Dear Diary:

I think I prefer Princeton over NYC. At least for this past trip, I did. But let’s be honest here: my expectations of Princeton were pretty low, since I’d never been there before, and my expectations of NYC were rather high, since I had. So what else would you expect? NYC was fun as always, but at least four of the eight chocolate, pastry, and dinner places I’d mapped to visit had vanished, and Chikalicious, which I was particularly keen on, was sold out! Perhaps it was my punishment for spending too much time in bookstores. Also, I was somewhat disappointed by Pho Grand, which the Amateur Gourmet recommended so highly. It wasn’t exactly bad, but certainly not notably better than either of the two tiny Vietnamese places here in Pittsburgh. I did learn later on that New York doesn’t have a large Vietnamese population, which might explain something. But let’s not dwell on the negative. My wandering feet found plenty of things that were good to eat…it just happened to be that this time, they were pretty much all outside of New York.

I did get to sample the macarons at La Maison du Chocolat, which were excellent if just a touch on the sweet side. Someday I hope to get the tops of my macarons to be as smooth.

Also, the chocolates from Michel Cluizel were fantastic, especially the passion fruit filled one.

And, well…that was pretty much it for Manhattan - at least that’s worth noting. After walking around all day and searching for various places that were no longer there, in addition to perusing bookstores and other little shops, we decided not to come back to the city a second day and instead relax a bit more while seeing what Princeton had to offer. There was also a lovely morning spent in Newark, yes Newark, which I’ll write about in a future post. Still, this really ends up being more like a Princeton review post, rather than the originally intended NYC review.

Princeton
Lots of people on message boards seem to complain that there is no good food to be found in Princeton, and to that I say: Pshaw. Maybe there are fewer ultra-fine dining establishments or celebrity chefs, but there is perfectly serviceable, even excellent food to be had there. Here’s a quick selection of my favorites:
(more…)

Eating Elsewhere | 2 Comments »

I’m off on a brief jaunt to NYC, and am bringing my camera and a far-too-ambitious list of places to eat. I hope we can at least make it to a few of them. See you next week!

General | 1 Comment »

I realized pretty quickly that I didn’t have quite enough peaches to arrange properly on the top of this cake. By then, there was no point in going out to get more, but the resulting visual effect is a bit lacking, as I’d hoped to cover it with a tighter pinwheel of fruit. Since the cake was just for me, I don’t feel too badly about its looks. If I make it again for guests, though, I’ll plan for using at least 6 peaches or perhaps more (I used 4, and they were somewhat small).

Appearances aside, the cake turned out great. I go bananas over cardamom in just about anything (including bananas), and when paired with peaches there is no exception. The cake part is inspired from a David Lebovitz recipe, and there is a light caramel topping that melts into the cake as it cooks, so the top is nice and sticky. It’s fairly rich due to the caramel, so it can be cut into smallish pieces, and extremely easy, so nice for a casual get-together or summer barbecue.

Upside-Down Peach Cardamom Cake

Caramel:
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon corn syrup
1 tablespoon water

approx. 6 medium peaches, dunked in hot water for 10-15 seconds, skinned, pitted, and sliced

Cake:
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/4 teaspoons ground cardamom seeds
2 eggs
6 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
generous 1/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 cup yogurt
2 tablespoons milk

Preheat oven to 350°F, and butter a 9-inch cake pan.
Combine sugar, corn syrup, and water in a heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring until sugar dissolves. Increase temperature to medium and cook without stirring until caramel is deep amber. Pour caramel into prepared pan, tilting pan so that it completely covers the bottom. Arrange sliced peaches in concentric circles over caramel.

Mix flour, baking powder, salt, and ground cardamom together in a small bowl.

Beat butter with sugar with electric mixer until light and fluffy, then beat in eggs one at a time.

Gently mix in half of dry ingredients, then add yogurt, vanilla, and milk. Fold in rest of dry ingredients until just blended.

