Fresh Strawberry Tartlet

Hello, city.

We're in New York on a recon mission. Just scoping out the neighborhoods (read: the food stores -- we visited about five today), poking around our new apartment buildings, visiting friends.

And, oh yes, hounding farmer's markets. Armed with a map and a schedule, we've hit two already, including the revered Union Square Greenmarket. It was everything we dreamed it would be -- bright and juicy cherries, delicately leafy greens, sleek summer squash, plus produce we'd never encountered before. We were especially enamored with the strawberries, perfectly ripened into beautiful red hearts. We took home a carton, determined to work them into a dessert worthy of their loveliness.

This strawberry tart wasn't particularly sweet, but we didn't mean it to be. We chose a not-to-sweet dough recipe, add only a touch of sugar to the strawberries, and chose to top it with a dark chocolate. It looked fabulous though, and tasted fresh and not overwhelming. This is definitely a recipe to tinker with -- we'll definitely be working different summer fruits into versions throughout the summer.

Ingredients (makes two tartlets):
(dough)
2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tbsp sugar
1/4 cup butter, cut into small pieces
1/8 cup ice water

(filling)
1 pint strawberries, hulled and thinly sliced
1/4 cup sugar
2 oz. dark chocolate
mint, for garnish

Instructions:
Make the dough by combining flour, salt and sugar in a bowl. Add butter, and mix thoroughly with fingers until a coarse meal forms. Add water, and stir with a fork, then pull dough together into a ball. Divide dough in half, wrap each piece in plastic wrap, and refrigerate for at least an hour. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 350. Roll out dough and press into tartlet pans, then line with foil and add pie weights (dry beans and rice work, too). Bake for 15 minutes with foil and weights, then remove and cook for an additional 7-10 minutes, until edges are golden brown. Meanwhile, mix strawberries and sugar together. Cool dough completely, then remove from tartlet pan. Fill shell with strawberries, and drizzle with melted chocolate (you can melt it in the microwave by heating for 15 seconds at a time, then stirring). Garnish with mint, and serve.

Giant Fruit Cookie (Pizza)

My mom's favorite token of culinary wisdom is that a good cook is someone who can identify a good recipe -- she says that technical skills matter less than the ability to forecast how ingredients will taste together before they are actually combined. We try to keep this in mind, and we've tried to train ourselves to imagine how our dishes will taste before we begin creating them. Over time, we've become not entirely awful at guessing which dishes we'll love, and which are probably worth only a weeknight dinner or two.

That said, sometimes recipes really surprise us, and this one blew us away. We first tasted a fruit cookie pizza at a brunch during our Spring Fling, and loved the concept. I found a similar recipe on All Recipes that looked worth adapting, and decided to try it out on some friends last night. Honestly, I was so convinced that the cookie had failed up until the moment we tasted it. There were some breakage issues while transferring the cookie from the baking sheet to the serving plate, so I kept envisioning the cookie separating into pieces the moment we sliced it. The cream cheese "sauce" and toppings must have held it together, however, since it sliced beautifully and tasted amazing.

The sugar cookie base absorbed some of the flavor from the topping, yet each bite was uniquely delicious because of the variety of fruit. The cookie was moist with a great vanilla flavor, and the cream cheese sauce was just sweet enough to compliment the fruit without overpowering it. Everyone went back for seconds, and we scraped the plate clean with our forks. I'll post the fruit that we used, but you can feel free to use any that you like.


Ingredients:
(cookie)
1/2 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp cream of tartar
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt

(topping)
1 (8 oz) package cream cheese
1/2 cup white sugar
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 carton strawberries, sliced thinly
1 kiwi, sliced thinly
1 carton blackberries, halved
1 mango, sliced thinly

Instructions:
In a large bowl, cream together the butter and 3/4 cup sugar until smooth, then add egg. In a separate bowl, combine the flour, cream of tartar, baking soda and salt, then beat into creamed mixture until just blended. Chill dough until it's easier to work with, about an hour, or longer if you want. Preheat oven to 350. Press dough into an ungreased pizza pan, or form into a circle 1/4 to 1/2-inch thick on a large nonstick or greased cookie sheet. Bake for about 10 minutes, until the edges of the cookie are golden brown. Cool cookie completely, and if the cookie was on a baking sheet, transfer carefully to serving plate (it's okay if it breaks a little, the topping will hold it together!) In a large bowl, beat cream cheese with 1/2 cup sugar and vanilla until light. Spread on cooled crust, and arrange fruit on top of filling. Keep chilled, slice and serve.

