A Taste of Home

Growing up as a gringo in South and Central Florida, my family and I grew to love Latin-American food of all kinds. My mom’s version of palomilla is a family favorite. I remember eating her arroz con pollo at countless special occasions. In high school my friends and I would use our lunch privileges to pick up papas rellenas from Rolando’s. Yuca and maduros (sweet plantains) are the base for many a food-related dream now that I live in NC where these items are out of reach unless prepared in my own kitchen.

In November, my best friend Vanessa married her college sweetheart who is a native of Guatemala. They had American food at their rehearsal dinner and wedding, so for Sunday brunch they had a catering company bring in Latin food. Though my sympathetic family always takes me to our new favorite Cuban restaurant when I visit, this was even better because I got to have a little of everything they offered – ropa vieja, carnitas, yuca, maduros, green beans, yellow rice, frijoles, etc. My only regret is that I missed the arepas because we had to rush to the airport for our flight. Before we had even arrived at the airport, I had vowed to make one of my personal favorites, ropa vieja, later that week for dinner.

Chocolate-Mint Cake

When I was brainstorming cake flavors for my sister’s birthday the first idea that crossed my mind was actually a chocolate chip cookie cake. She and my mom joke that when they went on college tours together they rated the schools based on the quality of the cookies sold in their dining hall. I wanted something a little more special though, so I decided on a chocolate mint cake. She loves mint in any fashion, with or without chocolate. So I began searching for recipes. I had a picture of one in my mind – rich chocolate cake layers flavored with peppermint extract, with some sort of white-mint icing layered in between. However, I was disappointed time and time again by the recipes I found, which seemed more focused on the chocolate than the mint. Finally I settled on this recipe, a chocolate cake with a mint filling and a thick chocolate glaze. Yes, I know it is very focused on the chocolate but it was the most promising recipe I found.

The December issue of Bon Appetit arrived the week after I baked this cake. And there, smack dab on the cover, was the cake I had been imagining – a four layer devil’s food cake with chocolate ganache AND white chocolate filling, slathered with peppermint frosting. As soon as I saw it I started singing the Alanis Morissette song “Ironic” (spare me the lecture about musical taste please… I can’t help it that I was a child of the 90s). Anyhow, now I have a serious case of cake envy. Here it is. Doesn’t it look to die for? Feel free to skip the rest of this and go for that as long as you let me know how it turns out.

Still reading? Ok. The best part of this recipe for me was the discovery of the chocolate bar I chopped up to place in the cake batter in place of the chocolate chips. I bought it on a whim at Whole Foods in an attempt to make the cake minty-er. It had just the right balance of mint, chocolate, and crunch. Maybe I was so busy eating the leftover scraps of it that I overcooked the cake. Those of you who have eaten my baked goods before know that I always err on the side of underbaking, so this was quite unusual for me. Suffice it to say 65 minutes was waaaay to long for this particular recipe. I’d start checking it after 45 minutes. The other part that just didn’t work for me was the milk chocolate layered in the middle of the cake. I realize that this amount of dark chocolate is too much for some people. In that case, choose another cake. I just didn’t like combining that tinny flavor of milk chocolate (and I used good quality bars) with the richness of the bittersweet glaze. The glaze however, was awesome, and the cake would have been fine if it hadn’t been dry due to my error. If I tried it again I would either swap out the milk chocolate for dark in the filling, make extra glaze and use that in the middle, or just skip the filling altogether.

It was pretty though… Not a total flop, I suppose! Sorry I didn’t get any photos of the inside. We took it with us to Pop’s. They were nice enough to cut and plate it for all 20-something of us. I felt too guilty to ask to take pictures and the lighting was terrible at our table.

Stuck in October

It feels a bit strange to be writing about pumpkin bread when we just finished putting up our Christmas decorations. But this recipe was too good not to share, even if it is a little past the time when most are craving recipes based on pumpkin.

Most of the time I decide what I am going to cook based on one particular ingredient I want to use or by simply by perusing my massive collection of clipped recipes from magazines, newspapers, other blogs, and cookbooks. It’s not often I have a very specific end product in mind and need to find the recipe to fit my vision. That, however, was the case when I wanted to make pumpkin bread. I knew from experience eating different types of pumpkin loaf that I wanted one with a strong mix of several different spices, buttermilk, dark brown sugar, nuts, and a cream cheese swirl. I searched high and low but couldn’t find a recipe to fit these specifications. Finally I just chose a recipe for a nut-less, swirl-less loaf that looked particularly promising and decided to wing it on the nuts (easy) and cream cheese (a little more challenging).

Red Velvet Cake

We had the pleasure of hosting a pre-birthday celebration for my uncle’s 60th a few weekends ago. His three adoring daughters gathered friends and family together to celebrate with him. On the night everyone arrived they planned a spread of his favorite things that could have fed us for days. That’s without the copious amounts of pizza we added to the mix. Of course, I begged them to allow me to make the cake. Thankfully, they acquiesced and mentioned that red velvet is his favorite. This worked out perfectly, as I had pulled this recipe back in July but decided to make a s’mores cheesecake instead. I kept it in my file, knowing that it had potential for a future celebration.