Even though Mark makes a seriously delicious cake, we aren’t expert cake decorators by any means (though I will try and work on that), but we made this cake for our friend Unha’s daughter’s 100 day birthday. Koreans still celebrate the passing mark of the first 100 days of a baby’s life because it used to be a benchmark in a time when the infant mortality rate was high that a baby’s survival was good. Of course in true fashion as the 2nd child, Mia’s first 100 days was celebrated with much fanfare, but Claudine’s just passed (sorry baby!!).

You know, we weren’t immediately thinking of doing a Father’s Day gift box, but a few people emailed us inquiring about one in the past few weeks, and well, Mark knows all too well how dads get the shaft on Father’s Day. When he was still in restaurants, Mother’s Day brunch was one of the craziest, if not THE craziest day that he grew to dread at work, while Father’s Day functioned just like any other Sunday. So here it is…a gift box just for dads which include two new drop cookies - the previously mentioned coconut five spice with white chocolate, and a sandwich cookie made from ground hazelnuts and chocolate chips with a whisky infused dark chocolate filling. I know what you may be thinking because it’s what we were thinking too - “it’s for dads! Let’s throw in something with alcohol in there! But not a froufy drink like amaretto, something manly…like whisky! Wheee!” Or was that just us?

Father’s Day gift boxes can be ordered up until June 10th on our etsy shop and come wrapped in patterned gray paper with “manly” baker’s twine (no grosgrain ribbon and lavender sprigs for you!).

We can’t seem to give up the coconut + five spice combination, despite 2 previous efforts. The biscotti got little exposure because, well, as we discovered, only people who actually eat biscotti buy biscotti. Compared to cookies, biscotti is a hard sell. So we turned the combo into a mini macaroon. I have to say, when they are around, I can’t stop popping them in my mouth. I was never a macaroon eater, but these are addictive. They sell well at the Flea, but we had a bit of a tough time with shelf life so we are hesitant to sell them online. So what’s next? A drop cookie…this time with white chocolate. Pretty good so far and I think we are going to put them into a special Father’s Day box. Stay tuned…

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.

Pastry chefs always seem to get stuck with more extra work than others in a typical restaurant kitchen. Someone in the dining room was served the wrong entree? Give them free desserts. Need something extra for a VIP banquet for 300 people tonight? Have the pastry department whip up several hundred petit fours. It takes superb organizational skills and excellent improvisational skills to be a pastry chef which is probably the main reason they are able to handle such things. Here is maybe the most common example: the chef approaches the pastry chef and says, “I have 3 cases of something that’s going bad - use them up.” That’s an easy one, just make some ice cream.

I always like to think that anything can be made into an ice cream, so whatever extra ingredients you have on hand can be used to whip something up. Since I’ve been making many marshmallows lately, especially for the FiFis last Tuesday, I’ve had lots of extra egg yolks lying around, plus some lemongrass, heavy cream, and even some toasted coconut from something I can’t remember. That sounded like a winning combination, one that I may have even tried before, so I made it using my basic recipe. It had a very smooth, warm tropical flavor and the lemongrass gives it that extra something that you can’t quite put your finger on. If you have an ice cream maker and want to try it, just use your favorite vanilla recipe and substitute plenty of fresh lemongrass and toasted unsweetened coconut for the vanilla. Strain it out and proceed as usual. I have a feeling I’ll be making lots of ice cream this summer.

We’ve been commissioned by the Fragrance Foundation to create 3 special marshmallow flavors for the annual FiFi Awards, which is an Academy Awards of sorts, for the fragrance industry (I know what you’re thinking - are there really that many new fragrances introduced every year that an annual award ceremony is necessary? Apparently, the answer is yes.) The ironic thing about the FiFis is that when I worked in the beauty industry in a former life 10 years ago, I designed the invitations for the Awards. Funny how some things seem to come back around.

It’s been feeling like the old days (as in 3 months ago…3 long months) when Mark started experimenting with marshmallow flavors. It’s interesting that we settled on classics like chocolate and caramel for our products because we tried a whole bevy of flavors during our test trials, most of which worked, but more in a “hmmm, interesting…” and not in a “I want to eat these one by one right out of the bag” kind of way. Having settled on Cardamom, Lemongrass and Grapefruit, Mark set to work today. Flavors are a bit tricky with marshmallows - while they may taste as you expect them to right after they are made, they can change as we soon found out a few months ago after a pomegranate marshmallow test. A few days later, the marshmallow ended up tasting a lot like a Flintstones vitamin. Unexpectedly, in this experimental batch, the cardamom marshmallow came out the best. The flavor of the spice really came through and it’s an interesting experience to bite into a marshmallow and taste cardamom. Texture-wise, Mark really came upon a great discovery when he began played around with technique - we’ve been keeping dated packages around of all our stuff and even a month later, the marshmallows are still quite soft and fluffy.

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.

Finally! A sunny Sunday. The day beat all weather odds, despite the cloudy start and we have our first real sunny Flea day. Yesterday we packed lavender cookie packs to be included in 50 goody bags for an event held by Small Magazine & Corduroy Kid later this afternoon. And below is our mini 6-pack of coconut five spice macaroons that Mark’s testing out at the Flea today. I’m a sucker for all things small and miniature.