Peter's Chocolate Cookies

These cookies are not Peter's. But Alex's dad requested that we call them Peter's Chocolate Cookies so that he could search his name on Google to find this delicious recipe, and we are kindly obliging. The recipe is actually from Epicurious, and it's absolutely the best chocolate cookie recipe we've ever tried. I wouldn't change the recipe a bit, and you can get a batch done in about 20 minutes.

The most amazing thing about these cookies is that they don't contain butter or flour, just chocolate and sugar. You'd think they'd end up like meringues, but they're actually incredibly fudgy and soft. Though we only found the recipe two weeks ago, we've already made them three times, including for Alex's graduation party. I loved when his great-aunt came up to us and said, "Three egg whites? No flour? These is my favorite cookie recipe."

Let's review: fudgy chocolate cookies, no flour or butter, easy to bake, unbelievable reviews. There's no reason not to make these immediately. We recommend preparing them somewhere where it's not excruciatingly hot so that the dough becomes nice and firm, and definitely recommend using Ghiradelli bittersweet chocolate chips. I'll repost the recipe below, but it's close to an exact replica of the one you'll find here.

Ingredients:
nonstick vegetable oil spray
1 1/2 cups bittersweet chocolate chips, divided
3 large egg whites, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar, divided
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tbsp cornstarch
1/4 tsp salt

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400, and spray 2 large baking sheets with nonstick spray. Melt 1 cup chocolate chips in glass bowl by microwaving for 30 seconds, then stirring, for about 2 minutes total. Cool slightly. Using electric mixer, beat whites in large bowl to soft peaks. Gradually beat in 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Continue beating until mixture resembles soft marshmallow creme. Whisk 1 cup sugar, cocoa, cornstarch, and salt in medium bowl to blend. On low speed, beat dry ingredients into meringue. Stir in lukewarm chocolate and 1/2 cup chocolate chips (dough will become very stiff). Place 1/2 cup powdered sugar in bowl. Roll tbsps of dough into balls then roll balls in the sugar, coating thickly. Place dough balls on baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. Bake until puffed and tops crack, about 10 minutes. Cool then serve.

Apricot Brandy and Almond Baked French Toast

After a few days spent recovering from graduation festivities, we’re finally ready to post the final component of our goodbye brunch – a delicious and mildly alcoholic baked French toast that we’re proud to have come up with ourselves (mostly!). The inspiration comes from Smitten Kitchen’s boozy baked French toast, but since we already doused our sorbet in kahlua (Smitten Kitchen’s booze of choice), we decided to try ours with almonds and apricot brandy.

You may be unfamiliar with apricot brandy, but we know it from such things as the apricot brandy sour, a drink that’s quite popular among friends. Apricot brandy is actually very tasty and light, perfect for fluffy, soft French toast. Since baked French toast soaks overnight and cooks in the oven in the morning, we just added a bit of the brandy to our soaking mixture and let the flavor seep through. We added layers of almond slivers between the layers of toast, and served it with (your choice of) powdered sugar or berry topping.

Ingredients:
1 loaf Challah, brioche, or thick Italian bread, cut int0 1-inch slices,
3 cups whole milk
3 eggs
3 tbsp apricot brandy
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup almonds
powdered sugar (optional)

(for berry topping)
2 cups frozen berries of your choice (we chose mixed)
1/2 cup granulated sugar (or to taste)

Instructions:
Grease a 9×13-inch baking dish. Arrange one layer of bread tightly in the pan, sprinkle with half of the almonds. Arrange the second layer on top, and sprinkle with remaining almonds.
Whisk together milk, eggs, sugar, salt, brandy and vanilla, and pour over the bread. Wrap the baking dish tightly with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight. In the morning, bake at 425 for 30 minutes, or until puffed and golden. To make berry topping, combine berries and sugar in a saucepan. Bring to a soft boil, then simmer for an additional 5-10 minutes. You can mash the berries to your desired consistency. Serve toast with powdered sugar, berry topping, or both.

