Sasha's Kitchen: Garden Party Themed Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

I had recently made a cake with all kinds of flowers in a garden party theme, and then decided to reverse it a couple weekends later into cupcakes, with pretty little flowers made using the Wilton flower tip. Flowers are just so pretty to decorate with, and this made a truly lovely batch of cupcakes. I used made a batch of chocolate peanut butter cupcakes, with my favorite peanut butter frosting. Really, there's no better flavor combination for a cake or cupcake than chocolate and peanut butter! These are perfect for a lovely summer party.

Sasha's Garden Party Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes
Cupcakes (adapted from Julie Hasson)
3/4 cup flour
1/4 cup Dutch process cocoa powder
1/4 tsp Kosher salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup smooth lowfat peanut butter
1/4 cup butter
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup whole milk

Mix together the dry ingredients in a bowl - the flour, cocoa powder, salt and baking powder. Beat the sugars and the butter in the  basin of a stand mixer until well combined. Then  beat in the peanut butter until smooth, followed by the egg and vanilla. Alternatively beat in the flour mixture and the milk and beat until smooth. Fill cupcake molds (lined) 3/4 of the way to the top and bake at 350 for 25 to 30 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool completely before frosting.

Peanut butter frosting
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup (one stick) unsalted butter
pinch salt
1/2 cup creamy non-fat peanut butter
2 T milk

Vanilla buttercream (for decorating)
2 cups confectioners' sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 T milk
gel based food coloring in pink, purple and yellow

Beat together the ingredients for the peanut butter frosting for about five minutes in your stand mixer until smooth. Frost the cupcakes using a frosting bag.

Make the regular vanilla butter cream the same way. Once you have beaten together the ingredients into a smooth frosting, divide into three bowls and color with a drop or two of the gel food coloring. Make the petals using the wilton flower tip, and use a traditional dot tip to make the dot in the center with the yellow buttercream.

Sasha's Kitchen: Garden Party Themed Chocolate Peanut Butter Cupcakes

Sasha's Kitchen: Peach Salad

Here's a new post on a lovely peach salad, perfect for the summer. Can I just add that it is absolutely too hot outside - actually 104 here in New York, which is heat beyond where a nice juicy peach is really helpful. But peaches are great in the summer, so I couldn't resist this peach salad, with fried goat cheese.

Sasha's Summer Peach Salad (serves 2)
Mixed greens
4 oz goat cheese
2 eggs
panko bread crumbs
toasted almond slivers
prosciutto or braciole (optional)

Vinagrette:
1/2 cup canola oil
3 T balsamic vinegar
1 T dijon mustard
1 T diced mint

To prepare the goat cheese, form a 4oz package of goat cheese into four balls. Place in the freezer for 30 minutes. Heat canola oil in a pan, and then coat each ball of goat cheese in the egg and then with panko bread crumbs. Repeat coating in the egg and panko for a second layer. Fry immediately in the oil until nicely browned but not melted, about four minutes or so on medium high. The key here is for the balls to be nicely browned, soft and warm, but not either melted or frozen on the inside.

Slice the peaches and assemble the salad with toasted almond slivers, peaches and greens. You can add prosciutto and/or braciole as well if you prefer.  Top with the vinaigrette mixture above.

Sasha's Kitchen: Peach Salad

Sasha's Kitchen: Banana Pecan Bread

I love banana bread and pumpkin bread, but I am not into making either in the most unhealthy way possible, with lots of butter. I just can't enjoy it that way. The following banana bread recipe is perfect because it uses canola oil rather than butter, just like the majority of my muffin and bread recipes. The combination of bananas and pecans is stellar, and this bread makes a perfect snack anytime. A slice of it is the perfect way to start your morning! I made mine in my mini silicon bread molds that I got at Crate & Barrel.

