Rad Stuff I Love & Think You Will Too: Shake Shack's Coffee and Donuts Custard

Just about a year ago, I left my spacious Union Square apartment for my current and (much) less spacious East Village digs.  I while love my 'hood, my block, my current milieu, this has meant my admittedly all-too-frequent stops at the Shake Shack on my walk home from work came to a screeching halt.  Though just a couple of blocks out of the way now, my new locale adds about 10 minutes of time to the shack-to-freezer equation.  Meaning that, were I to purchase a pint in the middle of summer, I'd be left with a whole lot of custard soup by the time I made it home.  But sometimes things just work out.  I could have been depressed by the sudden chill in the air this morning, by the fact that summer got the fuck out of dodge as soon as it was released from its official duties, but there was a silver lining.  Today is, of course, the last Monday of September, meaning the last time in the near future I would be able to get my grubby paws on a pint of Coffee and Donuts custard, my favorite flavor to cycle through the Shake Shack custard calendar.  No other Mondays have afforded me the opportunity this month to grab a pint on the way home, being all 'summery' as they were.  But today, today was perfect.  My phone told me it was a cool 63 degrees as I left my office this evening, perfect weather for me to hustle back to my apartment in my column skirt with no slit that while very cute if I do say so myself made taking steps larger than 8 inches very difficult.  Though the little bit that melted around the edges of the container will be a bit icy after they freeze back up, the pint was pretty much none the worse for wear.  

And it turns out that you can also get your Coffee and Donuts tomorrow (or today, as it likely is) should you so desire (and you should).  As I stood in the B-Line at Madison Square Park today I noticed a sign with the day's specials, and it looks like the Shack is offering pints of "yesterday's custard." Today's custard will be yesterday's custard tomorrow (yup), and if you like coffee ice cream, and you like donuts, and you like all that is good and true in this world, you should get your ass over to Shake Shack and grab yourself a pint. While the Coffee and Donuts flavor is appears on the Custard Calendar a few times a year, there's no telling when that next time is going to be, and I can say with confidence from experience that it's better to have Coffee and Donuts custard than to not.  

(Shack Shack is apparently now large enough that it must post calorie counts of all its food.  Just do me a favor, buy the custard before you check the figures.)

Shake Shack
Multiple Locations (I visited Madison Square Park)
shakeshack.com
Custard Calendar

Lula's Sweet Apothecary

Peanut butter chip atop
vanilla with raspberry and brownie

I’ve discussed it here before, but there was a time where I shunned meat. And cheese.  And eggs.  Though my quasi-veganism lasted but two or three short months, I learned a good amount.  I learned that it is possible to eat a varied and healthful, even exciting, diet devoid of animal products.  I learned that I like being a contrarian, which is perhaps not my best quality.  I also learned, perhaps most importantly, that there is some really fucking good vegan ice cream out there.  Sure, there are a lot of vegan facsimiles of typically dairy and meat-laden goods.  Some of it is absolutely atrocious, its mere existence a disservice to vegans and vegetarians everywhere.  But some of it is completely delicious in its own right, vegan or otherwise. 

It’s no secret that I love ice cream.  I have at least a little bit of it, even if it’s just a spoonful or two, every day.  Vetting the ice cream situation was necessary before I took the plunge into my short-lived quasi-veganism (that's a lot of qualifiers right there...).   Throughout my testing, I ran into quite a few awful ‘frozen non-dairy desserts,’ but the good ones, man, they’re good.   Take, for instance, Lula’s Sweet Apothecary, an old-school soda fountain type place.  It feels like where Archie would’ve taken Betty (or Veronica) for a date if they lived in Portland in 2012 instead of Riverdale in the 1950s.   

Good vegan ice cream is not good “for vegan ice cream,” but just plain good, sans qualifiers.  The stuff at Lula’s is among the best ice cream I’ve had, vegan or otherwise.  The hard ice creams are made from soy, coconut or cashews.  The latter two are the best options, as the fattiness carries over in the best ways possible.  Add to that some intelligently thought out add-ins and spot-on flavors, and you’ve got something special. 

I walked away recently with a double scoop: peanut butter chocolate chip and vanilla with raspberry swirl and brownie, both recommended to me by the fella working the counter.  The peanut butter flavor was super rich, impeccably creamy and just plain delicious; the vanilla tasted much lighter and served almost as the J to my scoop of PB.  Though I could’ve used more brownie chunks, the raspberry rippled through the vanilla in aggressive swirls that served as a nice counterpoint to all of the heaviness in my cup.  The maple walnut, which I’ve had in earlier trips, is also a winner.

Lula’s is not one of those holier-than-thou vegan joints.  It’s not health food. What it is, most meaningfully, is amazing, in both the magical, incredibly rich things done without the crutches of eggs and dairy and in the quality of the product churned out.  Go there; just, go. 

Lula’s Sweet Apothecary
516 East 6th St (b/w Ave A and B)
(646) 481-5851

Valentine's Day Dessert: Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Peppered Berry Coulis

Though pretty much ready to burst after all of that duck and cauliflower, dessert remained.  We lingered over our dinner plates for a long while and continued to enjoy our wine to allow ourselves to digest a bit in the name of stuffing ourselves further.  Thankfully, my menu planning was done under the assumption that we'd be in a state of near (or over-) satiety after the entree, so dessert was light.  

One of the benefits of preparing your own food, as opposed to eating out, is that you are in control of what goes into it. Which is all well and good when you're cooking healthfully.  Obviously the flip side is that you know precisely what has gone into your food, and sometimes a rich chocolate dessert does not seem like the very best idea after your kale caesar, or your butter and wine-sauced duck.  This is all to say that I eschewed chocolate on Valentine's day.  Better to leave a romantic meal feeling rejuvenated by a bright dessert than stuffed and comatose after caloric overload.  Besides, Robbie loves panna cotta, and there is something almost sensual about its smooth, delicate, velvety nature.

Of course, let's be clear, this isn't exactly health food either - things with heavy cream rarely are, unfortunately.  But this panna cotta is tangy, bright, delicious, and shockingly easy to make.  The buttermilk lends an almost yogurt-like quality, which was played up by the vanilla and the berries on top - like your breakfast parfait snuck under the bleachers and took up with the Skanks.  

Though I've yet to try, I imagine this recipe takes well to adaptation; as a coffee yogurt lover (of both the frozen and non-frozen varieties), I already know where I'll be taking it next.

Buttermilk Panna Cotta with Peppered Berry Sauce

Panna Cotta recipe from Bon Appetit

Makes 6 servings

The original recipe from Bon Appetit makes enough for six ramekins.  Since we were only two, I halved the recipe and since I have but a single ramekin, I poured the mixture into big mugs, which worked just fine.  Since I'm no panna cotta expert, I decided not to futz around with the recipe otherwise, so it's merely copied below from Epicurious.    

• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 1/2 teaspoons unflavored gelatin
• Nonstick vegetable oil spray

• 1 cup whipping cream
• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon peel
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 cups buttermilk
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Pour 2 tablespoons water into small bowl; sprinkle gelatin over. Let stand until gelatin softens, about 10 minutes. Lightly spray six 3/4-cup ramekins or custard cups with nonstick spray.

Heat cream, lemon peel, and sugar in medium saucepan over medium-high heat, stirring constantly until sugar dissolves. Increase heat and bring just to low boil, stirring occasionally. Add gelatin mixture; remove from heat. Stir until gelatin dissolves. Cool mixture to lukewarm, stirring often. Stir in buttermilk and vanilla; divide mixture among prepared ramekins. Refrigerate panna cotta until set, about 4 hours. DO AHEAD: Can be made 2 days ahead. Cover and keep chilled.

Using small sharp knife, cut around panna cotta in each ramekin. Place plate atop each ramekin and invert, allowing panna cotta to settle onto plate.

Peppered Berry Sauce

Makes 3 servings

The Bon Appetit recipe suggests a simple thawed frozen berry topping for the panna cotta.  I took it a bit further and cooked the berries on the stovetop for a little while to add some extra oomph.  I didn't quite measure what I added to that pot, but what follows is an approximation. Note that these are the amounts I used to top the halved panna cotta recipe.  While we had leftover sauce (which, as predicted, were awesome in yogurt), you may wish to double this recipe if making the full batch. Also, don't do what I did and top the cold panna cotta with hot berries - I suggest waiting just a couple of minutes for them to cool down just a tad.

1/2 package frozen mixed berries, or approximately 6 ounces, thawed 

pinch of salt

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoons lemon juice

1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper (or more, depending on your tastes)

Place the berries in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat, add the salt, sugar and two tablespoons of water.  Cook until the sugar is dissolved and the berries are warmed through and starting to break down a bit.  Add the lemon juice and black pepper and stir to combine.  Adjust pepper to taste.  Remove from the heat and allow to cool slightly before spooning atop panna cotta.

Peanut Butter Ice Cream

As Labor Day has come and gone, and the temperatures have been dipping
into the chilly zone come nightfall around these parts, it seems that
summer's on its last legs. Don't tell that to my ice cream maker. I
know there's been a lot of ice cream around here, but I hope you'll bear
with me for one more before season's end. This one's worth it.

Peanut butter was never my favorite thing as a kid - in fact, I don't
think I actually touched the stuff until I was in 6th grade. Something about it
just freaked me out, and my parents were never the peanut butter and
jelly-pushing sorts. I wasn't a picky kid, so I don't think they had
to utilize the pb&j crutch on which so many parents rely just to make sure
their kids get some calories in them. (While calories weren't a problem, calcium was - I was not one for milk, and my parents finally just gave in and allowed me to eat ice cream for breakfast, sometimes even without the proper-breakfast-validating waffles. Major win.) When I finally did get into peanut butter, it wasn't the cloyingly sweet, oil-slicky smooth commercial varieties, but the chunky, grittier "natural" stuff. The texture is more substantial, the flavor more reminiscent of actual, real-life peanuts and less of sugared-up legumes.



I can't really explain then why this ice cream pulled me in, considering it calls for that processed, not-so-natural stuff. It wasn't about nostalgia, since I had sat on the sidelines, quietly enjoying my tuna sandwiches, watching my friends lap feverishly to get those smooshy soft sandwiches unstuck from the roof of their mouths; this peanut butter was never a feature of my childhood. It has to be, then, that what drew me in was the inkling I had to take the ice cream and throw a whole slew of salty stuff in there. And I think by now we know how I feel about sweet plus salty. Throw a toasty, crunchy, nutty aspect in there as well, and it's pretty much a done deal.

While this ice cream falls somewhere between a custard-based ice cream and the frozen greek yogurt in terms of complexity and involvement, it is definitely much closer to the almost-too-easy-to-be-true frozen yogurt end of the range. And that's just because of all the extras I chose with which to bedazzle my ice cream. Had I not had to chop these mix-ins (and I threw a LOT of stuff in there), there'd have been little more to this recipe than a couple of measurements and a quick buzz in the blender.

I toyed a bit with doing a peanut butter and jelly version instead, but clearly the siren song of salty-sweet was simply too much for me to resist. And I don't regret it for an instant. Neither will you.



Sweet and Salty Super Loaded Peanut Butter Ice Cream
Ice cream base recipe adapted from The Perfect Scoop, by David Lebovitz

3/4 cup smooth peanut butter*
2/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
2 2/3 cups half-and-half
Pinch of salt
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup salted, blanched peanuts, chopped coarsely
1 cup dark (or milk, if you prefer, but I like the bitterness of dark) chocolate, chopped coarsely or semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup salted pretzels, chopped (note: I used standard, salted pretzels, but would probably use chocolate-covered pretzels next time, since the pretzels got a little bit soggy after a while)

* Don't be tempted to use natural peanut butter, as the oils will separate and this will not make you happy.

Combine the peanut butter, sugar, half and half and salt in a blender and blend until combined and the sugar has dissolved. Place the mixture in the refrigerator until cold. Freeze the mixture in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. In the last two minutes of the churn cycle, add in the various mix-ins until combined. Transfer the finished ice cream to a container and freeze until you're ready to enjoy. I enjoyed a little additional sprinkling of coarse sea salt over my bowls of this ice cream.

Frozen Yogurt with Figs and Honey

I knew that this guy was going to be trouble. There was no way that I was going to make it out of the summer without a severe ice cream-making addiction, so I just embraced it - there's been mint, coffee, peanut butter ice cream (that one's coming soon - stay tuned!), the list goes on. And I haven't really looked back.

OK - I looked back just a little bit, deciding that not everything that The Churnster (as I've affectionately dubbed him) produces has to be the richest thing ever (or at least the richest thing since the last thing that we made together). I made frozen yogurt. And you know what? It was awesome. It was made with greek yogurt, so it had that thick, assertive tang that I love so much about the stuff. I cut back on the amount of sugar in the recipe, since I really wanted that tang to be at the forefront of the finished product.



When I was in Greece, I ate yogurt with walnuts and honey with reckless abandon. The simplicity of it all just made me sit back and appreciate the various ingredients, which came together to form one of my favorite combinations of all time. And because that shit is awesome. Seriously - smooth, thick, tangy yogurt, tempered by the muted sweetness of thinly drizzled Greek honey, saccharine, yes, but not cloyingly so, and dotted with the crunch of bitter walnuts. I can think of almost no better dessert. Except ice cream, of course. So obviously the next logical step was to make this into a frozen dessert.

