Domokun Cookies

So, how is 2011 treating everyone? So far, it's been pretty snowy here and now it's also freaking freezing (and unusually cold in my apartment, time to call the super AGAIN), but otherwise, it's not been a bad start. For one thing, I am sticking to my resolution to eat more veggies, and I've even managed to start packing lunch again (well, except those days where I hit the "off" button instead of "snooze" on my alarm clock). And it's a long weekend, woo! So it's a perfect opportunity to do some baking. I don't know about you, but I have this problem where every time I browse foodblogs, I end up craving pretty much everything I see. I've got a list of recipes bookmarked that could probably keep me busy for an entire year. But somehow, things like Domokun cookies seem to go straight to the top of the list. By the way, please go to Diamonds for Dessert for the original (and excellent) tutorial, because her cookies look at least 1000 times better than mine do. That's what happens when you are too lazy to actually find a ruler!


This is really the first day I've worked with making patterns in cookie dough, and I learned that yes, you really do have to measure and make everything neat and straight, or else it comes out all wonky. Oh well, for a first try, I think they are okay! Of course, the proportions are wrong and next time I'll have to make sure I make the red portion smaller. These are just gonna be extra loud-mouthed Domokuns ;)


You can also see that my piping skills leave something to be desired. Ahem. (Might try royal icing next time, white chocolate is a bit temperamental.)


But I think this one is my best one (which is not saying much, haha). Yes little Domokun...it makes me happy to look at you. Now I have to go buy some milk so I can eat a few (don't tell them!).

Resolutions

Happy new year! How did you celebrate? We started things off with prosecco and ichigo-shu (so yummy) and then spent the rest of the night at a friend's place, nice and low-key, just how I like my NYEs! I'm not big on resolutions, but I did make a few this year--eat more vegetables, procrastinate less, be less grumpy. And I will take my additional vegetables in any form I can get, so I think that this pumpkin flan qualifies for my first resolution VERY WELL, THANK YOU!

I was trying to reproduce a pumpkin pudding I'd had before at a Japanese restaurant in midtown (Katsu-Hama, actually. One of the things I miss about midtown)--there, it comes in a wedge and is a fairly firm textured but very smooth pudding. I think they might actually use kabocha squash (the texture of kabocha puree is drier, which might account for why their pudding was so firm and mine was so collapse-y) versus the canned pumpkin puree that I used. I used this recipe from Tales from a Tokyo Kitchen (a great blog!) and baked mine in a bain marie instead of steaming. Also, I had to use a variety of molds as I (shockingly) do not own any actual pudding cups. I ended up using two small bowls, a mini milk bottle, and a canning jar:


Actually, because the pudding was so soft, the jar kind of worked out well! No worries about turning it out, just make sure you scoop all the way down to get the caramel sauce. I definitely need to experiment with this a bit, because the texture of my pudding was not smooth enough and had lots of air bubbles in it (I'm guessing temperature too high; maybe I will try to work out a steaming device next time). Be that as it may, it certainly TASTED very close to what I was trying to recreate! And I love the caramel sauce, although it's hard to watch it caramelize based on color because of the maple syrup. Anyway, it was good enough for a first try, especially since I've been sick for the last 3 days; I am so sick of tea and SO HAPPY to eat something that's not congee!

Anyhow, so next time--kabocha squash, steam vs. bake, and strain strain strain!

Happy new year!

Hope your holidays were great--mine was, but no time to do real post! But just want to say, it's been a great year, and I've really enjoyed getting to know some of you fellow bloggers! Mr. Snowman and I want to wish you a happy new year--see you in 2011!!!

LES Girls Club Cookie Swap-The Results!

So, the cookie sale was yesterday and it was a great success!! Over $9,000 raised for the Lower Eastside Girls Club's culinary training program! And we seemed to have lots of satisfied customers (I had one adorable young boy who was a repeat customer), so hurrah! And to my great surprise, I won second place! But I'm kind of getting ahead of myself, so read on!


