Half-hearted Whole Food

My sister: slicing the pizza

 I have a love/hate relationship with Whole Foods. It’s overpriced and pretentious, but gosh darn it if they don’t have the prettiest food. Time was short when preparing for my grandmother’s birthday. So my and sister and I headed to Whole Foods (3 short blocks from Grandma’s house!) and had some fun.

I first put in our pizza order because they use a real food fired oven, so it takes a while to make it fresh. I got their whole wheat dough pizza topped with mozzarella, lemon, garlic, and artichokes. It was FANTASTIC.

Their desserts are hit and miss. The cakes are surprisingly cheap and beautiful, but one little measly macaroon is $2.00. I ended up getting a tiramisu cake and declined their offer to write “Happy Birthday” on it since there was already a design on it. This was also a big hit at the birthday dinner. My grandmother kept saying “Now, this- This is something special!”

I got a side of lemon garlic cooked broccoli rabe, but it left much to be desired. So we used some mustard greens I picked up to make a spicy salad.

Tiramisu (NC honey in the background)

LOVE

These are the things I think are worth the splurge at Whole Foods: making fresh almond or peanut butter with that nut butter pooping machine; any of their produce; a couple of individual bottles of local beer; their pizza (sorry, New Haven); the hot bar for a healthy, yummy lunch; Brown Cow cream top yogurt (just trust me.)

Folks waiting for meat

HATE

Things I avoid at Whole Foods (and you should, too): Seafood (I’ve always been disappointed); anything from the middle aisles unless it’s for a gift and it’s too late to shop on Amazon; deli and cheese (there are great local places that I’d rather support for the same products); handmade soaps (these are displayed everywhere, but are so overpriced. Buy them at your local farmer’s market.)

American cake

I got inspired to make this 4^th of July cake after seeing a picture of it online. I thought it looked so garish and delish at the same time. I had to make it!

I bought two boxes of vanilla cake mix and one box of red velvet cake mix. I added blue coloring to one of the white cake batters and used parchment papers to keep them from sticking. I made a quick summer icing by whipping together Cool Whip and sour cream.

It was a nice treat to eat after New Haven’s fireworks were canceled five minutes into the show before of rain. Cake and cocktails for everyone! USA! USA! USA!

Cake pop flop

Almond Joy cake pops

I’ve always loved admiring Molly Bakes Cupcakes’ cake pop photos, but never thought of making them myself. That all changed when Tom got me a cake pop pan for my birthday! I decided to make Almond Joy cake pops- my own invention. I toasted sliced almonds with sugar and butter, then smashed them into smaller bits. I combined brownie and chocolate cake mix to make a dense cake.

The cakes turned out great because of the great design of the pan (which can be found at Target.) However, my icing really pooped the bed! I make great ganache icing, but I have to dip the cake pops into a powered sugar icing to give them a smooth effect. I ended up using an entire bag of powered sugar in my pot of hot milk and butter, leaving me a hot pot of buttery milk. If I had two more bags of sugar, I probably could have pulled it off, but then I would have enough icing for 4 sheet cakes…

Cut to me finding an emergency container of whipped cream cheese icing. I mixed in some vanilla and coconut extract (I’m not a fan of shredded coconut.) I used a butter knife and my fingers to spread it on the pops. I felt ridiculous, but it looked okay after rolling the pops in the nuts.

I admitted to Tom that cake pops are something that needs to be practiced. And there's got to be a better way to make the sticks stay in the pops. What holds them in? Hope? I need to do more research...

Good merit for my carrot

Dig in!

My favorite part of carrot cake is the cream cheese frosting. So I thought what better dessert to make for Easter than carrot cheesecake? I made the crust out of candied pecans and graham crackers, which I mixed with butter and baked in my spring form pan for 15 minutes. The recipe calls for grated carrots cooked in butter and sugar. This part took the longest, as zesting a carrot is no easy task! Then I added ginger, cinnamon, and nutmeg to my cream cheese batter to give it that warm carrot cake taste.

As always, my cheesecake came out of the oven covered in cracks (anyone have a secret of how to avoid this?) I call them my 8.5 Richter scale fault lines! So I covered the top in a whipped cream cheese icing. Worked great, don't you think? 