Greek yogurt is pretty much just your plain-old typical yogurt from which the whey has been strained. Since the liquid's been removed from the equation, you're left with unadulterated yogurt; in-your-face, tangy, thick-enough-to-stand-a-spoon-in yogurt. I know that a lot of people can't get into it for those exact reasons. But those very reasons are why it makes such a great base for frozen yogurt. While a far cry from the richness of an egg yolk-laden custard base, it's at once rich and delicate, with a tangy heft that makes you sit up and take notice. So even if you're loathe to eat greek yogurt on its own, give this a go; you won't be sorry.



I swapped out the walnuts for figs, for no real reason other than I had a pint of them and they don't have a particularly long shelf-life. And they pair awesomely with honey and yogurt. It also seemed a "Greek" enough substitution so as not to stray too far from the nostalgic roots of the yogurt.



I can absolutely not stress enough how easy this recipe is. There's close to nothing to be done - seriously. Take some greek yogurt, mix in some sugar until it dissolves - the stand mixer made incredibly easy work of this, but it is not much more laborious to do it by hand, add in some vanilla if you're so inclined. Then let it chill in the fridge for a little bit - both figuratively and literally, of course, until you're left with a cool and laid-back yogurt base. Throw that awesomeness into your ice cream maker and you're there. That's. It. Awesome frozen yogurt at your disposal.



Greek Yogurt with Figs and Honey
Adapted loosely from 101 Cookbooks
Makes approximately one quart of frozen yogurt

This recipe is really the easiest thing ever. It's tanginess is reminiscent of the frozen yogurts on offer at Pinkberry, Red Mango and those guys. But it's wholly unlike those, if for no other reason than that you know there's absolutely nothing in there but the good stuff. No chemicals, no stabilizers, just pure yogurt. And anything else you want to throw in. I went with figs, which I cut and allowed to freeze a bit on a sheet tray before throwing them into the mix so that they wouldn't be completely dessicated by the Churnster. The only downside with this frozen yogurt is that it's best almost immediately after it's been made, and tends to harden a bit more than is desirable in the freezer. Just take it out a few minutes before you're ready to eat it, though, and you should be good to go.

If you're turned off by the sourness of plain yogurt, feel free to add a teaspoon of vanilla, which will temper the tang and round out the flavor a little bit. Next time I make this, I'm throwing some fresh ground black pepper in the mix. I ground some over a couple of servings after drizzling some honey on top and it was a great move, so I think it deserves a place within the yogurt as well.

3 cups Greek yogurt (the original recipe calls for full-far yogurt, but given that I was trying to make this a lighter production, I went for 1 1/2 cups full-fat yogurt, 1 1/ cups 2%)*
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla (optional)
1 1/2 cups fresh figs, cut into small pieces and semi-frozen
1/2 cup honey

Mix the sugar (and vanilla, if using) into the yogurt and stir until the sugar is completely dissolved into the yogurt. Refrigerate until the mixture is cold. Freeze in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. About two to three minutes before the churning process is finished, gently add the figs to the ice cream maker. Spread about a third of the honey on the bottom of the container in which you plan to store the frozen yogurt. Working quickly, add about a third of the frozen yogurt to the container, then another layer of honey, then another third of the frozen yogurt, then honey, then yogurt, until it's all been used. Freeze until ready to eat, or dig in immediately. Either way, drizzle some extra honey on top, and if you're up for it, a couple of twists of the pepper mill.

*Greek yogurt can be a bit expensive, so if you want to make your own, just take a container of plain yogurt and empty it into a colander that you've lined with cheesecloth or paper towels and that you've placed over a bowl (to catch the whey, since it will make a mess otherwise). Place it in the fridge and let it strain overnight. Do note, however, that the volume of the yogurt will be cut in half, so a cup of plain yogurt will produce 1/2 cup of greek-style yogurt.

Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream

A couple of months ago, I welcomed a newcomer into my kitchen. I'd been speaking for ages of getting an ice cream maker, and I finally made an honest woman of myself and bought the ice cream maker attachment for my Kitchen Aid stand mixer.

Now, you might be wondering why I haven't shared this unfathomably exciting news with you just yet. And there are reasons, some more exciting than others, some just mere effrontery and excuses for my general laziness and inability to sit down in front of a computer to a task requiring anything more than a three minute attention span. And it's probably a bit of all of those things, but what it comes down to, really, is that we just hadn't made anything together worth sharing.



Yes, the flavor of that dark chocolate sorbet was spot-on - rich, deep, all that wonderful stuff. But the texture left something to be desired - it wasn't quite as silken as it should have been. And sure, the vietnamese iced coffee ice cream tasted great - it paired the smooth, easy sweetness of sweetened condensed milk with that deep, rich flavor of a strongly brewed cup of coffee; so strongly brewed, in fact, that into the garbage it went, since even the mere two spoonfuls I'd sneak in before bed were enough to keep me awake for hours. I'll revisit both of those in due time, I have no doubt, but I knew that my ice cream maker and I, we could do better.

And so we did. Mint chocolate chip was always one of my favorite ice cream flavors growing up (coffee is the other), and it still ranks very high up there. I was convinced at a young age that the green mint chip ice creams tasted mintier than their colorless counterparts (except for Breyer's Mint Chip, which was pretty much the only white mint chip ice cream we had on constant rotation in our freezer when I was young). But these days I want the colors in my ice cream to be more muted - more of a byproduct of the actual, natural flavors than a distraction from the unnatural flavors imparted by a tasteless bottle of chemical-laden food colorings. And fresh mint brings such a clean bite that can't be matched by any amount of extracts, and it’s a bit softer around the edges than those artificial mint flavors. After all, we're eating ice cream, not gum.




This mint chocolate chip ice cream is great, though I still think it can get better. The amount of sugar was perfect - not too sweet in the least. The original recipe, however, called for a 2:1 ratio of heavy cream to milk, but I found that the cream dominated my palate a bit too much and stole a bit of the spotlight from the fresh mint. Next time I'm going to go for an even cup and a half of each, or maybe swap out the cream for half and half, as well as use a little bit more fresh mint. If you play around with the figures below, let me know how it turns out. I'll check back in after my next attempt.

The texture of the ice cream, though, was spot-on. Rich, eggy, silky smooth. It was awesome. It even had the faintest shade of green from that final squeeze of those mint leaves. I made this recipe a week ago, and, suffice it to say, it wasn't long for this world. But now that I'm armed with my ice cream maker, I know that there's much more where it came from.