Sticky Buns

Yesterday, Penn sponsored an event for Senior Week called Walnut Walk, an eight-hour bar crawl across Philadelphia. There were 18 stops, and all offered drink specials for those of us graduating (and some offered drink specials for everyone, which made for severe crowding). There are about 2500 seniors in our class, so the event was inevitably a hot, hot mess.

But if there's anything that we've learned from our four years here, it's that days like yesterday go much more smoothly when everyone is stuffed with food before they begin. We'd been meaning to serve one final brunch after we had so much fun cooking for Homecoming, and yesterday gave us the perfect opportunity. It's amazing how much you can do without homework.

We knew that we had to do cinnamon buns, as we've been meaning to do them forever (along with bagels, which we have yet to accomplish). Both of us love the mall-bought variety, but there's an artificialness to them that we thought we could avoid. We chose a recipe from Epicurious for Ultimate Sticky Buns that reviewers raved were easy and out of this world -- our two criteria. We modified it slightly by increasing the filling, so I'll post what we did below. In the end, they turned out ridiculously delicious. The dough was so sweet and thick, and the filling was gooey and sticky and wonderful. It seeped throughout the buns so that every single bite was dreamy.

Don't touch that dial, more brunch recipes to come in the next few days!

Ingredients:
(dough)
1 cup warm water
4 tsp dry yeast
2/3 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup dry nonfat milk powder
1 1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs
4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

(glaze)
2 1/2 cups light brown sugar
1 1/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1/2 cup honey
1/2 cup dark corn syrup
1/2 cup water
3 cups pecan halves

4 teaspoons sugar
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Instructions:
To make dough, mix 1/4 cup warm water, yeast, and pinch of sugar in small bowl. Let rest until foamy, about 8 minutes. Beat remaining sugar, butter, milk powder, and salt in large bowl. Beat in eggs 1 at a time. Mix in remaining 3/4 cup warm water and yeast mixture, then 3 cups flour (1 cup at a time.) Using rubber spatula, mix in 1 cup flour, scraping down sides of bowl frequently (dough will be soft and sticky). Sprinkle 1/4 cup flour onto work surface and knead until smooth and elastic, adding more flour if sticky, about 8 minutes. Butter another large bowl. Add dough; turn to coat. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and let dough rise in warm area until doubled, about 2 1/2 hours.

To make glaze, grease one large pizza pan (or two 10-inch round cake pans) Beat brown sugar, 1 cup butter, honey, corn syrup, and 1/4 cup water in medium bowl to blend. Spread half of glaze in bottom the pan. Sprinkle pecans over.

Punch down dough, and divide in half. Roll each dough piece out on floured work surface to 12x9-inch rectangle. Brush any excess flour off dough. Grease dough rectangles with remaining 1/4 cup butter. Mix sugar and cinnamon in small bowl. Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over rectangles. Starting at 1 long side, tightly roll up each rectangle into log. Cut each log into 12 rounds. Place rounds, cut side down, prepared pan, spacing evenly. Cover with plastic wrap. (Can be made 1 day ahead; refrigerate.) Let buns rise in warm area until almost doubled, about 1 hour (or 1 hour 25 minutes if refrigerated).

Preheat oven to 375°F. Bake buns until deep golden brown, about 30 minutes. Run small knife around pan sides to loosen sticky buns. Turn hot buns out onto platter. Cool about 30 minutes and serve.

Starry Almond Mini-Cakes

It occurred to me yesterday that I have to empty my kitchen before I move out in one week, so we decided to poke around for items to use up. Unfortunately, using up the items in my cabinet meant shopping for more items to cook them with, so I'm not sure if we really succeeded in our mission. The food that resulted from the mission, however, was a huge success. We decided to do a dessert so that we could use these amazing little star-shaped tins that my mom recently gave to us, and also because we invited friends to bring their leftovers for dinner and one can only eat so many frozen vegetable dishes in one meal. You can bake almost anything in the star tins -- brownies, cookies, muffins, cakes -- but we wanted something simple and delicate, something deserving of such a lovely shape.

