This is Not a Food Photo

So this is not a photo of food. ‘Obviously,’ you might point out. Well, it is obviously not a food photo, but it is actually, not so obviously, food-related. I know it is just a building and the residents would probably disagree, but to me, it is absolutely food-related. This photo is of the building I will be living in one month from now, when I move to New York City to attend culinary school.

There. I said it. It’s out.

I have researched and considered and pondered the thought of going to culinary school for years. I finally decided it was time to stop waiting to start the rest of my life. The timing was never going to be perfect, the circumstances were never going to be ideal and I certainly couldn’t wait for someone else to make it happen for me. So now I have made the decision to leave and low and behold, the timing couldn’t get much better, the circumstances are as good as they’re ever going to be and the best part, I made it happen for myself (with the help of a huge support network).

So, I am leaving. I am packing up and I am leaving. I am leaving behind my boyfriend, a steady paycheck, the comforts of a comfortable life and risking it all in the hope that someone will pay me to play with food.

The French Culinary Institute in SoHo will be my home away from home for the next nine months as I complete their Classic Culinary Arts program. I’ll be living not too far away in Chelsea, doing my best to take advantage of all that New York has to offer and sharing as much of it as I can with you here, at Apples and Butter.

No recipe today. Just this really exciting (for me) news.

Layer Cake - The Frosting

As promised, it is time to finish up that layer cake. The last post on layer cake brought us through baking and freezing the cake. Today is frosting day.

The first step is to pick your frosting. I wanted to match, not contrast, the rich, nutty flavor of my brown butter cake. Martha Stewart’s brown sugar buttercream seemed like it would provide a great flavor that would go well with the cake. Plus, I happen to like the sound of brown butter cake with brown sugar buttercream. Follow the recipe below or choose any frosting you like to complement your cake.

Once the frosting is made, take your cake layers out of the freezer and let them thaw slightly before trying to frost them. They do not need to thaw all the way, in fact a cool and slightly hard cake is a little easier to frost, but I found that my layers had warped ever so slightly in the freezer. 20 minutes on the counter was all they needed to return to their frostable (yes, I made up a word), level shape.



While researching layer cakes I discovered what it seems most of you already knew – if you want a smooth final product, you need to start with a crumb coat. It is unfortunate that I am just learning this now because it’s a genius step that results in a professional looking product.

If you, like me, are new to the crumb coat, here are the basics. After stacking your layers with whatever filling you are using (in my case, more frosting) slap a very light coat of frosting over the entire cake. It doesn’t need to completely cover the cake and it doesn’t need to be smooth. I like to think of it as frosting spackle. It fills in the nooks and crannies so after a bit of chill time in the fridge, it is 10 times easier to get the final layer of frosting looking fabulous.

Once your crumb coat is on, let your cake hang out in the fridge for at least an hour. The frosting will firm up and hold onto the cake as you apply the final layer. If you have time, chill the cake one more time after the final layer of frosting is on before adding any decorations. I was ready to be finished with my cake so my decoration consisted of a pint of raspberries scattered over the top of the cake. A move more lazy than calculated, it paid off as the fresh raspberries were a welcome break from the sugary frosting. Serve your cake at room temperature and enjoy the end result of all your hard work!



Brown Sugar Frosting
Adapted from Martha Stewart

6 large egg whites
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
4 1/2 sticks butter, cold and cut into tablespoons

Place the egg whites and sugar in the heatproof bowl of a stand mixer and set over a pot of simmering water in a double boiler set up. Whisk the egg whites and sugar together until the mixture reaches 160* (a candy thermometer comes in handy here).

Place the bowl on a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attachment and whisk until the egg white and sugar mixture holds stiff peaks, then continue whisking for six more minutes until the mixture is cooled. Switch to the paddle attachment and beat on medium-high while you add the butter, a few tablespoons at a time. Once all the butter is incorporated, stir with a spatula until smooth.

My First Cookbook

Okay, so in all fairness it's not my cookbook, but it is the first time an original recipe of mine will be included in a published book. A few months ago, I was contacted by the people at Posit Science who were putting together a book on food for brain fitness. They were looking for recipes from food bloggers that include brain-healthy ingredients and I was delighted to participate.

The hardcopy of the book won't be available until July, but starting today you can sign up to receive their weekly recipe e-mails at http://www.thinkfoodcookbook.com/.

Sign up and keep an eye out for the week that they feature the recipe from Apples and Butter. Be sure and stop back by here that week because I will be giving away a free copy of the ThinkFood cookbook.

Layer Cake - The Cake

Special occasion baking is not my forte. I love to make cookies and cupcakes and even the occasional truffle, but cakes of mine have never crept above two layers.

