni and cheese with spinach and sundried tomatoes; chicken, bacon, and ranch...the possibilities are endlessly scrumptious. You never really know which varieties they offer until you walk in the door. It's quite a trek from Park Slope to Williamsburg, but after a quick call to Vinnie's asking if they'd deliver to our hood elicited a howl of laughter on the other line, we knew that was our only option. So, lured by the promise of amazing pizza, my brother and I hoofed it to the 'burg to pick up as many slices as we could carry.

I must admit that the photo above was borrowed from Google because we stuffed our pizza in our mouths before I could even think about taking a picture. But I thought it was an excellent representation of the tortellini pizza. Pasta on top of pizza = genius. However, my absolute favorite part about Vinnie's is their trashcan. Yes, the trashcan. I don't know who came up with this, whether it was a bored patron with a sense of humor or a deliberate attempt at cleverness by the management, we'll never know. The flap of the trashcan has been modified with the mere addition of a period placed in a strategic position between the letters that spell out THANKS. It now reads "T.HANKS", which is enhanced by a Bosom Buddies-era photo of Mr. Hanks himself. It is priceless. Clearly I approve...

C is for Cookie

And we all know who that's good enough for. But even our beloved Cookie Monster has jumped on the health food bandwagon. His namesake sweet treats, once consumed with such unbridled enthusiasm that the crumbs launched out of his mouth like shrapnel, have now been relegated to a 'sometimes food'. He has since incorporated fruits and vegetables into his diet as 'everyday foods' all for the health and well being of America's youngsters. This is certainly a wise and valiant effort in my opinion (hence my fascination with Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution show), but sometimes, sometimes, you just need a cookie.

These cookies were made for absolutely no reason. They were inspired by a last minute grab from the baking aisle. The chocolate chip section of said aisle has grown since I was a kid helping my mom whip up batches of traditional chocolate chip cookies, using the recipe right on the back of the bag (it never fails). Your options then were semi-sweet morsels or...other semi-sweet morsels. Now there's dark chocolate of varying percentages, butterscotch, PB and chocolate mixed (dangerous!), white chocolate, milk chocolate, chocolate chunks, mini chips...easy there, Bubba Blue, the list goes on. It was the milk and white chocolate SWIRLED chips that caught our eye. Keep in mind, this was actually the same day my friends and I shopped for our Bake for Hope supplies. We knew we would be donating all of our baked goods and thus, not able to consume any of them. So naturally, we enacted a cookie back-up plan which pretty much entailed baking an extra batch of cookies that we could eat. These swirled chocolate chips became the star of our superfluous confections.

They look pretty psychedelic, right? You can understand how a bag of these ended up in our cart that day. They're swirly and alluring and made me envision chewy, golden cookies perfectly studded with these two toned chips. Most chocolate chip cookie recipes are the same -- cream brown and white sugars with butter (or half butter/half shortening if you're my mom. And if you are my mom and you're reading this, you'll soon be emailing me to point out my typos), beat in eggs and vanilla, add dry ingredients and mix until incorporated. Then you get to stir in your chips!

This is the best time to lick the bowl, by the way. My brother and I became very skilled in keeping an eye on our mom and waiting for her to turn her back on that bowl of cookie dough for just one sweet, split second for us to get a spoon, or when necessity called for it, a finger into that bowl. She was blessed (cursed, in our opinion) with cat-like reflexes and usually we got away with a mere tiny lump of dough before she shooed us away with a warning to await the finished products. Occasionally she would pluck the beaters from the mixer and hand us each one to devour as we pleased. Raw egg paranoia be damned! This is cookie dough we're talking about. Never turn down cookie dough. You will live to enjoy another scoop.

Typically we crouched by the oven, eyes plastered to the ticking timer, slowly counting down the seconds to fresh-baked cookie Nirvana. Assisted by the heat of the oven, the perfectly scooped balls of cookie dough (formed by Mom's signature two-spoon scrape -- no fancy ice cream scoopers for uniform balls in those days) began to sizzle and squish down to objects that eventually resembled real, homemade cookies.

SIDE NOTE: Why did I make that sound like I grew up in 1804? Not quite sure about that...