Sasha's Banana Bread (makes 1 full size loaf or three mini loaves)
4 ripe bananas
1 cup of granulated sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1/3 cup chopped pecans

Preheat the oven to 325 and prepare your molds. Mash the bananas using a food processor. In a mixer, on the lowest speed, combine the sugar, oil and eggs. Slowly add the dry ingredients until fully mixed. Mix in the bananas until combined, and stir in the pecan choppings. Pour the batter into your molds and bake until a toothpick comes out clean - this took about 45 minutes for the mini molds, but might take between and hour and an hour and a half for a full sized loaf. Allow to cool before un-molding and slicing. You can make larger batches and freeze, as well. 

Sasha's Kitchen: Banana Pecan Bread

Sasha's Kitchen: Irish Potato Leek Soup

A couple years ago, my husband and I went on a great trip to Ireland. Ireland is probably not really known for its food, but it is known for its soups, especially those involving potatoes, which are a pretty traditional irish food going way back for historical reasons. Anyhow, while in Ireland, we tasted a few pretty delicious soups (my favorite being the Guinness stew at the brewery in Dublin), and I picked up a small book of Irish soups and breads. I've tried a couple from this book and they are all excellent. Here's the delicious potato leek soup we made last week.

Potato Leek Soup (from Irish Soups and Breads)

1 1/2 pounds leeks (I used three extremely large leeks)

3 medium potatoes

3 sticks celery

2 large cloves of garlic, chopped

4 T butter

5 1/2 cups low sodium chicken stock

salt and pepper to taste

3 scallions

croutons

my additions - bit of parmesan cheese and paprika

Peel and chop the potatoes into cubes, and chop the garlic finely. Clean the leeks and the celery well, and chop those too. Melt the butter in a large saucepan and add all of these vegetables to the melted butter. Cook gently for about ten minutes on medium heat, not allowing the potatoes to burn. I used a mixture of 1/2 olive oil and half butter instead of all butter, and that worked out well too.  Add 3/4 of the stock and simmer until the potatoes are cooked, about 15 minutes. Puree the soup in batches in the blender and add the rest of the stock.

To serve, I topped with croutons, a bit of parmesan cheese, diced scallions and a pinch of paprika. It was a pretty perfect Irish soup!

Sasha's Kitchen: Irish Potato Leek Soup

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Souffle

You know I love blueberries, so when I received a gift card from ShopRite as part of my participation in the PotLuck ShopRite blog program to go to my local ShopRite in Brooklyn and buy some of ShopRite's local New Jersey fruits, I knew that blueberries were the way to go. Now, I love farmers market fruit, but it is so expensive. I was truly impressed with the quality and freshness of ShopRite's peaches and blueberries that I bought for use in two desserts last weekend - a peach/blueberry cobbler and a blueberry souffle. Both were fresh and juicy with vibrant colors, just they way they should be. Perfect, locally grown fruit that was just right for use in these two recipes and doesn't break the bank.

Blueberry Souffle (recipe from derived from the Food Network)
1 T butter, melted
1/2 cup granulated sugar, plus 1 T for dusting the souffle dishes
1/3 cup fresh blueberries
3 egg yolks
5 egg whites

Preheat the oven to 400 before you begin. Butter the insides of 4 10 ounce ramekins and lightly dust each with a bit of sugar. Beat the egg yolks with 1/4 cup fi sugar and then beat in the blueberry puree, beating well. Whisk the egg whites in a stand mixer on high. Once foamy, add the remaining sugar slowly while beating on high for several minutes until meringue like peaks form. Fill the souffle dishes to the brim and smooth the tops. Bake the souffles in the middle of the oven for ten to twelve minutes.

Sasha's Kitchen: Blueberry Souffle

Sasha's Kitchen: Garden Party Themed Three Tier Chocolate Cake

Most of the time, I make and decorate cupcakes instead of cakes, because cakes are just - well so big. But making cakes is so much fun for a large gathering of people, especially big and even multi tiered cakes. Last weekend, my in laws had the family over for July 4th and I decided to make a large, three layered chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream. I decorated the cake with lovely flowers of all colors on a blue background for a garden party theme. I was really pleased with the results so I thought I would share the cake and recipe here. I used Wilton cake tips to do the petals on the flowers and the leaves, as well as the vines. I got all of the supplies for the decorating at New York Cake, a fabulous baking supply store. Since I had to reuse the petal tip for the different color flowers, I found that using disposable pastry bags for the buttercream was easiest when decorating with the tips. I got the recipe for this delicious chocolate cake from the Alice's Tea Cup Cookbook, and found that their chocolate cake recipe was moist and delicious.

