Literary Baking (Middle Eastern Baked Goods for Craig Thompson Event)

Posted on September 25, 2011 by Kiesha

You may remember a few days ago I wrote about a couple of events for which I would be baking. The first of these events happened last Saturday.

I baked Middle Eastern cookies for the event celebrating the release of Craig Thompson’s newest book Habibi.

The first cookie I baked was called hab el hal, which are sugar cookies flavored with cardamom.

These were super tasty. The cardamom provided a really interesting flavor and they were incredibly addictive. I just wanted to keep. Eating. Them.

The second cookies was called baraziq, which were butter cookies coated on one side with sesame seeds and on the other with pistachios.

I’m not a big pistachio fan, so I only had one of these, but it tasted pretty good. Other people seemed to really enjoy them.

The event was great and Craig was nice enough to stay and autograph everyone’s book with both his signature and a drawing.

I even took a little plate of cookies to the table where Craig was sitting to do his autographs. I hope he enjoyed them!

Dinner in a Macy’s Window with Mike Birbiglia (Thanks Downy!)

Posted on January 31, 2011 by Kiesha

When I woke up this past Friday morning, I had no idea that in a few short hours my husband and I would be sitting in a window at Macy’s flagship store on 34th Street, eating Chicken Parmesan and tiramisu affogato. Or that our food would be prepared by celebrity cook/cookbook author Katie Lee. Or that said food would be served to us by one of our favorite comedians, Mike Birbiglia.

(Photo by Flickr user Agent J Loves Agent A)

Mike is in the middle of a promotion he’s doing with Downy, the fabric softener people. He’s spending a week living (and sleeping!) in a window at Macy’s in Herald Square, NYC to demonstrate that washing your sheets once a week with Downy fabric softener will leave them smelling as sweet and April fresh on the seventh day as they were on the first. Continue reading →

Mr. Met Cake Pops

Posted on November 17, 2010 by Kiesha

In early September, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend of three years got engaged. They held an engagement party over this past weekend, and I volunteered to bake vegan cupcakes for the event (more on those in a future post). But I knew I wanted to do something else, something personal and special…cake pops.

But not just any cake pops, Mr. Met cake pops. Megan and Michael have an intense love affair with the Mets. Their spare bedroom/office is decorated with enough Mets memorabilia that it rivals the gift shops at Citifield. Mr. Met even made a special guest appearance at Michael’s 30th birthday party earlier this year.

Look at his perfectly round head… So well suited for a cake pop.

A cake pop, for those uniformed among you, is a ball of cake and frosting dipped in candy coating. Oh, and it’s on a stick. For a tutorial and photos that will make your jaw drop, visit Bakerella, the endlessly talented lady who has elevated the ball of cake and frosting to an art form.

So I set out to create Mr. Met cake pops. I did a little testing in the weeks leading up to the engagement party. I made pumpkin cake pops and cat cake pops, neither of which was documented. There was much swearing and gnashing of teeth in the pursuit of the perfect pop. By last Wednesday, I was ready to go.

Forming the cake balls was the easy part. I mixed white cake with vanilla frosting and put the balls in the freezer to chill. Meanwhile, I melted the white candy coating and gathered my white Tic Tacs (his nose, of course), and started dipping.

Everything actually went pretty smooth. Only two cake pops fell off the sticks, and only three pops ended up with light bulb heads.

Then the drawing began. I spent the better part of an hour drawing on the faces and then retired for the night. I came back the next night and added the stitches. Then I set to work on the hats, which I formed out of marzipan.

When they finally came together, they were pretty darn cute.

They made a lovely addition to the party.

The bride and groom with their cake pops.

And finally, all good (and cute) things must come to an end.

Update: The wonderful Bakerella posted these guys over at her website! I’m a Pop Star!

Happy Halloween from the Brooklyn Baker!

Posted on October 31, 2010 by Kiesha

And Now For Something Completely Different

Posted on August 30, 2010 by Kiesha

This is totally unrelated to baking, but a few months ago I went to an open casting call for a music video for my favorite band, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists. The video was finally released last week. I make a couple of appearances…see if you can find me.

Ted Leo And The Pharmacists – “Bottled In Cork” (Official Video) from Ted Leo and the Pharmacists

NYC Food Twitter Round-up

Posted on July 15, 2010 by Kiesha

I spent a good part of today following new mobile food vendors on Twitter. I even made a list of all the New York area food vendors that I follow. I thought people might be interested, so here’s the list of people I follow:

Wafels & Dinges, my personal favorite. A beautiful yellowy truck that delivers Belgian waffles and a variety of toppings, including the addictive graham cracker-y spekuloos spread. They are Twitter addicts, so you’ll never have to wonder where the truck is parked, and they always offer a free dinges for answering a question or performing a task that they assign. Today for instance: “Tell us how many more Mel Gibson rant tapes will come out.”