Naturally, Mom had moved on to other tasks around the house at this point, so we always did her the favor of shouting BEEEEEEEEEPER! at the top of our lungs when the timer went off. Just in case the shrill electronic pitch wasn't loud enough to wrangle her back to the kitchen to retrieve the cookies from the oven.

What started out as a display of baked-for-no-particular-reason-other-than-to-snack-on-them cookies has evolved into a nostalgic piece of chocolate chip cookie memorabilia. We all link our memories to certain things -- pictures, smells, names, and more often than not, food. So go grab a bag of the craziest morsels you can find and bake your own memories!

The Lingering Magic of the Magic Blondies

You may recall the Magic Blondies my friends made for the Bake for Hope bake sale. Refresh your memory with the above scrumptuous close up. They were gorgeous and golden and, apparently, blew the socks off the bake sale patrons. Check out this glowing review from the organizer:

Hi Kate,

Thanks again for your contributions to the bake sale this past weekend. A
friend of mine mentioned to me the other day that the best thing she ate from
the bake sale was your Magic Blondie!...Just thought you might like to hear that
:)

Thanks again!

How fantastic is that? We supported a good cause, treated people to delicious goodies, AND got a shout out. Granted, it might just have been that one lady who was taken in by the magic of the blondie, but I like to think everyone was gobbling them up. If anything, it's motivation to bake more and give more.

Anatomy of a Cupcake

I'm really good at remembering birthdays. For some reason, special dates just stick in my head. Years can go by -- I might not even know what you do for a living anymore, but I'll remember your birthday. Fortunately, I have a knack for keeping favorite cake flavors in mind too. A friend of mine happened to mention her affinity for classic yellow cake with chocolate frosting over drinks recently. This fact, of course, lodged itself in my brain, coupled with the fact that her birthday was fast approaching. Conveniently, I stumbled upon some swag I'd gotten from my last job, and in this treasure trove of goodies was a pack of cupcake gift boxes. The Universe had decided that I would be making, packaging, and delivering birthday treats. Good plan, Universe.

Surprise, surprise...this is a Martha Stewart recipe. It comes from the hefty tome that is her Baking Handbook and serves as the iconic representation of a classically traditional two layer birthday cake. I veered away from the chocolate frosting recipe paired with the cake in the book. It was very similar to the frosting I made for my Double Chocolate Salted Caramel Cupcakes and involves three separate additions of chocolate in various states of meltiness. I was after something a little simpler and cleaner. After much internet scouring, I found a basic chocolate frosting recipe that really only required some sifting, dumping, and mixing until luscious creaminess evolved out of the blended cocoa powder, butter, powdered sugar, milk, and vanilla.

I went the cupcake route so as to make use of my adorable gift boxes (and so I wouldn't have to drag a whole cake to a bar, which would be the drop off site. Drunk people and cake knives don't mix). I got a little carried away with these process photos and present them now as the origin of a cupcake: from batter to box (also known as gratuitous photos of cupcakes. There should be laws against this kind of gratuitous decadence)...

And here we are. A perfectly charming pre-packaged homemade gift...all ready to be schlepped across Manhattan on a Saturday night. Showing up at a bar bearing cupcakes is not necessarily common practice, but I didn't hear any complaints. Not only is it a sweet little way to celebrate someone's birthday, but it's a built in late night snack for the cab ride home.

Sunday Night Dinner at Sheffield - Mexicana Style

Here I am again, telling you what I had for dinner. But it was just too pretty not to share! Maybe I will just limit the "this is what I had for dinner" posts to Sunday Night Dinners at Sheffield. It's started to become a bit of a tradition to gather friends and family in our apartment on Sunday evenings to cook and feast. Preparing food is such a collaborative, group-friendly activity and an excellent cure for the Sunday Blues. Now, I can't take credit for this delicious specimen of colors that is enticing several of your senses at the moment. My roommate, Jenny, whipped up this fantastically fresh salad of black beans, corn, avocado, tomatoes, cilantro and lime juice. That's the other perk of cooking with a bunch of friends -- no one person has to do all the work.

Jenny's mom was in town, so we were eager to show her that we are grown ups. Unfortunately, we don't own enough chairs to sit around the table we so lovingly loaded with food, so the couches had to suffice. I think she was impressed with our culinary prowess, even if it was just chicken fajitas.

