The Latte Manifesto

This was delicous. As with the banana cream pie, the recipe is from Tartine. I’ve decided to make all the recipies in the Tartine cookbook. Unless they require nuts. Nuts, as a rule, do not belong in my food. Especially desserts. I’m looking at you, oh rock-hard, bitter walnut, merciless destroyer of delicate cookies and dental work. As with all rules there are exceptions. If the nuts have been prepared in such a way — finely chopped, toasted — as to no longer deliver a hideous violation of texture and flavor, that may be an acceptable scenario. Nuts are also perfectly fine to eat by themselves. I will bake you anything you want on your birthday, but if the recipe contains inappropriate nut usage, expectations should be managed.

My dad loves banana cream pie, Tartine’s recipe is perfection, and so I made this during his last visit. The key layers, from bottom to top: - flaky pastry crust - dark chocolate - caramel - pastry cream - bananas - whipped cream - chocolate flakes

I don’t remember why I decided to make German chocolate cupcakes. The cake part was easy enough. Caramelizing condensed milk for the frosting takes at least an hour, so I tried a shortcut using the microwave. This seemed to work, but when I added the chopped pecans and shredded coconut, the mixture quickly turned into clumpy, crumbly gorp. Delicious, but would not stick to the cupcakes. Luckily, I had some homemade caramel stashed in the fridge (from the banana cream pie ala Tartine). I molded the gorp into perfectly-sized disks by pressing it into the same mini muffin tins I’d used to make the cupcakes, then adhered the disks to the cupcakes with a dollop of caramel. The result was so lovely I decided to pretend I meant it that way all along. (photos courtesy Kimmie Sue, click to embiggen)

- Devil’s Food cake (Baking Illustrated) - Coffee buttercream frosting (The Cake Bible) - 2 lbs. rolled fondant, dyed black (The Cake Bible) - Edible silver dust (click to view larger) This was for a pot-luck Oscar party. Other items on the menu: Black Forest Whiticake, Million Dollar Baby Back Ribs, The Good Shepard’s Pie, and Dame Judi Denchiladas. At first, I thought I’d make a Devil’s Food cake shaped like a fabulous handbag, complete with zipper, handle, and triangular Prada logo. I’m usually overly ambitious like this at the outset, and then a few hours later I remember something important, i.e.: I have no sculpting or painting talents. Plus, it’s hard enough making something taste good. (I wonder if anyone tastes the “cakes” from those Food Network competitions. They seem mostly like timed sculpting / painting contests, where the medium just happens to be edible, and I think they use that term quite loosely. The cakes are so heavily coated in fondant, royal icing, whittled candy bits … pretty, but probably tastes nasty.) Speaking of fondant. I wanted a deep black color and soft leather texture. The basic fondant recipe was easy enough. It took an enormous amount of black food coloring to get the depth of color I wanted. This was a little scary, because the wrong dry/wet ratio can mess up the fondant’s texture. Not to mention the prospect of dying my hands and the entire kitchen black. In the end, the most terrifying part was picking up the rolled-out fondant and getting it on top of the cake. As I prepared to lift and transfer, I noticed that I was sweating, my hands were shaking, my heart was pounding, and I was muttering “shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit”. My body was dosed with adrenaline. Because of fondant.