The Treats Truck, mobile bake sale, stocking classic cookies and brownies. I haven’t had the pleasure of trying this place, but I am now following them so I can see where they park and remedy this situation.

Cupcake Stop, a cupcake truck. I haven’t stopped here yet, but I’ve noticed that they are pretty close to my work on some days, so I may hit them up soon.

The Big Gay Ice Cream Truck, mobile ice cream. This one is elusive! I’ve never seen it in person, but I’ve heard a lot about it.

Rickshaw Truck, specializing in dumplings. I’ve only caught a few fleeting glimpses of this beauty, but now I’m following them, and as soon as they get close enough to my work or home, I’m going to attack.

The following Twitterers are stationary, and definitely worth a visit:

Baby Cakes, probably the most famous vegan bakery in New York City. They have a cookbook. And they have tons of loyal customers, including celebrities like Jason Schwartzman. They update their Twitter account every day with the various goodies they’ve got in stock for the day.

Sweet Melissa Patisserie, Park Slope location, an amazing bakery on 7th Avenue in Park Slope. Twitter updates are infrequent, but often awesome. They haven’t done this since February, but for a while they were offering cookies or cupcakes with a drink purchase if you had the code word from Twitter.

The current issue of New York magazine (the ‘Cheap Eats’ edition) features a two-page spread with adorable cartoon versions of many of NYC’s mobile food vendors. You can see the images and information here, but that spread is amazing. I want a print to frame and hang in my kitchen. Here’s the Wafels & Dinges truck:

Oh, I’m on Twitter too. You can follow me here if you’d like.

The Brooklyn Baker Bakes! Fourth of July Desserts

Posted on July 5, 2010 by Kiesha

Long weekends mean baking for me. I’ve had the desire to bake a ton of stuff for a while now, but I haven’t had the time. My weekends have been so full lately that the only time I spend in my apartment is to sleep.

So with the Fourth of July approaching, I started thinking about what I could bake. My husband’s aunt and uncle invited me, my husband, my sister-in-law and her boyfriend over to their house in New Jersey for a little barbecue, so I knew I had to bake something.

I settled on two things; an apple pie and vegan cupcakes.

The apple pie would be easy enough to make. I’ve made several of them throughout my baking career. But I didn’t want it to be the same old, same old pie, so I started looking through various recipes to find something that was a little different.

The winning idea came from “Martha Stewart’s Baking Handbook”. In it, she features a blueberry pie with a top crust made up of stars cut out of pie dough. I was really craving an apple pie, so I decided to use Martha’s apple pie recipe and put it in the star pie crust.

I followed the pie recipe pretty closely, although I added ginger and cloves to Martha’s somewhat paltry cinnamon and nutmeg spiciness. The pie turned out great.

Continue reading →

Washington, D.C. Cupcake Tour

Posted on April 22, 2010 by Kiesha

About two weeks ago, my husband and I packed a bag and jumped on the Bolt Bus to Washington, D.C. for a long weekend. We went to a couple of museums and spent six hours walking the Mall, stopping at the major monuments for photo opportunities. At one point, President Obama himself flew right over our heads in his helicopter heading for the White House (we didn’t actually see him in the helicopter, but he was just coming back from somewhere that day, and his helicopter was flanked by two other helicopters, so we’ll just keep telling ourselves it was really him).

Before we left, I gathered up a list of bakeries that I wanted to check out. Our days were so packed that I only got to hit one of the bakeries on my list, but two other cupcakes fell into my lap without me trying at all. Continue reading →

The Brooklyn Baker’s new logo (and the awesome artist behind it)

Posted on April 14, 2010 by Kiesha

If you’ve checked out the website in the last two days, you may have noticed that shiny pretty new banner at the top of the page. It’s the Brooklyn Bridge made out of baking utensils. And I love it.

This logo was created for me by Clint Reno, one of the best poster artists and friends a person could know. Clint has worked with my husband over at Donewaiting.com to create website art, posters and even some album artwork for a few CDs we put out on Sunken Treasure Records.

Clint has designed posters for such bands as The Decemberists, Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand and my favorite (active) band, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists:

(If you look verrrrry closely at that one, you’ll note that one of the buildings is ‘Jenkins’ Pub’.)

He has also done a lot of work with my all-time favorite (now inactive) band, Miranda Sound:

Clint also designs awesome posters for The North Market, an incredible collection of food stands and shops in Columbus, Ohio: Continue reading →

Hello!

Posted on March 14, 2010 by Kiesha

Hi everybody and welcome to my new Internet home! After my crazy year of baking, I took a short break, but I’m back and ready to bake some old and new favorites and explore my new home in New York City! I hope you all will join me while I find my place in this bustling borough!