For a housewarming party I threw a couple of weeks ago, I decided to have a dessert theme and recreate some childhood desserts for my guests. I thought we could have some good clean fun – catchphrase, Wii bowling, and some cookies and milk. In preparation for the party, I had to think about the desserts I ate as a kid – Oreos, Nutter Butters, Vienna Fingers, Rice Krispie treats, brownies…(now you know why I was such a fat kid). Since I had a great experience at Bouchon and knew they had great cookies (Nutter Butters AND Thomas Keller Oreos), I looked up the recipes online to make them for my party. My dear friend Julia kept insisting I should just save a ton of time and buy them from a super market, but I really wanted to try to recreate Thomas Keller’s cookies (in preparation for The French Laundry, of course). I found the recipe for Thomas Keller’s Oreos (TKO’s) on curiously ravenous’ website.
TKO’s
from The Essence of Chocolate
makes about 3 dozen sandwich cookies
For the cookie:
1 1/2 cups plus 3 Tbsp all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup plus 1 Tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/2 tsp salt
15 Tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 3/4″ cubes, at room temperature
In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and salt, and mix on low speed:
Note: make sure your bowl is big enough so everything doesn’t splatter!
With the mixer running, add the butter, a piece at a time:
The mixture will be dry and sandy at first, but over 2 minutes, will form pebble-sie pieces that start to cling together. Stop the mixer and transfer the dough to your board (no pictures here because it was too messy and I was working by myself).
Preheat oven to 350F. Separate dough into 2 pieces. Roll each piece of dough between 2 pieces of plastic wrap or parchment paper to 1/8″ inch thick. Using a fluted cutter, cut into rounds. Scraps can be pieced together and rolled out again. Place 1/2″ apart on baking sheets lined with Silpat liners or parchment paper.
4. Bake for 12-15 minutes, rotating halfway through baking. Remove and cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer cookies to a cooling rack. Cool completely.
For the Filling:
1/2 cup heavy cream
8 oz. white chocolate, chopped
Chop 8 ounces of white chocolate (Whole Foods sells white and milk chocolate bricks by the ounce):
In a small pan, bring the cream to a boil:
Remove from heat and add the chocolate:
Let stand for 1 minute, then whisk to melt the chocolate until smooth. Transfer to a small bowl, and let stand for 6 hours to thicken up.
I stuck the filling in the fridge (because I am very impatient and it was 4 in the morning), but the mixture turned out really well. Here are the cookies:
The cookies are amazingly crisp, simple, and delicious. If I make the cookies again, I’d probably use less salt in the cookie dough mixture. They were a big hit at the party (I also made a green tea oreo) and everyone thought they were a great treat!
Over the weekend, Chris and I finally made it down to the lower east side to try The Doughnut Plant. They have two types of doughnuts – cake doughnuts and yeast doughnuts. My doughnut knowledge is limited to Dunkin Donuts and Krispy Kreme, but The Doughnut Plant is known for using fresh ingredients (they also make their own jam filling). Chris and I heard that The Doughnut Plant is definitely worth going to, so we decided to take the bus to the LES and check it out:
There was a long line and a lot of people were making large orders (probably for Mother’s day). Doughnuts are freaking $2 – $3, but a lot of people were buying more than one, so I’m guessing it wasn’t a big deal to anyone else but me. They make all kinds of interesting doughnuts, including fresh strawberry, banana pecan, tres leches, and coconut glaze:
We decided on three doughnuts – fresh strawberry, the blackout (a chocolate doughnut with a chocolate filling), and the tres leches. Our strawberry doughnut:
The glaze is made with fresh strawberries, which tasted really sweet, but the doughnut was very dry and oily:
I think it’s because the doughnuts were made earlier in the morning and they were sitting in the display for the majority of the day (we went in the late afternoon). The other doughnuts had the same oily taste – especially the tres leches:
The doughnut was not moist (it was a cake doughnut) and made me incredibly thirsty for milk:
Surprisingly, the tres leches had a condensed milk filling:
But the filling was very inconsistent and we got huge bursts of filling and then lots of dry doughnut. The last doughnut we tried was the blackout:
The blackout had a chocolate filling, but it was really inconsistent and since it was our third doughnut, we ended up picking it apart and only eating the parts where it had gooey chocolate filling. The Doughnut Plant’s doughnuts are definitely different from the ones you’d find at Krispy Kreme or Dunkin Donuts, but I’m not sure that’s a good thing…the ones at Krispy Kreme are really chewy and taste especially good when they’re fresh (and they always give you a free doughnut if you ask nicely). I suppose I’m used to the artificial ingredients from Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts and can’t appreciate The Doughnut Plant’s freshly made doughnuts!