Fresh Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream
Adapted from David Lebovitz, original recipe here

Ingredients

1 cup 2% milk
3/4 cup sugar
2 cups heavy cream
Pinch of salt
2 1/2 cups tightly packed fresh mint leaves
5 large egg yolks
1 cup chocolate chips, chopped to your desired consistency. I left some chunks larger than others, but for the most part chopped it finely.

Procedure

1. Warm the milk, sugar, half of the cream, and salt in a small saucepan, but don't bring to a boil. Once warmed, add the mint leaves and stir until they're fully immersed in the liquid. Cover the mixture, remove from the heat, and let the mint leaves steep in the milk at room temperature for 1 hour.

2. Strain the mint-infused mixture through a mesh strainer into a medium saucepan. Press on the mint leaves to extract as much of the flavor as possible, then discard the mint leaves. Pour the rest of the cream into a large bowl and set the strainer on top.

3. Rewarm the mint-infused mixture. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the egg yolks. Temper the eggs by slowly pouring the warm mint mixture into the egg yolks, whisking constantly as you pour, then scrape the warmed egg yolks back into the saucepan.

4. Stir the egg yolk and mint mixture constantly over medium heat with a heatproof spatula, scraping the bottom as you stir to prevent scorching, until the mixture thickens and coats the spatula (if you're unsure, run your finger through the liquid on the spatula, if it doesn't run, then you're ready to proceed). Pour the custard through the strainer and stir it into the cream. Stir until cool over an ice bath.

5. Chill the mixture thoroughly in the refrigerator (I let mine sit there overnight), then freeze it in your ice cream maker according to the manufacturer's instructions. Add the chopped chocolate to the ice cream maker during the last two minutes or so of the churn.

Enjoy!
Makes a bit more than a quart.

Rugelach

When I was younger, I was never one to pay any mind to rugelach. Ice cream, pudding and (gasp) 3 Musketeers - those were the things I loved when I was younger (though my love affair with ice cream is still ongoing, and I have no reason to believe that flame will ever die). Rugelach just seemed the type of dessert relegated to the adult palate and the adult plate. It just doesn't look like much, all that pastry and dried fruit - and when you're a kid, looks mean a lot. It lacked all that nougaty goodness and arm-drippy action of other desserts. And there were no special ways to eat it (i.e. take Yodel, freeze, bite off chocolate at each end, nibble at chocolate seam, unravel, eat or, take Oreo, Double Stuf, of course, twist apart, eat cream, place two halves back together, hide back in package (option A) or take two Oreos, Double Stuf, twist each apart, ensuring that all cream sticks to one cookie, place two cream-topped halves together and voila, Quadruple Stuf (option B, a/k/a the only way I'd actually eat the chocolate wafer)).



But somewhere along the way, my tastes matured, and I learned to appreciate the less flashy desserts. Like the plain-jane best friend in a cheesy romantic comedy, it took me a while to love rugelach, I had shunned it at all our family gatherings for years in favor of the poufs of whipped cream and jewels of sprinkles atop ice cream sundaes, but after my tastes "grew up," it was like I was tasting it for the first time. I finally saw the beauty that is rugelach - flakey, tender dough wrapped around a bounty of wonderful: sweet, spicy cinnamon, crunchy nuts, sweet, chewy jewels of dried fruit - each bite revealing something new. That little swirl of pastry contains a bounty of spices and textures, begging to be uncovered at first bite.

I never had the chance to taste my great-grandmother's rugelach. I'm not quite sure when she stopped churning them out, but I'd imagine it was a few years before she died when I was in the fourth grade. Not that it'd have mattered much, since the rugelach would have gone to waste on little me, not quite having come into my rugelach-loving self. I hear that her rugelach were divine. And I hear that these little beauties would have made her quite proud (not my words, of course).



The key is the cream cheese in the dough. It gives it a depth, a richness, that can't be achieve by butter alone. The fillings are adaptable to your preferences - I like mine studded with a whole mess of nuts.

I won't lie to you, this recipe requires a little bit of your time (and some upper arm strength when rolling out the chilled dough), but it is undoubtedly worth it. Give it a whirl; not only will you not regret it - you'll be thumbing your nose at those lesser bakery specimens for good.



Rugelach
Makes Many
From Gourmet (RIP), May 2004

2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 sticks (1 cup) unsalted butter, softened
8 oz cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup plus 4 teaspoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup apricot preserves
1 cup loosely packed golden raisins, chopped
1 1/4 cups walnuts (1/4 lb), finely chopped
Milk for brushing cookies

Whisk together flour and salt in a bowl. Beat together butter and cream cheese in a large bowl with an electric mixer until combined well. Add flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. Gather dough into a ball and wrap in plastic wrap, then flatten (in wrap) into a roughly 7- by 5-inch rectangle. Chill until firm, 8 to 24 hours (I usually just let it rest overnight and take it out of the fridge whenever I'm ready for it the next day).

Put oven rack in middle position and preheat oven to 350°F. Line bottom of a 1- to 1 1/2-inch-deep large shallow baking pan with parchment paper.

Cut dough into 4 pieces. Chill 3 pieces, wrapped in plastic wrap, and roll out remaining piece into a 12- by 8-inch rectangle on a well-floured surface with a floured rolling pin (or an old wine bottle with the label removed...). Transfer dough to a sheet of parchment, then transfer to a tray and chill while rolling out remaining dough in same manner, transferring each to another sheet of parchment and stacking on tray.

Whisk 1/2 cup sugar with cinnamon.

Arrange 1 dough rectangle on work surface with a long side nearest you. Spread 1/4 cup preserves evenly over dough with offset spatula. Sprinkle 1/4 cup raisins and a rounded 1/4 cup walnuts over jam, then sprinkle with 2 tablespoons cinnamon sugar.

Using the parchment paper as an aid, roll up dough tightly into a log. Place, seam side down, in lined baking pan, then pinch ends closed and tuck underneath. Make 3 more logs in same manner and arrange 1 inch apart in pan. Brush logs with milk and sprinkle each with 1 teaspoon of remaining granulated sugar, trying your best to keep the sugar from falling to the parchment (or at least minimize it), as it will caramelize and start burning in the oven, leaving the bottom of your pastries sticky and potentially unpleasant (not speaking from experience or anything). With a large, sharp knife, make 3/4-inch-deep cuts crosswise in dough (not all the way through) at 1-inch intervals. (If dough is too soft to cut, chill until firmer, 20 to 30 minutes. Note: The dough should be pretty firm - if it's too soft it will start to tear - just think about how many calories you're burning rolling out that dough!)

Bake until golden, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool to warm in pan on a rack, about 30 minutes, then transfer logs to a cutting board and gently slice cookies all the way through.

