Liege Waffles

My love for Belgian waffles arose about two years ago when the Wafels and Dinges truck http://www.wafelsanddinges.com/ came to Park Slope. It would sit in front of Old First on 7th Avenue throughout the winter playing 1960's schmaltz, selling hot chocolate and of course a selection of Belgian Waffles. After experimenting with the mini-waffelini and even the pulled pork waffle, I settled on my favorite variation called the Liege Waffle after the Belgian town of the same name. These waffles are smaller than regular ones because of how dense and rich they are and small cubes of pearl sugar are dispersed throughout the batter. Unique among waffles, they have yeast in them and take about 1 hour to rise. Dinges are the toppings one can choose from and include nutella (my choice), whipped cream, strawberries, bananas, ice cream and a Northern European gingerbread like spread called speculoos.

Two summers ago, I purchased a waffle iron and with the help of my dad, experimented with a few different recipes, modifying here and there, always adding butter. We perfected the recipe, and my waffles have been treats at many weekend brunches throughout the summer or cozy afternoons in the winter. The waffles from the cart inspired mine as did those from Le Pain Quotidien, a delicious French chain scattered throughout the city and Europe. Today, I made my waffles for a New Year's Eve Brunch for some family friends. People who always refused dessert scarfed them down, drowning them in homemade whipped cream and strawberries.

To begin, take a packet of yeast and pour it into a small bowl filled with 1/3 cup of lukewarm water along with 1 1/2 tbs of salt and sugar. Put the timer on for 15 minutes to let the eukaryotes multiply. In the meantime, melt 1 cup (2 sticks of butter), while you can use any brand, I make it with Irish butter, which has extra fat in it for flavor. In a separate bowl pour in 2 cups of flour. Make a hole in the middle of the flour (not necessary but fun) and add three egg yolks. Set the egg whites aside and beat them later on. When the butter is finished, pour it into the flour/egg mixture and then add the yeast and water. Knead the dough with your fingers until everything is properly intertwined and covered with saran wrap or a bowl. If it's summer, set it outside for forty-five minutes, if it's winter just place it in the warmest spot in your kitchen.

You have forty-five minutes to an hour while you wait for the dough to double in size. In the meantime, I cut up the strawberries into quarters and set the table. As the finish line comes into sight I beat the egg whites and then I make the whipped cream (1 cup of heavy cream plus 1/4 cup of confectioner's sugar although this can be adjusted for your tasting pleasure). Also, plug in your waffle iron as it usually takes 10 minutes to heat up. Once your dough is finished rising, gently add the egg whites and 1 cup of granulated white sugar or pearl sugar. I usually put the sugar directly on top of the egg whites before I start to knead it, that way the sugar clumps and caramelizes when it cooks.

Add a drop of Grand Marnier, brandy or vanilla extract. Knead the dough until all of the egg whites have disappeared. Once your waffle iron gives you a green light (this can be a real green light or a metaphorical one), spoon out batter as you see fit and close until the light changes color on the iron. Mine usually cooks each waffle (four sections) in 6 minutes, and this recipe yields three full waffles. Mind you, each quarter segment should be considered one waffle. Most people can't even finish two, so since the three waffles yield 12 segments, you're good for a party of 1-12! To keep them warm before I serve them, I put the oven on its lowest setting and place them on the middle rack. Remember that these waffles take about 1 and 1/2 hours to make so, pace yourself and plan accordingly. Happy New Year!

Pfeffernüsse

While my cousin implored me to make poppy seed cake for Christmas, I decided to make something a little more Christmasy...Pfeffernüsse, which are German, Dutch and Danish spice cookies covered with powdered sugar. Stella Dora sells a pretty convincing take on them in stores, and I've always bought them around Christmas, downing them with a glass of eggnog sprinkled with nutmeg. I found a recipe in a Christmas cookie book, which was on loan to me, and made them the eve of Christmas Eve, which if you don't believe me, is a thing. I adapted the recipe a bit since I didn't have Cardamom powder and didn't want to use almond slivers (my mom is allergic). Unfortunately, I didn't have the presence of mind to snap a photo of the beautiful plate full of powdered Pfeffernüsses, nor did I document their consumption at Christmas dinner. I only remembered to do it when there was one left at the bottom of a container filled with my aunt's chocolate biscotti.