These are just some of the cookies I brought (I was up preeeeetty late the night before) These are a variation on the Rolo cookies, except they're stuffed with caramel, coconut, and pecans instead of Rolos. Anyway, I got to Le Vie with no mishaps, found my table, and said hi to my neighbors (Michele and Susan, both of who were great company!), and then immediately left to get (my second) coffee. Le Vie is a nice space, but it's a lounge and it was pretty dark in there! So, I did not get any great photos, and only got a couple of "okay" photos. But this year I had the foresight to go around and buy cookies before the doors opened...because once they did, we were all super busy selling! Okay, I'm going to stop talking so much and post some more photos:


Polka Dots, dairy free sesame cookies from Susan.


Chocolate Toffee Cranberry Deliciousness, from my other neighbor, Michele. Love the name of this cookie!


Gorgeous chocolate and candy cane cookies. Yeah, that's pretty much it for the photos that were actually taken AT the sale, but fortunately I did buy cookies and was able to take some better photos this morning:


Okay, now, I just have to say, this tin was for my brother, so I didn't get to taste everything. Well, hopefully he will report back!


Just some of the selection available. The brownie in the center of the top row was the 3rd place winner (I did not manage to get a cookie from the winner! Boo!)


A more detailed view. Aren't they all gorgeous? The judges walked around and sampled cookies and chatted with the bakers, which was great! I met Myriam Eberhardt (pastry chef at DBGB*, Sue Torres (chef/owner of Sueno), Nichelle Stephens of Cupcakes Take the Cake, Julie Christopher (from King Arthur Flour! Yay!), Jen Shelbo (pastry chef of Maialino), and Josh Ozersky, food writer/blogger/critic. At first I was deeply envious of their mission, but then I realized that they were going to be eating 25 cookies at one shot, and even if you only ate half of each cookie....that's still a WHOLE LOT OF SUGAR. Which might have done Josh in, because he mysteriously disappeared--I blame sugar crash.

Anyway, here's where I get self-indulgent--I don't think I've ever posted a photo of myself on this blog, but hey! I have to commemorate this somehow! So here's me with my gift basket prize!


There is so much stuff in it, but I am most excited about the King Arthur Flour cookie book (and the prosecco, heh!)--can't wait to start trying out recipes from it!!! So, thank you to the Lower Eastside Girls Club for putting on an awesome event, thank you to the sponsors (Fiji Water, King Arthur Flour, Mionetto Prosecco and Green & Black Chocolate), and thanks to the judges, and thanks to my friends who came out!! I am not responsible for any weight gain :) Can't wait for next year!!

*Afterwards, we went to DBGB to get some sausages and beer and Myriam came out to say hi! And then she sent us a whole bunch of desserts! Totally unexpected, but so nice. Here is a really terrible photo of us. Also, here is a better photo of me and Julie Christopher--okay, time to go start reading my new cookie books!

Cookie Test Run

I made a mini batch of the cookies I'm planning to bring to the LES Girls Club Cookie Bakeoff as a test run--what do you think? I'm pretty pleased with them! This is a variation on the ever-popular Rolo stuffed cookie, except instead of Rolos, it's stuffed with:


Toasted coconut and pecans! And a whole lotta caramel mixed in there too. Now I just have to make 6 dozen of these...:)

Don't forget to buy your tickets here!

Second Annual Lower Eastside Girls Club Holiday Cookie Bakeoff & Benefit!

So, I can hardly believe how fast a year has gone by! It's already time for what is one of my new favorite holiday events, the Lower Eastside Girls Club Cookie Bakeoff! Long time readers (heh, if you've stuck around for a year, I consider you a long time reader ;)) may remember my post about this fab event last year. Well, go take a look anyway, and get yourself in the mood! (And by the way, those are the monster cookies from Sarah over at Accoutrements Online--my favorite photo from last year's event. I hope this year I actually get to taste some of the cookies :))

Anyway, if you are in the NYC area, I highly recommend you come check this out. First, there are cookies (which will be priced between $0.50 and $2.00)! Lots of cookies, baked by 25 volunteers who obviously love cookies (including me!). Secondly, a $15 ticket gets you a cookie tin, a glass of prosecco, and the warm fuzzy feeling of helping out a great organization that provides important services in the community! I mean, how often can you say that about spending $15?

