We made this small, 9″ chocolate cake for a friend last night and decided to leave most of the surface undecorated except for a shell border at the base. We really liked how smooth the cake looked. This morning I snipped a few purple johnny jump-ups (which are edible by the way) from our balcony for simple adornment. Mark’s been telling me that I’ve been eating a lot of buttercream lately. Um, thanks, Captain Obvious, but what else are we going to do with leftover buttercream?

Thanks for all your comments to the last post. I feel better today (actually, I don’t really feel like such a great mom today, but that’s a whole ‘nother long post). I think part of my problem, and one that I’ve always struggled with, is that I’m super goal oriented and I’m a bit scattered in my interests. For some reason I have a strong need to do everything, and so I don’t ever focus on just one thing, and what often ends up happening is that I don’t get anything done. Mark’s the opposite of me. He can be quite content with the situation on hand, whereas I start pacing around looking for the next challenge. I suppose that’s why it works for the most part. I would probably KILL another me!

We are pleased to be a part of Small Magazine’s Sumer 08 issue. Mark contributed a recipe for his childhood favorite, an updated version of these butterscotch bar cookies under the Small Bites section. We really like them and may consider selling them in the Fall. It’s just way too hot for the bar cookies to hold up since the butterscotch topping is soft. Also try to spot a goofy photo of Mia on the Small Portraits page. She’s such a ham!

The thing about buying food at Costco is that whatever you buy, you end up with a lot of it. Not such a big deal if you live in a house with a pantry or a basement for storage, but a very big deal if you live in a city apartment. We’ve been lucky enough to be able to store the massive 3-packs of ketchup and the like in our deep kitchen cabinets, but with more perishable items, like blueberries, you need to be creative. So it’s been blueberry smoothies, pancakes, and this morning, muffins. For some reason all the blueberries sank to the bottom of the muffin pans making them come out like little blueberry upside down cakes. Not so bad if you can pry them out of the muffin tin. At least Claudine, who refuses blueberries normally, ate them. Cautiously, of course.

I have been waiting for rhubarb for a long time. For whatever reason the season seems to have started much later than usual this year and I did see a sign for rhubarb at the Union Square Greenmarket a few weeks ago, but I was told that they had sold out. My apologies were offered to Mia, who seems to like rhubarb just as much as I do and I promised her a pie as soon as I could find some. I finally did track down rhubarb at Provisions, a market in Fort Greene, and with Mia’s help, (she had her own setup with a toy rolling pin and some dough scraps), assembled the pie for a dinner at a friend’s house over the weekend. Rhubarb is one of my all-time favorite foods, going all the way back to my childhood when I would actually eat it raw from my grandmother’s garden. When I use it I never combine it with anything else - to me that just dilutes the flavor. I’m very happy that Mia likes it too. Claudine, however, true to form, rejected her first taste of rhubarb and only wanted the ice cream. I really hope that her pickiness lessens as she gets older as I just can’t imagine anyone growing up without rhubarb.

Rhubarb Pie (makes 1 10-inch pie)

Pie dough for a 10-inch two crust pie
6 cups rhubarb, washed and cut into 1/2-inch pieces
3/4 cup sugar
4 teaspoons cornstarch

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Roll half of the pie dough to 1/8-inch thickness. Press into the bottom of the pie pan. Mix together the remaining ingredients and pour into the pie. Roll the remaining dough and lay on top. Crimp the edges to seal, and make five small cuts in the top with a small knife. Bake for 1 hour, until the crust is golden. Cool completely before slicing.

We braved the heavy rains and buses with the girls today to make a trip to One Girl Cookies over on Dean Street. It’s a charming, inviting storefront and Dawn and Dave, the owners, were kind enough to email us and invite us over for a chat. Not a bad way to spend a rainy afternoon. With a tour of the kitchen, some treats from their wonderful line of 2-bite cookies, and plenty of advice and encouragement, we left their cozy shop dreaming of the possibility of owning our own space one day. Although I am sure it complicates business operations (mainly costs and overhead), all we could see was how easier life would be if we had access to a kitchen whenever we needed to bake without having to watch the clock and haul supplies and food back and forth to our hourly rented commercial kitchen. But one step at a time…and we’ll have to pay our dues. They gently warned what I’ve been thinking a lot about these days: sustaining this momentum that we seem to be riding on recently. While there have been a flurry of activity lately, the challenge is to keep it going long term.