To begin, heat the oven to 375 F, and then mix 1 cup dark brown sugar with 1/2 cup butter. Add in the 2 eggs and cream. Continue pouring in 1/2 tspn. of your favorite extracts (I stuck to Vanilla) but you can also use lemon, anise or almond. In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients: 1 3/4 cup flour, 1 tspn. baking powder, 1 tspn. ground cinnamon, 1/2 tspn. salt and black pepper, 1/2 tspn. of ground cloves, allspice and nutmeg, the zest of one lemon and then 1 tspn. ground cardamom. Gradually introduce your dry ingredients to the butter and sugar and mix together. Roll into little one inch diameter balls and some say let it cool in the fridge for 2 hours or overnight (although again, no patience, I didn't do either). Bake for 10 minutes. While they are still hot, coat each cookie in confectioners' sugar.

As I mentioned before, I didn't have Cardamom powder (Fairway was selling it for $11), but I already had Cardamom pods, so I opened them yielding about four seeds each and put them into my mixture. All but one of my Pfeffernüsse tasters enjoyed the blast of flavor when they bit into a small cardamom seed, so I leave the rest up to you. They were a big hit amongst the grown ups at Christmas, while the little ones preferred rainbow cookies and cream puffs.

Chocolate Cake

I made a delicious chocolate cake for a Christmas party a few weeks back, and added a hint of almond extract to the batter to make it taste like marzipan or if you've ever had the pleasure "Sugar Sweet Sunshine's" cupcakes, located on Rivington between Norfolk and Essex in the Lower East Side. I made myself proud, pulling off a Samantha Stevens. Instead of twitching my nose to make perfect coco au vin, I ran to the corner bodega to find chocolate and powdered sugar, and my weakness: Choward's violet candies, ran back to the apartment and whipped up the cake using our electric beater. I brought it to the party still warm, placed it on the table and watched people nod their heads up and down and give a thumbs up because their mouths were full of cake. One kid even tried to buy a piece from someone. Nice ego boost.

I however, did not get to even taste a piece, so later that weekend I made a new cake following the same recipe from the "Tea and Sympathy" cookbook. This time though, I used Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate and it came out very rich, putting both my mother and me in a cocoa stupor. The pictures below are documenting the birth of my new Pistachio colored Kitchen Aid mixer, which I received for Christmas. It is a work of art.

"Tea and Sympathy" is an English teashop in Greenwich Village, run by a woman named Nicola Perry. One of her waitresses/writers, Anita Naughton, wrote her detailed cookbook, which not only provides recipes but also photographs and memorable stories of the restaurant's origin and life. This recipe is hidden between sugar glazed lemon cake and a story about the man who brings them their English bacon. It says to heat the oven to 375, then to melt the chocolate (1 cup bittersweet) in a double boiler. Meanwhile you can put the dry ingredients together (1 tsp. baking soda, 1 1/4 cups flour), cream the butter (1 cup) and dark brown sugar (1 1/2 cups) and 1 tablespoon of almond extract. Fold the chocolate into the butter and add the dry ingredients and 1 cup of hot water. Bake for 45 minutes. Below is a picture of my cake sitting on a complementary turquoise fiestaware plate, pre-icing.

The icing is 'ruther' simple and involves melting 4 tbs of milk, 1/4 cup of butter and 1/2 cup of bittersweet chocolate (although I recommend more than this). Mix this with 1 3/4 cup of confectioners' sugar and beat. Unlike me, you should wait for everything to cool before you ice it, since obviously the icing runs when you are impatient. To get my cake to cool faster (I really wanted to eat it), I put it in the freezer for one minute and then held it out of the fourth floor window on a freezing December night. As my father would say, "Do as I say, not as I do."

You'll be seeing a lot more "Tea and Sympathy" recipes from me, since it's my favorite restaurant of all time. In fact, in 10th grade General Chemistry, we were given a Periodic Table of Elements project, wherein we had to order themed objects/concepts in groups and columns. I ordered "Tea and Sympathy's" menu. As you descended a column the amount of fat increased, mirroring atomic radii. Going across a row one would notice that the calorie content increased analogous to ionization energy. My columns were ordered according to categories of the menus, so instead of halogens and noble gases, I had puddings and meats. I know, I know, get out more...