Cocoa Brownies

So I was going to tell you about some awesome rugelach. The post is underway, a draft in the works, forthcoming, I promise. But then I made these brownies. And they demand your immediate attention. They're divine, as far as brownies go - so deep and rich that a teeny tiny square will more than suffice to quell your cravings.

Oh, no cravings for brownies, you say? Have a little bite, and let the cravings commence. A thin, crackly top gives way to a fudgy, dense, irreproachably chocolaty interior. The edges are chewy, the insides moist, the whole thing a perfect little package of brownie goodness - no need for a slick of ganache (in my belief a good brownie shouldn't need a ganache-boost) or a sprinkling of powdered sugar atop these bad boys, they're fantastic just as they are.



You see, I'm not really a brownie connoisseur. They're not what I turn towards when my dessert cravings hit. A mere little bite usually sates me, and I can move on to other things. But when my roommate had shoulder surgery a couple of days ago, I knew I needed to provide him with a little something to help the healing. And this kid loves his chocolate, so I immediately scoured the interwebs for brownie recipes. When I saw these brownies, I knew I had hit the jackpot. And I was not wrong - these brownies are, to date, the best I've made. And, since I'm not a huge brownie person, there were no prior brownies with which Dom could compare these, he agreed that these reached levels of brownie awesomeness.

Not only that, but the small amount of flour gives me reason to believe that these can be easily adapted to a passover context - and the fact that they rely solely on cocoa powder for their chocolaty needs means that there's no reading of labels or settling for kosher-for-passover chocolate to thwart your quest for brownie supremacy. Now, I haven't tested this theory out yet, but I'd be willing to bet that swapping the half cup of flour for matzoh cake meal will not mess with these gems all too much. But rest assured that, as the Seders loom on the horizon, such a test is forthcoming, and I will report back, hopefully confirming my hypothesis.

UPDATE: A pan of these brownies, with five tablespoons of matzoh cake meal substituted for the flour have just emerged from my oven, and the texture is a little, well, passover-ish, but they're still pretty good!



Cocoa Brownies

Adapted from Alice Mendrich's Bittersweet via Smitten Kitchen

10 tablespoons unsalted butter
1 1/4 cups sugar
3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 large eggs, cold
1/2 cup all-purpose flour or 5 tablespoons matzoh cake meal (confirmation of success pending - confirmed!)
2/3 cup walnut or pecan pieces (optional, I didn't use but I imagine they'd be awesome in there)

With rack in the lower third of the oven, preheat oven to 325°F. Line bottom and sides of an 8×8-inch square baking pan (note: I used a circular pan because my square pan is 9x9 and I was afraid that the brownies would be too thin, which just meant that there were little scraps leftover after I'd cut them into squares, which, you know, totally did not go to waste) with parchment paper or foil, leaving a bit of an overhang on two sides, which will allow you to lift the baked brownies out of the pan with ease.

Combine butter, sugar, cocoa, and salt in a medium heatproof bowl and set the bowl in a wide skillet of barely simmering water. Stir from time to time until the butter is fully melted and the mixture is shiny and rather smooth and hot enough that you want to remove your finger fairly quickly after dipping it in to test. Remove the bowl from skillet and set aside briefly until the mixture is warm, not hot. (As Deb notes, don't be taken aback by the texture at this point in the process, though it looks rough, that is totally fine).

Stir in the vanilla with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Add the eggs one at a time, stirring vigorously after each one to combine. When the batter looks thick, shiny, and well blended, add the flour and stir to combine until you cannot see it any longer, then beat vigorously for 40 strokes with the wooden spoon or rubber spatula. Stir in the nuts, if using. Pour the batter into the prepared pan. It will be rather thick, but just spread it around with your spatula so that it's even.

Bake until a toothpick plunged into the center emerges slightly moist with batter, about 20 to 25 minutes. Note that I let mine go a little bit past the "emerges slightly moist with batter" stage, but to no ill-effect. Let cool completely on a rack, or do as Deb suggests and throw them in the icebox for a little while to get them to really cool and facilitate easy cutting.

Lift up the ends of the parchment or foil liner, and transfer the brownies to a cutting board. Cut into squares with a very sharp knife, as big or small as you desire. Enjoy!

Sugar Sweet Sunshine's Banana Pudding

Now I have said before that I am not a big dessert person. So as not to beat a dead horse, we'll just leave it at that. There are, however, a few desserts and desserty-type things that I find myself with constant cravings for. Chief among such crave-ables is ice cream, which I think is more of a craving for an incomparable texture/mouth feel/eating experience than for the sweetness that comes with those inimitable features. And I have obviously shared my salty-sweet-tooth with you before. But outside of these, there isn't much that I really crave. There are, however, a couple of dessert dark-horses that I just really can't resist - if offered them, it's quite hard for me to turn them down. One such thing is banana pudding. I don't know where this affinity comes from - it's not like there's any sort of nostalgic connection between me and banana pudding. It's just so innately, deeply comforting - the sort of flavors that are familiar regardless of whether you've ever had them before. Banana, whipped cream and vanilla cake, cookies, whathaveyou - these things just belong together.

Yet despite this affinity for banana pudding, it's not something I find myself eating frequently. Unlike ice cream, it's not something you can just keep around and eat when you feel lie it, and there aren't multiple places (or just one little place in particular) selling it on my way home. And while I really do enjoy it, I rarely find myself actually craving it - while I really love the creamy texture and the sweet, creamy bite of banana hunks throughout, when I'm sitting on my couch crying about the Jets - it's ice cream, and not banana pudding, towards which I will look to drown my sorrows. But all this was before I had tried Sugar Sweet Sunshine's banana pudding. This is truly amazing stuff - and might catapult my relationship with banana pudding from being a passive enjoyment, wherein, should banana pudding cross my path, I will likely indulge, to an active love affair - leading me to find reasons to traipse on down to the lower east side and perhaps swing by SSS and pick up some banana pudding.



I can't really describe this banana pudding in any better way than to say it is eminently craveable. It's smooth, and sweet, borderline overwhelmingly so, though the sweetness is imparted by ripe (but not overripe) bananas, and not by an artificial banana flavor (though, it kills me to admit, I really do love that artificial banana flavor - while the lime and orange runts were mere ammo in games of "throw the runts into the bug zapper," banana runts actually provided a good deal of sustenance at sleepaway camp). The fact that it is borderline too-sweet is, I believe, a blessing in disguise, as I can have a few bites and put the rest away for later, allowing me to savor the deliciousness that much longer. The classic nilla wafers benefit from their pudding partners, somehow taking on all of the attributes of rich, buttery pound cake by virtue of their association with the other ingredients. The final product is a study in textural contrasts, the moist nilla wafers have a great crumb, moistened pleasantly by the pudding and is accompanied by the creamy bite of fresh bananas, all crowned with a light-as-air, barely sweetened (if at all) whipped cream, that ties it all together with an almost unbearable lightness. It's, in a word, delicious. A sweet, creamy, delicious, chunky mess of a dessert. I suggest you give it a try.