Chocolate Cake with Vanilla Buttercream
2 cups of sugar
1 3/4 cups of all purpose flour
3/4 cups unsweetened cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp kosher salt
1/4 cup sour cream
2 eggs
1 cup whole milk
1/2 cup canola oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup hot brewed coffe

Vanilla Buttercream (make two batches, one for the layers and covering the cake and one for decorating)
2 sticks unsalted butter
1 lb confectioner's sugar (about four cups)
2 T whole milk
1/2 tsp pure vanilla extract

To prepare the cake, preheat the oven to 350. You will need three eight inch cake pans. Next time I make this, I am going to do a second tier, whip up another batch, and also make three six inch cake plans as well for the smaller tier on top. Prepare the three eight inch cake pans and combine the fry ingredients together in a bowl (flour, cocoa, sugar, baking powder, baking soda and salt). In the basin of your stand mixer, on medium speed, beat the sour cream and eggs (one at a time), milk, oil and vanilla, and add in the dry ingredients, mixing for two minutes. Scape down the bowl and drizzle in the coffee and blend until smooth. It will be a very liquidy mixture, which is fine and appropriate.

Divide the cake batter evenly among the cake pans and bake for 20-25 minutes, or until a toothpick comes out clean. Allow the cakes to cool in the pans before gently removing from the pans and allowing to cool on a wire rack until room temperature.  If necessary, trim the tops of the cake to level them, but I found that this recipe did not require any leveling.

Make a first batch of buttercream by beating together those ingredients into a smooth buttercream. I added a drop of blue gel food color to get the desired color.

To build the cake, frost the three layers with buttercream and stack. Then frost the sides. I recommend using a large metal spatula to frost and to smooth the cakes so the frosting is nice and even. You can use a little metal device (no idea what its called, sorry) to make some texture on the side of the cake as well (See the photo above). You will want to get the base frosting as smooth as possible before decorating. I used blue as  for the inside as well (baby blue, actually) but you could be more traditional and use plain instead. Also, another tip - I bought a cake turntable for rotating the cake while building and decorating - it makes the entire process much easier. I got mine here in Park Slope at Tarzian West.

Make another batch of buttercream to decorate. I divided this batch into five parts and dyed with the gel food color to make orange, purple, pink, green, and yellow. The I used the Wilton flower tip to do the petals in each color, a star tip to do the yellow centers, a leaf tip for the leaves and a thin circle tip for the vines. It's cake art!

Sasha's Kitchen: Garden Party Themed Three Tier Chocolate Cake

Sasha's Kitchen: Miso Glazed Salmon with Passion Fruit-Ginger Glazed Carrots

I really find cooking, and especially baking to be cathartic. When there are other things that are really giving me trouble or that I am struggling with in my life, it provides such a good release, and distraction. Sometimes the more I bake, the more it helps relax me from some of the other things going on. People wonder why I cook so much even during the week, and really that's the explanation. Anyhow, recently I tried this new salmon dish - it sounds complicated - miso glazed salmon with passion-fruit-ginger glazed carrots and creamed mashed potatoes, but it's really not that difficult. It makes a lovely, full dinner with side dishes, and is do-able on a busy week night. The ginger glazed carrots came out really well for my first time making them, as I was quite pleased. I may try to fine tune this recipe in the future to see if I can make ginger glazed carrots without any butter at all - but they were oh, so good.

