We spent the day baking canele de Bordeaux for holiday gift giving. If you haven’t had one of these orgasmically delicious little gems you haven’t lived. They’re the perfect confection: crispy and caramelized outside, soft and custardy inside. For years, we braved long lines at our favorite bakery to buy them. But, our little addiction was starting to get pricey, not to mention time consuming, so we decided it was time to make them ourselves. While the recipe is simple: milk, eggs, butter, rum, sugar and vanilla, the baking technique is a bit tricky, but easily mastered. In full disclosure, buying the silicon molds to bake them in is a bit of an up front investment –but, over the long run should prove to be cheaper than buying them at the local baker.

Don’t you want to get on our list?

Happy July 4th!

When it comes time to celebrating birthdays we take our cake making responsibility very seriously, and for years we’ve struggled to make the perfect red velvet cake. Our many efforts have been foiled by flawed recipes: too much oil; not enough cocoa; too much butter; not enough cream cheese. We were close to giving up on the whole red velvet thing when we came across an inspired comparison of red velvet cakes and methods on The Way the Cookie Crumbles blog. We gave it one last shot and all we can say is we’ve finally made a great red velvet cake.  (Of course, since we can never follow directions to the letter, we did do a little fiddling with the recipe.*)

From The Way the Cookie Crumbles:

Red Velvet Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting (from Apple a Day, who adapted it from www.saveur.com)

Makes 1 8-inch 3-layer cake

After making this recipe a few times, I’m finding that it’s actually too moist from all that oil.  A number of commenters have agreed.  When I make the recipe now, I often reduce to the oil to 1 to 1¼ cups.

For the cake:
2½ cups cake flour
1½ cups sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cocoa powder* (we used 2 tablespoons)
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1½ cups vegetable oil* (we used 1 cup of safflower oil)
1 cup buttermilk
2 tablespoons (1 oz.) red food coloring
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon white distilled vinegar

For the frosting:
12 ounces cream cheese, softened* (we used 18 ounces)
12 ounces butter, softened
1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1½ cups chopped pecans (optional)

1. For the cake: Preheat oven to 350°.

2. Sift together flour, sugar, baking soda, cocoa, and salt into a medium bowl.

3. Beat eggs, oil, buttermilk, food coloring, vanilla, and vinegar in a large bowl with an electric mixer until well combined. Add dry ingredients and beat until smooth, about 2 minutes. (more…)

We first had a Lychee Saketini in a swanky restaurant on the roof of the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong. It was the eve of the British hand- back of the colony to the Chinese. The air was festive and apprehensive, solemn and jubilant. A mix of East and West. So it seemed fitting to order to order a drink made from sake and vodka. Besides, we have a thing for lychees. Yesterday, at our local market, we stumbled upon a crate of fresh perfectly ripe lychees and brought them home.

Guess what we did with them?

Lychee Saketini

1 oz. Vodka

2 oz. Dry sake

Ice

1/2 oz Lychee juice or simple syrup*

2 Whole fresh lychee

1 Sprig fresh mint

Place ingredients in a cocktail shaker. Power shake. Strain. Garnish with lychees and a sprig of fresh mint.

* Our recipe for simple syrup here: http://bit.ly/simplesyrupbb