A Cone, a Swirl and a Smile

Sure, artisanal ice cream is all the rage, and I would never pass up a scoop of Brown Butter Makers Mark Bourbon Ice Cream.  But, in the end, my heart belongs to Carvel.  Vanilla.  In a coronet sugar cone.  It’s hopelessly suburban, and about as “vanilla” as you can possibly get, but something about soft swirl ice cream just makes me swoon.

Recently, we were in America’s heartland for a family wedding, and my brother stopped at a competing ice cream franchise for a cone.   The guy at the counter said to him, “You have Carvelli back east, don’t you?”

Um, that would be CARVEL, please – home of vanilla, chocolate and pistachio cones, Strawberry Bonnets, Flying Saucers and the Fudgie the Whale ice cream cake.  I don’t think we ever tasted Fudgie the Whale, (for Father’s Day and a Whale of a Dad) but the name was legendary.

The roadside Carvel store was the local ice cream parlor of my youth. In that Mad Men era of booming commercialized food products, it was actually the McDonalds of ice cream.  Carvel stores dotted Long Island.  While the name lives on in commercial ice cream products available in grocery stores, there are actually very few stand-alone stores still around.  Sadly, our original family Carvel on Broadway eventually went out of business and the building became a barber shop.  I still drive by and find myself craving a cone.  

A trip to Carvel was a special family treat.  My little brother, who’s no longer little, still believes that Memorial Day marks the start of Carvel season. After dinner, we’d pile in the station wagon and head for the store.  We’d order our cones at the counter and sometimes sit in the car, or stand in the parking lot and lick them silly.  If you really wanted to splurge, you’d get a cone with sprinkles (chocolate or multi-colored) but somehow those sprinkles messed up the perfect spin of swirls that graduated to that jaunty spit curl of ice cream at the top of the peak. 

A Carvel vanilla cone was that perfect balance of slick, chilly refreshment and luxurious creamy goodness, with just a touch of a pleasing lactose coma when the experience was done.   

Perhaps it’s no surprise that when I bought my own home, there happened to be a Carvel store located less than a mile away.  This holiday weekend, I’ll be celebrating with a cold one!

©2013 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Artisan Twinkies Made From Scratch

The classic poets tell us there is always one love in your life that just never dies – that individual you consider “the one.”  For Sherlock Holmes it was the actress Irene Adler.  For Marc Antony it was Cleopatra.  For Richard Burton it was Elizabeth Taylor.   For Steve Austin it was Jamie Somers.  For Batman it was Catwoman.  

For me, it’s the Twinkie.     

Yes, the Twinkie is “the one.”  I’ve already chronicled how the obsession began in my junior high school years during the Golden Age of lunchbox treats.   I would anxiously await the noon hour to get a bite of that airy yellow sponge cake and glossy marshmallow filling.   But alas, a lifetime of happiness was not to be.  More recently, we mourned the demise of the Twinkie, as parent company Hostess became a victim of the Great Recession and all those hateful health food fanatics.

It all seemed over, yet I never quite gave up hope.   I’d hear rumors that the Twinkie had been “purchased” and would soon be staging a triumphant return.   Yet the end-of-the-aisle shelf at the grocery store that once proudly displayed boxes of Twinkies was instead stocked with a variety of snack food posers.  

Finally, I decided to take matters into my own hands.    My muse was this book – “Classic Snacks Made From Scratch” by Casey Barber.   

Barber understands the way to a suburbanite’s heart is with cream-filled snack cakes.   She offers dozens of kitchen-tested recipes for recreating authentic iconic snacks, including Sno-Balls, Devil Dogs, Tastykakes, Hostess Chocolate Cupcakes, and yes … my beloved Twinkie.

The day arrives for our fateful reunion and my heart is pounding with anticipation.   I understand there are some foodies who might look unkindly on the Twinkie, and consider it “the blonde” of the pastry world.   Yet, as I peruse Ms. Barber’s recipe, I can see that the torpedo-shaped sponge cake is grounded in classic pastry techniques. 

For authentic shape, Barber recommends a canoe pan.   I’d never heard of such a thing, but apparently some smart marketers have created the perfect Twinkie-shaped pan, just for purists like me.  Praise be amazon.com.   (And, if anyone tells me I need another specialty baking pan like I need a hole in the head, I’m gonna smack you!) 