We chose a recipe from Epicurious for mini almond cupcakes because, though it isn't apparent from this blog, almond is pretty much my favorite flavor ever. I've been a marzipan addict for years, and for a while I wouldn't drink a Starbucks drink without a shot of almond syrup. Anything with that sweet, exotic flavor completely floors me. This recipe looked simple and fit our "get these in and out of the oven in 30 minutes" time constraint.

So not only was this one of the easiest baking recipes we've tried, but it was without doubt one of my favorites. If you like almond, you'll love this, and maybe even if you don't. The cakes were spongy and moist, but still light and fluffy. The recipe calls for the perfect amount of almond, and there are still hints of vanilla. We served with them with powdered sugar, which worked out wonderfully. These would be perfect with tea, or even alongside heavier desserts. I don't say this about many baked goods, but I know we'll be making this exact recipe again. The cakes were really, truly so so so good.

The recipe on Epicurious makes only enough for 12 mini cupcakes. We tripled the recipe and it made enough for 9 individual cakes, probably about 12 regular-sized cupcakes.

Ingredients:
1 stick plus 1 tbsp unsalted butter, softened
9 tbsp all-purpose flour plus additional for dusting molds
1/4 tsp salt
3/4 cup granulated sugar
6 tbsp almond paste
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract
3 large eggs
confectioners sugar for dusting

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 400°F. Brush cupcake tin or cake tins with melted butter and lightly dust with flour, knocking out excess flour. In a small bowl, stir together flour and salt in a small bowl. Beat softened butter and granulated sugar in a bowl until pale and fluffy. Beat in almond paste and vanilla until combined, then beat in egg until combined. Add flour mixture gradually, mixing until just combined. Divide batter among tins or muffin cups, spreading evenly, then transfer to a baking sheet (not necessary if using muffin pan). Bake cakes until just firm and edges are golden, about 15 minutes. Cool, and dust tops with confectioners sugar just before serving.

Vanilla Vanilla Cupcakes

There are two stories relating to these cupcakes, and the first is the story of baking them. While shopping for ingredients, I discovered that the grocery store was out of disposable muffin pans. Not wanting to wander around West Philly searching for them, I decided to try out the muffin cups that supposedly allow you to bake muffins by filling the cups and placing them on a regular baking tray. Bad idea. The couldn't hold their shape, and expanded significantly in the oven, causing the cupcakes to become smushed into several giant, deformed cakes. I ended up making an entire second batch -- in the non-disposable cupcake pan that I had forgotten I owned. Thank goodness the recipe was super easy.

The second story (this one is actually not really story) relates to serving the cupcakes. We brought them to New Jersey to serve at a reception for my grandmother's art show at her public library. The event was hilarious, because how could a gathering of 65+ Jewish people from New Jersey not be?

The recipe for the cupcakes is from the Magnolia Bakery, so we knew that they would taste great. Despite this, they surpassed our expectations by miles, tasting seriously out of this world. These cupcakes are fluffy like clouds, and moist like the softest cake. They taste like warm vanilla sugar, but not overwhelmingly. They hold together well, but melt gently on the tongue. With the icing, there's no question that these cupcakes have been precisely designed to taste like the most perfect little vanilla cakes in the world.

Ingredients:
(cupakes)
1 1/2 cups self-rising flour
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
2 cups sugar
4 large eggs, at room temperature
1 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract

(icing)
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, softened
6 to 8 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 cup milk
2 tsp vanilla extract

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees, and line muffin tins with cupcake papers. In a small bowl, combine the flours, and set aside. In a large bowl, cream the butter until smooth. Add the sugar gradually and beat until fluffy, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Incorporate the dry ingredients in three parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla. Spoon the batter into the cupcake liners, filling them about three-quarters. Bake for 20–25 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the cupcake comes out clean. Cool completely before icing.

