In the chaotic kitchen of a recipe developer, you get a food blog called FoodMayhem.
I'm Jessica, an Asian-American, born and raised in NYC, and that's Lon, my Jewish, white husband. While professionally trained as a French culinary- and pastry chef, many of FoodMayhem recipes are my attempt to preserve and share authentic Chinese and Taiwanese recipes learned from my mom. We don't eat Chinese food every day, so you'll get a little bit of anything we find delicious enough to share: from our Eastern European side; recipes and techniques learned from my restaurant days; restaurant reviews, food travel tips; and a few other juicy bits along the way. Welcome to FoodMayhem!
I couldn’t decide what to make for #NYCookieSwap 2011. It’s a big deal with cookie greats like Dorie Greenspan attending! Lon saved the day and came up with an idea I loved: a way to combine three classic cookies that everyone loves. What’s better than your favorite cookie? Three of your favorite cookies in one! It’s a Chocolate Chip Cookie in the center with a ring of Chocolate Cookie around it, with another ring of Peanut Butter Cookie around that.
Let’s not talk about the food yet. Let’s talk about the reason for this dish or more specifically the recipe. In previous posts for chili pepper-based recipes, we have received notes about how the chili peppers we use are often hard to find in certain areas: cascabels, chipotles, pequins, anchos, guajillos, etc. Other people have asked for chili pepper flavor without so much spice/heat. We’ve heard loud and clear, so this post is about making an authentic-tasting chili pepper sauce, using readily available ingredients with a rich taste that is not spicy. Let’s hope it works out!
The first part is making a Latin-flavored shredded pork. I’ve done BBQ-style pulled pork before; even though this uses the same cut (pork butt) and is shredded, it tastes totally different. Plus we’re going to use it to make an enchilada casserole, which we’ve done before (last time the enchiladas were beef with a green sauce), so this is quite different.
I was determined to use this sweetened ginger I got a little while ago. I don’t know why I bought it but I guess I just do that whenever I see something new. It’s similar to the concept of crystallized ginger but it seems to be made with confectioner’s sugar instead of granulated sugar.
For Tim’s birthday, I asked Sarah, what flavor(s) should his cake be? When she responded with chocolate and Earl Grey, I was ecstatic. I would be happy to make that (and eat that)! They turned out great if I do say so myself, and Lon backs me up.
* I made these cupcakes again for Liza’s birthday so I updated the finished product photos. 12/09/10
I got all excited when I saw beet powder at Kalustyan’s. My mind was buzzing, I was doing cartwheels (in my imagination)… I was going to make a red velvet cake I could eat (I’m allergic to artificial food coloring). Yipee!
Uh no, with some quick research, I found this article, here’s an exert:
“Food purists seeking to replicate the color, flavor and cooking method of a traditional red velvet cake by merely substituting natural food coloring for artificial colors will run into a series of obstacles. These occur because natural food dyes and pigments, like the pigment in beet powder, are sensitive to both heat and pH and change color when combined with baking soda or baking powder.”
Bummer…Mega Bummer!
I saw a Chocolate Stout Cake on 1Family Friendly Food, who had adapted their recipe from Closet Cooking, so I decided to have a little version of our own. We don’t have stout around but still have plenty of that Blackened Voodoo Lager from when we made Crawfish Gumbo and I just had to make them into cupcakes. (I tried really hard not to, but I did end up making two sizes again, regular and minis.)
Borrowing a little here and a little there, and with a few tweaks, I created these scrumptious cupcakes. When I made the Matcha Green Tea Cupcakes, I had so much fun making two sizes that I decided to do that again.
We had a little German themed dinner with pretzels, schnitzel, cabbage, and roasted potatoes so I wanted to follow through with a German dessert. I was feeling a bit lazy and decided to simplify German Chocolate Cake, a lot. I’m a little embarrassed by just how easy this was to make.
It’s been a while since I posted about cheesecake, but for the devoted FoodMayhemites, you know I love me some cheesecake. So for our early Hanukkah celebration, I decided to create a new recipe (as I’ve done before). The only real requirements were that it include fresh vanilla bean and use an Oreo crust. Both of these requirements were simply due to having the ingredients on hand.
I was reading this post on A Southern Grace, and it reminded me of these amazing marbled muffins, sold at a gourmet market near my high school. They called them muffins, but I think it’s technically more of an un-frosted cupcake. It’s over 10 years since I’ve had these muffin/cupcakes and the store is no longer there so I decided to make something like it, myself. This recipe uses the cream cheese swirl from Grace’s recipe and the cake batter is an improvement on the Chocolate Zucchini Cake I wrote about.