Sugar Sweet Sunshine
126 Rivington St. (between Essex and Norfolk)
New York, NY 10002
(212) 995-1960

Honey Cake

Tradition is an interesting thing. We perpetuate certain ideals, advocate certain processes, even propogate lies, all in the name of "tradition." It provides a basis for the continued existence of certain items, techniques or processes that might have otherwise fallen by the wayside as the underappreciated victims of social darwinism.

But we humans are emotional beings, a feature with which the rational actor model is still grappling. Certain traditions, yes, are rooted in fact or in religious circumstance, but some happenings take place time after time, year after year, just because that's the way it always was, or how it had always been done before.

Because of these emotional connections we often feel towards the traditional, we frequently tend to just accept tradition as is, and don't question at all the reasons why we do what we do or how we do it or why we've adopted a particular means of accomplishing the end result of whatever the tradition in question may be.

One such tradition is the consumption of honey around the Jewish New Year (yes, I HAVE waited that long to write this post - please forgive me). There is a definite reason why honey finds its way to the Rosh Hashanah table - it is meant as a symbol of the sweetness we hope to experience in the coming year. Honey makes its way to the table in various forms, though most typically in a shallow dish in which we dip slice after slice of apple, which is always delicious in its simplicity. The other most common vehicle for honey around the high holidays is the ubiquitous honey cake. Dense, deep...dense honey cake.



There are few redeeming features of a typical honey cake. Actually, I might take that back - there is one redeeming feature of most honey cakes - the very top crust. Soaked through and through with honey, the top layer is rich, sweet and oh so deliciously sticky. The rest of the cake, though, forget about it. Dry, dense, the rest of your standard rosh hashanah honey cake is a waste of time, really. But that top layer - the top layer of any honey cake around our house at the holidays is just ripe for the picking, my attempts at denial rendered futile by my sticky fingers. The rest of that cake, though, just sits there, and sits there, and sits there. The funny thing about honey cake is that it really takes forever to go stale - with all the honey and sugar and oil it stays just as moist as it was on day one (which is to say, not all that moist) for far longer than most other cakes. And so it can sit there, on the counter, no less, and taunt you, with it's deep, dark color, as if to say "I could be delicious, why don't you just grab another little bit," for upwards of a week.

Tradition dictates that we have honey cake on the table each and every year. We don't question it, don't second guess it. There has been honey cake on the table every year prior, why stop this year? But why can't we question the honey cake itself. If it has to be on the table, can't it at least be delicious? Anything based around something as sweet and pure an ingredient as honey should certainly have the potential to taste fabulous. So I set out on a search to find a delicious honey cake, one with certain ingredients that would add a depth of flavor and prevent the cake from being cloyingly sweet - one that would allow the honey to shine, rather than to overpower. And I found it, with a four-fork rating on epicurious. I figured, if any honey cake could be so universally approved, it had to be good. But there was still a part of me that thought legitimately good, or is it good for honey cake? The ingredient list looked like it would balance out the intense sweetness of the honey, with citrusy notes from the orange juice, aumtumnal spices and a deep richness from the coffee. And it did not disappoint.

This honey cake will change your mind about honey cake. A new tradition began at our house this high holiday season: a tradition of truly delicious honey cake, one that we will all look forward to on the dessert table at the holidays, and not just one that sits on the table because it should. A honey cake that is happily eaten, top to bottom.



Marcy Goldman's Majestic and Moist New Year's Honey Cake
from A Treasury of Jewish Holiday Baking, recipe also availabe here

Ingredients
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon ground allspice
1 cup vegetable oil
1 cup honey
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup warm coffee or strong tea
1/2 cup fresh orange juice
1/4 cup rye or whisky (I subbed orange juice, as my whiskey was dreadfully close to empty, and well, I wanted it)
1/2 cup slivered or sliced almonds (I went without)

Method

I like this cake best baked in a 9-inch angel food cake pan, but you can also make it in a 10-inch tube or bundt cake pan, a 9 by 13-inch sheetpan, or three 8 by 4 1/2-inch loaf pans.

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two loaf pan(s)*.

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. Make a well in the center and add the oil, honey, sugars, eggs, vanilla, coffee, orange juice, and rye or whisky.

Using a strong wire whisk or an electric mixer on slow speed, combine the ingredients well to make a thick batter, making sure that no ingredients are stuck to the bottom of the bowl.

Spoon the batter into the prepared pan(s) and sprinkle the top of the cake(s) evenly with the almonds. Place the cake pan(s) on 2 baking sheets stacked together and bake until the cake springs back when you touch it gently in the center. For angel and tube cake pans, bake for 60 to 70 minutes; loaf cakes, 45 to 55 minutes. For sheet-style cakes, the baking time is 40 to 45 minutes. This is a liquidy batter and, depending on your oven, it may need extra time. Cake should spring back when gently pressed.

Let the cake stand for 15 minutes before removing it from the pan. Then invert it onto a wire rack to cool completely.

* You can also use a tube or angel food pan for this cake.

Banana Bread

I tend not to cook the same recipe twice. It's not a hard and fast rule I have, or something that I do intentionally, but there are so many recipes out there, so many things I have yet to try my hand at, that it seems almost a waste to retrace steps I've already taken. Sure there are things I cook for myself all the time, such as the less-than-stellarly-healthful french toast with caramelized bananas that I've developed a penchant for as a late dinner, but that's not really what I'm talking about. I'm talking about meals that you don't just make, but plan ahead to compose.

Pastas, eggs, sandwiches; these aren't things for which I need to rely on recipes to make.

But cakes, for instance, require a recipe. I just don't know off hand the precise measurements required in order to make something rise. And, unlike cooking, baking requires more precise measurements, since there's science and shit working inside that oven. Chemical reactions are required to make cakes rise, to make cookies puff, and if the proportions aren't right, then you wind up with cakes that sink and cookies that spread far too much. But with so many recipes out there, why eat the same thing twice? Sure there are classics, and I am sure that there will be some that I remake over and over again, but likely not until I've done enough experimenting to be sure that the particular incarnation really is the best of the best.

Sometimes, though, there are recipes that I come back to time and time again.