To make icing, place butter, 4 cups of sugar, milk and vanilla in a bowl. Beat until smooth and creamy, about 3-5 minutes. Gradually add the remaining sugar, 1 cup at a time, beating well after each addition (about 2 minutes), until the icing is thick enough to spread. You may not need to add all of the sugar. If desired, add a few drops of food coloring and mix thoroughly. Icing can be store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to three days.

Chocolate Angel Food Cake

Because we've been busy wrapping up the semester (only 2 weeks of finals remain!), many of the recipes (like this and this) that we've posted in the last month come from weekly dinners that we've been having with two friends -- an event that ensures that we get up from our work and put something together in the kitchen. Last night, they kindly returned the favor by cooking dinner for us. But being the control freaks that we are, we couldn't let them cook everything, so we brought a chocolate angel food cake for dessert.

The cake marked our second use of our beautiful new angel food cake pan, and our first attempt making something other than the standard cake. For some reason, I thought that adding chocolate would significantly change the taste of the cake, but it actually turned out tasting just like the angel food cake that I know and love -- with just the right amount of chocolate flavor. Adding cocoa didn't make the cake any less fluffy or moist, as I had feared. It tasted sweet enough, but since it's so low in fat, I totally didn't feel guilty eating it. We sliced ourselves huge pieces, and topped it with whipped cream and sugary fruit.

The recipe we used is from The Joy of Baking. There are probably easier recipes out there, but this one looked thorough and fail-proof. It turned out to be less difficult than we expected, and we definitely recommend it.

Ingredients:
16 large egg whites
4 tbsp dutch-processed cocoa powder
1/4 cup boiling water
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 cups granulated sugar
1 cup cake flour
1/4 tsp salt
2 tsp cream of tartar

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350. Bring egg whites to room temperature (you can let them sit, covered, in a bowl for about 30 minutes). In a small bowl, combine cocoa powder and boiling water. Stir in vanilla extract. In a separate bowl, whisk together cake flour, and 3/4 cup granulated sugar and salt. In a large mixing bowl, beat egg whites until foamy, then add cream of tartar. Continue beating until soft peaks form, then add remaining one cup of sugar. Beat until stiff peaks form. Remove one cup of egg white mixture, and whisk it into the cocoa powder mixture to lighten it. Using a rubber spatula, gradually fold flour mixture into remaining egg whites, then fold in cocoa mixture. Don't over mix. Pour batter into 10-inch angel food cake pan. Bake for 40-45 minutes until inserted knife comes out clean, and cake springs back to the touch. Once baked, invert pan and let it cool for an hour and a half. Run knife around the rim of the pan, and around the bottom of the pan to remove the cake. Serve with fruit, whipped cream, and other toppings.

Zucchini Muffins with Chocolate Chips

On our second day of Spring Fling, we needed to make something delicious for a friend's brunch. We wanted to bake so that we could bring goodies that were still warm from the oven, but didn't have a lot of time in the morning. And since a lot of our friends have tasted many of our brunch recipes, we were reluctant to fall back on old staples. After piddling around recipe sites for a while, I decided to search the Smitten Kitchen archives, where I found a recipe for zucchini bread -- something that I've always loved, but never made myself. Because her recipes have never failed us (or likely, anyone) we decided to go for it. We opted for muffins instead of loaves to make serving easier.

Surprisingly, we were able to throw these muffins together in about 5o minutes total. Our food processor allowed us to grate the zucchini in no time, and the batter was extremely simple to mix after that. As soon as we sampled the raw mixture, we knew that these would be as delicious as we had hoped. It had such a perfect sweet and spicy combination that honestly think I could have eaten the entire batter bowl plain. Once baked, the texture was great and I think that everyone loved the way that they tasted. We added the optional chocolate chips and used apple pie spice because we were out of nutmeg, but I really wouldn't change anything from the original recipe, which I'm posting below.