Enter my first multi-day project cake. It turns out that tackling a huge and impressive layer cake can be completely manageable if you stretch the whole affair over a few days. This is good news because as much as I love to be in the kitchen, I do not want to spend an entire day baking, frosting, chilling and re-frosting when I have people coming over for some kind of celebration.

There are just a few easy steps to make sure your not-baked-today cake still turns out moist, delicious and professional looking:

1. After the cake layers have cooled, wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and freeze them.
2. Allow the layers to defrost slightly before frosting to get rid of any warping from the freezer.
3. Apply a crumb coating of frosting to the cakes and chill for at least an hour before applying the final layer of frosting.

My cake schedule looked something like this: Thursday night brown the butter for the cake and chill; Friday night after work bake, cool and freeze cakes; Saturday afternoon make frosting (I always make more than I think I’ll need and I always use it); Sunday morning apply crumb layer of frosting and chill; Sunday afternoon finish frosting and leave cake out for everyone to admire before serving.

If you’re interested in making your own layer cake, I highly recommend the following recipe for brown butter and vanilla birthday cake. It is from Kate Zuckerman’s book about desserts from the now closed Chanterelle in New York. It is the best cake I have ever tasted and that is coming from a self-admitted chocoholic.

In keeping with the multi-day theme, I’ll post the cake recipe today and the frosting recipe, along with crumb coat instructions, in a post later this week.

Whipped Brown Butter and Vanilla Birthday Cake
Adapted from The Sweet Life to make three layers

1 1/2 t vanilla bean paste
4 1/2 sticks of butter (18 oz)
2 1/2 cups sugar
3 whole eggs at room temperature
6 egg yolks at room temperature
3 3/4 cups + 3 T flour
4 1/2 t baking powder
1 1/2 t salt
1 3/4 cups milk + 2 T at room temperature

Place the butter in a saucepan over medium-high heat. Cook the butter, stirring occasionally, until it caramelizes and emits a nutty aroma. Stir in the vanilla paste. Pour the butter into a bowl. If desired, you can pour the butter through a strainer to catch any browned milk solids that have formed at the bottom of the pan. Chill the butter for at least two hours or overnight.

Preheat oven to 350*
Grease and flour three 9-inch cake pans.

Place the chilled butter in a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment and beat on medium for one minute. Add the sugar and beat until creamed (at least 10 minutes). Add the eggs and additional egg yolks one at a time until incorporated.

Combine the flour, baking powder and salt in a separate bowl. Set the mixer to low and add the dry ingredients to the batter in three additions, alternating with the milk until both are fully incorporated.

Divide the batter evenly between the three cake pans and bake for 40 to 45 minutes. Let the cakes cool slightly in their pans, then invert the cakes onto a wire rack to cool completely. If not using the cakes right away, wrap tightly in plastic wrap and freeze.

Squash Blossom Pizza

It has been far too long since I last posted! I left for vacation with the best of intentions of logging on and sharing a few recipes while I was off traveling, but of course, it never happened. I had some great food while out and about and even managed to snag the recipe for a delicious Thai curry that I promise to share with you soon. I’m also working on getting the recipe for a citrus marmalade we enjoyed in England. If I can get permission to share it with you, I’ll have that one up soon as well.

In the meantime, let’s take a look at what to do with all the squash blossoms that should be appearing in your kitchen garden right about now. Each time I have the pleasure of dining at Mozza Pizzeria, I order the squash blossom pizza. It’s my favorite dish on the menu and as I eagerly await any news about Nancy Silverton’s forthcoming Mozza cookbook, I am resigned to trekking to West Hollywood and paying $20 for a pizza. Or so I thought.



Saveur’s recent Los Angeles issue was a pleasure to read. I saw some of my favorite places in Los Angeles getting the credit they deserve and learned about some new restaurants, food trucks and taco stands that I must try. The most exciting discovery was the publication of not only Mozza’s famous pizza dough (adapted for the home kitchen) and not only Mozza’s tomato-based pizza sauce, but the entire recipe for Mozza’s squash blossom pizza. I think it might just be enough to hold me over until the Mozza cookbook is published.



In case you missed the Los Angeles issue of Saveur, I feel a sense of duty to share the recipe with you here. This could easily be the best pizza you’ve ever had. Make sure you take the time to track down the best burrata you can find. The creamy cheese, coupled with a healthy dusting of salt is really what makes this pizza so spectacular.

Next step? Build a wood burning pizza oven in my backyard so I can get just a little closer to pizza nirvana that Nancy achieves at Mozza.