No recipe needed here -- choose the brightest, most cheer-inducing peppers you can find (we went with orange, green, and yellow for the most pop, both visually and flavor-wise). Slice them up and toss them around a hot skillet with some vegetable oil and an equal amount of sliced onions. I'm a fan of the big, golden Spanish or Vidalia onions because they're a bit sweeter and go really well with the peppers.

Our protein of choice for this Mexican fiesta was chicken. Sliced, seared, and seasoned with the perfect blend of spices (read: taco seasoning packet. Why mess with a good thing?) As much as I love to lug out my biggest, heaviest, most complicated cookbook and work my way through step after complicated step of an elaborate recipe to impress my friends, sometimes a simple taco night is all you really need.

Our Sunday spread was on the table and ready to be unceremoniously inhaled while watching America: The Story of Us (in exchange for feeding people I force them to watch the History Channel...everybody wins?).

Coconuttiness

Yeah, that's a word now. At this point, you've gathered that I love to bake. Naturally, the outcome of this love is that my friends get to eat delicious sweets and treats and I get to, well, bake. Everybody wins! Trust me, I have one happy roommate. She is quite content to be my taste tester.

This need to bake, however, is not entirely benevolent. I often don't bake to please others, but to please myself. Selfish, no? I guess it is, but when the product of your selfishness is cake, no one seems to mind. When a special occasion arises my first thought is "What can I bake?!?" It's not always "What would this person want me to bake?" I often want to try out new recipes just for the sake of the challenge or to attempt to emulate the pretty picture that accompanies the instructions. Every now and then I do pay attention to the desires and tastes of others and try to give them exactly what they want. Case in point: this extravagantly decadent coconut cake for my friend Mark's birthday.

I had stored in the back of my mind Mark's love of coconut cake and thought this recipe would be absolutely perfect for his birthday. I was crazy excited to make it, which is a big deal considering I detest coconut. That might be irrationally negative, but I am just not a fan of the flavor, texture, general concept of coconut. What is it? A nut? A fruit? A coco? I don't get it. And it tastes like sunscreen. But it is fluffy, white, delicate, and lovely, which are all things that make a cake extraordinary. I can pretty much get behind any dessert that ends up looking like a big puffy cloud of pillowy goodness.

Some challenges arose in my attempt to bake this cake. The party was a weekend beach getaway (awesome, I know). This meant I needed to either make the cakes ahead of time or spend a gorgeous sunny Saturday at the Shore baking away in an unfamiliar kitchen while my friends boozed on the beach. No thank you. I figured every bakery out there makes their cakes in advance and freezes them. After several internet searches and verification from Ina and Martha, I decided the bake-ahead-freeze plan was the best method. So the Sunday before the party I baked my cakes with a week to go before they would be served. Some cardboard cake rounds, an ingenious use of saran wrap and plastic bags, and sheer dumb luck led to two perfectly baked, cooled, and sealed coconut cakes.
















After a road trip to the Garden State, these golden beauties came to room temperature in the warm seaside breeze. They were soon soft, spongey, and ready for a heaping dollop of cream cheese frosting. Fortunately, Nicole's beach house no shack and came complete with a well-equipped kitchen. I set up my transported-from-Brooklyn ingredients, grasped the borrowed hand mixer, and went to town on the cream cheese, butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla until it resembled the soft, white fluffiness of the residue left behind by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
















Making a two layer cake is ridiculously fun and extremely satisfying. If you're into that sort of thing...which I am. It's just so classic. A thick, rich layer of frosting is sandwiched between two identical rounds of dense cake, which are in turn covered in swirly heaps of even more luscious, buttery frosting. If that doesn't scream birthday party, I don't know what does. Well, maybe a pinata and a rousing game of Mad Gab, but that's a story for a different day.

















You'll notice I used the tried and true parchment paper technique to keep my serving platter clean. An unnecessarily fussy step, some might say. But said unnecessary fussiness results in a perfectly frosted cake atop a pristine serving platter. Once the cake is complete, you simply slide out the sheets of protective parchment and poof, mess is gone. It really comes in handy when you have to cover the frosted cake with handfuls of shredded coconut.

