P.S. We've been making muffins and cupcakes like crazy lately, but they'll be more variety soon!
Ingredients:
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil (or olive, but we used vegetable)
1 3/4 cups sugar
2 cups grated zucchini
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 cups all-purpose flour
3 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional, we didn't do this)
1 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 350, and line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. In a large bowl, whisk eggs together, then add oil and sugar, then zucchini and vanilla. In a medium bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, baking powder and salt. Add chocolate chips or nuts to dry mixture. Pour dry mixture into wet mixture, and stir until just combined. Spoon batter into muffin cups, and bake for about 20-25 minutes, until inserted knife comes out clean. Cool and serve.

Chocolate Cupcakes with Mint Ganache and Icing

This post is bittersweet -- and not because of the ridiculous quantities of chocolate in the recipe. For our wonderful friend Lara's birthday, we baked her mint chocolate cupcakes and a gorgeous dulce de leche ice cream cake. The cake had layers of dulce de leche ice cream and raspberry sorbet, with an almond graham cracker crust and sugary strawberries on top. We bought our first spring-form pan for the occasion, and produced a perfectly striped and delicious creation. Here's the bitter part: We have no pictures. I'm devastated, but Alex says it's sometimes good to not blog what we make to ensure that the process remains organic and not internet-driven. I think the fact that I'm this saddened means that he is correct.

The sweet news is that we made some knock-out mint chocolate cupcakes that we did remember to photograph. The recipe is inspired completely by Cupcake Bakeshop by Chockylit, and we took the mint ganache and mint icing directly from her blog. The cupcakes included in this recipe looked a tad too rich for our tastes, however, and we instead went with a basic chocolate cupcake recipe from Baking Bites.

Though these cupcakes were relatively time-consuming (we made the icing first, then the cupcakes themselves, then the ganache), they were well worth it. I personally thought they tasted incredible, and I think that others agreed. My favorite component was the subtle peppermint buttercream icing, though the package itself is unbeatable. These are definitely rich, so be prepared to split them.

Because there are so many components, I'm going to post the recipes and ingredients in sections. Happy Birthday, Lara! We love you.

Chocolate Cupcakes
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, very soft
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup warm milk

Preheat oven to 350. Line 24 muffin cups with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder and salt. In a large bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in eggs, one at a time. Add vanilla. Alternate adding flour and milk. Pour batter into tins, and bake for 15-17 minutes until knife comes out clean. Cool.

Chocolate-Mint Ganache
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup and 1 teaspoon chopped mint leaves (or more for garnish)
1 tbsp butter

Chop chocolate and place in heat proof bowl. Heat cream and 1/4 cup mint until bubbles form around the edge of the pan, pour cream through strainer, over the chocolate. Let sit for a minute, then stir until combined. Add butter and tbsp mint and combine. Cool then refrigerate to thicken for 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Mint Buttercream Frosting
1 cup butter
4-5 cups powdered sugar
1/4 cup milk
1/8 teaspoon peppermint extract

Beat butter until creamy, scrape bowl. Add 4 cups of sifted powdered sugar, milk, and peppermint extract, then beat until combined. Add more sugar if necessary.

Assembly
Once the cupcakes have cooled, use a knife to cut a cone shape out of the top of each. Fill each muffins with about a tsp of ganache, then cut of the tip of the cone and place it back on the cupcake. Ice and serve, garnished with a small mint leaf.

Big Apple Muffins

...Because we are moving to New York!

It's strange for me to sometimes write about personal things on a recipe blog. Many people who read this know us, and are therefore aware of our life updates. But we've also made so many friends in the blogopshere with whom we want to share our news. So if you know us, just scroll to the recipe.

Back to the excitement: After graduating in May, we are moving to NYC, where Alex will attend medical school at Mount Sinai, and I will attend law school at Columbia. We're super happy, as both of our first-choice schools are just a few blocks (and two parks) away from each other. The best part is that Two Fat Als will live on -- though we'll have to change the tag line from "cooking in college" to "cooking in graduate school" or "cooking under stress" or something. Suggestions are welcome.

To celebrate, we've baked ourselves some big apple muffins, loosely based on this recipe. We even invested in an extra-large muffin pan for the occasion. These big apple muffins are kind of like the apple cinnamon swirl muffins that we made earlier, but they're bigger and better and have walnuts and a strudel topping. Deliciously moist with a good crunchy topping, these muffins are surely a sign of good things to come.

Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 1/4 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 cups shredded apple
1/2 cup chopped apples
1 tsp cinnamon
3/4 cups walnuts

(strudel topping)
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1 tbsp all-purpose flour
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375. Line muffin pan with muffin cups. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in a medium-sized bowl. In a large bowl, beat together butter and sugar. Beat in eggs, one at a time, and then vanilla. Stir in apples and walnuts. Slowly stir in flour mixture until just combined. To make strudel topping, use your fingers to mix the ingredients until it feels coarse. Spoon batter into muffin cups, and sprinkle strudel on top. Cook for about 18 minutes for regular-sized muffins, or about 20-25 minutes for larger muffins.

First Almond and Pear Tart

We've never baked a tart before, but for our friend Nellie's birthday, we wanted to make something exceptional. Because we hadn't baked one, however, we encountered some issues having to do with the fact that we didn't know how. We selected a pear and almond tart recipe from Tartelette because hers always look so beautiful, but we found ourselves struggling with key terms and steps. We even resorted to the baking no-no of checking the oven every 5 minutes to make sure that our gooey mess was actually becoming a tart.

Thankfully, it did. I don't think that this will be the most delicious tart that we ever make, but I'm proud of our first attempt. The major flaws were in appearance. I forgot to peel the pears and my layering was less than perfect, so it ended up looking a bit more like moussaka than a tart. I also think that next time we'll select a recipe with a bit less cream. Still, it had the right amount of sweetness, and the pear/almond combo was, as expected, divine.

I think we learned more from this dish than we have from anything we've made in a while. We learned that blind baking means to bake without a crust, and that a small frying pan works well as a pie weight. We learned that a tart can take almost an hour to bake. The recipe we used was wonderful, but since it doesn't give cooking times, I'm going to post exactly what we did below. No guarantees on the times, so if you choose this, just be attentive and intuitive with your tart.

Ingredients:
(crust)
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1 stick of butter
1 egg yolk
1-2 tbsp water, if needed

(filling, makes more than I needed)
4 ripe pears, peeled, cored and sliced
4 eggs
200 grams sugar (about .8 cups)
100 gr. ground almonds (about .4 cups)
1 cup heavy cream
1 tsp. vanilla extract
1 tsp almond extract (or you can just do 2 tsp. vanilla)

Instructions:
To make the crust, combine all flour, sugar and butter in a food processor and pulse until it resembles a course meal. Add yolk and pulse until it combines into a ball, adding water if necessary. Flatten into a disk and refrigerate for at least one hour. Preheat oven to 350. Roll out dough and place it in tart pan, bake with pie weights for about 15-20 minutes, until it is cooked. Leave oven on. In a blender or food processor, combine all filling ingredients except for the pears and mix together. Once crust is cool, arrange pear slices in the tart pan and pour cream over it. Bake at 350 for about 1 hour, until very golden and inserted knife comes out clean.

Chocolate Chocolate Easter Cupcakes

As mentioned earlier, we try to cook for holidays with a blind eye toward their religious affiliations (or lack thereof). But because Easter slipped past us last year, I admit that this marks my first attempt baking for the holiday. Originally, I wanted to go all out -- cupcakes with coconut nests and chocolate eggs. After some experimenting, however, it seemed too much, and we settled for just the eggs. It was a good thing too, given the already intensely rich creaminess of the icing, paired with the deliciously coconut almond chocolate cakes.

In a word, these cupcakes were decadent. We designed them specifically for Alex's dad, a full-blown chocoholic, and I think they contain more chocolate than any item we've baked before. But though they didn't contain the lightness of a Spring day, they looked just as beautiful, and tasted as lovely as anything. The cake (thankfully) wasn't overly sweet, so it complimented the icing perfectly. We found the recipes for both the cake and the frosting on Epicurious, and since I wouldn't change a thing for either one, I won't bother reposting them. Just pop three Cadbury Mini-Eggs on each, and serve.