Manolo's Food Blog Manolo Loves the Food!

September 25, 2011

Sunday Food Porn: Farewell to All That

Filed under: Asian Food,Dessert,Food Porn,Ice cream — raincoaster @ 10:25 pm
Thai Ice Cream Pr0n

Thai Ice Cream Pr0n

Goodbye, Summer! It’s not you; it’s not me. It’s September! There is only one solution to this conundrum: Affogato!

 

July 7, 2011

Thursday Food Porn!

Filed under: American Food,Dessert,Food Porn — raincoaster @ 1:00 am

Time we got some quality food pr0n up in here if you axe me:

Rainbow pie not related to rainbow parties, I swear

Rainbow pie not related to rainbow parties, I swear

July 2, 2011

Mmm… Miette

Filed under: Books,candy,Dessert,Food Porn — Twistie @ 8:36 am

I must admit that although I live right across the bay from Miette (located in the Ferry Building in San Francisco) I have never visited them, nor tasted their pastries. Oddly enough, I just don’t get to The City that often, and when I do I’m usually headed somewhere that is not the Ferry Building. In point of fact, on the rare occasions that I am in San Francisco and looking for something to eat, I’m a lot more likely to be making a beeline to Tommy’s Joynt for some of their delicious Buffalo Stew and incredible garlicky pickles.

Frankly, I don’t go to many bakeries. I prefer to roll my own.

So when I heard that there was going to  be a Miette cookbook, well, that got my attention. You see, while I hadn’t had any of their cakes, tarts, cookies, or sweets, I had heard they were awfully good. My copy arrived in my hot little hands just yesterday, and I must admit I’m eager to try out recipes.

The book itself is quite charming. It’s a comfortable size, and it opens flat, which is convenient for actual use. The pages are thick and glossy, and the edges are cut in a rather charming scallop. No, that isn’t necessary. It’s just pretty. It’s also lavishly illustrated with photographs by Frankie Frankeny, who has done a tremendous job of making everything look beyond scrumptious. As you can see from the illustration above, the poster child chosen to represent the bakery is their famous Tomboy cake with its naked chocolate sides and pretty pink buttercream. It’s pink because it’s raspberry. Dark chocolate and raspberry? Sign me up!

Unfortunately, I will have to wait to try making this beauty for one simple reason: I don’t have the right cake pan. You see, Miette works with the philosophy that smaller is always better… and I have not yet had a reason to acquire a 6″ x 3″ cake pan. Sigh. Guess I’d better hunt one down.

I know that Miette is all about cute, but I think I’m going to leave the ribbons out of the cakes that list them in the ingredients. It is my considered opinion that there should never be anything on a cake that cannot be safely eaten. If I feel the need of the decoration, a little icing in a contrasting color should do the trick.

There is one other annoyance – this time in the text. In the layer cake section, authors Meg Ray and Leslie Jonath harp again and again about how very difficult they are to make. In the notes on making the Princess cake, we are told it can take days depending on the baker’s stamina. Really? In nearly every case, so far as I can tell, what they really mean is that the cakes can be exacting rather than difficult. It’s a fine distinction, but one I consider well worth making. One needs to – for instance – cut the layers so that they are even and straight. This is not especially difficult, but it is important to get right. Saying these cakes are incredibly hard to make scares off the home baker, and really, is that what you want to do in a cookbook?

Besides, in the candy section there are several treats that are every bit as exacting and fussy (in some cases moreso) as the cakes, but they are never called difficult. There is a general warning to be careful when working with extremely hot sugar because it’s quite easy to burn yourself badly, but no dire warnings that any of the candies will tax your strength beyond its bearing. The correct temperature is emphasized, but again, while this is on par with most of the steps in constructing the layer cakes in terms of difficulty vs. importance, there are no exhortations that making toffee or marshmallows is a Herculean task.

Still, these are miniscule flies in the batter, as it were. As I flip through the glossy pages, I am tempted by recipe after recipe. Cakes, cookies, candies, and tarts all call to me and beg to be baked up right away. And from my considerable experience in baking (forty-one years and counting!) I have yet to look at one of the recipes and question it’s proportions or ingredients.

Yes, I can ignore being assumed to be a layer cake wimp when the recipes are this good. After all, as soon as my 6″ cake pan is in my hot little hands, I’ll be proving in spades that I have the intestinal fortitude to slice layers and roll fondant with the best of them.