 If you're interested, the website is http://www.teaandsympathynewyork.com/home.php

The cookbook can be purchased in their shop located in between the restaurant and their fish and chips store called "A Salt and Battery." Cheers!

Lemon Ukrainian Poppy Seed Cake

My dad made this cake for Thanksgiving supper in Maine using Sahadi's poppy seeds, which yes are tastier and cheaper than all other poppy seed posers. I found myself getting up in the middle of the night drawn to the pan with the poppy seed cake, eating pieces of it with my fingers. I could hear the Wicked Witch of the West's voice in my head crooning, "poppies, poppies..."

Poppy seeds cloaked with milk and Irish butter is so intriguing so I had to make my own using poppy seeds from Associated in Park Slope. Suffice it to say they were not Sahadi's but they were delicious and they dispersed perfectly throughout the batter. I ate it every morning for a week for breakfast and fed classmates bits of it during boring segments of our lectures. My 10 year old cousin ate the two slices I prepared for him and my aunt, and made me promise to make it for Christmas. I didn't in the end, but you'll soon see what I did make.

This particular recipe calls for one cup of poppy seeds, milk and butter, two cups of sugar and flour, 3 separated eggs (I am now the proud owner of an egg separator), 2.5 tspn. baking powder, 1/2 tspn. salt, 2 tspns. vanilla extract, juice and zest of one big lemon. The poppy seeds need to soak in boiled milk for an hour (until the consistency is a little thicker). While you wait for that, you can cream the butter and sugar plus the egg yolks and then gradually add the poppy seeds and milk. Add the dry ingredients and then fold in the whipped egg whites plus the zest, juice and vanilla and and bake for an hour, or until your knife comes out clean. This cake is delicious with a glass of cold milk or alternately with black tea.

Mochi Mochi

Pronounced, mo-chee, mochi's are wonderful Japanese rice cakes filled with your choice of either adzuki beans or green tea ice cream. I've always eaten mochis as my substitute for blueberries (miracle food), chomping on them before freestyle figure skating sessions or during finals week. They can be found in any small market in New York City, and are sold in either green or pink or covered with sesame seeds. They are dusted with cornstarch to decrease the stickiness quotient, which I'll call SQ, (but more on that later) and are rolled into circular, flat bialy-like structures. The ingredients include, one pound of rice flour, 1 teaspoon baking powder, 2 1/2 cups of sugar (although I recommend less), 1/4 teaspoon of lemon extract, four drops of red food dye (optional), and of course the adzuki beans. 

While you can purchase whole adzuki beans, soak them and then puree them and add sugar, my grandmother brought me a can of red bean paste, which required no preparation at all. To begin, I heated my oven to 350 F and then mixed the rice flour, sugar and baking powder with a whisk. In a separate bowl I combined two cups of water with the lemon extract and red food coloring and then poured that into the other bowl and whisked until the consistency was smooth. I lined a cookie tray with tin foil and greased it with Crisco, poured the batter into the pan and covered it again with tinfoil. 

My combination of recipes told me to bake for 1 hour, in lieu of using a microwave for about five to ten minutes (don't quote me on that), but this dried my dough out considerably and once it was cool, I had to knead it with water and then cover it with cornstarch to perfect the consistency. Suffice it to say that my SQ was borderline desert. I used my beautiful new rolling pin, which is ceramic and hollow so that you can pour cold water in it for short crust pastry and rolled the dough until it was about 1/4 inch thick. 

I used a jar lid to cut out two circles, plopped some adzuki bean paste in the middle of one, covered it with the other and then pressed around to fuse the two sides together. This is definitely not what you are supposed to do, but it worked for me. I cut off the excess and powdered the finished cake with more cornstarch. They are a little dry but and I quote my mom they are, "Amazing!" who would not just dish out a false compliment because I'm her daughter. It was in the '20s today, so after skating for an hour at Bryant Park's portable rink, I ate a pink mochi with some jasmine tea in my "Keep Calm and Carry on" mug.