Mozza’s Squash Blossom Pizza

9 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 T active dry yeast
1 T sugar
1 t kosher salt, plus more to taste
6 cups flour
2 cups pizza sauce (recipe below)
60 squash blossoms, stemmed
1 pound burrata

Combine 1T of the oil, the yeast, sugar, salt, and 2 cups of 115˚ water. Let sit until foamy, about 10 to 12 minutes. Add the flour and mix until the dough comes together. Transfer the dough to a floured surface and knead until smooth. Divide the dough into four equal parts and roll into balls. Put the balls on a floured baking sheet, cover with plastic wrap and let sit in a warm place until tripled in size, about 2 hours.

Place a pizza stone on a rack in the lower part of your oven and preheat the oven at 500˚ for 1 hour. Transfer 1 dough ball to a floured piece of parchment paper. Working from the center, gently flatten dough with fingertips to a 10" round. Cover the dough with a barely damp towel and let rest for 15 minutes. Brush the edges of the dough with2 T oil and season liberally with salt. Spread 1⁄2 cup of pizza sauce over the dough, leaving a 1" border. Arrange 15 squash blossoms over the sauce in concentric circles. Place the pizza (still on the parchment paper) on the pizza stone and bake until golden brown, about 10 to 14 minutes. Top with spoonfuls of burrata, a drizzle of olive oil and final sprinkling of salt.

Pizza Sauce

28-oz. can of whole peeled San Marzano tomatoes
1 T extra-virgin olive oil
1 t dried basil
2 garlic cloves, minced
½ medium onion, grated

Put all the ingredients in a food processor and purée. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Butter Bean Salad

I love butter beans. Growing up, we had what we called lima beans as a side dish at least twice a week. My mother would drain the lima beans (always from a can – never fresh in those days), heat them up and serve them with butter. I used to mash up the beans on my plate, incorporating their silky butter coating into a butter bean mash. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was creating one of my favorite ways to serve butter beans (and most beans for that matter) - whizzed with a little butter and served as a side dish in place of mashed potatoes.

The other way I serve butter beans is in a cold, deli-style salad. I make healthy, hopefully delicious, deli-style salads almost every Sunday. I whip up a large batch and bring it with me to work for a week’s worth of lunches.

This butter bean salad is very simple to make and holds up well (actually improving in flavor) after a few days in the refrigerator. Beans, tuna, a little lemon for brightness and green onions are the stars. Add salt, pepper and olive oil and you have a great salad that will keep you fed throughout the week.

I like this salad just on its own, but I added some toasted, garlic-rubbed slices of baguette for a little more heartiness for the boyfriend. It would also be great served over a bed of lettuce or added to pasta for a cold pasta salad.

Butter Bean Salad
Serves 3 – 4

1 can butter beans
2 cans solid white tuna (I use water packed)
Zest of one lemon
Juice from one lemon
2 – 3 T of extra virgin olive oil
4 green onions, cut in half lengthwise and thinly sliced
½ t salt
¼ t of freshly ground pepper

Drain and rinse the butter beans. Drain the tuna. In a medium bowl combine the lemon zest, lemon juice, 2 T of olive oil, the onions and salt and pepper. Taste the dressing and if it is too tangy from the lemon, add an additional tablespoon of olive oil. Add the tuna and beans to the dressing and stir until combined.

Ham and Eternity

“Eternity is two people and a ham," wrote Irma S. Rombauer in the original Joy of Cooking. Perhaps you can relate to this statement. I certainly know I can. It's the week after Easter and in my house that means we are diligently trying to use up the leftover Honey Baked Ham.

Every year I order more than we need. Perhaps I forget how hard it was to use up all the ham the year before or perhaps, because I only order Honey Baked Ham once a year, I get excited and order much more than could ever be consumed by two people in a reasonable amount of time. Whatever the reason, here I am, left with my piles of ham.



The ham bone was frozen for use in split pea or navy bean soup somewhere down the road, a half pound of ham was neatly diced and stowed in the freezer to have at the ready as a flavor base or to add to soups, and a ham and cheese quiche is on the menu for this weekend; still, I was in need of some new inspiration.

It came in the form of slices of ham and cheese sandwiched between two pieces of sourdough and smothered in a cheesy béchamel. In other words it came in the form of a croque monsieur. This happens to be my boyfriend's favorite sandwich and I am baffled at how it managed to escape me as a way to use up leftover ham.

The thick-cut Honey Baked Ham works perfectly in this sandwich. Gruyere is a traditional accompaniment, but I found that a blend of gruyere and swiss was particularly delicious. There is something about ham and swiss that just works.