The batter contains a mere six ingredients.   Some Twinkie recipes online suggest the use of a boxed pound cake mix.   But in this recipe, Barber gives a nod to the classic French sponge cake.   Egg yolks are separated from whites.  Both are whipped and then folded together like a soufflé, resulting in an oh-so-lite-and-airy-Audrey-Hepburn-in-Breakfast-at-Tiffanys-poofy batter.  The egg yolks create that distinctive Twinkie blondeness. 

Ten minutes in a 350-degree oven, and there’s no mistaking that renowned, shapely sponge cake. 

The pillowy, glossy-white filling is a classic marshmallow cream, or in pastry terminology, “an Italian meringue,” which is boiled sugar whipped into egg whites.      I’m a little nervous attempting to heat a sugar syrup to the soft-ball stage as I’ve had a few kitchen disasters with hot syrup in the past.   Yet the technique is successful, and I beat the boiling sugar into a batch of egg whites whipped to a soft peak.    

I’ve seen these kinds of clouds flying at 30 thousand feet, and there’s enough extra filling to gleefully lick the spoon.  

Once the cakes are cooled, it’s time to fill them.  Here’s where I start to feel like a mad scientist as I fill this slightly threatening pastry syringe with marshmallow cream.   

Three tiny holes are made in each cake and the pastry syringe is inserted.  You can feel the sponge cake swelling with cream.   This is where a little industrialization might actually come in handy.   

It’s messy, and a little tedious filling each cake by hand, but really no different than filling éclairs or pate a choux.  

The look is the ultimate in eye candy, and the taste is sheer bliss – light, frothy and delectable insouciance (but minus the cloying chemical aftertaste we all know and love).

Yes, there are some who might denigrate this classic cream-filled sponge cake or laugh at its slightly frivolous name.  But, I remain firmly and hopelessly in love, even more so, having crafted my own Twinkies lovingly by hand.  Who needs a tarte Tatin, anyway?  As Shakespeare might have written, “A Twinkie, by any other name would smell as sweet.” 

©2013 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

Zany’s Visions of Cinnamon Rolls

With Christmas Eve just hours away, what better way to mark the occasion than with a post on something warm, sweet and delicious?  As the big day approaches, guest blogger and birthday girl Zany shares her coveted recipe for Mini Cinnamon Rolls – perfect for a holiday breakfast – and offers some personal memories of Christmas Past:  

I love the holiday season. Maybe it's because I was born on Christmas Eve and it's second nature to me. Whatever the reason, no other time during the year makes me as happy as now, strolling down city streets lit with shimmering bulbs or turning on the TV any night of the week to find my favorite holiday flick, "The Christmas Story."

But, some of my favorite holiday memories come from the kitchen. While my older sister would snooze through the early morning hours on Christmas morning, my mom would entertain her anxious, early-riser in the kitchen, preparing a number of breakfast finger foods to sustain our gift-opening extravaganza. One recipe that particularly stuck with me is one that my mom collected from a Pampered Chef party in the 90's - mini cinnamon rolls. Easy to pull together (less than 30 minutes!), and there isn't a lot of time commitment in stealing one and popping it into your mouth, making for a smooth transition in the gift-opening process.

In fact, the cinnamon rolls became such a staple for me that I pull out the recipe any time of year now - breakfasts when we have guests, weekend brunch and even just a simple treat for my co-workers. The dish elicits at least one, "oh so cute!" from someone in the group who hasn't seen them before, and for those holiday calorie hawks, one of these bad boys doesn't make a person feel as guilty as that delicious-looking doughnut. 

I pride myself in searching for the perfect holiday gift for those on my list. So, for my Culinary Types friends, I think this recipe does the trick! Enjoy and Happy Holidays!