I got to work with something I’ve never worked with before: marzipan! This almond paste is popular to make shapes with as it’s like play-doe in texture. I added red and yellow food coloring and molded the paste into little carrots. Then I dipped a knife into cocoa powder and made little marks on the carrots to make them look more real. Finally I added parsley leaves on top and, voila! I managed to make a beautiful carrot cheesecake to be enjoyed by Tom’s family (they loved it! Success!)

Banana Fo Fanna

This little number is the second thing this week I've made because of fruit overload in the house. With the "hurricane" that tore through New Haven (barely rained a drop!), we stocked up on canned goods and bananas. Suddenly we were seeing spots everywhere...On all those bananas, that is! Something had to be done.

Molly suggested I make a banana bread, so I set to work (Joy of Cooking cookbook) and made a healthy version with a little bit of oatmeal, wheat flour, and 60% dark cocoa. The healthy aspect stopped there as I served it with cream cheese and goat's milk caramel (which gains it's color not from browned sugar, but from the cooked goat's milk!). Mmmm mmm!

You're a peach!

What started out as a peach cobbler, turned into a peach crumb cake! All's well that ends well, I say. The concoction, whatever you want to call it, was delicious. The day after we had purchased several peaches, Molly received her fruit of the month wedding gift: peaches! I immediately brainstormed what to do with all the extra fruit. I made peach/oatmeal muffins and the "cobbler" in one day, making the kitchen smell divine! The muffins were made with only one egg, wheat flour, and no butter, yet tasted wonderful. The "cobbler," however, was buttery enough to make even Paula Deen blush!

Cake Race

This is the first birthday cake I've ever done so I wanted to make it look great. Since I don't have the know-how to do anything too crazy, I decided to go with lots of height! I doubled the devil's food cake recipe found in the Joy of Cooking cookbook and baked four cakes, instead of dividing two cakes. I don't have a mixer (see pic with bowls!) so everything was done by hand. I used 60% dark cocoa for the chocolate and used buttermilk instead of yogurt.

The birthday boy had mentioned he isn't big on heavy icing so I made chocolate pudding with crushed Oreo for the filling and a layer of raspberry jam. I iced the cake with whipped heavy cream and tapped powdered cocoa on top. The cake came out dense and chocolaty, just how a homemade cake should be!

New York Pork and Cake & Shake

What a day to be in New York City! The weather could not have been more agreeable and the food experiences were hard to match. Although not pictured, Lupa, one of Mario Batali's restaurants, took the cake for the trip's best eats. I had Clams with Fregola and Basil, mussels with linguini, and pork shoulder served with a snap pea and radish salad. I am often disappointed when I order shell fish or pork, but Lupa made them all so tender and delicious (without overpowering with butter!) that I couldn't help but love every bite.
One of the markets passed was almost completely packed up except for a spice vendor (pictured). I also saw the "Cake & Shake" truck, which I think is a great idea and if I hadn't just eaten would have definitely had one (or three!) The drink pictured is called Paradise Punch at Campbell Apartment in Grand Central Station.

Let them eat (box)cake!

Don't worry, there's a reason this cake looks like it does! Molly found a box of vanilla cake mix while unpacking kitchen boxes and suggested I bake it tonight. I went to the store and bought confetti icing then came home and went to work. I got out the egg, oil, and pan and preheated the oven. Then I opened the box only to be greeted with dead moths and their eggs!

Now, however, I had a serious hankering for box cake too, so I went back to the store to look for strawberry cake mix (since that goes waaay better with confetti icing!) but they didn't sell it; what a travesty! Vanilla it was. I'm not a "vanilla" girl so I decided to make it a 3 layer cake. I didn't want to ice the top layer so the design could still be seen so I just sifted some powered sugar on top.

Christening of the Cupcakes

These little beauties are the first of many cupcakes to be baked in the new house. It's a dark chocolate cake with cheese cheese filling. The icing is a chocolate butter cream, using melted dark chocolate in the worst double boiler scenario I've ever done. The leftover melted chocolate was poured onto the top of the larger cake. It just looked so empty, I couldn't resist.

Dinner with Gloria at Circa 1922, circa 2010

My next to last night in Wilmington, I had a lovely dinner with Gloria at Circa 1922, one of two of my favorite places to eat! The conversation flowed fast and furious, so I only managed to take a photo of our last course, dessert! It was a mini lemon cupcake with buttercream icing and a blueberry on top!