Sasha's Sockeye Salmon with Passion Fruit-Ginger Glazed Carrots and Creamed Potatoes


1/3 cup white miso paste
1 T sesame oil
1 T canola oil
1 T honey
3 T rice vinegar
3 T soy sauce
sesame seeds
1 lb mini carrots
1 cup passion fruit juice (you could also use orange juice)
3 T butter
1/4 tsp cinnamon
3 T sugar
2 T grated ginger
2 lb bag new potatoes or small red potatoes
1 /2 cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 cloves of garlic
 4 T creme fraiche or fat free sour cream

To prepare the  miso glazed salmon, combine the miso, sesame oil, canola oil, honey, rice vinegar and soy sauce with a whisk. Using a brush, coat the salmon, sprinkle with the sesame seeds, and bake/broil the salmon as desired.

To prepare the carrots, in a saucepan, add the carrots, fruit juice, sugar, cinnamon and ginger. Bring to a boil. Then simmer until reduced and the carrots have a nice glaze to them. The liquid should be mostly gone at this point and the carrots should be cooked al dente - this process takes about 20 to 25 minutes.

To make the potatoes, cook the potatoes by adding to a large pot and covering with water, adding a pinch of kosher salt. Bring to a boil and boil for about 10-15 minutes. Then mash the potatoes with a fork or (as I did ) in the KitchenAid stand mixer. Mix in the fat free sour cream or creme fraiche, garlic and chopped parsley.

Sasha's Kitchen: Miso Glazed Salmon with Passion Fruit-Ginger Glazed Carrots

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Very versatile bread rolls

OK, so I don't have any pictures of the making of this, and I apologize -- I'm so scared of bread and baking that I wasn't at all sure if it would actually work.
But it did!
Oh hurray happy day, it did!

Of course, I can't really take any credit. The recipe is from a recent issue of Bon Appetit's e-mail newsletter, and I followed it pretty faithfully. I didn't even make any adjustments for high altitude (which actually I should have; the dough ended up being too liquid and would have resulted in an easier-to-use ingredient and cleaner look if I'd added more flour).
I also didn't have any black sesame seeds, so I just added a few extra regular sesame seeds...but I didn't need to; the final product has a nice sesame flavor but could have used maybe a few fewer seeds. I also added salt and pepper to the filling, but that salt ended up being a bit too much when added to the salt in the dough. The pepper was good, though.

I've eaten entirely too many of these appetizer-ready rolls for dinner tonight, and have realized how versatile they'd be. I'm anticipating making this recipe again quite often, substituting in for the filling hot pepper flakes, feta cheese, chopped pine nuts, pressed garlic, sundried tomatoes and any number of other tasty things.

If you didn't click the link above, here is the recipe from Bon Appetit:

Ingredients
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
2 teaspoons Kosher salt, divided
2 teaspoons sugar, divided
1 3/4 cups plus 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, chilled, cubed
1 large egg plus 1 yolk
1 1/4 cups coarsely chopped scallions
1/2 cup coarsely chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 cup sesame seeds
1 tablespoon black sesame seeds
3 tablespoons olive oil plus more for bowl and brushing

ingredient info:
Black sesame seeds can be found at better supermarkets and at Asian and Indian markets.

Preparation
Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Pour 1/2 cup warm water (105°-115°) into a small bowl. Sprinkle yeast, 1 teaspoon salt, and 1 teaspoon sugar over; let stand until mixture bubbles, about 10 minutes.
Place flour, butter, remaining 1 teaspoon salt, and remaining 1 teaspoon sugar in bowl of a stand mixer with dough hook attached. Rub in butter with fingertips until mixture resembles coarse meal. Beat in egg, yolk, and yeast mixture, scraping down sides.
Knead on medium speed until dough is soft and smooth, about 5 minutes. Form dough into a ball; transfer to a large, lightly oiled bowl. Cover and let rise until doubled in size, about 1 hour.
Meanwhile, combine scallions and cilantro in a food processor and pulse to finely chop. Transfer mixture to a medium bowl; stir in all sesame seeds and 3 tablespoons oil and set aside.
Preheat oven to 350°. Roll dough into a 18x9" rectangle. Spoon scallion mixture evenly onto center and spread mixture to corners of dough. Working from one short edge, roll dough rectangle into a cylinder. Cut cylinder into 3/4" dough swirls. Transfer dough swirls to prepared baking sheet; brush with oil. Bake until golden brown, about 30 minutes.