Zany

Zany’s Mini Cinnamon Rolls 

Rolls:

Two cans of crescent rolls

½ cup butter

¼ cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Icing:

1 stick butter

1 ½ cups powdered sugar

2 ounces cream cheese

 ½ teaspoon vanilla extract

1/8 teaspoon salt

Instructions:

• Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
• Break open crescent roll containers. Pinch together the dotted seems so that two triangles make one rectangle.
• Spread butter on each of the rectangles.
• Mix sugar and cinnamon and spread equally across all rectangles.
• Rolls rectangles into a jelly roll. Pinch the seam together. Cut each roll into five equal pieces.
• Grease two 9” round pie pans. Split the number of pieces between the two pans and stagger the pieces.
•  Bake 20-25 minutes or until golden brown.
• Remove the pie pans and turn them upside down on plates. Wait 30 seconds until the cinnamon rolls “drop” from pans onto the plates, lift the pans.
• While the rolls are cooling, mix all ingredients for the icing. (Note:  A hand mixer works well, and sifting the powdered sugar will make the icing nice and smooth.   Use a tablespoon of milk if you want a more spreadable consistency.)  Coat the rolls with icing once cooled.
• Serve for a special holiday breakfast, bring into the office on birthdays, or “just because” days. Extra points if you also bring in coffee and Bailey’s.

©2012 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved   

The Demise of the Twinkie

It was not the kind of news I needed to hear at the end of a long, hard week.  I’d only been seated at my desk for a few moments, when I get the word – Hostess Brands is shutting down.  They will immediately cease production of a legion of iconic snack cakes.   While somewhere there is probably a registered dietitian rejoicing at the news, my reaction is dramatically different.  I feel an immediate and alarming sense of panic.  I leave my hot coffee on my desk, and rush to the lobby.   I’ve got to find Twinkies!!!

Quickly I make my way to three different Manhattan stores and I come up empty handed.   All I can find are bags of granola, Power Bars and gluten-free snacks.   Honesty, sometimes Manhattan is way too health conscious for its own good.

I'll be honest.  I may like to cook from scratch, but I am hardly a food snob.  I grew up in the 1960s when Swanson TV Dinners, Cool Whip, Shake ‘n Bake Chicken and Tang were considered haute cuisine.   And, then there was the Twinkie, that spongy yellow torpedo of cake filled with whiter-than-white marshmallow cream.   I would pack one in my lunchbox every day in junior high school.   The svelte blonde bombshell in eighth grade that I had a huge crush on would purse her lips, wink at me and call me “Twinkie the Kid.”   Twinkies made me a chick magnet.  

Much of the news coverage of the past 48 hours has rather cruelly categorized the Twinkie as “junk food,” but I have a different view.   The Twinkie sits squarely at the apex of edible art, culinary innovation and youthful sugar cravings.   Some culinary philosophers even see the Twinkie as a groundbreaking precursor of the molecular gastronomy trend.   I mean, foam is foam.   Why spend a lot of money if you can just pick up a pack of Twinkies in the deli. 

The Twinkie inspired some of my early culinary efforts.   I once served a dessert called “Undescended Twinkies,” a caloric suburban masterpiece created by Jane and Michael Stern for their book “Square Meals.”  A postmodern take on the trifle, eight Twinkies are floated on a lake of orange Jell-O blended with 7-Up, pineapple juice and vanilla ice cream.  The Sterns wrote, “If the gelatin is properly chilled, it will resist the Twinkies.  You will push them in; they will slowly rise.  It is a tense moment, like the scene in Psycho when Tony Perkins tries to sink Janet Leigh’s car.  But remember, you don’t want them buried.  Just semidescended in the lush, peach-colored ooze.”  

Don’t judge me.  Some of my dinner guests were horrified but I thought it was the coolest dessert ever.  If you dare to raise an eyebrow at “Undescended Twinkies,” you ought to check out “The Twinkies Cookbook”  published by Hostess in 2006 (Yes, I own a copy).   It includes recipes for “Twinkie Burritos,” “Chicken-Raspberry Twinkie Salad,” “Twinkie Lasagna,” and a “Ribbon and Bows Twinkie Wedding Cake.”   Enough said. 

But I digress.   Back at my desk, facing a bleak and Twinkie free future, I yearn to commiserate with kindred spirits.  On Facebook, my friend Allison says she’ll locate a stash of Twinkies for me in Pittsburgh.  I consider purchasing a plane ticket. Mad Me-Shell sends me a recipe for do-it-yourself Twinkies, and notes that her favorite poutine shop in Chicago will be paying homage by serving deep-fried Twinkies at their Sunday Brunch.   Zany is oddly absent from this conversation, but finally surfaces on Saturday morning with this comment:  “Sorry for the late reply.  I’ve been on a Twinkie shopping spree across Chicago.”   She also asks Mad what time she should arrive for brunch.   