June 27, 2011

Extermi-Cake!

Filed under: American Food,Art,Celebrity,Chefs,Dessert,English food — raincoaster @ 10:16 am

This is what I call a drop-dead dessert.

Vinny Garcia is a hardcore Doctor Who fan as well as a talented cake designer, and you just know how those people are: gotta cross them streams, unite those worlds. No doubt it started with an undergrad in the sixties, baking John Pertwee-faced cookies to the sounds of the Merseybeat, and the next thing you know, this exists.

From BBCAmerica:

“I’ve seen Dalek cakes made here and there, but I just felt like nobody really captured the essence of the Dalek and the complexity of the design,” he explained. “Somebody went through a lot of trouble to design every nook and cranny of this thing, and you never see it. I thought, ‘Everyone always thinks the conical shape when they think Dalek,’ so I decided to go that extra mile to get to the difficulty level. And to be able to make this Dalek in the way that I wanted to make it, as cheesy as it sounds, it’s a dream come true.… Having made the Dalek, I naturally want to make Davros,” Garcia revealed. “I’d also like to make a three-foot tall cyberman or even The Doctor himself. I’d love to make a Tom Baker with a giant scarf and a little K-9, oh that would be so awesome.”

You can keep your molecular gastronomy, boys and girls. THAT is true food nerdism.

May 17, 2011

I Scream. No, really, I do.

Filed under: American Food,Canadian Food,Dessert,Ice cream,street food — raincoaster @ 9:28 pm
Ice cream at the Office

Ice cream at the Office

NEVAH! Faithful Manolophiles know that the Master has long preached the gospel of Wear White Shoes Whenever You Damn Well Feel Like It, You’re A Grownup Now, and we here at the ol’ foodie/bevvie blog feel quite the same about tasty, frozen delights such as ice cream, gelato, sherbet, sorbetto, and even Vienetta, that magical, mass-produced filigree of creamy perfection. It’s so perfect and so factory-made that it can’t possibly be good for you, can it?

But ice cream is magical, so it actually is!

The ice cream coolers have moved closer to the front doors of the convenience stores here in Canuckistan, yea unto the very Arctic Circle (yes, Yellowknife has an ice cream truck: I saw it with my own eyes) and soon neighborhoods all over the northern hemisphere will echo with the tinny, obnoxious notes of Turkey in the Straw and the cries of “BUT MOMMY IT IS TOO GLUTEN FREE!” So here to celebrate the seasonal return of ice cream to the top of snack marketing priority lists is a photo roundup of vintage ice cream trucks from Flavorwire (and seriously it kills me there’s no “u” in there, but I’ll have a Creamsicle and it’ll be all better soon).

awwww, who's a cute widdle ice cweam twuck?

awwww, who's a cute widdle ice cweam twuck?

May 16, 2011

Monday Food Porn: Vacation Cupcakes

Filed under: Dessert,Food Porn — raincoaster @ 7:45 pm
Vacation Cupcakes

Vacation Cupcakes

Would it be too much to ask: that these be Margarita-flavoured?

May 7, 2011

Pickman’s Sampler

Filed under: American Food,candy,Chocolate,Emetic — raincoaster @ 1:48 am

You, loyal readers, know how I am. Servicey. So when I saw the following cri de coeur on Twitter I knew I had to help.

Sorry, no cubular ice cream, but I DO have some non-Euclidean chocolates!

Pickmans Sampler: an unspeakable horror in every box!

Pickmans Sampler: an unspeakable horror in every box!

Think about it: doesn’t this explain That One Chocolate in every assortment that seems to have been puked up straight from the mouth of Hell?

April 28, 2011

Schlocolate!

Filed under: candy,Celebrity,Chocolate,Emetic,Food Porn — raincoaster @ 7:02 pm
Karl Lagerfeld and his chocolate lapdog

Karl Lagerfeld and his chocolate lapdog

It’s not as if Krazy Karl ever, you know, eats (or at least he doesn’t swallow), but he has designed an all-chocolate hotel room, including a solid chocolate (and apparently quite startled) roommate modeled on his own pet, Baptiste Giabiconi. He’s a pretty fellow, but really is a pity about the melasma. Still, I would recommend not just a condom but a full-body wetsuit if you’re going to get down and dirty with Blackface Boy here.

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