Spread the cake mixture over the peaches in the pan (the batter will be quite thick). Bake at 350°F for about 40 minutes, or until tester comes out clean. Cool cake for 15-20 minutes before flipping it onto a platter.

Baking | No Comments »

Even though the Mad Scientist has now departed to the lush lands of his new job in a neighboring state, I’m still trying to figure out how to make some low-fat treats for him when he comes to visit. In addition to this, it seems that a few of my friends have begun trying to watch what they eat, too. I’ve been lucky so far, but they’re probably on to something. Now that most of us are past (or nearly past) the decadent twenties, all that butter, cream, and sugar is going to start haunting us in unwanted places.

I’ve taken inspiration from another one of Nick Malgieri’s recipes from the Perfect Light Desserts… book. The original recipe was for chocolate spice cookies, but I wasn’t overly excited about the idea of molasses and chocolate together, especially not in summer. Instead, I used honey, omitted the gingerbread-like spices, and just used minced crystallized ginger to partner with the chocolate.

I also felt the cookies could use a little extra chocolate (which probably bumped the fat content up a notch or so, but I’m not complaining) in the form of some Guittard chocolate chips.

The cookies turned out very well, and not just in a “good for a low-fat cookie” kind of way. They are moist and chewy, with a satisfying amount of rich chocolate flavor. Even though the recipe calls for unsweetened applesauce, don’t worry - they will not end up tasting like baby food. It’s impossible to tell the applesauce is there, and it’s the key to moistness without fat. The cookies are pretty adaptable…you could flavor them with dried cherries, toasted almonds, cinnamon and cayenne, chopped dried apricots and hazelnuts…

Low Fat Chocolate Ginger Cookies
Adapted from Nick Malgieri’s Chocolate Spice Cookies in Perfect Light Desserts…

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1/3 cup cocoa powder
generous 1/4 cup crystallized ginger, finely chopped
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1/4 cup honey
1/3 cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350°F.
Mix together flour, baking powder, cocoa, ginger, and salt in a small bowl.
In a medium bowl, beat the butter and suar together until light and fluffy. Beat in applesauce and honey. Fold dry ingredients into wet ingredients until a soft dough is formed, then fold in chocolate chips.
Drop dough by tablespoons an inch apart on baking pans lined with parchment. Bake for 10-12 minutes, then remove and cool on pans. Important: the cookies will be extremely soft when they come out of the oven, and you won’t be able to lift them from the pans. This doesn’t mean they are not done! Cool them in the pan for about 15-20 minutes, and then move them to racks. Store them in between squares of wax paper or parchment, as they may get a bit sticky in warm kitchens.

Without the chocolate chips, each cookie is about 61 calories and 2 grams fat.

Baking | 1 Comment »

I’ve participated in another Blogging by Mail event - this one for the first time as Cookworm instead of my old blog. The idea is this: a theme is chosen (this time it was a Few of Your Favorite Things), you’re matched up with a fellow food blogger, and you mail edible (and sometimes non-edible) treats to them, as you await a mystery package from another person. It’s a lot of fun to find out what people send and who you will be matched up with, as well as a good way to get introduced to some fellow bloggers. This time around it was organized by Stephanie at Dispensing Happiness, and I was paired with Brilynn of Jumbo Empanadas.

It was certainly a jumbo package from Ms. Jumbo Empanadas, and full of neat things. Brilynn lives in Canada, so there was very much a maple theme, with maple syrup, maple sugar, and a few maple candies (looking forward to using this stuff - I just love maple everything). There is also a jar of local honey, some cute tartlet pans, a hand-knitted cupcake (!), Tim Horton’s coffee (never tried this, I’m an Illy addict, so something new should be neat), a butter keeper, and a local food magazine. Thanks so much, Brilynn!

No word yet from the person I sent a BBM package to…hopefully she’ll post about it soon.

General | 1 Comment »