Desperate times call for desperate measures.  I take to the Internet, and locate a box of ten Twinkies on amazon.com.    I am distracted for a moment before purchasing, and I note that the in-stock supplies are dropping like a stone.   So I hit the orange “Buy Now with 1-Click” button.   Better to be safe than sorry.  It’s a good thing, too, because when I get back to Long Island that night, I visit three more stores and the shelves are bare.   I’m too late.  The Twinkie addicts have been hoarding all day.   A last check of the Internet shows that Twinkies are now being auctioned at a premium price on ebay.   I’ll be pleasantly surprised if my box of Twinkies actually makes it into my hands.  There’s a lot that can happen between the warehouse and my front steps in this post apocalyptic Twinkie-less world.  

Which might mean I ate my last Twinkie this past April at a “Mad Men” style dinner hosted by my college roommate Ford MacKenzie.   I brought dessert – a platter of Twinkies served with Chocolate Pudding and Dream Whip.  The Twinkies were light and luscious – a little pillowy taste of heaven with a perky artificial aftertaste.  

Okay, so it’s not like I dined on Twinkies regularly at this stage in my life.  But, the thought of Twinkies going the way of the dinosaur, the Edsel and Gourmet Magazine is a bit unnerving.    It was comforting to know that the frothy, light Twinkie seemed to endure in an often dark and uncertain world.  R.I.P. Twinkie the Kid.  

©2012 T.W. Barritt All Rights Reserved

My First Cookie Recipe - Petticoat Tails

There are various landmarks in my culinary journey. My first cookbook was the Betty Crocker Boys and Girls Cookbook. The first cake I decorated had white frosting and blue piping. I was in elementary school and the cake was for my parent’s anniversary. Much later, I baked my first baguette at the French Culinary Institute. And, my very first cookie recipe was for “Petticoat Tails.”

As I recall, baking Petticoat Tails was an elementary school class project. Here’s the actual recipe card which I wrote out by hand, and my mom still had in her collection of recipes. Based on the style of penmanship, it appears to be circa 3rd or 4th grade, but I’m not entirely sure. It was some time ago…

As far as junior bakers go, I appear to have been a bit of a rebel, and refused to organize the list of ingredients in the same order as their use. And, there are a few critical directions that seem to be left to the imagination. Maybe I was just a little confused. Fortunately, in attempting to revisit the recipe for Petticoat Tails, there is plenty of more specific direction online.

It’s a simple recipe - easy enough for a child to handle - although as an adult, I found that shaping the dough into a log proved just a bit challenging. Maybe I haven’t kept up on my modeling clay skills.

Considering this artifact a little further, I got curious as to the source of the name and recipe. Petticoat Tails is a shortbread cookie. The name always conjured up images of Colonial America for me. Not true. The origins appear to be French. “An Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language,” by John Jamieson, D.D., (MDCCCXXV) offer some clues to the the name:

"PETTICOAT TAILS, the name given to a species of cake baked with butter, used as tea bread ...

"For Petticoat tails, take the same proportion of butter as for Short Bread," &c. Collection of Receipts, p. 3 ...

"The general idea is, that this kind of cake is denominated from its resemblance to a section of a petticoat. For a circular cake, when a smaller circle has been taken out of the middle, is divided into eight quarters. But a literary friend has suggested that the term has probably a Fr. origin, q. petit gasleau, a little cake ...

"The old form of this word is petit gastel. There is another similar term, Petit-cote, which is the name of a kind of biscuit or cake, baked for the purpose of being eaten with wine. It is shaped somewhat in a triangular form; and it has been supposed that it receives the name, from the thin or small side being dipped in the wine."

Petticoat Tails dipped in wine? My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Hall never mentioned that. But, they are sweet and buttery, and if you indulge in a few, you might just find yourself fondly reminiscing about spelling bees, recess, school assemblies and Snoopy lunchboxes.

©2010 T.W. Barritt all Rights Reserved