Some of my staple meals have spillover effects. For instance, to afford myself the ability to make my fall-back dinner of french toast and bananas whenever the craving hits, I tend to keep both challah an bananas around my kitchen at most times. While the french toast tends to get better as the challah gets stale (provided I don't get home from the bar a little, uh, hungry, and house half a loaf, and actually give it a chance to get to the stale stage, that is), the bananas are another matter. I'll only buy a couple of them at a time, but it's still rare that I actually go through all of them before they're overripe and past the point where they're acceptable for use with french toast. You'd think I'd learn and just buy one at a time from the fruit guy on the corner, but no, that would actually be wise. So I'll usually throw a couple in the fridge - the skins will turn brown, but the fruit itself is none the worse for wear.



While overripe bananas aren't the greatest in their unadulterated form, it's a well-known fact that the riper the banana, the better it is for baking. The browner they are, the spottier they are, the sweeter they are, and this sweetness really comes through in the baking process. The texture, which is what I think most of us find unappealing about the brown-speckled banana, is not an issue in baking, since the banana is mercilessly smashed, is form sacrificed for its better attributes: its moisture and the sweet, delicate, subtle flavor that is so basic to all of us.

This constant excess of bananas means that I need to find ways to use them, lest they meet the sacrilegious end of the trash can, which is just far too much for me to bear. Typically, this leads to banana bread.

Banana bread is without equal in the world of baked goods. It's so familiar that just the smell of it baking away in the oven is enough to instill warmth within your being. The fact that it's termed a "bread" despite having all the same ingredients (usually) as a cake, and the presence of the word "banana" - a real, honest-to-goodness fruit - in its name even allows you to convince yourself into thinking you're being virtuous for having a slice.

While, as I mentioned, I tend not to make the same recipe twice, banana bread, and this banana bread in particular, is one of those exceptions. When you want banana bread, there's just nothing else that comes close - there are simply no substitutes. And when extra bananas are lying around, there are few things to do with them as enjoyable as turning them into banana bread - sure cookies are cool, and I suppose muffins have their place, but there are just no substitutes when banana bread beckons. In fact, there may actually be no higher honor to an extra banana than playing a leading role in the making of banana bread.

I have tried a lot of banana bread recipes over the last few years, but this one has become my go-to. It's a veritable breeze to put together, the batter takes all of three minutes - max- to put together, and the fact that there's no fat in it makes me feel a little bit better about constantly having some around. Oh, it's also delicious, by the way, and it takes to freezing exceptionally well, so leftovers are not an issue.

It also happens to be an amazing companion to the salted caramel custard from a little place I may have mentioned here before. The last time I had the custard in my freezer I made the mistake (or had the ingenious idea) of throwing together a batch of banana bread. And when I was left in my apartment, working, all Memorial Day weekend, while all of my friends were traipsing around tri-state-area beaches, with nothing but my laptop, some banana bread and a pint of salted caramel custard, I may have developed an unhealthy affinity for banana bread and salted caramel custard sandwiches. What do you want from me? If I was going to be sitting home, drafting documents all weekend, I was going to gorge on banana bread and salted caramel custard sandwiches to my little heart's content - and don't judge me - I do not regret a second of it. I did, however, learn the danger of having both items in my general vicinity at once.

But I digress. This recipe is a keeper, an honest-to-goodness go-to. And while I will undoubtedly stray from it in the future, and I will try other banana breads, I don't doubt that I will continue to fall back on this recipe. It's simplicity and relative healthfulness, and it's wonderful results, have solidified its status as a standby in the kitchen of Shelbs & Cheese.

Banana Bread with Cinnamon Sugar Topping



Adapted from Everybody Likes Sandwiches

Banana bread, and this recipe in particular, is infinitely adaptable. It has no fat or oil of which to speak, so if you're feeling something more healthful, just cut back on the sugar and leave out the chocolate - it's still delicious. And you can enjoy it knowing that it won't leave you feeling all weighed down, or, worse, guilty. And if you're feeling some spice, go ahead -throw in some cloves, some cinnamon, hell, go nuts - add some ginger. Or if you just want to call a spade a spade (or a cake a cake), just whip together some cream cheese frosting and go to town.

Since this recipe has no oil or butter, really, really ripe bananas are necessary for it to achieve its great moistness. So let those bananas get really spotty, and then let them go a couple more days. You won't regret it.

The original recipe calls for an 8x8 square pan. I do not have such a pan, but have a 9x9 square pan. I have tried it in the larger square pan, in two loaf pans, and in a 9 inch circular cake pan. The circular pan has yielded my favorite results thus far, I think because the extra height keeps the cake nice and moist, but play around with it. You really can't go wrong.

3 really ripe bananas, mashed (I've made the recipe with two large bananas with good results, though 3 is certainly preferable)
2 large eggs
1 1/2 c flour
1 1/4 c sugar
1 t baking soda
1 t vanilla
1 T cinnamon
3/4 c chocolate chips

3/4 c chopped walnuts (optional - though I can't do without them)
2 T sugar mixed with 1/2 t cinnamon, for topping

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Mix mashed bananas with eggs and stir well to combine. Add the flour, sugar, baking soda, vanilla, and cinnamon and mix well with a wooden spoon or rubber/silicone spatula. Add the walnuts, if using, and all but about 2-3 tablespoons of the chocolate chips into the batter.


Pour batter into a buttered square (or circular, if you so desire) cake pan. Sprinkle the entire surface with the cinnamon-sugar mix and dot the surface with the remaining chocolate chips.

Bake at 375 for 35-40 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into cake comes out clean.

An Experiment in Coconut Cake

Growing up, I did most of my baking according to three-step directions on the back of boxes of Duncan Hines and Betty Crocker mixes. My parents, while both avid cooks, were never bakers. So when the time came to bring cupcakes into class for our birthdays, my brother and I would turn to the mixes that always hung around our cupboards. Funfetti was, unsurprisingly, an elementary school staple in the Parnes household; my brother and I, like most children, were unable to deny the temptations of sprinkles within the cake batter.

I'm slightly hesitant to admit this (though admittedly, only slightly), it was not so far out of the norm for me to eat sprinkles by the spoonful, straight out of the tub. Why I found (ok, find) these little bits of wax and artificial colorings to be so delicious I will never know, since they don't really taste like much more than the sum of their parts after all, which is, of course, to say that they taste like wax. Few cupcakes, however, (particularly of the boxed-mix variety) have been made the worse for wear by the fanciful addition of sprinkles to the party. Sure a few sprinkles crowning a twist of frosting is all well and good, but theres just something to be said for sprinkles that are actually integrated into the cupcakes themselves - like colorful stars against an otherwise pale vanilla cupcake sky, without actually altering the predictably nostalgic taste of the cupcake itself.