And if you need further motivation and are a baking nerd, you can meet some celebrities in the baking world! For more details and to purchase your ticket in advance (HIGHLY recommended, don't wait until you get to the door), click here.

Ahem, as for my cookie, I am still in the experimental phase. But rest assured, it will be over the top and be full of chocolate. Come on by, say hi :)

Details
Second Annual Lower Eastside Girls Club Holiday Cookie Bakeoff & Benefit
Saturday, December 18th
1:00pm-4:00pm
La Vie @ 64 East 1st Street (between 1/2nd aves) NYC
Tickets available here.

Another Vancouver Post

So the reason we had early Thanksgiving was because I had a little trip planned to Vancouver to see Py, and look at what greeted me--snow! (Well, okay, actually this is what I saw when I woke up--the flight I take always gets me there in the middle of the night.) It was snowing pretty hard, as you can tell from this photo, and I was excited to see it as it's still in the 50s in NYC. (Not that I'm complaining!) Unfortunately, it rained the rest of the time I was there, which is fine, but not so great for photos (or walking around outside).


Nevertheless, we ate well, with some revisits to favorite places like Honjin Sushi and Alpha (mmmm garlic pepper tuna). We also checked out Gyoza King (where the food is great and the signs are hilarious, I especially liked their options for smokers) and Campagnolo, another keeper. I had a great pizza there, and if I had had room, would have gone for the zeppoles--alas. Next time, maybe! Of course, the egg tart above has nothing to do with any of those restaurants; I picked that up at T&T, an awesome Asian grocery. Oh man, their bakery section is amazing! And the people who work there are soooooo much friendlier than at the NYC equivalent (where they are surly at best). They had like 18 types of pineapple buns! Egg tarts (Portugese and regular)! All kinds of seafood, including lots of different kinds of fishballs! The egg tart was yummy, but of course, not quite as awesome as the one we had in Macau. Anyway, I love this supermarket and could spend hours there.


I did get to drop by Kimono Koi Crepes, which I had found out about from Panda Fresh Bakery (sadly, I did not get a chance to visit them this time--sniffle, I really wanted to try their pumpkin pie croissant!!!). It was a really rainy day, so you totally can't tell, but their cart is bright pink. It's very girly AND it's got plastic food models. (It's parked on the corner of Georgia and Granville.) And of course, the proprietors are super friendly (a theme of this city, I find).


After extensive evaluation of the menu, I went with a brownie banana crepe; mounds of whipped cream, banana slices, nutella drizzle, a chunk of brownie, sprinkles, and a strawberry Pocky, all rolled into a crepe. Over the top? Definitely. Delicious? Yes! A bit rich, maybe, but this is an indulgence, not an everyday kind of thing (they do have savory options, too, which sound like they would make a good lunch). It was much prettier when I first got it, but since it was raining, I took it back to the apartment to eat in comfortable dryness, so it's a bit messy looking.


And then over the weekend we discovered an event that is pretty much designed for me: the Bakers Market! It's only on for two more weekends but if you like baked goods at all (and are in Vancouver) you must go! It's so great! If I lived in Vancouver, you can bet I would be there selling stuff. We ate a lot of samples, and, as seems to be a theme in Vancouver, all of the bakers were super friendly.


I wanted to buy pretty much everything I saw, but restricted myself to this pack of macarons from Für Elise Patisserie and a bag of parmesan rosemary shortbreads (which I forgot to take a photo of) from Bah! (what a great name, huh?) Actually the shortbreads were for Py, but we shared :) I kind of hope they make this a year round event so the next time I'm there, I can check out some more yummy stuff.


And since the Olympic Village was right next to the Bakers Market, we went to go check it out. It's a fairly uninteresting block of apartments (apparently quite controversial) but there are, inexplicably, two enormous bird statues in the courtyard. I'm pretty sure they are planning to destroy Vancouver...

Another fab trip, if way too short. I am really bummed to be back, but at least December is a really busy month, then Py will be here for a visit, woohoo!