From Amasea's Kitchen in Sun Valley: Very versatile bread rolls

Sasha's Kitchen: Split Pea and Mint Croquettes

Finally something without blueberries, huh? Is that what you were saying? Yes, I have been making plenty of other food, but the blueberries are hard to resist this time of year. My mom and I made these delicious split pea croquettes with a mint yogurt sauce during one of her visits recently. I used English pea pods from the farmer's market and removed the peas for use in this recipe - another great recipe from one of my new favorite cookbooks for cooking through the seasons - Sarah's Raven's Fresh From the Garden. Of course, this one is perfect for spring and summer. My mom did most of the work on this one, but we made it together, for some mother-daughter team cooking, and it was enjoyed by my husband, Brad as well. They're just perfect for party fritters or an appetizer to a summer meal, or at a BBQ as the fireflies buzz by on a summer night.

Sasha's Raven's Split Pea Croquettes with Minted Yogurt Sauce (makes about 15-20)
2 cups split peas or English peas
3 cloves harlic
2 onions, 1 quartered and one finely chopped
olive oil
1 T ground cumin, toasted
3/4 cup breadcrumbs
3 oz manchego cheese, grated
1 egg
1 red chile, chopped (optional) - I added a pinch of Cayenne pepper instead for a bit of flavor
salt and pepper to taste
flour for dusting

Sauce:
1 cup plain yogurt
large bunch of fresh mint, roughly chopped
2 cloves diced garlic

Put the peas in a pot with the garlic, quartered onion, splash of olive oil, three cups of water and cook, stirring occasionally, until the peas smush-up a bit, into a puree with a bit of texture, about 20-25 minutes. Allow to cool in the fridge. Mix the cold puree with the chopped onion, toasted cumin, breadcrumbs, grated manchego, egg, chile/cayenne, salt and pepper. Mix well and shape into croquettes. Dust in flour and fry in canola oil until golden brown on all sides. Drain on paper towels to absorb the excess canola oil. I always fry in Canola because its much, much healthier than vegetable oil - I don't care what any recipe says to do about that! Blend the ingredients for the sauce in a food processor with a bit of water to get the consistency you want, between 1/3 and 1/2 of a cup.

Sasha's Kitchen: Split Pea and Mint Croquettes

Sasha's Kitchen: Visit to 'Smogasburg'

Red Hook Lobster Co's Lobster Roll

Brooklyn is known for its famous year round flea market, the Brooklyn Flea. In the summer months, it's outdoors and splits its time between the Williamsburg waterfront and Fort Greene. But this is a food blog, I really don't write about outdoor flea markets, as fun as they might be in the summer, right? Well actually, this year they added Smogasburg to the list of markets. Smogasburg is a huge, outdoor all food market that showcases many of Brooklyn's great food businesses, restaurants, and other fabulous foods made in that great Brooklyn locally grown tradition. They have everything from Brooklyn Salsa Company to Red Hook Lobster Pound to Blue Marble Ice Cream to Dough's delicious doughnuts, and more great food venders likely coming soon. In my view, the lobster rolls from Red Hook Lobster Pound, Thirstea Cafe's bubble tea and Dough stole the show . . . this time.

Here's some of the delicious foods we tried.

Dumont Burger

Mimi & Coco Japanese Teriyaki balls

Kumquat Cupcakery mini red velvet cupcakes

Kumquat's root beer float mini cupcakes - or check out MINE!

Delicious doughnuts from Dough - my favorite or the blood orange glazed ones which they didn't have at the market on Saturday.

Bubble Tea (yeah, yeah so its sideways)

Best. Korean. Sesame. Noodles. Ever

McClure's Pickles

Sasha's Kitchen: Visit to 'Smogasburg'