Late last Sunday afternoon, I was walking down Prospect Park West, carrying German Chocolate Cupcakes on my way to the Gamesters gathering, when I heard someone call my name. Desirée and Bob were driving down PPW on their way back to Jersey from the Brooklyn Museum. D had wanted to see the Art Smith jewelry exhibit there. Bob spotted me while he was on the lookout for a sign for the BQE. D said he's really good that way: He'll spot the brother of one of Desirée's co-workers whom he met only once before who's picking out a bouquet of flowers outside a grocery store on some random street in the city and say to D, "Isn't that Carla's brother?" And sure enough, it is. Because he's got the eagle eye. If you need help finding Waldo, he's your man.
I had to offer D&B a cupcake, but I asked if they wouldn't mind splitting one because I only had nine in the cupcake carrier. I'd made two dozen, mostly for Joe for his birthday, and had also given some to the Schultieses.
I started out cutting the cupcakes in half and putting Coconut-Pecan Frosting in the middle and on top, as the Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book directed, but after the first dozen, I realized I was piling on too much and was quickly running out of icing. So I started frosting only the top and even so ended up with a few cupcakes that I left plain, which I didn't want to take to the Gamesters.
Desirée's Bob is allergic to nuts, so D got the cupcake all to herself. She dug it, and Joe, Jen, and the Gamesters enjoyed theirs. Jen's Bob told me he doesn't like coconut. *sigh* I'd given the Schultieses some of the plain ones because I figured the kids might not like nuts and/or coconut, and I ended up giving them a couple more.
I thought the cupcakes were a success too. The only glitch I had, and it was a result of my own laziness, was that not all of the semisweet chocolate got worked into the batter, so some of the cakes had little chunks of chocolate in them. The recipe said to let the chocolate cool for a half hour after you melt it, so I made myself some lunch in the meantime. By the time I got back to my baking project, the chocolate had cooled too much and was somewhat solidified in parts. I didn't feel like heating it up again, and I thought the action of the mixer might break up any globs and smoosh them into the batter. It didn't.
Gamesters host Mark-tin Scor-sexy always makes everyone pose for photos with whatever homemade stuff a guest brings, even though there are usually some groans about doing the same kind of picture AGAIN. This time, he went with a sepia-toned look.
***
The previous Sunday, I figured out a way to enable the Gamesters to try my ice cream. It didn't look like I was going to have the time or the energy to bake something that weekend, and because I'd been in such an ice cream–making frenzy, I had plenty of my best flavors (and the pluot :-)*) left. I have three plastic ice cube trays that have a cover you can slide open to reveal, say, only four cubes. You can crack those out and leave the rest of the cubes in place. I figured I could use them to hold good-bite-size blobs of ice cream instead. I emptied out the cubes and stowed them in the freezer. I filled one tray each with spoonfuls of the three flavors of ice cream—chocolate chip mint, lemon verbena, and pluot—that I'd let soften a bit. I refroze them and took them to the Gamesters in my little Igloo cooler with a lot of ice on the bottom. I also took a bunch of metal spoons so minimalist-kitchened host Mark wouldn't have to dirty a bunch of his silverware.
Mark said he was "so impressed by the ice cream," and it was a big hit with the guys, particularly the lemon verbena. I tell you, there's magic in that herb!
Regular Gamester Barry brought delicious peanuty brownies with chocolate ganache.
I opened up the tray with the pink pluot ice cream for the inevitable photo.
***
I imagine the fresh, local lemon verbena is all done until next year. When I see it back at the farmers market, I'm going to make Lemon Verbena Custards using the recipe from Claudia Fleming's The Last Course: The Desserts of Gramercy Tavern. Fleming and her co-writer, Melissa Clark, describe LV as "the pastry chef's perfect herb. It has both the fresh liveliness of lemon combined with the fragrant delicacy of a flower. Here, it lends its distinctive perfume to lush baked custards, adding a light, bright taste that keeps them from feeling too rich and heavy on the tongue."
***
Purple Viking potatoes
from
are so purty. They're white inside, not purple and pink.
*Actually, the pluot ice cream has grown on me a little more since I first made it. I still wish it tasted more like fruit punch, as the fruit itself does, but it really is good. And fun for its novelty.
Comments