But really, I digress. I did have a point, after all. The backs of these cake mix boxes all contain variations on the same basic step-by-step procedure to create foolproof cakes; add eggs, oil and water, mix and bake. Where these mixes allow you a bit of creative license, however, is in your chosen baking vessel. This same mix could be a 9-inch layer cake, or 18-24 cupcakes, or a sheet cake, or two smaller square cakes, all dependent upon what you chose to bake it in. My take-away from this, which has stuck with me years later, was that any cake batter can be made into cupcakes, and any cupcake batter into cake. While this adage may be true on a more general level, it is, apparently, not without its exceptions. I learned not to cast broad baking strokes the hard, (very) dense way.

It was my mother's birthday a week ago. As we all know, all proper celebrations require cake. My mother is not a fan of chocolate cakes (in fact, we're not a big chocolate-cake family, or a cake family at all - if I didn't sporadically bring cake with me on my visits to my parent's house it's unlikely that they'd ever eat it). I turned instead to a coconut cake recipe, which seemed befitting the recent wave of nice weather we'd been experiencing.

This was not your typical coconut cake, as it called for reduced coconut milk, which I found pretty intriguing. In fact, was not a cake recipe at all. It was a recipe for coconut cupcakes, which looked so-adorable-I-could-pinch-them on the glossy pages of Bon Appetit. But cupcakes just would not do. Cupcakes don't feel as celebratory as cake does. Perhaps it's the fact that, when dealing with cupcakes, you don't all share in slices of the same larger whole, which feels slightly less communal to me. When eating cake, we have to pause, and wait for the pieces to be actually cut, providing a moment in which to share in a joyous, cake-worthy event. Cupcakes can just be grabbed, willy-nilly, without any regard to why they were baked in the first place.

The recipe was for 18 cupcakes, so I decided to make it into a cake, for the aforementioned celebratory reasons. In the same vein, I went the layer-cake route, since we all know that layer cakes are far more celebratory than non-layer cakes. Somewhere along the way, though, something went wrong. The cake had great flavor, the coconut made its subtle presence known against the comforting warmth of the butter. This cake will definitely not knock you over the head with its coconutiness, but it is perceptibly hanging around in the mix, more utility man than power slugger; more Joey Fatone than JT.

Something was amiss, however, and my cupcake conversion was not successful. The cake was far too dense, to the extent that I felt legitimate resistance as I tried to cut through it. And despite my mother's insistence that the cake had good flavor, we all knew it was a failure. While the prior desserts I've delivered had been well-received, this was undeniably sub-par. But my family loves me, and ate it anyway (with minimal criticism). In spite of the fact that it was dense, the cake was still fat and sugar, and the flavors were still there. But I learned a valuable lesson, one that I will take with me as I continue along my path to baking enlightenment.



Coconut-Milk Cupcakes (or cake, at your own risk) with Coconut Frosting
Adapted from Bon Appétit, April 2009

While this attempt was not a success, I think this recipe can be made truly great with a couple of minor tweaks - and even has the potential to succeed in cake form.

I baked the batter in two separate 9-inch pans. This might have been my first mistake - a better move might have been to bake the cake in one pan and then cut the single cake into two layers with a serrated knife. But the problem with this cake was its heaviness, so I'm not sure that a one-pan-approach is the solution. A better solution is probably to use cake flour, as opposed to all-purpose. I had tried three separate grocery stores in the Union Square area for cake flour, and was wholly unsuccessful in my endeavor. The recipe below is adapted for cake flour (if you use all purpose, you'll only need two cups - but definitely go the cupcake route), since I think that's a big key to making this recipe work.

The most time consuming aspect of the recipe is reducing the coconut milk - don't be afraid to really let it boil. Otherwise, it will take quite a long time for it to sufficiently reduce - just use a larger pot and you'll be fine. I also found the frosting below a bit too sweet for the subtlety of the cake itself, so I'll reduce the amount of sugar used the next time I make these, perhaps by as much as a cup.

REDUCED COCONUT MILK

2 13- to 14-ounce cans unsweetened coconut milk (preferably organic) [
3 tablespoons unsweetened, shredded coconut (optional; I would refrain from using sweetened, flaked coconut, since the flavor would likely be too strong).

CUPCAKES

2 1/4 cups cake flour
2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 cup reduced coconut milk (see above), room temperature

FROSTING

1 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
2 1/2 cups powdered sugar (Note: I found this frosting to border on cloying, and would use close to 1 1/2 cups next time, though I am admittedly not a buttercream person, as I find it far too sweet, so this is a matter of personal taste)
1/3 cup reduced coconut milk (see above), room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups sweetened flaked coconut, lightly toasted (for garnish)

DIRECTIONS

REDUCED COCONUT MILK
Bring coconut milk to boil in large deep saucepan over medium-high heat (coconut milk will boil up high in pan). Reduce heat to medium-low; boil until reduced to 1 1/2 cups, stirring occasionally, 25 to 30 minutes (Note: I found it took a bit longer than that). Towards the end of this time period, add the unsweetened, coconut to the pan; stir to combine. Once sufficiently reduced, remove from the heat and allow to cool completely. Transfer to small bowl. Cover; chill (coconut milk will settle slightly as it cools). DO AHEAD Can be made 2 days ahead. Keep chilled.

CUPCAKES
Position rack in center of oven; preheat to 350°F. Line eighteen 1/3-cup muffin cups with paper liners (or cake pan). Whisk flour, baking powder, and salt in medium bowl. Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar; beat on medium-high speed until well blended, about 2 minutes. Add 2 eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition and occasionally scraping down sides of bowl. Beat in seeds from vanilla bean and remaining egg. Add half of flour mixture; mix on low speed just until blended. Add 1 cup reduced coconut milk; mix just until blended. Add remaining flour mixture; mix on low speed just until blended. Divide batter among muffin cups.
Bake cupcakes until tops spring back when gently touched and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Transfer cupcakes in pans to rack; cool 10 minutes. Carefully remove cupcakes from pans and cool completely on rack.

FROSTING
Using electric mixer, beat butter in large bowl until smooth. Add sugar, 1/3 cup reduced coconut milk, seeds from vanilla bean, and salt. Beat on medium-low speed until blended, scraping down sides of bowl. Increase to medium-high and beat until light and fluffy.

Using pastry bag fitted with large star tip (NOTE: I used a ziploc bag with the corner snipped off), pipe frosting onto cooled cupcakes. (Alternatively, top each cupcake with 2 tablespoons frosting. Using small offset spatula, swirl frosting over top of cupcakes, leaving 1/2-inch plain border.) Sprinkle with coconut.DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Store in airtight containers; chill. Bring to room temperature before serving.