Tip: Go early in the morning to get a fresh doughnut so it doesn’t taste so oily!
Our quest for a good bowl of ramen continues. The last time I posted, we had just visited Ramen Setagaya, where we actually go to quite often. We’ve found another place, Ippudo, (which is absolutely amazing), but that post will be saved for later in the week. To get to the Minca story, I have to write about my new obsession with riding the bus. I started riding the bus because of the L outages during the weekends. Slowly, the M14 has become my best friend – it goes with me to the grocery store, to Chris’ house, to the gym, and surprisingly, to a lot of cool restaurants in the east village. On Saturday, we hopped on the M14 bus by Chris’ house and headed to Minca. The bus dropped us off practically in front of the restaurant (it was a 45 minute ride – sheeks!), and we headed in to order some gyoza and ramen. We started off with the pork gyoza:
The pork gyoza at Minca was actually better than the gyoza I’ve had at Ramen Setagaya, but I still don’t like the thin skin from gyoza’s and prefer Chinese dumplings.
There are a lot of options for ramen, but I decided on the Minca Ramen:
The ramen comes with a tea egg, which is a hard-boiled egg that’s cooked with soy sauce and other spices (quite easy to make and they’re very good since they already have a lot of flavor). The broth was very hearty and much thicker than other broth’s I’ve tasted in the city. Also, the pork Minca served had the most meat and least amount of fat; the pork was very flavorful and not overly salty. I really enjoyed the noodles as well:
The noodles are handmade and are flash cooked and perfectly chewy.
Chris ordered a different type of ramen with chicken instead of pork:
His broth wasn’t as hearty or tasty, but his chicken was very flavorful. Chris didn’t like the broth, but enjoyed the chicken and noodles.
So, it seems like we had a good experience at Minca, but about halfway through the meal, Chris mentioned that the broths were both very salty. At first I told him that he was trying to ruin my perfect ramen experience, but then I realized that I was drinking a lot more water than usual. By the end of the meal, I was completely dehydrated and needed several refills of my water before I was able to walk out of the restaurant. The broth I had was really good (better than Ramen Setagaya’s, I think), but it was just too salty and I probably shouldn’t have had all of it.
Tip: If you’re ever in the mood to eat by yourself, head to Minca – they have a bar area that’s perfect for one!
I babysat Faire last week and made this super cute video of her blowing raspberries (in case you don’t remember who she is, Faire’s the youngest fan of gracenotesnyc and the youngest FRO-YOLYMPICS participant)
On Tuesday, I went to dinner with a friend from LA and we were discussing the possibility of another FRO-YOLYMPICS. Since he’s from LA, he’s been a big fan of the plain frozen yogurt craze for quite some time (although he says no one in LA cares anymore). Anyway, I’m going to plan another Fro-Yolympics (there’s been a lot of interest, especially since the weather is getting nicer). If you’re interested in participating, either send me an email at gracenotesnyc@gmail.com or leave a message in the comments!
Pinkberry is opening ANOTHER store and they’re offering FREE SHIRTS to the first 200 people – I WISH I WAS GETTING A FREE PINKBERRY SHIRT:
Maybe we’ll make fro-yo shirts for the next tour!!