This isn't the lightest or healthiest way to follow up Easter dinner, but let's be honest. Who hasn't already had a few too many pieces of Easter candy this week? Can one croque monsieur really do that much damage?



Croque Monsieur
Adapted from Ina Garten

2 T unsalted butter
3 T flour
2 cups hot milk
1 t kosher salt
½ t pepper
Pinch nutmeg
6 oz grated gruyere or gruyere / swiss blend
½ cup grated parmesan
8 slices sourdough bread
Dijon mustard
4 – 6 slices of Honey Baked Ham, or any thick-cut, cooked ham

Preheat oven to 400*
Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Sprinkle the flour over the butter and use a rubber spatula to combine. Cook the butter and flour for about two minutes, stirring constantly with the spatula. Add the milk, a half cup at a time, making sure the milk is fully incorporated before adding more. Let the béchamel simmer until thickened, stirring constantly for about five minutes. Turn off the heat and add the salt, pepper, nutmeg, ½ cup of gruyere and the parmesan cheese. Set aside.

Place the bread slices on a baking sheet and toast in the oven for five minutes. Turn the slices over and toast for an additional two minutes. Brush half the bread slices with mustard on one side and place one to one and a half slices of ham on top. Sprinkle the ham slices with half the remaining gruyere. Spread about a ¼ cup of béchamel over each of the remaining other slices and use them to top the sandwiches (béchamel side down). Spread the remaining béchamel evenly over the top of the four sandwiches and sprinkle with the remaining gruyere. Bake for five minutes. Turn the broiler on and place the sandwiches under the broiler until bubbly and browned, about five minutes.

Herbed Salad Dressing

From time to time, I get asked to teach people how to cook. The request usually comes from close friends and typically right after I’ve spent 10 minutes expounding on how anyone who hates anchovies hasn’t tried Spanish anchovies packed in salt or some other obscure topic, in other words, making it abundantly clear that I spend way too much time thinking about food. I am hugely flattered when people ask because I love to share what I know and help people discover how easy it can be to cook at home.

When my friend Meghan asked me to help her learn how to cook to “keep her from starving” (her words, not mine), I immediately suggested we make some of the basics I think every cook should know: how to properly cook a chicken breast, a good bolognese sauce and a salad dressing made from scratch.

Meghan quickly made it clear that she didn’t understand why she needed to know how to make a salad dressing when she can just buy one at the store. I suppose she’s right and I think most of us will get along just fine never knowing how to make our own salad dressings, but I am of the belief that the five minutes or less that it actually takes to make a salad dressing is time very well spent.

When making a salad dressing, a very basic formula to follow is three parts oil to one part vinegar with a little salt and pepper and any additional flavorings you want to throw in. It’s easy to remember, easy to make and will elevate any simple salad you throw together to something just a bit more special.

I try to keep vases of fresh herbs on my kitchen counter. They’re beautiful to look at and having them out encourages me to use them more in my cooking – most often they end up as the ‘additional flavorings’ in my herbed salad dressing that I make almost weekly, or as soon as my last batch is gone (I make three or four times what I need for one salad and keep the extra on hand for use throughout the week).

I intentionally didn’t specify which herbs to use in the recipe below. You should use whatever you have on hand, or if you’re going shopping, whichever herbs sound best to you. My favorite combinations include chive and basil (one bunch of chives and the leaves from four or five basil stems) and scallion, parsley and mint (two thinly sliced scallions combined with a handful of chopped parsley and a few mint leaves). Tarragon also works brilliantly in salad dressings. The key here is to try your own flavor combinations and determine what you like best.

This recipe calls for the best extra virgin olive oil you can afford. Sometimes that means the $6 jumbo bottle from the grocery store. Please know that that is perfectly acceptable here. Since the recipe calls for a good amount of olive oil, I tend not to use my $30 bottle of olive oil because that’s a lot of money going into one salad dressing. That being said, if I could afford to buy a countless supply of $30 olive oil, I would definitely use it in salad dressings because the flavor is so prominent and the quality really does come through. So, use the best you can afford, whatever that may be.



Herbed Salad Dressing
Makes about 1 ¼ cups

¾ cup extra virgin olive oil (the best you can afford)
¼ cup champagne vinegar
2 T dijon mustard
½ cup chopped herbs
Salt and pepper to taste
Pinch of sugar

Combine the vinegar, mustard and herbs in a mason jar, screw the lid on and shake to combine. Pour the olive oil in and shake vigorously to emulsify. Season to taste with salt and pepper. If the dressing still has too much of a vinegar bite, add a pinch of sugar to help balance it out. This dressing will keep for about a week in the fridge.