Lots to chew on, but one of the nicest things to have come out of starting this business is the myriad of people we have met. We used to go out a lot before we had kids and socialized with other foodies in the restaurant biz, getting comped meals at 3 star restaurants and the like, but when Mark started working days, that sort of thing stopped since chefs tend to socialize late at night after the restaurants close down. We haven’t felt a part of the food scene in a long time so it’s been really nice to get re-acquainted, but from a totally different perspective and even on a more local, Brooklyn level - lots of small artisan bakers, chocolatiers, and specialty food producers. Everyone has their own story and path to how they got there, and everyone has been so supportive of each other. Makes you want to keep on going.

I’m always looking for a better price on ingredients I am cooking with. When I lived in Portland, Oregon, I used to drive all around town to four or five different stores just to get the right products for the right prices. I’d go to the produce market, the Japanese market, the seafood store, the health food store, and even all the way out to Beaverton to the Korean and Indian stores. All this just for home cooking. So you can imagine how happy I am now to have found my favorite rose preserves at Sahadi’s on Atlantic Avenue at 65 percent of what I had previously been paying at a spice store in Manhattan. Since I’ve been using the preserves for my rose and black pepper thumbprint cookies, I’ve been using up quite a bit to bake for our Mother’s day gift boxes. I have always loved rose preserves, which is basically just rose petals cooked into a jelly. The flavor and texture of this particular brand, Mymoune, is just right for the cookies - I only have to chop the petals a bit to make it a little neater. These may just become a regular item now that I have found a cheaper source.

Along with my usual kitchen production this week I had a special request. Mia’s friend Roan had his fourth birthday party over the weekend and I was asked to make the cake. It’s been a while since I have made a cake of this size, meant to serve up to 100 people. In restaurants I used to make cakes twice the size for all sorts of parties, but in a home kitchen it’s certainly a different story. The main issue is refrigerator space, which is always short in my house, and trying to fit in a half-sheet cake was quite a challenge. The actual cooking, filling and frosting is more manageable, even with two kids tugging at my legs begging for a taste of buttercream.

The cake itself is one of my absolute favorites. I suppose that if I ever open a bakery of some kind that this would have to be my signature. The best part is the filling, a dulce de leche cream, with a dulce de leche swirl for good measure. I first made it for Mia’s third birthday and have made it on many occasions since then. It works well with any combination of cake and frosting, and in this case a rich yellow butter cake with a bittersweet chocolate buttercream made up the layers. All the kids and grownups loved it, and even self-proclaimed cake critics (who isn’t?) claimed it was the best they have had. Such positive feedback makes me want to make more birthday cakes, maybe just a bit smaller next time. Also, be sure to notice Mia lurking in the picture above to “help” blow out the candles, and then take a candle to lick off the frosting.

You may already know this, but our daughter Claudine has evolved into quite the picky eater. It has gotten to the point where I now have to disguise some of her previously favored foods - she is that fickle. Her major food groups have narrowed down to plain pasta, rice, apples, and cheese-flavored snacks. Breakfast, however, is her favorite meal of the day so I do my best to cram as much nutrition into her breakfast as possible. She has not been liking bananas lately, but I always buy them anyway, so I made muffins with some overripe bananas the other morning. Muffins almost never get rejected by Claudine and with the addition of some whole wheat flour I actually feel like she is eating well.

Whole Wheat Banana Muffins (makes 12 muffins)

1 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
2 bananas
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Combine flours, baking powder and salt in a bowl. Set aside. Beat the egg and bananas in an electric mixer with the paddle attachment until the bananas are coarsely pureed. Mix in the oil, milk and vanilla. Add the flour mixture and mix until just incorporated. Spray your muffin pan, or line with papers. Spoon the batter into the pan to fill each cavity two-thirds. Bake until done, maybe 15 to 20 minutes (I never use a timer, I just seem to sense when they are done). Cool for a few minutes before removing from the pan.