Slowly but surely, every last inch of the cake gets covered in gobs of frosting. A quick smooth with an offset spatula and a generous sprinkling of shredded coconut and this confection is
ready for its birthday close up.

















Once adorned with a crown of vibrant candles that give off a soft, celebratory glow, the cake makes its debut to the birthday boy. At this point, even I'm tempted to blow out the candles and stick my face in it, that's how good it looks. Regardless of the fact that it's completely covered in coconut.

Bake for Hope

My friend Katy and I are avid bakers. We love to dazzle our friends with tempting treats and decadent creations. We work together, but occupy completely opposite sides of our office. These sides of the office have completely separate pantries that are a great distance apart. So naturally we were never aware of the other's baking prowess because we always displayed our goods to the staff in our own pantries. Basically, each of us thought we were the soul queen of the baked goods for our office until we collided with brute force over baking for a friend's birthday. What was initially a rivalry of Trump-Rosie proportions quickly evolved into a friendship that revolves around tips of the trade and baking secrets. "Have you tried this recipe? It's fantastic" "Oh, you fill your cupcakes like that? Okay" or "I usually pipe my frosting this way, but that works." Things of this nature.

Our mutual love of baking (and, I'm sure, an inherent need to out-do the other in the kitchen) promted us to have a day where we concocted something together. We each had something to bring to the table besides our mad baking skills -- Katy, a Kitchen-Aid mixer (jealous!). Me -- a larger kitchen. So we gathered some friends and met for a little pre-baking brunch and shopping on a sunny Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn. Our battle of the bakers gained some much needed merit and purpose, other than self-glorification, when we realized that the Susan G. Komen Bake for Hope bake sale was scheduled for the very same weekend. What timing! Now we could feel guilt-free about whipping up dozens of delicious baked goods for no reason but to admire and eat them. It saved us many calories and gave us that warm, satisfied feeling that goes along with doing good.

After a quick trip to the store for some essentials we were ready for our day of baking. Both of the recipes we decided on we from my favorite little cookie Bible, Martha Stewart's Cookies. I'd always wanted to try out the Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars. So we settled on those in addition to her Magic Blondies, which are magical indeed. They are like brownies, posing as blondies, disguised as cupcakes and studded with delicious surprises like chocolate chips, dried cranberries, coconut flakes, and walnuts. We were quite sure these treats would be flying off that bake sale table -- and all for a good cause!

Katy and I tackled the Peanut Butter and Jelly Bars first. The process began with usual creaming of butter and sugar in my trusty Sunbeam stand mixer. It's no Kitchen-Aid, but it gets the job done. Unless you look away for a second and your spatula gets lost in the spinning bowl and suffers a tragic fate twisted up in the two rapidly twisting beaters. This is not pretty. It's best to keep your eyes and hands on the bowl at all times.

The dough for the PB&J bars is rich, dense, and peanutty. It calls for 2 1/2 cups of peanut butter! That's a lot, especially when you have to scoop it all out of the jar and smear it into the cup. Thankfully, my friend Nicole took care of that step. This is a versatile dough because it serves as both the brownie-like base of the bars as well as the crumb-like topping. Sandwiched between these two already scrumptious layers? Strawberry jam. Yes, please.

With the dough evenly smooshed into the pan and the jam generously spread, the crumbly bits of back-up dough get sprinkled on top along with chopped peanuts for a finishing touch. These bars bake for a surprisingly long time (almost an hour). Definitely do as clever Martha says and cover them loosely with foil for the last few minutes so your crumbly bits don't burn. The finished product was absolutely gorgeous, gooey, sticky, and nutty.

The Magic Blondies didn't turn out so bad either. Turns out group baking is kind of tricky -- did you put the salt in already? How much vanilla was that? This can be a recipe for disaster. So we split up the duties. My friends Nicole and Jackie took the lead on the blondies. Apparently I can be a little bossy in the kitchen (who knew? Oh, everyone. I see.) After informing me I was treating them like interns, I stepped back and let the magic happen. They did a fantastic job if this photo has anything to say about it...

Magic indeed. With our day of baking coming to a close, we wrapped up our treats in cellophane bags and plastic wrap and tied them off with a flourish of appropriately-pink ribbon. As for us rival bakers -- our wits were matched, our treats were baked, and our friendships strengthened by a little healthy competition.